Synchroncity 2012
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"Moths in the Machine:
The Power and Perils of Programming,"
By Daniel Kohanski
www.stmartins.com
"Netscape Time,"
By Jim Clark
(Netscape co-founder)
www.stmartins.com
"The Civilized Engineer,"
By Samuel C. Florman,
www.stmartins.com
"The High-Tech Heretic,"
By Clifford Stoll,
www.anchorbooks.com
"Fragile Dominion,"
By Simon Levin,
www.perseuspublishing.com
"Collective Intelligence:
Mankind's Emerging World
in Cyberspace,"
Pierre Levy
(Department of Hypermedia,
University of Paris, VIII),
www.perseusbooks.com
"Fermat's Enigma"
and "The Code Book,"
By Simon Singh,
www.anchorbooks.com
"Faster,"
by James Gleick,
www.vintagebooks.com
"Code and Other Laws
of Cyberspace,"
By Lawrence Lessig
(Stanford Law Dept.)
www.basicbooks.com
"The Pearly Gates
of Cyberspace,"
By Margaret Werthheim,
"Techgnosis: Myth,
Magic and Mysticism
in the Age of Information,"
By Erik Davis
(www.levity.com/techgnosis)
www.randomhouse.com
Zines and Other Digerati
The Digerati
http://www.edge.org/digerati/index.html
Salon
www.salon.com
Feed Magazine
www.feedmag.com
Troika
www.troikamagazine.com
G21.net
www.g21.net
Slate
www.slate.com
Atlantic Unbound
www.theatlantic.com
Utne Reader Online
www.utne.com
Wired
www.wired.com
Suck
www.suck.com
John Perry Barlow
http://www.edge.org/digerati/barlow/index.html
Lawrence Lessig
http://www.wideopen.com/reprint/669.html
William Gibson
http://www.slip.net/~spage/gibson/biblio.htm
Cyber Punk Timeline
http://www.subsitu.com/cns/tl.htm
CyberPunk FAQ
http://www.knarf.demon.co.uk/alt-cp.htm
Thursday, May 05, 2011
The Cyber Sages
of Synchroncity
From the Editor: These quotes were collected one decade ago. Let's see how well they did in predicting the future!Jon Katz
Slashdot.org
jonkatz@slashdot.org
I guess the open source idea is the biggest idea currently coming off of the Internet, the one that will most directly impact on education, politics, business and entertainment. The liberating of information digitally is the single most important and transformative happening in the modern history of information, past the printing press. The net is an open medium, the openness built into its architecticture. This sets up an enormous conflict...between cultural forces that are open and distributive and those that are proprietary and closed. The music fight is just round one, and it isn't clear yet who's won. The ones to follow -- involving openness and politics, education, media -- will really be hummers.
Nana Naisbitt
Co-author of "High Tech High Touch"
with John Naisbitt
Smithsonian Research Collaborator
Writing book called "Dinosaurs in Your Back Yard"
nana@naisbitt.com
While debates promise to rage through this year and beyond over the Internet's disruption of traditionally protected intellectual property rights, another quieter revolution is taking place. Taxonomy, the explorer's science of new species discovery still steeped in Victorian Age practices, is finally embracing 20th century technology. The International Code of Nomenclature has approved the publication of new species online, dropping the formal requirement of hard-copy print publication, enabling taxonomists to publish their discoveries in real time. This relaxed policy, coupled with an audacious initiative by the All Species Foundation to discover and name all the species on earth within the next 25 years, will send detailed species Web pages online at an accelerating clip. With only 1.7 million species named to date, and another 100 million yet to be found, there will be no end to voyeuristic discovery and wonder at 4 billion years of evolution.
Douglas Rushkoff
Author of "Coercion," "Media Virus," "Playing the Future," "Ecstasy Club," and the upcoming novel, "Bull"
The big story of 2001 will be that, in spite of the dot.com debacle, the Internet----the real Internet----will have been chugging along quite splendidly the whole time. Sure, a huge number of businesspeople used the word "Internet" as the rationale behind an even greater number of pyramid schemes. And yes, most of those schemes collapsed as surely as any Ponzie will. But while the Internet's role as a public relations strategy for the NASDAQ exchange will have been deemed a failure, the people developing and using the greatest technological infrastructure yet devised by our civilization will have continued to network, exchange information, and develop new ways for people to communicate across boundaries that once seemed impassable. The Internet as an investment vehicle will be superceded by its original function as an interpersonal facilitator.
Cecilia Pagkalinawan
CEO and founder of BoutiqueY3K.com, New York City
Much of the growth and reach of the Internet will slow down in 2001 while sectors such as government, corporations, and investors regroup and review their strategies. With the investment slowdown, R&D and innovation will be hurt tremendously and not many new products will be developed. Culturally, the Internet will grow to be more powerful as more and more people, particularly the youth culture, embrace the Internet as their primary method of communication and source of information.
At the end of 2001, what will stand as the big event(s) of the year? I hate to say this, but more of the train wreck we're experiencing right now will occur in 2001. After the extensive damages which will occur with companies shutting down and employees losing their jobs, we'll see an older but wiser industry that will continue to grow and flourish, but in a more tempered and humbled way.
Mark Hurst
Founder and president of CreativeGood.com, an e-commerce research and consultancy based in New York City
Two Thousand and One will be the year that Internet users begin to feel some information overload. People will receive more and more e-mail (including "spam" and other annoying promotional e-mails) and will find it difficult to sift through thousands of irrelevant website search results. At work, many people will find more and more digital files and folders awaiting their attention. The spread of cell phones, Palm Pilots, and other "bit devices" will make life even more complicated for people trying to get online.
Users will demand a simpler online experience, as they have for years, but 2001 will be when they yearn for "less information". Personally, I hope that in 2001 I'll help companies learn that "less is more" when it comes to bits and other digital information.
Andres Heuberger
CEO of fxtrans.com, a Web site localization firm which deals with issues of translating sites to meet international language and legal standards
The U.S. role in the world will diminish as the Web expands internationally. Non-English Web sites used to be the exception. During 2001, they will become the rule.
As U.S. companies launch an intensive fight to win the minds and pocketbooks of consumers whose first language is not English, the Web will shift from being a primarily English medium to one where non-English content dominates.
This breakneck transformation will benefit corporations as well as consumers:
---- More multilingual sites will improve the user experience for consumers worldwide and allow organizations to provide better support to international customers.
----As English loses its position as the lingua franca of the Internet, this strengthened language support will enhance the flow of information across borders, cultures, and languages.
----Improvements in the areas of foreign currency conversions and international fulfillment will support language efforts and help companies expand global ecommerce opportunities
In 2001, the Internet is finally breaking out of its English-only, U.S.-centric cocoon.
Esther Dyson
founder of Edventures Holdings, an Internet investment and incubation firm, and Chairman of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) the organization now responsible for administering the domain name assignment system
One significant event of 2000 is the selection of seven new genericTop-Level Domains to add to the Domain Name System. In addition to .com, .net and .org, we will soon have .biz, .info, .museum, .aero, .coop, .name and .pro, reducing the artificial scarcity of the current system. The benefits are more "space" in the Domain Name System ---- call it the Net's real estate ---- and more competition among the TLDs. Ultimately, that should provide better services, and better quality. Now you can register your business's name in .biz, or if you're a doctor or lawyer, you can register in .pro. Museums get .museum, and so forth. Over time, I hope that there will be many more, and that the role of ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers), which chose them, will diminish. Competition is a better regulator than any single agency ever could be.
Daryhl Stultz
MIS IT Guide
About.com
I see the wireless internet trend continuing and expanding in 2001. This is good news for the wireless companies that furnish the air time and devices; it is bad news for the internet content companies----there just is no profit in providing all of those stock quotes, weather and sports scores for free. There is no room on the screens of the WAP phones and wireless PDAs for advertising.
I think 2001 will be the year of the WebPad wireless devices. The form factor is perfect----they are the size of the writing tablets that we all carry and use. With their large touchscreens and wireless portablility, we can use them in meetings, while watching TV from our favorite recliner or out by poolside.
Honeywell debuted a WebPad at Comdex based on the National Seminconductor specification and processor. It uses a short-range radio base station that allows fast web surfing within 150 feet. The base station can handle up to eight WebPads, making it perfect for home use----mom, dad and the kids can each have their own unit and all can surf and send/receive email at the same time. It includes a mini-version of a word processor and a USB port for external keyboard and mouse.
By 2002, we hopefully will begin to see WebPads that connect directly to our ISPs instead of being tethered to the 150-foot base station.
Len Bullard
Computer Scientist
Contributor G21.net
Other strange and inscrutable associations
It gets weirder every day and because we learned nothing from Zorba the
Greek, we just don't know when to "let go of the rope."
The kids get it.
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/10/23/1521250&mode=thread
They are even smart enough to use the FBI UCR reports. They know where the feedback loops are to policy. Is anyone listening? I know the UCR well.
NIBRS is the replacement model and it is national and being installed in
more police stations every day. What do we say about that model? The kids
know it is there. Do you? Do you think you should care as long as the
professionals who design it and apply it are competent? What is thoughtful
action and what is habit, Mr. Chips?
Oh we can be as weird as we think we are, put on trench coats, take up
arms, chill our parents and the kids on the playground next to us, but for
how long? Kids soon find just as my generation found that we need certain
things and we trade big freedoms for little securities. Yet, the evil we
fear becomes the thump on the annealing pot of societal metal. It whips us,
beats us, makes us write bad checks. All the while, every time two
opposites collide, a control emerges. That is how emergent behavior works.
I don't fear the credit system and what "they say." I was an entertainer
and a theater geek before I became a computer scientist. I learned to
control the appearance, ride the syncopation of language, and master the
curl in the wave where the fast ride is. "It's all for the show, ya know"
Ol' ScratchJagger told us. I use the system. I like the system. It suits my
purpose. Who chooses my purpose? I do.
Can I escape the system?
Well, "Do you know exactly how to eat an Oreo?"
Pat Gelsinger
Chief Technology Officer and Vice President
Intel Architecture Group
The year 2001 may see the emergence peer-to-peer computing models on the Internet in new and innovative ways. With peer-to-peer computing home or business computers are collectively linked together via the Internet to tackle massive data crunching challenges. For businesses this means more efficient uses of their computer equipment investments. And for consumers this means a wide array of new services for media distribution and sharing content with family and friends. Consumers may even dedicate computing power and/or file storage space of the PC they use only a percentage of the day to make meaningful contributions to programs and causes such as their local schools, foundations or research efforts. A great pioneering example that's been around for a number of years is the famous SETI project that pools the resources of thousands of PCs around the world. For additional information, here is an August press release on Peer-to-Peer: http://www.intel.com/pressroom/archive/releases/cn082400.htm
Mike Rosen
CEO and President 2Ce Inc.
www.2Ce.com
In 1994 Netscape radically changed the Internet by giving what has been
previously only a text-based environment a visual interface. By using the
page metaphor as a design guideline, the Internet became a visual electronic
magazine that could bring pictures and links to everyone's desktop. This was
a major shift in how the Internet functioned and how it would evolve over the next six years.
This year, the big news is convergence, or the coming together of all
electronic devices to what will eventually be one small wearable or handheld
gismo, that will have all the functionality of the cell phone, PDA, and
computer. While this is truly a significant accomplishment, in my opinion it
will be overshadowed by the Internet discovering the 3rd dimension.
Several companies have been experimenting with three dimensional interfaces to the Internet, and now, with the increase of bandwidth some will become practical. What the third dimension will do to the Internet is hard to
predict, but it will definitely change the metaphor from the "page" to the
"space." Having the ability to navigate into the "z" dimension will create
information and entertainment content akin to video game environments.
Our company 2ce Inc. is committed to the concept that more efficient
information transfer and a fun browsing metaphor will revolutionize how
people interact with all the rich content that exists and that will exist as
a result of the Internet becoming 3D.
Howard Rheingold
hlr@well.com
http://www.rheingold.com
Webcam: http://www.vcbconsulting.com/users/oinkfest
Democracy is not just about voting. It's about citizens who are literate enough, free enough, and have the means to discuss the issues that concern us. In the age of mass media, only those wealthy politicians who had the money to buy advertising had the power to influence others. Now, the Internet makes every desktop computer a printing press, broadcasting station, and place of assembly. Millions of people join email groups, chat rooms, and bulletin boards to have social discussions about issues that concern them. But the popular media have not sufficiently publicized or explained the social uses of the Internet, so it has been confined to the millions of pioneers and early adopters. Now, however, the use of the Internet for social communication is becoming more widely known. The next step is for people to learn to use these media as citizens.
Erik Davis
Author of "Techgnosis: Myth, Magic & Imagination in the Age of Information," www.levity.com/techgnosis, contributing editor to Feed www.feedmag.com, and Wired magazine
Where the action is going to be is what happens as the network extends into physical space. The presence of robotic servants, information available by a touch of a sensor, the wireless Web crossing through physical space … cyberspace used to be this other place you went to, but you would not really be there.
Now that whole world is feeding back into the material world, and it's going everywhere, through your cell phone, your hand-held device, Palm Pilot and so on. It's all just an operation of people pursuing immediate goals out of basic activities. But we are building this hyper-dimensional virtual city that we really don't know is there. Where does my world stop, and where does the other world begin----all of those boundaries are becoming more and more fluid. As this stuff becomes more permeable, and one the thing we lose is a certain kind of silence. We lose solitude.
In not much time, people in the developed world will find that time spent offline will be increasingly valuable. People will say, more and more, 'Hey, I'm going offline for the weekend.'
Wayne Madsen
Electronic Information Privacy Center
Senior Fellow
Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC)
Washington, DC
www.epic.org
The growing demand for on-line privacy will dominate technical, legal, and cultural issues involving the Internet. A number of polls, including a recent Gallup poll, illustrate that Americans are equally concerned about corporate and government snooping into their electronic mail, transactions, and other Internet usage.
A deadlocked Congress and an initial weakened Presidency will mean that Americans will see little in the way of meaningful privacy legislation, even though a number of successful congressional candidates ran on promises to increase privacy protections. However, a presidency that may be seen by an inflamed sector of Internet-savvy Americans as illegitimate could mean an increase in the use of government Internet surveillance programs, particularly the e-mail snooping system known as Carnivore. That may be the biggest event at the end of the year and it will further widen the gulf between the government and cyberlibertarians.
The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) will meticulously track and report on all privacy developments throughout 2001."
Dr. Julian Lombardi, Ph. D.
www.Vios.com
Founder, Chairman & Chief Creative Officer
In 2001, we will see the first "Post-Browser Internet" applications. A new wave of Internet visualization technologies----combining rich interfaces, better organization of information, and powerful applications----will rise to challenge the flat, browser-based Internet we see today.
The way individuals use, 'see' and access digital information today is in large part a function of technology limitations that existed years ago when the browser became the dominant means of viewing the Internet. As new, advanced technologies - faster processors, powerful video cards, broadband connections - become ubiquitous, we'll see a dramatic shift in the way people interact with the digital world and with each other.
'Post-Browser' interfaces will make it possible to compress information into a visual experience in a way that people can understand. In short: a picture is worth at least a thousand words. Hardware and software advances will lead to the development and adoption of visual browser alternatives----3D Internet environments that far surpass anything that has previously existed on the Web.
The limitations of the Web page-based 'browser' and the clumsiness of today's search engines have already become clear to many. The current movement to whittle down the Internet into a search engine, start page or mobile phone screen will be challenged by advanced, rich, "sticky" new interfaces that make it easy and fun for people to navigate the vast Internet landscape. Do you really think the mobile phone screen can replace the PC and provide a satisfying, fun, powerful Internet experience? No.
And these new applications will not only help users get more from their online experience. They will deliver new ways for businesses to stand out from the crowd. Businesses tired of largely ineffective and increasingly expensive banner advertising will seek out----and find----new, exciting alternatives in the "Post-Browser" environment.
There's a fundamental flaw in today's Internet----a limited, out-dated, flat interface that can't handle the explosive growth in information volume or technical capability. A vast, largely untapped wealth of information, social interaction and community is out there. New interfaces will help people get more out of their Internet experience. In 2001, software innovators will begin unleashing applications that will transform the way the Internet looks and works.
Jeff Einstein
Director of Interactive North America
RappDigital
New York
Regarding major technical shifts: More often than not, technological innovations precede the business models that ultimately dictate their application. Accordingly, innovations in wireless, pervasive computing, and ITV will continue to accelerate while media franchises trail behind in pursuit of related and appropriate ROI models. The year 2001 will also see accelerated movement away from server log analysis tools to ASP service models -- with existentially secure content----wherein each content element is tagged and reports directly to a central datamart for cyberanalysis. Content tagging represents a shift away from the destination dot com model and concurrent movement towards a more appropriate content syndication model with significant ROI and cyberanalytic implications.
Re legal/cultural shifts ...
The shift from the destination dot com model to syndication also
parallels a shift away from the branded advertising model to more accountable ROI-based, data-driven models. Content producers will now not only be liable for content that appears on their sites, but for content that is syndicated across thousands of sites as well----with clear legal and cultural
implications.The role of content also changes within the syndication
model.Whereas the primary function of content within the branded ad
model is to provide a suitable environment for branded ad messages, the
content in an interactive syndication environment must also serve to collect
valuable data for future analysis and optimization. Moreover, the data-driven syndication model raises serious privacy issues. The more information we request, the greater our obligation to deal ethically with the resulting data. Privacy issues, however, will likely take a back seat to consumer convenience----as always.
Tim Berners-Lee
w3.org
You probably have a lot of people using XML by now. You should have someone looking at the next level----RDF. Tell them not to worry about the syntax, but check out the model. This is a question of looking the data your company is storing and transferring, and making sure that it can be represented in that simple circles-and-arrows RDF way.
This is very simple. An important trick is that you use URIs to identify the arrows as well as the circles. Doing this homework will ensure that you have a well-defined data model, which will allow you data to be combined, merged with any other RDF-model data.
It will mean you will be able to multiply the power of separate application areas by running RDF queries and new RDF-based applications across both areas. It will mean that you will be there with talent which understands the basic model as the Semantic Web becomes all-important.
Other things to watch: SVG - Scalable Vector Graphics - at last, graphics which can be rendered optimally on all sizes of device. XML Signature will let you to digitally sign XML documents - find out how. But in general, always check out the W3C home page for what's new.
Dr. Leonard Adelman
behavioral psychologist, The Dot-Com Group
len@thedotcomgroup.com
We have to address the 'Usability Crisis." The industry has to try to make the Internet as easy as possible to use by improving the quality of the experience. According to the Boston Consulting Group, the conversion rate of users at any e-commerce site to people actually making a purchase is less than 2 percent. We are loosing billions and billions of dollars … that usability crisis is turning into lots of dollars lost. In the upcoming year more sites will be trying to adapt to user's behavior----in real time----in order to allow them to be able do their jobs online, make easier transactions, make it easier to achieve their goals. They will be working to improve that, what I call the "action image," as well as the "goal
Thursday, March 08, 2001
Happy
Halloween,
Philistine!
The first installment of the quest to find the lost lease to Utopia along the road to Mythville
By Douglas McDaniel
Mythville MetaMedia
Dear Rod Amis
Self-Published
Equal Opportunity
Webzine Editor
A.k.a The Fleet of the Damned
G21.net
“O lend me an ear while I call you a fool.
You were kissed by a witch one night in the wool.”
----Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull, from the song “Witch’s Promise,” the album, “Living in the Past”
You scum-sucking dishwasher, you wise-ass carpenter (a worthy trade for a fisher of men, but hey, if the world was perfect, what would we complain about?), you hard-boiled cynic, you Oreo cookie brother with a heart of gold, oh so soft in the middle (I see you, though I’ve never met you), you perennial river-of-a-webzine dreamer, whatever the fuck you are today, I do take offense! When you wrote “The Road to Weirdville” in your e-mail note field to me in reply to my usual “Greetings from Mythville,” you hurt and frustrated me in ways I’m barely able to explain.
I’m centered and aware, in a Gnostic way, since gnosis is to know. Not think, or hope or believe, but I have faith, I know, that what Mythville is all about is what I have to do. I have no choice. I’m sure you feel the same. I can tell you also know the signs are everywhere, if we only care to see. Magic is a witches’ trick, say some, but magic is only what the uninitiated call it. Same for science and technology. Oh, how we fear what we do not understand!
Oh, how they burn their witches here in Salem, Massachusetts! Oh yes, it’s very dangerous for me, for all of us, for that matter, at the very real front of the very real war. Now we have to wash our hands after getting our mail. Now they have closed a courthouse and a post office in Salem, just because someone sent a letter to both that stated, “You are contaminated with anthrax. Have a nice day.”
The new face of terrorism: Communication breakdown with a wicked pumpkin smile. Happy Halloween, indeed.
I tremble over a letter I sent to a loved one. I wonder if I will be arrested because I write on the envelopes, “Please wash your hands after opening,” but even if it’s the end of the world, I feel fine because that is what they need to know. Yes, I’m overly intense, yes, yes, rarely able to lighten up, as my other brother, my real brother (as opposed to you, my virtual kin) is often forced to say. But think of my as not so much funny as strange and whimsical and yes, perhaps even prophetic. O, how I hear the wheels turn in Rod’s head: pathetic. Though I’m working on being a hilarious giver these days, even takin’ my act to the very real stage (“William Blake in Cyberspace” is quite alive, yes indeed, yes indeed, in Haverhill, Massachusetts, no less, where Archie’s comix brewed family humor before the dawning of the Age of Aquarius), I’m not there yet. Not funny. Just strange. Oh lordy, lordy lo. This much is the blues hue in me that I can see. Hard to laugh in times like these.
O man, mon Amis, how you offend me. But I needed it. Always did. Always will. As William Blake wrote, “the artist and oppressor are One.”
Since this is true, then let me move on, let me spin you a web-of-a-tale. Get yourself a beer and spread the peanut butter thick. It’s a fine and fitting time for the harvester of souls, of Halloween, a fine time of year to go “boo.”
Sure, I scare people. That’s actually the best of what I do. And I do it to myself, self-same, it’s true. This is a season of bounty for me, but it’s a lunatic’s boon, especially in late October, living so close to Salem, on a hill home near the mouth of the Ipswich River. Close to Salem, where it’s been overly reported: They burn their witches here. Not much has changed since 1692.
O God, how I need a cigarette. Get the jump on Osama. Get the jump on regret.
Let me light up. There. Let me not forget. Let me blow smoke out in a shaman’s prayer. Allow me please, a muse Amis, let me summon every electronic energy bolt of fire and brimstone (We both know: The Baphomet computer is the philosopher’s stone), first wrote in old-tech script from my poison dirty pen (found so serendipitously on the ground in the harvest time of fall). Allow me to go “boo” to you, as well as those who are not so faint of heart, anyone capable of hearing a strange a mystical tale that, detail to detail, is absolutely true … in this season of moon, it will keep its mojo moving, regardless of you.
~
We are on a romantic road and the digital dashboard indicator of a red-wine beaut’ of a 2000 Mercury Mountaineer sayeth, “96 miles to empty.” The urban assault vehicle is here as a loan, a gift for just a day from the sister of my fellow traveler after her sibling departed for her wedding in Hawaii. I’m blissfully delighted at the arrival of such a pumpkin carriage. Totally surprised by the red-wine gleam and the company of a very, very tall blonde, who, of many other fine and sensual abilities, has translated Homer’s Odyssey in three different languages. She has come all of the way from the south side of Boston, about 40 miles, no less, to roam the harvest country with me at speeds both slow and fast. She has no idea what she is in for with me. Just another day in my current life in the fire leaf blazing morning glory of the North Shore. This is my romantic road. My quest, your open-heart attack arrest.
Obviously, loud tunes and gasoline gallons are required, since the maximum more of the foliage season is no time for being less; See it burn, matter turning to fire, turning to smoke, turning to cloud, the snow of winter, all to fall to the ground and begin again. The harvest time is a season to be full and wild and free. But don’t forget, in this botched and mortal coil-of-a-world, we must drive straight and thread the needle, and not for the time being leave all of my past control-freaked ladies alone. Or their ghosts. Ask not of golems. Just say no. Let the very particles of the sun charge the protective gothic gargoyles on my window sill, let the sun at dusk speak of lies and the friendly spirits, dragons, and sacred music. Let the gargoyles shiver in the very overwrought undulations of the sun, and the sun behind the sun. Even if the earth’s very vibrations shake, there is enough time to spend with a good, fair-haired witch, one free enough to brave my romantic road, a twisted, snaking string of a magical web of back roads heading to Route 101/West in New Hampshire, may oui! We are heading to where each and every license plate states, “Live free or die!” Ask not or reason why.
We are chasing ghosts of lost love. Or, at least, I am. Free wheeling nature souls, coyotes and jaguars, purring kittens behind the trees, sorcerers, sea devils, and that Beast that has returned. Nor the microbes we can’t see. That which was once gone, indeed! So bring your skull and Templar crossbones flag. This is no time to run. Bring your cross of silver as a talisman. Have courage, cowardly lion. Let your titanium heart roar. Fear nothing, nothing at all, son. Every day the devil doesn’t get us, well, that’s his mistake! Fear nothing and nothingness will run.
Fear not loss. Fear not the cops. Or the courts. Or loss, nor terror. Breathe free the air, not the fear and error in the poisoned wind. All that is folly now (you know this, of course). Fret not about state dependent on north/south routes, of woodsy back roads, swamps and thickets, thorny paths and even thornier people. Just drive Route 101, which begins (depending, sayeth Dylan, Bob, on your point of view-uuuu) on the far east end near Portsmouth, New Hampsheer, where great whalers once trimmed their sails and oars. Take a westerly route. But remember, old man, to the very end of the road toward the sun, and, into the night, we are really quite alone.
We take 133 West out of Ipswich, where the Anglican churches and Christian Science bookstores co-mingle with the remnants of the great Ipswich River seaport of long ago. It’s already past noon and the flock of cars are forming into an endless line of foliage-gaping lookiloos. As we skulk a threaded needle through this mechanic’s parade, the CD player sounds off the mood, the Tragically Hip, it is, sangin’, “The constellations reveal themselves one star at a time.”
I take notes because I feel as if I’m on a portentous road (in fact, as it turned out, me and my companion would be forever shaken by its portents). But, O, how I lose time and miss out on all of the beauty with my eye on blank paper (and your’s on this screen), my heart firing the very Promethean fire of Zeus through my pen warmed up in hell. Such a sense of loss and anxiety and a premonition that the very scythe of death is making a big all comeback this year: I guess that’s what fall in New England is all about.
When you take 113, heading toward Andover, you are enveloped in the careening psychedelia of the seaon. As I write this now, I feel winter is coming. You can see it in each and every leaf that blows across the windshield. Tiny white churches, Odd Fellows and Rotary halls, all perched alone in sharply cut acres in the woods, a vintage World War II mobile artillery machine (a convertible, maybe .50 calibre), pretty typical, all of it, in this land of God and Cannon; all of this set against a blazing backdrop of red, yellow and browning fire orange trees. Shit, will I be glad when all of this glorious instruction on the unmerciful passing of beauty is done!
That is when I can be calm again.
But, it’s time to be vigilant and wired and world weary, because once you pass the Andover reservoir (which may or may not have been poisoned by anthrax-anthrax terrorists on a fly-by), you better get ready. That’s because you have to get back on 133 again, the Andover to Haverhill east/west road, which is to say: The Freemason maze, a technological terror running through the Merrimack River Valley (the pre-colonial natives called it “Mer O Wac”). Haverhill to Andover, Andover to Haverhill, past CMGI and Lucent Technologies, past software firms in small offices intertwined with dentists and barbers’ and beauticians’ storefronts. A key word, that: front. A false front, no doubt, no maybe, may oui. The demon’s path is a copper wire of roads where the aged architecture of civilization, old as this country, old as the Crusades (which is older even), is a foundation still apparent in the great four-story Masonic Hall overlooking the Merrimack in Haverhill, in the obelisk spires that decorate the bridge crossing the river, in the Andover freemason lodge at the opposite end, but still, just off the road, almost touching it, in the very Eye of Horus that decorates the haircutter’s salon downtown.
O yes, mon Amis, the medium is the message: the quiet, all-seeing eye, our trillion-dollar-sponsored benevolent and supposedly sane security, our Public Safety Committee, our ubiquitous protector, our worldly, eye-in-the-sky overlord. Ah, how we do choke on the fumes of this everpresent background static, this electromagnetic energy. Even at the gas station, where there is a freemason compass signifier sticker on the window next to the credit card signs, it’s easy for those who haven’t lost sight of history to see. At the gas station, the Mark of the Beast didn’t actually mean that freemasons here get cheaper gas. I asked. It just means they own the place, said the woman who takes your credit card but prefers the ease of dollar bills behind the glass, said the woman who is restricted from irrational and impossible me, overly rational you.
They own the place, indeed!
When you log on to the freemason commuter maze with your metallic key, left is right, up is down, and U.S. 495 goes west when the sign says south. Not much different, this disorienting ghost in the machine, than the sense of dislocation created in casinos and shopping malls. The magician’s trick, O man behind the curtain, is to disorder our hearts with disinformation intended to keep us from being still long enough to even know who we are, or, where we came from: nature. All of it forces us to be so dependent upon the big cement swamp of man that we will have nothing left to do but desire, nothing left to do but shop, nothing left to do but drive to our homes and businesses and back again for our very survival.
Thank this pseudo god for TV!
O, mon Amis, now here is a warning for all of this Promethean potpourri: Get out while you can. Be not of this world. And please, O please, wash your hands. Best to get out of there, out of Metheun, Andover, and especially out of Lawrence, where the satanic mills are a thing once gone that’s now returned. Yes, indeed. Yes, indeed. A magician’s techno dance and trick, I say, best to get out of there, lickity split. Use your Bible, or, just use your wit.
So take 495 south to go west, moving past Jack Kerouac’s bluesy Lowell train depot, perhaps even his soul, and then point it north on Route 3 into New Hampshire … O muse Amis … (This news flash: comin’ in just as I write, the woman who is with me on this long and strange trip has informed me that “you are insane. Don’t call.” Then, a day later, tells me that she has had a dream that I died. This much I know. This much we shall overcome: All prophecy, though self-fulfilled in the over-marketed till, is both a proof of God and a demon trickster’s lie!)
We make it to the entry of Route 101 West, in Bedford, New Hampsheer. This is the actual beginning of my romantic road and guess what? The entryway to one of the most glorious back roads in America is guarded by one of the heaviest contingent outposts of the U.S. Calvary. I mean, um, New Hampshire staties that I have ever seen. When I first started driving on this road in my red Nissan truck, my mighty steed, five years ago, I got three traffic tickets in one day. Gawd, how the land of “Live Free or Die!” digs its law enforcement. Back then, I tried to thread their needle (news flash: This just in. Some discordian trickster has thrown a bag of an unknown white powder at the Haverhill Beef outlet, lodged in the Freemason Lodge, and Hazmat is now testing the substance for anthrax. It’s air that I’m breathing, even as I write and speak my heart, so we will see, we will se. Oh, in this air age of the overlord, fear is thy food and thine enemy), driving this road because I have no choice, in order to find work, and also help Coyote, my girlfriend at the time, who I called Esha Na Glese, a Apache phrase meaning “Changing Woman,” establish an art gallery down this very romantic road. But no, the everpresent agents of Urizen could not let me go. O no, O no, O Lordy Lordy Lo …
Douglas McDaniel is a freelance writer, poet, playwright, philosopher and multi-divorced fuck-up currently living in Ipswich, Mass., but later on, who knows? What we do know is this: he has a new book of poetry, “The Road to Mythville,” at iuniverse.com. Other evidence of his passage can be found at http://mythville.blogspot.com/ or the much-recommended http://kachinason.blogspot.com/. He can e-mailed, for as long as we have electricity, at dlmtel@yahoo.com. Tell him muse Amis sent ya.
The Cyber Sages
of Synchroncity
Jon Katz
Slashdot.org
jonkatz@slashdot.org
I guess the open source idea is the biggest idea currently coming off of the Internet, the one that will most directly impact on education, politics, business and entertainment. The liberating of information digitally is the single most important and transformative happening in the modern history of information, past the printing press. The net is an open medium, the openness built into its architecticture. This sets up an enormous conflict...between cultural forces that are open and distributive and those that are proprietary and closed. The music fight is just round one, and it isn't clear yet who's won. The ones to follow -- involving openness and politics, education, media -- will really be hummers.
Nana Naisbitt
Co-author of "High Tech High Touch"
with John Naisbitt
Smithsonian Research Collaborator
Writing book called "Dinosaurs in Your Back Yard"
nana@naisbitt.com
While debates promise to rage through this year and beyond over the Internet's disruption of traditionally protected intellectual property rights, another quieter revolution is taking place. Taxonomy, the explorer's science of new species discovery still steeped in Victorian Age practices, is finally embracing 20th century technology. The International Code of Nomenclature has approved the publication of new species online, dropping the formal requirement of hard-copy print publication, enabling taxonomists to publish their discoveries in real time. This relaxed policy, coupled with an audacious initiative by the All Species Foundation to discover and name all the species on earth within the next 25 years, will send detailed species Web pages online at an accelerating clip. With only 1.7 million species named to date, and another 100 million yet to be found, there will be no end to voyeuristic discovery and wonder at 4 billion years of evolution.
Douglas Rushkoff
Author of "Coercion," "Media Virus," "Playing the Future," "Ecstasy Club," and the upcoming novel, "Bull"
The big story of 2001 will be that, in spite of the dot.com debacle, the Internet----the real Internet----will have been chugging along quite splendidly the whole time. Sure, a huge number of businesspeople used the word "Internet" as the rationale behind an even greater number of pyramid schemes. And yes, most of those schemes collapsed as surely as any Ponzie will. But while the Internet's role as a public relations strategy for the NASDAQ exchange will have been deemed a failure, the people developing and using the greatest technological infrastructure yet devised by our civilization will have continued to network, exchange information, and develop new ways for people to communicate across boundaries that once seemed impassable. The Internet as an investment vehicle will be superceded by its original function as an interpersonal facilitator.
Cecilia Pagkalinawan
CEO and founder of BoutiqueY3K.com, New York City
Much of the growth and reach of the Internet will slow down in 2001 while sectors such as government, corporations, and investors regroup and review their strategies. With the investment slowdown, R&D and innovation will be hurt tremendously and not many new products will be developed. Culturally, the Internet will grow to be more powerful as more and more people, particularly the youth culture, embrace the Internet as their primary method of communication and source of information.
At the end of 2001, what will stand as the big event(s) of the year? I hate to say this, but more of the train wreck we're experiencing right now will occur in 2001. After the extensive damages which will occur with companies shutting down and employees losing their jobs, we'll see an older but wiser industry that will continue to grow and flourish, but in a more tempered and humbled way.
Mark Hurst
Founder and president of CreativeGood.com, an e-commerce research and consultancy based in New York City
Two Thousand and One will be the year that Internet users begin to feel some information overload. People will receive more and more e-mail (including "spam" and other annoying promotional e-mails) and will find it difficult to sift through thousands of irrelevant website search results. At work, many people will find more and more digital files and folders awaiting their attention. The spread of cell phones, Palm Pilots, and other "bit devices" will make life even more complicated for people trying to get online.
Users will demand a simpler online experience, as they have for years, but 2001 will be when they yearn for "less information". Personally, I hope that in 2001 I'll help companies learn that "less is more" when it comes to bits and other digital information.
Andres Heuberger
CEO of fxtrans.com, a Web site localization firm which deals with issues of translating sites to meet international language and legal standards
The U.S. role in the world will diminish as the Web expands internationally. Non-English Web sites used to be the exception. During 2001, they will become the rule.
As U.S. companies launch an intensive fight to win the minds and pocketbooks of consumers whose first language is not English, the Web will shift from being a primarily English medium to one where non-English content dominates.
This breakneck transformation will benefit corporations as well as consumers:
---- More multilingual sites will improve the user experience for consumers worldwide and allow organizations to provide better support to international customers.
----As English loses its position as the lingua franca of the Internet, this strengthened language support will enhance the flow of information across borders, cultures, and languages.
----Improvements in the areas of foreign currency conversions and international fulfillment will support language efforts and help companies expand global ecommerce opportunities
In 2001, the Internet is finally breaking out of its English-only, U.S.-centric cocoon.
Esther Dyson
founder of Edventures Holdings, an Internet investment and incubation firm, and Chairman of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) the organization now responsible for administering the domain name assignment system
One significant event of 2000 is the selection of seven new genericTop-Level Domains to add to the Domain Name System. In addition to .com, .net and .org, we will soon have .biz, .info, .museum, .aero, .coop, .name and .pro, reducing the artificial scarcity of the current system. The benefits are more "space" in the Domain Name System ---- call it the Net's real estate ---- and more competition among the TLDs. Ultimately, that should provide better services, and better quality. Now you can register your business's name in .biz, or if you're a doctor or lawyer, you can register in .pro. Museums get .museum, and so forth. Over time, I hope that there will be many more, and that the role of ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers), which chose them, will diminish. Competition is a better regulator than any single agency ever could be.
Daryhl Stultz
MIS IT Guide
About.com
I see the wireless internet trend continuing and expanding in 2001. This is good news for the wireless companies that furnish the air time and devices; it is bad news for the internet content companies----there just is no profit in providing all of those stock quotes, weather and sports scores for free. There is no room on the screens of the WAP phones and wireless PDAs for advertising.
I think 2001 will be the year of the WebPad wireless devices. The form factor is perfect----they are the size of the writing tablets that we all carry and use. With their large touchscreens and wireless portablility, we can use them in meetings, while watching TV from our favorite recliner or out by poolside.
Honeywell debuted a WebPad at Comdex based on the National Seminconductor specification and processor. It uses a short-range radio base station that allows fast web surfing within 150 feet. The base station can handle up to eight WebPads, making it perfect for home use----mom, dad and the kids can each have their own unit and all can surf and send/receive email at the same time. It includes a mini-version of a word processor and a USB port for external keyboard and mouse.
By 2002, we hopefully will begin to see WebPads that connect directly to our ISPs instead of being tethered to the 150-foot base station.
Len Bullard
Computer Scientist
Contributor G21.net
Other strange and inscrutable associations
It gets weirder every day and because we learned nothing from Zorba the
Greek, we just don't know when to "let go of the rope."
The kids get it.
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/10/23/1521250&mode=thread
They are even smart enough to use the FBI UCR reports. They know where the feedback loops are to policy. Is anyone listening? I know the UCR well.
NIBRS is the replacement model and it is national and being installed in
more police stations every day. What do we say about that model? The kids
know it is there. Do you? Do you think you should care as long as the
professionals who design it and apply it are competent? What is thoughtful
action and what is habit, Mr. Chips?
Oh we can be as weird as we think we are, put on trench coats, take up
arms, chill our parents and the kids on the playground next to us, but for
how long? Kids soon find just as my generation found that we need certain
things and we trade big freedoms for little securities. Yet, the evil we
fear becomes the thump on the annealing pot of societal metal. It whips us,
beats us, makes us write bad checks. All the while, every time two
opposites collide, a control emerges. That is how emergent behavior works.
I don't fear the credit system and what "they say." I was an entertainer
and a theater geek before I became a computer scientist. I learned to
control the appearance, ride the syncopation of language, and master the
curl in the wave where the fast ride is. "It's all for the show, ya know"
Ol' ScratchJagger told us. I use the system. I like the system. It suits my
purpose. Who chooses my purpose? I do.
Can I escape the system?
Well, "Do you know exactly how to eat an Oreo?"
Pat Gelsinger
Chief Technology Officer and Vice President
Intel Architecture Group
The year 2001 may see the emergence peer-to-peer computing models on the Internet in new and innovative ways. With peer-to-peer computing home or business computers are collectively linked together via the Internet to tackle massive data crunching challenges. For businesses this means more efficient uses of their computer equipment investments. And for consumers this means a wide array of new services for media distribution and sharing content with family and friends. Consumers may even dedicate computing power and/or file storage space of the PC they use only a percentage of the day to make meaningful contributions to programs and causes such as their local schools, foundations or research efforts. A great pioneering example that's been around for a number of years is the famous SETI project that pools the resources of thousands of PCs around the world. For additional information, here is an August press release on Peer-to-Peer: http://www.intel.com/pressroom/archive/releases/cn082400.htm
Mike Rosen
CEO and President 2Ce Inc.
www.2Ce.com
In 1994 Netscape radically changed the Internet by giving what has been
previously only a text-based environment a visual interface. By using the
page metaphor as a design guideline, the Internet became a visual electronic
magazine that could bring pictures and links to everyone's desktop. This was
a major shift in how the Internet functioned and how it would evolve over the next six years.
This year, the big news is convergence, or the coming together of all
electronic devices to what will eventually be one small wearable or handheld
gismo, that will have all the functionality of the cell phone, PDA, and
computer. While this is truly a significant accomplishment, in my opinion it
will be overshadowed by the Internet discovering the 3rd dimension.
Several companies have been experimenting with three dimensional interfaces to the Internet, and now, with the increase of bandwidth some will become practical. What the third dimension will do to the Internet is hard to
predict, but it will definitely change the metaphor from the "page" to the
"space." Having the ability to navigate into the "z" dimension will create
information and entertainment content akin to video game environments.
Our company 2ce Inc. is committed to the concept that more efficient
information transfer and a fun browsing metaphor will revolutionize how
people interact with all the rich content that exists and that will exist as
a result of the Internet becoming 3D.
Howard Rheingold
hlr@well.com
http://www.rheingold.com
Webcam: http://www.vcbconsulting.com/users/oinkfest
Democracy is not just about voting. It's about citizens who are literate enough, free enough, and have the means to discuss the issues that concern us. In the age of mass media, only those wealthy politicians who had the money to buy advertising had the power to influence others. Now, the Internet makes every desktop computer a printing press, broadcasting station, and place of assembly. Millions of people join email groups, chat rooms, and bulletin boards to have social discussions about issues that concern them. But the popular media have not sufficiently publicized or explained the social uses of the Internet, so it has been confined to the millions of pioneers and early adopters. Now, however, the use of the Internet for social communication is becoming more widely known. The next step is for people to learn to use these media as citizens.
Erik Davis
Author of "Techgnosis: Myth, Magic & Imagination in the Age of Information," www.levity.com/techgnosis, contributing editor to Feed www.feedmag.com, and Wired magazine
Where the action is going to be is what happens as the network extends into physical space. The presence of robotic servants, information available by a touch of a sensor, the wireless Web crossing through physical space … cyberspace used to be this other place you went to, but you would not really be there.
Now that whole world is feeding back into the material world, and it's going everywhere, through your cell phone, your hand-held device, Palm Pilot and so on. It's all just an operation of people pursuing immediate goals out of basic activities. But we are building this hyper-dimensional virtual city that we really don't know is there. Where does my world stop, and where does the other world begin----all of those boundaries are becoming more and more fluid. As this stuff becomes more permeable, and one the thing we lose is a certain kind of silence. We lose solitude.
In not much time, people in the developed world will find that time spent offline will be increasingly valuable. People will say, more and more, 'Hey, I'm going offline for the weekend.'
Wayne Madsen
Electronic Information Privacy Center
Senior Fellow
Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC)
Washington, DC
www.epic.org
The growing demand for on-line privacy will dominate technical, legal, and cultural issues involving the Internet. A number of polls, including a recent Gallup poll, illustrate that Americans are equally concerned about corporate and government snooping into their electronic mail, transactions, and other Internet usage.
A deadlocked Congress and an initial weakened Presidency will mean that Americans will see little in the way of meaningful privacy legislation, even though a number of successful congressional candidates ran on promises to increase privacy protections. However, a presidency that may be seen by an inflamed sector of Internet-savvy Americans as illegitimate could mean an increase in the use of government Internet surveillance programs, particularly the e-mail snooping system known as Carnivore. That may be the biggest event at the end of the year and it will further widen the gulf between the government and cyberlibertarians.
The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) will meticulously track and report on all privacy developments throughout 2001."
Dr. Julian Lombardi, Ph. D.
www.Vios.com
Founder, Chairman & Chief Creative Officer
In 2001, we will see the first "Post-Browser Internet" applications. A new wave of Internet visualization technologies----combining rich interfaces, better organization of information, and powerful applications----will rise to challenge the flat, browser-based Internet we see today.
The way individuals use, 'see' and access digital information today is in large part a function of technology limitations that existed years ago when the browser became the dominant means of viewing the Internet. As new, advanced technologies - faster processors, powerful video cards, broadband connections - become ubiquitous, we'll see a dramatic shift in the way people interact with the digital world and with each other.
'Post-Browser' interfaces will make it possible to compress information into a visual experience in a way that people can understand. In short: a picture is worth at least a thousand words. Hardware and software advances will lead to the development and adoption of visual browser alternatives----3D Internet environments that far surpass anything that has previously existed on the Web.
The limitations of the Web page-based 'browser' and the clumsiness of today's search engines have already become clear to many. The current movement to whittle down the Internet into a search engine, start page or mobile phone screen will be challenged by advanced, rich, "sticky" new interfaces that make it easy and fun for people to navigate the vast Internet landscape. Do you really think the mobile phone screen can replace the PC and provide a satisfying, fun, powerful Internet experience? No.
And these new applications will not only help users get more from their online experience. They will deliver new ways for businesses to stand out from the crowd. Businesses tired of largely ineffective and increasingly expensive banner advertising will seek out----and find----new, exciting alternatives in the "Post-Browser" environment.
There's a fundamental flaw in today's Internet----a limited, out-dated, flat interface that can't handle the explosive growth in information volume or technical capability. A vast, largely untapped wealth of information, social interaction and community is out there. New interfaces will help people get more out of their Internet experience. In 2001, software innovators will begin unleashing applications that will transform the way the Internet looks and works.
Jeff Einstein
Director of Interactive North America
RappDigital
New York
Regarding major technical shifts: More often than not, technological innovations precede the business models that ultimately dictate their application. Accordingly, innovations in wireless, pervasive computing, and ITV will continue to accelerate while media franchises trail behind in pursuit of related and appropriate ROI models. The year 2001 will also see accelerated movement away from server log analysis tools to ASP service models -- with existentially secure content----wherein each content element is tagged and reports directly to a central datamart for cyberanalysis. Content tagging represents a shift away from the destination dot com model and concurrent movement towards a more appropriate content syndication model with significant ROI and cyberanalytic implications.
Re legal/cultural shifts ...
The shift from the destination dot com model to syndication also
parallels a shift away from the branded advertising model to more accountable ROI-based, data-driven models. Content producers will now not only be liable for content that appears on their sites, but for content that is syndicated across thousands of sites as well----with clear legal and cultural
implications.The role of content also changes within the syndication
model.Whereas the primary function of content within the branded ad
model is to provide a suitable environment for branded ad messages, the
content in an interactive syndication environment must also serve to collect
valuable data for future analysis and optimization. Moreover, the data-driven syndication model raises serious privacy issues. The more information we request, the greater our obligation to deal ethically with the resulting data. Privacy issues, however, will likely take a back seat to consumer convenience----as always.
Tim Berners-Lee
w3.org
You probably have a lot of people using XML by now. You should have someone looking at the next level----RDF. Tell them not to worry about the syntax, but check out the model. This is a question of looking the data your company is storing and transferring, and making sure that it can be represented in that simple circles-and-arrows RDF way.
This is very simple. An important trick is that you use URIs to identify the arrows as well as the circles. Doing this homework will ensure that you have a well-defined data model, which will allow you data to be combined, merged with any other RDF-model data.
It will mean you will be able to multiply the power of separate application areas by running RDF queries and new RDF-based applications across both areas. It will mean that you will be there with talent which understands the basic model as the Semantic Web becomes all-important.
Other things to watch: SVG - Scalable Vector Graphics - at last, graphics which can be rendered optimally on all sizes of device. XML Signature will let you to digitally sign XML documents - find out how. But in general, always check out the W3C home page for what's new.
Dr. Leonard Adelman
behavioral psychologist, The Dot-Com Group
len@thedotcomgroup.com
We have to address the 'Usability Crisis." The industry has to try to make the Internet as easy as possible to use by improving the quality of the experience. According to the Boston Consulting Group, the conversion rate of users at any e-commerce site to people actually making a purchase is less than 2 percent. We are loosing billions and billions of dollars … that usability crisis is turning into lots of dollars lost. In the upcoming year more sites will be trying to adapt to user's behavior----in real time----in order to allow them to be able do their jobs online, make easier transactions, make it easier to achieve their goals. They will be working to improve that, what I call the "action image," as well as the "goal