paperkettle
Made of: 1) a suite of interconnectable videogames & apps and 2) physical patchbays to connect them
Came from thinking about software like modules in a modular synth. Playgrounds of interconnectable control structures. Was patching games into samplers, slaving text editors to drum machines, etc.
related writeups: http://www.illucia.com/faq/ another from 2010 or so when I was just starting coding (so a lot of it feels silly now.. but still some related nuggets): http://www.paperkettle.com/codebending/
http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2013/04/15/boston_ma...
So nice to touch. A high resolution / super responsive controller.. of wood! Maybe I'm just not enough of a cyborg but the wood surface made the Haken Continuum (wetsuit material) far less compelling. I worry the same thing of the Seaboard.
Systems ARE art. Freud was a systems designer. Religious metaphors are introspective systems.
These are systems as metaphors of the human condition.
Do they describe the human condition? No - bigger - they create it. Freud invented a lost continent that allowed us to pronounce ourselves.
As computers and consciousness continue to intersect.. great artists will be expressive, critical, abstract engineers.
sad that flash has so many issues (security, performance, etc) because there are some really nice compositional tools for creators in that ecosystem.
I often hear people in the startup community valorize "critical thinking." Most often though, they're talking about creative talents applied to tech (software & business) problem solving.
That kind of critical thinking (which I consider as cleverness with a specific category of puzzles) is readily available though - there are plenty of great hackers in the world.
There is another kind of critical thinking that I find broadly neglected - the kind in this post. The startup/software community needs more of this.
Can you imagine what the world might be like if the resourcefulness of hackers become more strongly intertwined with institutional&cultural critical thinking? What if "disruption" wasn't 98% motivated by $$$, but originated from studied/steeped desire to move power, class, race, politics, representation, and art?
Having some time to get older and know myself (or, perhaps, reflect on the nature of selfness) led me to make great use of the incredible resources and space a university offers.
Everyone's path is different, so yours might vary, but you never know! I don't know if you still carry any fear or shame about the college experience (I did), but you're clearly driven and capable of great success. Don't let any of that other stuff get in the way should you ever find yourself with a passion and the desire for university as a space to focus and invest in yourself. In any case, congrats on success!
Even she doesn't make the specific offender more accountable by speaking up, she raises awareness and hopefully makes everyone less tolerant of this kind of outrageous stupidity.
I do believe a lot of (most?) startup culture applies powerful minds to small problems... which is in support of your headline...
However - why not think of capitalism (and the apps it rides in on) as a medium, or a technology? In this way, it can be used to transform culture. This may not change "human nature," whatever supposed boundaries that has (fwiw, I think it will)... but capitalism&tech applied as such can absolutely save lives, if not the world.
Whatabout an app that uses our network culture to problem solve something like the spread of disease? That counts as "saving the world" in my book.
Of course, "saving the world" usually comes with a shadow of imperialism, but that is another story for another day..