Great Thread of Reading for History of Cyber Culture!

Taken from:

http://mediastudies2point0.blogspot.com/2006/11/new-media-and-cyberculture-classic.html

An inexhaustive student guide to key readings available online …

The Pre-History

Julien Offray de La Mettrie, Man a Machine (1748), Descartes’ most systematic, materialist disciple, arguing for the mechanical nature of biology and thus of man. It’s only a short step from this to contemporary cyborg and transhumanist theory … available at:
http://www.cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/LaMettrie/Machine/

Mary Shelley, Frankenstein (1818), written in the early phase of the industrial revolution, among other things a warning of the inherent dangers of technology, of experimentation with the laws and forces of nature and of trying to become ‘the modern prometheus’, the creator of artificial life and intelligence. Work out all the implications for cyberculture for yourself… http://www.georgetown.edu/faculty/irvinem/english016/franken/franken.htm

· Samuel Butler, Erewhon (1872), In chs. 23-5, ‘The Book of the Machines’, Butler discusses machinic evolution, artificial intelligence and the enslavement of humanity, 127 years before The Matrix! Ch. 23 is available at http://www.hoboes.com/html/FireBlade/Butler/Erewhon/erewhon23.html, then navigate forward for the next two chapters.

· E.M. Forster, ‘The Machine Stops’ (1909), a remarkable short story of a future world where everyone is cocooned in boxes they never leave, never meeting anyone in person but communicating via teletechnologies bringing the world to them live, all organised by a single (web-like) machine … and what happens when it stops… available at: http://brighton.ncsa.uiuc.edu/prajlich/forster.html

· F. T. Marinetti, ‘The Futurist Manifesto’ (1909), The founding document of Italian Futurism. ‘We affirm that the world’s magnificence has been enriched by a new beauty: the beauty of speed’. A breathless paean to new technologies and their transformation of man and the experience of the world. Cyborg mythologies and the techno-optimism of virtual community enthusiasts and myspace teenagers all begin here. As did World War I and Fascism … Available at: http://www.unknown.nu/futurism/manifesto.html

· Walter Benjamin, ‘The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction’ (1936), Benjamin’s essay on the transformations of society, culture, humanity and politics produced by mechanical reproduction and on both its democratic benefits and its implications for the ‘aura’ of real experience, relationships, uniqueness, singularity and temporal and spatial existence is still required reading. Think how much more digital reproduction has exacerbated these trends. Available online at: http://bid.berkeley.edu/bidclass/readings/benjamin.html

The History

· Vannevar Bush, ‘As We May Think’ (1945), Bush’s famous article discussing the idea of a ‘memex machine’, allowing information to be stored and retrieved associatively – the genesis of hypertext. Available at: http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~jod/texts/vannevar.bush.html

· Alan Turing, ‘Computing Machinery and Intelligence’ (1950), Turing’s famous discussion of artificial intelligence setting out the basis for the ‘Turing Test’, available at: http://cogprints.org/499/00/turing.html

· Norbert Wiener, The Human Use of Human Beings (1950), his popularisation of the ideas set out in Cybernetics (1948). As he explains in chapter 1: ‘It is the thesis of this book that society can only be understood through a study of the messages and the communication facilities which belong to it; and that in the future development of these messages and communication facilities, messages between man and machines, between machines and man, and between machine and machine are destined to play an ever increasing part’. He was right. Ironically, however, you can’t find any of his own work online!

· J. C. R. Licklider, ‘Man-Computer Symbiosis’ (1960), Licklider’s famous article – the first to discuss in detail the increasingly symbiotic, communicational, interactive relationship between man and machine. Available at: http://groups.csail.mit.edu/medg/people/psz/Licklider.html

· Douglas Engelbart, ‘Augmenting Human Intellect: A Conceptual Framework’ (1962), Engelbart - the person who invented the mouse, windows and teleconferencing - set out his vision of interactive hypermedia in this paper, available at: http://www.bootstrap.org/augdocs/friedewald030402/augmentinghumanintellect/ahi62index.html

· Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media (1964), welcome to the wired world … part 1, chs. 1-7 available online at: http://www.georgetown.edu/faculty/irvinem/theory/McLuhan-Understanding_Media-I-1-7.html

· Philip K. Dick Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968), you could pick any of Dick’s books … but this one will do as it’s the best known thanks to the film adaptation, Blade Runner. Electric animals, indistinguishable human simulacra, emotionless human bountry-hunters, virtual reality empathy boxes and moebian narrative twists: this is where the human and machine meet and melt down. Not available online, but get the screen saver … http://www.electricsheep.org/

The Contemporary Era

· Jean Baudrillard, ‘Precession of the Simulacra’ (1978), in Simulacra and Simulation (1981), especially the first three pages discussing Borges and the map … part of it is available online at: http://www.stanford.edu/dept/HPS/Baudrillard/Baudrillard_Simulacra.html

· Vernor Vinge, ‘True Names’ (1981), Vinge’s novella predates Gibson, describing an immersive virtual reality experience (based upon MUDs and the text-based fantasy game ‘Adventure’) as well as a remarkable virtual war, alien intelligence and the dreams of virtual immortality of an old lady…. The 1984 edition is available at: http://home.comcast.net/~kngjon/truename/truename.html

· William Gibson, Neuromancer (1984), the cyberpunk classic, introduced and defined cyberspace. Online at: http://www.voidspace.org.uk/cyberpunk/neuromancer.shtml Or, better yet, get the cassettes/CDs of Gibson reading it – once you’ve heard his drawl you can’t imagine it in any other voice.

· Donna Haraway, ‘A Cyborg Manifesto’ (1985), ‘By the late twentieth century, our time, a mythic time, we are all chimeras, theorized and fabricated hybrids of machine and organism; in short, we are cyborgs’. Haraway’s classic feminist essay, available at: http://www.stanford.edu/dept/HPS/Haraway/CyborgManifesto.html

· Richard Stallman, ‘The GNU Manifesto’ (1985), the manifesto of the open-source movement, available at: http://www.gnu.org/gnu/manifesto.html

· The Mentor, ‘The Hacker Manifesto’ (1986), a statement of intent from a hacker, available at: http://www.mithral.com/~beberg/manifesto.html

· Julian Dibbell, ‘A Rape in Cyberspace’ (1993), A classic essay on online behaviour in MUDs. Based on the case of ‘Mr Bungle’ who used the ‘voodoo doll’ subprogram on LambdaMOO to dictate the actions of and ‘sexually’ violate online characters owned by other users. The ‘rape’ highlighted the relationship between real life and virtual life. Available at: http://www.ludd.luth.se/mud/aber/articles/village_voice.html

· Vernor Vinge, ‘The Coming Singularity’ (1993), Vinge’s essay on the exponentially accelerating rates of technological change and the dizzying times that await us … sooner than we might think. Available at: http://www.mindstalk.net/vinge/vinge-sing.html

· John Perry Barlow, ‘The Economy of Ideas’ (1994), Barlow’s famous libertarian essay on intellectual property and economics, available at: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/2.03/economy.ideas_pr.html

· Sherry Turkle, ‘Constructions and Reconstructions of Self in Virtual Reality: Playing in the MUDs’ (1994), a classic essay, following the arguments in her 1995 book, Life on the Screen about the performance and play of the self online, available at: http://web.mit.edu/sturkle/www/constructions.html

· KC, ‘The Unabomber Manifesto’ (1995), Theodore Kaczynski was the US domestic terrorist who, over an 18 year period, killed 3 people and wounded 28 as part of a campaign against technological development. His manifesto, Industrial Society and Its Future, was published by newspapers in the hope that it would help catch him. As well as bitter rants against women and the left etc. it contains a systematic critique of our love of and enslavement to technology. The full text is available at: http://www.thecourier.com/manifest.htm

· John Perry Barlow ‘A Declaration of Independence of Cyberspace’ (1996), ‘Governments of the Industrial World, you weary giants of flesh and steel, I come from Cyberspace, the new home of Mind. On behalf of the future, I ask you of the past to leave us alone. You are not welcome among us. You have no sovereignty where we gather’. Barlow’s classic libertarian statement of online freedom, available at: http://homes.eff.org/~barlow/Declaration-Final.html

· Tim Berners Lee, ‘The World Wide Web: Past, Present and Future’ (1996), an overview by the person who created it, available at: http://www.w3.org/People/Berners-Lee/1996/ppf.html plus ‘The Future of the Web’ (1999), reflections on where it’s going, available at: http://www.w3.org/1999/04/13-tbl.html

· Lawrence Lessig, ‘The Laws of Cyberspace’ (1997) and ‘The Death of Cyberspace’ (2000), US academic and Law Professor and best known proponent of the need to limit intellectual copyright restrictions. Unpopular with Governments and businesses but on our side, find the articles at: http://www.lessig.org/content/articles/

· Andy and Larry Wachowski, The Matrix (1999), Can you now even imagine this film not existing? 3rd June 1997 script available at: http://www.scifiscripts.com/scripts/matrix_97_draft.txt

. 'The Cluetrain Manifesto' (1999), 'A powerful global conversation has begun. Through the Internet, people are discovering and inventing new ways to share relevant knowledge with blinding speed. As a direct result, markets are getting smarter—and getting smarter faster than most companies'. Later a book but read the 95 theses at:
http://www.cluetrain.com/

· Bill Joy, ‘Why the Future Doesn’t Need Us’ (2000), the Chief Scientist at Sun Microsystems explains why humans are going to become an ‘endangered species’, available at: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/8.04/joy.html

And Now …

· Chris Anderson, ‘The Long Tail’ (2004), now a book of the same name (2006), Anderson’s original article on how new media changes business economics, available at: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.10/tail.html (see also ‘The rise and fall of the hit’, a selection from the book, at: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.07/longtail.html )

· Tim O’Reilly, ‘What is Web 2.0? (2005), the essay that popularised the claimed current improved version of the web as it moves from static, limited web-pages to desktop style applications allowing greater participation, and user generated content and sharing. Available at http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/oreilly/tim/news/2005/09/30/what-is-web-20.html

· Kevin Kelly, ‘We Are the Web’ (2005), on the past of the web, the now of the web and its living, knowing future! Available at: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.08/tech.html

· Windows Media DRM, ‘FAQ’ (2006), OK, it’s not a classic essay but it is the present and it’s going to be the future unless its stopped. Read it and shudder. Available at: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/forpros/drm/faq.aspx

Your all just a bunch of fakes!

Your a fake person living in a world that is meant to stimulate you and keep you happy so you don't cause too much of a problem. This is especially so in the blogging universe. Your copies of something else, your highly predictable, and totally educated (institutionalised) by this system. The only thing you know is that the system controls you, but you aren't completely aware of how it controls you or why you let it. All you know is that in order to get more readers for your blog, you have to participate in this system which has no real purpose except to perpetuate and replicate itself.

There are beings right now, on the internet typing generally the same thing about the same story or event. The spontaneous energy captured by this event is withheld by the media and replicated across the internet as though it had no significance whatsoever. We are bombarded with events like this on a daily basis and we have to choose which one to blog about, or read, or otherwise pay attention to, but it doesn't really matter which ones we choose. It's all about the system. What benefits the system? How do we get the most amount of hits? Which keywords give a better CTR? Which advertisers pay more for those keywords, and will they continue to pay this amount or that?

We don't care what happens, just as long as someone visits our blog to see what happened. And you don't think big media is thinking the same thing? The only reason people start blogs is to be heard, and they will likely say whatever necessary, get the required link exchanges, or be part of this community or that in order to participate in this system, which is somehow exciting, yet we are completely predictable, generally not actually witnesses to these events, or we are replicating events over the internet to the extent they become meaningless.

It's all a big scam to get you to use the internet in a way that profits capitalism. The system is capitalism and diversion and we allow it to continue. I'm sure some of you will disagree and say that you are different, but it's the very fact that anybody would read your blog that would dilute your uniqueness, because then the actions that you witnessed or participated in which are unique to you have been transmitted over the internet for the purpose of other people to witness, which dilutes the authenticity of your original actions. Get over yourself, we are all fakes clinging to a system we don't understand but want to perpetuate.

A Libertarian Was Born!

Republican views of government intervention in public life have changed drastically over the last eight years. Our government has done more taxing and spending under republican rule than any democrat in recent memory. President George W. Bush, during that same time, has persuaded millions of republican, conservative voters to become a new political animal. Introducing, the libertarian.

Libertarian Party Platform

Overall, libertarians believe that sacrificing one's own values for another's impedes on one's liberties. Any way you slice it, libertarians are for more choice and freedom, anything else is an illusion of freedom through the veil of existing oppression.

Futurama Fan Art

Futurama Super Happy Fun Show on DeviantART is a really awesome tribute to my generation's adornment of Futurama and all things that make us laugh. There are still a few episodes I haven't seen from way back, but my DVR is quickly catching me up.

Mancur Olson: Dictatorship, Democracy, and Development

Why do people allow others to rule over them despite constantly disagreeing with political agendas? Is being an American, a Canadian, a New Zealand Kiwi more or less important than a South African? Are American politicians, corrupt as they may be, actually guided by the invisible hand to guard my best interests because that in turn guards theres?

These are questions that Olson attempts to answer in his Dictatorship, Democracy, and Development article. Many things are implied or assumed that the reader will understand, and it would be to a reader's advantage to examine the document closely and read it twice. While reading, ask yourself: "What has to be true for this to be possible?".

The article explains the difference between roving bandits and stationary bandits. Before there were stationary bandits (dictators, presidents) there were roving bandits that would pillage communities and take from them what they wanted. The roving bandits eventually had a revelation and understood that they could get more from communities if they resided over them continuously and looked out after their well being and protected them. This so called monopolization of force enabled the stationary bandit to extract more money from these communities because the people had an incentive to work. The citizens knew that the bandit would protect them from other bandits.

I urge any student of politics or anybody interested in what is responsible for our current state to inspect the document.

Here is a link to the PDF for your inspection:


http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0003-0554(199309)87:3%3C567:DDAD%3E2.0.CO;2-H

It's Alright (Sad Story) Army Cadence

It's Alright, It's Alright
Everything is ok
Remember JFK, he tried to lead ... tried to lead the way.
But, he was blown away ... on a sunny day.
It's a sad, sad story (2x)
Well I wonder, is she on the phone.
Well I wonder, is she all alone.
It's a sad, sad story (2x)
It's alright, it's alright, everything is ok
Remember MLK, he tried to lead ... he tried to lead the way.
But, he was blown away in the morning rain.
It's a sad, sad story (2x)
Remember honest Abe, he tried to lead ... he tried to lead the way.
But, he was blown away, while he was watching a play.
It's a sad, sad story (2x)
It's alright, it's alright.
Everything is ok.

Change Proxy Settings in C#

I had been trying to change proxy settings for IE via the registry for a while, and I finally did a Google search and found the proper way to do this:

Use WinINet API.

Use InternetOption with these options for real-time configuration changes (so you don't have to restart Internet Explorer for the changes to take effect):

INTERNET_OPTION_SETTINGS_CHANGED
INTERNET_OPTION_REFRESH

These enable and set the proxy server name:

INTERNET_PER_CONN_FLAGS
INTERNET_PER_CONN_PROXY_SERVER

You can use a combination of the registry and WinInet library setting the proxy name and enabling it with the InternetOptions:

INTERNET_OPTION_SETTINGS_CHANGED
INTERNET_OPTION_REFRESH

Then you don't have to restart IE.

Either way is fine.

Icon A5 Amphibious Plane

A really neat blog called Luxuo has a post about this Icon A5 Amphibious Plane. It sells for around $139,000 and is scheduled for delivery late in 2010. It is designed by a company which is founded by a former US Air Force F-16 fighter pilot. Maybe one day right?

Why I'm Not Voting

I've been searching for similar words for a while now. The public is just as screwed up, if not more screwed up than the politicians we elect. I am not going to vote. Then I can complain all I want because I can say with a clear conscious that I am not responsible for the election of dupes.