"In effect, what Democrats said Friday was that in any case where the political pain caused by sequestration becomes unbearable, they will agree to cancel that particular piece of the bill while leaving the rest of the law untouched. The result is that sequestration is no longer particularly politically threatening, but it’s even more unbalanced: Cuts to programs used by the politically powerful will be addressed, but cuts to programs that affects the politically powerless will persist. It’s worth saying this clearly: The pain of sequestration will be concentrated on those who lack political power."

Ezra Klein, per Ta-Nehisi Coates (via politicalprof)

"This problem, I think, is further compounded in more critical approaches, where design effectively begins and ends with the creative act. In other words, whether questioning ubicomp or biotech or something else entirely, the objects and ostensibly critical intentions of the designer are treated as givens and little effort has been made to systematically understand how other people interact–or do not interact–with these designs. Imagine discussions about video games that did not include player perspectives, or mass media research that did not take into account the active use of, rather than passive consumption of, information and entertainment. And yet critical design, speculative design, and design fiction are rarely researched by non-designers–see DiSalvo and Michael for notable exceptions–and almost never analysed or evaluated by their actual practitioners. (I’ll never forget being told by a designer that we can’t critique critical design because it had already been done through the design itself!)"

5 Things About Ubiquitous Computing That Make Me Nervous – Anne Galloway (via timoarnall)

notational:

Douglas Rushkoff and the Terror of Modern Time (by TheNewYorkObserver)

Rhizome | Mission Creep: K-Hole and Trend Forecasting as Creative Practice

Today we’re in the opening stage of a similarly enormous technological revolution. The social fabric is being torn and reconfigured by massive infrastructural developments. Changes in capitalist development are likewise revolutionising the everyday lives of working people. In the developed world the age of the mass worker, and its coterminous subjectivity, is being eroded into a new subjectivity — the post-fordist worker. This worker is not defined by the production line but by precarious working conditions, outsourcing, self-employment and self-branding. The division between work and leisure time – produced by proletarianisation and formalised by the labour movement – is increasingly a meaningless abstraction. New digital technologies as well as wider economic and political currents created by the crisis of capital in the late 1970’s – the destruction of labour unions, containerisation and cheap credit through financialisation – have combined to produce a new idea of the productive, creative individual (and the subjectivity of the post-fordist worker is by its very nature individual). Whilst contemporary art attempted to come to terms with the collapse of socialist project in the 1990’s, most notably through relational aesthetics, the post-internet tendency seems to be tackling a much wider change in technology, work and production in a way unseen since Warhol took on consumer capitalism in the early 1960s.

totally fascinating piece.

(Source: towerofsleep)

Facebook using computer vision to recognize brands in your photos?

brianlucid:

Here is a patent app that Facebook filed regarding targeting advertising to you based on brands it finds within the images you upload

"You didn't make the Harlem Shake go viral--corporations did."

shrugsbunny:

Some solid meme research here on the origins, evolution, and brandjacking of the Harlem Shake.

mthvn:

HI! I’M DANICE, THE SUBMARINE CABLE THAT CONNECTS ICELAND TO MAINLAND EUROPE, TERMINATING IN BLÅBJERG, DENMARK.

The audio from my SXSW talk is posted. Check it out, yo. 

Right after my talk at South by Southwest Interactive, I was interviewed by Bande Apart ( http://www.bandeapart.fm/#/ ) from the CBC. It was a blast. Great guys doing really cool stuff. Props to Yuani and his crew. 

Brian Lucid: Attending the 2013 SXSW Interactive Festival?

brianlucid:

Scheduled March 8-12, the 2013 SXSW Interactive Festival features five days of “compelling presentations from the brightest minds in emerging technology.”

Three members of the Dynamic Media Institute family — current DMI students Zach Kaiser and Gabi Schaffzin and recent MFA graduate Daniel…