This is the beginning of the essay "Behind the Blip: Software as Culture
(Some Routes into “Software Criticism,” More Ways Out)" from Matthew Fuller's new collection of essays, Behind the Blip: Essays on the Culture of Software. For a pdf version of the entire essay along with supporting materials from the book (388K), please click here.

Software Criticism?

There are two questions which I would like to begin with. First, what kind of critical and inventive thinking is required to take the various movements in software forward into those areas which are necessary if software oligopolies are to be undermined? But further, how are we to develop the capacity for unleashing the unexpected upon software and the certainties which form it?

The following is the introduction to the subRosa anthology Domain Errors!. For a pdf version of this material as well as other supporting material from the book (688K), please click here.

"Practicing Cyberfeminisms: Introduction to Domain Errors, by subRosa and the editors

It is also true that every new movement, when it first elaborates its theory and policy, begins by finding support in the preceding movement, though it may be in direct contradiction with the latter. It begins by suiting itself to the forms found at hand and by speaking the language spoken hereto. In time…the new movement finds its forms and its own language.
—Rosa Luxemburg, 1900

Anonymous Comrade submits:

A Call to Join and Contribute to the Establishment of a
Video-Sharing Syndicate/Network

Project Description:

For some time now the idea of utilising peer2peer
structures to assemble a user-built distribution
platform has been circulating. Recently, in the run-up
to the G8 meeting in Evian, a concrete proposal has
been made to establish a system for the sharing of
video. Long-term we believe that we can assemble a
sustainable and scalable platform for audio-visual
materials of a critical and independent nature. This
is an appeal to groups/individuals to get involved, dedicate some
resources, support and expand the project generally.

Works to be distributed over the system will vary from
somewhat edited footage suitable for use as a stock
archive to finished documentaries/films. Each file
will be accompanied by metadata in an xml .info file
and produced as an searchable RSS feed for people to
integrate into their own sites and published on its
own website (where there will also be a manifesto,
how-to's. contact info for participating groups etc.)
Amongst the metadata fields will be a specification
for the nature of the license under which the
materials may be used (e.g. Creative Commons
share-alike)

Cyberlodge" Union Movement for Open-Source Organizing

http://www.cyberlodge.org/

What We're About

Work Today

The workforce isn't what it used to be. Our parents parents went to school, got a job, and stayed at that job for decades. When they retired they got a pension.

Not any more.

hydrarchist submits "This story is actually wildly inaccurate as Jeffrey Gerard Levy, a 22 year old student at the University of Oregaon was charged with criminal offences under the No Electronic Theft (NEt) Act as long ago as August 1999. Nonetheless, given that these strategies unfold ina global context, these recent charges indeed indicate a significant shift.

Australian students nailed in world's first Net piracy criminal charges

Three Australian students have acquired a distinction they'd rather not have.

Tommy Lee, 21, Charles Cok-Hau Ng, 20, and Peter Tran, 20, all from Sydney, are the first people to face criminal charges for alleged internet music piracy.

salamander writes "

We could all have gone our whole lives without knowing about tactical shopping, good thing Walmart is spreading the word. They have issued an incredibly broad letter to the ISP hosting re-code.com, demanding that the ISP shut down the re-code site, reveal the name of the person behind the site and identify any other project maintained by that person/persons. Certainly worth reading (at Re-Code.com), and the site itself is very well done.

What is Re-Code.com?

Re-Code.com is designed to stimulate discussion about the prices of products and goods as they might relate to corporate and governmental agendas. Re-Code.com does not advocate relabeling items in stores. Re-Code.com servers do not store any barcode images only the data entered by our customers which is not verified by re-code.com to be accurate. Any image of a barcode you see on your screen is generated and visible only to you the user on your local machine. The video commercial on Re-Code.com's site is a dramatization and we have been assured by the anonymous videographers that no actual items were mislabeled or mispriced during the taping of the commercial. We have received several suggestions for conceptual options for tactical shopping and re-coding. The options are discussed below.

abh writes "I meant to post this earlier, but didn't:



What follows is the first installment of a continuation of journals on using GNU/Linux that the Low-Income Networking and Communications (LINC) Project of the Welfare Law Center released in the spring of 2002. LINC will continue to release daily journals over the next week documenting our progress on using Free Software on the desktop. The rest of these journals will be released on LINC Hot News. To receive the rest of the journals as they are released, please subscribe to LINC Hot News at http://lincproject.dyndns.org/mailman/listinfo/lin c-hot-news. The journals are also available on the LINC Project Website at http://www.lincproject.org/toolkit/linux.

1stpulse writes "The Future of War: Aesthetics, Politics, Technologies

2-day conference at The New School, NYC: Friday and Saturday, May 2-3

Participants and schedule:


http://www.firstpulseprojects.net/bombproject/futu re_of_war.html

http://www.lmcc.net/futureofwar/main.html

The Future of War: Aesthetics, Politics, Technologies is a two-day
conference that examines the increasingly complex crosstalk between the military, the entertainment industry, the media, artists, and computer scientists. It looks at war, not simply as a utilitarian means to an end, or within the more familiar political and strategic accounts of it, but as a cultural process involving particular ways of seeing, picturing, narrating and imagining--from the architectural spaces of war and violence (both physical and virtual), to the cinematic language of combat films and reality-based military television; from first-person shooter Internet gaming and military simulations, to the computer and installation work of artists. Presented by Thundergulch, the new media initiative of the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council; the Vera List Center for Art and Politics at The New School; the World Policy Institute, New School University; and the Computer Instruction Center at The New School."

hydrarchist writes

"Let's think about something else just for a little and not war, the propaganda, the pulverization of ethics, the despair..... Think of the new, the hopeful.... think about Free and Open Source Software and whether washing machines can be produced on a similar model, and whether it even matters."

The Two Economies

Graham Seaman

Or: Why the washing machine question is the wrong question

Introduction

Within capitalism, material goods are typically made:


o by people working for a wage


o for others who own the means of production


o in order to create profit


o by selling the product

The co-ordination between producers is indirect, through the market,
using money as a signalling mechanism.

Production of free software and other free goods can be contrasted
point by point with this list; non-material goods can be produced by
people:


o working because they chose to


o using their own means of production


o in order to create something useful or pleasurable


o which anyone can use

The co-ordination between producers is direct, mediated only by
technology.

mobiustrip44 writes "the ap reports today that a group of israeli peace activists were distributing mystical literature to jews and palestinians on the jerusalem/ramallah border in hopes of triggering a spiritual resolution to the ongoing israeli/arab conflict. among the activists were jews and christians, but primarily they were members of a fringe islamic sect known as the druzes.