Now this is a first! Duran Duran were the first band in the early 80s to shoot videos on location (Remember 'Rio'? Yes, I was there...). Now they will be the first music band to become residents of a virtual world in Second Life. According to a BBC article titled 'Duran Duran to give virtual gigs':
'British band Duran Duran are to create a virtual island within online game Second Life, on which they will perform actual live concerts.
The band is the first major group to announce a virtual world presence in the game.
Second Life is an online 3D digital world, which is imagined, created and owned by the residents.
More than 370,000 people have Second Life characters, called Avatars, who exist in the world.
Earlier this year, BBC Radio 1 rented a virtual island in Second Life where it held music festivals and BBC Two's Newsnight hosted an interview inside the game.'
Does this mean others will follow? Will Billy Bragg get an avatar??
Tuesday, August 15, 2006
Megacities and the Developing World
Megacities and the Developing World is an article by George Bugliarello that has now been published full online:
'The large urban agglomerates we call megacities are increasingly a developing world phenomenon that will affect the future prosperity and stability of the entire world...
Despite the fact that megacities are increasingly a phenomenon of the developing world, there are three major reasons why the developed world needs to pay attention to them. First, what happens in the megacities of the developing world affects the rest of the world. The combination of high population density, poverty, and limited resources makes the developing world megacity an environment which favors the incubation of disease, from cholera to tuberculosis to sexually transmitted infections, that in an age of rapid communication can almost instantaneously be propagated to the rest of the world. Vulnerability to terrorism, natural hazards, ecological disasters, war conditions, and food scarcity are also exacerbated in the megacities of the developing world.'
'The large urban agglomerates we call megacities are increasingly a developing world phenomenon that will affect the future prosperity and stability of the entire world...
Despite the fact that megacities are increasingly a phenomenon of the developing world, there are three major reasons why the developed world needs to pay attention to them. First, what happens in the megacities of the developing world affects the rest of the world. The combination of high population density, poverty, and limited resources makes the developing world megacity an environment which favors the incubation of disease, from cholera to tuberculosis to sexually transmitted infections, that in an age of rapid communication can almost instantaneously be propagated to the rest of the world. Vulnerability to terrorism, natural hazards, ecological disasters, war conditions, and food scarcity are also exacerbated in the megacities of the developing world.'
Travel around social networks
TripHub is an interesting site that is allowing people to organize travel around social networks and group events. You can create a homepage, then send out invitations to where you are travelling, discuss plans, and form social networks around the destinations/travels. A new way to plan and share group travelling!
Saturday, August 12, 2006
AIR TIME-SPACES: NEW METHODS FOR RESEARCHING MOBILITIES
AIR TIME-SPACES: NEW METHODS FOR RESEARCHING MOBILITIES
Lancaster University UK - 29 & 30 September 2006
Confirmed Speakers:
Gillian Fuller, University of New South Wales
Ross Harley, University of New South Wales
Rob Kitchen, University of Maynooth
Claus Lassen, Aalborg University
David Pascoe, University of Glasgow
Peter Peters, University Maastricht
Frank Witlox, Ghent University
Saulo Cwerner, Lancaster University, plus possible art and film installations
Monumental airports of glass and steel designed by celebrity architects, gigantic planes that dwarf jumbos, flights greatly cheaper than surface travel – these are icons of the new global order. Such air time-spaces are global transfer points, entries into a world of apparent hypermobility, extensive time-space compression/distanciation, and apparent boundless opportunities. Work and play, leisure and pleasure are opened up through such reconstituted spaces. They link the local to the global, and place particular cities and societies upon the global map. The transformation of China, India and other countries into societies of hyper-aeromobility brings these issues centre-stage in the early years of the twenty first century. Even as air travel is taken for granted, these spaces are simultaneously sites of intense contestation especially around the environmental, economic and social impacts of cheap flights, new runways and airports, and novel security issues in managing the complex flows of baggage and passengers. This all indicates the intensely political nature of “making aero-mobilities”.
The social sciences and humanities have had relatively little to say about these systems and processes, partly because such time-spaces are gated and off-limits. This next meeting of the CosMobilities Network will seek to remedy this neglect by addressing through papers, discussions, and media installations just how to analyse and research some ways in which the most dramatic changes in the contemporary world are being reorganised through time and space.
This Air Time-Spaces Workshop is intended to be a substantial contribution to a cosmopolitan perspective within mobility research. Issues of theory and especially methods will be highlighted since research techniques will have to be as 'mobile' as the passengers, the staff, the security instruments, baggage, and the gleaming, cheap airplanes.
The Workshop is organised by the Centre for Mobilities Research, Lancaster, and the CosMobilities Network. It will be held in the new state-of-the-art Institute for Advanced Studies, County College South at Lancaster University commencing at 10.30 am on 29 September and ending at 4.30pm on 30 September. Numbers will be restricted to a maximum of 50 so as to facilitate debate.
The cost for the 2 days will be £75 to include all meeting costs, meals (including workshop dinner on the 29th) and tea/coffee. Overnight accommodation is available at cost on campus. Please contact Pennie Drinkall if you would like to attend - p.drinkall@lancaster.ac.uk. Unfortunately, Saturday 30 September is the start of our academic year and there is no accommodation available in university guest rooms. Should you need to stay on Saturday night please book your alternative accommodation very soon (see list attached to the registration form). Pennie can also help you with this.
Registration Form here
Lancaster University UK - 29 & 30 September 2006
Confirmed Speakers:
Gillian Fuller, University of New South Wales
Ross Harley, University of New South Wales
Rob Kitchen, University of Maynooth
Claus Lassen, Aalborg University
David Pascoe, University of Glasgow
Peter Peters, University Maastricht
Frank Witlox, Ghent University
Saulo Cwerner, Lancaster University, plus possible art and film installations
Monumental airports of glass and steel designed by celebrity architects, gigantic planes that dwarf jumbos, flights greatly cheaper than surface travel – these are icons of the new global order. Such air time-spaces are global transfer points, entries into a world of apparent hypermobility, extensive time-space compression/distanciation, and apparent boundless opportunities. Work and play, leisure and pleasure are opened up through such reconstituted spaces. They link the local to the global, and place particular cities and societies upon the global map. The transformation of China, India and other countries into societies of hyper-aeromobility brings these issues centre-stage in the early years of the twenty first century. Even as air travel is taken for granted, these spaces are simultaneously sites of intense contestation especially around the environmental, economic and social impacts of cheap flights, new runways and airports, and novel security issues in managing the complex flows of baggage and passengers. This all indicates the intensely political nature of “making aero-mobilities”.
The social sciences and humanities have had relatively little to say about these systems and processes, partly because such time-spaces are gated and off-limits. This next meeting of the CosMobilities Network will seek to remedy this neglect by addressing through papers, discussions, and media installations just how to analyse and research some ways in which the most dramatic changes in the contemporary world are being reorganised through time and space.
This Air Time-Spaces Workshop is intended to be a substantial contribution to a cosmopolitan perspective within mobility research. Issues of theory and especially methods will be highlighted since research techniques will have to be as 'mobile' as the passengers, the staff, the security instruments, baggage, and the gleaming, cheap airplanes.
The Workshop is organised by the Centre for Mobilities Research, Lancaster, and the CosMobilities Network. It will be held in the new state-of-the-art Institute for Advanced Studies, County College South at Lancaster University commencing at 10.30 am on 29 September and ending at 4.30pm on 30 September. Numbers will be restricted to a maximum of 50 so as to facilitate debate.
The cost for the 2 days will be £75 to include all meeting costs, meals (including workshop dinner on the 29th) and tea/coffee. Overnight accommodation is available at cost on campus. Please contact Pennie Drinkall if you would like to attend - p.drinkall@lancaster.ac.uk. Unfortunately, Saturday 30 September is the start of our academic year and there is no accommodation available in university guest rooms. Should you need to stay on Saturday night please book your alternative accommodation very soon (see list attached to the registration form). Pennie can also help you with this.
Registration Form here
Personal Mobilities book
A new book titled 'Personal Mobilities' by Aharon Kellerman could be of interest to mobility researchers. The publication blurb says:
'Living in a contemporary developed society means having access to a myriad of ways to communicate. One can either use public or private transport to meet others and talk face to face, or use a variety of communication networks, like mobile or fixed telephones or the internet, to travel virtually.
Personal Mobilities provides a systematic study of personal movement focusing on the dimensions of space, individuals, societies and technologies. Kellerman examines a variety of personal mobilites, including air transportation, through several perspectives, examining the human need for movement, their anchoring within wider societal trends, commonalities and differences among mobility technologies and international differences.
Although spatial mobility seems geographical by its very nature, the topic has been so far treated only partially, and mainly by sociologists. Personal Mobilities highlights geographical as well as sociological aspects and is the first book to focus solely on personal mobilities.'
Kellerman, Aharon, Personal Mobilities. London and New York: Routledge, August 2006. ISBN 0-415-39159-8 (hbk). 212pp+xii. Networked Cities Series.
'Living in a contemporary developed society means having access to a myriad of ways to communicate. One can either use public or private transport to meet others and talk face to face, or use a variety of communication networks, like mobile or fixed telephones or the internet, to travel virtually.
Personal Mobilities provides a systematic study of personal movement focusing on the dimensions of space, individuals, societies and technologies. Kellerman examines a variety of personal mobilites, including air transportation, through several perspectives, examining the human need for movement, their anchoring within wider societal trends, commonalities and differences among mobility technologies and international differences.
Although spatial mobility seems geographical by its very nature, the topic has been so far treated only partially, and mainly by sociologists. Personal Mobilities highlights geographical as well as sociological aspects and is the first book to focus solely on personal mobilities.'
Kellerman, Aharon, Personal Mobilities. London and New York: Routledge, August 2006. ISBN 0-415-39159-8 (hbk). 212pp+xii. Networked Cities Series.
Hyper-coordination
An influential article several years ago was by Rich Ling and Birgitte Yttri on “Nobody sits at home and waits for the telephone to ring: Micro and hyper-coordination through the use of the mobile telephone." Now, Lee Humphreys reports on her more recent research on "hypercoordination" in Out with my mobile - exploring social coordination in urban environments:
"I recently returned from a trip to Germany with twelve of my colleagues. Being Americans and therefore behind the mobile technology curve, I was the only one of the group who had a mobile phone which worked abroad. Therefore, we were forced to coordinate our gatherings and meetings sans mobile phones. Needless to say, life without the mobile makes you realize just how much you rely on it. There were missed meetings and dinners. Awkward interactions with acquaintances who just sort of showed up. And then there was the waiting. There was a lot of waiting. This waiting felt different than in the States without the ability to send a quick text message to say one would be 10 minutes late or the ability to call to double check the location. Am I in the right place? Did we really say 6:30? This place isn't cool, can we find a new place? And for someone who is accustomed to the hyper-coordination that Rich Ling & Birgitte Yttri suggest is associated with mobile phone use, this waiting felt not only highly constraining but was also anxiety inducing.
This waiting, however, also provided a moment to reflect on how mobile communication technology has become integrated into social interaction processes. Not only do we use mobile phones to say we're running late, but we also use them to coordinate ourselves in space and time. In order for my colleagues and me to have dinner together, we had to coordinate beforehand the when and the where to meet. In a densely populated urban environment, the chances of running into one another at the corner bar is not likely when there are so many venue options within a particular neighborhood. Therefore, communicating the where and the when of the meeting becomes an important factor in social coordination for urbanites. But mobile social interaction is not nearly so blunt as just when and where. Particularly for small groups of colleagues or friends, coordinating who will (and will not) be there can also become an important negotiation. Mobile technology is beginning to play an evermore important role in this social coordination."
Via Smartmobs
"I recently returned from a trip to Germany with twelve of my colleagues. Being Americans and therefore behind the mobile technology curve, I was the only one of the group who had a mobile phone which worked abroad. Therefore, we were forced to coordinate our gatherings and meetings sans mobile phones. Needless to say, life without the mobile makes you realize just how much you rely on it. There were missed meetings and dinners. Awkward interactions with acquaintances who just sort of showed up. And then there was the waiting. There was a lot of waiting. This waiting felt different than in the States without the ability to send a quick text message to say one would be 10 minutes late or the ability to call to double check the location. Am I in the right place? Did we really say 6:30? This place isn't cool, can we find a new place? And for someone who is accustomed to the hyper-coordination that Rich Ling & Birgitte Yttri suggest is associated with mobile phone use, this waiting felt not only highly constraining but was also anxiety inducing.
This waiting, however, also provided a moment to reflect on how mobile communication technology has become integrated into social interaction processes. Not only do we use mobile phones to say we're running late, but we also use them to coordinate ourselves in space and time. In order for my colleagues and me to have dinner together, we had to coordinate beforehand the when and the where to meet. In a densely populated urban environment, the chances of running into one another at the corner bar is not likely when there are so many venue options within a particular neighborhood. Therefore, communicating the where and the when of the meeting becomes an important factor in social coordination for urbanites. But mobile social interaction is not nearly so blunt as just when and where. Particularly for small groups of colleagues or friends, coordinating who will (and will not) be there can also become an important negotiation. Mobile technology is beginning to play an evermore important role in this social coordination."
Via Smartmobs
Citizen journalism in airport coverage
Smartmobs posts on Leonard Brody who has pointed to a piece in today’s Globe about their coverage of the London Terrorist Bombing: 'The post illustrates with clear examples from Flickr and other new media the importance of "citizen journalism" or "social media" in the coverage of todays terrorist plot on Heathrow.'
Wednesday, August 02, 2006
Who killed the electric car?
A new docu-film is being released from Sony Pictures called 'Who killed the electric car?' which follows the story behind the early production of electric cars in the 80s, and why they never took off!
Has been getting some good reviews in the British press - worth a mobility mention me thinks...
Has been getting some good reviews in the British press - worth a mobility mention me thinks...
Harvesting mobile energies
A recent post titled 'Japan Railway harvests passenger energy for fun and profit':
"The East Japan Railway Company is getting experimental with ways to make their train stations more environmentally friendly, and have turned to the warm bodies that fill their train seats for part of the solution. They've started installing ticket gates that generate electricity as people pass through them, harvesting the vibrations and pressure that results when people walk through the gates. It's not quite as nefarious as we were hoping for -- we think a bit of time chained to a stationary bicycle inside the train could do a commuter good -- but it still seems a pretty good idea, and we look forward to the results. Testing should last through August 11th, and most indications point to this being a fairly effective manner of getting electricity to where it's needed."
Well, it makes sense - hence Microsoft's patenting of the human skin as receiver - humans are highly electrical!
Via Engadget
"The East Japan Railway Company is getting experimental with ways to make their train stations more environmentally friendly, and have turned to the warm bodies that fill their train seats for part of the solution. They've started installing ticket gates that generate electricity as people pass through them, harvesting the vibrations and pressure that results when people walk through the gates. It's not quite as nefarious as we were hoping for -- we think a bit of time chained to a stationary bicycle inside the train could do a commuter good -- but it still seems a pretty good idea, and we look forward to the results. Testing should last through August 11th, and most indications point to this being a fairly effective manner of getting electricity to where it's needed."
Well, it makes sense - hence Microsoft's patenting of the human skin as receiver - humans are highly electrical!
Via Engadget
Monday, July 31, 2006
Visiting Bicycle-friendly Cities
Alex Steffen from Worldchanging has been visiting 'bicycle-friendly' cities in the US and discussing their transport infrastructures - here is an excerpt from a recent post:
"A couple weeks ago, I visited Davis, California to check out its world-class bicycle planning, which held up as being truly remarkable. But trying to better incorporate bikes into a city's transportation system is not just about implementing clever or innovative ideas, it's also about overcoming decades of poor planning and bureaucratic inertia. A great exploration of exactly how difficult a task that is can be found in Dave Neiwert's piece, Breaking the Vicious Cycle, which details the reasons why Seattle, despite being a hotbed of green thinking, still stinks as a place to ride:
[T]he Seattle area's oft-touted bicycling system is actually a happenstance, an often broken network that doesn't function particularly well, especially when it comes to providing a complete infrastructure that could encourage people to take up bike commuting.
A 2005 study by the Cascade Bicycle Club, titled "Left by the Side of the Road," found that even though the Puget Sound region boasts a 1,521-mile bicycle network, "many needed improvements are necessary to turn this . . . into a true, working system." It found that 27 percent of the existing network "fails to meet the basic needs of bicyclists. This means that bicyclists attempting to navigate the region face severe safety hazards and sometimes insurmountable accessibility challenges—and there are no practical alternative routes."
"A couple weeks ago, I visited Davis, California to check out its world-class bicycle planning, which held up as being truly remarkable. But trying to better incorporate bikes into a city's transportation system is not just about implementing clever or innovative ideas, it's also about overcoming decades of poor planning and bureaucratic inertia. A great exploration of exactly how difficult a task that is can be found in Dave Neiwert's piece, Breaking the Vicious Cycle, which details the reasons why Seattle, despite being a hotbed of green thinking, still stinks as a place to ride:
[T]he Seattle area's oft-touted bicycling system is actually a happenstance, an often broken network that doesn't function particularly well, especially when it comes to providing a complete infrastructure that could encourage people to take up bike commuting.
A 2005 study by the Cascade Bicycle Club, titled "Left by the Side of the Road," found that even though the Puget Sound region boasts a 1,521-mile bicycle network, "many needed improvements are necessary to turn this . . . into a true, working system." It found that 27 percent of the existing network "fails to meet the basic needs of bicyclists. This means that bicyclists attempting to navigate the region face severe safety hazards and sometimes insurmountable accessibility challenges—and there are no practical alternative routes."
License Plate Tracking for All
A post in Wired titled 'License Plate Tracking for All' talks of how in recent years, police around the country have started to use powerful infrared cameras to read plates and catch car thieves and ticket dodgers. Yet now the technology will soon migrate into the private sector, and morph into a tool for tracking individual motorists' movements:
""I know it sounds really Big Brother," Bucholz says. "But it's going to happen. It's going to get cheaper and cheaper until they slap them up on every taxicab and delivery truck and track where people live." And work. And sleep. And move."
""I know it sounds really Big Brother," Bucholz says. "But it's going to happen. It's going to get cheaper and cheaper until they slap them up on every taxicab and delivery truck and track where people live." And work. And sleep. And move."
Thursday, July 27, 2006
Google the Jam
The Guardian has recently reported in 'Want to know if there's a traffic jam? Google it on your mobile' that
"Motorists in America can access live information on their mobile phones about the weight of traffic on busy highways through a new service offered by Google.
The Californian technology company's Maps for Mobiles allows users to zoom in on roads in more than 30 big cities.
Google has begun colour-coding them. Roads are red for congested, yellow or orange for moderately busy, and green for free-flowing. Similar information is already available online from other providers, including Yahoo, although Google's is tailored to mobile phones.
The service is yet to be made available in Britain, but maps are already streamed to mobiles in Canada, France, Italy, Germany and Spain."
Will this mean motorists soon in Britain will be causing more accidents by trying to read their maps on the phone??
"Motorists in America can access live information on their mobile phones about the weight of traffic on busy highways through a new service offered by Google.
The Californian technology company's Maps for Mobiles allows users to zoom in on roads in more than 30 big cities.
Google has begun colour-coding them. Roads are red for congested, yellow or orange for moderately busy, and green for free-flowing. Similar information is already available online from other providers, including Yahoo, although Google's is tailored to mobile phones.
The service is yet to be made available in Britain, but maps are already streamed to mobiles in Canada, France, Italy, Germany and Spain."
Will this mean motorists soon in Britain will be causing more accidents by trying to read their maps on the phone??
Mass targeting of mobile phones in Lebanon
According to a BBC article titled 'Israel steps up "psy-ops" in Lebanon' some people living in southern Lebanon have received voicemail from Israel, suggesting that they leave the area:
"From mass targeting of mobile phones with voice and text messages to old-fashioned radio broadcasts warning of imminent attacks, Israel is deploying a range of old and new technologies in Lebanon as part of the psychological operations ("psyops") campaign supplementing its military attacks.
Israeli leaflet says: "People of Lebanon! Understand! A face like a brother, a back of the head like a snake." Israel dropped leaflets over Beirut and elsewhere in Lebanon. According to US and UK media outlets, Israel has reactivated a radio station to broadcast messages urging residents of southern Lebanon to evacuate the region. Some reports have named the station as the Voice of the South."
The opposing 'smart mobs' - 'psy-mobs' more like...
"From mass targeting of mobile phones with voice and text messages to old-fashioned radio broadcasts warning of imminent attacks, Israel is deploying a range of old and new technologies in Lebanon as part of the psychological operations ("psyops") campaign supplementing its military attacks.
Israeli leaflet says: "People of Lebanon! Understand! A face like a brother, a back of the head like a snake." Israel dropped leaflets over Beirut and elsewhere in Lebanon. According to US and UK media outlets, Israel has reactivated a radio station to broadcast messages urging residents of southern Lebanon to evacuate the region. Some reports have named the station as the Voice of the South."
The opposing 'smart mobs' - 'psy-mobs' more like...
Wednesday, July 26, 2006
Where will we live in 2025?
Researchers at the Center for Climate Systems Research (CCSR), from Columbia University have built a map showing where we'll be living in 2025. This projection, built by watching nine million 'cells' distributed across the globe, shows that the greatest increases in population will occur in developing countries:
"The map indicates that the greatest increases in population density through 2025 are likely to occur in areas of developing countries that are already quite densely populated. In addition, the number of people living within 60 miles of a coastline is expected to increase by 35 percent over 1995 population levels, exposing 2.75 billion people worldwide to the effects of sea level rise and other coastal threats posed by global warming"
Read via ZDNet
"The map indicates that the greatest increases in population density through 2025 are likely to occur in areas of developing countries that are already quite densely populated. In addition, the number of people living within 60 miles of a coastline is expected to increase by 35 percent over 1995 population levels, exposing 2.75 billion people worldwide to the effects of sea level rise and other coastal threats posed by global warming"
Read via ZDNet
Cartography Summer School
For those cartographers who need brushing up on some skills or who fancy a refresher on what it is they do, the UK’s Society of Cartographers is holding its annual summer school September 4 to 7 at Keele University in Staffordhsire.
Topics include green mapping, mapping for tourism and leisure and historical mapping.
A full programme is available in pdf format
Topics include green mapping, mapping for tourism and leisure and historical mapping.
A full programme is available in pdf format
Middle East Conflict Map
The New York Times has two decent graphic maps that display the ongoing conflicts in the Middle East. The first displays the many different conflicts across the area; the second focuses on the conflict between the United States and Iran. Very interesting maps.
Also, more links to other graphics relating to the Middle East can be viewed via information aesthetics.
Via Cartography
Also, more links to other graphics relating to the Middle East can be viewed via information aesthetics.
Via Cartography
Mobile Life
The Carphone Warehouse and The London School of Economics have just published the results of a recent collaborative survey titled 'Mobile Life' - More than 16,500 people participated in the survey and when asked to describe the circumstances under which they would turn their phones off or silence them, more people listed movies, restaurants, meetings or nighttime than sex:
"The survey also found that more than half (54 percent) of the people between the ages of 18 and 24 sent or received sexually explicit text messages, and a quarter sent or received a sexually explicit picture or video."
Read more here
"The survey also found that more than half (54 percent) of the people between the ages of 18 and 24 sent or received sexually explicit text messages, and a quarter sent or received a sexually explicit picture or video."
Read more here
Sunday, July 23, 2006
The Wiki and the Blog
An article from D. Calvin Andrus titled 'Toward a Complex Adaptive Intelligence Community' says how
'US policymakers, war-fighters, and law-enforcers now operate in a real-time, worldwide decision and implementation environment. Information about a new development in Baghdad is known in Washington within minutes. Decisions about a response are made in Washington within minutes. These decisions are implemented in Baghdad within minutes. The total “intelligence-decision-implementation” cycle time can be as short as 15 minutes. While this is an extreme example, it highlights the tremendous compression of the response time required by all involved compared to previous generations. This severe compression not only affects the highest priority issues, but also ripples back into the most routine intelligence, decision, and implementation processes.'
In effect, this article calls for the US Intelligence agencies to act more in line with features of complexity theory - self-organising agents utilising feedback mechanisms such as blogs and wikis...
Yet can such Intelligence agencies allow for emergent properties that cannot wholly be predicted?
'US policymakers, war-fighters, and law-enforcers now operate in a real-time, worldwide decision and implementation environment. Information about a new development in Baghdad is known in Washington within minutes. Decisions about a response are made in Washington within minutes. These decisions are implemented in Baghdad within minutes. The total “intelligence-decision-implementation” cycle time can be as short as 15 minutes. While this is an extreme example, it highlights the tremendous compression of the response time required by all involved compared to previous generations. This severe compression not only affects the highest priority issues, but also ripples back into the most routine intelligence, decision, and implementation processes.'
In effect, this article calls for the US Intelligence agencies to act more in line with features of complexity theory - self-organising agents utilising feedback mechanisms such as blogs and wikis...
Yet can such Intelligence agencies allow for emergent properties that cannot wholly be predicted?
Women use mobiles to deter chat-ups
Here is an article from the Guardian which places an intriguing slant on phone use - titled 'Women use mobiles to deter chat-ups':
"Men, take the hint. When a woman clamps a mobile phone to her ear, or sits ostentatiously typing a text at a bar, chances are that the real message is intended for you: stay away.
Women are now using the mobile phone as a barrier signal, or 'personal bodyguard', to deter overly keen men from trying a chat-up line, according to a major study of the way the mobile phone is changing the way we interact.
They might even pretend to have a conversation, when in fact there is no one on the other end, as a strategy to keep predatory males at bay, says Kate Fox, co-director of the Social Issues Research Centre, who wrote the foreword to the report, Mobile Life."
"Men, take the hint. When a woman clamps a mobile phone to her ear, or sits ostentatiously typing a text at a bar, chances are that the real message is intended for you: stay away.
Women are now using the mobile phone as a barrier signal, or 'personal bodyguard', to deter overly keen men from trying a chat-up line, according to a major study of the way the mobile phone is changing the way we interact.
They might even pretend to have a conversation, when in fact there is no one on the other end, as a strategy to keep predatory males at bay, says Kate Fox, co-director of the Social Issues Research Centre, who wrote the foreword to the report, Mobile Life."
Bunker surfing
This just in from Smartmobs on Internet access being put in bunkers for Web access - after all, wasn't this the original use for the Arpanet?
"Tom Friedman in Saturday's International Herald Tribune (subscribers only), writing from Tel Aviv: [via Lunch Over IP].
There was a small item in The Jerusalem Post the other day that caught my eye. It said that the Israeli telephone company Bezeq was installing high-speed Internet lines in bomb shelters in northern Israel so Israelis could surf the Web while waiting out Hezbollah rocket attacks. I read that story two ways: one, as symbol of Israeli resilience, a boundless ability to adapt to any kind of warfare. But, two, as an unconscious expression of what I sense people here are just starting to feel: This is no ordinary war, and it probably won't end soon."
An example of one nation maintaining Internet access while attempting to destroy communication infrastructure in another...
"Tom Friedman in Saturday's International Herald Tribune (subscribers only), writing from Tel Aviv: [via Lunch Over IP].
There was a small item in The Jerusalem Post the other day that caught my eye. It said that the Israeli telephone company Bezeq was installing high-speed Internet lines in bomb shelters in northern Israel so Israelis could surf the Web while waiting out Hezbollah rocket attacks. I read that story two ways: one, as symbol of Israeli resilience, a boundless ability to adapt to any kind of warfare. But, two, as an unconscious expression of what I sense people here are just starting to feel: This is no ordinary war, and it probably won't end soon."
An example of one nation maintaining Internet access while attempting to destroy communication infrastructure in another...
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