Love story of machines

[Guardian] Have computers taken away our power?

Why don’t we have big ideas or dreams any more? “Because now that there’s nothing more important than you, how can you ever lose yourself in a grander idea? We’re frightened of eccentricity, of loneliness. Individualism just wants to keep the machine stable, leads to a static world and a powerless world. Rand is individualism carried to its most extreme form, yet she’s very popular, and not that far away from how a lot of people, especially the young, feel today.”

“Network and Information Service in the XXI Century”

My Cuban friend had passed the open question: “What is the network and information service in the XXI century?” An interesting question while I am just contemplating the future of culture websites and services. Before putting the thoughts on the table, I would like to refer to one recently viewed video first.

Recently I had watched Microsoft Concept Video: “Productivity Future Vision”. I am kind of happy with it, but found out a lot of similar experiences were gain from non-Microsoft software and services, like some Apple & google products and other 3rd party softwares and services.

It has been years since last concept video of Microsoft Productivity Future Vision. But the proximity of the displayed realities changes. Those trendies are more around the corner than before. Why? In these years the booming of iPhone and iPad (and other Android tablets) had brought our virtual existence to a totally different level. So the question right now is not “is it possible?” or “aren’t they amazing?”, but “which path and how could we get there?”.

There are important currents of ICT development behind those “concept” videos. The most popular one is ubiquitous computing. There are a lot of names referring to the same important phenomena: pervasive computing, ubicomp, smart planet, ambient technology, etc. From the object’s side it syndicated, the current is named “IOT” (Internet of Things). The author of “The Internet of Things: A Critique of Ambient Technology and the All-Seeing Networks of RFIDs“, Rob van Kranenburng (who is also our 2008 Culturemondo Roundtable discussant) their recently collaborated published essay “Discussion Paper on the Internet of Things commissioned by the Institute for Internet and Society, Berlin“(PDF) had an excellent review of its development.

Another pioneer in this field is the urban designer Adam Greenfield with his 2006 famous book: “Everyware: The dawning age of ubiquitous computing“. With its provided 7 sections and 81 theses, Adam Greenfield had outlined the basic principles and issues involving the new emerging trend. Both identifying the social issues, the new technologies are from the beginning a new challenge to not only technical & business people, but a new governance’s dark corner and new supporting force for empowerment.

Based on these pioneering foundation stones — ubiquitous computing, IOT and everyware — above, what’s the vision of we could generate toward the “network and information service in the XXI century”? I think three directions should be highlighted at the dawning stage:

1. infrastructure: the new network and information service would be designed and separated into layerized structure, which infrastructure would play the role of support and resources deployment automation. The cloud awareness would be brought into every discipline and redefine the workflow and operational definition of the previous paradigm. Some interesting breakthrough would happen among the edges and intersections of layers and within infrastructure.

2. integration: a cross layer data and technologies integration would blur the boundaries of software, hardware, and services. The requests are met regardless of any under-layer solutions and seemed as a orchestrated whole to deliver that solution. The surprises would laid on the lately just arrived social, emotional serendipity we gained from the overall satisfaction where mobile phone had promised before. Great user experience models and new interface technologies would develop feedback that includes human beings as one of the co-evolution mind system.

3. interaction: heavy protocols are needed to communicate within multiple roles of such new ecological system. Data, software, hardware, sensors, services, and human beings actions all need to communicate with each other frequently and rapidly. The behavior of the output of each would be weaved into the further fabric of a dynamic, vital cyborgial scene. The current Linked Open Data (LOD) discussion is just the beginning of a new data landscape. Interoperability and connectivity would have new meanings in the coming months and years.

Japanese ALFAE(Area-wide eLaboratory of Food, Agriculture and Environment) Foundation director Takahashi Kameoka had mentioned the future scenario of ubiquitous computing as the “meta-disciplinary”. The dissolving of boundaries and cross-layer integration, with the strong infrastructural support and highly sophisticated interaction would bring out new challenges beyond the current capacities of any given single organization and governance system. It requires a new mindset to face it and establish the dialogue. That’s also why European Union had stepped in the field and had starting to prepare for it.

When back to the concept video Microsoft had presented to us, the future is not there yet if business companies only lift the flag flying. It is a huge transformation (if not the Great Transformation, as Polanyi had said) and government, private sector and public sphere would be all involving. At this time, with all us thinking minds, knowledge and apparatus connected, the stories shall be different and … more interesting.

Annotating #PICNIC10 with Chinese

First time in PICNIC, to learn and see a lot of great new things. The first day is almost dedicated to my Culturemondo lovely colleagues: comparing to have good company to chat with, no other experience is more precious Though still interested in a lot of new concept, new collaboration and hands-on workshops. I went to Crowdfunding session in the afternoon before the Culture Criticism & Culture Bloggers Interviewed – Lab for Culture book launch party.

And I spent some time to discuss with my Taiwanese colleague about the perception of the conference from my side. Establish a rapport for basic understanding of international collaboration is quite essential cause such understanding gap make it difficult for Taiwanese projects or program to embrace the participation of international milieu for culture and creativity. Some directors they might not deem themselves fit the context of these creativities. Whether those are true or not, at least they would need unbiased information for them to decide anything if they have to. The rapport is to help for information gathering and further engagement. For a lot of things might happened later on, those are just the basic beginning, lesson 101 for the players.

Arrogance

We are having a conference. As usual, our reviewer of the project and most people in the program think that conference is as the same “international conference” as before. The way they control this “sameness” is via evaluating its performance: is it connected with our whole program (and its target audience)? If the people, the audience, and the other participants deem the conference would be helpful, then it must be a highly qualified one and the results would be rich and resourceful.

This kind of automatic inferential allegation is quite ego-centric. If someone had conceptualize the same action item from different direction, for instance, involved in new and strategic directions rather than the traditional one, they would soon be identified new, uncertain and erroneous. While maintaining the “sameness”, differences and varieties were neglected and forgotten.

In the past several weeks since Aug. 8th, 2009, Taiwan had encountered another decade level super big disaster: typhoon Morakot. Hundreds of people died during the landslides and flood caused by the typhoon. In the first week of the crisis, people are waiting and waiting hopelessly everywhere that the government and someone else could come and rescue them. The government had failed their hope.

A lot of things happened in the past several weeks. Presidential level int’l press conference, cabinet members’ controversial behavior. Etc, etc. What I have in mind is the perception of, “arrogance”. Not necessarily expressed form, but a kind of ego centric ignorance as essence.

Though it’s human nature to have that in everywhere of the collective body, of politics, community and nation, connection to other people might transcend and overcome the miseries.

Open Video Conference – Open Video!

more about "Open Video Conference – Open Video!", posted with vodpod

July 25th: the birthday of Hujia

According to the article Sakharov human rights prize awarded to China’s Hu Jia of European Parliament:

Zeng Jinyan made the following comments from her husband, “Perhaps the European Parliament was thinking of the work I did in the areas of AIDS and the environment, because what I did in terms of human rights was very far from sufficient and I will need to redouble my efforts.”

She said Hu Jia is far from being the only prisoner of conscience in China. “Sometimes the price to be paid is very, very high.” Not only activists but also their relatives have been “harassed by the police, lost their jobs or have been put under house arrest. And more serious still, some have even been tried and convicted,” she said.

She also said that Hu Jia had “hoped he would be the last political prisoner”.

Prize money to fund support network for persecuted activists and their families

Hu Jia had “often said he would like to set up a support network to help the families of human rights activists. To provide moral support for the families, to ease their mental and life pressure to which they are subjected,” she said. Consequently, “I would like to use the €50,000 Sakharov Prize as start-up money, to establish a foundation to support the families of human rights activists.”

2008 December 17, Reporters Without Borders had published Zeng Jingyan‘s video message to European Parliament for Hujia’s awarded Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought.

Several days ago, it’s July 25th, and it’s also Hujia’s birthday. I would like to re-post her message to remember what Hujia and Zeng Jingyan had demonstrated to the whole world / human kind.

Happy birthday, Hujia!

Service as creation

I found this fascinating quote today in Future of Digital Scholarship at Emory University:

David Germano presented an argument that we need to re-envision “the dark sheep” of academic life, “service,” as scholarship .  As editor of the Tibetan and Himalayan Digital Library , his commitment is to a people and a place not to a field. He has worked to reconceive Tibetan Studies around a series of services, web services, that engage people around the world to feed information into a system that itself creates relationships among all the information bits.  For those people as well as for contributing academics, the dark PRIVATE archives of scholarly activity see the light of day, reconceived as an information service.  Scholars provide streams of information inviting others to engage in creating new interpretive configurations of it.  We have to, David claims, break out of the culture of individualism in the academy and begin operating in the participatory knowledge movement, a vision of information as globally distributed and shared.  Universities should not deliver knowledge in hierarchical fashion but rather should offer a space where people can contribute their knowledge to others; they should become a space for distributed knowledge production.aims.muohio.edu, Apr 2009

You should read the whole article.

Actually, it’s the most heavy annoying barricade we had encountered in working on Digital Archives in TELDAP, Taiwan. This kind of ignorance toward the creation of services as an unfair judgement turns a lot of good sharing practices into resource struggling debates.

[Updated] eGods on Scooters

The International World Games Association and Kaohsiung City Government of Republic of China, Taiwan had held the opening ceremony of The World Games 2009 Kaohsiung last night. A lot of people in Taiwan is crazy about the show of the program: electrified Gods cruising on scooters and giving their best wishes to the games and players.

They are Kaohsiung Electric-Techno Neon Gods (高雄哪吒會館電音三太子團), a very popular band of 32 coupled “performes” – giant puppets on the scooters invited to participate a lot of folk religious activities all around Taiwan. The origin of the unique performance came from a young guy practicing technodance with the huge religious wardrobe on and gain a lot of recognition. FTV has the story “Electric Techno Neon God” (電音三太子):

電音三太子的起源是嘉義朴子太子會裡，一位熱愛 free style 舞蹈的大專生，無意間扛起25公斤重的三太子裝備開始跳起電音。沒想到意外獲得同團團員的好評，於是開始一齊練舞，將三太子遊行裝備與電音熱舞作了暨衝突又和諧的融合。而看過電音三太子表演的民眾也表示，平時一般的陣頭看過那麼多，就是沒看過這種三太子跳電音的演出，看起來很有趣。之後各大綜藝節目也邀請他們在節目中表演，後來更在黑澀會美眉的節目中演出，大為流行，也掀起一股模仿的風潮。不光在台灣有許多樂迷，國際間也對這樣的融合感到興趣，也因此在影音投稿網站youtube上有大量的錄影片段供網友欣賞，樂迷可說是遍及海內外。

Taipei Times had reported the opening ceremony and this part of the special show (World Games light up Kaohsiung):

The first performance was themed around nature, featured dancing water droplets, giant eagle kites and dances from Tao and Amis Aborigines. The second section showcased Taiwanese culture, then brought raucous cheers from the audience as the eight generals ba jia zhang entered the stadium on scooters before breaking into a funky dance.

Are those giant god-puppets traditional “Ba Jia Jiang”(八家將) band members but in Neon God form? I don’t think so. But I would like to find out the detailed stories behind it.

Book Talk: A Blogger’s Manifesto 部落客宣言 by Erik Ringmar

For Taiwanese people who wrote blogs, connection with local English bloggers are always problematic. Not only because their English writing content is difficult and distanced (even through it might be the most important reason), but also a different kind (or kinds?) of mentality and living style(s) behind the superficial dancing glyphs. Without too much encouragement & preparation to meet the difference, the encountering process of Taiwanese people connect with foreign bloggers evolves slowly along geospatial or traditional linkages rather than the light speed of new media itself.

This kind of predicament also reflected when Taiwanese people approach blog. We first treat it as a writing / self-discovering apparatus, to recover our long lost tongues, instead of a super reading machine. We heavily relied on Chinese blogs, which are comparatively less in quantity and quality than English blogs in the early days of blogging. And long Chinese blog itself is diminishing, due to the readability and (essential) difficulty of writing an good article, especially in the era of prevailing micro-blogging, for instance, Twitter & Plurk.

bookcover of 部落客宣言 A Blogger's Manifesto (Trad. Chinese version)

How did bloggers engage themselves in larger trends, crossing the boundary of languages, to reach a sense of community, defend the new basic rights, and fight for common destiny? How do we shape the same enemies, and realize the common new cyber-ground we are having our feet on? A recently translated Chinese book, 《部落客宣言》 A Blogger’s Manifesto by Professor 林瑞谷 Erik Ringmar, is just in time to bridge that gap of Taiwanese/Chinese-speaking bloggers and their world.

Since almost a decade of blog introduced in Taiwan, blogging is now a very common phenomena everywhere in educational institutions, business companies, academia and among families. Having troubles with blogging just as easy and popular as having blogs, especially when people want to say something different. Those moments might be whistle blowing, sarcasm or just plainly childish and stupid. At such essential moments, bloggers, might be really crossing the language and other barriers to discover themselves in a global community having something in commons.

We are inviting Professor Erik Ringmar to give a lecture about his Chinese new book in Dharma Drum Degui Academy at 6/20 3:00pm~ 5:00pm, and also invite senior local bloggers, including 工頭堅 Ken Worker (in video), 鄭陸霖教授 Jerry Cheng, 曾昭明 Jerome “Poiesis” Tseng, 黃小黛 Debby Huang, and 鄭國威 Portnoy Cheng (and others), to share their responses. The talk would be in English/Chinese, and we are expecting a wonderful afternoon bloggers meetup across the bridges.

References:

• Registration of Professor Erik Ringmar’s talk in Philanthropy Forum: Book Talk “A Blogger’s Manifesto 部落客宣言
• Chinese introduction at Registrano.com

Somthin’ Stupid (Frank & Nancy Sinatra)

I know I stand in line until you think
You have the time to spend an evening with me
And if we go someplace to dance
I know that there’s a chance you won’t be leaving with me
And afterwards we drop into a quiet little place
And have a drink or two……
And then I go and spoil it all by saying
Something stupid like I love you

I can see it in your eyes that you despise
The same old lines you heard the night before……
And though it’s just a line to you for me it’s true……
And never seemed so right before
I practice everyday to find some clever lines
To say to make the meaning come true……
But then I think I’ll wait until the evening gets late
And I’m alone with you
The time is right your perfume fills my head……
The stars get red and on the nights so blue……
And then I go and spoil it all by saying
Something stupid like I love you