The danger of realtime

From Ray Bradbury's And the Rock Cried Out:

"I remember once, when I lived in the Capital for a month and bought the paper fresh every day. I went wild with love, anger, irritation, frustration; all of the passion boiled in me. I was young, I exploded at everything I saw. But then I saw what I was doing: I was believing what I read. Have you noticed? You believe a paper printed on the same day you buy it? This has happened but only an hour ago, you think! It must be true. So I learned to stand back away and let the paper age and mellow. Back here, in Colonia, I saw the headlines diminish to nothing. The week-old paper -- why you can spit on it if you wish. It is like a woman you once loved, but now you see a few days later, she is not quite what you thought. She has rather a plain face. She is no deeper than a cup of water."

And the Rock Cried Out by Ray Bradbury at Google books
The quote is on P. 43

Make sure your boss reads this

From Ars Technica:

Workers are more productive when they are able to occasionally do non-work stuff online, researchers at the University of Melbourne have found. Dr. Brent Coker studied the habits of 300 workers and found that the large majority engaged in what he calls "Workplace Internet Leisure Browsing" (WILB)—surfing the Internet for personal reasons. But despite the common perception that such a behavior is a drain on employers, Coker says that these employees are able to focus better when performing tasks for work.

In his report, Coker said that 70 percent of workers engage in WILB, the most popular of which involved looking for information about products, reading news, playing games, and watching YouTube videos. "People need to zone out for a bit to get back their concentration," he said in a statement. "Short and unobtrusive breaks, such as a quick surf of the internet, enables the mind to rest itself, leading to a higher total net concentration for a days work, and as a result, increased productivity."

More from Ars Technica

Bravo!

From Nicholas Carr's Rough Type blog:

Note: As of March 8, 2009, I have shut down Rough Type's comments function in an attempt to reduce distractions as I write my next book. I apologize for any inconvenience or frustration that results. If you find something I've written to be particularly annoying and feel compelled to express your anger, please feel free to punch your computer screen.

Junk Food Advertising: Are Children the Biggest Losers?

The Icelandic state broadcasting system, RÚV, recently made the decision to stop airing television commercials during times that children are most likely to be watching, at weekends and after 6 pm in the evenings.

New consumer regulations, a result of three years of negotiation between consumer rights groups, child rights advocates, retailers, advertisers and the government, also recently came into place.

The new rules, which include that candy, soda and chips should neither be sold near cash registers nor be in the viewing area of children, were adopted in Iceland on March 15 to coincide with World Consumer Rights Day.

More at IcelandReview

Yochai Benkler on the end of universal rationality

Yochai Benkler:

The big question I ask myself is how we start to think much more methodically about human sharing, about the relationship between human interest and human morality and human society. The main moment at which I think you could see the end of an era was when Alan Greenspan testified before the House committee and said, "My predictions about self-interest were wrong. I relied for 40 years on self-interest to work its way up, and it was wrong." For those of us like me who have been working on the Internet for years, it was very clear you couldn't encounter free software and you couldn't encounter Wikipedia and you couldn't encounter all of the wealth of cultural materials that people create and exchange, and the valuable actual software that people create, without an understanding that something much more complex is happening than the dominant ideology of the last 40 years or so. But you could if you weren't looking there, because we were used in the industrial system to think in these terms.

Watch the video or read the rest of the transcript at Edge.org

Rules for tools

From Wendell Berry's "Why I Am Not Going to Buy a Computer"

To make myself as plain as I can, I should give my standards for technological innovation in my own work. They are as follows:-


1. The new tool should be cheaper than the one it replaces.
2. It should be at least as small in scale as the one it replaces.
3. It should do work that is clearly and demonstrably better than the one it replaces.
4. It should use less energy than the one it replaces.
5. If possible, it should use some form of solar energy, such as that of the body.
6. It should be repairable by a person of ordinary intelligence, provided that he or she has the necessary tools.
7. It should be purchasable and repairable as near to home as possible.
8. It should come from a small, privately owned shop or store that will take it back for maintenance and repair.
9. It should not replace or disrupt anything good that already exists, and this includes family and community relationships.

More from Wendell Berry

In addition to the essay Berry also replies to letters written in response to the original essay. Both are well worth reading.

Q: Kevin Kelly A: George Lucas

Taken from a February 1997 interview:

Q: At one time you said, "Technology won't save us." Do you think technology is making the world better or worse?

A: If you watch the curve of science and everything we know, it shoots up like a rocket. We're on this rocket and we're going perfectly vertical into the stars. But the emotional intelligence of humankind is equally if not more important than our intellectual intelligence. We're just as emotionally illiterate as we were 5,000 years ago; so emotionally our line is completely horizontal. The problem is the horizontal and the vertical are getting farther and farther apart. And as these things grow apart, there's going to be some kind of consequence of that.

The full interview

Marshall McLuhan Q&A

As quoted by Nicholas Carr:

Fulford: What kind of world would you rather live in? Is there a period in the past or a possible period in the future you'd rather be in?

McLuhan: No, I'd rather be in any period at all as long as people are going to leave it alone for a while.

Fulford: But they're not going to, are they?

McLuhan: No, and so the only alternative is to understand everything that's going on, and then neutralize it as much as possible, turn off as many buttons as you can, and frustrate them as much as you can. I am resolutely opposed to all innovation, all change, but I am determined to understand what's happening because I don't choose just to sit and let the juggernaut roll over me. Many people seem to think that if you talk about something recent, you're in favor of it. The exact opposite is true in my case. Anything I talk about is almost certain to be something I'm resolutely against, and it seems to me the best way of opposing it is to understand it, and then you know where to turn off the button.

Nicholas Carr at Rough Type

Quotes on technology

Posted in the comments of Kevin Kelly's latest Technium post:

“When a machine begins to run without human aid, it is time to scrap it - whether it be a factory or a government.” ~Alexander Chase

“The real problem is not whether machines think but whether men do.” ~B.F. Skinner

“The real danger is not that computers will begin to think like men, but that men will begin to think like computers.” ~Sydney J. Harris

“There is an evil tendency underlying all our technology - the tendency to do what is reasonable even when it isn’t any good.”-Robert Pirsig

“The machine does not isolate man from the great problems of nature but plunges him more deeply into them. “-Antoine de Saint-Exupery

“The first rule of any technology used in a business is that automation applied to an efficient operation will magnify the efficiency. The second is that automation applied to an inefficient operation will magnify the inefficiency.” -Bill Gates

“Technology is the knack of so arranging the world that we don’t have to experience it.” Max Frisch

“A free America… means just this: individual freedom for all, rich or poor, or else this system of government we call democracy is only an expedient to enslave man to the machine and make him like it.” - Frank Lloyd Wright

The Technium

The singularity approaches

Via Pink Tentacle:

Honda has developed new brain-machine interface (BMI) technology that allows humans to control the Asimo humanoid robot simply by thinking certain thoughts.

The BMI system, which Honda developed along with Advanced Telecommunications Research Institute International (ATR) and Shimadzu Corporation, consists of a sensor-laden helmet that measures the user’s brain activity and a computer that analyzes the thought patterns and relays them as wireless commands to the robot.

More From Pink Tentacle