I recently discovered this white paper by Tim O’Reilly and John Battelle – two of the major gurus of web 2.0 and search respectively. Plenty of interesting information and ideas to chew on, but what really caught my attention is their discussion of the notions of information shadows and deep context learning by database algorithms. It is fairly banal to observe that each of us consists of multiple identity-layers, but how do you teach a database to make the meta-connections between these disparate pieces of data? And what happens when you teach it that? I need to think more about this but it seems an argument could be made that at a certain meta-level the subject-object divide becomes inconsequential; in other words, the difference between a human and an object is a function of their ‘entanglement networks’.
Category: academic
Prezi from my lecture on modding and machinima – just a general overview really, with an extended segment on the Total War series [because that’s what I play] and the twcenter modding community. In the lecture I also demonstrate some basic modding through the descr.strat files [not in the prezi though].
Prezi from my lecture on the emergence of smartphones and the key battle for the future of the platform between Apple and Android. Some nice stats and infographics thrown in.
Prezi from my lecture on PC Gaming and the particularities of the medium in terms of content, technology and distribution.
Prezi from my lecture on media ownership, and the implications of the long tail for media conglomerates:
Prezi from my lecture on performative game spaces and the construction of POV (point of view) subjectivities:
Prezi from my lecture on gaming consoles and convergence:
Great post by Seth Godin on so-called dead media. In fact it is so great I am reposting it in full:
Bring me stuff that’s dead, please
RSS is dead. Blogs are dead. The web is dead.
Good.
Dead means that they are no longer interesting to the drive-by technorati. Dead means that the curiousity factor has been satisfied, that people have gotten the joke.
These people rarely do anything of much value, though.
Great music wasn’t created by the first people to grab an electric guitar or a synthesizer. Great snowboarding moves didn’t come from the guy who invented the snowboard… No one thinks Gutenberg was a great author, and some of the best books will be written long after books are truly dead.
Only when an innovation is dead can the real work begin. That’s when people who are seeking leverage get to work, when we can focus on what we’re saying, not how (or where) we’re saying it.
The drive-by technorati are well-informed, curious and always probing. They’re also hiding… hiding from the real work of creating work that matters, connections with impact and art that lasts. I love to hear about the next big thing, but I’m far more interested in what you’re doing with the old big thing.
Only when a technology settles into the swamp of daily culture and starts composting, only then can interesting things start happening with it.