Links for Wednesday 18th July, 2007

  • [Locus] Cory Doctorow: The Progressive Apocalypse and Other Futurismic Delights – “The Singularity is what happens when we have so much progress that we run out of progress. It’s the apocalypse that ends the human race in rapture and joy. Indeed, Ken MacLeod calls the Singularity ‘the rapture of the nerds'”
  • Ian M Banks: A Few Notes on the Culture – rec.arts.sf.written – In 1994, Ken MacLeod was asked by Ian M Banks to post an essay to rec.arts.sf.written. In it, Banks reveals additional details about the Culture universe, in which many of his books exist. Since then, of course, MacLeod has written about the Singularity.
  • Video: Clay Shirky on Love, Internet Style – One predictor of longevity: “Do the people who like it take care of each other?” And, “With love alone, you can get a birthday party together. Add coordinating tools and you can write an operating system” … “Now, you can do big things for love”
  • Darren Shaw – Where Are They All Going? on Flickr – Lovely photo of crowds of people moving around the British Museum. Great presentation fodder (and I already know at least three people wanting to use it in their slides).
  • Everything is Miscellaneous – Google Tech Talk from David Weinberger. It’s great. I took some notes (which I blogged). Now I want to buy the book. [via Russell Davies]
  • Daily Mail-o-matic – Very believable auto-generated Daily Mail headlines “WILL SINGLE MOTHERS INFECT THE BRITISH PEOPLE WITH AIDS?” was one example. Actually pretty close to a real Mail headline which was something like “Are asylum seekers carrying Saddam’s deadly nerve gas”