Gneumatic

A list of things that robots, other than Johnny 5, probably say. Compiled by Jeff Crouse and Steve Lambert.

This song has had me hypnotized since I heard it on the Bumrocks podcast, but I just came across the lyrics and they are an amazing stream-of-consciousness stack of cut-up rhymes and imagery.

(Listen: Post-War Glamour Girls)

expresso bongo snaps of rome - in the latin quarter of the ideal home - fucks all day and sleeps alone - just a tiger rug and a telephone - says a post war glamour girl’s never alone.

in the seventh heaven on the thirteenth floor - sweethearts’ counterparts kiss - limbo dancers under the door - where human dynamoes piss - adults only over her pubes - debutantes they give her dubes - beatniks visit with saxaphones - and the way she eats her toblerone - says a post war glamour girl is never alone.

mau mau lovers come and go - dreamboats leave her behind - a baby-doll to go man go - on the slopes of the adult mind - a murder mystery walk-on part - a dead body or a gangland tart - near the knuckle close to home - criminal connections you can’t condone - a non-doctor’s anonymous drone - says a post war glamour girl’s never alone.

the section of the populace - they call the clientele - the moguls of metropolis - defenestrate themselves - in the clothes of a rabbit - you develop a twitch - one of the little sisters of the rich - amorous cameras clamour and click - her rosary beads are really bones - rebel rebel they bug your phone - the post war glamour girl’s never alone.

yes there’s always a method actor hanging about - there goes mr tic-tac out of the back - with some bric-a-brac from the knick-knack rack - the dumb waiter reminds you of home - and the nice boy from sierra leone - the action painter’s got up and gone - nevertheless it’s never been known - for a post war glamour girl ever to be - what you would call - irrevocably - alone.

LYRICS © JOHN COOPER CLARKE

Final Technology Demo from Scott Hobbs on Vimeo.

These touch-screen turntables by Scott Hobbs are visually impressive, although the concept is basically just the logical next-step from Serato Scratch: Removing vinyl-simulation from the equation entirely and directly manipulating waveforms. As someone who learned to DJ using Serato and then tried, with great difficulty, to transfer those skills to traditional vinyl, I am somewhat ambivalent about this device. Relying on visual wave forms to mix definitely flattens the learning curve, but it also eliminates the need/ability to beat-match by ear (something I still can’t do consistently). Aside from that philosophical debate, the design is beautiful - simple, intuitive UI, crisp interactions, and a sleek, sturdy form.

User Labor Markup Language (ULML) is described as “an open protocol for sharing the value of user’s [sic] labor across the web.” User labor is defined as the work that people put in to create, improve, and maintain their existence in social web:

• generating assets (e.g. user profiles, images, videos, blog posts)
• creating metadata (e.g. tagging, voting, commenting etc.)
• attracting traffic (e.g. incoming views, comments, favourites)
• socializing with other people (e.g. number of friends, social influence)

These kinds of statistics usually remain buried in log files or accessible only to platform operators through complex and expensive metrics analysis software. By creating an open, transparent data structure ULML’s creators hope to initiate standard metrics for user participation, which, in turn, can serve as a benchmark by which to compensate/reward the contributor-users whose labor sustains profitable online communities like Facebook, Flickr and YouTube.

Nice TED video of Yochai Benkler describing the factors behind the emergence of social production. One of the interesting points he makes is that Google’s most critical innovation has been to essentially “outsource” the decision of relevance to the web community as a whole by counting links to determine page rank. Wouldn’t normally think of this as “peer production” or “collaboration” and yet it certainly is.

Here’s the link.