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Links Tagged With “culture” (Show All Items Tagged With “culture”)

Tweenbots

Bookmarked via Diigo on Thursday, April 16, 2009 @ 16:12 CDT by Daniel Andrlik

This is a very interesting social experiment being conducted where cute little robots are sent on a mission to reach a certain location, but are dependent on assistance from the strangers they encounter on the way. The reactions people have to the Tweenbots say a lot about us.

From the article:

The Tweenbot’s unexpected presence in the city created an unfolding narrative that spoke not simply to the vastness of city space and to the journey of a human-assisted robot, but also to the power of a simple technological object to create a complex network powered by human intelligence and asynchronous interactions. But of more interest to me was the fact that this ad-hoc crowdsourcing was driven primarily by human empathy for an anthropomorphized object.

Go read the article and watch the surveillance footage (available at the site) of Tweenbots attempting to make their way through the crowds.

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Warren Ellis: ‘We’re living in the last days of the Roman empire’

Bookmarked via Diigo on Wednesday, April 15, 2009 @ 16:15 CDT by Daniel Andrlik

Those of you who already read Ellis’ work will find no surprises in his first column for Wired UK, but this piece is worth reading regardless. There’s a lot of meat in this column, but it would be easy to discount it as simply strange. That would be a mistake, because while Ellis shows us how the world is changing, demonstrating his clear fascination with the bizarre, he begins to make a case for why the slower approach to news gathering and reporting as typified in the print publishing industry is essential in a way that blog networks are not.

For the record, I agree with Ellis on this point, but I wish he had taken some additional time to fully illustrate the differences between the two publishing styles as opposed to assuming implicit understanding of the reader. Although, perhaps that is not his purpose. Like most of Ellis’ commentary, there is mental current to this piece, and getting the reader carried away in that flow of thought usually seems to be more important that knocking off bullet points like some academic. It’s good reading material, and full of Warren Ellis’ wicked (some might say twisted) sense of humor.

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Roger Ebert: Hunt not the Snark but the Snarker

Bookmarked via Diigo on Sunday, April 12, 2009 @ 10:01 CDT by Daniel Andrlik

This post from Roger Ebert about snark both in print and on the Internet is worth a read for all of us, especially those of us that pride ourselves on our wit. You and I may not agree with all of his examples, but it has several core points that are worth considering. It’s not that I (or Ebert for that matter) think that snark should be done away with, it has more to do with confronting the dark intention of snark and understanding that before we engage in it. That dark intention is identified by Ebert as:

[Snark] functions as a device to punish human spontaneity, eccentricity, non-conformity and simple error.

Read it, and let me know what you think. (Comments will hopefully return sometime soon.)

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The big blue junk (a “Watchmen” addendum) | The Molly

Bookmarked via Diigo on Sunday, March 8, 2009 @ 17:20 CDT by Daniel Andrlik

I love this response from Molly Wood to the people complaining about how often Dr. Manhattan’s cerulean genitalia is visible in the film adaptation of Watchmen.

When I saw the movie, there was a father there with his kid (who was probably 14-15 years old), and the kid didn’t seem to have any problem with the rest of the movie, but as soon as Dr. Manhattan’s junk appeared he would always make a little groan and make a production of looking away. Hey, he’s a kid, I expect this from him, but the rest of you complaining? You’re fucking adults, act like it.

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Designers and developers: FIGHT! by James Bennett

Bookmarked via Diigo on Friday, June 27, 2008 @ 10:59 CDT by Daniel Andrlik

Another well-written and insightful post from James Bennett on the ridiculous conflict that seems to spring up between designers and developers. Honestly, Bennett’s writing is so good, you should really just subscribe to him, NOW.

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House approves anti-genetic discrimination bill

Bookmarked via Diigo on Thursday, May 1, 2008 @ 13:46 CDT by Daniel Andrlik

I’m sure at some point as genetic testing becomes more common the insurance companies will find a way around the protections provided by this bill, however this is still great news today.

Oddly enough, Ron Paul was the only member of Congress to vote against it. I’m curious what his reasoning is, even if it ends up being crazy talk, as I see nothing but good in this bill.

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Gin, Television, and Social Surplus

Bookmarked via Diigo on Sunday, April 27, 2008 @ 12:17 CDT by Daniel Andrlik

This is a really interesting piece looking at Social Media and comparing it to the industrial revolution. The point being that during the industrial revolution, one of the most important things was gin, because before people started organizing public works they just got drunk as a way of coping with the sudden changes. The author then observes that in the 20th century we also had a similar coping mechanism to cultural change: the sitcom.

He then observes that similar to how people eventually organized and became involved in the new cultures of the industrial revolution, forming institutions like libraries and museums, and how social media is a beginning of that as culture begins to move from passive consumption to active participation.

I’m still collecting my thoughts on this, as there is certainly a bit of social media kool-aid in there, but the central notion is a fascinating observation.

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David Byrne: Culture Club

Bookmarked via Diigo on Tuesday, January 8, 2008 @ 17:38 CST by Daniel Andrlik

David Byrne (if you don’t know who he is you have lived a sheltered and sad life) maintains an awesome blog. He doesn’t post often, but every post is well-composed and thoughtful. I’m never sure what I’ll find there as his interests are (as you would expect) eclectic.

This is a really interesting post of his regarding how we define “culture,” using recent research into dolphin behavior as an example. Good stuff.

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A List Apart: Reviving Anorexic Web Writing

Bookmarked via Diigo on Tuesday, July 31, 2007 @ 11:26 CDT by Daniel Andrlik

This is a fantastic article, that along with its companion piece, it covers how the influence of business on the web has been reduced from writing to “zombified copywriting.” The author indicates that this is because so many people writing for the web are not writers, but rather engineers, secretaries and designers. I’d argue that this has as much or more to do with the influence of business on the web. The so-called “rules” for writing on the web resemble the soul-crushing tactics traditionally associated with business writing and marketing copy. Obviously, this style of writing has its place, but I agree wholeheartedly with the author that writers and artists have a responsibility to construct the art of this new digital medium “with the same care, deliberateness, and gusto as our traditional media.”

Definately worth a look.

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CrunchNotes » My Thoughts On O’Reilly’s Code of Conduct

Bookmarked via Diigo on Tuesday, April 10, 2007 @ 17:11 CDT by Daniel Andrlik

Arrington has it right.

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