Neo-Amish

I am turning my life into an experiment. Having immersed myself in anti-corporate, brand hating rhetoric for quite some time, I feel a response of some sort is appropriate. So starting today I am going to examine how many corporations have puppet strings attached to me and then start snipping away.
This is not to say that I plan to fully escape the modern economic system. I would need to become a hermit of some sort and the role of hidden cave inhabiting fundamentalist has already been taken. I am more looking to become Neo-Amish. I want to seek the wild alternative economies that have yet to be engulfed in the, “sea of identical ideas”.
I expect the process to be painful in a heroin junkie in rehab sort of way. As I cut each string that holds me the remaining will pull painfully tight. Hopefully the final one won’t be wrapped around my neck.
Then again, I may be using the wrong analogy. Perhaps I am not Pinocchio. Maybe I don’t need to become a real boy. What if I’m Gulliver; held down by a million pieces of twine? I may contain more strength than all my adversaries, if I were only willing to stand up.

Insert Witty Title Here

So I'’ve been learning about how money flows from me to everyone richer than me. This is a natural extension of my past interests. Network theory predicts that the rich get richer in any functioning system. Sharks get the most calories, Yahoo gets more links than SelfUnfocused, and Bill Gates exists. I'’ve been doing some practical application of what I have learned by tracing the structure of corporations, the music industry, fun stuff like that. So I stumbled upon a website that doesn'’t seem to like iTunes.

Now, I use iTunes. My wife has a pod and it's a convenient method of listening to audio books while traveling. Sometimes we download from Apple'’s store. So the musicians get screwed. Heck, they get screwed no matter what I do. The point is, don'’t feel guilty about utilizing the only available system out there. At the same time, don'’t expect that a better one will come along without your own sweat and blood. Here'’s Downhill Battle. They will link you to labels, groups, and the ways and means to bypass the corporate behemoths and live in a new ecosystem, free from their tyranny.

Are There Google Hymns Yet?

I am so owned by Google. Not only is this blog part of the Google nation, but I have a Gmail account. Few of my online musings are free from the all-seeing eye. I am interested in the process of Googlespection though. Each ad they present me seems to say, “Here is where you belong, this is the brand that will save your soul”.
Save my soul. It seems the right phrase, since so many people intone the meme, “Google is god”. They are wrong. Google is omnipresent and omniscient but definitely only semi-potent (we’ll see what happens after the IPO). No, Google is not a god. I do think though, that it allows culture a form of introspection never before seen in history. I guess I see Google as the frontal lobe of the evolving world culture.
There is a possibility that Google can obtain pantheon status. As its system of ad placement becomes more proactive and pervasive, its power will broaden. For instance, some individuals already broadcast their biological info to hospitals. Their doctors receive blood-pressure info, monitor heart-rates or insulin levels. Just wait for this sort of info to reach the search engines. You're jogging, the heart rate is up and the electrolytes are down, “Time for the Thirst Quencher! Get some right around the corner, buy in the next ten minutes and receive a ten percent discount!!” And don’t be surprised if the Lycra wearing beauty entering that very store is actually a priestess of some Brand mediating consumerism to your unsatisfied spirit.

But there I go, misreading the intent of Google like so many others. Still Google is no god. It's Olympus, it's Hades, it’s the medium through which the culture's future gods will obtain and use their powers. A decade, maybe less, and the imagination of Neil Gaiman will become our reality. How unpleasant.

Immaterial

I’ve been doing most of my daily living in a virtual world. Specifically Until Uru, which is a grassroots effort to breathe life back into Uru Live. UU is a unique experience, most of the participants are older (twenties and up) and they rarely cuss. Which is something since any virtual world tends to be a glorified chat room. I have been waiting for Terra Nova to do a piece on us. Anyway, that’s were I’ve been. Pretty straight forward. Next post may contain an original thought or two. Maybe.

A Note:
I play Caleb Bezoek and am found on the Tapestry Shard if you want to visit.

Who Owns You, who, who, who, who?

Wired Online has published two articles recently that overlap one another in frightening ways. The first is about the Inducing Infringement of Copyrights Act. This bill would make any technology that allows for the possibility of copyright violations an illegal device. Think IPod, Bit Torrent, and your sperm.
Yes, your sperm, your eggs, your pollen, whatever. I base this claim on the second article which addresses genetic patents. Corporations lay claim to your genes. Supposedly this doesn’t involve “you” in all your pudgy glory, but if Nike owns the particular shade of green in your eyes, well, that may feel a little personal to you. Presently, research scientists are getting nervous about potential lawsuits concerning their work inside the human genome. Look into the wrong enzyme and your ass is in jail, four-eyes!
So let’s Gibson into the future. How different is sperm from an IPod anyway? Sperm is a device that transmits encoded information, as is an IPod. The information in an IPod may be owned by someone other than the user. Sperm may contain genetic information that is owned by a corporate entity. Both sperm and an IPod are off-white and tend to be located near a person’s midsection.
Seriously though, is it such a legal leap to consider human reproduction an unlawful use of patented material? One may hope that corporations would never try to push for such rights, but there is a long history of business encroaching on what the masses would assume were inalienable rights. Wait a decade and we may be paying our corporate pimp for the right to spread our seed

Testing Meme Propagation In Blogspace:

Add Your Blog!

This posting is a community experiment that tests how a meme, represented by this blog posting, spreads across blogspace, physical space and time. It will help to show how ideas travel across blogs in space and time and how blogs are connected. It may also help to show which blogs (and aggregation sites) are most influential in the propagation of memes. The dataset from this experiment will be public, and can be located via Google (or Technorati) by doing a search for the GUID for this meme (below).

The original posting for this experiment is located at: Minding the Planet results and commentary will appear there in the future.

Please join the test by adding your blog (see instructions, below) and inviting your friends to participate -- the more the better. The data from this test will be public and open; others may use it to visualize and study the connectedness of blogspace and the propagation of memes across blogs.

The GUID for this experiment is: as098398298250swg9e98929872525389t9987898tq98wteqtgaq62010920352598gawst
(this GUID enables anyone to easily search Google or other search engines for all blogs that participate in this experiment, once they have indexed the sites that participate). Anyone is free to analyze the data of this experiment. Please publicize your analysis of the data, and/or any comments by adding comments onto the original post (see URL above). (Note: it would be interesting to see a geographic map or a temporal animation, as well as a social network map of the propagation of this meme.)

INSTRUCTIONS

To add your blog to this experiment, copy this entire posting to your blog, and then answer the questions below, substituting your own information, below, where appropriate. Other than answering the questions below, please do not alter the information, layout or format of this post in order to preserve the integrity of the data in this experiment (this will make it easier for searchers and automated bots to find and analyze the results later).

REQUIRED FIELDS (Note: Replace the answers below with your own answers)

(1) I found this experiment at URL: http://www.mindingtheplanet.com

(2) I found it via Blogdex

(3) I posted this experiment at URL: http://www.selfunfocused.blogspot.com

(4) I posted this on date (day/month/year): 03/08/04

(5) I posted this at time (24 hour time): 11:30:00

(6) My posting location is (city, state, country): Coronado, California, USA

OPTIONAL SURVEY FIELDS (Replace the answers below with your own answers):

(7) My blog is hosted by: Blogger

(8) My age is: 28

(9) My gender is: Male

(10) My occupation is: Child Development

(11) I use the following RSS/Atom reader software: None

(12) I use the following software to post to my blog: Blogger

(13) I have been blogging since (day, month, year): 17/07/03

(14) My web browser is: Firefox

(15) My operating system is: Windows XP Pro

Adbots in Disguise

There is a live-action Transformers film in the works. I will probably see it. A large chunk of my youth was devoted to the franchise after all. I am especially indebted to the Transformers as an early introduction to child-based marketing. (Kids love robots, kids love dinosaurs…Dinobots, yes, it’s genius!)
It seemed a might bit strange to me that Spielberg and his DreamWorks pals would want to do Transformers. That is, until I thought about the advertising revenue. How much do you think car companies are going to pay to embody Optimus Prime? Hell, Energon cubes will probably get linked to Mountain Dew. I expect end to end product placement, and I expect to love it.

A Note:

I love how the Dinobot guy refers to a character as, "one of the most complex and well written characters to ever come out of a Transformers show". That's great stuff.