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FAT vs. @arthackday http://t.co/IH2OD7yh

http://twitter.com/fffffat/statuses/162327602802065408

January 25 2012, 4:14pm | Comments »

I posted to fffff.at

FAT vs. Art Hack Day

Kyle McDonald and I will be developing a new project at the upcoming Art Hack Day in Brooklyn, which culminates in a public art exhibition at 319 Scholes on Saturday, 1/28 at 7pm. Internet, you are invited to attend and see what we come up with. There will be art, technology, free beer (as in beer) and free source code (as in speech).

Over the next few days Kyle and I will be working on the first prototypes of Scratch Markup Language, an open-source system for capturing, describing and digitizing turntablism. The project is inspired by our previous work developing Graffiti Markup Language, and we hope to do for scratching what GML has done for tagging — including teaching giant robots how to do graffiti.

Want to get involved? Sign up for the ScratchML mailing list, follow @scratchML on GitHub or join #fatlab IRC and ping @jamiew

January 25 2012, 4:14pm | Comments »

I posted to jamiew.tumblr.com

"This sort of work isn’t stealing anything from creators. It’s enhancing its value by showing just..."

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/jamiew/tumblr/~3/iRhwSI2EKao/16468266591

“This sort of work isn’t stealing anything from creators. It’s enhancing its value by showing just how much it means to people. I really don’t see how it’s possible to watch this viral video crazy-quilt and write it off as a merely derivative or exploitative work. If anything, it shows how art made from other art can become an independent creation with its own personality and worth. Star Wars Uncut is a collectively made work of postmodern folk art, as arresting and significant as Andy Warhol’s Campbell’s soup can silkscreen or a Robert Rauschenberg collage painting built around photos filched from newspapers. The true subject of Star Wars Uncut is how pop culture touchstones live on inside people’s heads, becoming a shared language and an inspiration for personal creativity. Lucas’s work was a call; this is a response.” - The Fan-Made Star Wars Uncut Is the Greatest Viral Video Ever — New York Magazine (via kenyatta + wreckandsalvage)

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January 25 2012, 8:36am | Comments »

I posted to tbx.tumblr.com

Photo

http://tbx.tumblr.com/post/16369020710

January 23 2012, 2:17pm | Comments »

I posted to fffff.at

Ideaz1 – “USBmoan” – a more expressive computer(companion)

http://fffff.at/ideaz1-usbmoan-a-more-expressive-computercompanion/

The USB ports on my computer are treated with respect. However sometimes I am in a hurry and do not have the time to properly “eject”. I feel very bad for my computer because I know it’s not voicing how it actually feels every time I insert or “eject”. Every time you insert or “eject” any USB device your computer makes a sexual moan. The noise could be a woman’s moan, a dog bark who knows, a scream, no matter what it is shit would be ill. People should have more expressive experiences with their comps (companions-computer). I aint a programmer. is this a difficult task? am i a sicko?

January 23 2012, 8:57am | Comments »

I posted to twitter.com

Wow! The SOPA/PIPA Blackout code was used on nearly 200 different websites on Wednesday, including @TorrentFreak. http://t.co/zWpapwXi

http://twitter.com/fffffat/statuses/160773715364298752

January 21 2012, 9:20am | Comments »

I posted to twitter.com

The fan-created, Emmy Award-winning STAR WARS UNCUT is now available on YouTube: http://t.co/if3s6KTZ // @starwarsuncut

http://twitter.com/fffffat/statuses/160408693324775424

January 20 2012, 9:09am | Comments »

I posted to jamiew.tumblr.com

starwarsuncut: Star Wars Uncut: Director’s Cut Finally, the...

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/jamiew/tumblr/~3/fBY3F2zPa44/16175265525

starwarsuncut:

Star Wars Uncut: Director’s Cut Finally, the crowd-sourced project has been stitched together and put online for your viewing pleasure. The Director’s Cut is a feature-length film that contains hand-picked scenes from the entire StarWarsUncut.com collection. Many thanks to Aaron Valdez (video editor) and Bryan Pugh (sound design/mixing) for the countless hours they put into this masterpiece. The Story: In 2009, thousands of Internet users were asked to remake “Star Wars: A New Hope” into a fan film, 15 seconds at a time. Contributors were allowed to recreate scenes from Star Wars however they wanted. Within just a few months SWU grew into a wild success. The creativity that poured into the project was unimaginable. SWU has been featured in documentaries, news features and conferences around the world for its unique appeal. In 2010 we won a Primetime Emmy for Outstanding Creative Achievement In Interactive Media. We can’t thank everyone enough for making this such a special project. Watch it now.

January 20 2012, 8:50am | Comments »

I posted to jamiew.tumblr.com

Learn slang while you watch hilarious videos with...

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/jamiew/tumblr/~3/DflsIdyDiso/16117039173

Learn slang while you watch hilarious videos with UrbanDictionary.TV, powered by VHX.

More info here.

January 19 2012, 7:30am | Comments »

I posted to blog.ni9e.com

Interview about upcoming solo exhibition in Detroit…

http://www.blog.ni9e.com/interview-upcoming-solo-exhibition-detroit/

The following excerpt is from an article in the most recent Issue (#30) of huck magazine and talks about my upcoming solo exhibition ‘Welcome To Detroit’ at Eastern Michigan University:

….

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January 19 2012, 5:15am | Comments »

I posted to tbx.tumblr.com

For Sale: zeck_focus_system 7,2kW (by tobimcfly)

http://tbx.tumblr.com/post/16112863400

For Sale: zeck_focus_system 7,2kW (by tobimcfly)

January 19 2012, 4:45am | Comments »

I posted to tbx.tumblr.com

Shit New Yorkers Say (by wexlerglazer)

http://tbx.tumblr.com/post/16110753770

Shit New Yorkers Say (by wexlerglazer)

January 19 2012, 2:47am | Comments »

I posted to visitsteve.com

2012 deCordova Biennial

http://visitsteve.com/news/exhibitions/2012-decordova-biennial/

Capitalism Works For Me! True/False is included in the 2012 deCordova Biennial. The show will be up in Lincoln, MA from Jan 22nd – April 22nd. The sign will be at the museum, and we’ll be taking it to locations around Boston around late March through mid-April – details on those trips to be announced. From the deCordova website:

The 2012 deCordova Biennial is a survey exhibition focused on emphasizing the quality and variety of work rather than any single or overarching theme. Highlighting artists from across New England, the exhibition displays a diverse range of approaches to media and content. The exhibition is co-curated by deCordova Curator, Dina Deitsch and Independent Curator and former owner/director of the Judi Rotenberg Gallery, Boston, MA, Abigail Ross Goodman. The 2012 deCordova Biennial features 23 artists and collaboratives and will occupy almost the entirety of the Museum and beyond—reaching into the park, Boston, and nearby communities through several public, off-site projects. The 2012 deCordova Biennial Artists: Antoniadis & Stone Caitlin Berrigan Taylor Davis Jo Dery Kim Faler Matthew Gamber Jessica Gath Jonathan Gitelson Eric Gottesman Corin Hewitt Lauren Kalman Steve Lambert Mary Lum Megan and Murray McMillan Ann Pibal Matt Saunders South End Knitters Chris Taylor Ven Voisey Anna Von Mertens Joe Wardwell Cullen Bryant Washington, Jr. Joe Zane For The 2012 deCordova Biennial Deitsch and Goodman invited Ian Berry, Curator, Tang Museum at Skidmore College; Richard Klein, Exhibitions Director, The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum; and Denise Markonish, Curator, Mass MoCA to participate as Advisory Board contributors. The 2012 deCordova Biennial will be accompanied by an 88-page, color catalogue featuring essays by the curators and a guest essay about public art by Gavin Kroeber.

January 18 2012, 8:03pm | Comments »

I posted to blay.se

Enabling platforms

http://blay.se/2012/01/19/enabling-platforms

Fabriken i Malmö är inte bara ett fablab utan också föremål för designforskning knuten till MEDEA vid Malmö högskola. Det har börjat komma en del akademiska papper ur detta och här ska jag ta upp ett som heter Democratizing production: challenges in co-designing enabling platforms for social innovation skrivet av Anna Seravalli

Artikeln behandlar Fabriken utifrån konceptet “enabling platforms”. Detta koncept behöver inte bara handla om fablabs och liknande tekniska resurser utan är ett koncept som fångar initiativ som försöker lösa problematiken med att från institutionellt håll stödja verksamheter bestående av lösa, bottom-up-organiserade nätverk utan att kväva den spontana karaktären hos dem. Med hjälp av dessa kan en gräsrotsverksamhet fortsätta att självorganisera och styra sin riktning även om det finns en “enabling platform” som hjälper till att skala upp och även kan kanalisera den kreativa verksamheten i en viss riktning. Fabriken har till exempel delvis som syfte att skapa nya företag i Malmö. Det bästa är nog att läsa artikeln i fråga för att få ett grepp om begreppet. Det jag vill ta upp här handlar istället om problematik som kan uppstå med att börja med att skapa resurser på en viss plats och sedan försöka få olika communities att samlas kring den platsen.

Ganska många initiativ idag, framförallt i städer som har anspråk på att leva ekonomiskt på kreativitet och innovation, bygger på uppfattningen om att det existerar en kreativ potential ute i samhället, men som inte har kommit till sin fulla rätt eftersom den saknar institutionellt stöd, materiella resurser eller motarbetas på något sätt. Fabriken och liknande initiativ är den del av en klass av lösningar på det här problemet som handlar om att skapa mer eller mindre öppna hubbar där den här kreativiteten kan komma att bli produktiv, ofta genom att den kreativitet som anses finnas potentiellt hos människor kopplas samman med teknisk apparatur och en delande av kunskap mellan deltagarna. Denna inriktning är i sig en kritik mot allt för styrda uppifrån-initiativ som levererar färdiga, storskaliga lösningar.

Utan att ha gjort en grundlig undersökning om detta (vilket vore intressant att göra) har jag intrycket att dessa platser har svårt att nå den kritiska massa av deltagare som förväntas och som platsen har utrymme och teknisk kapabilitet nog för att husera. Det beskräftas också i artikeln att detta har varit ett problem för Fabriken.

På Fabriken har man försökt lösa detta genom att använda sig av “design-in-use”, istället för “design-before-use”. Det sistnämnda skulle innebära att man först köper in massa utrustning och ställen en plats i ordning för att sedan öppna portarna för deltagare. Problemet är att det är svårt att veta vilka behov som finns på förhand, innan man har involverade deltagare och de kommer troligen känna sig alienerade av att komma till en redan fördefinierad plats. Lösningen blir istället “design-in-use” som innebär att man utvecklar platsen och de tekniska resurserna som finns i samspråk med deltagarna allt eftersom behovet uppkommer i den praktiska verksamheten.

Varför är det då så att det inte dyker upp folk i den utsträckning som förväntas nr den här typen av plattformar byggs? En stark anledning tror jag är för att de potentiella deltagarnas liv innan plattformen stod klar inte bestod av tomheter som bara kan fyllas med nya aktiviteter. Deras liv var och är fulla av åtaganden och förlustanden. För att de ska delta i verksamheten hos plattformen måste alltså något annat som äger tid och rum i deras liv skippas. Detta är inte alltid så lätt. Framförallt eftersom det som äger tid och rum till stor del handlar om sådant som de måste göra för att tjäna sitt uppehälle, även på den tid som skulle kunna klassas som fritid. Sådant är livet för prekariatet.

Vad ska då en plattform göra? Kanske vore en annan utgångspunkt än att bidra med de materiella resurserna värd att prova. Istället för att börja med att bygga en plattform och förvänta sig deltagare borde man börja där (en viss grupp) deltagare finns i dagsläget och se vad som skulle kunna förbättra deras situation. Hur kan plattformen, kanske med enklare och mer mobila medel, existera just där, i deras liv? Med andra ord en större anpassning till de potentiella deltagarnas nuvarande situation. Ett annat alternativ är att skära bort andra åtaganden för att ge tid och utrymme åt användande av plattformen. Ett sätt på vilket det skulle kunna ske är att ta bort åtagandet “jobb” genom att finansiera deltagare (direkt eller genom lån) eller att ta bort orsaken till att de behöver jobba genom att bidra med resurser som de annars skulle behöva arbeta för att få tillgång till (mat och husrum kanske). Ett problem med denna strategi är dock att arbete i stor utsträckning är ett antingen-eller-fenomen. Antingen arbetar någon tills all sin energi gått åt eller så har de inget arbete alls. Oavsett behöver ersättandet då gälla hela inkomsten. Detta visar på ett vidare problem, nämligen att fablabs, hackerspaces, living labs och liknande “enabling platforms” försöker lösa problem som inte går att lösa med bara en smartare design av plattformen. Plattformen kan så gott det går anpassa sig bättre till den nuvarande situationen hos de potentiella deltagarna, men om platformarnas möjligheter fullt ut ska realiseras så måste även deltagarnas situationer ändras och det problemet måste lösas utanför plattformen själv.

Plattformarna tar fram metoder och verktyg, samt knyter nätverk och skapar kunskapsresurser som gör en mängd olika former av tillverkling och skapande tillgängliga för en allt bredare deltagarbas. De sänker tröskeln och bidrar med olika trappsteg (och det är viktigt att alla trappsteg finns med, från lägsta till högsta!) för att följa en väg genom en snårig skog av utveckling. Men det stora problemet som kvarstår är inkompatibiliteten mellan detta sätt att arbeta och den dominerande Arbetslinjen1. Även det minsta steget in i personal fabrication har svårt att ta sig längre än en kvällsaktivitet för de allra flesta (framförallt de som inte har tillgång till detta genom andra institutioner så som universitet). Arbetslinjen är helt enkelt inte lika skalfri som möjligheterna för decentraliserad produktion är. Av den anledningen räcker det inte med att bara erbjuda plattformen och vänta på att folk ska utnyttja möjligheterna. Vissa grupper kan göra detta; studenter, de med fria yrken, arbetslösa som inte behöver vara på arbetsförmedlingen hela dagarna, konstnärer. Men avståndet till resten är långt.

Ett annat sätt att beskriva samma problem: Problemet är inte access. Problemet är inte avsaknad av möjligheter. Problemet är avsaknad av tillfällen att utnyttja de möjligheter som finns. De tekniska möjligheterna med datorer, nätverk och personal fabrication är ljusår framför de tillfällen att använda och utveckla dessa som ges i den nuvarande politiska ekonomin. Anledningen att remixkultur, nätmem, bloggar och andra mjukvarubaserade deltagarkulturella fenomen nått en sådan framgång är att de har kunnat utnyttja the bored at work network. Det vill säga att de har lyckats skapa produktionsformer som går att stycka upp i mikrosegment som var och en i en svärm av aktörer kan bidra med, inte helt olika hur data överförs i en bittorrentsvärm. Problemet med personal fabrication är att det kräver långa tidssegment som inte går att åstadkomma på en kafferast, vid frukostbordet eller vid den där åtråvärda halvtimmen innan läggdags.

There is the risk that personal fabrication will just become a tool for consumerism through which users ‘are empowered’ to create their personalized gadgets without questioning the actual industrial production system.

Personal fabrication har potentialen att radikalt omformulera hur vi ser på pch gör produktion. I dagsläget är den inte mogen för detta utan används mest, som Serevalli påpekar, till att skapa “customized gadgets”. Men det är så att en ny föreställning om och praktik kring teknik också kräver nya sätt att leva. De nuvarande sätten måste bytas ut, annars kommer tekniken, med sina vida möjligheter, bara att fylla de små luckorna som finns i de nuvarande livsformerna. Detta är ingen individuell ensak utan måste följas av ett samhälligt omorganiserande längs hela produktionskedjan (en kedja som i sig inte heller kommer att vara sig lik). Av den anledningen kan det vara extra intressant att studera den här typen av teknik när den introduceras i regioner där de här produktionskedjorna samt teknologiska- och socioekonomiska infrastrukturerna inte finns på plats. Där finns andra typer av behov och utrymmen för den icke-determinerade tekniken att få plats i.

Detta är vad som uppmärksammades som risken med “alternativ”-tendensen i ett tidigare inlägg. Serevalli föreslår att “open innovation” ska komplementeras med “social innovation” för att komma förbi problemet med “build it and they will come”. Här finns det dock problem med definitionen av social innovation som kan betyda både teknisk innovation som hjälper ett socialt problem, användandet av informationsteknologi för att skapa communities kring sociala problem och icke-tekniska (eller inte-i-huvudsak tekniska) lösningar som löser sociala problem.

Ett problem, men också en nödvändig komponent, i dessa plattformar är att man vill nå folk i en roll som inte är deras inkomstbringande roll, hur prekär den än är. Man riktar sig alltså inte till exempelvis konstnärer, designstudenter eller egenföretagare inom design (även om dessa inte utesluts), utan kort och gott till “folk”. Detta generiska folk existerar såklart inte på riktigt utan är en sammansättning av olika typer av människor med den minsta gemensamma nämnare att de åberopas utanför deras vanliga sociala roller. Det ska inte sägas att de åberopas som deras riktiga jag utanför sociala roller utan i egenkap en en potentiell framtida roll som de har kapacitet att uppfylla under rätt omståndigheter. Kan ett av problemen i själva verket vara detta? Att vardagen är fylld av olika sociala roller och åtaganden till den grad att en enskild individ aldrig är detta “folk” utan istället måste åberopas som en av alla de sociala roller de ändå fyller i vardagen? Vad som egentligen ligger bakom denna appell till “vanligt folk” kanske i själva verket är ett sökande efter ett “framtida folk” (i en lätt Nietzscheansk anda). På det viset är det en form av spekulativ design 2, dvs att man försöker skapa en plattform och en designprocess för något som i dagsläget (pga av arbetslinjen, låt säga) är omöjligt. Plattformen får då inte funktionen att den uppfyller ett visst behov som existerat i en vakuum tidigare (folk med önskan och tid att delta i designprocesser men utan teknisk och fysisk möjlighet) utan plattformen blir ett sätt att ställa krav på ytterligare förändringar i samhället, på nya sätt att organisera samhälliga relationer på ett sätt som möjliggör en slags deltagarkultur som vida överstiger vad plattformen själv förmår att åstadkomma.

Utifrån detta perspektiv riktar sig inte en plattform till ett coming community enbart i bemärkelsen att man bygger en plattform för att ett community ska forma sig som inte var möjligt tidigare eftersom de tekniska förutsättningarna som plattformen erbjuder inte fanns på plats; ett community som bara är slumrande. Det handlar också om att det community som skulle kunna formas, nyttjandes de resurser som erbjuds, är upplåst i andra communities (exempelvis jobb) och av den anledningen inte ens tillgängligt då de tekniska resurserna som plattformen erbjuder finns tillgängliga — även om potentialen hos de tilltänkta individerna, i forma av kapacitet, begär och behov, finns där.

Istället för att fråga vad det var för fel på plattformen som gjorde att deltagandet uteblev kan man ställa sig frågan vad det är för fel på det sättet samhället är organiserat som gör att det inte förmår utnyttja de möjligheter som här ställs upp (hint: arbetslinjen). Beroende på vilken nivå man vill lägga detta på och vilket tidsperspektiv man har blir plattformen antingen, genom sitt delvisa misslyckande, en av form av kritisk design eller en möjlighet att involvera fler aktörer; exempelvis lokalpolitiska aktörer, för att förändra den sociala situationen som förhindrade deltagande eller ett nätverk av andra platformar för att komplementera den egna3.

Ett problem med det nuvarande stadiet är att nya former av gräsrotsinnovation ofta står att välja mellan att krossas av olika sociala tryck eller att bli lobbyister på heltid. Det är i varje fall min erfarenhet från internet; antingen fortsätta bygga i motvind eller ge upp byggandet för att försöka stoppa den annalkande stormen. Det finns en distans mellan policyskapande och kreativt skapande som gör att översättningsprocessen hamnar fel. Det krävs av de som vill bygga att de måste översätta vad de gör till färdiga politiska beslut. Det gör att de måste försöka ta sig alldeles för nära beslutsfattandet och riskerar att försvinna i policytunnlarna (Vill utfärda en varning för Bryssel här!). Om de politiska institutionerna ska få någon chans till bättring måste nya plattformar skapas där en konversationsloop kan uppstå där de som sysslar med kreative skapande kan uttrycka vad de håller på med i sitt eget språk och översättningsarbetet sker i en kontinuerlig process där policyskaparna tar mer av ett eget initiativ till att föra in nya praktiker i politiken. Kanske kan halvinstitutionaliserade platser som Fabriken (med hjälp av universitetets legitimitet) bidra till detta.

  Jag använder detta som ett paraplybegrepp för alla de politiskt ekonomiska initiativ som gör att tid måste spenderas på mindre relevanta sysslor än de som skulle ha uppkommit om folk istället fick syssla med vad de ville. Bäst representerad är denna tendens av Fas3.&#8617;


  Här ska detta förstås i betydelsen av en form av kritisk design som syftar till att lösa ett problem som ännu inte existerar, eller som skulle kunna vara en lösning till ett specifikt problem under andra omständigheter. Jag menar inte spekulativ design i bemärkelsen icke-betalda designförslag.&#8617;


  Detta skiftar egentligen bara problemet upp en nivå eftersom nätverket av platformar också behöver undgå att motarbetas under den tid det tar att bygga upp ett nätverk som kan klara livsförsörjning av sina deltagare.&#8617;

January 18 2012, 3:00pm | Comments »

I posted to twitter.com

BLACKOUT YOUR SITE, TUMBLR, ETC. WITH THE BLACKOUT CENSOR SCRIPT >> http://t.co/smlqZ3Mg #SOPA #PIPA (BY @gleuch)

http://twitter.com/fffffat/statuses/159636082659561472

January 18 2012, 5:59am | Comments »

I posted to twitter.com

████████████████f██f██f███f███f███████.at████████████████████ #sopastrike

http://twitter.com/fffffat/statuses/159621128351002624

January 18 2012, 5:00am | Comments »

I posted to blay.se

Conspiracies for Good

http://blay.se/2012/01/18/conspiracies-for-good

The ontology of Wikileaks is known from text such as conspiracy as governance PDF. It consists of conspiracies that should be understood as closed networks for exchange of information that relies on secrecy. Working to disrupt conspiracies is leaks, which has the function to impose a secrecy tax on conspiracies, making their secret information exchange more difficult to sustain. A more detailed account can be found in the linked article. At 28c3, Kay Hamacher had a presentation that used new developments in theoretical biology to critique the view presented in this text. I will use this critique here to expand on the notion of the conspiracy.

BEWARE SPOILER ALERT I will use examples from The Wire that might reveal events mostly from season 5. END SPOILER ALERT

Conspiracies as a system that takes action based on secret information exchange can be thought of as a computing device. Kay Hamacher asks: “What does the conspiracy compute? It computes the next action of the conspiracy”. It is significant here that it computes the next action. Not a series of actions or the overall goal of the conspiracy.

This means first of all that the conspiracy is an entity that reacts to its environment and computes it into a next step. It means, as Kay Hamacher notes, that the conspiracy is like a generative markov chain in that its next action is dependent on its present state, not just unfolding a founding algorithm or something of that kind. Conspiracies is probably best thought of as having the goal of solving a situation rather than achieving a goal set at its foundation. A set of actors ends up in a conspiracy due to the situation they find temselves in, rather than first forming a group and then gaining information an advantage.

This further means that a conspiracy is not a unified whole, but a multiplicity of actors that for the moment have formed a closed communication network. They may have conflicting goals in the end, they might act purely in self interest, but for the moment – in this situation – they have found themselves to benefit from being part of this conspiracy. If you read this and have seen The Wire, think about all those meetings in the mayors office with the chief of police, advisors and senators. They all have different interests and agendas, but are unified in that they think that it will further their respective agendas best if the situation at hand is solved in secrecy within this small communication network, rather than in public. For example coordinating to keep the media or competing mayoral candidates out of the information loop. The conspiracy should therefor not be thought of as an organisation that together wants to achieve a certain goal, but instead something can be very temporary and fragile.

This can lead us to a theory of fractal conspiracies, in the sense that there is conspiracies within conspiracies and transfers of information between one conspiracy to the other. Not at least because a conspiracy, since it is not based on a common goal but rather on solving a situation in a way that benefits each individual in their own way, is itself a constant negotiation and therefor prone to generate sub-conspiracies (picture a discussion in a secret IRC channel with parallel discussions in private messages as well).

Assange theory is based on the fact that “unjust” conspiracies, since they need to keep their action away from the public who don’t agree with them, will be more damaged by leaks than “just” conspiracies who are not damaged as much by having their actions exposed (they might lose a tactical advantage or so). Question is then what this just/unjust refer to in this situation. If it refers to the sanction mechanism of a given system, such as the legal system in our societies, the theory has a very consensus-driven view of these mechanisms. Going back to The Wire again, it is clear that a conspiracy the viewers identify as “just” such as the major crimes unit going after Marlo Stanfield gets hurt more from having their secrets exposed that someone like Clay Davis who manages to spin his exposure to his advantage. This example also highlights another point which is that the judgement of the conspiracy as just or unjust, even if it is ultimately made by “the people”, is not direct but mediated in such a way that it can be spun in different directions (see Clay Davis again as an example). A resourceful and proactive, although unjust conspiracy can therefor employ effective counter-measures against the potential damages caused by a leak.

This specifically because a leak often does not leak the whole conspiracy at ones but parts of it. Thus, a proactive subject of a leak can confirm the leaked information revealing some actions, but quickly construct a narrative of what happen before, after or behind the scenes of that action in a way that relieves them of responsibility. Clay Davis again, when he is put before the grand jury for laundering money, can safely claim that he gave all those money away to people in need within his constituency CLIP. A real world example of this is Carl Bildt. When confronted with information that he indeed was on the board of Lundin Oil at the time they were prospecting for oil in Ethiopia (something he previously denied) he can claim that he might have been on the board, but not directly involved in the discussions on Ethiopia and that an international businessman as himself is part of soooo many ventures and prospecting all over the world that it is only natural that he did not remembered that he was on the board when they were prospecting Ethiopia. To suggest that he should have remembered this is in fact rude and insinuating that he is not a very busy person out there making progress to the world in so many ways everyday and in fact should not even be wasting his precious time in this interview asking him petty questions about long gone events. A skilled conspirator can even use the leak to get rid of a rival conspiracy by shifting the blame and making it seem like the rivals are attacking this innocent actor, thereby shifting blame to the rivals being the true conspiracy that should be targeted.

In which ever way “just/unjust” is defined, for Assange it is about a conspiracy being fit or not fit to its environment. This is the main point of critique for Kay Hamacher of the text. He identifies this as a theory of evolution where the conspiracy over time, via “next actions”, seeks to become fit to its environment (solving the situation). The leak makes the unjust conspiracy less fit since it makes the secret communication costly, and therefor the just conspiracies (which is not hurt as much by leaks) becomes more fit and survives. Hamacher proceeds from this to criticise the theory on the grounds that its theory of evolution is a too simplistic one.

Before going in to this critique, it is important to note a few things about the theory. The point of the leaks is first of all not to attack individual nodes in the conspiracy, such as getting a politician to resign or prosecuting someone. The desired effect of the leak is to weaken the weight (in the social graph theory sense) of the relations between the nodes, thereby making it harder for them to exchange secrets and form conspiracies without leaks. This can happen by making them more paranoid and careful when exchanging secrecies. An example from The Wire is when Marlo Stanfields crew has to start using motorcycle couriers to set up meeting for the fear of being wiretapped. It can also be due to distrust, if the conspiracy believes they have an internal leak instead of an external actor monitoring them. And as we know form The Wire, a crew that can’t have no secret coordination can’t hold on to no corners…

One thing that is excluded from the theory of conspiracies is the internal dynamics of a conspiracy consisting of actors with conflicting goals, what we can call an agnostic conspiracy. In the theory, it is assumed that a conspiracy that is not subject to leaks would only grow (its capability to conspire). This would be true in a consensus driven conspiracy aiming to achieve a certain goal. However, in an agnostic conspiracy, there is always the risk that the conspiracy falls due to its own internal dynamics, for example splitting into subconspiracies (though the main conspiracy does not have to be incompatible with sub-conspiracies).

Back to the critique from Hamacher. We plot the growth in capability of a conspiracy to conspire (x) over time (t) with ratio (r) that gets cut by leaks (L).

We get the effect that a conspiracy without leaks just grows its leaking capability linearly over time1. Should a conspiracy be hit by a single leak, the effect is not to shut the conspiracy down, but only to delay its growth. The rate of growth (r) will remain the same but the capability takes a hit and drops temporarily. What mostly happens in The Wire is that some mid-level players fall off and has to be replaced. This can weaken the conspiracy for some time, but as long as the game stays the game, they will eventually get back to the old level. Case in point: Barksdales between end of season 1 and season 3. The effect would be even less if the effect of the leak is a fixed damage, while the growth is exponential, as in

Then, Hamacher complicates the situation further by introducing a feedback. The more you hear about a conspiracy through leaks, the more you are likely to overestimate its size. So by being the subject of leaks about ones business, the general view can be to be perceived as stronger and more connected than one really is. An example from The wire yet again (and apologies for having season 5 most fresh in my head) is when the paper releases the fake quote about Daniels having plotted together with the mayor to get rid of Burrell as police commissioner (“The mayor stabbed Burrell in the back but it was Daniels that had sharpened his knife”, or something similar). Here, Daniels is perceived as an actor that is more close to the mayor and his inner circle than he actually was and this could just be a benefit to him. Although what actually is happening is that he fears this perceived overestimation of strength will make him be seen as a threat to Burrell and his allies and that it will lead to a counter-action from Burrell using the secret investigation into Daniels dirt that he has stored in a file in his desk to bury both Daniels and Marla. Another example is of course Omar who as he says “live by his name” these days.

Hamacher has another point that you can not only look at the strengthof a conspiracy – it’s ability to conspire – to understand it. You must also look at the value of being in that conspiracy, or rather the loss of value of NOT being in it. If you are not friends with the mayor, you will not be made commissioner, just like the mayor has to be friends with Clay Davis, no matter how much he despise him. There are plenty of conspiracies that is no more than a group of friends trustworthily sharing their personal life. There is little or no value, in the sense of gained power, to be part of such a conspiracy.

The foundation of Hamachers critique is to introduce a number of feedback loops into the equation, such as co-evolution of conspiracies. I will not go into detail of this here, it’s better to just watch the talk. However, the part about co-evolution is interesting. Co-evolution in evolutionary biology is not (necessarily) about co-operation. For example it is co-evolution if a prey evolves to faster speed therefor creating an evolutionary pressure on the predator to also develop greater speed in order to survive. Fitness in evolutionary terms is thus not a static fitness to an environment (in fact there is no environment), but a parameter that dynamically changes over time as other interlinked species also evolve. Perhaps we should view the just/unjust distinction in the same way. Something that could be considered unjust in one moment can be considered just in another if the situation changes. The Wire comes close to such a change when it comes to Hamsterdam – the free zone where drug trade is legalized (or at least ignored) by Bunny Colvin.

Hamachers point with introducing co-evolution is that it is not so much the leaks that will determine the faith of a conspiracy, but rather the actions of rival conspiracies. They on the other hand can use leaks to damage the conspiracy, especially if they already are the strongest conspiracy, since they can take a bigger hit from leaks without going under. If we go to The Wire again we can think of the deadlock between the charges against Marlo Stanfield which comes from a dirty file (due to the illegal wiretap) and the information implicating his laywer Levy in trafficing leakt classified court documents. Marlo eventually walks, since the mayor wants to be governor and can’t afford the scandal of an illegal wiretap (much less risking exposing the fact that the homeless killings were faked). However, as Ronnie says in the negotiations with Levy: after the election, the mayors conspiracy is not so vurnable anymore and they can afford to lose a couple of policemen to the grand jury should Marlo try to come back to the streets again. They are a stronger conspiracy compared to Marlo and can take the damage from the mutual leaks much better than his conspiracy.

In the end, Hamacher comes to the conclusion that in order to fight the power of conspiracies one is perhaps best off not leaking (which will just favour one conspiracy over another), but to make sure that there are competing conspiracies fighitng over the same resources (corners). This will keep them both in check. The problem he finds is when intellectual property (or perhaps a drug gang co-op…) is introduced in the model since this can become a framework for a common goal for strong, competing conspiracies to collaborate around, thus increasing the value of all conspiracies within this field at ones. Going back to The Wire, it is obvious that when Barksdales are weak after Avons conviction (a leak) and Stringers death, Marlo is able to take over their territory. The game be the same…always. Shiiiiiieeeeet.

  Although there are some constraints, such as inability to scale trust and cost of enforcing agreements if the conspiracy grows to large, since you can&rsquo;t rely on official mechanisms. translated to The Wire, this mean &ldquo;muscle&rdquo;.&#8617;

January 17 2012, 3:00pm | Comments »

I posted to blog.ni9e.com

Re: SXSW Calling / Featured Speaker Invite

http://www.blog.ni9e.com/re-sxsw-calling-featured-speaker-invite/

Hi XXXX, Although the offer of a discounted hotel room is very tempting, I’m going to have to respectfully decline. I know this isn’t your policy personally, but could you pass the message up the ladder that this is a really disrespectful invitation that shows how little SXSW as an organization values artists. I’ve attached logos of your corporate sponsors below. I hope at future versions of SXSW you find a way funnel any of that money (or the money from your $1195 tickets) to the artists. For more of my thoughts on this matter you can see my response to SXSW’s 2009 keynote invitation (it’s sad to see not much has changed since then): http://www.blog.ni9e.com/why-i-wont-be-at-sxsw/ And this brilliant video I found on youtube (via Steve):

Thanks for your invitation, I know it comes from a sincere place. However, I respect my own work (and that of fellow artists) too much to consider an invitation like this. All the best, Evan

On 1/12/2012 11:09 PM, XXXXXX wrote:

Hey Evan,

Great, glad you’ll be stateside around that time. In the midwest I believe?

As for a speakers fee, we do not offer one to anyone who comes to present. That’s been our policy from keynotes and featured speakers on down to general panel sessions since our inception.

But all speakers do receive a comp’d Gold badge (about $1k value) which gets you into all Interactive and Film events as well as a discounted hotel room. You would also be presenting in a 2400 capacity room.

Other speakers of note coming this year: Ray Kurzweil, XXXXXX, XXXXXX, XXXXXX, Tim O’Reilly, XXXXXX, Dennis Crowley amongst others…

Hopefully this is a possibility for you.

XXXXXX

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January 17 2012, 7:11am | Comments »

I posted to log.chocolaterobot.com

[TOPPEN!!] Adblock AFK by Planka

http://log.chocolaterobot.com/?p=109

Zip- ties as liberation tech.

January 16 2012, 4:24am | Comments »

I posted to log.chocolaterobot.com

[TOPPEN!!] Adblock AFK by Planka

http://log.chocolaterobot.com/?p=109

Zip- ties as liberation tech.

January 16 2012, 4:24am | Comments »

I posted to blay.se

On the Coming Golden Age of Open Hardware

http://blay.se/2012/01/15/on-the-coming-golden-age-of-open-hardware

Andrew “bunnie” Huang has written a very insightful blog post called Why the Best Days of Open Hardware are Yet to Come. A lot of people has commented on the post and elsewhere and I want to recap it and expand on it here. The basic premise is that while open hardware is a niche industry at the moment, some trends that have up until now favored large, closed manufacturing could shift in the coming years and tilt the balance of power in favor of small scale innovation.

Moore’s law is the enemy of open hardware.

In the early days of consumer electronics, hardware was open. They shipped with “full schematics, a list of replacement parts and instructions for service”. Even computers in the early 80’s came with full schematics of the main board. This is no longer the case. “Did electronics just get too hard and complex?” bunnie asks himself. “On the contrary”, he says, “improving electronics got to easy: the pace of Moore’s Law has been too much for small-scale innovators to keep up”.

If we consider moore’s law, that performance double every 18 months, it is an exponential growth. Consider then than a small scale innovator working to improve a given platform increases performance of it linearly at 75% per year (bunnie’s estimation). As a consequence, when a platform is launched, the small scale innovator has only a small window of time to work on improvements on that platform before moore’s law makes it more profitable to just get a new platform. This is bad for craft, it is bad for code (more beneficial to upgrade hardware than to write better, more efficient code) and it is bad for open hardware that does not have the investment opportunity to get new platforms all the time. It is more rewarding to sit and wait for the new platform than to improve on the existing. This all favor economies of scale. Being able to develop several generations of hardware and ship them globally fast.

We do not need moore’s law anymore

There are two things to consider here. One is that moore’s law might not work forever. Certain physical limits have been hit when it comes to increasing CPU power1, which is the reason we are going for more processor cores today. The problems of computing today is also not so much about fast calculations as being able to do many smaller calculations at the same time. Considering a deceleration of the increase according to moore’s law will expand the window of opportunity for the linear small scale development.

The other thing is that we don’t need moore’s law anymore. Increase in performance does not lead to qualitative leaps in user experience. Even adding more processor cores, which is easy to do as much as cost allows, does not necessarily make that qualitative leap for most users. I don’t think I am the only one that for the first time in my life felt that the computer i got now is “good enough”. Only poorly coded programs make my computer stall for a few seconds, but that’s it. I also do not feel that increase in performance would open up the space for better software. I’m just not hitting those limits. For special use cases, certainly, but someone like me who work with text, code and use the internet, the response time is perceived as immediate and we have no use for moore’s law anymore.

It’s not only that increase in performance has seized to lead to increase in user experience, the development on miniaturization that followed on that (same processing power, less energy use and size) is also coming to a halt in many areas. A the size of a mobile phone today is not determined by the absolute miniaturization of the components but by optimal screen size and most suitable tangible interactions 2. This means that today there is no ongoing linear acceleration that automatically enhances user experiences or opens up for more software opportunities, which opens the door for design in the broadest sense to be the determining factor — that is choices based on intended use — and these choices are up to anyone to be able to make. It won’t be the same but smaller or faster. Now it’s time to start making novel use of the computing resources that is here.

Also worth noting is what’s called koomey’s law as a complement to moore’s law. Koomey’s law states that the energy efficiency of computational devices tend to double every 1.6 years. This means that the commodore 64 had the same energy-per-computation efficiency as a super computer of its age. Another way to state this law is that the need for battery capacity for a fixed amount of computational power halves every 1.6 years. This really opens up for a design-led future of computation since energy capacity also could become a non-issue.3

Freedom ends at 100 mbits

Effort to try to reintroduce that kind of linear acceleration again will have harder times to claim legitimacy. Perhaps it is only possible within gaming to push for more computational power, but even there interaction design and game play is starting to take over from pure improvement of number of polygons. As a commentator to bunnie’s article said, the color race is already finished; no one sees more colors than 32bit TrueColor can produce (let’s not get started on 3D). The key point is hit when increase in a parameter only enables better quality and not new kinds of interactions 4. The media industries tries to continue to equate increased cultural value with increased use of computational resources in order to keep their advantage with economies of scale over the rest, but it becomes more and more difficult to sustain.

The way we compute now is only one of many possible ways of computing

The idea of a legacy laptop passed on to the next generation might seem far fetched today but this is where things could be heading if these economics continue and design rather than performance becomes the key. Deceleration of technological performance increases creates the opportunities for more socially and ecologically sustainable practices.

Free software takes time to be good and to perfect. I’m writing this post on the 35+ year old Emacs text editor which has evolved to perfection due to a stable platform. Stable platforms makes it easier to get a chance to develop open standards. Imagine having a modular open hardware standard for a laptop or a mobile with interchangeable components. For a legacy laptop does require an extensive standardization, otherwise it would be very hard to find spare parts for a 30 year old laptop.

There can be some problems with creating a repair culture of modern electronics, which several people have pointed out in comments to bunnie’s article. One is that the surface mounted components that are so small it is basically a one-way process of putting them on the circuit board and very hard to reverse that and repair manually with new ones. A solution to this as a commentator to the article says is to make technology modular, so instead of having to discard a whole device, small parts of it can be removes and replaced. This is similar to how Dominic Muren imagines modular design within his SSG framework.

One thing to remember is the major differences between hardware and software. It is not simply a “next step” but an entirely new thing. Only with very advanced robotics can you treat hardware as a software problem 5. Without them, you can’t copy and share the way you do with software. Hardware often has a high initial cost (even though prices can go down per unit with mass manufacturing). This is especially true with CPU’s.

One promising breakthrough (although I’m not knowledgeable enough to completely determine if it works) is Field-Programmable Gate Arrays — FPGAs. Unlike a regular CPU, whose structure and connections is determined at the point of manufacturing, an FPGA processor can change structure and connections with a new software. This has traditionally been reserved for low volume production where it is not profitable to develop a custom CPU. But the FPGAs are decreasing in cost and increasing in performance to make them suitable for a wider range of uses.

Another benefit of FPGAs is recyclability. If a FPGA has been used for a function that is no longer necessary, the same processor can be reprogrammed to perform some other task. This article, about the state of telecommunications in India, suggests FPGA together with software defined radio as a setup that could greatly improve rural telecommunications. The combination of FPGA and software radio enables devices that communicate with different protocols depending on fluctuating local needs. It could route GSM phones over the internet for free calls as well as function as a HAM radio or TV transmitter. No need for separate infrastructures to be built. The article “It’s time to bring FPGA design to the masses” continues:

Even if, after one year, the arrival of cheap smartphone made that device obsolete as a telephony gateway, it could continue to be useful to the community in many other ways, becoming solar panel and battery controller to an educational platform similar to the XO minicomputers of the One Laptop Per Child project.

The end of cheap electronics

Not only can it be possible to make long-lasting and repairable electronics. It can also become necessary. As rare earth metals, copper, gold and oil become more scarce and energy costs rise, it could mean the end of cheap electronics. It will become less profitable to make and buy trash that breaks and has to be replaced. Long lasting and repairable will be back again and perhaps once again bring back the schematics.

I would love for more technically knowledgeable people to comment on what you think about the plausibility of these scenarios. The overall point of the article is to suggest that the way we compute today and the what we think computing is and how its done is only a local manifestation of computing under specific circumstances. Were these conditions to chance, computing as an everyday practice could also look radically different. Already today there are traces of this on the margins in strange environments.

The computer as we know it today must not only be defended but our visions and practices must continuously be expanded, updated and transformed.

  Such that signals don&rsquo;t have time to get from one end of the processor to the other before one clock cycle has run. That seriously messes up calculations&hellip;&#8617;


  See this article about the interaction design of the Nokia N9 for how the space for tangible interactions in mobiles phones is not yet fully explored.&#8617;


  Or does this only shift energy use from consumption to manufacturing?&#8617;


  As a comparison I made the same argument in regards to bandwidth here&#8617;


  The point with robotics is that they will perfectly repeat a physical process. Once it has been programmed it can be repeated eternally. See this ad for ABB for an example.&#8617;

January 14 2012, 3:00pm | Comments »

I posted to blog.ni9e.com

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A .gif for those that love the web. Please use as you see fit.

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January 14 2012, 9:35am | Comments »

I posted to jamiew.tumblr.com

We just launched VHX playlists — for making sexy...

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/jamiew/tumblr/~3/-ZGDLIhvJzQ/15782981118

We just launched VHX playlists — for making sexy embeddable video mixtapes:

blog.vhx.tv:

Are you a curator?Music video connoisseur? Artist with a bangin’ portfolio? Band with behind the scenes footage? Or maybe you just really like cat videos? Playlists make it easy to create, organize and customize videos and show them off in wonderful ways. Learn more here.

January 13 2012, 10:38am | Comments »

I posted to twitter.com

FUCK SOPA :: #000000-OUT :: 2012 http://t.co/gicupQfZ

http://twitter.com/fffffat/statuses/157726974301843456

January 12 2012, 11:33pm | Comments »

I posted to twitter.com

Install the new MITTENS ROMNEY extension by @theowatson #CUTEKITTIES http://t.co/1GZAmO1I

http://twitter.com/fffffat/statuses/157726670466449410

January 12 2012, 11:32pm | Comments »

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Conspiracies for Good

Re: SXSW Calling / Featured Speaker Invite

[TOPPEN!!] Adblock AFK by Planka

[TOPPEN!!] Adblock AFK by Planka

On the Coming Golden Age of Open Hardware

WWW LOVE Badge

We just launched VHX playlists — for making sexy...

FUCK SOPA :: #000000-OUT :: 2012 http://t.co/gicupQfZ

Install the new MITTENS ROMNEY extension by @theowatson #CUTEKITTIES http://t.co/1GZAmO1I