Surely your web browsing experience has been hindered in some way today. Whether you’ve tried to research something on Wikipedia, or search on Google, you’ve probably come across the words SOPA or censorship somewhere along the way. While Will highlighted the main issues of the bill last month, a recent video on behalf of fightforthefuture.org sheds light on the potential risks we face if the Protect IP Act passes. With language that serves to elucidate the true intentions of the bill, this short video offers valuable insight into Protect IP Act and the battle for net neutrality. You can also join the petition to stop SOPA and PIPA here.
On paper, no. I for one, have not come across any person that has thought of or committed suicide as a result of an iPhone. However, in the town of Wuhan, China, some 300 have threatened to do just that. Well, not exactly, let me rewind.
Foxconn, the single largest private employer in mainland China manufacturers many of the products we cherish so deeply in America. Motherboards, camera parts, tablets and yes, iPhones are just some of the products that Foxconn manufactures, making up a sizeable chunk of the $150 billion consumer electronics industry. Employing close to one million employees themselves, Foxconn is responsible for nearly 40% of that revenue annually.
So what’s with all the suicide talk? Well, since 2007, 17 people have committed suicide at one of the various Foxconn plants throughout China. So frequent are the suicides that giant nets have been set up around the exteriors of facilities to prevent against people jumping. Most recently however, some 300 workers threatened to commit suicide at one Foxconn factory in response to the companies unfair labor practices. According to various reports from anti-government Chinese news sites, Foxconn employees had asked bosses for a raise but in response were told to either quit with a months worth of compensation or keep their jobs at their usual salary. While most workers decided to leave, the company never compensated the remaining workers. What resulted was today’s breaking news in regards to the suicides.
Over the last four decades or so, it’s easy to see why Steve Jobs’ name has become synonymous with innovation. In some form or another, reminders of his enduring brilliance and foresight are everywhere — on our desks, in our backpacks or quite literally in our pockets. Even if you’ve never used a single Apple product, the innovations Jobs helped to bring to the forefront of our culture have probably changed the way you lived, from the way we listen to music to the way we share ideas. Jobs took an esoteric, expert-oriented niche product and turned it into something personal, and something accessible. In all likelihood, you’re reading this off something that wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for him. It’s no wonder that today, on the day of his death, some of us feel almost as if he was someone we knew personally.
As impressive as Steve Jobs is for his ingenuity, he’s known just as much for his ability to communicate. The ideas were usually great, but the presentation was always flawless. From one masterful speech to the next, it seemed like every year brought around a press conference showcasing the latest gadget from Apple that would revolutionize some aspect of our lives, and send the competition rushing back to the drawing board. Rather than letting gimmicks speak for the brand, Jobs fostered a culture of straightforward, no-bullshit advertising. He spoke to us. He showed us what these things could do, and why they mattered. In 2006, in one of his most impressive displays of communication to date, Jobs spoke at Stanford’s commencement, reflecting on his extraordinary journey, what he’s learned from his own mortality, and the importance of following your heart. We’ve posted it before, but today, it seems more poignant than ever.
It’s funny how things progress. One day you’re looking into the future dreaming about what it’ll be like when… The next day you’re there, trying to remember what it was like. When it comes to success stories, Mark Zuckerberg’s ranks up there with the greats, already. And at 27, he might just be getting started.
I wanted to share this remarkably amateur video in its entirety just to relate the fact that many great things start from something small. Often times a single idea can grow into something extraordinary. And a lot of times you’ve gotta see it before anyone else does and know that they’ll come around in time. I’m sure Mark did, and look where he is now.
“The internet is showing us what it thinks we want to see.”
Those are the words of political activist and internet enthusiast Eli Pariser. Highlighting the potential dangers of personalized search results in the form of filter bubbles, this recent TED talk discusses the evolving nature of internet search. Where in the past, our searches may yield the same or at least similar results in the form of relevant websites, filter bubbles are effectively creating personalized universes of information that are specifically tailored to us. On the surface, this may seem like a positive development, although I wonder if it’s right to let a computer algorithm decide what we see, and also what we don’t see. As our marriage with technology continues to evolve it will be interesting to see how this phenomena develops. I’ve done an alright job of explaining this, but I’ll let Eli take it from here. Thanks Will.
“Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important.
Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart. Stay hungry. Stay foolish.â€
In 1964, just as The Beatles were launching their invasion of America’s airwaves, Marshall McLuhan published Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man and transformed himself from an obscure academic into a star. Oracular, gnomic, and mindbending, the book was a perfect product of the sixties, that now-distant decade of acid trips and moon shots, inner and outer voyaging.
Understanding Media was at heart a prophecy, and what it prophesied was the dissolution of the linear mind. McLuhan declared that the “electric media” of the twentieth century–telephone, radio, movies, television– were breaking the tyranny of text over our thoughts and sense. Our isolated, fragmented selves, locked for centuries in the private reading of printed pages, were becoming whole again, merging into the global equivalent of a tribal village. We were approaching “the technological simulation of a consciousness, when the creative process of knowing will be collectively and corporately extended to the whole of human society.” Even at the crest of its fame, Understanding Media was a book more talked about than read. Today it has become a cultural relic, consigned to media studies courses in universities. But McLuhan, as much a showman as a scholar, was a master at turning phrases, and one of them, sprung from the pages of the book, lives on as a popular saying: “The medium is the message.”
Maybe it’s reading Nicholas Carr’s The Shallows that’s got me tuned into this discussion, but I think it’s one worth having. In an age where the internet is subsuming the role of damn near every technology we use, it’s only necessary to think critically about where we’ve been, and where we’re headed. We’re moving fast as a culture, which means the way we think and the ways we spend our time are changing more rapidly than ever before. Yeah, watching Newt Gingrich defending early internet porn, Coolio espousing the value of the “information super-highway” or Kurt Loder referring to websites as “special interest truck stops” is comedy. But 16 years isn’t all that long. And a little perspective is always healthy.
It’s pretty cool when different animals can function in harmony. I know you’ve seen those birds that chill on the alligators and stuff. But today’s partnership is between humans and rats. In the war torn country of the Mozambique land mines still lay buried throughout the country. Apparently about 20 people step on land mines each month there.
In response to this troubling reality, Buddhist monk Bart Weetjens created a project known as the APOPO (meaning Anti-Personnel Land Mines Detection Product Development), which works to train rodents to help sniff out and detect buried mines. And it’s working. Light enough to not set off the mines, a team of two rats can clear 200 meters of minefield in two hours. A task that would take humans days. When the rats detect an explosive they make a clicking sound that tips off a receiver. As a reward they are given small bits of banana. Sounds like a win win for everyone.
It’s crazy how fast things are moving nowadays. Seems like the days go by faster and faster. While these renderings serve as a vibrant ode to yesteryear, it makes you wonder what’s coming next? Humans’ union with technology is becoming stronger everyday. That I am sure of. I mean how far away is your phone right now? We just gotta be mindful to manage it, and not let it manage us.
A few years ago, I was offered a spot in a teaching program in the Congo. I was told I’d be teaching basic logic, a sort of cursory introduction to philosophical ideas, to children who worked in mineral mines there. In theory, the idea was pretty thrilling. A few weeks later, I read up a bit on the most recent military conflicts in the country, and when I was told there was no guarantee that I’d be able to leave if and when shit hit the fan, I declined. Looking back on it, I wonder what I missed. Stories like this one remind me that there are entire corners of the world that most of us don’t even consider visiting, sometimes with good reason and sometimes without.
I guess that’s part of why Vice‘s foray into international journalism has been so inspiring to me. Danger and turmoil don’t just make for a good story. They literally compel them into action, giving them firsthand experience with some of the most extraordinary places the world has to offer. VBS’ latest, the upcoming Vice Guide to Congo takes a look inside The Democratic Republic of Congo, the legacy of Belgian colonialism, and the conflict mineral economy, fueled by our insatiable appetite for cell phones and other techonology. Fascinating is an understatement.
Things have certainly changed since the days when Tom was everybody’s friend. At its peak, MySpace was valued at over $12 billion by some estimates, and even a few years earlier, Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation bought the company for $580 million. Assuming you’ve used a computer or smart phone in the last few years, you’re probably pretty familiar with the story of MySpace’s downfall. Chances are you liked, commented on or posted something on Facebook today, which in other words, means you were most likely a part of it.
Yesterday, News Corporation sold the company to Specific Media for a grand total of $35 million, with News Corp. retaining a minor, undisclosed stake in the company, and Justin Timberlake picking one up. Even considering MySpace’s massive decline in traffic, ad revenue and cultural relevance, the price tag might come as a surprise to those who remember the site’s heyday just a few years ago. It’s hard to know what to take away from this one, but it’s definitely a sign of the times, and how fast we’re moving. A media empire created and collapsed in less than a decade. For the folks working on our own movements, call it a cautionary tale.
It seems to me like things have become a little too easy nowadays. The creative process that is. Although talent and creativity are plentiful within our generation, thanks to technology, it feels as though the process of creating gets easier as the years go by. Get a laptop, get some songs, download some programs and you’re DJ. Snap a pic with your phone and you’re a photographer. It’s just a little too easy nowadays, which is why I can appreciate the Nicholas Brothers so much. Don’t get me wrong, there are superstars abound, but a wise man once said, “Be fearful of mediocrity.”
For those of us who have been reading his books for years, author Malcolm Gladwell‘s work is sort of a revelation. He has a unique sort of talent for investigating fascinating stories and dissecting them, and explaining complex ideas with concrete examples. In “Creation Myth”, a short piece written for the latest New Yorker, Gladwell takes a look at the legend behind Steve Jobs’ infamous visit to Xerox PARC in 1979, an event which is said to have laid the foundations for the Macintosh computer, perhaps Apple’s most storied creation to date.
That concepts are stolen, borrowed and improved on constantly in the high-technology game shouldn’t be news to anyone. But the story behind Apple’s innovation, particularly the mouse, the user interface and the foundations of today’s personal computer isn’t quite as easy to boil down or simplify. As usual, the popular narrative doesn’t tell the whole story. But I’ll let Malcolm take it from here.
Initially highlighted in Vice’s short on the Sakawa Boys of Ghana, the West African country has emerged as the E-Waste capital of the world. Alongside China, Nigeria, India, and Vietnam, Ghana has become one of the preeminent destinations for electronic waste. “The dirty little secret is that when you take [your electronic waste] to a recycler, instead of throwing it in a trashcan, about 80 percent of that material, very quickly, finds itself on a container ship going to a [third world country] where very dirty things happen to it.” Says Jim Puckett, the executive director of the Basel Action Network. Although scavengers can make money selling salvaged pieces from these electronic graveyards, the process of gathering these materials is extremely toxic. “It’s the only part of the world where you’ll go and see thousands of women on any given day that are sitting… basically cooking printed circuit boards,” says Puckett. “As a result, they’re breathing all of the flame retardants and the lead and tin that are being heated up. You smell it in the air. You get headaches as soon as you enter this area.”
So where do we go from here? And where do we go in general? While I become more aware of the atrocities that plague the planet, I find myself becoming equally apathetic, quickly switching from these atrocities to the latest fight video on Worldstar. Perhaps part of the solution may come from a greater level of consciousness on the part of individuals. But what should we do? Or what should we not do? All ideas are welcome as these issues will become our issues in the years to come.
