Comments for garage networks

Comment on Web 2.0, Simulacrum & Control. by IdonVoing

IdonVoing — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 16:20:42 +0000

Thanks !

Comment on The ‘feel-good’ story. by Gavin Heaton

Gavin Heaton — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 22:53:45 +0000

Olive Riley’s example is a great one. She was able to build a strong and engaged community around her website — all based on the power of her story and her willingness to share it. It may not be for everyone, but it is surprising how many people ARE interested.

Comment on Seven Songs by Lawson

Lawson — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 16:29:46 +0000

PJ Harvey is the city.

Comment on Seven + 1? by Lawson

Lawson — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 15:25:15 +0000

“the models will have children
we’ll get a divorce
find some new models
everything must run its course!”

what an amazing song (shit album, no?). for two reasons, i reckon. one: it’s great genius lies not in some kind of way-to-expected derision of the lifestyle like Kisschasy’s ‘Spray on Pants’, but the fact that they set this completely meaningless and vapid life to euphoric music, as if like ‘wooo hooo this is great’, and therein lies something of two: scensterdom (or celebrity, or even just notoriety in general), prove MGMT, is only ever ‘pretends’ - the whole thing is always just set to vanish into thin air.

Comment on Why copyright must be fixed. E-Book troubles. by Yank

Yank — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 17:48:34 +0000

Yank says : I absolutely agree with this !

Comment on too much info by Lawson

Lawson — Tue, 27 May 2008 04:36:33 +0000

hmmm. i’m not so sure. i do agree that the whole ‘it’s too much’ argument is too simplistic, but we still need to the look at the change in the parameters and methods of access you’re describing. ’search’ is now the dominant cultural form (of the internet, and everything that spins out of that) and inherent within it is a number of short-comings - hierarchised results, poor automated results, etc. yet, as you said, it might be possible that folksonomies are a kind of counter-balance to this tendency, but then again i’m not so sure about the interoperability or compability between different systems of tagging - basically there is no common referent (unlike, say, the Dewey system), the only thing we have in common is that we access everything now through through a select number of private media firms. which in itself may be cause for concern - dominance, exclusion, etc. etc.

wow, these are really terrible comments i know, but i’m getting at something…

and yeah, i agree with whatitsface, democracy is crap for Culture with a capital ‘c’.

Comment on Why copyright must be fixed. E-Book troubles. by Lawson

Lawson — Mon, 19 May 2008 08:51:52 +0000

Wow one of the best posts I’ve ever read. Such a LOL.

The sweet irony that you were trying to print the Culture Industry too!!!

And you’re hundred percent right - digital tethers the book if anything. There’s freedom in physicality.

Comment on Web 2.0, Simulacrum & Control. by James

James — Mon, 19 May 2008 00:46:29 +0000

There’s not a huge take up of itunes though. It only looks that way because it’s the only giant in the field of legal digital sellers. The fact is most people aren’t even using the Internet but simply computers - taking their ipods to people’s houses and just copying files on to them. What copyright activists are fighting against is itunes, which is locking legal purchasers into one reproduction model - that is the ipod.

Mp3’s have always been the hive of the majority. They take up of Napster was unprecedented and massive and regardless of what program people were using it was always the format to be using since 2000. Music is strange and unlike the death of geek culture on cyberspace I don’t think the conversation is finished on the music front with the ‘consumerist ipod’ and the take up of the masses, not by a long shot.

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Lovink is interesting, he’s an old school geek, activist, theorist who is very cynical about the web 2.0 atmosphere right now. I’m in two minds about him to be honest. I think the underlying concepts surrounding web 2.0 are important will bring change despite all the hype. While utopian discourses must be limited it’s important not to ignore them completely. I’m reading digirati which is a series of interview between major new media players in 1996. Some of what they put forward is terrible and dated but alot of the conversation predicts what is happening now.

Comment on Why copyright must be fixed. E-Book troubles. by Internet, tech-determinists and copyright. « garage networks

Internet, tech-determinists and copyright. « garage networks — Mon, 19 May 2008 00:32:41 +0000

[...] it’s cool if it works and more students will get access to knowledge but in situations like this one, it’s a horrible [...]

Comment on Web 2.0, Simulacrum & Control. by Lawson

Lawson — Fri, 16 May 2008 11:22:07 +0000

Testify Lovink!!!

Finally, that bullshit utopian discourse surround network architectures that was itself built out of the very ‘cyberspace’ hey-day of the net when everyone was in fact a geek is losing traction. You see it in other commentary too. I think whats happening is in some sense what happens to any media that eventually gets taken up by the majority - it represents the social far more accurately than its nascent possibilities that exist for the initial years and users. Same sort of thing happens/happened with mp3 - the brief window of file-sharing communal music madness has now been thoroughly overtaken by a consumerist view of music housed in the iPod. Which everyone owns.