Cory Doctorow On Sterling

Corry Doctorow pushes back on Sterling's assertion that digital civil-rights activists were simply naive or ineffectual in the face of US government spying.

He's right, though I think he's taking it all rather literally, when Sterling clearly wants to just be a bit acerbicly humerous and cynical about this world / story. (Which is understandable since Sterling has been reporting and hanging out in this world for 30 years.) But maybe Doctorow is right to remind us that and we shouldn't let ourselves fall into that state.

Design Fiction Dragons

Bruce Sterling on Fantasy prototypes and real disruption from John Lester on Vimeo.

Kubler-Ross and #OccupyWallStreet

Venkatesh Rao writes a barnstormer of an article taking in everything from life-style design to #occupiers to Bruce Sterling's Dark Euphoria.

It is very, very clever. And pretty amusing. And, I'm sure, it's going to be a major meme all over the web for months to come.

Ah. Simon Reynolds is guest blogging for Bruce Sterling

Very nice. For a while I've been making a connection between Bruce Sterling's ideas of Atemporality and Dark Euphoria and some of my favourite musical movements. (That's why the hauntology bloggers are all under "Gothic High-Tech" in my blogroll.)

Now I see Bruce Sterling is debating debated Simon Reynolds who's also been tracing the end of musical progress in recent writings.

Should be a fascinating discussion. Hope there's a podcast.

I have a feeling I should be reading Frederic Jameson.