I wondered if anyone imagined whether it was actually many hands which made light work.
Playlist: New Young Pony Club, CSS, Black Kids and a smattering of Ladyhawke.
No Long Blondes though, never any of them.
(oh god I’m so sorry) - Matthew
I was quite impressed with the speediness of the set changes at the IOW Festival this year. You’re looking at about 15-20 mins between each.
Of course, this couldn’t have been achieved without the many many people who were employed to do this. So here’s my crappy picture from a set change (It’s weird because it’s a pic taken of one of the screens lol!).
Crowdsourced
Sorry about the late posting guys, I’ve been a little busy lately:
There’s a new buzzword being spoken of on the intertubes lately, it’s ‘crowdsourcing’ the use of the public access the net provides to process vast amounts of information. It may not sound terribly exciting, but it’s certainly very intriguing. It’s probably not new either, but it’s new to me, okay? I’ll start again.
I’m here to talk about ‘crowdsourcing’, a new (to me) word to describe an old internet phenomenon, that of getting lots of people to donate a small fraction of their time instead of a small group donating all of it (and usually expecting payment).
I ran across the term recently, with the publication of the MP’s expenses database the Guardian, unable to sift through the mammoth amount of data in order to find irregularities itself, decided to open it up to it’s readers and ask them, to flag up sections worthy of investigation. The response was phenomenal, with thousands of people scanning through and sending in hundreds of inconsistencies.
I suppose I should not have been so surprised, after all, this kind of practice has been the backbone of the internet for a while. Wikipedia is founded on this very policy, replacing the dedicated staff of an encyclopaedia with millions of hobbyists editing sections of particular interest. Open source programming also works on this, amateur coders making products that can compete with those of huge software companies like Microsoft. Even the dark art of digital piracy relies on an impressive amount of collaboration between users.
It’s almost like a form of mass socialism, each gives according to his ability (and desire) but it’s given to not just those in need of it, but to those who might fancy it a little, or are just downright curious. And it’s only possible in the digital age, where the effort required in taking part is reduced to the absolute minimum (although many go above and beyond) and the distribution of the benefits is instantaneous.
But is it good for anything other than ludicrously detailed articles on comic book continuity? Well yes, it’s not only the Guardian trying to harness this idea, in fact one of the earliest examples is the SETI (search for extra-terrestrial life) program. Which, faced with enormous amount of radio data to analyse, launched the SETI@home project in 1999, you too could help discover aliens! Amazingly it worked (well, apart from the lack of Aliens) the amount of people downloading the software gave them processing power in excess of the best supercomputers on offer.
I’m almost certainly recycling things you’re already familiar with here, but it’s also things we’ve accepted without thinking about its power and possibilities. So far most crowdsourcing has gone through a central hub, but we may moving beyond that.
The current Iranian election crisis has seen an uncoordinated, disorganised but tremendously powerful movement to get information in and out of the country despite the current regime’s best efforts. Through twitter and other social media, through projects that set up crowdsourced proxies for Iranians, the internet is bending its will to the Iranian nation in every way it can. No one told it to, it just decided.
So what comes next? Anything and everything, quite possibly. What happens if the protestors succeed in Iran? If the internet wakes up one morning and realises that every one of us, in tiny, tiny ways, just helped change a nation? Where can we go from there? The sky would truly be the limit.
Many hands it seems, do indeed make light work, but only when they’re tapping at keyboards.
Tom
Outsourced
Blue collar workers clock in with pale timecards. They move crates from ships to storage containers, stocked stories high in bland primary colours. Forklift devices prowl the lego maze of boxes, moving packages to the lorries that wait quietly at one end of the site. Gorged with produce, they choose their moment and file onto the open roads of Britain. Within, the cargo rattles.
Like particles flung into a solution the cargo spreads across the land. Tolls are paid, boxes are unloaded. Warehouses and shop stockrooms are filled.
In one second floor bathroom several people attend to their work.
The liquid substance is a concotion of several chemicals bought from overseas supply companies brewing tailor made molecules in vats.
The bath is from Wickes. It is mass produced in vast moulds in distant factories. The plastic sheets that line the bath are industrial weatherproof protectives. They roll off machines at 2 square metres per second, perfectly clear. Now pale and dusty they hold the substance like dead skin.
The substance sits in a bath for several days. The solid substrate is carefully removed and packed into plasticine white blocks. They wear masks for the smell.
Nails and tacks of all shapes and sizes fill the store. Short black ones, long sharp silver ones. The electric lights slide over their narrow threads. There are millions.
Copper wiring is cheap. Mined from open veins in Chile, Wound by machines in miles and insulated in black rubber.
The wiring is nothing difficult. The soldering iron fuses its targets with star-like brilliance. Electricity flows through the walls in glowing veins, fresh from the distant pylons and the smoking power plants.
The satchel is one of millions on sale in all good clothes stores. The plastic casing is improvised from kitchen equipment.
The sun is beating down hard. The tar is soft underfoot. The machine mutters to itself for a moment before spitting out its ticket.
The man with the satchel sits down. The bus rolls away silently from its stop.
-Thom
one:
Once upon a time a [adj.] [adj.] [n1.] was walking down a [adj.] [adj. [n.2] when it came across a [adj.] [adj.] [n3.].
‘Hello’, the [n1.] said. ‘How are you?’
‘I’m good thanks.’ The [adj.] [adj.] [n2.] said shyly.
[n1.] looked into [n2.]’s [n4.] and smiled.
They held each others [adj.] [n5.] and walked off into the [adj.] [n6.] and lived happily ever after.
two:
Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.
three:
Once upon a time a middle-class organic phenomenon was walking down a immense disabled leaflet when it came across a hot colour-blind rock.
‘Hello’, the phenomenon said. ‘How are you?’
‘I’m good thanks.’ The hot colour-blind rock said shyly.
the phenomenon looked into the rock’s timber and smiled.
They held each others ethnic harmonies and walked off into the vicious obligation and lived happily ever after.
- Simon x
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