BANDWIDTH
01.25.2012 My afternoon tech column on CBC Radio One is now a podcast (iTunes link). Psyched doesn't begin to describe this. Veins, all systems, are humming.
THE FUTURE
01.23.2012 Normally, I would reserve that headline for something prophetic, touching, or just abstain from it's use altogether.
"One of the things that we really know is that we as a society will always share."
If Gibson (him, again) taught me anything, it's that making sweeping claims about 'the future' is closer to masturbation than clarity.
"Today most data is born digitally. It's not about the transition from analog to digital anymore. We don't talk about how to rip anything without losing quality since we make perfect 1 to 1 digital copies of things. Music, movies, books, all come from the digital sphere."
But then you find a post mounting the very spine of the next decade.
The Pirate Bay has a new category. (Emphasis mine.)
We believe that the next step in copying will be made from digital form into physical form. It will be physical objects. Or as we decided to call them: Physibles. Data objects that are able (and feasible) to become physical. We believe that things like three dimensional printers, scanners and such are just the first step. We believe that in the nearby future you will print your spare sparts for your vehicles. You will download your sneakers within 20 years."
Distrust That Particular Flavor
01.22.2012 The Toronto Reference Library hosted a conversation between William Gibson and Robert Sawyer in support of Gibson's latest book, Distrust That Particular Flavor, a collection of his non-fiction writing, and 4/6ths in, a mandatory read.
Of note, Gibson's response to people characterizing his early work as dystopic:
"The only people who can view Neuromancer as a dystopia are people living in a condition of extraordinary privilege."
Not included: the back of my head in the fourth row. Vibrating.