David Smith › Comments

"Obama was never nearly as free of dependence on big money donors as the reporting suggested, nor was his movement as bottom-up or people-centric as his marketing implied. And this is the big story of 2009, if you ask me, the meta-story of what did, and didn't happen, in the first year of Obama's administration. The people who voted for him weren't organized in any kind of new or powerful way, and the special interests--banks, energy companies, health interests, car-makers, the military-industrial complex--sat first at the table and wrote the menu. Myth met reality, and came up wanting. … Nor, it is clear, was Obama's campaign ever really about giving control to the grassroots. … Plouffe and the rest of Obama's leadership team, wasn't really interested in grassroots empowerment. Instead, they think they've invented a 21st century version of list-building … Obama's compromises to almost every powers-that-be are tremendously demotivating" - David Smith

"But consider this: a searing, transformative Hertzian wave of broadband permeates everything around me! … Possessions are over. They are data! Data which sometimes manifests itself as my possessions. This refuse then folds itself right back into the social streams of eBay and Freecycle. Light-of-footprint. Door-to-door. Peer-to-peer. Freedom is just another word for nothing! … Dematerialisation is defined by its interfaces. That which was product will become a service. That which was a service will accelerate at warp speed toward de-monetisation on the Path-to-Free. So this is not so much a post-divorce flat as a vibrant zone of interactive transaction." - David Smith

"here’s my one and only prediction for 2010: This will be the year in which we will see the biggest assault on copyright laws around the world. The end result of the secret war against copyright laws and the consumer will be one of the total annihilation of our copyright laws as we know them." - David Smith

"I have no idea what Apple is planning to release, but to me the revolutionary product need is in bridging the virtual and physical worlds." http://daringfireball.net/2009...: "And so in answer to my central question, regarding why buy The Tablet if you already have an iPhone and a MacBook, my best guess is that ultimately, The Tablet is something you’ll buy instead of a MacBook. I say they’re swinging big — redefining the experience of personal computing. … The Tablet, I say, is going to be Apple’s new answer to what you use for personal portable general computing. … Apple is not in the business of making monolithic OSes that they cram down your throat on as many widely-varying devices as possible. Apple is in the business of making complete products, for which they craft derivative OSes to fit each product. There is a shared core OS. There is not a shared core UI. … I think The Tablet is nothing short of Apple’s reconception of personal computing." - David Smith

"Metadata only works when you un-meta it and deal with it again as data. The list of metadata elements that I care enough to keep updating is not just meta; it's a first class real list, one that has to be treated as a first class citizen and not just some accidental system artifact. Sometimes the metadata you expose just makes it clear how incomplete your first pass at storytelling was and what it takes to bring it back to the level of refinement that you expect." - David Smith

"First, capturing and associating the metadata necessary for publishers needs to be as natural as possible. … Second, workflow should focus on the things where humans add value; hyperlinks are obviously one, and non-obvious contextual tagging. Let machines do the obvious stuff … And third, as I've pointed out a few times here, I think the biggest challenge will be integrating the social and the real-time into the digital magazine experience. … what's the best way to connect content that was about then with a community experience that is about now? And how can all this (meta)data help?" - David Smith

"This timeline presents significant events and developments in the innovation and management of information and documents from cave paintings (ca 30,000 BC) to the present. Only non-electronic innovations and developments are included (that is, digital and electronic communications are excluded)." - David Smith

"This timeline presents significant events and developments in the innovation and management of information and documents from cave paintings (ca 30,000 BC) to the present. Only non-electronic innovations and developments are included (that is, digital and electronic communications are excluded)." - David Smith

"Our current response to terrorism is a form of "magical thinking." It relies on the idea that we can somehow make ourselves safer by protecting against what the terrorists happened to do last time. … We should treat terrorists like common criminals and give them all the benefits of true and open justice -- not merely because it demonstrates our indomitability, but because it makes us all safer. Once a society starts circumventing its own laws, the risks to its future stability are much greater than terrorism. Despite fearful rhetoric to the contrary, terrorism is not a transcendent threat. A terrorist attack cannot possibly destroy a country's way of life; it's only our reaction to that attack that can do that kind of damage. The more we undermine our own laws, the more we convert our buildings into fortresses, the more we reduce the freedoms and liberties at the foundation of our societies, the more we're doing the terrorists' job for them." - David Smith

"In  some  senses,  the  division  in  the  perception  and  use  of  MySpace  and  Facebook   seems obvious  given  that  we  know  that  online  environments  are  a  reflection  of   everyday  life. Yet,  the  fact  that  such  statements  are  controversial  highlights  a widespread techno-­‐utopian  belief  that  the  internet  will  once  and  for  all  eradicate   inequality  and  social  divisions.  What  unfolded  as  teens  adopted  MySpace  and   Facebook suggests  that  this  is  not  the  case. Neither  social  media  nor  its  users  are   colorblind simply  because  technology  is  present.  The  internet  mirrors  and  magnifies   everyday  life, making  visible  many  of  the  issues  we  hoped  would  disappear,   including  race  and class-­‐based  social  divisions  in  American  society." http://www.zephoria.org/thought..., http://www.facebook.com/note... - David Smith

"every medium … is uniquely gifted in a particular way. So while the text and the meaning of the “story” might well be the same, the graphical language at least will be different. This means that at some point the art department and the production department for each medium must become separate from the editorial department, and from each other. It’s right here that the tensions occur within an editorial operation … If you’re going to produce content for more than one medium, therefore, you need to commission content in a strange and abstract way. … the author has to hand in copy that is much much more than a flat text file circa 800 words. It needs to be annotated. It needs to be hyperlinked. It needs to have underlying data. … If you’re going to rock a multi-outlet, multimedia world, you need to have stories whose parts are way more than their sum. This is new" - David Smith

"If I had to read the tea leaves and make a grand prediction, I would say that in the closing days of the 2000s, the future does not look good for all authoritarian regimes. However, the signs are very positive for one particular authoritarian regime: China. Partly this is because the Chinese, unlike the Iranians and the Russians, continue to deliver prosperity, and in the current era it is prosperity, not ideology, that keeps authoritarian regimes in power." via Matt (Twitter) - David Smith

"More money was spent on video games than on films – including both trips to the cinema and films on DVD – figures compiled for The Daily Telegraph indicate. This is the clearest evidence yet that the video games market has come of age and transformed itself from a niche form of entertainment for teenage boys into a mainstream form of entertainment for millions of British families. … Only television – including DVDs of television shows, along with the cost of the license and satellite subscriptions – and music are bigger forms of entertainment. Tom Watson, the former Cabinet Office minister and renowned gamer, said the statistics were proof that the video games industry needed to be taken seriously." - David Smith

via http://radar.oreilly.com/2009... - David Smith

via http://radar.oreilly.com/2009... - David Smith

http://www.warrenellis.com/... - David Smith

http://hmi.ucsd.edu/pdf... : "computers have had major effects on some aspects of information consumption. In the past, information consumption was overwhelmingly passive, with telephone being the only interactive medium. Thanks to computers, a full third of words and more than half of bytes are now received interactively. Reading, which was in decline due to the growth of television, tripled from 1980 to 2008, because it is the overwhelmingly preferred way to receive words on the Internet." via http://spectrum.ieee.org/riskfac... - David Smith

"It may be time to put accept that the uncanny valley was not very uncanny and is as good as crossed" - David Smith

" It's truly extraordinary to contemplate that Linus's “glorified "Hello world" program” is now running nearly 90% of the world's top supercomputers. And at the other end of the scale, it is making huge in-roads into the smartphone market, which means that one day there may be billions of people with the Linux kernel in their pocket. Indeed, it is difficult to imagine what the world would be like today had Linus not bought that PC in 1991 with his Christmas and birthday money. There could hardly be a better time than today to thank him for Linux, his amazing gift to us, and to wish him many happy returns." - David Smith

via John Naughton - David Smith

"the odds of being on given departure which is the subject of a terrorist incident have been 1 in 10,408,947 over the past decade. By contrast, the odds of being struck by lightning in a given year are about 1 in 500,000. This means that you could board 20 flights per year and still be less likely to be the subject of an attempted terrorist attack than to be struck by lightning." - David Smith

"I'm well aware that videogames are often among the so-called salves to educational ills, and I'll draw attention to the fact that in all of my lectures over the past year or two on the topic, I go to great lengths to contrast the difficult unobviousness of (good) games from the saccharine immediacy of the very digital media technologies that usually motivate institutional interest in pedagogical reform." - David Smith

http://www.nybooks.com/feature... — via Sascha (Twitter) - David Smith

"I sense that in the long run there is a greater value for humanity in empowering folks to make and create than there is in teaching them the canon, the great works and the masterpieces. In my opinion, it’s more important that someone learn to make music, to draw, photograph, write or create in any form than it is for them to understand and appreciate Picasso, Warhol or Bill Shakespeare — to say nothing of opry. In the long term it doesn’t matter if students become writers, artists or musicians — though a few might. It's more important that they are able to understand the process of creation, experimentation and discovery — which can then be applied to anything they do, as those processes, deep down, are all similar. It’s an investment in fluorescence." - David Smith

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books... - David Smith

"scientists at the University of California Santa Barbara say their laboratory work on rats shows the production of proteins needed to cement memories can only happen when the RNA - the collection of molecules that take genetic messages from the nucleus to the rest of the cell - is switched on. Until it is required, the RNA is paralysed by a "silencing" molecule - which itself contains proteins. When an external signal comes in … the silencing molecule fragments and the RNA is released. Kenneth Kosik of the university's neuroscience research institute said: "One reason why this is interesting is that scientists have been perplexed for some time as to why, when synapses are strengthened, you have the degradation of proteins going on side by side with the synthesis of new proteins. "So we have now resolved this paradox. We show that protein degradation and synthesis go hand in hand. The degradation permits the synthesis."" - David Smith

"Zittrain focuses on the potential alienation and opportunities for abuse that can arise with the growth of distributed online production. He also contemplates the thin line that separates exploitation from volunteering in the context of online communities and collaboration. … It may be a few years before anyone really understands if Crowdsourcing lends itself to unique types of market failure along these lines, but Zittrain and others such as Lily Irani and Aaron Koblin are doing us all a favor by asking some of the most important questions early in the game." - David Smith

"News-based crowdsourcing projects of this nature are both challenging and an enormous amount of fun. For the best chances of success, be sure to ask the right question, ensure user contributions are rewarded, expose as much data as possible and make the “next thing to review” behaviour rock solid. I’m looking forward to the next opportunity to apply these lessons, although at this point I really hope it involves something other than MPs’ expenses." - David Smith

"the "meaning" of an abstract puzzle game lies in a gap between its mechanics and its dynamics, rather than in one or the other. … Kant characterizes two kinds of sublimity. … Sensations of the mathematical sublime arise from largeness; sensations of the dynamical sublime arise from fear. … the meaning of games like Drop7 and Orbital are best understood in relation to the sublime, and particularly to the mathematical sublime. … The experience of playing Drop7 is thus one of planning present moves against a series of contingent future ones, given a set of slowly changing uncertainties. The vastness of possible moves is calculable for a moment, until it is disrupted by the randomness of new information. This is where the player finds the game's mathematical sublimity. Mastery of the game is always temporary, as each move collapses the innumerable possibilities that exist before a disc drops into the fixity of a new situation just after." - David Smith

"I am calling for a shift in focus and in attitude. When deciding how to split your time, give precedence to critical think ing skills. Rather than extol the evils and dangers of the Inter net, focus on the gems. In teaching how to find the gems we teach how to sift out the soil, sand and fool’s gold, but the emphasis should remain on the gems. Personal experience shows us that we can typically easily find anything we want online. Emphasizing the chaff discredits us. So as you go into your instruction sessions this next semester I encourage you to spend less time on Boolean and more time using realistic examples to help engage students in a critical discussion about how to best use the Internet for research." - David Smith

"The historical Darwin is only a spectral presence at his own commemoration. The Origin as a complex literary and scientific performance was not a focus of the global festivities, nor was Darwin’s own understanding of what he had and had not done, still less the full range of his scientific concerns. What has just been celebrated is not the historical specificity of a mid-19th-century text, or the Victorian author of works on earthworms, orchids and insectivorous plants, but the founding of a particular intellectual lineage, a lineage that led from 1859 to some version of the gene-theory-augmented ‘modern evolutionary synthesis’ that is valued today. Darwin did not discover or invent modern evolutionary biology and its intellectual fellow travellers; at most, he was at one end of a genealogy whose latest members he would scarcely have recognised." - David Smith