Joinery

"In effect, what Democrats said Friday was that in any case where the political pain caused by..."

Mon, 29 Apr 2013 02:12:16 -0400

“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..."

Sun, 31 Mar 2013 15:42:51 -0400

“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...

Sat, 30 Mar 2013 23:25:45 -0400

notational:

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

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

Sat, 30 Mar 2013 21:20:50 -0400

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.

Facebook using computer vision to recognize brands in your photos?

Sat, 30 Mar 2013 12:51:29 -0400

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."

Thu, 28 Mar 2013 19:27:05 -0400

"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...

Sun, 24 Mar 2013 00:48:58 -0400

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.

Wed, 20 Mar 2013 09:57:09 -0400

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

Right after my talk at South by Southwest Interactive, I was...

Thu, 14 Mar 2013 11:39:00 -0400

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?

Wed, 06 Mar 2013 14:12:51 -0500

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…

"In the good old days, the traders were human beings. Now they are computers programmed to trade in..."

Tue, 26 Feb 2013 17:28:48 -0500

““In the good old days, the traders were human beings. Now they are
computers programmed to trade in a millisecond not only on news but also on how the other computers are going to react to the news. The result is market movements that contain absolutely no information, except that computers have been programmed. In this situation, any normal human being just gets out of the game and waits a week or so to let the computers destroy each other.”

- http://www.battleofthequants.com/Research/GKDailyReport120809.pdf (via new-aesthetic)

newyorker: Sasha Frere-Jones weighs in on Baauer and the...

Sat, 23 Feb 2013 15:24:02 -0500

newyorker:

Sasha Frere-Jones weighs in on Baauer and the “Harlem Shake” phenomenon sweeping the web: It “is not a dance craze but, rather, an Internet-language craze, a replication based on imitating the syntax of a particular video. With other dance crazes, you could use whatever music you liked and twerk or do the dougie, but you did have to get those dances roughly right to be part of the phenomenon.” Continue reading: http://nyr.kr/VVaRwp

"STAFF at a Tesco warehouse have to wear digital arm-band devices that constantly monitor their..."

Sun, 17 Feb 2013 17:15:38 -0500

“

STAFF at a Tesco warehouse have to wear digital arm-band devices that constantly monitor their performance.

Workers at the distribution centre in Donabate in Dublin claim they got lower scores on the rating system if they keyed in that they went to the toilet or took a break.

Tesco said there was a ‘break’ function on the devices that was used to log stoppages, but denied it had any impact on productivity scores.

They are not used by managers, administrative workers or security staff.

”

- Tesco staff forced to wear arm monitors that track work rate - Independent.ie (via new-aesthetic)

thenewinquiry: One bank is already lending on the basis of...

Sat, 16 Feb 2013 23:31:56 -0500

thenewinquiry:

One bank is already lending on the basis of borrowers being able to get Facebook friends to serve as human collateral.

Perhaps no company has gone as far as Lenddo, a Hong Kong start-up that owns online lenders in Colombia and the Philippines. Loan-seekers ask Facebook friends to vouch for them. To determine if those who say “yes” are real friends rather than mere Facebook contacts, Lenddo’s software checks messages for shared slang or wording that suggests affinity. What’s more, the credit scores of those who have vouched for a borrower are damaged if he or she fails to repay. Put the word out about this “social-enforcement mechanism” and “boom, the money shows up,” says Jeff Stewart, Lenddo’s boss.

Nothing like having your digital kneecaps broken because some deadbeat friend of yours couldn’t make a payment. Better purge all those high school friends from your Facebook who aren’t likely to be successful; get rid of all those college friends who seem weird or who update about unsavory low-class, low-status things. Reify your habitus! And do it fast, before it costs you. Never mind that your habitus is precisely what you take for granted about how you see the world: subject yourself to rigorous observation and then make yourself conform to the signifiers of status! You wouldn’t want your friends to get hurt, would you? You wouldn’t want them to drop you, right?

-Rob Horning, “Social-Media Redlining and ‘Social Enforcement’ “

upnorthtrips: The Bizarre 20-Year Ride Of Two Pharcydes (via...

Sun, 10 Feb 2013 16:16:14 -0500

upnorthtrips:

The Bizarre 20-Year Ride Of Two Pharcydes (via @nprmusic)

Two decades and two months ago, an unruly, exuberant quartet of rappers from South Central Los Angeles called The Pharcyde loosed their debut album upon the world. [Read More…]

Words by @DanCharnas

Too Fast to Fail

Tue, 05 Feb 2013 17:50:08 -0500

Too Fast to Fail:

Wow. Quite the piece from Mother Jones on Algorithmic trading.

johnhowrey: ISM Wishes Window Installation by Skeptic pow

Mon, 04 Feb 2013 15:12:51 -0500

johnhowrey:

ISM Wishes Window Installation by Skeptic

pow

slavin: “On January 31, 2013, approximately 400 milliseconds...

Thu, 31 Jan 2013 20:17:48 -0500

slavin:

“On January 31, 2013, approximately 400 milliseconds before the official release of the EIA Natural Gas Report, trading activity exploded in Natural Gas Futures and ETFs such as UGZ, UNG and BOIL. Now that the Feds have stated that they don’t think there is merit in prosecuting people who get news information earlier than others by milliseconds, is it any wonder?”

(via Nanex ~ 31-Jan-2013 ~ Natural Gas News Leak)

"I’m looking at legislation right now – in fact, I just instructed my staff yesterday to go ahead and..."

Wed, 30 Jan 2013 20:57:04 -0500

“I’m looking at legislation right now – in fact, I just instructed my staff yesterday to go ahead and develop legislation – which would change the basic formula in how education money is given out to our universities and our community colleges. It’s not based on butts in seats but on how many of those butts can get jobs.”

- North Carolina Governor Patrick McCrory explains to radio host Bill Bennett his war on the liberal arts. (via bostonreview)

adamsenatori: “U.S. Route 12” Madison, Wisc. USA YAY MADISON!...

Tue, 29 Jan 2013 13:38:53 -0500

adamsenatori:

“U.S. Route 12” Madison, Wisc. USA

YAY MADISON! EVEN OUR HIGHWAYS ARE BEAUTIFUL.