Author: Jon Lebkowsky

Co-wrangler of Plutopia News Network, cohost Radio Free Plutopia. Podcaster, writer, dharma observer, enzyme. Former editor/publisher, FringeWare Review; associate editor at bOING bOING and Factsheet Five; writer at Mondo 2000, 21C, Wired, Whole Earth Review, Austin Chronicle; sub-editor at Millennium Whole Earth Catalog; blogger at Worldchanging. Digital culture maven, podcaster, writer, dharma observer, enzyme. On The WELL, Cohost of VC (virtual communities), Media, and Civil War (.ind) conferences.

Gmail Ads

“Google’s insertion of unsolicited ads directly into inboxes is made possible, paradoxically, by its success in otherwise eliminating them. Google has essentially conquered spam, which was once predicted to be the death of e-mail: less than one per cent of all spam in Gmail reaches an inbox. It could not stuff its own ads in the box if it had not already cleared the space.”

Jon L.’s response: I’ve been using Gmail since it appeared 9 years ago, and while I’m aware Google uses the service to render ads, I never notice them. I’m no more likely to notice them in my inbox, especially if they’re in a box categorized as “promotions.” (All I see in there now, incidentally, is stuff I signed up for).

I’m getting this incredibly sophisticated, spam-free and flexible email system for free; if the cost of that is receipt of a few barely visible ads, I’m certainly not going to quibble. So to Matt Buchanan’s question whether the ads are “too invasive,” I would say no.

Matt Buchanan on integrated ads in Gmail’s redesigned inbox: http://nyr.kr/1aJaw2Y (via newyorker)

Three Laws of Augmented Reality Design

1. Augmentation must emerge from the real world and/or relate to it
2. Augmentation must not distract from reality, but make you more aware of it
3. Augmented interaction must deliver a superior experience to alternatives, or better yet – there’s no alternative.

Three Laws of Augmented Reality Design, http://gamesalfresco.com/, Ori Inbar

Grad Students

Its the darkest of ironies that at precisely the historical moment that the human race need as many people as possible to parse complex problems –climate change, energy crises, lock-jawed governing bodies, and brand new forms of systemic poverty– being a grad student has become something akin to a feudal apprenticeship. You are at a severe disadvantage if you do not have some source of external income and/or a profound gift for writing grants and selling yourself as a professional scholar. It means that the young scions of families that have benefited the most from corporate welfare and oligarchy are the ones that will graduate into the positions of power charged with nothing less than saving our planetary civilization. It means that the large corporate and nonprofit entities that have amassed enormous war chests will be funding and directing the research of those few graduate students that don’t have a personal stake in maintaining an unsustainable status quo.

http://thesocietypages.org/cyborgology/2013/07/23/grad-students-are-ruining-everything/

First Democracy

Here’s what I posted:

“Paul, I appreciated this summary of Woodruff’s book, which I hope to read. I’ve often argued that we shouldn’t use the word “democracy” because it is so poorly understood in this era and context, so commonly thought to be a simple majoritarianism. It’s far more complex than that, as you know, and calls for a more complex and nuanced rendering than that one word would allow – unless there’s a body of real learning behind it. By “real” learning, I mean learning that leads to understanding, and includes the kind of critical thinking skills that we’ve been discussing recently. In the U.S. we’re failing as a democracy, and there is no one tyrant, but a tyranny of system and players. It’s a huge problem and I don’t know how to fix it. These kinds of discussions should help.”

Brave new world

Take this with a grain of salt, I heard it on MSNBC just after Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was captured. There was a gunfight in a neighborhood, and obviously everyone in the neighborhood was tense and attentive. At some point after a volley of shots, the police *posted* (I suppose they had a Twitter account?) that the suspect was in custody. The reporter said that you could hear applause coming from various parts of the neighborhood. (No tweets from Dzokhar, he was bleeding).

This was the most social-mediated manhunt ever.