DAY 1

Try to get som orientation: Where is my desk?, With whom I gonna share my workingspace?, Why is the Internet not working?, What's the reason to start so early in the morning?, Why do all the others have a Mac?, Where is my networkcable?....

Introduction into Information Society: What is this project about,splitted into small grupps, each grupp gets their special field - ours is the Advertising industry.

First lecture: "Trendspotting and Future Thinking" with Magnus Lindqvist (Pattern Recogniton) - generel trends in the digital media.

Meeting with my fellows: Confusion about our assignment, what, when, why...to do?

DAY 2-5

Lectures by Paul Collins, Interactive AD (Åkestam.Holst), Katarina Graffman, ethnograph and trendanalyst (Inculture).

Workshop with Delhaize  - a food retail company - the topic: How can the future workingspace looks like?

Meetings, research, reading, discussions, cookies, much coffee, less sleep...

DAY 6-7

Lectures by Jonathan Briggs (theOTHERmedia), cofounder of Hyper Island, Ted Persson (Great Works).

Setting up my blog - never thought it would come to this, but it is part of the project and so I will obey with mixed feelings.

Meetings, discussions, cookies, even more coffee, almost no sleep at all...but there is a light at the end of the tunnel...getting some structures and ideas how to present our results.

DAY 8

Finishing touch, clipping, writing, testing.

DAY 9

Presentationtime! Everyone is nervous and excited...Wow, I am really impressed of all the different, creative and well done presentations and the feedbacks are definetly helpfull. All in all we managed well, time to relax a little and enjoy our victory.

Now its time to get prepared for the next project, which is about Flash and AfterEffects.

Having our first selforganized workshop for all the Flash and AfterEffect noobs in our class - me one of the biggest noob ever - but is wasn't that bad, Greg, Marcus and Martin were patient and me so thankful - and in the end: It's aliiiive!!!!!!!! My first animation was really spinning, I am soooo pro.

Anyway, my own opinion is that we open up the presentation with a big bang and didn’t follow up with the high tempo that the intro gave us and maybe an outro as well.

And at the end of the day, I felt really sleepy, I almost fell into sleep one time, nothing against the people who up and presenting their job, they did a great job. It’s just been a long day.

A photo of Daniel, Greg and Marcus (having a blast with our group assignment?).
Tomorrow is the big day - time to show everyone Virtual Evolution and 2013 Super Mega 9000. Don't know what I'm talking about? Well, I can say that we definately solved the assignment in a original way. I am super excited about the sleek game console Greg was in charge off, and it has really inspired me to learn to make stuff in 3D.

Gonna be great to come to an end with this, but a bit sad to leave the group. Next week I'll be left alone with the o' so frightening Adobe After Effects...

Dr. Daniel Headrick will be speaking as part of the "Information in Society" speaker series. In addition to the lecture, he will participate in a lunch discussion and afternoon office hour, and the lecture will be recorded and archived online. All events are held at the Graduate School of Library and Information Science at the University of Illinois.

Lecture Abstract: When the colonial powers introduced telegraphs to and within their colonial empires, they did so in large part to tighten the control of the metropoles over their colonies and that of the colonial governments over their subjects. Telecommunications had another effect, however, namely it spread the news from distant places, thereby stimulating new ideas that threatened to undermine the colonial status quo. The hopes that the imperialists placed in the controlling powers of telecommunication have so far proved to be misplaced.

Speaker Bio: Dr. Daniel Headrick is an international telecommunications historian and Professor Emeritus at Roosevelt University. He is the author of several publications, including The Tentacles of Progress: Technology Transfer in the Age of Imperialism, 1850-1940 (1991), When Information Came of Age: Technologies of Knowledge in the Age of Reason and Revolution, 1700-1850 (2000), and the forthcoming Power Over Peoples: Technology, Environments, and Western Imperialism, 1400 to the Present. He earned a PhD in History from Princeton University in 1971.

Professor and Associate Dean Linda Smith
Graduate School of Library and Information Science
University of Illinois
501 E. Daniel St.
Champaign, IL 61820 USA
Email: lcsmith@illinois.edu
Visit the website at http://www.lis.uiuc.edu/programs/phd/infosociety/InfoSocSpeakers.html

Läs mer om Google Chromes features här:

http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2008-09-01-n47.html

och här finns lite blurriga skärmdumpar:

http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2008-09-02-n72.html

Det här är ett mycket bra exempel på att man kan göra någonting av den information som redan finns på webben istället för att bara lägga till.

[blip.tv ?posts_id=862384&dest=-1]

Very informative presentation with great examples to illustrate it. However, as it often happens with things that I want to apply into Romanian context the cognitive surplus seem to have a different history back home.

For what did the Romanian society used its cognitive surplus while building up its "industrial" society during Communism? I cannot answer this yet. For sure though the answer will  not be TV because during those years we had access to the most 3 hours of broadcasting per day (one of them being dedicated to news about the most beloved leader and his wife....) However,  part of it is, I am sure, connected to reading. I talked a little bit about this and its very interesting to see how books and reading were really a pilot for social web of today. Sharing was a key factor of those informal networks that circulated the good books and people were often breaking the laws contributing to these communities.

For almost 20 years now the "original" democracy in Romania has been pushing hard the sitcoms and sitcoms-like-news on the little cognitive surplus left of people after working hard for their daily bread. Not being used to speak their mind they got easily tricked by the media and accepted their passive position as receivers.  Can we hope that the Web will change this?

Part of the Romanians that get online are using the Web as presented by Shirky. Is there any connection between the good readers during Communism and the good web users today? My intuition would say yes, there should be a relation and I feel it is not determined by the financial status. I wish I would have time to look more into this!

How about the rest of "everybody"?  If they were not reading, what were the people doing with their cognitive surplus during Communism and what are they doing with it now? What does the Web has to offer in order to get them to turn the TV off and participate?

No, Romania is not behind the TV looking for the mouse...but it is aware of what a mouse is and that is a start.

Multicolr Search Lab är ett nytt sätt att söka på bilder på flickr. Man väljer vilken eller vilka färger bilden man söker på ska innehålla.

Genom att lägga till "&imgtype=face" i adressfältet när du gör en sökning på bilder i google så visas bara ansikten. Ett tydligt exempel får man om man söker på "paris". Jämför själv på länkarna nedan:

http://images.google.se/images?hl=sv&q=paris&btnG=Sök+bilder&gbv=2

http://images.google.se/images?hl=sv&q=paris&btnG=Sök+bilder&gbv=2&imgtype=face

Denna typ av sökningar kommer vi att få se mer av i framtiden!

The Artist's Duty

So it is the duty of the artist to discourage all traces of shame
To extend all boundaries
To fog them in right over the plate
To kill only what is ridiculous
To establish problem
To ignore solutions
To listen to no one
To omit nothing
To contradict everything
To generate the free brain
To bear no cross
To take part in no crucifixion
To tinkle a warning when mankind strays
To explode upon all parties
To wound deeper than the soldier
To heal this poor obstinate monkey once and for all

To verify the irrational
To exaggerate all things
To inhibit everyone
To lubricate each proportion
To experience only experience

To set a flame in the high air
To exclaim at the commonplace alone
To cause the unseen eyes to open

To admire only the abrsurd
To be concerned with every profession save his own
To raise a fortuitous stink on the boulevards of truth and beauty
To desire an electrifiable intercourse with a female alligator
To lift the flesh above the suffering
To forgive the beautiful its disconsolate deceit

To flash his vengeful badge at every abyss

To HAPPEN

It is the artist’s duty to be alive
To drag people into glittering occupations

To blush perpetually in gaping innocence
To drift happily through the ruined race-intelligence
To burrow beneath the subconscious
To defend the unreal at the cost of his reason
To obey each outrageous inpulse
To commit his company to all enchantments.

Kenneth Patchen

Sveriges Radio gör detta bra! Självklart så streamar de sitt innhåll från rikskanalerna P1, P2 ,P3 och P4 Radiosporten samt alla lokalradiostationer. Sedan har de 15 kanaler som bara sänder på webben.

Man kan även lyssna på gamla program och dom har även ett stort utbud av podcasts.

Har försökt spana på trender i digitala medier. Sjukt brett!

Tänkte iaf börja med att lista mina favoritapplikationer till iPhone. Har säkert missat flera grymma men då får ni tippsa mig! Namnen på programen länkar till iTunes App Store.

• Remote - Använd din iPhone som en fjärrkontroll till iTunes i din dator. Den hittar datorn via vlan.
• YouNote - Gör en snabb anteckning! Skriv, rita, spela in ljud, fota, eller anteckna en webbadress. Mycket enkelt och smidigt program!
• Tap Tap - Ungefär som en dansmatta. Lätt det roligaste spelet jag har testat till iPhone.
• WordPress - Skapa nya blogginlägg hos WordPress enkelt från telefonen. Lägg till bilder genom att ta nya eller bläddra i befintliga.
• Othello - Klassiskt spel som passar utmärkt till iPhone. Ett minus är att det saknar multiplayer mode.
• Shazam - Håll upp telefonen mot högtalaren som spelar den nya grymma låten du inte vet namnet på. Några sekunder senare så har du svaret i telefonen. Med ett "klick" till så kan du köpa den från iTunes store. Underbart!
• Vecka - Eftersom svenskarna är de ända som har kommit på att året kan delas upp i 52 (ok, 53 i vissa fall) veckor så saknar såklart alla kalendrar inbyggda veckonummer. Vecka är ett program som helt enkelt visar vilken vecka det är. Ser ut som vecka.nu.

We had a lecture with web director Phil Collins from Åkestam.Holst. He talked about trends and what would be expected of us in the digital media business in the future. He also showed us various examples of campaigns on how powerful PR can be. The campaign UNICEF did that persuaded consumers to reject bottled water in favour of tap water is truly amazing.

Also, make sure to check out Åkestam.Holst's new web campaign "Dance Match" for Viking Line. Find your perfect dance partner online and get on the boat!

We spoke about many things, and what I emphasized was how far Greece had gone in the last say 15 years with respect to telecom. I mean before a couple of years we needed a long time just to get a fixed phone, and now we are talking about mobile broadband evolution and general convergence.

And then I tried , in front of these executives, to place a mobile call to my wife and see if the family was ok.

I'm talking about a simple CS voice call, nothing fancy, no 3G surfing or any of that stuff, JUST A SIMPLE VOICE CALL.

And you know what happened? NOTHING.

It took me, on the island of TINOS, 20 minutes to finally place an outgoing call (I noticed at the side of my eye the snickering...basically my pride about our techo progress was just blown away). Now it wasn't the 15th of August, and there were no incoming boats. It was the 2nd of August, at 3pm in a restaurant at kionia and I had 5 line signal strength.

Dear GSM operator (and supplier to this operator) : Please on the island of Tinos and the rest of the Cyclades (which have considerable roaming activity in the summer) increase your traffic (speech) channel capacity and please improve your basic coverage in the rest of the country since I/ve been noting deteriorating service. It wasn't the switch that was at fault, nor the transmission capacity. It was the simple lack of access capacity.

Enough said and looking forward to your improvements. No point in talking about mobile broadband evolution and segmentation (καινοτομίες), when you can't even place reliably a simple voice call.

MdCC - MDVC - MVSEL - MCHC

                                            MTA - RE (DA) - OT

1) Personal genomics services: have your DNA analysed! Service providers available, from cheap to expensive: Genographic Project ($99.95), DeCode, 23andMe, Navigenics, DNA Direct, Knome ($350,000)

2) Transoceanic cables.

3) Article by Bryant Urstadt: "Social Networking Is Not a Business* But It Might Be Soon".

10 web startups to watch
Pinger
Pownce
Qik
Dash Navigation
Ushahidi
QTech (couldn't find the website quickly)
33Across
Peer39
Anagran
Mashery

Upcoming tech event: 23-25 September: www.technologyreview.com/emtech

-21st Century Business Herald on Nokia & Qualcomm patent agreement and Nokia's Symbian response to Google Android.

-Scientific American MIND magazine:

1) Some stuff on synesthesia, e.g. someone can "hear colors" or "taste shapes" (I have been interested in this weird phenomenon for a long time)

2) 14-17 August there will be the American Psychological Association's 116th Annual Convention. Malcom Gladwell will give the keynote address.

3) An article on easing depression through manual tasks like cooking, washing etc.

4) Installation by James Auger: "smell blind date" at NY MOMA.

5) 2007 chocolate sniffing experiment at UC Berkeley.

6) Androstenone, Androstadienone, substances.

7) Storytelling theories of "literary Darwinists": they propose that stories from around the world have universal themes reflecting our common underlying biology.

8 ) Wolfgang Köhler chimp experiment at University of Muenster in Germany: the chimp devised strategies for solving mazes.

9) Feng Shui. It has been experimentally proven that "spatial priming" affects peoples' response to subsequent situations. Experiment by Lawrence E. Williams and John A. Bargh at Yale.

10) www.psychologicalscience.org/onlyhuman

Harper's Magazine, August 2008

-Findings:

1) A 380-million year old fossil of fish giving live birth has been found.

2) A Welsh geobiologist has discovered populations of prokaryotic cells which may individually be more than 100 million years old, living a mile beneath the ocean floor. The buried cells are possible equal in biomass to all plant life on the earth's surface.

-It has been revealed that the earth once had 3 moons. The 2 lost ones may have crashed into the surviving moon, sucked into the sun, of flung out of the solar system.

-There is evidence of time before the Big Bang.

-Website www.harpers.org

Newsweek, August 4th 2008

Several articles on US and the world, but also of a couple in their fifties both starting their third marriage.. "It's not about the flatware".

Obama's church & Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr.

NASA research: northern lights' movement are magnetic explosions between the moon and earth.

Randy Pausch, "Last Lecture" about making the most of each day.

China & olympics article by Orville Schell: "China's agony of defeat".

Sharon Begley: " Who'll stop the rain" on rain control technologies.

I'm naming my first child Shatner.

Beijing Games Denying Media Full Use of Web
By ANDREW JACOBS
The New York Times: July 31, 2008

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/31/sports/olympics/31china.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&ref=todayspaper&pagewanted=all&oref=login

BEIJING — The International Olympic Committee failed to press China to allow fully unfettered access to the Internet for the thousands of journalists arriving here to cover the Olympics, despite promising repeatedly that the foreign news media could “report freely” during the Games, Olympic officials acknowledged Wednesday.

Since the Olympic Village press center opened Friday, reporters have been unable to access scores of Web pages — among them those that discuss Tibetan issues, Taiwanese independence, the violent crackdown on the protests in Tiananmen Square and the Web sites of Amnesty International, the BBC’s Chinese-language news, Radio Free Asia and several Hong Kong newspapers known for their freewheeling political discourse.

The restrictions, which closely resemble the blocks that China places on the Internet for its citizens, undermine sweeping claims by Jacques Rogge, the International Olympic Committee president, that China had agreed to provide full Web access for foreign news media during the Games. Mr. Rogge has long argued that one of the main benefits of awarding the Games to Beijing was that the event would make China more open.

“For the first time, foreign media will be able to report freely and publish their work freely in China. There will be no censorship on the Internet,” Mr. Rogge told Agence France-Presse just two weeks ago.

But a high-ranking Olympic committee official said Wednesday that the panel was aware that China would continue to censor Web sites carrying content that the Chinese propaganda authorities deemed harmful to national security and social stability. The panel acquiesced to China’s demands to maintain such controls, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not the designated public spokesman for the International Olympic Committee.

It was not immediately clear if China had provided special Internet links for overseas journalists working at the press center in the Olympic Village. But Chinese officials, speaking about the Internet restrictions on Wednesday, said they would not allow foreign journalists to visit Web sites that violated Chinese laws.

In its negotiations with the Chinese over Internet controls, the Olympic committee official said, the panel insisted only that China provide unregulated access to sites containing information useful to sports reporters covering athletic competitions, not to a broader array of sites that the Chinese and the Olympic committee negotiators determined had little relevance to sports.

The official said he now believed that the Chinese defined their national security needs more broadly than the Olympic committee had anticipated, denying reporters access to some information they might need to cover the events and the host country fully. This week, foreign news media in China were unable to gain direct access to an Amnesty International report detailing what it called a deterioration in China’s human rights record in the prelude to the Games.

“We are quite stunned by the decision, but we will survive this mess,” the official said. Sandrine Tonge, the media relations coordinator for the committee, said it would press the Chinese authorities to reconsider.

Chinese officials initially suggested that any troubles journalists were having with Internet access probably stemmed from the sites themselves, not any steps that China had taken to filter Web content. But Sun Weide, the chief spokesman for the Beijing Olympic organizing committee, acknowledged Wednesday that journalists would not have uncensored Internet use. “It has been our policy to provide the media with convenient and sufficient access to the Internet,” Mr. Sun said. “I believe our policy will not affect reporters’ coverage of the Olympic Games.”

Mr. Sun said foreigners using the Internet in China would be subject to the same laws under which censors blocked access to a wide range of Web sites thought to be detrimental to stability. China has long maintained that its laws governing Internet access do not amount to censorship and are similar to restrictions on pornography or gambling sites in many countries...

On Capitol Hill, Senator Sam Brownback, Republican of Kansas, introduced a resolution on Tuesday urging China to reconsider what he said were its plans to force international hotel chains to track electronic communications by its guests. At a news conference, he introduced redacted documents that he said were provided by the hotels requiring them to install government software to monitor Internet traffic during the Olympics.

Concerns about media access to the Internet intensified Tuesday, when Western journalists working at the Main Press Center in Beijing said they could not get to Amnesty International’s Web site to see the group’s report on China’s rights record.

T. Kumar, Amnesty International’s Asia advocacy director, said he thought the government hoped it could dissuade reporters from pursuing stories about human rights issues by blocking their access to Internet-based information. “This sends the wrong message not only to journalists but to anyone on his or her way to the Olympics,” he said.

It was not clear how hard Olympic committee officials pushed for open access to the Internet during negotiations with the Chinese, which dated from to the decision to award Beijing the Games in 2001, or why Mr. Rogge, the Olympic chief, promised that the news media would have uncensored access during the Games when officials working for him were aware that China would keep at least some of its censorship policies in place...

Jonathan Watts, president of the Foreign Correspondents Club of China, said he was disappointed that Beijing had failed to honor its agreement to temporarily remove the firewall that prevented Chinese citizens from fully using the Internet.

“Obviously if reporters can’t access all the sites they want to see, they can’t do their jobs,” he said. “Unfortunately such restrictions are normal for reporters in China, but the Olympics were supposed to be different.”

Com três anos escutava e cantava (é... mais ou menos isso) PHD "I Won't let you down". Existe até uma lendária história que minha mãe, desesperada por ter perdido o filho, me achou embaixo de uma mesa escutando essa música já que a caixa de som ficava lá. Já mostrando minha relação com a música.

Depois vieram os Menudos. Sim, eu cantava e dançava em português e, principalmente, em espanhol. Até então acho que meu cérebro não funcionava muito bem e convenci meus pais a, pasmem, ir a um show dos Menudos no Ibirapuera. Primogênito, loirinho, carinha de anjo, o único homem da família. Imagine meu pai e minha mãe, me carregando no colo no final do show (claro que dormi na terceira música) tentando chegar vivos ao carro.

Eu era um garoto do POP, é verdade. Aos sete anos ficava na frente do super estéreo do meu pai (que eu, em uma das minha partidas imaginárias de futebol, acertei com um vaso de samambaia) escutando as rádios em busca de músicas para gravar nas minhas fitas K7. Com meu avô aprendi a catalogá-las e aí, na minha opinião, é que comecei a virar nerd. As fitas eram numeradas e devidamente catalogadas em cadernos. Conheci o pop da época: Tracy Chapman, New Kids on the block, Rick Astley, Richard Marx, Locomia (caralho), etc.

Quando eu já tinha umas 5 fitas completas (como era difícil montar uma sem os anúncios) aprendi a gostar de uma música que talvez tenha mudado a minha vida: Welcome to the jungle. Era sujo, o cara gritava que nem uma gazela no cio, e no dia que vi a capa do disco (Appetite for Destrucion) tive certeza que queria um. Afinal, tinha uma mulher com o peito de fora.

Obviamente não foi muito fácil convencer minha mãe a comprar aquele K7 (tinha que ser K7 porque meu pai não deixava usar o toca disco. Eu arranhava os discos e estragava a agulha). Depois de comprado era mais difícil ainda convencer meu pai a me deixar escutar no seu super estéreo. Lembre-se que na década de 80 o som ficava na sala, perto da TV. E tinha uma música que eu me amarrava: "Mr. Browstone". Se pudesse furar K7 furaria nessa música.

Acho que essa música começou a mudar meu jeito de ver (escutar) música. Gostava de Guns, mas não das músicas que todo mundo gostava. Hoje é mais claro que eu gostava das músicas mais pesadas.

Meu gosto musical mudou um pouco e, além dos super pops, comecei a escutar Faith No More, Skid Row e todo esse rock comercial da década de 80.

Até que em 1990 estréia em São Paulo (morei em São Paulo até 92) a MTV. Minha primeira paixão. Eu já era um nerdzinho e as meninas não me dava bola mesmo. Na parte da manhã não podia ver televisão porque tinha que fazer lição de casa, mas quando voltava da escola... Assistia o DISK MTV e clipes até não aguentar mais. Eu tinha um cadastro na MTV, na época que a Astrid apresentava o DISK. INXS, Information Society, Guns... Eu votava e torcia pelos clipes. Se um clipe que eu gostasse não estivesse em primeiro ficava muito puto. No auge do meu vício chegava a tentar ligar mais de uma vez para a MTV:

- Gostaria de votar em How Long. (Alterando a voz para a mulher do outro lado não perceber que era eu)

- Não foi você que ligou a poucos minutos votando nessa música?

- Tu tu tu tu.

Quando mudei para Goiânia em 92 tive crise de abstinência. Como uma cidade podia viver sem MTV? Minha depressão (olha o exagero) era tão grande que meu tio gravava 5 horas de MTV por fita e mandava as fitas para Goiânia para eu me saciar. Ugly Kid Joe e Aerosmith ditavam as paradas nessa época.

Na escola conheci um cara que tinha TV à cabo, um luxo que não eu podia ter. Ele assistia DISK MTV e, pasmem de novo, anotava os primeiros lugares numa folha para eu acompanhar a evolução das músicas.

Já triste, sem MTV, comecei a me afastar de música. Não queria mais saber daquilo. Até que o Guns lança um disco que era quatro (?????). Porra... eu nem tinha dinheiro pra comprar um eles lançam 4 de uma vez só? Mas me esforcei e comprei o Use Your Illusion I e o II (cada um tinha dois discos) e junto, dei uma miguelada, veio o tal álbum vermelho do Metallica.

Eu escutei muito os dois discos do Guns, assim como o Spaghetti Incident (acho que eu fui o único ser humano a escutar esse disco), mas me apaixonei pela Welcome Home do Metallica.

Meus pais nunca gostaram que eu falasse palavrão e quando eu descobria uma música que tinha muito logo virava a minha favorita. Nos discos do Guns tinham muitas. Aliás, com 11 anos, se tivesse um palavrão que eu conseguisse identificar eu já ficava bastante feliz. Mas pela primeira vez eu começava a entender uma música de verdade: “Sleep my friend, and you will see/That dream is my reality/They keep me locked up in this cage/Can't they see it's why my brain says rage” . Era exatamente como eu me sentia (adolescente é burro mesmo) em relação a escola, pais e todas as enormes cobranças que me faziam.

Se já gostava de música a adolescência faz você se entregar a ela. Metallica para mim era uma religião. Até eles lançarem o Black Album. Como assim? Agora até as meninas do meu prédio escutavam Metallica. “Ai, eu adolu (traduzido para o miguxes para que o sentimento de repulsa fique maior) Nothing else Matters”. Como, eu, o fodão da música (lembra, adolescente metido a besta, hã?) posso permitir isso? Era demais pra mim!

Foi nessa época que eu conheci o CD. E junto com o CD o Sepultura. O Metallica já era pop e eu não queria mais saber dele. Na casa do Chapecó, que tinha um carrossel de incríveis 5 CDS, passávamos horas escutados os 3 CDs que ele tinha (então, pra que um carrossel com 5?) e os emprestados. Entre os emprestados Arise do Sepultura.

Sinceramente? A gente falava que gostava mas na verdade só passamos a gostar porque não tinha mais nada pra ouvir. Mas gostamos, e gostamos muito. Tanto que 10 anos depois, ainda quebrados, rachamos um CD com as melhores músicas do Sepultura. Aliás, esse CD existe ainda?

Meu lado nerd foi ficando cada vez maior e cada vez mais gostando de músicas mais pesadas. Conheci Pantera, Slayer, Judas Priest, Megadeth, Ratos de Porão e tantas outras. Ia aos showzinhos de rock e achava tudo lindo. Totalmente incentivado por uma galerinha barra pesada e ações que eu não me orgulho.

Comecei a ouvir Raimundos. E gostava muito.  Primeiro porque tinham letras sujas e lotadas de frases "politicamente incorretas". Segundo porque era cru, praticamente um rock virgem. Andávamos por toda Goiânia cantando em alto e bom som as músicas do Raimundos. As velhinhas de Goiânia, que não morreram, com certeza lembram da gente. Né Chapecó?

Até que deu um estalo (plim), eu renasci pra vida e comecei a beijar meninas. E como vocês sabem, meninas não gostam de rock pesado. Não as boas! Aí voltei a escutar Metallica, até suportar os albuns seguintes: Load e Reload. Fazer o que né? Foi a época que montamos uma rádio e transmitíamos nossos 10 CDS para o pessoal do prédio (entenda: éramos nerds. Construíamos circuitos por puro hobby). Éramos o Dj Lima e o Dj ... como era mesmo? Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Metallica, Nirvana e todo esse rock que as meninas gostavam na segunda metade da década de 90.

Comecei a entender que não precisava ser tão fechado para música. Aliás que era muito “cool” gostar de vários estilos, poder conversar e discutir sobre música sem ser radical. Passei a escutar até o que o meu pai escutava e pior, gostar. Dire Straits, Lulu Santos, Beatles. Meu pai tinha uma coleção de discos que eu nunca dei muita bola. E de revoltado com o pai (qual nerd e/ou rockeiro não foi revoltado com o pai?) passei a entender melhor as coisas e meus pais. Acho que aí começou minha reabilitação. Voltei a ser um ser humano com um possível futuro próspero.

Depois de tantas mudanças, que praticamente definiram meu gosto musical, mais nada poderia me afetar certo? Errado. Em 1996 aparece a internet. Na verdade primeiro as BBSs e junto com elas as primeiras MP3. Imagine ficar 4 horas pra baixar uma música numa qualidade duvidosa. Mas eu comecei a gostar. Nunca vou esquecer da primeira: Alice in Chains – Man in the box.

A internet crescia e, cada vez mais nerd, me viciava mais (um assunto que daria, com certeza, outro longo post como esse). Conheci uma menina (sim, uma menina) que gostava de um tal de Korn. Ok, eu sabia que metade do fato dela gostar do Korn era porque ninguém conhecia. Mas e daí? Resolvi escutar e acabei gostando. Até mandei trazer CDS dos EUA porque aqui no Brasil não tinha nada. Começou uma relação com o Nu Metal. Mesmo sendo criticado por muitos posso dizer que gosto bastante e hoje é uma das vertentes que mais gosto do rock. Disturbed, Korn, System of a Down, Slipknot, todos Nu Metal mas cada um com um estilo bastante característico. Bastante interessante observar como o Nu Metal e as mulheres se dão bem. Mais de uma namorada minha gosta (ou gostava) de alguma banda de Nu Metal. E olha que eu nem falei de Linkin Park.

Comecei a colecionar MP3. Era muita MP3. Em redes de IRC eu "servia" MP3. Tinha tanta MP3 que uma rádio local de Goiânia usou algumas delas para produzir seu “estoque” inicial. Em troca ganhei milhares de outras que me fizeram rever o passado. Lembra do Oingo Boingo?

E se eu tinha deixado de ser preconceituoso no quesito música (alguns outros preconceitos ainda persistiram), com todas essas em casa eu passei a gostar de muita coisa que não gostava. De rock pesado ao mais pop dos pops nada me saciava. Aliás não me sacia. Aprendi a escutar aquilo que não tolerava e descobri que, por mais que você não goste da banda, pode ter alguma música que te agrade.

Um dia, assistindo uma vinheta da VH1, escutei a música "Don't stop me now" do Queen. Passei a escutar Queen de uma forma diferente e acabei gostando. Gostando não, fiquei apaixonado. Escuto Queen direto, e num dia desses aconteceu algo inesperado.

Como já foi escrito no blog o Samuel gosta de rock progressivo. Ta aí um rock que eu não gosto. Não sou preconceituoso não. Já escutei e posso dizer que, mesmo tentando muito, não gosto. Ele sabe disso, até porque é motivo de piada entre nós. Não é que em uma viagem para Goiânia estávamos escutando Bohemian Rhapsody e o Samuel despretensiosamente, disse:

- Você sabia que essa música é um dos Clássicos do Progressivo?

- Mentira, pára de brincadeira.

- Ué Alexandre, Queen é um dos pioneiros do progressivo.

- Porra Samuel, você sabe que eu não gosto de progressivo. Você acha que se fosse progressivo eu não ia saber?

- Escuta o resto do CD então.

É... Eu gosto até de progressivo. Eu, o Samuel e o Chapecó!

Escuto de tudo. Claro que algumas coisas eu gosto mais que outras. Recentemente comecei a gostar de Black Label Society. Tenho um amigo que sempre ia a minha casa com a camisa do Black Label e eu sempre enchia o saco dele. Agora eu quero uma também. E olha que to velho pra isso. Na minha última ida a galeria do rock em São Paulo descobri que não sou mais público alvo das camisetas :).

Me arrependo amargamente de não ter ido ao show em São Paulo. Acho que é uma das bandas que eu mais curto.

Mas por mais que eu seja bastante eclético posso dizer que  gosto mesmo é de rock pesado. Qualquer tipo. Com voz de homem (sem melódico, pelo amor de Deus). Gutural se possível.  Escuto de tudo e hora ou outra aprendo a gostar de uma banda nova. Até de bandas EMO como Simple Plain e NX Zero. Qual o problema?

Respondendo a sua pergunta Samuel: Que banda mudou a sua vida? Não sei. Depende de qual dessas vidas você tá falando! :)

]]> http://jackalberson.wordpress.com/?p=52 Fri, 25 Jul 2008 12:41:06 +0000 jackalberson http://jackalberson.wordpress.com/?p=52 Positive thinking...ineffective. Hmm...caffeine may be the only choice.

Listening to lots of synthpop recently...Information Society, Anything Box, you know the routine...

I suppose for my first column (anywhere) some sort of inaugural words are called for.  Let's start.

With the arrival of the Internet as a major form of interactive communication, we have seen an avalanche of new types of communication.  From websites, blogs (an online journal- web+ log=blog), video sharing (YouTube), social networks (Facebook.com), to the newest virtual worlds (Second Life), the breadth and depth of these forms of communication is, for me, exciting, over whelming, disturbing, and, ultimately, unavoidable.  As much as you can not imagine going without a telephone, or the postal service, or written language, these newer forms of digital communication are here to say and will have all kinds of impacts on how we collect, share, and distribute information.  Information is the backbone of all relationships, and, so, also of communities, societies, and culture.

One of the benefits of all these digital goodies is that you, the consumer, have a wide degree of what you choose to see, to watch, to ingest.  Sweeping generalizations aside, lets zoom in on the details.  Let me be a tour guide for you through this teeming landscape of media and information.  That is a mouthful.  Is there a better term?  President Bush offers up "the Internets."  Or his sidekick, Senator Stevens (AK) famously lectured his colleagues about how the Internet is a "series of tubes."[JC2] The internet doesn't really do the job o describing what is out there.  Its like describing the auto industry as roads or the economy as money.   The internet, roads, and money are all simply ways to get from A to B.  The exciting stuff, the pulse of culture, politics, discovery, and life are all the As and Bs.  So, the world of information is the digital jungle, the metaverse, the infoscape, or where-we-are-headed (albeit at different speeds).  Cyberspace has emerged as an alternate term ad I'll stick with it for now because it implies a destination, not a mode of transport.

We have a good sense of how people move around in cyberpsace.  For the record, that is about 73% of us.  The US still has the greatest degree of Internet use, even if the foreigners are kicking our butts in everything from manufacturing to mathematics.  No one out gadgets the average American.  Yet.

Anyway, the Pew Internet and American Life Project (http://www.pewinternet.org) has been doing some insightful research into what we are up to with all of our on-line hours (32/month, according to Nielsen Online; that's nothing compared to world-leading Israel, at 58 hours per month according to comScore.)  The good Pew folks look at how assets (your computer, your connection), attitudes (do you want to take a sledge hammer to your machine?), and actions (what do you do?) jointly can define the various types, species, of denizens of the infoscape.  They have this nifty quiz (online, of course) you can take to identify yourself (http://www.pewinternet.org/quiz/quiz.asp).  It takes about 10 minutes.

Here is the local fauna, arranged loosely from most to least intense users:

Maybe you recognize yourself in the above typology?  I'd like to suggest a location in cyberspace for each type that you may find amusing, helpful, or insightful.

Omnivore: SecondLife (www.secondlife.com) is a persistent 3D world inhabited and built by its residents.  Go anywhere, be anyone, do anything.  Many technologists are expecting Web 3.0 to be a 3D, visual world instead of our current 2D multimedia cyberspace.  Go see the future.

Connector: MeetUp.com is the now-venerable but still ground-breaking application that helps people connect locally around common interests, from alfalfa sprouts to zebra collecting.  A more feature rich (and free!) application that helps people connect and build groups is Nexo.  You can post calendars, polls, photos, forums, invite people, keep a blog, and much more.

Jaded Veteran: If you are feeling hopeful about getting more out of cyberspace, 43folders.com may help out.  For example, they have practical tips on getting email under control. If you just want to indulge your jadedness, click to this parody: http://www.getafirstlife.com/.

Productivity Enhancer: Facebook and myspace seem just too, you know, teeny-bop and the Juno-set?  Linkedin.com is the best professional social network site.

Mobile Centrics: Twitter.com allows you to communicate through PC or phone to particular folks or to the whole world.  And all in 140 characters or less.  Its oddly addicting.

The Hassled: Here is a book and a website about how to disconnect from it all (I'll just suspend irony for  a moment).  Turn It Off.

Inexperienced Experimenters: Play around with the blog BoingBoing. As It says-it's a directory of good things.  A great place for an eager experimenter.

Happily Lightweights: Reaching for the yellow pages?  Why not try the online version? (http://www.switchboard.com/).  You can get diving directions, maps, or search by phone number?  Get the most out of your land line!

Indifferents: Here is a search engine to match your attitude: Blackle.com.  And it saves energy!

Offline: If you want a computer, you can go to the public library and use their computer to create an account on ebay.com. It is a big auction.  I saw Desktop computers from $100-200.

My editor (Jim) and I discussed the awkwardness of a print column about the digital infoscape.  Where possible, I will make links relatively short.  Better yet, this column will also appear on the Guardian's website and my own blog (netsweweave.wordpress.com) so you can read it on line and easily click away on the links.

[JC1]Get dates

[JC2]Get daily show clip)

Mark Bovens sets out to answer such questions in ‘Information Rights: Citizenship in the Information Society’, which featured in a 2002 (Vol. 10, No. 3) edition of The Journal of Political Philosophy. His article is, above all, an important contribution to the grounding of information rights within the current age.

Bovens builds on Marshall’s three traditional elements of citizenship (civil, political and social) by adding a fourth (information). He argues that “the arrival of the information society is to be accompanied by consequences for the manner in which the citizenship ideal is given shape and substance.”

Boven asks:

“Is it possible to function as a citizen in the information society without access to essential information distribution and reception channels?”

Considering of the drastic differences between agrarian, industrial and information societies, Boven argues that the shift towards an information society, in which information is a key element in the functioning of everyday life, “not only demands a different definition of the traditional civic, political and social rights, but also the development of a number of digital information rights that extend further than the current regime regarding open government and the freedom of information.”

Information rights are threefold, according to Boven. Citizens require primary, secondary and tertiary information rights. Primary rights allow citizens direct access to actual government information. Secondary rights guarantee citizens government support in gaining access to crucial information channels. Finally, tertiary information rights support citizens in their horizontal information relations with other citizens and with private legal entities.

In the and, Bovan argues the recognition of information rights is an “important constitutional innovation that can help to render the constitutional state an appropriate accommodation for the information society.”

Interestingly, Boven has been a member of the Dutch Commission on Constitutional Rights in the Digital Era, which drafted proposals to adapt the Dutch constitution to the information society. He recommends the first chapter of the Dutch constitution be amended to add:

Everyone has a right of access to information held by the government. This right can be restricted by or under law.

Government shall attend to the accessibility of information held by the government.