Eyalnow's Favorite Links on cyber-culture from Diigo

Secret Websites, Coded Messages: The New World of Immersive Games

Tue, 01 Jan 2008 09:22:03 -0000

Highlights and Sticky Notes:

"Games are about engaging with the most entertaining thing on the planet," he says, sipping coffee in his guesthouse, "which is other people."

"When done well, ARGs can be extraordinarily effective," says Ty Montague, creative director of the J. Walter Thompson ad agency. That's because the games offer marketers a solution to a growing problem: how to reach people who are so media-saturated they block all attempts to get through. "Your brain filters it out, because otherwise you'd go crazy," Weisman says. That's why he opted for a "subdural" approach: Instead of shouting the message, hide it. "I figured that if the audience discovered something, they would share it," he explains, "because we all need something to talk about."

During the development of that first ARG, Weisman argued that no puzzle would be too hard, no clue too obscure, because with so many people collaborating online, the players would have access to every conceivable skill set. Where he erred was in not following that idea to its logical conclusion. "Not only do they have every skill on the planet," he says, "they have unlimited resources, unlimited time, and unlimited money. Not only can they solve anything, they can solve anything instantly."

From 42's perspective, it hardly matters whether you call the game "marketing" or not. What matters is that someone — Reznor, Microsoft, Disney — writes a check. And, for now, the checks generally come from companies trying to sell something. As a result, many ARG developers want to break out of marketing entirely and find another way to make money.

Tags: alternate-reality-games arg computer-games cyber-culture guerilla-marketing

Posted by: eyalnow

10 Ways to Eliminate the Echo Chamber ~ Chris Pirillo

Tue, 25 Dec 2007 07:57:28 -0000

how to be original and creative in blogging

Highlights and Sticky Notes:

When you force yourself to do something that you don’t understand, the results might be messy - but they’ll be genuine.

Tags: advice blog-writing blogging blogosphere critical-thinking

Posted by: eyalnow

Darknet: Mini-book chapters

Sat, 15 Dec 2007 02:46:38 -0000

Tags: book-online copyright cyber-culture cyber-underground digital-culture

Posted by: eyalnow

The Daedalus Project: Yi-Shan-Guan

Tue, 20 Nov 2007 03:38:40 -0000

Tags: cyber-culture gold-farming mmorpg to-read

Posted by: eyalnow

Anda's Game - - by cory doctorow

Mon, 19 Nov 2007 12:57:19 -0000

Tags: book cory-doctorow cyber-culture fiction gold-farming

Posted by: eyalnow

collision detection: Give me your thoughts on an upcoming Wired feature: "Radical Transparency"

Sun, 18 Nov 2007 10:05:17 -0000

Highlights and Sticky Notes:

Radical Transparency

In today's ultranetworked online world, you can accomplish more by being insanely open about everything you're doing.

Specifically, the three ideas I'm researching are:

- Secrecy Is Dead: The pre-Internet world trafficked in secrets. Information was valuable because it was rare; keeping it secret increased its value.

- Tap The Hivemind: Throw everything you've got online, and invite the world to look at it. They'll have more and better ideas that you could have on your own, more and better information than you could gather on your own, wiser and sager perspective than you could gather in 1,000 years of living -- and they'll share it with you. You'll blow past the secret-keepers as if you were driving a car that exists in a world with different and superior physics. Like we said, information used to be rare ... but now it's so ridiculously plentiful that you will never make sense of it on your own. You need help, and you need to help others.

- Reputation Is Everything: Google isn't a search engine. Google is a reputation-managment system.

Because, okay, let's say you don't want to blog, or to Flickr, or to participate in online discussion threads. That means the next time someone Googles you they'll find ... everything that everyone else has said about you, rather than the stuff you've said yourself. (Again -- just ask Sony about this one.) The only way to improve and buff your reputation is to dive in and participate. Be open. Be generous. Throw stuff out there -- your thoughts, your ideas, your personality. Trust comes from transparency.

Tags: cyber-culture privacy radical-transparency

Posted by: eyalnow

Inescapably Connected: Life in the Wireless Age

Wed, 03 Oct 2007 19:05:48 -0000

Highlights and Sticky Notes:

Our technologies don't just empower us: they also harass us, and they change us -- for better and for worse. None more than the computer. "Other inventions alter the conditions of human existence," writes Richard Powers in his new novel, "Plowing the Dark." "The computer alters the human. It's our complement, our partner, our vindication. The goal of all the previous stopgap inventions. It builds us an entirely new home." All the more so when the computer is . . . > everywhere. >

Tags: connectivity cyber-culture internet-culture james-gleick technology

Posted by: eyalnow

Hackers and Painters

Mon, 09 Apr 2007 08:41:35 -0000

Highlights and Sticky Notes:

What hackers and painters have in common is that they're both makers. Along with composers, architects, and writers, what hackers and painters are trying to do is make good things.

Like painting, most software is intended for a human audience. And so hackers, like painters, must have empathy to do really great work. You have to be able to see things from the user's point of view.

It turns out that looking at things from other people's point of view is practically the secret of success.

One way to tell how good people are at empathy is to watch them explain a technical question to someone without a technical background.

Source code, too, should explain itself. If I could get people to remember just one quote about programming, it would be the one at the beginning of Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs.

Programs should be written for people to read, and only incidentally for machines to execute.

Tags: creativity cyber-culture hackers

Posted by: eyalnow

Great Hackers - by paul graham

Mon, 09 Apr 2007 07:56:36 -0000

Highlights and Sticky Notes:

In a low-tech society you don't see much variation in productivity. If you have a tribe of nomads collecting sticks for a fire, how much more productive is the best stick gatherer going to be than the worst? A factor of two? Whereas when you hand people a complex tool like a computer, the variation in what they can do with it is enormous.

Productivity varies in any field, but there are few in which it varies so much. The variation between programmers is so great that it becomes a difference in kind. I don't think this is something intrinsic to programming, though. In every field, technology magnifies differences in productivity. I think what's happening in programming is just that we have a lot of technological leverage. But in every field the lever is getting longer, so the variation we see is something that more and more fields will see as time goes on. And the success of companies, and countries, will depend increasingly on how they deal with it.

If we want to get the most out of them, we need to understand these especially productive people. What motivates them? What do they need to do their jobs? How do you recognize them? How do you get them to come and work for you? And then of course there's the question, how do you become one?

More than Money

I know a handful of super-hackers, so I sat down and thought about what they have in common. Their defining quality is probably that they really love to program. Ordinary programmers write code to pay the bills. Great hackers think of it as something they do for fun, and which they're delighted to find people will pay them for.

As I'll explain later, this is partly because great hackers don't know how good they are. But it's also because money is not the main thing they want.

What do hackers want? Like all craftsmen, hackers like good tools. In fact, that's an understatement. Good hackers find it unbearable to use bad tools. They'll simply refuse to work on projects with the wrong infrastructure.

But a programming language isn't just a format. A programming language is a medium of expression.

Interesting

Along with good tools, hackers want interesting projects. What makes a project interesting?

Clumping

Along with interesting problems, what good hackers like is other good hackers. Great hackers tend to clump together-

The key to being a good hacker may be to work on what you like. When I think about the great hackers I know, one thing they have in common is the extreme difficulty of making them work on anything they don't want to. I don't know if this is cause or effect; it may be both.

To do something well you have to love it. So to the extent you can preserve hacking as something you love, you're likely to do it well.

Is there some quality that's unique to hackers? I asked some friends, and the number one thing they mentioned was curiosity.

One difference I've noticed between great hackers and smart people in general is that hackers are more politically incorrect.

Tags: cyber-culture hackers paul-graham

Posted by: eyalnow

Return of the Mac

Mon, 09 Apr 2007 07:55:58 -0000

Highlights and Sticky Notes:

When it comes to computers, what hackers are doing now, everyone will be doing in ten years.

Koling

If you want to know what ordinary people will be doing with computers in ten years, just walk around the CS department at a good university. Whatever they're doing, you'll be doing.

Tags: apple cyber-culture hackers mac macintosh

Posted by: eyalnow

The Word "Hacker" - by paul graham

Mon, 09 Apr 2007 07:44:09 -0000

Highlights and Sticky Notes:

I think a society in which people can do and say what they want will also tend to be one in which the most efficient solutions win, rather than those sponsored by the most influential people.

Tags: cyber-culture hacking paul-graham

Posted by: eyalnow

Paul Graham

Fri, 06 Apr 2007 16:52:44 -0000

Tags: cyber-culture hackers

Posted by: eyalnow

Great Hackers

Fri, 06 Apr 2007 16:20:56 -0000

Tags: cyber-culture hackers

Posted by: eyalnow