Alex Bowyer // A British thirtysomething living in Montréal, Canada, with interests in people & society, technology, science fiction, films, travel and getting the best out of life.
Can also be found blogging at alexbowyer.blogspot.com and tweeting as @alexbfree.
Wouldn't you like to see this sort of thinking applied to social policy? (from the same people as the piano subway steps)
Almost every piece of TV, movie, news or documentary footage you see has been edited to try and make a particular point. This video illustrates quite convincingly the power of editing and why you should hesitate to form judgements unless you're watching live unedited footage.
Man I hate it when they confiscate water at the airport - it's so arbitrary and random. Winds me up every time. Especially when I forget and I have to throw it away, so I buy a bottle on the other side - and it's identical! Grr - angry just thinking about it.
Which is why I love this cartoon! :-)
This is well worth a watch, stick with it for the "demo" at the end - it's a reinvention of windows-based desktops using up to ten fingers as distinct control points instead of one mouse pointer. Unfortunately it's only a concept - but technically very possible.
This is Hyperland, a BBC2 documentary with Douglas Adams, Tom Baker, Ted Nelson and others, broadcast in 1990 - that's before the World Wide Web, before DVDs, before digital TV, before the Internet as we know it.
What's quite remarkable is the amount that it gets right:
All in all, well worth 50 minutes of your time if you are interested in changes in technology and media and their effect on society.
I found this today on Russell Davies' blog.
I recently discovered this map showing which parts of Canada are inhabited. Ecumene means "inhabited earth". The green parts are the main inhabited parts of Canada, the red parts are small pockets of civilization outside the main areas, and the grey and white areas are completely uninhabited! I think it's an incredible visualization of nature's dominance over man in Canadian land use. If you'd like to read more about this, you can read my blog post exploring just how inaccessible much of Canada's wilderness is.
I've just learned about the recent red dust storms in Sydney. Check out the photos - it's hard to believe this could be possible. Looks more like Mars!
That is the thought-provoking possibility suggested by the RepRap project. RepRap is a simple 3D printer that can make plastic objects to any design, on your desk, using an ordinary PC. It can even make a copy of itself. It's entirely open source and freely distributable.
Ryerson University, the University of Western Ontario, Rabble and The Tyee have also started a very interesting multimedia project to explore this technology and the effects it will have on society further, called Maker Culture. You can read a good introduction by Wayne MacPhail here.
I am intrigued to see where this might lead. Developments in computing capability and internet technology have given us recording studios, photo labs, broadcasting studios, video editing suites and printing presses from our desktop - and have completely changed those industries as a result.
What changes can we expect in the world's manufacturing industries if goods no longer needed to be manufactured and distributed, but instead you downloaded a design and printed it yourself at home (much like you download an MP3 or movie and burn a CD or DVD now)?
Certainly this is a technology in its infancy, but full of promise. I can't wait to see how this develops.
