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Folks: I'm curious about why there is so little discussion, let alone *righteous* anger, about television on this list? Could it be that many of those who post actually want their thoughts and actions to be noticed -- by television? "Activist" often connotes those who participate in *demonstrations* -- so what is being "demonstrated" to whom and how? And what is the relationship between *demonstrating* and the evening news? "Terrorism" also makes no sense without television. TERROR has to communicated to a *mass* audience and that's where television comes in. In crucial terms, if it isn't on television then it didn't happen. OCCUPY began with a call from the glossy magazine ADBUSTERS. That always struck me as an odd approach. Fight advertising by coming up with ads against ads -- WTF? Do you *fight* brainwashing with more brainwashing? Do you combat psychological warfare with a "better" version of the same thing? In Gestalt psychological terms, this is phenomenon is well known and is often described in terms such as Figure & Ground. We obsess over the *figures* (i.e. the capitalists, 1%ers, police, church, state, etc.), while we ignore the *ground* of our experiences (i.e. television, mass-media, advertising, etc.) I've been hanging out with this crowd for 15 years now and it seems that the RADICAL roots of what is actually going on are relentlessly "off limits." What am I missing? Mark StahlmanBrooklyn NY

Carrie Ahern's Borrowed PreyCarrie Ahern is a dancer and performer I met at Mount Trempera few years ago. She has recently completed and performed, atDickson's Farmstand Meats, Borrowed Prey, one of the mostinteresting, and, I think, 'important,' works I've seen. Thepiece, roughly an hour long, is concerned , among otherthings, with animals, meat and the meat industry, and humanempathy or lack of it. I want to share the link with you andhope you'll watch it. I wrote her an extended and favorablereply, which I may send out in a while, but I feel you shouldsee this in its entirety on Vimeo without my interference.In any case, please go toCarrie Ahern ?? https://vimeo.com/42007072and her website is http://www.carrieahern.com .Thanks, Alan

hello. i have completed a personal history project to the present-day, volume 1, The Bloodletting and volume 2, The Arc of Reality. a final volume may be written at a later point, entitled the Future. metadata information below outlines general themes. a warning about content, the texts are likely only for adults or mature readers. this is not fiction. if you want to access or download the files, please visit: ==> ftp.blackflag.synology.me username:public password: public in the folder 'autobiography' there are three subfolders: [PDFs ] -- individual text files for Volumes 1 and 2 [appendices] -- supplementary media content [zipped archives] -- autobiography+appendix.zip please do not directly link to the FTP site its only temporary. the files have been placed on Scribd and can be read online or downloaded there, though a format translation takes place so if possible download the original PDFs from the above link. thanks for considering the ideas, whatever they may be. bc == Volume 1 ==# The Bloodletting - part 1.pdf 115p~ childhood through gradeschool and junior-high. (minneapolis, minnesota)[keywords: Catholic church, sleepwalking, military, the occult, Vietnam war, altar boy, mirror, nightmares, sexual abuse, childhood incontinence, scapegoat, drugs, soccer, building bridges, the crow, drowning, murder, politics, electroconvulsive therapy, ECT, psychiatry, CIA, quadrophenia, piano, oedipus complex, Venus, witches, UFO, Disney World, homosexuality, AIDs, pornography, Federal Reserve Bank, shredded money, Aspergers, death wish]tags: drugs, military, abuse, murder, psychiatry, Disney, catholic, oedipus, Vietnam, piano, occult, UFO, pornography, witches, soccer, homosexuality, ECT, death wish, quadrophenia# The Bloodletting - part 2.pdf 103p~ highschool to architecture school (minneapolis, minnesota)[keywords: hogwarts, student council, education system, language, bullying, homosexuality, mirroring, Vietnam war, drug culture, counterculture, suburbs, politics, suicide, depression, fractured skull, political neurology, AA, death wish, sexy witch, university, architectural education, dogma, the occult, lipstick lesbian, intelligence, psychiatric pills, psychiatry, tree of death, acid test, bicycle therapy, Aspergers]tags: drugs, language, intelligence, bullying, dogma, counterculture, suburbs, tree of death, brain injury, the occult, acid test, architecture school, sexy witchAppendix imagery: http://photobucket.com/V1appendix# The Bloodletting - part 3.pdf 95p~ architecture school to electroconvulsive therapy (ECT)[keywords: university, architecture, social engineering, hermeneutics, ideology, irish-german, nazi, protestants, Vietnam war, disneyfication, facades, censorship, celebrity architects, psychiatric pills, Plato, HIOX, paradoxical logic, empirical reason, failure, dropout, artwork, boulder walls, independent research, vote perot, mirroring, conspiracy, toad, lady of the lake, character assassination, grand tour, amsterdam, paris, venice, suicide, locked psychiatric ward, secular cathedral, electroconvulsive therapy, capitalism and schizophrenia, architecture of electricity, united nations, aesthetics of deconstruction, crystallization, thinker as madman, architects, aspergers, online socialization]tags: Europe, failure, conspiracy, hermeneutics, ECT, facades, crystallization, social engineering, independent research, character assassination, empirical reason, boulder walls, architecture of electricityAppendix imagery: http://photobucket.com/V1appendix == Volume 2 ==# the Arc of Reality - part 1.pdf 98p~ post-ECT to multimedia school. (minneapolis to northern california)[keywords: San Francisco Bay Area, Silicon Valley, multimedia school, multimedia gulch, Alameda, Oakland, Berkeley, counterculture, SDS, student radicals, artist, art, metaphysics, internet as education, independent research, social security disability, schizophrenia, death wish, Vietnam war, technology, mock military invasion, roaches, prostitutes, drugs, pornography, psychiatry, psychiatric pills, criminal dentistry, architecture thesis, multimedia goldrush, graduation, the gorgon, sensual friendship, surrogate mother, food and cooking, deep culture, lost culture, ancient culture, Old and New Testament, love, conversation, social relations, mirroring, marionette puppets, Irish the blacks of Europe, acting, movie making, movie sets, paranormal, the occult, philosophy]tags: philosophy, internet, military, metaphysics, psychiatry, counterculture, radicals, San Francisco, surrogate mother, ancient culture, architecture thesis, goldrush, movie making, the paranormalAppendix imagery: http://photobucket.com/V2appendix1# the Arc of Reality - part 2.pdf 101p~ from California to Montreal & back[keywords: Alameda island, AE thesis, architecture of electricity, architexturez: hacking & cracking the architectural code, Y2K, Seeing Cyberspace, electrical infrastructure is architecture, US energy policy, Enron, hacking, cyberwar, black bag job, bullying, mirroring, Automated Madness, autobiography, terrors of electromagnetic research, presidential election, government coup, oil, electromagnetic fields, EMF, cancer, stakeout, FBI, truth, culture, economic social political, literacy, awareness, assassination, premonition, online lightning strike, asylum, intelligence, citizen without a state, human being, disability rights, death wish, music, tuning systems, health, eroticism, toxic environment, chemical sensitivity, electrosensitivity, civil war, US consulate, culture war, existential security threat, psychiatric pills, survivor, money, international, spies, surveillance, countersurveillance, CIA circus, surrealism, architects, electronetwork, electromagnetism and culture, technology, future society, terrorism, 9-11]tags: bullying, literacy, lightning, surrealism, spies, Y2K, civil war, human being, energy policy, premonition, seeing cyberspace, government coup, electromagnetism and cultureAppendix imagery: http://photobucket.com/V2appendix2# the Arc of Reality - part 3.pdf 151p~ from California to Minneapolis, Minnesota[keywords: electromagnetic education initiative, threats, surveillance, assassination, wellstone, electronetwork, electromagnetic literacy, intelligence, cultural illiteracy, bad touch, homeless shelter, piano, short-circuiting, abuse, doubles, schizophrenia, psychiatry, detox, aspergers, new diagnosis, New York City, architects, competition, 9-11, World Trade Center, memorial park, master planning, artwork, exhibit, electromagnetic assemblage, socialization, poison, visions, collapse, illuminated bible, UFOs, aliens, design-l, architecture, terrorism, long-distance friendship, electromagnetic research, family, scapegoat, oedipal, homosexuality, erotics, oppression, tyranny, dictatorship, CIA, actors, slavery, security state, policy, TAZ, governance, love, goddess, human being, runaway, new apartment, blackflag operations, bullying, evidence]tags: love, intelligence, abuse, surveillance, homeless, assassination, detox, doubles, art exhibit, human being, scapegoat, aspergers diagnosis, electromagnetic literacy, WTC memorial parkAppendix imagery: http://photobucket.com/V2appendix3# the Arc of Reality - part 4.pdf 133p~ Minneapolis, Minnesota - Workers Paradise[keywords: aesthetics, beauty, development, politics, dreamcenter, witches, sorcery, abuse, schizophrenia, aspergers, occult, aliens, secret societies, POW, architecture, Gateway Park, good & evil, doubling, goddesses, erotics, avatars, movie, acting, 9-11, Cold War, angels & demons, inversion, music, healing, erotic therapy, attack, violence, flood, Catholicism, religion, autism, logic, tuning, empirical accounting, blackflag, natural magic, electromagnetism, the aether, mother, service animal, piano, narcissism, mirroring, intelligence, silence, destruction, bicycles, conspiracy, blacklisting, health & disease, kink, zoo animals, solar anus, deer, 35W bridge collapse, dictatorship, masquerade, electronetwork, t-rex, money, homemaking, parallelism, God, friendship, nature, work, the mystery, divine law, The Irish, civil war, human, civilization, homosexuality, surveillance, workers paradise, voyeurism, oppression, cull, imprisonment]tags: love, music, architecture, violence, aliens, conspiracy, tuning, sorcery, silence, blacklisting, deer, POW, inversion, erotics, doubling, natural magic, dreamcenter, human zooAppendix imagery: http://photobucket.com/V2appendix4# the Arc of Reality - part 5.pdf 109p~ Minneapolis, Minnesota - Workers Paradise[keywords: health, stroke, runaway, harassment, bullying, conspiracy, landlord, bicycles, pedophilia, marionette, schizophrenia, masturbation, architecture, ballooning, juggling, physical therapy, behavior therapist, setup, sewing, CDCS, doubles, parents, black programs, military, demons & angels, surveillance, POW, prison, Manchurian Candidate, chemical warfare, honeypot, blackbag operations, language, sexual abuse, sexual exploitation, tyranny, numberline, mathematics, mirroring, multiverse, interdimensional, continuum, singularity, metaphysics, grounding, secret police, bounce, jester costume, nervous system, aspergers, human rights, witches, sinkhole, homosexuality, asymmetry, erotic therapy, materialism, holocaust, rogue bureaucracy, public health, corruption, intelligence, magic, rose cross, mother goddess, tuning, little girl, alienation, politics, ideology, the state, chess, tax evasion, eyesight, balance, cri de coeur]tags: prison, chess, stroke, tuning, surveillance, mirroring, bicycles, masturbation, bounce, mother goddess, secret police, childhood abuse, bully network, rogue bureaucrat, numberlineAppendix imagery: http://photobucket.com/V2appendix5# the Arc of Reality - part 6.pdf 132p~ Minneapolis, Minnesota - Workers Paradise[keywords: rogue bureaucracy, conspiracy, eviction, landlord, POW, noise assault, chemical attack, harassment, gossip, bully network, IRS, Social Security, chess, institutional fraud, Presidency, coup, sexual abuse, pedophilia, doubles, avatars, art grant, health, immune system collapse, juggling, ballooning, setup, bankruptcy, checkmate, tyranny, aliens, clones, mimicry, homosexual, transvestite, aesthetics, balloon elephant, politics, autistic freeloader, Federal Reserve Bank, currency, house of cards, oracle, metaphysics, witches, sorcery, incontinence, psychology, narcissism, the state, EMP, surveillance, NAS, back orifice, NSA, weaponry, music therapy, music surgery, mental illness, disability, brain scans, genetics, power, aspergers, schizophrenia, political diagnosis, God, impostors, assassination, goddess, mother, love, mirror, spies, sleeper agents, children, honeypot, corruption, prison, pornography, homoerotics, nightmare, liquid surreality, crystal ball, Asperger Management System, AMS, architecture, computing, governance, health, sickness, timing, watches, CIA, cyber-sabotage, civil war, black flag, separation, isolation, AT&T, tuning, work, silence, Southpark, ecosystems, circuitry, new world order, clown, jester]tags: love, currency, time, metaphysics, aliens, conspiracy, transformation, mirroring, ecology, coup, governance, spies, civil war, circuitry, balloon elephant, asperger management systemAppendix imagery: http://photobucket.com/V2appendix6^ audio files only available at ftp.blackflag.synology.me---backup versions, unknown online formatting translationhttp://www.scribd.com/doc/96628222/The-Bloodletting-part-1http://www.scribd.com/doc/96628230/The-Bloodletting-part-2http://www.scribd.com/doc/96628240/The-Bloodletting-part-3http://www.scribd.com/doc/96671592/L-arch-du-Realite-part-1http://www.scribd.com/doc/97606641/L-arch-du-Realite-part-2http://www.scribd.com/doc/98455494/L-arch-du-Realite-part-3http://www.scribd.com/doc/99480192/L-arch-du-Realite-part-4http://www.scribd.com/doc/100107761/L-arch-du-Realite-part-5http://www.scribd.com/doc/100574538/L-arch-du-Realite-part-6http://photobucket.com/appendices

“Bio/Hardware Hacking”: a new special issue of the Journal of Peer Production is now published - http://peerproduction.net/issues/issue-2/During the past two decades, hacking has chiefly been associated with software and computers. This is changing with the surge of synthetic biology, fablabs and hackerspaces, all of which suggests the wider diffusion of hacking practices and hacker politics. Hardware development and biological science are about to be infused with the same kind of contestations and contradictions that already characterize software hacking. This is because hackers are not simply innovating new technology, but are at the same time discovering new ways of engaging with the world. The issue highlights how hacking practices are inscribed in and shaped by the cultural and political contexts in which the hackers find themselves, with implications for the ways hacker politics are framed.The special issue is curated by Alessandro Delfanti and Johan Söderberg. It includes four research papers and two invited comments:Denisa Kera, Hackerspaces and DIYbio in Asia: Connecting Science and Community with Open Data, Kits and ProtocolsMaxigas, Hacklabs and Hackerspaces - Tracing Two GenealogiesSara Tocchetti, DIYbiologists as ‘Makers’ of Personal Biologies: How MAKE Magazine and Maker Faires Contribute in Constituting Biology as a Personal TechnologyPaolo Magaudda, How to make a “Hackintosh”. A Journey into the “Consumerization” of Hacking Practices and CultureMorgan Meyer, Build Your Own Lab: Do-it-yourself Biology and the Rise of Citizen Biotech-EconomiesMitch Altman, Hacking at the Crossroad - US Military Funding of HackerspacesFeel free to tweet, blog, share, comment the content of this special issue. We hope it will be a good starting point for further studies of the spreading of hacking practices outside the software field.Finally, we take advantage of this email to invite you to attend the panel we will chair, together with Eric Deibel, at the 4S/EASST Conference in Copenhagen in October. It is titled “Hacking STS - bio-hacking, open hardware development, and hackerspaces”, and will be another space to discuss the topics of this special issue.Sincerely,Alessandro and Johan# distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission# <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,# collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets# more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l# archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime< at >kein.org

http://freebassel.org/Bring Home the Loved and Celebrated Internet Volunteer Bassel Khartabil Detained in Syria!On March 15, 2012, Bassel Khartabil was detained in a wave of arrests in the Mazzeh district of Damascus. Since then, his family has received no official explanation for his detention or information regarding his whereabouts. However, his family has recently learned from previous detainees at the security branch of Kafer Sousa, Damascus, that Bassel is being held at this location.Bassel Khartabil, a Palestinian-Syrian, 31, is a respected computer engineer specializing in open source software development, the type of contributions the Internet is built upon. He launched his career ten years ago in Syria, working as a technical director for a number of local companies on cultural projects like restoring Palmyra and Forward Syria Magazine.Since then, Bassel has become known worldwide for his strong commitment to the open web, teaching others about technology, and contributing his experience freely to help the world. Bassel is the project leader for an open source web software called Aiki Framework. He is well known in online technical communities as a dedicated volunteer to major Internet projects like Creative Commons (www.creativecommons.org ), Mozilla Firefox (www.mozilla.org), Wikipedia (www.wikipedia.org), Open Clip Art Library (www.openclipart.org), Fabricatorz (www.fabricatorz.com ), and Sharism (www.sharism.org).Since his arrest, Bassel’s valuable volunteer work, both in Syria and around the world, has been stopped. His absence has been painful for the communities that depend on him. In addition, his family, and his fiancée whom he was due to marry this past April, have had their lives put on hold.Bassel Khartabil has been unjustly detained for nearly four months without trial or any legal charges being brought against him.We, the signees of the #FREEBASSEL campaign, demand immediate information regarding his detention, health, and psychological state.We urge the Syrian Government to release the community member, husband- to-be, son to a mother and father, and celebrated International software engineer Bassel Khartabil, immediately.

original to:http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2012/jul/18/graffiti-artist-adidas-banned-olympicGraffiti artist who worked for Adidas is banned from Olympic Games venuesDarren Cullen is also barred from owning paint or using most publictransport as part of pre-emptive police crackdown Esther Addley, Sandra Laville and Ben Quinn guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 18 July 2012 19.33 BST[British Transport Police arrested four men as part of a crackdown onalleged graffiti artists before the Olympics.] (4pic see site)When Adidas wanted to create a mural to illustrate the launch of its newfootball boot last year, it turned to "professional graffiti artist"Darren Cullen for help. Cullen, 38, runs a firm providing spraycan artworkand branding to major international companies, and says he has neverpainted illegally on a wall or train.But despite having worked with one of the Games's major sponsors, onTuesday Cullen was arrested by British Transport Police (BTP) and barredfrom coming within a mile of any Olympic venue, as part of a pre-emptivesweep against a number of alleged graffiti artists before the Olympics.BTP confirmed that four men from Kent, London and Surrey, aged between 18and 38, had been arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to commit criminaldamage, two of whom were also further arrested on suspicion of incitementto commit criminal damage.They were bailed until November under strict conditions restricting theiraccess to rail, tube and tram transport, preventing them from owning spraypaint or marker pens, and ordering them not to go near any Olympic venuein London or elsewhere. None has been charged.The arrests were in connection with "a live and ongoing criminalinvestigation into linked incidents of criminal damage between January2007 and July 2012", said a BTP spokesman.But Cullen, who says he has never painted illegally and whose firmGraffiti Kings has worked with major blue chip firms including Microsoftand NPower and the Royal Shakespeare Company, said he was not questionedover any alleged incidents of criminal damage.Instead, he said, he was asked about a website he had set up two years agoon behalf of a client, frontline-magazine.co.uk. The website was "allabout the history of graffiti", Cullen said, but did not promote it. "Idon't condone or promote illegal graffiti," he said. "I always say toyoung people: 'Don't do it. It's no good for you.'"The arrests come as the Metropolitan police's strategy of haltingpotential disruptive action in advance of major public events was givenhigh court endorsement. The tactic is a key plank of police planning toensure the Games are not disrupted.In the high court on Wednesday, Lord Justice Richards and Mr JusticeOpenshaw ruled the police did not operate an unlawful policy by carryingout pre-emptive strikes before Prince William's wedding last year.The judges dismissed applications for judicial review from 20 people amongscores who were arrested or subjected to searches in the days before andduring the wedding."We find nothing in the various strands of the claimants' case, whethertaken individually or cumulatively, to make good the contention that thepolicing of the royal wedding involved an unlawful policy or practice,with an impermissibly low threshold of tolerance for public protests,"said the judges.Human rights activists had argued the case had major implications for thepolicing of other major events, including the Olympics.In addition to his previous work for Adidas, Cullen said he was indiscussions to provide artwork with another major Olympic sponsor and hadbeen commissioned to spraypaint a London taxi to be used by a leadingbroadcaster at the Games. His computer equipment, phone, iPad and hisson's laptop had been confiscated.The four men's bail conditions also forbid them from entering "any railwaysystem, including tubes and trams, or [being] in any train, tram or tubestation or in or on any other railway property not open to the public"unless in limited circumstances including attending a written appointmentwith a solicitor.They are also barred from possessing "any spray paint, marker pens, anygrout pen, etching equipment, or unset paint".One graffiti blog claimed that among those arrested, some "had stoppedpainting graffiti without prior permission over a decade ago … whileothers haven't touched a spray can at all in many years". It accusedpolice of attempting to "sanitise" London before the Games.

"we live in a society where capitalism itself hasbecome rampantly feral. Feral politicians cheat on their expenses; feralbankers plunder the public purse for all it's worth; CEOs, hedge fundoperators, and private equity geniuses loot the world of wealth; telephoneand credit card compan ies load mysterious charges on everyone'sbills; corporations and the wealthy don't pay taxes while they feed at thetrough of public finance; shopkeepers price-gouge; and, at the drop of ahat swindlers and scam artists get to practice three- card monte right upinto the highest ech elons of the corp orate and political world.A political economy of mass dispossession, of predatory practicesto the point of daylight robbery-partic ularly of the poor and the vulnerable, the unsophisticated and the legally unprotected-has becomethe o rder of the day. D oes anyone believe it is possible to find an honestcapitalist, an honest banker, an honest politician, an honest shopkeeper,or an honest police commissioner anymore? Yes, they do exist. But onlyas a m inority that everyon e else regards as stupid. G e t smart. G e t easyprofits. Defraud and steal! The odds of getting caught are low. And in anycase there are plenty of ways to shield personal wealth from the costs ofcorporate malfeasance."from Rebel Cities by David Harvey

Re: <nettime> Eric X. Li: Democracy Is Not the Answer. mp <mp-2b86UMU8KtVAfugRpC6u6w< at >public.gmane.org> John Hopkins <jhopkins-LRlVL1xtBs0sV2N9l4h3zg< at >public.gmane.org> Morlock Elloi <morlockelloi-/E1597aS9LQAvxtiuMwx3w< at >public.gmane.org>- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -Date: Sat, 07 Jul 2012 11:12:08 +0100From: mp <mp-2b86UMU8KtVAfugRpC6u6w< at >public.gmane.org>Subject: Re: <nettime> Eric X. Li: Democracy Is Not the Answer.On 07/07/12 01:18, Flick Harrison wrote:Yea, man - the west is the best, fuck the rest!Keep on rocking in the free world- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -Date: Sun, 15 Jul 2012 22:39:46 -0700From: John Hopkins <jhopkins-LRlVL1xtBs0sV2N9l4h3zg< at >public.gmane.org>Subject: Re: <nettime> Eric X. Li: Democracy Is Not the Answer..ei MP --hehe, comes to mind that you might read a copy of the latest month's "American Rifleman"* from front to back to get a certain perspective on Freedom.Cheers,JH* house 'zine of the NRA

<http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2012/jul/15/free-access-british-scientific-research>Free access to British scientific research within two years Radical shakeup of academic publishing will allow papers to be put online and be accessed by universities, firms and individuals The government is to unveil controversial plans to make publicly funded scientific [65]research immediately available for anyone to read for free by 2014, in the most radical shakeup of academic publishing since the invention of the [66]internet. Under the scheme, research papers that describe work paid for by the British taxpayer will be free online for universities, companies and individuals to use for any purpose, wherever they are in the world. In an interview with the Guardian before Monday's announcement [67]David Willetts, the universities and science minister, said he expected a full transformation to the open approach over the next two years. The move reflects a [68]groundswell of support for "open access" publishing among academics who have long protested that journal [69]publishers make large profits by locking research behind online paywalls. "If the taxpayer has paid for this research to happen, that work shouldn't be put behind a paywall before a British citizen can read it," Willetts said. "This will take time to build up, but within a couple of years we should see this fully feeding through." He said he thought there would be "massive" economic benefits to making research open to everyone. Though many academics will welcome the announcement, some scientists contacted by the Guardian were dismayed that the cost of the transition, which could reach £50m a year, must be covered by the existing science budget and that no new money would be found to fund the process. That could lead to less research and fewer valuable papers being published. British universities now pay around £200m a year in subscription fees to journal publishers, but under the new scheme, authors will pay "article processing charges" (APCs) to have their papers peer reviewed, edited and made freely available online. The typical APC is around £2,000 per article. Tensions between academics and the larger publishing companies have risen steeply in recent months as researchers have baulked at journal subscription charges their libraries were asked to pay. [70]More than 12,000 academics have boycotted the Dutch publisher Elsevier, in part of a broader campaign against the industry that has been called the "academic spring". The government's decision is outlined in a formal response to recommendations made in [71]a major report into open access publishing led by Professor Dame Janet Finch, a sociologist at Manchester University. Willetts said the government accepted all the proposals, except for a specific point on VAT that was under consideration at the Treasury. Further impetus to open access is expected in coming days or weeks when the [72]Higher Education Funding Council for England emphasises the need for research articles to be freely available when they are submitted for the Research Excellence Framework, which is used to determine how much [73]research funding universities receive. The Finch report strongly recommended so-called "gold" open access, which ensures the financial security of the journal publishers by essentially swapping their revenue from library budgets to science budgets. One alternative favoured by many academics, called "green" open access, allows researchers to make their papers freely available online after they have been accepted by journals. It is likely this would be fatal for publishers and also Britain's learned societies, which survive through selling journal subscriptions. "There is a genuine value in academic publishing which has to be reflected and we think that is the case for gold open access, which includes APCs," Willetts told the Guardian. "There is a transitional cost to go through, but it's overall of benefit to our research community and there's general acceptance it's the right thing to do. "We accept that some of this cost will fall on the ring-fenced science budget, which is £4.6bn. In Finch's highest estimation that will be 1% of the science budget going to pay for gold open access, at least before we get to a new steady state, when we hope competition will bring down author charges and universities will make savings as they don't have to pay so much in journal subscriptions," he added. "The real economic impact is we are throwing open, to academics, researchers, businesses and lay people, all the high quality research that is publicly funded. I think there's a massive net economic benefit here way beyond any £50m from the science budget," Willetts said. In making such a concerted move towards open access before other countries, Britain will be giving its research away free while still paying for access to articles from other countries. Willetts said he hoped the EU would soon take the same path when it announced the next tranche of Horizon 2020 grants, which are available for projects that run from 2014. The US already makes research funded by its National Institutes of Health open access, and is expected to make more of its publicly funded research freely available online. [74]Professor Adam Tickell, pro-vice chancellor of research and knowledge transfer at Birmingham University, and a member of the Finch working group, said he was glad the government had endorsed the recommendations, but warned there was a danger of Britain losing research projects in the uncertain transition to open access publishing. "If the EU and the US go in for open access in a big way, then we'll move into this open access world with no doubt at all, and I strongly believe that in a decade that's where we'll be. But it's the period of transition that's the worry. The UK publishes only 6% of global research, and the rest will remain behind a paywall, so we'll still have to pay for a subscription," Tickell said. "I am very concerned that there are not any additional funds to pay for the transition, because the costs will fall disproportionately on the research intensive universities. There isn't the fat in the system that we can easily pay for that." The costs would lead to "a reduction in research grants, or an effective charge on our income" he said. Another consequence of the shift could be a "rationing" of research papers from universities as competition for funds to publish papers intensifies. This could be harmful, Tickell said. For example, a study that finds no beneficial effect of a drug might be seen as negative results and go unpublished, he said. [75]Stevan Harnad, professor of electronics and computer science at Southampton University, said the government was facing an expensive bill in supporting gold open access over the green open access model. He said UK universities and research funders had been leading the world in the movement towards "green" open access that requires researchers to self-archive their journal articles on the web, and make them free for all. "The Finch committee's recommendations look superficially as if they are supporting open access, but in reality they are strongly biased in favour of the interests of the publishing industry over the interests of UK research," he said. "Instead of recommending that the UK build on its historic lead in providing cost-free green open access, the committee has recommended spending a great deal of extra money -- scarce research money -- to pay publishers for "gold open access publishing. If the Finch committee recommendations are heeded, as David Willetts now proposes, the UK will lose both its global lead in open access and a great deal of public money -- and worldwide open access will be set back at least a decade," he said.<...> 65. http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/research 66. http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/internet 67. http://www.bis.gov.uk/ministers/david-willetts 68. http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2012/apr/09/frustrated-blogpost-boycott-scientific-journals 69. http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2012/apr/24/harvard-university-journal-publishers-prices?intcmp=239 70. http://thecostofknowledge.com/ 71. http://www.researchinfonet.org/publish/finch/ 72. http://www.hefce.ac.uk/ 73. http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/researchfunding 74. http://www.birmingham.ac.uk/staff/profiles/university/adam-tickell.aspx

I thought some people on this list may be interested....A group of us (Patrick McCurdy, David Brake & Zeynep Tufekci) havebegun to compile academic resources (articles, special issues andpodcasts) on the role of media and communication in the ArabSpring.The aim is to provide potentially relevant theoretical work(for example on the uses of ICTs for political action or on the mediaand activism) and/or parallel empirical studies that can be used forcomparison (eg the use of twitter in Iran in 2009).The list does not claim to be comprehensive, but is intended as anopen resource for students and teachers interested in this topic.Please feel free to share and use this document for noncommercialpurposes.The list is both a Google document:https://docs.google.com/document/d/1DU8AOlkTV6F0ZyoGcbk_060iBZG5tWKwj_n97EJPe9M/editAnd, many of the readings have also been added to Zotero too:https://www.zotero.org/groups/arabspringmedia/itemsIf you know of an academic article that isn't listed below pleaseemail patrickmmccurdy [at] gmail.com or davidbrake [at] gmail.com.Also, this is an open source project thus If you want to help maintainthis reading list, get in touch.======Web: http://www.communication.uottawa.ca/eng/faculty/mccurdy.htmlTumblr: http://mediamemes.tumblr.comTwitter: < at >pmmccWordpress: http://patrickmccurdy.wordpress.com

Boats 4 People. Press release n°5Link to full video: http://vimeo.com/45617472Abbas, an Eritrean national is the only survivor of this incident, wasfound on Tuesday at 14:30 by a Tunisian fisherman 35 miles off the coastsof Zarzis. He was hanging onto the remains of the rubber dinghy with whichhe had left Tripoli around 14 days earlier with 56 people on board (20Somalians, 2 Sudanese and 34 Eritreans), among which his older brother andtwo sisters. After approximately 26 hours of navigation, the boat, whichwas in very bad conditions, capsized and only Abbas managed to hold ontothe boat, whose engine was nevertheless damaged after falling into thewater. He drifted alone for fourteen days in the open sea, occasionallysighting in the distance other vessels. After finally being rescued by aTunisian fisherman yesterday, a patrol boat of the Tunisian "GardeNational Maritime" was sent out and took him on board at 15:30 at thefollowing coordinates: 33 50.577 N, 11 32.442 E (see map). Nevertheless,this location refers only to the point were the rescue operation tookplace, and does not indicate the furthermost point reached by the boat,which might have been several tens of miles North of this point. Abbas waslater brought to the hospital in Zarzis, where he received treatment fordehydration and extreme exhaustion.WatchTheMed: https://watchthemed.crowdmap.com/reports/view/23Boats 4 People. Press release n°5Zarzis, 11th July 2012:Boats 4 People: A delegation meets sole survivor of tragic incident thatcost the lives of 55A year and a few months after the "left-to-die boat" case lead tointernational indignation, another dramatically similar incident revealshow, despite the changed geopolitical situation, migrants keep dying inthe Mediterranean sea in appalling conditions.Last year, in March 2011, 63 people who had left Tripoli in the attempt toreach the Southern shores of Italy, died after drifting for 14 days atsea. This incident occurred during the international military interventionin Libya and as such in meticulously surveilled waters. Several damningreports were released on the failures of a series of actors and a legalcase was filed in France for non-assistance. Now, despite the fall of theQaddafi regime and the end of the international intervention in Libya,Boats4People has learned during an interview conducted this morning inZarzis, Southern Tunisia, about another tragic case that shows once againthe dramatic effects of the European migration regime.Abbas, an Eritrean national who is the only survivor of this incident, wasfound on Tuesday at 14:30 by a Tunisian fisherman 35 miles off the coastsof Zarzis. He was hanging onto the remains of the rubber dinghy with whichhe had left Tripoli around 14 days earlier with 56 people on board (20Somalians, 2 Sudanese and 34 Eritreans), among which his older brother andtwo sisters. After approximately 26 hours of navigation, the boat, whichwas in very bad conditions, capsized and only Abbas managed to hold ontothe boat, whose engine was nevertheless damaged after falling into thewater. He drifted alone for fourteen days in the open sea, occasionallysighting in the distance other vessels. After finally rescued by aTunisian fisherman yesterday, a patrol boat of the Tunisian "GardeNational Maritime" was sent out and took him onboard at 15:30. He wasbrought to the hospital in Zarzis, where he received treatment fordehydration and extreme exhaustion.Boats4People denounces once again the policy of border closure that obligemigrants to resort to dangerous means to cross the Mediterranean as wellas the criminalization of assistance to migrants in distress at sea, whichhave de facto transformed the Mediterranean in a cemetery.In collaboration with researchers of the Forensic Oceanography project atGoldsmiths College, Boats4People will keep inquiring to determine if anymeasure could have been taken to avert the tragic fate of the passengersof this boat.http://www.boats4people.org/index.php/en/

I am pleased to introduce you to Gernot Untergruber -gernotuntergruber.coma translucent facebook mashup.Gernot Untergruber is an art project which aims to explore and blur the boundaries between single-person-organic, collective and virtual personalities. Gernot is a translucent social being who interacts with subjects through their modern digital lifestyles. He is half human (organic), half synthetic (silicon based).The website gernotuntergruber.com tells you stories about what is happening in the life of Gernot. He is constantly learning, developing and changing. He is defined by his thoughts, his environment, his activities and his dreams. As Gernot is an active citizen on Facebook, all his friends and their activities represent his environment. You could also be a part of Gernot. His dreams are automatically generated texts derived from information Gernot has access to: his own thoughts and activities, and the information his friends on Facebook share with him. All this gibberish is published on his website.Read more about Gernot Untergruber:http://gernotuntergruber.com/about.htmlA full description is available here:http://gernotuntergruber.com/static/docs/gernot_untergruber_02.pdfConnect to Gernot Untergruber on Facebook (login first):http://www.facebook.com/gernot.untergruberIn the beginning of July 2012, Gernot had a burst of growth.From that time he began to dream in images and started to make sound. Each visitor coming to Gernot's website can trigger and control the different sounds he makes. This auditive insight makes gernotuntergruber.com a multi-user instrument, that can be played by people around the globe at the same time.The auditive insight will first presented on Tuesday, 17th of July - 10.30pm MEZTo join, visit http://gernotuntergruber.com--LOGOUT NOW!http://stupidius.net/logoutMailer-Error #42: This message was not checked for spelling and grammar mistake. (-344)

original to:http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jul/14/global-financial-fraud-gatekeepersfor links etc.This global financial fraud and its gatekeepersThe media's 'bad apple' thesis no longer works. We're seeing systemiccorruption in banking – and systemic collusionBy Naomi Wolfguardian.co.uk, Saturday 14 July 2012 15.47 BSTProtesters at Bank of America shareholders meeting in CharlotteProtesters outside a Bank of America annual shareholders' meeting inCharlotte, North Carolina. Photograph: Jason Miczek/ReutersLast fall, I argued that the violent reaction to Occupy and other protestsaround the world had to do with the 1%ers' fear of the rank and fileexposing massive fraud if they ever managed get their hands on the books.At that time, I had no evidence of this motivation beyond the fact thatfinancial system reform and increased transparency were at the top of manyprotesters' list of demands.But this week presents a sick-making trove of new data that abundantlyfills in this hypothesis and confirms this picture. The notion that theentire global financial system is riddled with systemic fraud – and thatkey players in the gatekeeper roles, both in finance and in government,including regulatory bodies, know it and choose to quietly sustain thisreality – is one that would have only recently seemed like the frenziedhypothesis of tinhat-wearers, but this week's headlines make such aconclusion, sadly, inevitable.The New York Times business section on 12 July shows multiple exposes ofsystemic fraud throughout banks: banks colluding with other banks inmanipulation of interest rates, regulators aware of systemic fraud, andkey government officials (at least one banker who became the most keygovernment official) aware of it and colluding as well. Fraud in banks hasbeen understood conventionally and, I would say, messaged as a glitch. Asin London Mayor Boris Johnson's full-throated defense of Barclay'sleadership last week, bank fraud is portrayed as a case, when it surfaces,of a few "bad apples" gone astray.In the New York Times business section, we read that the HSBC bankinggroup is being fined up to $1bn, for not preventing money-laundering (ahighly profitable activity not to prevent) between 2004 and 2010 – a sixyears' long "oops". In another article that day, Republican SenatorCharles Grassley says of the financial group Peregrine capital: "This is acompany that is on top of things." The article goes onto explain that atPeregrine Financial, "regulators discovered about $215m in customer moneywas missing." Its founder now faces criminal charges. Later, the articlementions that this revelation comes a few months after MF Global "lost"more than $1bn in clients' money.What is weird is how these reports so consistently describe the activitythat led to all this vanishing cash as simple bumbling: "regulators missedthe red flag for years." They note that a Peregrine client alerted thefirm's primary regulator in 2004 and another raised issues with theregulator five years later – yet "signs of trouble seemingly missed foryears", muses the Times headline.A page later, "Wells Fargo will Settle Mortgage Bias Charges" as that bankagrees to pay $175m in fines resulting from its having – again, verylucratively – charged African-American and Hispanic mortgagees costlierrates on their subprime mortgages than their counterparts who were whiteand had the same credit scores. Remember, this was a time when "WallStreet firms developed a huge demand for subprime loans that theypurchased and bundled into securities for investors, creating financialincentives for lenders to make such loans." So, Wells Fargo was profitingfrom overcharging minority clients and profiting from products based onthe higher-than-average bad loan rate expected. The piece discreetly endsmentioning that a Bank of America lawsuit of $335m and a Sun Trustmortgage settlement of $21m for having engaged is similar kinds ofdiscrimination.Are all these examples of oversight failure and banking fraud just big ol'mistakes? Are the regulators simply distracted?The top headline of the day's news sums up why it is not that simple:"Geithner Tried to Curb Bank's Rate Rigging in 2008". The story reportsthat when Timothy Geithner, at the time he ran the Federal Reserve Bank ofNew York, learned of "problems" with how interest rates were fixed inLondon, the financial center at the heart of the Libor Barclays scandal.He let "top British authorities" know of the issues and wrote an email tohis counterparts suggesting reforms. Were his actions ethical, or prudent?A possible interpretation of Geithner's action is that he was "coveringhis ass", without serious expectation of effecting reform of what he knewto be systemic abuse.And what, in fact, happened? Barclays kept reporting false rates, seekingto boost its profit. Last month, the bank agreed to pay $450m to US and UKauthorities for manipulating the Libor and other key benchmarks, uponwhich great swaths of the economy depended. This manipulation is allegedin numerous lawsuits to have defrauded thousands of bank clients. SoGeithner's "warnings came too late, and his efforts did not stop theillegal activity".And then what happened? Did Geithner, presumably frustrated that hiswarnings had gone unheeded, call a press conference? No. He stayed silent,as a practice that now looks as if several major banks also perpetrated,continued.And then what happened? Tim Geithner became Treasury Secretary. At whichpoint, he still did nothing.It is very hard, looking at the elaborate edifices of fraud that areemerging across the financial system, to ignore the possibility that thiskind of silence – "the willingness to not rock the boat" – is simplyrewarded by promotion to ever higher positions, ever greater authority. Ifyou learn that rate-rigging and regulatory failures are systemic, but stayquiet, well, perhaps you have shown that you are genuinely reliable anddeserve membership of the club.Whatever motivated Geithner's silence, or that of the "governmentofficial" in the emails to Barclays, this much is obvious: the mainstreammedia need to drop their narratives of "Gosh, another oversight". Thefinancial sector's corruption must be recognized as systemic.Meanwhile, Britain is sleepwalking in a march toward total emailsurveillance, even as the US brings forward new proposals to punishwhistleblowers by extending the Espionage Act. In an electronic world,evidence of these crimes lasts forever – if people get their hands on thebooks. In the Libor case, notably, a major crime has not been greeted bymuch demand at the top for criminal prosecutions. That asymmetry is one ofthe insurance policies of power. Another is to crack down on citizens'protest.........And now, for 'balance', don't miss 'the other viewpoint', Czar Boris isfed up with this dissing of the 'Bollinger Boys':http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/borisjohnson/9385743/Stop-bashing-the-bankers-we-have-no-future-without-them.html

Datum: Tue, 10 Jul 2012 13:11:53 +0200Von: "Sebastian Vehlken" <sebastian.vehlken< at >leuphana.de>Betreff: Neighborhood Technologies. Media and Mathematics of Dynamic Networks, 30.08.-01.09.2012Dear Colleagues,we would like to inform you about the upcoming transdisciplinary conferenceNeighborhood Technologies. Media and Mathematics of Dynamic Networks.It will be held from August 30th, to September 1st, 2012, in the Denkerei, Oranienplatz 2, 10999 Berlin.Further information is also be found at the conference website at http://www.leuphana.de/conference-neighborhoods . If you are interested in this workshop, please register via this website.We are looking forward meeting you in the Denkerei!Kind regards,Sebastian Vehlken and Tobias Harks.-----------------------------------NEIGHBORHOOD TECHNOLOGIES. MEDIA AND MATHEMATICS OF DYNAMIC NETWORKS.A transdisciplinary Conference.Concept and Organisation: Tobias Harks (Mathematics, University of Maastricht) and Sebastian Vehlken (Culture and Media Studies, Leuphana University Lüneburg).Conference languages: English and GermanThis conference is the Blankensee-Colloquium 2012, funded by the Kooperationsfonds of the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin, Institute for Advanced Studies.Co-funded by Leuphana University Lüneburg.PROGRAMTHURSDAY, Aug 3014.00-14.30 Welcome Reception14.30-14.45 Thorsten Wilhelmy (Institute for Advanced Studies, Berlin): Welcome Address14.45-15.00 Tobias Harks (University of Maastricht) and Sebastian Vehlken (Leuphana University Lüneburg): Neighborhood Technologies – An IntroductionPanel 1: Neighborhood Connections15.00-16.30Shintaro Miyazaki (Berlin): Neighborhood Listening. A Media Archaeology of Packet Switching in the 1970sCarolin Wiedemann (Studienstiftung, Berlin): Anonymous and the Desire to Keep Swarming16.30 -16.45 Coffee Break16.45-18.15Katharine S. Willis (University of Plymouth): Augmented Neighbourhoods – Locative Media and Changing Mental Models of Urban PlacesBabak Ghanadian (niriu, Hamburg): From Virtual Strangers to Real Neighbours: niriu, the Local Network18.15-18.30 BreakKeynote 118.30-20.00: Dirk Helbing (ETH Zürich): FuturICT – Global Participatory Computing for Our Complex World20.00 Get-Together-------------------------------------------FRIDAY Aug 31Keynote 209.30-10.45: Sándor Fekete (TU Braunschweig): Improving Traffic Flow by Local Methods10.45-11.00 Coffee BreakPanel 2: Neighborhood Coordinations11.00-13.00Manfred Füllsack (Graz): Emergence and Downward Causation – Assessing the Impact of Neighborhood-NetworksFelix Salfner (HU Berlin): Global Knowledge from Local Measurements – Detecting spreading Anomalies in Complex Software SystemsAlex Hall (Google, Zürich): Processing a Trillion Cells per Mouse Click13.00-14.00 Lunch BreakPanel 3: Neighborhood Realities14.00-16.00Jens Krause (IGB Berlin): Collective Behavior and Swarm IntelligenceVerena V. Hafner (HU Berlin): Interactive RoboticsGabriele Brandstetter (FU Berlin): Choreographing the Swarm – Relational Bodiesin Contemporary Performance16.00-16.30 Coffee BreakPanel 4: Neighborhood Architectures16:30-18:00Christina Vagt (TU Berlin): Buckminster Fuller: Neighborhood DesignHenriette Bier (TU Delft): Neighbourhood Technologies in Digitally-driven Architecture19.30 Conference Dinner (for Conference Speakers)------------------------------------------SATURDAY Sep 01Panel 5: Neighborhood Complexities10.00-11.30Martin Hoefer (RWTH Aachen): Contribution and Matching Games in NetworksPaul Harrenstein (TU München): It Takes All Kinds to Make a World11.30-11.45 Coffee Break11.45-13.00Stefan Thurner (MedUni Wien): tba (Complexity Science)Felix König (TomTom, Amsterdam): Crowdsourcing in Navigation – How Selfish Drivers Help to Reduce Congestion for All13.00-14.00 Lunch BreakPanel 6: Neighborhood Images and Politics14.00-15.30Matthias Trapp (HPI Potsdam): Neighborhood Visualization – Challenges and Strategies from a Geovisualization PerspectiveAndrej Holm (HU Berlin) and Lorenz Matzat (Medienkombinat Berlin): GentriMap – Geovisualisierung als Instrument der Stadtentwicklungsanalyse15.30-15.45 Coffee Break15.45-17.00Claus Pias and Wolfgang Hagen (Leuphana University Lüneburg): Commentary and Concluding Plenary Session17.00 End of Conference-------------------------------------------Contact:NEIGHBORHOOD TECHNOLOGIESProject Managementc/o Mayka Kmoth (Project Assistance)Scharnhorststr. 1, 21335 Lüneburge-mail:conference-neighborhoods< at >leuphana.detel: +49-4131-677-1646homepage: http://www.leuphana.de/conference-neighborhoods# distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission# <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,# collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets# more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l# archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime< at >kein.org

*___________________________________________________________________Dreaming Methods Labs presents a new digital fiction project - The DeadTower*by Andy Campbell and Mez Breeze.http://labs.dreamingmethods.com/tower/Set in a dark and abstract dream world that revolves around a crashed bus,this atmospheric game-like visual poem/landscape can be freely explored atfull-screen with the mouse and keyboard.Rummage around in the text/object scrap beneath the haunting structure. Orattempt to reach the Tower itself.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mez_Breezehttp://www.dreamingmethods.com/*___________________________________________________________________*--< at >netwurkerReality Engineer>Synthetic Environment Strategist>Game[r] Theorist>Code Wurker--

bwo Le Mondeoriginal to:http://www.digitaltrends.com/lifestyle/abandoned-parts-of-detroit-may-be-turned-into-a-zombie-theme-parkAbandoned parts of Detroit may be turned into a zombie theme parkNatt Garun July 11, 2012 By Natt GarunAn ambitious Indiegogo project wants to convert abandoned parts of Detroitinto a zombie theme park. Good idea, or too unrealistic?Detroit, Michigan is a notorious city with a not-so-stellar reputationdespite perfectly livable suburbs. Now, an artist on Indiegogo is askingfor your help to consider turning his project into reality by transformingparts of an abandoned neighborhood in Detroit into a zombie theme park —just in time for you to make use of the $24,000 zombie survival kit we sawyesterday.Currently called the Z World Detroit, campaign leader Mark Siwak wants todo something about the city’s plan to formally abandon these neighborhoodsby turning them into something more fun and constructive. The neglectedparts of Detroit makes for a perfect setting since they contain many rundown homes and abandoned buildings amidst an urban landscape. This putsvisitors in a realistic surrounding — just add some zombie actors toreenact some viral outbreak.The plan aims for visitors to be able to run and hide from zombies, searchfor food and supplies (still vague on what this means, but Siwak statesthere will be no weapons), and scour for other survivors. Each player getpatches that get tear away for each misstep they take, and if they loseall the patches, they must join the zombie horde. Proceeds from the themepark will go to a city funding to demolish abandoned buildings scatteredthroughout Detroit. Wonder if zombie makeup is included if you succumb tothe apocalypse?“The Z World Detroit initiative is a radical rethinking of urbanredevelopment and Detroit’s well-documented blight and de-population,” theIndiegogo page reads. “It turns perceived liabilities into assets thatwill bring a renewed vitality to a struggling neighborhood.”Siwak warns, however, that although the idea might sound interesting, thisis still just a concept. Funding the project does not promise that Z WorldDetroit will actually come to fruition, but can get some developersinterested in proposing the actual creation of the park.“While zombies are great, the real neat thing about this project is thepotential to inject some life into a forgotten neighborhood – with theopportunity to work with neighborhood groups and organization,” Siwakwrites. “In short, Z World Detroit would become part of the neighborhood,the center of the neighborhood, rather than something sitting outside theneighborhood.”Sounds like a creative way to make use of an abandoned space, if you askus! As long as the abandoned buildings are converted to be safe fortourists, visitors, and are kept gated for non-operational hours, we don’tsee why this concept couldn’t be further developed into real life. Whoknows, perhaps Z World Detroit would be the first park in the midwesteveryone will want to go to on their next vacation. Let’s just hope itlooks a bit better than these amateur illustrations for the time being.The project is currently funded at about $7,600 of the $145,000 goal withFriday, August 10 as the last day to contribute. Any amount will help, butif you want an admission to the park (if it ever comes to life), you’llneed to shell out at least $100 in support of the project.In Case You Missed It:* $24,000 will get you a full zombie survival kit for the impendingapocalypse* Center for Disease Control denies ongoing zombie apocalypseRead more:http://www.digitaltrends.com/lifestyle/abandoned-parts-of-detroit-may-be-turned-into-a-zombie-theme-park/#ixzz20UAdieKo

The Gentleperson's Guide To Forum Spieshttp://cryptome.org/2012/07/gent-forum-spies.htm

Minor Compositions is launching a workers’ inquiry into the shaping of creative, cultural, and artistic labor in the metropolis.We are currently searching for accomplices and comrades to take part and further develop this investigation. Description and more information below.Cheers,StevphenThe Metropolitan Factorymaking a living as a creative workerWebsite: http://metropolitanfactory.wordpress.comShort survey on creative labor here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/97K8BNKSurviving as a cultural or artistic worker in the city has never been easy. Creative workers find themselves celebrated as engines of economic growth, economic recovery and urban revitalization even as the conditions for our continued survival becomes more precarious. How can you make a living today in such a situation? That is, how to hold together the demands of paying the rent and bills while managing all the tasks necessary to support one’s practice? How to manage the tensions between creating spaces for creativity and imagination while working through the constraints posed by economic conditions?In a more traditional workplace it is generally easy to distinguish between those who planned and managed the labor process and those who were involved in its executions: between the managers and the managed. For creative workers these distinctions become increasingly hard to make. Today the passionate and self-motivated labor of the artisan increasingly becomes the model for a self-disciplining, self-managed labor force that works harder, longer, and often for less pay precisely because of its attachment to some degree of personal fulfillment in forms of engaging work. And that ain’t no way to make a living, having to struggle three times as hard for just to have a sense of engagement in meaningful work.This project sets out to investigate how cultural workers in the metropolis manage these competing tensions and demands. The goal is to bring together the dispersed knowledges and experiences of creative workers finding ways to make a living in the modern metropolis. And by doing that to create a space to learn from this common experiences that often are not experienced as such while we work away in different parts of the city.:: Minor Compositions ::http://www.minorcompositions.infoAutonomous politics & aesthetics in the revolutions of everyday life

Dear Nettime,Speaking of documenta-Occupy (and not "Occupy documenta," tellingly) andmore failed revolutionary (or even reformist!) promise to write about,there's already plenty out about Wisconsin, published even before the last,worst failure of the June 5 smackdown. Here are my reviews of the book lit.http://prop-press.typepad.com/blog/2012/07/wi-uprising-lit-review-part-1.htmlDan w.*In Madison, Wisconsin, fifteen months ago the pitiable American inhibitionon public political expression dropped away on a mass scale. The result was,among other things, the collective performance of an insurgent spectacle,beginning with the demonstrations under the capitol rotunda. For once in mypolitical lifetime we had more performers than cameramen and the stage wasaccordingly enlarged. The resultant images were and are fundamentallyappealing. With everybody participating, the picture represented not merelya small group but rather a whole public, a whole society, a body in whichmany viewers would recognize themselves, and, most significantly, want tojoin.The images of the Wisconsin Uprising were made enduring throughthousands-fold repetition, most of them slightly different versions of thesame picture, a proliferation of infinite protest details bound by a whole,generated over the many days of action. There is no doubt‹the pictorial,video, and sound documentation of the movement is vast. But finally, thesocial movement actually lived up to the flood of documentation produced ofit.Writing is a peculiar form of documentation. Unlike photo and raw video,writing by the nature of its production takes on a variable temporaldistance from the events being recorded. From on-the-spot tweets to daily orweekly blog postings, to articles or columns that undergo an editing processfor webzines or newsmedia sites, to texts written for traditionallypublished and distributed books, writing provides space for reflection anddescriptive processing. For that reason, in terms of understanding the howsand whys of what happened in Wisconsin, writing is the most important kindof documentation we have. And we have a lot of it.There can be no hope of reviewing even a sliver of the Œfirst order¹ onlinereporting that took place as the Uprising unfolded. There is simply toomuch. For example, as of this posting I have well over 600 webpagesbookmarked in my browser¹s Wisconsin Uprising folder, each url representinga notable detail or moment in the struggle. As a whole my bookmarked sitespreserve the feeling of daily and weekly turns of events, and how peoplewere thinking in the moment. These are but an unknown fraction of all thatwas typed and posted. I have taken on the more doable task of reading through a selection of theŒsecond order¹ movement literature. These are the print media publishedworks, ranging from proper books published under well-known left wingimprints to DIY zines produced by small groups or individuals. Though theseworks vary in their physicality, professionalism of editing, and ideologicalorientation, they all belong to the Uprising in the sense that they areaddressed to a movement-identified readership. This literature grew to aconsiderable body of work less than a year after the uprising broke out, andthe titles I review here are not the complete roster.The question of time frame must be considered from the outset. The writingscompiled in and through these publications represent the period January2011, when Scott Walker was sworn in as governor, through December of thatyear, by which time the effort was underway to gather signatures to force arecall election. From where we stand now, at the end of June of 2012, afterthe June 5 election debacle in which Scott Walker engineered a decisivevictory, that period can be considered the first and brightest phase of theUprising‹and, most importantly, a phase of the movement that is definitivelyover.The writings of that period are optimistic in comparison to the post-June 5spirit of the movement. Even the most critical pieces are informed by thememory and experience of the initial insurgency itself‹the heady first weekthrough which a movement of many tens of thousands unexpectedly materializedout of little but a suddenly recognized common precarity. After June 5, thepoint of reference is quite different and certainly more difficult. Perhapsmore than even before June 5, then, we need to study our movement, ourcollective decisions, mistakes, hopes, and potentialities, as found in theliterature of the Uprising, and do it with the sobriety of the defeated.*These are the four books I have read:We Are Wisconsin: The Wisconsin Uprising in the Words of the Activists,Writers, and Everyday Wisconsinites Who Made It Happen, Erica Sagrans,editor. Minneapolis: Tasora Books, 300 pages.It Started in Wisconsin: Dispatches from the Front Lines of the New LaborProtest, Mari Jo and Paul Buhle, editors. Brooklyn: Verso, 181 pages.Wisconsin Uprising: Labor Fights Back, Michael D. Yates, editor. New York:Monthly Review Press, 304 pages.Uprising: How Wisconsin renewed the Politics of Protest, from Madison toWall Street, John Nichols. New York: Nation Books, 192 pages.*Out of the four books We Are Wisconsin has the distinction of havingappeared earliest. Being a contributor, this is the one I know best. It wasa project initiated by editor Erica Sagrans <http://twitter.com/ericas> , ayoung refugee of Nancy Pelosi¹s DC office who was inspired by the WisconsinUprising from a distance. The collection of texts she put together make fora remarkable pre-recall, pre-Occupy Wall Street document. Especiallyvaluable are the reprinted tweets, complete with time and date stamps,grouped on pages interspersed between the essays. They convey theexcitement, anxiety, determination, camraderie, and astonishment of theUprising¹s first days and the occupation of the capitol. Look no furtherthan the tweets for evidence of the Œnow-time¹ theorized by Benjamin, themessianic arrival of historical possibility.Though none is longer than nine pages, the articles are formally diverse. Agood number are first person, bridging the gap between the tweets and theanalytical pieces. Nationally-known left wing luminaries like MedeaBenjamin, Noam Chomsky, and Van Jones supply familiar voices at best and aplatitudinous superficiality at worst. Making the first of their appearancesthat run through two of the other books are words from Michael Moore andJohn Nichols. On balance, the lesser known and local writers offer thestronger contributions. For example, UW graduate student Alex Hanna¹scritical take on the Madison-Cairo (dis-)connection is an informed andtempered analysis of two insurgencies that in some respects jumped a border,but also remained particular to their locations. More so than eitherBenjamin or Chomsky, both of whom also wrote about the Middle East/Midwestvector, Hanna parses out the parallels worth holding onto. He is in aposition to do that given his membership in the TAA and the fact that hisarea of study is Egyptian social movements.The best articles are those that expand the scope of the Uprising whileretaining the urgency of the first phase. For example, in ³What Next:Mobilizing or Organizing?² Milwaukee activist Monica Adams argues forrevisiting the known frames of oppression‹racism, sexism, and other forms ofexclusionary supremacy‹to interrogate the ³we² of the Uprising slogan ³weare Wisconsin.² As well, she takes the mobilization/organization dichotomyof her title from Kwame Ture¹s differentiation between massaction against something (mobilization) and mass action for something(organization). One both scores she adds substance to a struggle representedmainly as a battle about collective bargaining rights. The text is anexcerpt from a report she delivered to the Left Forum on March 20, onlyabout five weeks after the Uprising began.It Started in Wisconsin has the feel of a local production though it is thebook with probably the widest reach because of its publisher, Verso. Thecover image is a photo of the capitol dome and the endless blue sky aboveit, a pure Madison image. It is the only one of the four books to use acover photo at all. The visual richness continues inside in the form ofphotographs at chapter breaks, several comic spreads, and a couple samplesof graphic art. Though not a large selection, the visual voices range from awonderful shot of Uprising nuptials taken on a snowy day in front of thecapitol by wedding photographer Becca Dilley to the minimalist iconographyof Lester Doré. Other distinguishing features of the book are the lists ofrecommended further readings at the end of selected chapters.Editors Mari Jo and Paul Buhle have ties going back to Madison¹s radicalheydey during the Vietnam era. As the founding editors of the 1970s-80s NewLeft periodical Radical America , they helped to disseminate essentialpolitical ideas of from their generation¹s struggle. The Buhle¹s experiencein an earlier era is evident in the comics spread titled ³Solidarity 1970.²It tells the story of the TAA¹s contract battle of that year, their first.The then-newborn union won most all of their demands through a springsemester strike that was respected by Teamsters Local 695, whose driversrefused to make deliveries across picket lines. The chain of solidarityrunning parallel to the narrative of escalation in 1970 rang true to theopening salvos of February, 2011, when the growth of the Uprising similarlycorresponded to the escalation of resistance actions.I remember the book for some spot-on texts, including Mari Jo¹s ³TheWisconsin Idea.² She could have gone for the boring straight treatment, butinstead she plays off the familiar term to describe the complex and crucialsense of identity, belonging, and ownership that produced the movement andthat in turn were produced by it. As she writes, ³No idea figured quite soprominently throughout the course of events as that of the identity ofWisconsinŠ.² The insurgent re-definition of Wisconsin and Wisconsinite(finally!) is an aspect of the Uprising that has not been remarked on inmany places. Only after the expanded discussion about the Uprising¹s claimon the state¹s identity does Mari Jo return to The Wisconsin Idea as anhistorically specific policy orientation with links to the ProgressiveParty.Another valuable contribution is Patrick Barrett¹s interview with Madisonorganizer and Green Party activist Ben Manski. Manski and one of theorganizations he helped to found, Wisconsin Wave <http://wisconsinwave.org/>, were protest stalwarts. They came into the Uprising with ananti-corporate, alter-global politics, and use as their banner motto theEuropean anti-austerity slogan ³we won¹t pay for their crisis!² TheWisconsin Wave was significant because it offered the movement an organizingforce and a political discourse that went beyond the special interestrepresented by the unions. As such, the Wave (as Manski calls it) helped todilute the predominance of AFSCME in the movement. This was a great serviceeven though the Wave itself was and is arguably unfocused in its organizingpriorities.Wisconsin Uprising is the most ideological of the books, though notpointlessly so (I will get to the pamphlets in a minute). The book framesthe Uprising as a working class labor struggle, pretty much in those terms.Going beyond the Wisconsin-specific touchstone of La Follette¹s Progressivereforms, the contributors to this volume variously analyze the Uprising inrelation to earlier episodes of labor organizing from throughout laborhistory. Elly Leary goes back to the Knights of Labor, the Japanese MexicanLabor Association of the early twentieth century, and the IWW-led strikeagainst the American Woolen Company in 1912. Michael Hurley and Sam Gindinconsider the lessons from the Canadian hospital workers strikes of Ontarioin the mid-1990s. Rand Wilson and Steve Early co-author a chapter on theexperience of recent union organizing in such open shop states as Tennessee,Texas, and North Carolina‹a discussion even more relevant after June 5.These and other authors make a compelling case for a wealth of tacticalcreativity available in the broad history of militant labor struggle. Whatthey do not address are the reasons for the Uprising¹s failure in strategicorientation, that is, why exactly the constituencies that initiated thechain of militant escalation allowed for the strategic re-routing of theirmovement. The failure is recognized as such given that it was the teachers¹sick-out that raised the spectre of larger strike actions, and even gainedthe term general strike traction at the height of the Uprising across agrassroots segment of the movement. For example, both Dan La Botz and FrankEmspak describe the strike possibility in their chapters, but neither offersa good explanation for why the movement went in the direction of electoralpolitics, just that it did.Lee Sustar comes closest in his article titled ³Who Were the Leaders of theWisconsin Uprising?² In it he tells who actively argued for a general strike(J. Eric Cobb, executive director of the Building Trades Council), who wasfriendly to the idea (Joe Conway, president of the Madison chapter of thefirefighters¹ union), and who was against it (the top leadership of AFSCME,WEAC, and the state AFL-CIO). If there is a take-home point in Sustar¹spiece, it is that the big unions prioritized the preservation of theirdues-collection apparatus over the defense of their membership¹s standard ofliving. As we now know definitively, this is a losing strategy.John Nichols¹ resume reads like a long prologue to the role he played allthrough the Uprising, that of a Madison-based progressive journalist andcommentator with national visibility. He has written books about mediademocracy, socialism in America, and a critical profile of Dick Cheney, andfinds regular work as a Washington correspondent for The Nation magazine. Asone of the most consistently present pundits delivering the Uprising to a TVaudience (being a frequent guest on MSNBC¹s The Ed Show and other cable newsprograms), as well as occasionally himself taking the microphone in front ofprotestors, it was almost a foregone conclusion that his Uprising would bethe first book-length treatment of the subject by a single author. Nichols opens with a foreword that spells out his claim to authenticity as afifth-generation Wisconsinite, and points out that at one time in theirrespective careers, he and Scott Walker were actually on good terms. As apolitical reporter allowed the space to roam, Nichols brings in not onlydiscussions of labor battles from the past but the more timeless questionsof democracy itself. For example, in Chapter 2 ³First Amendment Remedies,²he unpacks the problems of despotism and the faltering constitutional guardsagainst tyranny exposed in the course of the Uprising.  He interweaves intothese expositions of political history brief profiles or testimonies of theordinary Wisconsinites he discovered at the demonstrations. As the expertjournalist, he always attaches a human being to the most abstract parts ofthe narrative and then name drops the heavy hitter (Michael Moore, Rev.Jesse Jackson, etc) to keep up the narrative of national attention. My main objection to Nichols¹ book is really that of Nichols¹ politics. Heis basically a social democrat, which colors his perception of certainevents. For example, when he writes ³It was hard not to feel hopeful onMarch 12, the day that 180,000 Wisconsinites welcomed home fourteenDemocratic state senators who had fled the state to deny Governor Walker andhis Republican legislative allies the quorum required to pass theiranti-labor legislation,² I question whether he attended the same event thatI did. Hopeful? I and almost everyone I know remember it feeling like awake. It was three days after Walker and the Republicans rammed their billthrough in a surprise procedural move, and the labor leadership did nothingat all, even though thousands who gathered at the capitol on the night ofMarch 9 chanted ³general strike!² at the top of their lungs. By Saturday¹sdemonstration, the predominant vibe was, the protest phase is over and themovement suffered a significant defeat. Nichols¹ experience of that daymight have been too heavily informed by the cheers he heard from hisposition near the stage.To wrap up my comments on the four books, I honestly recommend reading themall for the fullest understanding of the Uprising, especially now that themovement has gone into a forced retreat. As with any genuine popularmovement, all the perspectives and even the major storylines cannot be toldin a single volume. Outside of the broad outlines and a handful of recurrentvoices, there is surprisingly little overlap between the four.*In the next post I will cover a selection of pamphlets and zines.Oh, and if you need another take on Wisconsin Uprising and It Started inWisconsin see Allen Ruff's review here<http://www.solidarity-us.org/node/3589> .

Re: <nettime> The Revolution Will Not Be Televised!! Newmedia-YDxpq3io04c< at >public.gmane.org Dante-Gabryell Monson <dante.monson-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w< at >public.gmane.org>- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -From: Newmedia-YDxpq3io04c< at >public.gmane.orgDate: Wed, 1 Aug 2012 05:28:48 -0400 (EDT)Subject: Re: <nettime> The Revolution Will Not Be Televised!!Dante: Thanks -- so what would the world look like if the WORKING CLASS (or any other group on whose "behalf" one believes they are waging *revolution*) didn't watch television anymore? Would that REVOLUTION have already happened and how would we know it? What would the economy look like if television advertising (and all other mass-media, including the use of the Internet as an advertising medium) was eliminated? Have any economic *radicals* ever made this proposal? What would happen to "democracy" if election campaigns weren't allowed to use mass-media? Have any political *radicals* ever made this suggestion? And what would happen to those who still read Guy Debord . . . ?? <g> Mark StahlmanBrooklyn NY In a message dated 7/31/2012 10:52:47 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time, dante.monson-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w< at >public.gmane.org writes: Hi Mark, good point. in my own case, its perhaps because I do not watch tv anymore...On Fri, Jul 27, 2012 at 4:43 PM, <_Newmedia-YDxpq3io04c< at >public.gmane.org_ (mailto:Newmedia-YDxpq3io04c< at >public.gmane.org) > wrote:Folks:I'm curious about why there is so little discussion, let alone *righteous*anger, about television on this list? <...>- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -Date: Wed, 1 Aug 2012 15:17:47 +0200Subject: Re: <nettime> The Revolution Will Not Be Televised!!From: Dante-Gabryell Monson <dante.monson-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w< at >public.gmane.org>Thanks Mark.I would guess it would change society.But perhaps not by forbidding.Hopefully this will happen as more individuals individuate ?I look forward to integration between diversities of narratives,developing and using tools based on Semantic Web / Linked Data ?I like to support this approach - pdf : http://www.automenta.com/netentionWith the potential to enable distributed and emergent forms of governanceand economics,making it easier to create and use a greater variety of metadata in supportof our resource allocation,relying less on the current centralized credit/debt metadata.On Wed, Aug 1, 2012 at 11:43 AM, <Newmedia-YDxpq3io04c< at >public.gmane.org> wrote: <...>- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -