Infocult: Uncanny Informatics

Two collaborative universities

Good article in the newest First Monday, "Using the Internet to enable developing country universities to meet the challenges of globalization through collaborative virtual programmes". It compares two multi-campus projects, NetTel@Africa and the International Ocean Institute Virtual University. Good exploration of fundamental problems of support and continuity.

Matrix game: updates

The Matrix game, my explorations, continue:
Phil Gairden posted some new documents in his space on Little Boxes, including stories about inexplicable lights, animals missing organs (livers, spleens, heart, kidneys), and a mysteriously collapsed house.
Also at Littleboxes, the Conspiracy reports a sometimes-accessible login (try Proteus, doors; me neither). He did save a copy of notes on a dialog.
Conspiracy also tells us about more on Wongmo - in fact, Wongmore, of yesterday's ominous therapyspeak.

Speaking of ominous, the MetaCortex main site now carries a note on the new CEO's meeting with staff. Here's a grim one:

"MetaCortex stands at the threshold of a new era," Walsh told the crowd of about 2500. "Projects that we are only now developing, will, when complete, usher in an age unlike anything we could have imagined in our wildest hopes and dreams. The face of the world will be forever changed because of the world we are doing here together! I am so proud to have become a part of the amazing vision that is... MetaCortex!"

Elizabeth McConnel writes to Phil Gairden about finding a folder on James [presumably Avery] on Marcus Ormond's desk, only to be discovered by Katherine [presumably Cunningham]. She writes, "What was I thinking? More importantly, why is James suddenly everywhere?"

I haven't mentioned the new issue of PRJ, yet. It includes an article by Leo Kane, he of the new website, and a piece on computer fonts and psychometry. quite a few notes on prophecy, too, with historical and political suggestions.

New image and exegesis at Paintover.

added: Aquapolis had an accident.

Matrix game: neat image

Backing up a few days on the Matrix game, here's an uncanny image:

From PilotLight, courtesy of Down the Rabbit Hole:

Many people had speculated about the image on heismissing.info being James Avery, former MetaCortex CEO. PilotLight grabbed the staticky image from Avery's MetaCortex directory info and did an overlay. Looks like the two match up pretty nicely.

Matrix game: developments

Updates on the Matrix game:

Following updates carefully hosted by the fine Underscore: Leo Kane, Wongmo, and Fiona Leiphe. All three are healers with a spiritual cast. Wongmo's page recalls the utopian island feel of Aquapolis - he's also a coppertop manager to be:

Wongmo can clear your blocked energy fields and energy bodies, helping to release stagnating energy within you... Think of yourself as the ghost in the machine, the ethereal locked in the flesh... Wongmo has big plans for you!

Leiphe, an advocate of therapeutic blogging. Her description is this sounds a lot like the Matrix future of human batteries:

[blogging] journaling will give you an outlet for your emotions, which you probably bottle up inside in order to grease the wheels of society... Removing the filter of the brain from between heart and keyboard is vital to tapping the Self. [em added]

Connections between the three: all are new-age-y healing types. Leo Kane and Wongmo, Hawaii and island language (recalling Huxley's Island?); Kane likes Wongmo; also mind-body connections.
Timeline: Wongmo's retreat started today.
Connections with the game's world: Kane publishes in Paranormal Research Journal, which we first saw by Beth McConnell's interest.
Wongmo's students are onto something: one painted what looks like a battle between machines and organics (by "Gunther Z"; spouse of Kane's Mrs. Z?), while another shows a blue person, like Frankenstein's monster, looking sadly at a brain within its fist.

Speaking of pictures, another one: castle (.bmp).

A page in a directory within Beth's site, http://mail.little-boxes.net/, mirrors She Is Missing. The woman pictured doesn't look like Beth's snapshot from the MetaCortex hompage - who is she? Conspiracy suggests Katherine Cunningham.

I applied to be a betatester for the VR tool. In the first wave of coppertops!

A note on timing and this narrative form: the tempo of narrative details is driven intersubjectively, by the intersection of one's own interventions (downloading, browsing, posting), others' (the same, but much greater in the aggregate), and the actions and manifestations of the design team. This resembles a serial form (magazine, tv, Flash Gordon), but is uneven, lacking a clear (and marketed) timetable. This has much in common with the user-driven narrative formed by any ergodic text, but without the full creative power - i.e., I can add to the collective experience by posting and puzzling, but can't alter the prime materials. Indeed, we could think of this form as a historical narrative, where the players are historiographers, discovering, selecting and commenting on primary materials.

Radio conventions: NAB 2003

Jesse Walker reports on the NAB's 2003 convention, which sparked an intervention by the Prometheus Radio group. Jesse's article has a series of great points, including an update on the FCC's drive to revise ownership regs, and identifying some left-right convergence:

But there were people inside that convention center who were arguing that localism and creativity were just what their stations needed to embrace—not out of the goodness of their hearts, but to differentiate themselves from, and therefore compete more effectively with, the behemoths that dominate the association. And there were people outside who, for all their reflexive anti-capitalism, said they had no problem with entrepreneurship or with people making money; they just wished the businesses wouldn't lose sight of other values. Coming from different directions, they'd reached a convergence of sorts.

I do like the CheapChannel parody.

New IP front: flea markets

The New York Times reports that IP holders are going after... flea markets. Some of these are apparently becoming venues for DVD and CD-publishing pirate rings.

(thanks to Louise Watson!)

Wireless conference at Dartmouth, Unleashed

I've been doing more blogging for Unleashed, over at Smartmobs. Yesterday: so, so, so; today, thus, thus, thus and so.

The continuous, partial attention meme has legs.

Matrix game: new toys

On the Matrix game, Paintover has two new images to play with.

And Mike points me to Mayday Mystery, another one of these distributed, collaborative, interactive, mystery-themed narratives.

Wireless conference at Dartmouth

I'm blogging Unleashed, a wireless conference at Dartmouth, live over at Smartmobs.
First entry.
Second.

Matrix game: VRtech

Doug Davis posts some subtle observations about the current phase of the Matrix game. First, he draws our attention to the claims made by MetaCortex for its VR tool, as well as to Google's being sucked into play.
My favorite part is the TIA-like anticipatory VR:

The MetaVRX system uses new proprietary MetaCortex software to actually anticipate the players' moves, buffering what it thinks will happen in order to avoid any kind of perceptual lag on the player's behalf. “This lag has been the primary limitation on the gaming community's willingness to wholly embrace true virtual reality systems in the past, since it has a tendency to make players nauseous, which clearly is not in our best interest as a developer,” stated Walsh. “However, all indications are that these anomalies have been completely eliminated from the core MetaVRX operating system.”