Media Theorist Douglas Rushkoff explains how the need for rapid corporate and economic growth has always been great for aristocracy, but bad for everyone else. My notes (PDF) from Mr. Rushkoff’s book, Throwing Rocks At the Google Bus. Throwing Rocks at the Google Bus – Douglas Rushkoff
Category Archives: Media & Culture
12 Inevitable Tech Forces That Will Shape Our Future
This is why I love Apple Music
You know I love my Apple Music playlists. And have wondered aloud who puts these together. Steven Levy wondered the same thing:
“Who are those editors putting the playlists together? It turns out they are music nerds who might have otherwise been displaced by technology. People from radio; people who used to work at publications; people who used to work at record companies — hard core passionate music people. They check in to work at offices in Cupertino or LA (though a few work remotely) and perform curation tasks that include making those playlists, which they draft and discuss in meetings that must be more fun than the ones at your job. The important thing is that they are human beings. Apple believes that only flesh-and-blood music lovers can properly select and format these lists, artfully making the segues from one tune to the next.”
“They are very much like those cosmic deejays in the early days or FM, or today’s superstar spinners at Las Vegas casinos and high end clubs everywhere. But without a direct channel to communicate with the audience — no microphone to explain yourself between blocks of song — it’s a weird kind of communication they have with their audience. […] After listening to a lot of these playlists, I feel I almost know whoever it is at Apple who specializes in Americana, Blues, and 60s rock.”
Apple Music has a Connect feature where fans can ‘connect’ with their favorite artists. I have zero interest in doing that but would love to connect with the people who create the playlists.
Bruce Sterling – SXSW 2016
“Americans are too focused on their glass screens to riot.”
“Most of the joy in your life is going to come from pleasant surprises.”
Distributed: A New OS for the Digital Economy
“The increased surface area for corporate capitalism is human attention. So we spend more and more of our time feeding the market place. Central currency and chartered monopoly — corporate capitalism — is not a condition of nature. It is an operating system that was invented by certain people at a certain moment in history and they’ve long since left the building.”
“It was such a good little thing”
“How much is our data worth if we don’t have any money?”
“If we’re all doing everything for advertising, what’s left to advertise?”
Douglas Rushkoff is the author of Throwing Rocks at the Google Bus – Douglas Rushkoff Link above to some of my favorite parts of the book (PDF).
Illiteracy in America
“According to a study conducted in late April by the U.S. Department of Education and the National Institute of Literacy, 32 million adults in the U.S. can’t read. That’s 14 percent of the population. 21 percent of adults in the U.S. read below a 5th grade level, and 19 percent of high school graduates can’t read.[…] The current literacy rate isn’t any better than it was 10 years ago. According to the National Assessment of Adult Literacy (completed most recently in 2003, and before that, in 1992), 14 percent of adult Americans demonstrated a “below basic” literacy level in 2003, and 29 percent exhibited a “basic” reading level.”
What Made The Aeron Chair An Icon
I don’t think much about office chairs these days but when I did I was of the opinion there were only two kinds: really bad ones and really good ones. And like most companies, the two I worked for purchased the bad ones because they were cheap. And before the Aeron, I suspect most of the expensive ones were pretty bad as well. Wheels always falling off or locking up; the seats were wobbly; hard to adjust.
A few years before I retired took some of my savings and bought myself an Aeron chair to use in my office at work. I think I paid north of $1,000 for the thing but I’ve never regretted it. It’s as good as its reputation. The design is based on the following tenants:
- A chair should be perceived as comfortable before, during, and after sitting upon it. Comfort is as much a matter of the mind as of the body.
- A chair should enhance the appearance of the person sitting upon it.
- While allowing postural movement, the chair should also embrace the body.
- The chair should provide correct support for the sacrum as well as the lumbar region of the spine.
- The chair should provide a simple means for height and angular adjustments. A chair should be friendly to all parts of the body that touch it.
My Aeron is in my home office now.
Trumped
City of New Orleans
I’ve been looking for a project where I could try a video-on-video effect I like. I had some suitable background video from my 24 Hours of Amtrak Hell and this song is one I like. Ideally I would have waited until I was more proficient with the song but I’ll be 68 in a couple of weeks so we go with what we got. (This was easier than I expected, mostly because I used Screenflow instead of iMovie.)