But at some point in the (probably very distant) future, the number of dead people online will suddenly outnumber the living ones. Virtual corpses will start to become a real problem, just as physical corpses fill up real-world graveyards and have to be carted off and stacked up somewhere else. Imagine the internet as a virtual version of the Catacombs of Paris or the Sedlec Ossuary, a digital museum whose aura of human involvement is concealed behind a brittle carapace of hyperlinks, tweets and forgotten comments.
copyright © 2011 j.r.mchale
My favorite music of 2010:
Song:
“The Dreamer” by The Tallest Man on Earth
Album:
“Lisbon by The Walkmen
A few other favorites of 2010 (no order):
“Learning” by Perfume Genius
“Joe Hill’s Ashes” by Otis Gibbs
“Halcyon Digest” by Deerhunter
“Teen Dream” by Beach House
“Orkanen närmar sig by Pascal
“Epic” by Sharon Van Etten
“Meet Me at the Muster Station” by PS I Love You
MP3Tunes ‘Safe Harbor’ Challenge Is Legal Test for Cloud Storage
MP3Tunes ‘Safe Harbor’ Challenge Is Legal Test for Cloud Storage
Wired: “A key test of digital-copyright law will be heard soon in New York federal court: whether online music storage services and search engines can be held liable when users upload copyright material. The outcome could have far-reaching implications for so-called “cloud-based” services, which allow users to store their content on remote servers accessible on the internet.”
Long Live the Web: The Web is critical not merely to the digital revolution but to our continued prosperity—and even our liberty. Like democracy itself, it needs defending
Web creator, Tim Berners-Lee, writing in the November 2010 Scientific American, about current threats to the internet as we know it, including recent attacks on the principles of universality and open standards.
From the Department of Whoa: Fiona Banner at Tate Britain, on view through Jan. 3. (As seen on We Make Money Not Art.)
In the end, the only thing of any interest is the paths people take. The tragic part is that even when they know where they’re going and who they are, everything is still a mystery. And that mystery, forever unsolved, is life.
Ferdinand, Pierrot le fou (via gaspardly)
The Rise Of A New Intellectual Property Category, Ripe For Trolling: Publicity Rights
The Rise Of A New Intellectual Property Category, Ripe For Trolling: Publicity Rights
Lawsuits involving publicity rights, a form of “intellectual property rights” on almost any aspect of a person — their likeness, appearance, voice, mannerisms, gestures, etc. — used for “commercial use” are becoming increasingly prevalent. TechDirt discusses an article in the ABA Journal by Eriq Gardner: “What’s in a Name? Publicity rights lawyers are finding there’s plenty of value in a growing practice.”
Manga covers from the 50’s and 60’s. The covers are from Tetsujin 28-gō, a famous Japanese robot manga series written and illustrated by Mitsuteru Yokoyama, which ran from 1956 to 1966.
Your time is up, publishers. Book piracy is about to arrive on a massive scale
Your time is up, publishers. Book piracy is about to arrive on a massive scale
Adrian Hon, founder and chief creative at Six to Start, an online games company, writing in The Telegraph:
“If book publishers want to see the next decade in any reasonable health, then it’s absolutely imperative that they rethink their pricing strategies and business models right now.”
Haruki Murakami interview about his new novel: 1Q84
20 Non-Fiction Writers under 40
20 Non-Fiction Writers under 40
In response to all the “X fiction writers under Y” lists floating about this year, the New Haven Review has come up with a list of twenty notable non-fiction writers under the age of forty.
Willi Dorner’s “Bodies in Urban Spaces” in New York. Photo by 16 Miles of String (more photos at his flickr).
A new business model: low profit limited liability companies (L3C)
A new business model: low profit limited liability companies (L3C)
The Citizen Media Law Project at Harvard’s Berkman Center has a new section in its legal guide on Low-Profit Limited Liability Companies (L3C), a novel hybrid business form combining a social mission with a for-profit entity. The business form is now covered in the CMLP legal guide, including an explanation of its tiered capital structure, state by state sections on how to form an L3C, and an overview of its advantages and disadvantages.
[T]he most frustrating bit of The Social Network is … . . its failure to even mention the real magic behind the Facebook story … . that Zuckerberg’s genius could be embraced by half-a-billion people within six years of its first being launched, without (and here is the critical bit) asking permission of anyone. The real story is not the invention. It is the platform that makes the invention sing … . . For less than $1,000, [Zuckerberg] could get his idea onto the Internet. He needed no permission from the network provider. He needed no clearance from Harvard to offer it to Harvard students. Neither with Yale, or Princeton, or Stanford. Nor with every other community he invited in. Because the platform of the Internet is open and free, or in the language of the day, because it is a “neutral network,” a billion Mark Zuckerbergs have the opportunity to invent for the platform … . The tragedy … . . is that practically everyone watching it will miss this point. Practically everyone walking out will think they understand genius on the Internet. But almost none will have seen the real genius here. And that is tragedy because just at the moment when we celebrate the product of these two wonders—Zuckerberg and the Internet—working together, policymakers are conspiring ferociously with old world powers to remove the conditions for this success. As “network neutrality” gets bargained away … . the opportunities for the Zuckerbergs of tomorrow will shrink. And as they do, we will return more to the world where success depends upon permission. And privilege. And insiders. And where fewer turn their souls to inventing the next great idea.
Larry Lessig reviews The Social Network.
Granta has announced its Best of Young Spanish-Language Novelists issue. To be published first in Spanish as Los mejores narradores jovenes en español with an English edition to follow on November 25th. The novelists:
ANDRÉS BARBA – Spain, b. 1975
OLIVERIO COELHO – Argentina, b. 1977
ANDRÉS RESSIA COLINO – Uruguay, b. 1977
FEDERICO FALCO – Argentina, b. 1977
PABLO GUTIÉRREZ – Spain, b. 1978
RODRIGO HASBÚN – Bolivia, b. 1981
SÒNIA HERNÁNDEZ – Spain, b. 1976
CARLOS LABBÉ – Chile, b. 1977
JAVIER MONTES – Spain, b. 1976
ELVIRA NAVARRO – Spain, b. 1978
MATÍAS NÉSPOLO – Argentina, b. 1975
ANDRÉS NEUMAN – Argentina, b. 1977
ALBERTO OLMOS – Spain, b. 1975
POLA OLOIXARAC – Argentina, b. 1977
ANTONIO ORTUÑO – Mexico, b. 1976
PATRICIO PRON – Argentina, b. 1975
LUCÍA PUENZO – Argentina, b. 1976
SANTIAGO RONCAGLIOLO – Peru, b. 1975
ANDRÉS FELIPE SOLANO – Colombia, b. 1977
SAMANTA SCHWEBLIN – Argentina, b. 1978
CARLOS YUSHIMITO – Peru, b. 1977
ALEJANDRO ZAMBRA – Chile, b. 1975
The first step to fixing the Android Marketplace has nothing to do with the Android Marketplace
The first step to fixing the Android Marketplace has nothing to do with the Android Marketplace
A smart post by an ex-Googler (now with FriendFeed) on a key difference between the Android and iOS user experience: “When a phone ships with core functionality and an easy route to further provision it for your own needs, users end up with a phone that feels like it’s their device, something they know how to use completely and have made their own. When a phone ships with kitchen sink apps and those with overlapping or unclear functionality, the user feels like they’re using someone else’s tool and, yes, they can add to it and customize it, but a large portion of users will still feel there are places inside their own phone that are fuzzy to them because they either don’t have a use for the functionality or simply don’t understand it.”
Why Thinking of Nothing Can Be So Tiring: Brain Wolfs Energy to Stop Thinking
Why Thinking of Nothing Can Be So Tiring: Brain Wolfs Energy to Stop Thinking
From ScienceDaily: “Mathematicians at Case Western Reserve University … [have] found that just as thinking burns energy, stopping a thought burns energy — like stopping a truck on a downhill slope.”
