More Old School Tax Images at www.taxhistory.org
June 16, 2009
Future Happiness For Americans
Future of Open Source: Collaborative Culture
On the cover of indie-rock band Bon Iver's recent Top 20 record Blood Bank is a striking photograph of a snow-encrusted, rusted car door. The record label didn't commission the image, or find it an art gallery or stock photography bank; instead, it licensed the shot from amateur photographer Lauren Hudgins, who had posted it to her Flickr feed last year when she was teaching English in Japan.
She hadn't expected anything much to come of the photo. "I was hoping for Flickr recognition — people viewing it, faving it, making comments about it,” she says.Hudgins' picture is a success story of the new open source culture, in which anyone with an internet connection can make their creations available to the public, unmediated by the old gatekeepers of mass media. The result has been an unprecedented outpouring of creative works. As of early June, for instance, more than3.6 billion photographs had been uploaded to Flickr alone. As the best of those works are now making their way into the broader cultural landscape, they're breaking mass media's stranglehold on the ownership of meaningful content.
June 15, 2009
June 12, 2009
One More Robot/Sympathy 3000-21 -The Flaming Lips
Unit three thousand twenty one is warming
Makes a humming sound - when its circuits
Duplicate emotions - and a sense of coldness detaches
As it tries to comfort your sadness -
One more robot learns to be something more than
A machine - when it tries the way it does - make it seem
Like it can love -
Cause it's hard to say what's real - when you know the
Way you feel - is it wrong to think it's love
When it tries the way it does...
Feeling a synthetic kind of love
Dreaming a sympathetic wish -
As the lights blink faster and brighter -
One more robot learns to be something more than
A machine - when it tries the way it does - make it seem
Like it can love -
Cause it's hard to say what's real - when you know the
Way you feel - is it wrong to think it's love
When it tries the way it does...
June 11, 2009
Report: kids' use of tech growing exponentially
Kids today are increasingly savvy at using things like computers and cell phones—this much is no surprise. But, according to a new report from the NPD Group, children's use of tech is growing exponentially and is changing over time to reflect their parents' changes in technology usage. There are differences between genders when it comes to different devices, too, and more kids than ever are getting their own laptops, cell phones, and other electronics.
ars technica
ars technica
June 10, 2009
How Cloud Computing Will Change Business
In 1990, in a keynote speech at the Comdex computer conference, Microsoft's (MSFT) then-chief executive, Bill Gates, bolstered his bona fides as a tech visionary when he declared the PC industry would produce advances within a few years that would put information at people's fingertips. To get there, Gates said, the world needed three things: a more "personal" personal computer, more powerful communications networks, and easy access to a broad range of information. Sometimes visionaries are right on the vision but off on the timing.
Only now is Gates' grand vision finally becoming a reality for businesses. While pieces of what he had in mind have been available for years, they typically were expensive and difficult to set up and use. Now that more personal PC is here in the form of smartphones and mini-laptops, and broadband wireless networks make it possible for people to be connected almost anytime and anywhere. At the same time, we're seeing the rise of cloud computing, the vast array of interconnected machines managing the data and software that used to run on PCs. This combination of mobile and cloud technologies is shaping up to be one of most significant advances in the computing universe in decades. "The big vision: We're finally getting there," says Donagh Herlihy, chief information officer of Avon Products (AVP). "Today, wherever you are, you can connect to all the information you need."
Fiction reaches a new level
T S Eliot wrote of Dante that “there seems really nothing to do but point to him and be silent”. How very wrong T S Eliot was. In perhaps the most bizarre literary cameo since Geoffrey Chaucer was shown singing along to Queen tunes in the 2001 film A Knight’s Tale, Florence’s most famous son will soon be crashing into your living room as the growling, cross-wielding hero of his very own video game. Yes, in 2010, as the frankly mad-looking trailer for Dante’s Inferno has it, you too will be able to “Go to Hell”. Anyone expecting a faithful interactive representation of the Commedia’s sorrow and pity will be somewhat taken aback. Made by the developers of last year’s outer-space zombie shooter Dead Space, the game recasts Dante as a muscle-bound anti-hero, carving his way through the Nine Circles with a scythe and a cross to liberate his girlfriend from Lucifer.
June 9, 2009
The Growth of Good Taste in America
At the same time it is no idle boast that the world is at present looking toward America; and whatever we become is bound to lower or raise the standards of life. The other countries are old, we are youth personified! We have all youth’s glorious beauty and strength and vitality and courage. If we can keep these attributes and add finish and understanding and perfect taste in living and thinking, we need not dwell on the Golden Age that is past, but believe in the Golden Age that is sure to be.
From 'Etiquette', Emily Post
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