The following is nowhere close to being a full transcript; just interesting snippets that I took a few minutes to capture. Quotations are Coupland, non quotations are the interviewer. “Identity’s become an entirely fluid issue, now.” “Now, not having a life is so common, it’s almost become the norm.” “The split between being biologically alive and having a life has to do with the way you perceive time and the way you perceive your information environment.” “People just aren’t getting their year’s worth of year anymore. We’ve increased the information density in our culture to the point where perception of time is now all screwy.” Interstitial: Our economy is based upon, entirely upon, fending off boredom. Leisure time is a joke. “But then it all backfired. Technology only gives you more time up to a certain point, and then time starts vanishing at this fantastic rate, like your car running out of gas.” “I used to have this fantasy that I’d go into a coma for one year and when I came out of the coma, I’d have a year’s worth of magazines and pop culture to catch up on. It’d be like information crack and really fun. But now, every day is like waking up after a year of having been in a coma.” Do you believe in randomness? “No, when something seems random, it means you’re standing too close to a very large pattern; you can’t see the pattern because you’re too close to it.” “I think many people mistake the current deluge of information diversity as being the end of history; but in a way I think it’s actually the beginning of history.” “I was looking at these photographs from the 1950′s and in them everyone was trying to look exactly 35 years old. I mean, you had these 18 year-old boys and girls and these 58 year-old men and women, and everyone was trying to look 35 years-old. So that was the age you were supposed to be inside your head back then, is 35. Now, what’s happened I think is that the mental age everyone’s trying to be inside their head is about 24; and that’s an 11 year shift.” But what about on a deeper level? “Well, I think as we’re talking about the 20th century here, I think we’re probably going to remember this period of time as being one in which the relationship between the mind and the body was completely severed.” “I remember I once read about Karen Carpenter, how she felt as though the entire world existed on the other side of a ten feet of plexiglass. I think, in a way, that defines the current mind-body relationship.” “I think what’s happened is people have begun viewing their bodies as being fortresses, or inviolable, made out of that same sort of hard, shiny plastic as Lego; but the funny thing here is that the average human body contains ten times as many alien cells as it actually contains cells of itself. So instead of Lego, the average human body is more like Pigpen, from Charlie Brown. Remember, the way he used to walk down the street in that sort of perpetual haze of dust and germs? Well, you know, that’s people. Actually, we’re already so ridden with disease and other organisms that the whole notion of being a fortress becomes somewhat beside the point.” How does a person cope? As you’ve said, every day is like waking up from a year long coma. “Well, there’s obviously no point in trying to remember everything, because then everything just becomes trivia. Cellulose production in Lake Baikal in Russia, the contents of Tori Spelling’s clothes closet, or the weather in Arlington, Texas. What’s important is being able to locate things.” So has bulk memory replaced history? “Yeah. Sort of the way bulk shopping has replaced regular shopping. I remember back in the 70′s in history class, when teachers would say to us very sonorously, ‘He who does not remember the past is doomed to repeat it,’ and I just don’t think that’s the case anymore.” “I think that what’s happened now is that we’ve create a scenario so radically different that there’s no historical president to look back on for the situation we now face. We’re no longer condemned to repeat an endless cycle of mistakes. I think this should come as a relief, too. I mean, no more dark age followed by golden age followed by another inevitable dark age. I mean, how great to have finally broken the cycle of history, that people can actually manufacture a destiny of their own choosing?” If you could be an animal, what animal would you be? “I already am an animal.” So where does personal memory fit into all of this, doesn’t it get swamped by this super memory, things we’re creating? What about the personal stuff? “No, no, no, the personal stuff, personal memory it’s the most important thing of all. It’s the one thing that can never be taken away from you. It is you. Despite all the recent changes in our time architecture, it still takes time to create memories, it still takes time to remember them. It takes a place in which to locate the memories and a place in which to be still and remember them. It takes a lot of work to be an individual, to have an individual life and it can be scary; but then the option is to forget and to be forgotten.“ Are those your last words? “No. I’d say, hey kids! Go blow yourself up with dynamite and reassemble your bits any way you want to assemble them. Hey kids! Go and jump into that cartoon hole and find out what lies on the other side. I’d say, you know, all the time in the world, it’s right there, it’s inside you. I’d say all the world in the world … it’s right there inside you.“ “I mean, maybe you have a life and maybe you don’t, I don’t know you, but, you’re not alone.” “I remember back in the 1970′s, about the time people stopped having lives, they also began making fun of intimacy. They made jokes about people like Halston having parties at Studio 54 for his 500 close, personal friends; and so I guess the whole world is Studio 54 now. It’s just you and me, babe, and billions and billions of other people out there just like you. Billions of close personal friends.“

This is why I’ll never be an adult. Referred by http://goo.gl/7kbO Source http://goo.gl/RPh1

Imagining an unequalable, universally contiguous, extended human cognition substrate; a phenomenologically consistent and sustainable epi-neocortical architecture, intrinsically obviating corporation and nation; diverse, progressive, transparent, authentic, open, extensible. Observe, interpret, forecast, design, build, uplift. What is it?

/* Think Big. Code Small. */

include

int main () { liberate_humanity (); transcend_all_universes (); return 0; } /* outsource details through Freelancer.com */

Period.

We shall have the ability to add and join streams similar to this one (only with greater proportions of audio and video) in any and all combinations, under the license of our own choosing. #UFIS

UFIS for workweaving? That sucks as name, but it's the first psuedo-sniglet that comes to mind. So we can link to this post with http://bit.ly/WorkWeaving for now.

What UFIS means: Every audio and video shall be fully transcribed and indexed, word by word, with search results that cue the content to the precise location in any media. To and from any language. Realtime.

We shall enjoy the ability to annotate every annotation and find again everything in it's best and truest context -- even using weak inference and scatterbrained allusion -- on demand. Realtime.

We shall grant and revoke rights to the use of any constituent components, up to or including all content in these streams, at the individual's sole discretion. If another Rights Holder pulls the plug on something I've shared here, it shall disappear in real time. IT'S THEIRS.

If I build any stream with dependency upon any impermanent license, mine alone is the burden to bear.

"But! But!" Some may protest, then nothing is permanent!

No shit. See? You do learn fast after all. However, that which is mutually ascribed permanence, shall of course, abide.

This is a draft. This is only a draft. It's too long. Too complicated. Intentionally obfuscatory. It needs to be refined and simplified. Clarified. Expounded. Stolen. Plagiarized. Repurposed. Deleted. Thereby made manifest.

Неплохой блог, вполне достойный из того что есть по этой тематике.

Call #UFIS a kind of Social Transition Stress Disorder Amplifier and Accelerator, for lack of a better working descriptor.

context isn't everything. it's the only thing.

except for everything else.

reproduced without permission.

Oh yay. Feels like somebody kicked me straight in the mouth; so for those who wish that upon me, congratulations: root canal, FTW!

Dentist says it's the result of having done The Right Thing some 25 years ago when I had this crown installed. Apparently, nerve death and infection often ensue after some random period of time.

So, once again, no good deed or right action goes unpunished. Such intelligent design. Such planned perfection and splendor. ;-)

Get to wait until Thursday for the root canal.

It's been brought to my attention that, apparently, the interwebz are still unfamiliar with the makeshift sociological archetype of #MadScientistClown even though we're surrounded by 'em! Especially in the most forward-accomplishing technology innovation circles.

Part #MadScientist: You know, we lock 'em in the basement like Brent Spiner in Independence Day; yet, we're utterly dependent upon them to tell us WTF to DO to fix our worst problems; especially when the shit hits the fan. Then, in return for their specialized eleventh hour ass-saving roles, which, like firemen -- only a billion times moreso -- save our bacon when we most need saving and then go back to "doing nothing" ... except staying fit and fully trained for the next time they need to save our bacon ... then, we marginalize, guffaw, ostracize, and isolate like any find upstanding family's Embarrassingly High Functioning, Mildly Autistic Polymath, right? Okay.

Part #Clown: You know, in a rodeo, those greasepaint-coated near-do-wells who ONLY put their very lives at risk in order to divert attention of the raging bulls and broncos who would like to put an end to us for daring to challenge Nature Itself in it's home arena. ("It's not nice to fool Mother Nature!") and all that rot. Or, in the circus variety, those Universal Pain Sponges who absorb all the discomfort and discontent of The Entire Crowd and transform it into antics that help us all Let Go Of Our Own Pain, if only for a little while. Then, in exchange for that liberating emotional catharsis, we relegate them to the social station of Loser Carny, and never give them the time of day; until they get back in Their Place; namely, acting as our own collective emotional toxic waste dump. Nice.

#MadScientistClown gets to be all of the above! Entertainer, Innovator, Goofball, Researcher, Ass-Saver at the Eleventh Hour when the Herd is Stampeding, and permanently "it" in that uplifting and existentially affirming Seventh Grade Playground perennial, Smear The Queer; which, admittedly needs further explication on Wikipedia to include the full-force gang tackle to the ground implied by "smear" in addition to the obvious reason for said smearing: being "queer."

Note: for those who hadn't noticed, yet, far too much of contemporary human society is frighteningly, functionally equivalent to a Seventh Grade Playground. That may be why we still have an ACLU, an EFF, etc.

So, for my own part, similar to supporting Boy With No Arms, People with No Water, and Old People that All Suck; I simply tend to side with the underdogs, I tend to identify with the #MadScientistClown archetype and agitate for greater inclusion and tolerance for Cognitive Diversity.

For instance, a #MadScientistClown might write things like:

Most of the thoughts here are his [own] and not those of his employer. However, being the founder of his own company means he can say [whatever] the hell he likes. [Even recklessly Without Attribution, or Undaunted by Threat of Retribution.]

So, a #MadScientistClown is also -- how else can we put it -- just plain mav'ricky.

But as for my portion; blue skies, smiling at me; nothing but blue skies, do I see ... do you want to change it?

For more information on how you too can become a #MadScientistClown (or realize that you've always been one) see http://tr.im/madscientistclown It's FREE! by : silverton

Oh, then, you might be trackin’ the sucky OLD cluetrain manifesto … or at least learning about the inevitable era of Ethernet To The Loo. BUT — oh yes, with just a single ‘t’ this time — always remember, if Colbert gets all wiggy waggy jiggy jaggy flibbity jib with a Wag Of the Finger of Sardonicalism, then it’s Pop Culture; but if you do it, it’s sooo meeeean and abuuusive, you big, mean, OLD, mean, and mean old meanie! Okay, okay … total overdone point kill overload singularity achieved. Next time, maybe we just don’t ignore or gloss over the contextual logophilic foghorn "but seriously" and we’ll probably be just fine. See why this is called the DROPPED packets blog, now? :-) If you want some keeper packets, why not head over here? As if you had something more important to tend to right now, right? ;-) Oh, and if you’re ever not Satisfied with the Product here, you know Where To Go.

Through me you pass into the city of woe:Through me you pass into eternal pain:Through me among the people lost for aye. Justice the founder of my fabric mov’d:To rear me was the task of power divine,Supremest wisdom, and primeval love. Before me things create were none, save thingsEternal, and eternal I endure.All hope abandon ye who enter here. Such characters in colour dim I mark’dOver a portal’s lofty arch inscrib’d:Whereat I thus: Master, these words import! Be ye ever forewarned, foresworn; oh forebear ye’ frail future forlorned!