When people ask me what I do without a TV, I should just send them to this article: Gin, Television & Social Surplus. She heard this story and she shook her head and said, "Where do people find the time?" That was her question. And I just kind of snapped. And I said, "No one who works in TV gets to ask that question. You know where the time comes from. It comes from the cognitive surplus you've been masking for 50 years." So how big is that surplus? So if you take Wikipedia as a kind of unit, all of Wikipedia, the whole project--every page, every edit, every talk page, every line of code, in every language that Wikipedia exists in--that represents something like the cumulation of 100 million hours of human thought. I worked this out with Martin Wattenberg at IBM; it's a back-of-the-envelope calculation, but it's the right order of magnitude, about 100 million hours of thought. And television watching? Two hundred billion hours, in the U.S. alone, every year. Put another way, now that we have a unit, that's 2,000 Wikipedia projects a year spent watching television. Or put still another way, in the U.S., we spend 100 million hours every weekend, just watching the ads. This is a pretty big surplus. ...but incidentally, Clay, your MT commenting script is broken, so I can't use my surplus effectively, so I'm posting this instead. This calculation alone is pretty mind blowing. I was talking to someone a while ago about why US soccer fans aren't as ravenous as soccer fans just about everywhere else in the world. For me, it came down to american TV consumption. Soccer fans everywhere else - or even in newly-emigrated populations here - grown men are going out on their lunch time or days off to play the sport that they are interested in following. They are invested because they are involved, even if it is only in their neighborhood game, while here in the US, most of the time they are just watching it passively. If we could get American politics to be more like soccer everywhere else, things would probably look a lot brighter. I'm not pessimistic about this ideal, but I'm not holding my breath either.
Where: The Gallery Space @ Eros, 2051 Market Street, San Francisco
When: April 17, 2008, 5pm-8pm
What: This will be showcasing my most recent work, figure drawings & paintings. I'd love to see you all there!
My project, EPA Superfund Mashup: Exposing Environmental Hazards In Your Area is in the NetSquared Mashup Challenge. Nonprofits and other social-change agents are expressing their visions of how data can be recombined to advance social missions. Mine is V2 of, StopNewNukes.org. I’ll be extending it to include all EPA Superfund (environmental hazards and disasters) sites so you know who to blame when you find yourself hanging out with Blinky, the three eyed fish.
Vote for me and help determine which of the other 120 projects that were submitted to the NetSquared Mashup Challenge will go on to the 3rd Annual NetSquared Conference (N2Y3). The top 20 projects will have an opportunity to discuss and display their projects at the Conference. Conference attendees will vote to select the top three projects. All 20 projects will receive a share of $100,000 in prize money.
I've seen a bunch of Google mashups, and while they're always pretty neat things to look at, they don't always do a whole lot. When I was working over at Peace Action West, many moons ago, the last major thing that I built (along with some help) was this, www.stopnewnukes.org.
This was mostly an experiment. I started following the directions for the Chocolate Pudding Cake at Cooks.com, but then I got down to the bottom where it says to leave it in the freezer overnight, then wait 45 for it to thaw and decided it wasn't for me. Who wants to wait a day and a half for chocolate? Not me. So I made the rest up, here it is:(makes 2 servings)
Cook over low heat until the mixture begins to thicken. Slowly whisk in the cocoa, vanilla, and butter. When it's well mixed and thickened a little more, pour into ramekins (oh yes I said 'ramekin') or cups and chill in the fridge until gelled. I left them uncovered because Im lazy, but they didn't get that weird film on them.The clips from the first two weeks of the Peace Action West Audio Petition is getting sent off today - all three hours of audio(!).
It got a nice writeup in the Post Conflict Resolution Blog as a good example of Web 2.0 advocacy.
"Today’s new cool example of these technologies in practice is from Peace Action West and their online audio petition to Representative Pelosi and Senator Reid regarding President Bush’s threatened veto of Congress’s Iraq war supplemental funding package. Whatever you think of the current debate on the direction of the Iraq war, we’re sure to see more of this type of advocacy work."
How cute were you as a baby/child? Let's see those baby pic
Pretty much the same I think. Only now I know better than to wear socks with sandals.
Recent Comments
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Laura said:
[this is good]I haven't watched TV since I left home for college (which is longer ago than I like to admit). Don't... read more
on Gin, Television & Social Surplus -
Patti said:
I quit watching TV when I was about 15 years old, and I haven't missed it. I can't imagine where... read more
on Gin, Television & Social Surplus -
notq said:
Also, it'd be nice to have a single page of all the non transcribed stuff. Just one listing that someone... read more
on Web 2.0 Advocacy -
notq said:
If you have anything else that I can contribute to, I would be willing to do more.Thanks. read more
on Web 2.0 Advocacy
I know. I'm actually giving in a getting a tv and cable hookup this week, but only because I'm about... read more
on Gin, Television & Social Surplus