Infocult: Information, Culture, Policy, Education

McSweeney's steampunk satire

McSweeney's rakes steampunk with this imagined monologue from a steampunk kid.  It's not screamingly funny, but sneers politely, and scores several hits.

I am not affiliated with the goths who hang out at the end of the boardwalk. Yes, rivetheads have made attempts to horn in on my culture. It's attractive to them. Since Evanescence went mainstream, they've been able to buy their clothes at Spencer's Gifts. But just because they read about our ways on Boing Boing doesn't mean they can rock a true neo-Victorian lifestyle. It takes a lot of time and a lot of welding.

(via Bruce Sterling)

Hacking your brain: TED MRI loop talk

"Bryan, why do you read science fiction?"  I still get this question.  Here's one answer: to keep up with the present.  Check out this video about an improved feedback loop, whereby patients can watch their brain activity in real time, and respond:

(thanks, little brother)

The vibrant dead thing that lives really well, or how to write about cyberculture very badly, today's lesson

I hate to fall for link-baiting, but this piece repeats some points which keep popping up elsewhere, and which distort a lot of technology development.  It's called "Microsoft is Dead," and boy, did that title make me yawn from the start.  Others have already taken it down pretty well.

To business:

• "The third cause of Microsoft's death was broadband Internet. Anyone who cares can have fast Internet access now. And the bigger the pipe to the server, the less you need the desktop."  Except when "anyone who cares" cannot.  Please consider the rural-urban divide, or studies showing about one-half of American homes lacking broadband.  Consider, too, how many points in everyday life lack broadband, like air travel.  Or does "anyone who cares" mean the people the author can be bothered to look at (see below)?  Which says something about an article claiming someone else isn't very observent or clueful.

Readers of this blog will perhaps recall the several-years-long effort my town has been supporting in order to bootstrap ourselves into broadband.  I guess folks in Ripton, including published authors and technology workers, gamers and grandparents aren't "anyone who cares" - to Paul Graham.

• Apple is killing Microsoft.  Others have said this, too.  I'll believe it when we see Apple win half of the desktop market.  What is it now, 10%?  It's curious how people making this argument don't cite user stats.  Instead we get doomed, laughable assertions on the order of "my friends use Macs" - behold:

Thanks to OS X, Apple has come back from the dead in a way that is extremely rare in technology. Their victory is so complete that I'm now surprised when I come across a computer running Windows.

Doesn't get out much, does he?  I guess I'm surprised that airplanes exist, too, since I'm sitting here in an airport terminal and can't actually see one.  Whoa!  What's that noise?

• This last one is too easy to knock down, but I can't resist: "There can only be one big man in town, and they're clearly it."  Oh yes?  All technology tends towards a monopoly?  That's good to know... at least when we're traveling on Paul Graham's planet.

Again, apologies for leaping onto a link-baiting grenade.  But these anecdota points - it's raining broadband, Apple ate the world, and monopoly is the way- keep coming back in many venues, and need swift debunking. 

PS: if Graham meant "still alive" or "not very scary" when he wrote "dead," this is why word choice matters, eh?

Must-know terms for bits of the 21st

Here's an interesting list of must-know terms... so long as the humanities aren't involved.  The blog post makes that explicit, pointing to "pending technologies and the revealing sciences."

(via Warren Ellis)

Social answers: Yahoo! in the lead

How do question-and-answer sites compare as 2006 gives way to 2007?  These are social enterprises, connecting questioners with people who answer, or arrange for replies.   Wade Roush examines, rates, and ranks a bunch.  The winner: Yahoo! Answers.

Notice that Google is missing, since they cut their own social answer effort.  Microsoft and Amazon remain in the field as big corporate players.  But they, and other, lesser known entities, lag significantly behind socially-minded Yahoo!, in Roush's estimate.

Are there any other studies in this field?  Kudos to Roush for the work.

(via Slashdot)

Still more podlogisms

Wired notes a string of neologisms around the iPod: iPod snob, iPizzle, iPlode, podaholic, podsnob, and more.

We listed some podlogisms a few months ago.  To be fair, those concerned podcasting, rather than iPods as such: podfading, godcasting, porncasting, podsafe, and so on.  The Wired piece adds this one, which smacks of inevitability: podcasterbation.

(thanks, Peter Rothman)

Cartographizing stories

This is interesting: mapping a novel's locations by mashup.  Gutenkarte takes public domain literary texts and mixes them through the creators' own mapping service.  Check out, for instance, the map for Gibbon's Decline and Fall.

I'd like to see someone use this as a compositon engine, moving between story and map to grow a narrative.

(via Joho)

So a biblioblogger walks into a library...

Today's Library 2.0 story: what happens when a fervent biblioblogger visits an old-school library?  See Also riffs on that Cory Doctorow stops by Radio Shack skit.

BIBLIOBLOGGER: Ajax del.icio.us OPML Creative Commons radical trust mashup widget!

BRANCH LIBRARIAN: What?

BIBLIOBLOGGER: I didn't say anything. So just how much does your OPAC suck?

(via Steven Kaye)

God games in New York City, or Grand God Auto

After our earlier discussion about building religion into computer games, the LA Times reports that a Christian-themed game is in the offing, based on the Left Behind series.  The Left Behind franchise site concurs: it's a real-time strategy game, set in post-Rapture New York City (where else). 

There's a Left Behind Games site, naturally enough, which explains that the upcoming game (Left Behind: Eternal Forces) combines spiritual and... other warfare.  Oh Babylon is fallen, and with some relish:

Command your forces through intense battles across a breathtaking, authentic depiction of New York City .

Control more than 30 units types - from Prayer Warrior and Hellraiser to Spies, Special Forces and Battle Tanks!

We also noted the launch of a Christian-themed MySpace competitor in March.

I'm wondering if I should open up a religion and cyberculture department... hm.

(thanks, Jesse)

Ubu roi

Ubuweb provides glorious downloads from the 20th-century avant garde.  Sound, text, video of all sorts.  Wonderful stuff - I've been snarfing John Cage, Glenn Gould.

Thanks to Brian Lamb for telling me about this.