c0wb0yz Lives !

"The technium can be understood as a way of structuring information beyond biology. Foremost among..."

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 09:41:45 +0100

“The technium can be understood as a way of structuring information beyond biology. Foremost among all inventions is language, and its kin writing, which introduced a parallel set of symbol strings to those found in DNA. But the grammar and syntax of language far outstrips the flexibility of the genetic code. Literary inventions like the book index, punctuation, cross-references, and alphabetic order permitted incredibly complex structures within words; printing broadcast them. Calendars and other scripts captured abstractions such as time, or music. The invention of the scientific method in the 17th century was a series of deepening organizational techniques. Data was first measured, then recorded, analyzed, forecasted and disseminated. The wide but systematic exchange of information via wires, radio waves and society meetings upped the complexity of information flowing through the technium. Innovations in communications (phonograph, telegraph, television) sped up the rate of coordination, and also added new levels of systemization. The invention of paper was a more permanent memory device than the brain; photographic film even better. Cheap digital chips lowered the barrier for storing ephemeral information, further intensifying the density of information. Highly designed artifacts and materials are atoms stuffed with layers of complex information. The most mechanical superstructures we’ve ever built - say skyscrapers, or the Space Shuttle, or the Hadron Supercollider — are giant physical manifestations of incredibly structured information. There are many more hours of design poured into them than hours in manufacturing. Finally, the two greatest inventions in the last 25 years, the link and the tag, have woven new levels of complexity into the web of information. The technium of today reflects 8,000 years of almost daily incremental increases in its embedded knowledge.”

- “Extropy” par Kevin Kelly sur The Technium (August 29th, 2009)

"The perceived divisions between types of knowledge, between levels of knowing, and between..."

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 04:41:46 +0100

“The perceived divisions between types of knowledge, between levels of knowing, and between distinctions in our own standing in the universe are all being steadily leveled by the advance of the technium. Bit by bit technology illuminates the continuum that connects everything. In the usual self-amplifying circle of upcreation, each advance in knowledge also facilitates new inventions, unleashing yet more revealing technology. While our system of science can increase ignorance faster than it can increase knowledge (see the Expansion of Ignorance), new instruments amplify our ways of seeing and powers of systemic thinking. New tools fatten our collective memory and deepen our understanding. Just as the technium is currently in the process of connecting all humans to each other (via the internet), and all devices to each other (ditto), it is also in the process of connecting each idea to all other ideas, so that there is a one unified body of knowledge. Over the long haul, as the technium becomes more complex, accelerated and sentient, technology tends toward consilience.”

- “The Fifth and Sixth Discontinuity” par Kevin Kelly sur The Technium (June 15th, 2009)

"It was not until we invented telescopes and mathematics that we could peer way past the Earth and..."

Sun, 08 Nov 2009 23:41:45 +0100

“It was not until we invented telescopes and mathematics that we could peer way past the Earth and see that it was not at the center of a revolving universe. It was not until we invented digital computation and could replicate life processes on intangible computer software that we realized that intelligence and life are not tangible. It was not until we devised sophisticated atom smashers that we began to perceive the true otherworldliness of our material world. Lasers, electron guns, charged coupler sensors, electronic chips – all these technologies made quantum mechanics visible. And once the quantum realm was visible, the paradoxes of the subjective mattered. Thus, through the medium of advanced tools, we saw a continuum where discontinuities had been seen before. In this way, as we expand the technium, upping our knowledge, we continually remove discontinuities in our perceptions.”

- “The Fifth and Sixth Discontinuity” par Kevin Kelly sur The Technium (June 15th, 2009)

"Their choice of minimal technology adoption is a choice — but a choice enabled by the..."

Sun, 08 Nov 2009 18:40:50 +0100

“Their choice of minimal technology adoption is a choice — but a choice enabled by the technium. Their lifestyle is within the technium, not outside it. As I encourage new technologies I am working for the Amish, and Leon, and the minimite homesteaders. So is anyone who is inventing, discovering, and expanding possibilities. In our ceaseless collective generation of new technologies, we technology boosters can invent more appropriate tools for minimalism, even though they are not doing that for us. Nonetheless, the Amish and minimites have something important to teach us about selecting what we embrace. I don’t want a lot of devices that add maintenance chores to my life without adding real benefits. I do want to be slow to embrace technology that I can back out of. I don’t want stuff that closes off options to others (like weapons). And I do want the minimum because I’ve learned that I have limited time or attention. I think I can put it this way: What we are seeking is the minimum amount of technology that will generate the maximum number of options for all.”

- “Why Technology Can’t Fulfill” par Kevin Kelly sur The Technium (June 26th, 2009)

Kevin Kelly ne partage pas du tout le rapport des Amish à la technologie comme on peut s’en apercevoir un peu plus loin dans le même article :

We expand technology to find out who we are. The Amish find incredible contentment in their enactment of a fixed human nature. This deep human contentment is real, visceral, renewable, and so attractive that Amish numbers are doubling every generation. But I believe the Amish and minimites have not, and can not, really discover who they are. They trade discovery for contentment. In their deliberate constraint of technology they optimize an alluring combination of leisure, comfort, and certainty over the optimization of uncertain possibilities - which is what the technium optimizes.

… mais, alors qu’il aurait été si facile de les ridiculiser, il prend non seulement soin de les comprendre, mais aussi de tirer les leçons de leur technophobie pour vivre plus sagement sa technophilie. Une belle marque d’intelligence.

"[The Amish] see most of the promises of freedoms from increased technology as illusionary. In their..."

Sun, 08 Nov 2009 13:41:00 +0100

“[The Amish] see most of the promises of freedoms from increased technology as illusionary. In their eyes, technology generates fake choices, meaningless options, or real choices that are really entrapments. This is an argument worth exploring because there is some truth in it. The technium is an autonomous system that tends to favor choices by humans that expand its own reach, which can feel like a type of entrapment. And many choices we make don’t matter. But the evidence that the technium expands real choices is voluminous. Throughout history there is a one-way march from the farm to the bustling choices of the city. That steady migration is going on today at a shocking rate; More than two million people per day decide they prefer the options that modern technology life offers, so they flee the constrained choices in a picturesque and comforting village somewhere. They can’t all be bewitched. It would be a powerful spell to fool 50% of the people living on this planet. Those million urban migrants per day have enrolled into the technium for the same reason you have (and you have if you are reading this): to increase your choices. To increase your chances of unleashing your full potential. Perhaps someday someone will invent a tool that is made just for your special combination of hidden talents. Or perhaps you will make your own tool. Most importantly, and unlike the Amish and minimites, you may invent a tool which will help unleash the fullest of someone else. Our call is not only to discover our fullest selves in the technium, but to expand the possibilities for others. We have a moral obligation to increase the amount of technology in the world in order to increase the number of possibilities for the most people. Greater technology will selfishly unleash us, but it will also unselfishly unleash others, our children and all to come.”

- “Why Technology Can’t Fulfill” par Kevin Kelly sur The Technium (June 26th, 2009)

"We have domesticated our humanity as much as we have domesticated our horses. Our human nature is a..."

Sun, 08 Nov 2009 08:41:47 +0100

“We have domesticated our humanity as much as we have domesticated our horses. Our human nature is a malleable crop that we planted 50,000 years ago, and continue to garden even today. The field of our nature has never been static. We know that genetically our bodies are changing faster now than at any time in the past million years. Our minds are being rewired by our culture. With no exaggeration, and no metaphor, we are not the same people who first started to plow 10,000 years ago. The snug interlocking system of horse and buggy, wood fire cooking, compost gardening, and minimal industry may be perfectly fit for a human nature — of an ancient agrarian epoch. I call this devotion to a traditional being “selfish” because it ignores the way in which our nature — our wants, desires, fears, primeval instincts, and loftiest aspirations — are being recast by ourselves, by our inventions, and it excludes the needs of our new natures. There are many traditionalists who deny this shift, and who hold our nature is unchanging; from the perspective of an individual, or even a generation, it looks that way. But for anyone raised by a modern culture crammed with ubiquitous writing, communication technology, science, pervasive entertainment, travel, surplus food, abundant nutrition, and new possibilities every day, we are different beings than our ancestors. We think different. That should be no surprise because our personas are dictated beyond our genetics. More than our hunter-gatherer ancestors we are shaped by the accumulating wisdom, practices, traditions, and culture of our all those who’ve lived before us and live with us. At the same time our genes are racing. And we are speeding the acceleration of those genes by several means, from medical interventions to gene therapy, and then racing our culture with computers and wires as well. In fact every trend of the technium — especially its increasing evolvability — point to more rapid change of human nature in the future.”

- “Why Technology Can’t Fulfill” par Kevin Kelly sur The Technium (June 26th, 2009)

"The origins of the Wired generation and the laid-back, long-hair computer culture (think open..."

Sun, 08 Nov 2009 03:41:51 +0100

“The origins of the Wired generation and the laid-back, long-hair computer culture (think open source) lay in the hippies of the 70s. As Stewart Brand, hippy founder of the Whole Earth Catalog remembers, ” ‘Do your own thing’ easily translated into ‘Start your own business’.” I’ve lost count of the hundreds of individuals I personally know who left communes to eventually start hi-tech companies in Silicon Valley. It’s almost a cliche by now — barefoot to billionaire, a la Steve Jobs. The hippies of the previous generation did not remain in their Amish-like mode because as satisfying and attractive as the work in those communities were, the siren of choices was more attractive. The hippies left the farm for the same reason the young have always left: the possibilities leveraged by technology beckon all night and day. In retrospect we might say the hippies left for the same reason Thoreau left his Walden; they came and then left to experience life to its fullest. Volunteer simplicity is a possibility, an option, a choice that one should experience for a least part of one’s life, not the least to help you sort out your technology priorities. But in my observation simplicity’s fullest potential requires that one consider it one phase of many (even if a recurring phase as is meditation or the Sabbath). In the past decade a new generation of minimites has arisen, and they are now urban homesteading — living lightly in cities, supported by adhoc communities of like-minded homesteaders. They are trying to have both, the Amish satisfaction of intense mutual aid and hand labor, and the ever cascading choices of a city.”

- “Why Technology Can’t Fulfill” par Kevin Kelly sur The Technium (June 26th, 2009)

En résumé : “From low-tech to high-choice”

"Other aspects of Wikipedia’s history are vividly described but lack discerning intellectual..."

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 22:41:45 +0100

“Other aspects of Wikipedia’s history are vividly described but lack discerning intellectual treatment. Lih sheds little light on the “routinization” of the charismatic and ultimately benevolent authority of Jimmy Wales, how that authority evolved into a vast bureaucratic apparatus with a Kafkaesque system of rules. And while Lih notes user ambivalence toward voting, he leaves it largely unexplained. The attitude seems to have grown from an earlier Wiki culture developed by Meatball Wiki, one of the projects preceding and inspiring Wikipedia. The meatballers saw voting as an unnecessary distraction. “Don’t vote on everything, and if you can help it, don’t vote on anything,” read one page on the site. Wikipedia’s elders adopted those views, realizing that voting could be easily gamed and should not be used often. Instead they settled on a kind of enlightened autocracy: ordinary users would express their views on an issue, after which the more powerful administrators would interpret the vox populi and make a decision. Most of the time, consensus would emerge early on, and the decision was easy; however, as Wikipedia began attracting relatively diverse crowds of editors, achieving consensus grew more difficult. Voting opportunities were further reduced as articles became higher-ranked on Google. A high Google rank means more exposure, which led to more vote-rigging. No longer would there be “votes for deletion,” merely “articles for deletion,” which Wikipedians would discuss. A disinterested administrator would gauge the consensus and make a final decision. For a site that wants to democratize and revolutionize access to knowledge, such a conservative stance on voting seems puzzling and worth studying in detail, but Lih does not explore this incongruity. There is no guarantee that a more democratic Wikipedia would survive, but it would be interesting to investigate why users so quickly and confidently opted for consensus- rather than voting-driven decision-making.”

- “Edit This Page” par Evgeny Morozov sur Boston Review (November / December 2009)

"Sur ce terrain des valeurs, Patrick Buisson est à son aise. Avec un père Action française et..."

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 17:41:45 +0100

“Sur ce terrain des valeurs, Patrick Buisson est à son aise. Avec un père Action française et ingénieur EDF acquis aux idées de Charles Maurras, le jeune Buisson a grandi dans le « national-catholicisme » cher au penseur d’extrême droite. « Je suis pour la séparation de l’Eglise et de l’Etat, corrige l’homme qui, voyant nos demandes répétées d’interview échouer dans sa boîte mail, tient finalement à préciser : Deux choses pour vous éviter quelques erreurs d’approche : je suis un catholique de tradition. Je ne me range ni du côté des intégristes ni du côté des progressistes. Je n’apprécie ni les fossiles ni les invertébrés. »”

- “Patrick Buisson, conseiller très à droite du Président” sur Télérama.fr (November 6th, 2009)

Louis C.K. invité du Late Night with Conan O’Brien avec un...

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 15:41:00 +0100

Louis C.K. invité du Late Night with Conan O’Brien avec un sketch qu’on pourrait résumer par : “So Amazing, But Nobody is Happy”.

"Cuteness is also creeping into our language. At Urban Dictionary, a wiki site packed A to Z with new..."

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 14:58:46 +0100

“Cuteness is also creeping into our language. At Urban Dictionary, a wiki site packed A to Z with new slang posted by its users, you can find huge swaths of screen space devoted to words rooted in cuteness. The definitions and examples give you the feeling that America’s bootstrap toughness is heading into the sunset. There are the annoying standby words used by adult bloggers in otherwise serious posts, such as “awwww” and “yay.” There is also the word “cutegasm,” which an Urban Dictionary user has defined as “the reaction one feels when being exposed to something overly cute. this may be an emotional, physical or even sexual response.” Here’s the example: “When Holly saw the baby trying to dance, she had a cutegasm.””

- “Addicted to Cute” par Jim Windolf Cuteness sur vanityfair.com (December 2009)

En voiture, Simone, pour un Cologne - Bonn sur les chapeaux de...

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 12:58:00 +0100

En voiture, Simone, pour un Cologne - Bonn sur les chapeaux de roues, qui n’est pas sans rappeler la mythique traversée de Paris de Claude Lelouch en 1976 dans “C’était un rendez-vous”.

Bande originale : “8th Wonder” par Gossip (Music for Men, 2009)

Secret Knock Detecting Lock (via Roukie)

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 23:08:45 +0100

Secret Knock Detecting Lock (via Roukie)

"Comme toute personne n’ayant pas la chance de pouvoir supporter une équipe en permanence au..."

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 21:08:47 +0100

“Comme toute personne n’ayant pas la chance de pouvoir supporter une équipe en permanence au sommet, Hollande a multiplier d’autres amours footballistiques. Et là, ça frise le n’importe quoi: «Je suis resté attaché à Monaco, depuis l’époque Henry-Trézéguet et qu’il y a eu de belles équipes, même si la ville n’est pas franchement un symbole de foot démocratique. Et puis j’aime bien Guy Lacombe…» Et d’enchaîner, le sourire aux lèvres: «J’aime aussi le FC Nantes et l’En-avant Guingamp. Au final, dès que je m’intéresse à un club, il chute».”

- “François Hollande, l’autre vision du football” sur Tertulia sporting club (November 5th, 2009)

"There are signs that Jobs has inculcated the troops enough to last awhile without him. “The..."

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 17:29:45 +0100

“There are signs that Jobs has inculcated the troops enough to last awhile without him. “The organization has been thoroughly trained to think like Steve,” says someone with contacts among the Apple executive team. “That’s why the six months went so smoothly. People could envision, ‘This is what Steve would do.’” Jobs, in fact, inspires far beyond Apple. Larry Page and Sergey Brin recently told The New Yorker that Jobs is their hero. When Jeff Bezos released Amazon.com’s smooth, shiny Kindle 2, the Jobs envy was obvious. Venture capitalist Marc Andreessen, who co-founded Netscape, says he often evokes Jobs in his advice to entrepreneurs. He says, “The threshold for the release of the first product should be, ‘What would Steve Jobs do?’” Looking out on the next decade, Jobs may well be asking himself a variation of that very question: After creating more than $150 billion in shareholder wealth, transforming movies, telecom, music, and computing (and profoundly influencing the worlds of retail and design), what should Steve Jobs do next? Given his penchant for secrecy and surprise and his proven brilliance, it’s a fair bet that he’ll let us know when he’s good and ready.”

- “The decade of Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple” par Adam Lashinsky et Doris Burke sur CNN (November 5th, 2009) (via ATestu)

Origami for beginners (via maique)

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 15:29:45 +0100

Origami for beginners (via maique)

MacDo + Fries + Free Wifi = YAMMY!

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 07:03:00 +0100

MacDo + Fries + Free Wifi = YAMMY!

"Je devais avoir 13 ans. Pour la première fois de ma vie, j’allais franchir nos frontières et..."

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 05:02:46 +0100

“Je devais avoir 13 ans. Pour la première fois de ma vie, j’allais franchir nos frontières et rejoindre un correspondant en Angleterre. Je me souviens de l’unique recommandation de mon père, que je respectai scrupuleusement une fois sur place : « Souviens-toi que tu seras là-bas l’image de la France : c’est elle qu’on jugera à travers toi ».”

- “Identité nationale ou de l’urgence d’en débattre” par Xavier Darcos sur Des idées d’abord (November 5th, 2009)

"Technology is that which is produced by a mind — any mind: animal, machine or alien. When we created..."

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 03:01:56 +0100

“Technology is that which is produced by a mind — any mind: animal, machine or alien. When we created the technology of writing, we gladly extended our memory onto paper, making ourselves smarter. But in turn the alphabets we invented changed how our minds worked. Because our inventions can reach back into our brains, and essentially transform our minds into another one of our inventions, our inventions are more powerful than our minds. In this way technology can circle back into its origins, becoming its own child. The force of this uroborous is incomparable. There is no nuclear energy, fusion, plasma bolt, black hole, white dwarf, cosmic nebula anywhere in the universe that can uplift itself in the way that technology can. For certain there will be further evolutions of the technium. The great story that begins with the big bang and bootstraps itself up into persistent evolving systems that keep building up more complex systems will certainly keep going. First persistently dynamic planets hatch life, which uplifts itself to make minds, which then uplifts itself to make technology. Technology will uplift itself to create the next level of extropy. But it will continue the same arc. The same big history. Whatever technology evolves into, it will carry on in the direction it has been headed so far for the past 14 billion years: towards greater complexity, diversity, specialization, ubiquity, socialization, consilience, energy density, and sentience. A future meta-technology will be unrecognizable on its face, but fundamentally continue these trends.”

- “The Most Powerful Force in the World” par Kevin Kelly sur The Technium (August 17th, 2009)

Cities are technological artifacts, the largest technology we...

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 01:01:00 +0100

Cities are technological artifacts, the largest technology we make. Their impact is out of proportion to the number of humans living in them. As the chart above shows, the percentage of humans living in cities averaged about one or two percent for most of recorded history. (The chart’s Y axis is a logarithmic scale of percentage.) Yet almost everything that we think of when we say “culture” arose within cities. After all, the terms “city” and “civilization” share the same root. But the massive citification, or urbanization, that characterizes the technium today is a very recent development. Like most other charts depicting the technium, not much happens until the last two centuries. Then populations booms, innovation rockets, information explodes, freedoms increase, and cities rule. Cities are technological artifacts, the largest technology we make. Their impact is out of proportion to the number of humans living in them. As the chart above shows, the percentage of humans living in cities averaged about one or two percent for most of recorded history. (The chart’s Y axis is a logarithmic scale of percentage.) Yet almost everything that we think of when we say “culture” arose within cities. After all, the terms “city” and “civilization” share the same root. But the massive citification, or urbanization, that characterizes the technium today is a very recent development. Like most other charts depicting the technium, not much happens until the last two centuries. Then populations booms, innovation rockets, information explodes, freedoms increase, and cities rule.

“The Choice of Cities” par Kevin Kelly dans The Technium (July 2nd, 2009)