Linux?

This conference looks like a blast. I am pretty much squirreling away for the summer to finish the first draft of my book now that I have a due date so I can’t go to all these amazing events but… I guess next time??

Here is the tool for you.

Make your Wifi-open but not painfully slow (at Eyebeam)

/tmp/lab announces the second Hacker Space Festival
(Paris, 26-30 June 2009)

Hacker Space Festival 2009 | Call For Proposals | HSF2009

In 2008, we organized HSF[1] on the spot, as an ad-hoc meeting for
hackerspaces-related networks, technical and artistic research emerging
from them and social questionning arising from them. This sudden
experiment proved to be a huge success, as much as on the
self-organizing level as on the participants and meetings quality, as
well as the emotionally-charged ambient, the kind of which you make
fond memories.

The 2008 edition generated a strong emulation in France, from its
historical role as the first official hack meeting there, and in Europe
with the subsequent creation of the Hacker Space Brussels[2], the
rapprochement with The Fiber in Amsterdam and the hackerspaces.org[3]
network. Initiatives of hackerspace openings in Grenoble or Lille, or
the upcoming FrHack[4] conference show an actual enthusiasm in the
French hackers community that was doomed to the “underground” not so
long ago. We salute these initiatives and their diversity!

Soon enough, we wanted to reiterate the HSF experience : however, it
was out of the question to institutionalize this temporary autonomous
zone, nor make it an ersatz of the previous edition, nor even to wrap
it into an “elite” or “underground” aura. On the opposite, we ardently
desire; and especially to explore further, in all directions some
lesser known domains (see below) et foster meeting and sharing around
experiences at the confluence of art, technology and politics.

The world financial crisis, the decay of democracy in Europe, the
obscurantism, paranoia and lack of culture presiding over legislation
(Internet and Reaction… Err… Creation Law[5][6]) seem a fertile
environment for the sensible development of new (social…) life forms.
Quick! Let’s rest for a few days in jubilation and ecstasy to take a
deep breathe of freedom under the indelicate smells of the medicine
factory nearby!

For if the public space is shrinking to oblivion, where any side-step
becomes suspect, and that, from an early age (deviant behavior
detection in nursery school), where moving without a mobile phone
becomes suspect (hello you Julien Coupat[7], a French political
prisoner in France!), there’s a domain that the Leviathan would have a
lot of trouble to contain, and for a reason: that of sensitivity. Even
the desperate attempts of the State to block the free and premonitory
expression of sense (hello you Demeure du Chaos![8]) cannot do anything
against a loud laughter or a knowing glance, a sensual kiss or an
explosion of colors.

Sensitivity, we could say, is what is left to a human being when she
has nothing anymore, and differenciates her from the body corporate or
the institution, that are, in essence, devoid of it. Therefore, Art
definitely remains the public space to share between humans, and only
between us. And if it the last one to share, we propose to explore it
and take it over during the upcoming edition of the Hacker Space
Festival, from the 26th to 30th of June, 2009 at Vitry sur Seine[9].

========================================================================
Keynote Speakers: Sergey Grim and Larry Fake with Eric Schmoudt
Groogle Summer of Crode, Survivor style
“VLC, I vote against you because you really fucked up when…”

========================================================================
== W A N T E D =========================================================

(more…)

5.8%

I agree. This is the book that really engages with the craft of writing.

I have found myself, at least on a few occasions, talking to a person whose relationship to the Internets is much thinner than my own, trying to explain the nature of certain Internet memes. I find this a pretty tough task to pull off as I tend to make memes sound really infantile (and perhaps that is just what they are).

To explain this world to the uninitiated, I either: 1) very quickly give up and move onto some other less obscure 2) go into semi-professorial lecture mode and give a mini-low down on memes, some of the early examples, a small theory of self-referential irony, 4chan, rickrolls, encyclopedia dramatic etc etc and then show a bunch of memes as really you can’t do it justice without the audio visul component.

Now, I can just point people to the Meme Factory –to three youngish guys from Brooklyn who put together a **fantastic show**** a few weeks ago on, yes, Internet Memes. It was a dazzling ride into the (sometimes very obnoxious) territory that is memeology, addressing and displaying both the happy-cheery-cute side of memes as well as its darker side.

The video they have on their site documents their presentation and the word is out that they will soon craft something more like a stand-alone video-essay about Internet memes. As we wait for this next step in their project, this video is an amusing watch (though the interesting stuff starts about 3 minutes in).

Possibly the cutest pictures and story of the decade?!

A few weeks ago, I jotted down some thoughts about (false) expectations made on FLOSS/F/OSS, something that I wish I had more time to write about (teaching and other things seem to take most of my time these days). But before this year turned into the next one, I wanted to pass on a few additional (and similar though they enter into different territory) thoughts by O’Reilly editor, Andy Oram: From Open Source Software to Open Culture: Three Misunderstandings