something to get excited about

I've been watching slowly getting excited about the futurist idea of 'diy manufacture', or 'personal fabrication on demand', 'atom based manufacture' and 'micro factories'.  What I'm thinking of is that in some futurist utopia (think Jetsons), if a consumer wants an item they just download a design, adjust it if they wish to personalise it or modify it to their taste, then put it into a 1mx1m box that will then manufacture it.

While in the early days designs will be restricted to available materials, in the future surely with nanotech and dna and stuff the opportunities are limitless? Think of the impact that will have on the global order of supply and demand. Supply will become limitless so there potentially would be no 'unmet demand' for material products.  Instead, in the utopia, people may begin to value more highly non-materials such as experiences, ethics and values.  Utopia indeed.

These articles allude to it:

Kurzweil says:
A lot of pioneering work was done in this area by Eric Drexler in the 1980s and 1990s.  His work included designs for many of the essential nanotech building blocks – including machines which can pick and place single atoms as part of the building process (picture a device which looks like a crane with a single arm which can ‘pick up’ a single atom using a chemical process).
Since then various nano-scale devices have been built in the lab, including a molecular sized motor created out of fifty eight atoms by Ben Feringa at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands.
As I mentioned in the first post of this series the key feature size of technology is shrinking at an exponential rate.  At the current rate of approximately a factor of four per linear dimension per decade the feature sizes for most electronic and many mechanical technologies will be in the nanotech range (under one hundred nanometers) by the 2020s.  The picture above shows a nano-robot at work in the bloodstream – something Kurzweil believes we will see in 10-20 years from now.

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how a new manufacturing technology will change the world

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 “How cool would it be if, in the near future, we all had machines that would manufacture any products we need? Already, there are inklings of that possibility” 

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In the Next Industrial Revolution, Atoms Are the New Bits, and volunteer community design

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personal fabrication on demand

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open source hardware

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Give the NBN a chance

Artists tend to flock to big cities where their art can be bought and appreciated, but economic hard times are sending artists fleeing towards cheaper rents on homes and studio space.

''Where can artists find arms welcoming enough to provide a chance to sustain their careers? Well, as it happens, perhaps sensing an opportunity in the leveled fields of the current economy several of America’s bleakest, and most economically depressed, cities—Detroit, Baltimore, and Cleveland, among others—have begun making their case to become the next American artistic epicenter. All of these places have begun offering incentives like housing allowances (or otherwise cheap housing options), grants and other competitive awards, and other support to artists, even as they promise at least some of the cultural amenities—museums, arts events, and the like—that one can find in the Big Cities.''

US Midwest is making a comeback - get the NBN up and running in Australia and the same resilience  may happen in the Australian outback

Queensland: all systems red

BORING

I am utterly BORED with the news out of MIDEM, the European music industry conference.  In fact I'm BORED with all the music industry news I'm reading at the moment.  It's more of the same stuff we've been hearing for years, and being broadcast as if it's a new finding.


It appears the industry has reached a stalemate, and it's STALE, mate.  There's lots of innovative digital startups, but they are frozen by major label licensing tactics and neanderthal legislation.  The law cannot keep up with technology, and the major labels have been using that to their advantage for years to shore up their falling revenue streams.  


WHAT CAN BREAK THIS STALEMATE? The failure of EMI? I don't think so. The rise and replacement of the majors by new majors (Live Nation etc.)? I don't think so.  Apple tried. Consumers? I don't think so, although this has promise but will stall for years in court.  I need to think on this more, but so far the only thing I can see changing this scenario is musicians leaving the majors?  Or everyone leaving the industry out of BOREDOM or frustration.  And what will happen then? The market for music still exists.... need to ponder more.  


The global copyright database project is interesting but can't see it contributing to innovation because it will,no doubt, use a sample technique when the technology exists to be all inclusive. Apart from that I just can't see anything ahead that can break this stalemate and effect sustainable change for the better.

Queensland floods

My family are now all safe and have food etc.  Some precious items lost and fences to rebuild but all livestock and pets accounted for.  But on the other side of the mountain is the Lockyer Valley......

I've had the Dirty Three / Chan Marshall song 'Great Waves' in my head today:

Last boat, stand in a river;

Muddy river, how I love her

Hawk flying is fooling his folly

Gas hurricanes spray over Heaven

Weeping willow is bawling the light

On fire.

Humans running for cover,

Wishing for life, gripping the light

House lift up, trees lift up

Cars intersect in the middle of the sky.

O time before, no pull, no gravity on the ground

Givin' up--it's over

The world's weight is over

The limit

Our bodies are exploding

As the sky spills through our mouths.

All the blue blood is flowing

The cities, its contents have been ripped out.

The world is gone.

Did you know it would last this long?

You made it to the dark, now you're gone.

You are gone.

Great waves

Frozen in a secret space

A great big place,

Dark-spilling universe.

Reverend Horton Heat

Whoooarh!  I have several Rev songs and have been a longtime fan of their music. But never seen them live (being too far away in Australia) and their live stuff on YouTube leaves me uninspired (I've subsequently realised it was because all I can find on YouTube are those handheld amateur recordings).


So went along to their show with expectations of a nice night out. Nice.  But from the SECOND they started playing it was captivating.  There's no fancy stage props, the focus of their show is on the music, despite very nice attire worn by Jim Heath. It was fast, crisp and at the right volume. They did song after song of fast fabulous Gibson guitar sounds. They did 3 songs from each of the first albums up to 4th and then the new one which has a slower country feel, even if the lyrics rail against Hollywood and misinformed artistes who think the Saguaro cactus grows in Texas.   


But although the focus of the show was very much on the sound, they did some smooth moves eg: the bass guitarist threw his double bass up in the air and caught it.  And it was nice to see the singer looked in fine health, tanned and he even had arm muscles. They came across as a band who have been doing this for 25 years over and over and over and have it down pat, professionals but also they seemed to be having fun given it was the last show of their Australian tour.  


Memories of my youth were evoked by mohawks crowdsurfing in the moshpit, but it was all safe and noone was being annoying.  My nephew who came along said it was awesome and exceptional.  Another friend who went is still raving about it.  I think it was the show of the year for me.

I AM NOT COOL

I'm a long time user of last.fm ( http://www.last.fm/user/MelodyAngel ) and in late November I was looking at the rockabilly interest group on last.fm and saw someone there had posted this:

http://www.last.fm/group/Rockabilly

Oh OK, I hadn't checked coolsville.org out so did so.  I later discovered Michael_deluxe (who made that post) is the owner moderator of coolsvile.org.

So, because my interests veer towards rockabilly and I recognised someone on the site I know (even though she isn't rockabilly) I registered to have a look around because that last.fm comment said I should check it out. OK. So I took some care over my profile, used the same pseudonym (Melody von Rock) I use everywhere, answered the questions thoughtfully eg:

(q) what is your dream destination?

(a) hearst castle

etc etc. i wrote a couple of lighthearted silly answers because I wasn't taking it too seriously.

For favourite music I linked to my last.fm page, because it shows the music I listen to.  I also linked to this blog even though I'm not active on it, because it too provides more detail on my interests. I uploaded a photo of me that I’ve used across a few sites with no problems, where I’m in one of my favourite frocks - a Shaheen original – in an art deco-ish pose and it doesn’t show my face.  The profile asks for age, so I entered a blatant lie (13) that anyone would recognise as a lie.

A quick digression from the story to list 3 points for context:

1. as part of my work  couple of years ago I spoke with someone who works for a large Australian social network. She told me that participants use codes to communicate certain things, for example, if someone writes ‘Shawshank redemption’ in the favourite movies section it means they are swingers who want ‘sex with no strings attached’.

2. it's commonly considered impolite to ask a lady her age.

3. I was an 'early adopter' of social networking and learnt from real world experience (1 stalker, 1 hacked computer) how ugly it can be.  These days I walk a fine line between protecting my privacy and rarely participate in online spaces. Heck, I even wrote on the site profile that I’m a private person.  I'm a longtime participant in one niche music site and as a general rule the longer I'm on a site the more trusting of it I become, and consequently more open about who I am. I was also wary of posting private details on coolsville.org because it's not a 'commonly known' site. I rankled at putting my real age - not because I'm an old duck but because too much accurate personal information on the net is risky, especially on a small site I know nothing about.

So my profile was setup and over the next couple of days (20+21 of Nov) I logged in about 4 times to respond to comments from men (only men – why is that?) on my page, all funny, welcoming and pleasant. One wrote:

"Hi Melody...quite an interesting blog for a 13 year old lol, welcome to Coolsville!

To which my reply included friendly humour, something about how I saw Robert Gordon recently (the writer was a Robert Gordon fan) and something like:

‘a lady never tells her age, and if I’m under 18 there’ll be no rudeness’,

His reply was:

"me, rude? never! you have quite the resume for someone under 18.it just doesnt seem to add up, but ,hey, thats life. right? im glad you liked roberts show. hes my buddy and its always good to hear nice things about him. ciao"

he he he and I thought nothing further of it.  Then I didn’t look at my messages or the site for a fortnight, I saw on my phone the headers of 4 friend requests and a message that came through but didn’t read them and just thought ‘low priority, will look at later’. 

5Dec I logged in to find something about a rockabilly restaurant in Melbourne that I had seen when registering on the site and saw this:

‘Michael deluxe’ sent a message 29Nov titled ‘hey’:

It's great that you have other pages and want to link to them, but if you only want to be on here to promote your other pages, please don't bother. I'm sure you're older than 13 since one of your other sites say you're 40. Please be honest and fill out your info on here.

On the day I logged on ‘Scatman’ wrote a comment on my profile page:

"hi im sorry but your clearly not a 13yr girl,what are you trying to achieve by saying that,your blog puts you as a very intelligent adult,this site is for cool gals and dudes,dont spoil it!!"

‘Scatman’s profile says “My Turn-Offs: people who say they are rockin and have modern pop bands on thier profiles” (sic their), although he watches X-factor...... So I decided he was a judgmental purist and it wasn't worth a response. 

2 hours after the scatman comment, Michael Deluxe sent a message with a header ‘please read’:

After 7 emails I am forced to address this situation. The people on this page all share a common interest. I am not too positive that you share any of these interests, so I am asking you to UPDATE you profile, including your age. You claim to be a teenager, although your blogs so otherwise. I ask that you also use a real photo of yourself, showing your face as the other users have done. If you refuse to do this, I will have to ban you from using coolsville.

What emails? Who? What? I took affront:

(a)    I HAD spent time putting my interests on when I signed up, a lot more than others on the site;

(b)    Plenty of users on that site didn’t have photos of themselves (not just new profiles but old ones too); and

(c)    it’s rude to force someone to supply their age. 

I looked at Michael Deluxe’s profile, in it he lists his favourite movie as ‘Shawshank Redemption’.   And because I had registered just as a bit of lighthearted fun I felt suddenly uncomfortable, I deleted my profile.  In response Michael deluxe put this on my page:

"I asked this person to update her profile with her real age and interests, so she deleted herself. good."

Charming.  I then remembered I had also added details of a rockabilly event in the ‘events’ section. A bit awkward…  So using the ‘feedback’ function I explained I had deleted my profile because I consider it rude to force a lady to disclose her age, and politely asked if he could also delete the event, which was still on there with my avatar attached.  I was polite despite the circumstances, and added that if he didn’t I would take further action.  The reply from Michael Deluxe was:

Your event was deleted last night, it takes up to 24 hours for deletions to show.  As for the other profiles, they have uploaded photos of themselves, just not as a main picture. The one who have not, I emailed along with you.  You're going to "take further action"? How so? I own the site, I pay for the site, I run the site, and the terms that YOU agreed to when signing up state that you will provide your real age, a photo, and profile info. you did not follow the rules, so you are history.

I’m history, rejected from coolsville, I am DEFINITELY the least cool person I know.  Michael Deluxe, the site moderator wrote: "The people on this page all share a common interest. I am not too positive that you share any of these interests.” He somehow judged I do not have ‘common interests’ with rockabillies hahahahaha……….. well I admit I have no interest in Shawshank Redemption.   

For the record:
(a) the site requests that the user supply only basic info and I supplied quite a bit about me and my interests;

(b) a quick scan of the earliest 30 participants on the site shows no photos on many of them (NO photos, not just ‘no main picture’) eg:

http://www.coolsville.org/members/profile/15  (no photo, no interests);

http://www.coolsville.org/members/profile/2 (photo of a kid wearing a mask);

http://www.coolsville.org/members/profile/28 (no photo, no description); 
http://www.coolsville.org/members/profile/34 (no photo and flogging a product)………….


I could go on but have made the point – these people have not been banned. In particular the last profile above is flogging product, but Michael Deluxe, who used last.fm to promote his site, wrote to me:

“if you only want to be on here to promote your other pages, please don't bother.”

Umm, like what other pages am I promoting? I’m not a heavy internet user and definitely don’t flout my blog or last.fm page.  So within 2 weeks of next to no activity on a social network I was threatened with being banned.  What a load of misdirected crock.

I told some friends about this tale and all had a good chuckle and then thought no further on it.  It’s unimportant, despite my ironic pride that I was threatened with banishment on a site for cool people.  One (very cool) friend took it seriously and offered advice:

(1) I gather they didn't get your tongue-in-cheek answers.  One's sense of humour often isn't shared, or at least doesn't always come across via email with strangers.

(2) The online playground is not worth worrying about.

(3) You're smarter/better than this!

However one friend who has an interest in the site emailed me today, 16 days later, to tell me that on ‘Scatman’s board there is a recent comment by ‘Rockabilly Richie’:

 http://www.coolsville.org/members/profile/135

that says “I think they mean iq when they say 13, not their age, lol”. What? I do not know 'Rockabilly Richie' and have no idea what that comment is in relation to, but it's close enough to this issue for me to guess it is about me.

So some clearly are not going to let it rest and are still talking about it two weeks later! Michael Deluxe wrote to me “you are history” but apparently not, they can’t seem to forget me…..    I don’t know whether to be flattered or flabbergasted at my new infamy and have certainly never received this treatment before.  I pay no attention to IQ, but for the record my IQ qualifies me for mensa. 

Assumptions made about me were very wrong and it bordered on online bullying.  I still don't understand why supplying my age was so important.  But I politely decided to overlook this rudeness and forgot it. Unlike them.  Hence why I have detailed it here so I can refer to it later if they continue. I hope their pathetic pack mentality will cease and desist.

I don't know whether to laugh or be very scared at this online delusion

War against Justin Bieber haters - the obsessional delusion of this kid is going to haunt my brain.  (count down till when the video gets removed for inciting violence, or inciting embarrassment)...

A response from a Justin Bieber hater

The website

Another Bieber fan is getting upset (warning, that one will seriously make you sad).

Some people create their own realities in the internet world, others believe they hold more power than is good for them to believe.  The scariest thing is that the war against Bieber haters clip has been viewed 166,000 times, thus reinforcing that kids delusion.  Look at the vehemence of his facial expressions, the expletives, the threat itself....  was he reading a script? did he write a script? was it ad lib? 

!!!!!!!!!!!SOMEONE TURN OFF THEIR COMPUTERS PLEASE!!!!!!!!!  REALITY CHECK!!!  but in the meantime I'm stockpiling water, canned goods, food for my cat, oxygen....... and awaiting the 4am knock on the door from the FCC, and burrowing down for the inevitable Bieber PR campaign for his 'Punked' series (which I think this is a contrived PR stunt for)

online show ponies

this is a great article that provides six clues to online 'disinhibition'.  It's written in simple plain language by internet psychologist John Suler.

excerpt:

The anonymity, invisibility and fantasy elements of online activities encourage us to think that the usual rules don't apply. Like a science fiction escape fantasy, the net allows us to be who we want and do what we want, both good and bad.  The problem is that when life becomes a game that can be left behind at the flick of a switch, it's easy to throw responsibility out of the window. ... freedom is an illusion maintained by the online experience of invisibility, anonymity and lack of immediate, visceral, emotional feedback from others, or at least our ability to turn that feedback off.  Perhaps this is freedom: some people do report feeling closer to their real selves when online. But there's a reason we developed all those social inhibitions in the old-fashioned, offline world. They stop us offending other people...

I'm in complete agreement with Suler and must read more of his work! (have ordered the ref in the article for weekend reading! - even though it uses terms like 'solipsistic introjection').  He describes neatly the concepts I've been grappling with for months regarding how online impacts upon real selves and vice versa.

vale Eileen Nearne

everyone should stop their day and spare a thought for people like Eileen Nearne - a quiet modest war hero.

(insert silence here)

you can read more about her here and here - other articles with similar themes are in most media.  She was nicknamed 'the quiet one', and worked in France during the German occupation for the British government as a radio operator who relayed and received messages between the French Resistance and British.  She was captured and tortured by the Gestapo - and apparently was silent throughout her torture - before being sent to concentration camps from where she escaped THREE TIMES. After her final escape she also survived interrogation by Americans who thought she was a Nazi.   After the war she trained as a nurse and lived the rest of her life quietly, privately and modestly. As the NYT article above claims:

As she told an interviewer several years before she died: “It was a life in the shadows, but I was suited for it. I could be hard and secret. I could be lonely. I could be independent. But I wasn’t bored.

Vale Eileen Nearne, I hope everyone stops their day for a little while to think of her.

I also think it's worthwhile reading this little whinge, about how journalists should contact experts before writing, or to edit their puff.  It's perhaps in response to this piece.

I've read a book on Nancy Wake (because she was a NZer), am currently reading this one: and now want to know more about Eileen Nearne.    Might try and get this book next.  My parents farm is  near where Sid Cotton grew up and is buried. He's another wartime hero whose story is well worth reading.  Why don't heroes of more recent wars carry any cultural cache?  I haven't read any bios from the Iraq war, although the Michael Ware doco on ABC was compelling.  Is it just me? Should I look beyond world war two? Or is it more that the 1940-50s are the era I have an interest in.