Bookmarks for June 14th through July 3rd
Internet funk for June 14th through July 3rd:
- Imaginary Gadgets 0005: The fantastic machines of Leonardo | Beyond The Beyond - DaVinci by Bruce Sterling. Nuff said.
- [Taibbi] The Great American Bubble Machine (LF exclusive!) - The Something Awful Forums - Matt Taibbi lays bare the truth that we are almost willfully ignoring. Hell even I scratched my head when I read that Goldman had just eliminated December 2k8 from it's reporting. And I don't know shit.
This is the money shot me:
"If America is circling the drain, Goldman Sachs has found a way to be that drain - an extremely unfortunate loophole in the system of Western democratic capitalism, which never foresaw that in a society governed passively by free markets and free elections, organized greed always defeats disorganized democracy."
- PhysOrg Mobile: The dark side of animation - I totally could have told you this.
Umair Haque is my personal EconoJesus
I read Umair Haque’s blog at the Harvard Business Review pretty regularly.
I should paint some perspective onto that last phrase by mentioning that Haque is an economist (I think), and that I never in a million years thought I’d ever give a shit what an economist had to say.
Well. I was wrong. I love this guy.
Maybe it’s the current economic zeitgeist, but every time I read one of his posts I’m interested. Riveted, actually. When he fulminates against the “zombieconomy” I’m suffused with the desire to testify. Finally! Someone who knows what they are talking about is giving voice to the babbling, under-equipped and largely ignorant econo-boogymen that haunt my gut feelings. If that wasn’t enough, the guy can also use the word “Lulz” properly in a sentence. Seriously. That shit is pretty awesome.
Here he is using Michael Jackson to explain how our economy has become so fucked up that the only way to make real money is not to create things, but to move other money around.
http://blogs.harvardbusiness.org/haque/2009/06/jackson.html
The money shot for me is below:
Tags: econopocalypseIf the world’s biggest pop star only made $25 million a year in total, something’s very, very wrong. Where’s the rest of the money? Why can’t a resource as scarce as the King of Pop capture more value?
After all, that’s not even mega-rich.
The world’s top hedge fund “managers” regularly pull in hundreds of millions. That’s an order of magnitude difference.
No wonder everyone wants to be a banker, investor, or [insert beancounter here]. There’s no money left in anything else.
That’s the big problem behind the zombieconomy. We don’t reward people for creating, growing, nurturing, or even remixing assets. We just reward them for allocating the same old assets.
That ’s not an economy: it’s just a game of musical chairs.
Hence, no new finance, healthcare, educational, auto, or, yes, music, industry — for decades.
Jonny Subconscious #150: Self-congratulatory flatulence edition!
Jonny Subconscious #150: In which we discuss conscience
Jonny Subconscious #149
Jonny Subconscious #149: Allahu Akbar
#iranelection
Right now, right this minute there are people in Iran preparing themselves to give up their lives for the right to choose their own government. Think about that for a second. On the other side of the world tonight, in a country that most americans view with scorn and derision, there are people ready to sacrifice everything for something we take for granted every day. If you were faced with the same decision would you have the courage to do the same?
If you are twittering in support please take note of the following:
- Change your location and time zone on Twitter to Tehran, Iran (that’s GMT+3:30
- Change your profile icon to green in some way.
- Set up a proxy. and send a DM to @ProtesterHelp. On Windows, do this and on Linux do this. On Mac, do this DO NOT POST THESE PUBLICLY. DM TO @austinheap or ProtesterHelp
- Don’t retweet posts without confirmation. Chances are you are not getting some giant breaking story so watch carefully and cross-check sources for verification before retweeting.
- When posting to twitter use hash tags #iranelection or #gr88
- DO NOT retweet posts verbatim from Iran. This puts the users at risk. The Iranian Minstry of the Interior is watching Twitter closely now. Don’t use names and reword the post.
- DO NOT DDOS (PageReload) Iranian government websites. It slows all Iranian traffic, doing more harm than good in this information war.
If you are looking for a good way to follow the events in Iran you’ll find most mainstream media outlets are a bit behind the flow. For more immediate coverage you can follow the #iranelection hashtag the signal to noise ration here is pretty low but it does provide a real-time connection of sorts.
For ongoing coverage Andrew Sullivan’s blog at The Atlantic and Nico Pitney’s blog at the Huffington Post have been doing an incredible job.
Tags: #iranelectionJonny Subconscious #148
Jonny Subconscious #148: In which we discuss the soul of the writer.
Circuit Strike.One
Kill Everything. Touch Nothing
My good friend and former partner in crime se7en has gone and released an iPhone game. It’s called Circuit Strike One and it’s a shiny mix of Asteroids and Geometry Wars. If you dig a little deeper than the surface visuals it’s more than that though. It’s an iPhone shooter for people that really like a serious challenge. I’ll be honest, if you are looking for something mindless this is not your game. It has a very robust control scheme that takes a bit of learning. Once you’ve got a feel for it though, this game is unlike anything else I’ve played on the iPhone.
It’s visually stunning and driven by the thumping beats of yet another friend named Devo. He’s one half of the electronic duo 3L3TRONIC. The soundtrack here is phenomenal. It speeds up and slows down as it reacts with gameplay and keeps your adrenaline solidly in the red zone.
Clearly I have busy friends. Go to the App Store now and give them your money.
Circuit Strike.One: Home page
Circuit Strike.One: App Store Link
Tags: Games, iPhoneBookmarks for May 14th through June 13th
Internet funk for May 14th through June 13th:
- The Worst Business Model in the World (And What You Can Learn From It) - Umair Haque - HarvardBusiness.org - This is what a riled up economist sounds like. It's brilliant.
- Clarkesworld Magazine : The Story Is All: Ten Fiction Editors Talk Shop by Jeremy L. C. Jones - Fiction editors talking about what they do and why they do it.
- McRandom - My kid's blog and web comic.
- ericshoemaker.com™ | a collection of interactive design work + art direction -
Jonny Subconscious #147
Jonny Subconscious #147: In which we discuss an alternative set of procedures..
Wigwam Jones is crazy funky
Say hello to Wigwam Jones. He’s gone ahead and syndicated the mighty Jonny Subconscious feed on his blogtastic blog. This proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that Mr. Jones is the super-nicest-guy-ever. So if you are intersted in the adventures of a self described “…mid-forties guy with a wife and a pair of dogs and three cats and a mother-in-law.” then stop by his internet house and poke around a bit. Tell ‘im the jibbering morons at JS central sent you. Then run like hell before he has you arrested!
Thanks in internet metric ton Mr. Jones.
Tags: friends, Jonny Subconscious-
you should read this
