Open clownbigmole opened 7 years ago
Words of wisdom and inspiration for us, from the awesome Margaret Atwood.
Some interesting thoughts on identity while being online.. from this article
Over the past few years, technology has put itself on first-name terms with me. Logging on to a public wi-fi provider, I receive the message “Welcome back, William!” as if it were a homecoming. “We care about your memories, William,” Facebook tells me. “Recommended for you, William” is the first thing I see when looking at Amazon. “William, William, William.”
The quote above reminded more of HAL from 2001: A space odyssey.. ‘I’m sorry Dave, I can’t do that Dave’
If the function of informality is to erode the distinction between work and leisure, then informal rhetoric is a necessary feature of platforms that want to mediate and capitalize on all aspects of our lives, including work, family, and social life. The great promise — and threat — underpinning this is that we will never have to “take off one hat and put on another” but will have a single casual identity that is recognized in every institution we enter. When a device or platform addresses me as “William,” it is offering to support (and exploit) the identity that I carry into work, leisure, family life, and anywhere else, insisting that it be the same wherever I go. But if informal networks don’t allow the possibility of legitimate escape, they can become suffocating.
Rather than ask coldly, “What is your date of birth?” platforms simply offer to help “celebrate your birthday!” Rather than demand “your full address,” they invite you to identify a certain location as “home.”
While going a bit deeper into the whole aspect of identity feels like this is going down the big data rabbit hole, I’m just thinking that as the article winds on, the author talks about how this identity expresses itself in one’s physical environment, through the soon to be ubiquitous ‘internet of things’. Seems pretty relevant from that end, if I fall off the radar for some time, are there things that the ‘network’ or the ‘cloud’ don’t know? Can I still keep some thing(s) private?
This faraday cage in a pub is ace! Excerpt from link:
A cocktail bar owner has installed a Faraday cage in his walls to prevent mobile phone signals entering the building.
Steve Tyler of the Gin Tub, in Hove, East Sussex, is hoping customers will be encouraged to talk to each other rather than looking at their screens.
and a bit more
Mr Tyler said he wanted to force “people to interact in the real world” and remember how to socialise. “I just wanted people to enjoy a night out in my bar, without being interrupted by their phones,” he told the BBC. “So rather than asking them not to use their phones, I stopped the phones working. I want you to enjoy the experience of going out.
Speaking about the Faraday cage he added: “It’s silver foil in the walls and it’s copper mesh. And it’s not the perfect system, it’s not military grade.”
He almost sounds a bit wistful.. Oh if only, it were military grade.. :)
Hyper-Reality: Dystopian Augmented Reality
The movie is an interesting one from a dark temple perspective for a number of reasons:
Interesting scenario of sorts to consider as a near future for the Dark Temple.
In this issue, comment with links of news articles, editorials, literature snippets, images. This could act as a feed for interesting nuggets of information to provoke thought and debate.