The Lighter Side of Seasteading
From what I can make out, Open_Sailing = seasteading + SEHIs + Oekonux + Driving Over Lemons, with the scary libertarians replaced by something like the old-school, Victorian scientific expedition.
In other words, a more palatable brand of seasteading from the Sundance generation – far more likely to win round the sympathies of venture altruists, social entrepreneurs, and the general public. There’s a full presentation (opens pdf), with some useful stuff that resonates with quantum governance, stigmergy, open source infrastructure, aquaculture, and all that Superstruct-y goodness. A welcome departure from the global guerillas & Somali pirates, and a potent booster shot for those looking to top-up their optimism.
So raise the kite and steer us westward – to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, and beyond!
The Limitless Threat
I’ve restructured one of my undergraduate dissertations as a hypertext, mixed in some video footage and CC-licensed images, and thrown it up as its own site.
‘Containing the Uncontainable: Guantánamo Bay and the Limitless Threat‘ – it’s about terrorism, geography, theology, aesthetics and the apocalypse. It might be a bit dense, and I admit to have been a bit overkeen on the subheading front, but there’s definitely some good stuff in there.
Cartography & Infographics Politics & Economics Speculations
by Justin
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Zero History
TwiliteMinotaur, on William Gibson’s next novel:
“The future” is and always was a map of a fake territory. It is entertainment. However, without any map at all we become paralyzed, so even a fake map can provide initial direction, even if it is rarely ultimately the right direction. Thus “futures” survive. Willy Lee rockets boldly charted out intergalactic federation before a nation came together and reached upwards. Cyberjockeys first jacked across a new world’s neon constellations, created new myths to sail by, tentative models to take to the money people. The future promised Star Wars, I-Robots, and Cybertopia – we got decaying red stars, automation, and Google.
But now we are seduced by ever sexier futures and dwindling soundbite-sized “now”, all whilst history is regooded — the signified is stripped from signifiers, packed into a brochure and McDonaldized. We become blind to history and its non-linearity. Thus our pattern seeking mind fabricates theories, draws whatever lines it can on the last two data points: this quarter’s report, this season’s pants, this election cycle’s buzz issue, the last 140 characters, today’s housing price index.
Capture the Flag & Public Space
These videos (from Ivo Gormley & Matan Rochlitz) make me pretty ruddy cheerful. There’s a certain vagus nerve-tickling, ludotopian current to this whole thing. And I like that. A lot.
Folding Plug H 264
Easily the smartest piece of industrial design I’ve seen from the post-Dyson/iPod era, with a folding mechanism that reminds me of those tiny plastic forks you get in excessively-packaged supermarket salads…