From - Wed Jan 14 11:43:46 1998 Return-Path: Received: from relay1.UU.NET by mrco.carleton.ca (4.1/SMI-4.0) id AA05307; Thu, 21 Jan 93 01:33:12 EST Received: from nyx.cs.du.edu by relay1.UU.NET with SMTP (5.61/UUNET-internet-primary) id AA25349; Thu, 21 Jan 93 01:30:33 -0500 Received: by nyx.cs.du.edu (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA22826; Wed, 20 Jan 93 23:30:18 MST From: ahawks@nyx.cs.du.edu (andy) Message-Id: <9301210630.AA22826@nyx.cs.du.edu> X-Disclaimer: Nyx is a public access Unix system run by the University of Denver. The University has neither control over nor responsibility for the opinions or correct identity of users. Subject: FutureCulture Digest #186 To: future-digest@nyx.cs.du.edu Date: Wed, 20 Jan 93 23:30:17 MST X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11] Status: RO ______________________________________________________________________ |______________ / | | / | | u t u r e <___________ u l t u r e | _______________________________________________________________________| Issue #186 Wednesday, January 20th 1993 Today's Topics: --------------- 3jane a reply from WIRED! Aeon Flux Videos CNN Wired Transcript FringeWare Catalog & Review godammit Homework I'm shaving I'm shaving Just plain stuff On Being On Being Wired and Transcript On Being Wired Re: Aeon Flux Re: Kroupa Re: Kroupa Re: Meme Synergy (yet *another* possible thread) Re: On Being On Being Wired and Transcript re: Stuphs Re: Who _is_ Michael Synergy? Who _is_ Michael Synergy? __________________________________________________________________________ Subject: Re: Kroupa From: rubins@mindvox.phantom.com (Charles Rubinstein) Date: Wed, 20 Jan 93 13:49:15 EST don't know anything about the emergency room thing? MindVox is moving at the end of this month to a much bigger set up and further modified software so a lot of the admins are jumping back and forth between machines and so are some forum moderators I think after that before everyone moves to the new site in early Feb. I dont know what it is with HST's either because every pc owner I know loves them, inclyding me, every unix admin I know says theyre a piece of shit and wants telebits. go figure. Probably has something to do with running them under unix instead of msdos. In the few times I've talked to Kroupa I've only ever seen him in two states, he is either warm, welcoming and bordering on the brilliant, or he's TOTALLY incoherent, erratic and bordering on psychotic. State 1 = Overture, State 2 = Agr1ppa. Then again if I was supposed to be writing ten things at once, running a company that looks like its doubling in size every 2 months and one of my best friends was going to prison, I guess I might be a little inconsistant too :) Energy-wise MindVox is nearly synonymous with Kroupa & Fancher (who is Bill?), but inside they are very low-key and just talk when they show up, saying its about hero-worshipping Kroupa is no more accurate then saying the Well is about hero-worshipping Mitch Kapor. In both cases its a *little* right, but not true, the biggest online "celeb" on MindVox is someone named 3Jane, followed up by a list of around 20 online personalities who say the most and like to hang out there. ______________________________ From: Paul Davilon Subject: Re: Kroupa Date: Wed, 20 Jan 93 11:33:05 PST Andy, you're right that wasn't appropriate and I should have found out what the situation was before I posted and at least been sure of the story. I find that I like both MindVox and the Well, my biggest problem with the Well is that its extrememly overpriced and underpowered for that cost and the software they are running is just awful, reminds me of being back in 1982 on a mainframe. At its worst the Well is a bickering session between what used to be the EFF and everyone else, that is the main section of what happens here. There are at least 40 other areas all of which are very insular and there is little traffic between them, people talking about fixing their mountain bikes are usually on the section where people talk about mountain bikes. In a dissapointing kind of way it reminds me of Compuserve. I think they recognize they have problems but I don't know what if anything they're doing to solve them, the recent price INCREASE hasn't exactly made me much happier and I'm always this close to cancelling my account out of sheer frustration with their constant technical problems. MindVox is a community much closer to the edge, its happening at fast forward and instead of established industry people which make up a smaller percentage, most of Vox is the real hacker underground merging into the mainstream. They also have their technical problems, but being there for a while, I've seen them make improvements and changes, their archives of information and files are always excellent and most of all their price is not jacked up to the point where I can literally call Compuserve and spend less money then on the Well. Kroupa himself crossed over from the underground into the mainstream and is dealing with the things that come attached with celebrity. But MindVox is obviously something he cares about and all he does with whatever celebrity he might have, is points a lot of attention at it and opens the door, then he gets out of the way and lets the community happen. Out of the thousands of messages on Vox, I'd say less then 2% have any mention of Kroupa, I think I have seen 4 or 5 with Fancher and have never heard of Bill (?) As the other person mentioned, the biggest "celeb" on MindVox is one of their hostesses named 3Jane. /Dav/ ______________________________ Date: Wed, 20 Jan 1993 13:48:22 +0600 (CST) From: Patrick McKee Subject: Homework Just thought I would pass this on. I work around 30 hours a week at the computer labs here on campus and also do consulting and AutoCAD (tm) training on the side, so my weeks are quite full. Well, I am also a full time C.S. student with an awful lot of reading to do each week. One added problem is that I live off campus and comute 45 min. each way to school. The solution: Since I spend a lot of time in front of the computer in the labs and since there are very slow periods (oh yea, I can not do any homework - this is not work study and my boss is very A/R on this point), I have started scanning all of my assignments and then e-mailing them to myself! Fucking GREAT! E-mail is cool. I can read it all day long - I just can not have books on my desk. It takes me an hour or less to scan an entire weeks worth. Now I have all the time I need to get my reading done. ;) Just curious if anyone else does this or something else to help their studies along and thwart the powers that think they be. C ya in the flux.... ______________________________ Subject: Re: Kroupa From: georget@mindvox.phantom.com (George Thompson) Date: Wed, 20 Jan 93 14:50:27 EST > messages about Well and MindVox >>...<< Logged on the Well once, call me stupid, I never did figure out how to use it and went back to America Online which is the way a system should look. I wish Mindvox would get its GUIs faster because then it'll be closer to that, being online here I also disagree with our community being about any one person. I know who Patrick is, I read his work, he's on my list of interesting people, never have seen him online. What's making me happy right now is talking with one of the guys from Information Society who has told me where I can get the software that they are using to mix their new HACK single which is released on the 24th :-) I'm still waiting for Deelite to use Dmitry's account at least once because there's a lady I'd like to talk to :-) Tehn again the guy who used to play for Jane's Addiction was only interested in me helping tell him how he can put together .uu'd porno gifs from usenet and didn['t want to talk about music. Maybe Perry would be more fun. I still have not understood either Agrippa which was awful, or Agr1ppa, which was I guess, what its like to be crazy. ______________________________ Date: Wed, 20 Jan 1993 14:36:04 -0700 From: Drow Subject: Re: Kroupa hey, mwill! uhhh.... get used to that from him, i guess. Kroupa is a mind of his own. his writings really do make sense, though, sometimes, when there are discernable lines to read bewtween for the particular bit of info you're looking for... : drow : ______________________________ Date: Wed, 20 Jan 1993 14:49:45 -0700 From: Drow Subject: Re: Kroupa aaron (100% real real real, do you feel real, and if so i'd like to know...) writes... (how do you feel?) > People can say what they like about the WELL, but at least most of the < energy that surrounds it stems from a genuine excitement about the > community-building possibilities of electronic communication and *not* < from feverish hero-worship of people like Patrick, Bruce and Bill. first, what energy? ;) MindVox is not, NOT (mostly, anyway, i can only speak for myself and a few people that i know well) based on the 'feverish hero- worship' of digital et al. if you'd ever been on Vox, you'd know that we ferverishly worship... 3JANE seriously, though... Vox is a virtual communicty, most people are more involved than logging on once a day to d/l the forum to read without having to pay reading time. we even have subcultures : warez phreaks, /_/\M3Rz, lunaatics, hotblack, the irc godz, etc... this is a GOOD thing. This is your MIND. This is your MIND on VOX. Any questions? : drow : drow@phantom.com ______________________________ From: gcrisp@st6000.sct.edu (Gregory Crisp) Subject: Aeon Flux Videos Date: Wed, 20 Jan 93 17:01:03 EST Does anyone know where I can get a hold of some video tape copies of The Aeon Flux Anime's? Maybe a mail order house? Thanks, G Crisp (CaseLogiC) ______________________________ From: ahawks (E) Subject: CNN Wired Transcript Date: Wed, 20 Jan 93 15:33:26 MST Ok, here it is, the transcript of the CNN thing On wired, plus a whole shitload of unsolicited and inappropriate ranting and raving and crap on my behalf and I'm tired, I'm not wired right now. PS, I wasn't high when I wrote this, tho it comes across that way. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- TRANCSCRIPT OF CNN "FUTREWATCH" SEGMENT AIRING WEEK OF JAN. 11 1993 PIECE ON "WIRED" version 2.1, The rebirth of Ast1gma. with thanx and in[per]speration improvly given to PKK and the hallucinogenres of postmortem, err modern, culture. | NOTE: A primary aspect if this piece is the visuals proided from | shots of tha magazine, which I obviously can't reproduce here. INTERIOR some club in CA that I can't remember the name of right now... Very brown....Dialogue is voice-over.... demonstrative shot of person reading copy of Wired, live jazz playing in the background, very beat-pomo atmosphere. Cover of wired has the word WIRED covering top 6th of page, all caps, letters encased in alternating checkerboard pattern of orange and background-light-blue. The majority of the background of the cover is a picture of the top 3/4 of Bruce Sterling's head, picutre cropped and spliced in unusual boxy pattern. Upper-half of cover scattered with white-Shaston-looking "in this issue" type of text, most noticeably "Bruce Sterling ... Has Seen the Future of War"..... CNN: It may not look like your idea of a great party; people off in corners reading. But for a San Francisco group launching a new magazine about the digital age, this is just what they wanted. cut to shot of older guy in black reading a copy, cut to shot of Jazz band playing, with a copy of Wired where heir sheet music should be (how cute.) INTERIOR CNN STUDIO....reporter Donna Keley (heretofor CNN)....Shot of Wired cover in upper-left.... CNN: Tha magazine is called Wired. Backers are hoping the combination of high tech information with rock-and-roll delivery will catch the eye of a wide audience: all those trying to keep up with how increasingly smarter machines are changing the way we live. Martin Hill plugs us into Wired. cut to cheezy John-Tesh-synth music, some kinda dumb CNN graphic.... cut to close-up of some Macintosh screen with (you-guessed-it!) the Wired cover on it.... INTERIOR WIRED'S TOP-SECRET NUCLEAR FACILITIES WHERE THEY PUBLISH WIRED TO COVER THE TRUE HIDDEN CONSPIRACY OF THE SUBLIMINAL MESSAGES WITHIN THE TEXT THAT ENCOURAGE A D.I.Y. NUCLEAR APOCALYPSE. [it's just a trendy thrtysomething/DAA looking design studio, with a whole crapload of Macs, a window here and there, some feaux-brick walls and oak-tiled floor, obligatory Braun-esque lighting, etc., etc.] Martin Hill is heretofor CNN. JANE METCALFE: Wired is about the world we're living in now, and the mindstyle of the digital generation. cut to shot of a couple trendy guys (black turtleneck under denim shirt rolled up to just below his elbows, requisite red-pencil-in-ear. - the other guy looks like a raver, so we won't make fun of him since he's obviously cool. =) cut to the dreaded red pen marking over sections of a page of Wired. cut to shot of LOUIS ROSSETTO (ed/pub) in his SunlitCorner (tm) office. LOUIS ROSSETTO: We're looking not at products, but we're looking at the people and the companies and the ideas that are transforming our world. cut back to Mr. Raver [get a haircut ya hippe - he looks kinda like RU Sirius] and Mr. Angst-Filled Trendie, and we are now joined by the esteemed presence of Mr.90's-Beat-Black-Suit-Keeping-My-Beard-Lest-You-Forget -My-Mildly-Revolutionary-Roots...Actually, I should probably be able to identify these guys in the soundbyte-"let's-look-like-we-actually-work" -aura they bring to the report, but I don't know who they are so screw it. ObExcuse: Don't entertain the notion of an icon-based hyperreality. CNN: They are attepting to make what they call the least-boring computer magazine in the world. cut to shot of original Rolling Stone 1st issue cover. CNN: The editors at wired are drawing inspiration from another magazine that went from fringe to mainstream, Rolling Stone. [c'mon, if they really wanted to be Rucker-esque they'd compare themselves to Reality Hackers] cut to shot of another Wired cover, maybe an early prototype, or the one that didn't make it, or the useless-"let's-completely-change-in-the-second-issue-and-isolate-ourselves" soon-to-be-at-a-theatre-near-you cover for the boy-these-hyphenated-words-are-obnoxious-generation, geared towards frustrating the semanticly-challenged into a coma. [I'm feeling quite the PKK-enhanced 2day, BTW.] anyway, the cover looks like Jesus taking a crap upside down on the cross as he falls into the NYC sprawl from 20000 feet up. [if you taped this segment, go back and freeze frame it on this cover and have yourself a merry little chuckle. let your mind be light. from now on our bubbles we be mostly trite.] [oh, just say no, kidz. =)] CNN: Their objective: a rock-n-roll Mtv look-n-feel. ok, cut to Mr. Girlfriend-in-a-coma-Trendie who is now sporting a Sony walkman with intensely unfashionable in-your-lobe ear-phones that he picked up at K-Mart on the way to his quote-unquote job. [god, I'm cracking myself up here, it's so damn fun. I hope the people who are in the segment, especially Mr. Eddie-Bauer-meets-the-Gap-managed-by-early-Ken-Kesey-Trendie doesn't see this, but maybe they'll hire me if they do. =) ] Ok, when we last left the Motley-Cappio-Krue..... CNN: They're also hoping for Rolling-Stone-type success in explainging the digital age to the post-baby-boom generation. cut to LOUIS ROSSETTO's SunLit Corner (tm) Office. [get a new couch] LR [the egg-man]: We're covering the most exciting topic of our day, and that's the transformation of our world at a very fundamental level. Technology is changing our lives - it's rewiring our heads - it's making a new world appear right before our very eyes. Wired is going to be the magazine that focuses on the people that are making that happen - they are the most interesting and powerful people on the planet today. [where's the gestalt interview with FutureCulture? seriously..] cut to Mr. My-Shirt-matches-the-oddly-inserted-copy-of-Ray-Gun-I'm-Reading. Behind Mr. Shirt-reading_ray-Gun is a nice piece of pop/techno art that hovers over Mr. Shirt's shoulder like Freud on a neroses. And, on the other side is another piece of info-art featuring yet-another-subliminal-but-obvious "Jesus-takes-a-crap" artowrk (but this time he's on a tightrope). I see a theme developing here. Overall, the construction of the appropriated elments of the scene creates a very Jungian environment that propels onesself into a transreal exploration of primordial consciousness. [get these spiders off of me.] CNN: The Wired headquarters isn't Suit-and-Tie, it's Sneakers-and-Jeans. Pan-down the oh-so-juicy body of Mr. Shirt, to reveal some desperately-seeking-style black Levi's and a "could-we-clash-a-bit-more-here-please?" pair of white Nike's with grass-stains on the insole. [get some new carpet]. cut to a "what-the-hell-is-that?" shot of a grey parrot attempting to partake in the delightful luxury of consuming a Pier-1 wicker chair. CNN: Free spirits? Even on deadline for the premier issue, the attitude is casual. pan from parrot to LR-EggMan [hmm, subconscious parallel cuts, or coincidence? You be the inquisitor general.....] Mr. Neo-Info-Hippie (yeah, the guy in the beadr with the black suit) can be heard saying in bg "I think next time we do Wired and Tired we should do the scoring" (or something like that - my pause->rewind finger is tired and my tape is decaying quickly into the wormhole of cyberspace). "Some people are wired and some people are extrmeley tired". [Hey man, don' mess with me man, cuz I'm wired man. Man, I'll do you good man, I'll kill ya man, cuz i'm WIRED. U just tired man, you just tired. You tired, you ain' wired, man, so you won't SURVIVE man, cuz I know what's like, man. I've been there, man...I've seen it all, jack. I know tired, man, an uze tired!!!] -Washington Citycouncilman Marion Barry giving his inaugural address as mayor. The EggMan looks on with intense oo-koo-kachoo-ness and then releases the non-tension with a delightful giggle into the camera. Ok, cut back to the Capp-fest party, shows a table with copies of Wired laid out, eds/pubs/writers appear to be autographing them for the masses of eager-socialists who've been waiting in line for days to get one slice of this informational bread. There is no room for despair in this Room of Despair Lounge and Cafe at the HoJo Plaza. They sit in anticipation, they rise in existential pain, hoping, yearning for just a quick glimpse of the EggMan himself. CNN: Even though the digital revolution is, by nature, steeped [sic{k}????] in hardware, it's the people using it and afected by it that the editors of Wired plan to feature. ok, so, we cut through all these *extremely* parallel shots of a bunch of people perusing through copies of Wired as they mentally masturbate [whackwhack], and, ooops, I shouldn't've used that metaphor since it seems extremely rude and unwarrented as we cut to a shot of JANE METCALFE who is very beautiul and intelligent, and definitely has some sense of style. [ahem, umm, yeah, umm, can I get, uh, can I get an application?] [(apologies to Ms. Metcalfe if she reads this [but hopefully Wired isn't so self-oriented that they're monitoring all net.traphic related to themselves]) JM [co-ed/pub]: One of the things Wired will try and do is focus the attention more on content, more on human beings, and how those technologies can be incorporated into human lives as opposed to how the humans can adapt themselves to the tecnhnology. [wow, is this post-Ronell-ism we're seeing here?] cut to EggMan and fellow editors hanging around. Background chatter revolves around maladjusted individuals [hey, I didn't know they interviewed me! I must've dissociated that day!?!?! ] CNN: The premier issue features a story about a member of Japan's "Digital Rat Pack" who is also accused of being a mass-murderer. Also, Wired's take on computer sex talk among digital revolutionaries. grafix from the magzine float by, and you see this quote "Sex is a virus that infects new technology first." - Gerard Van Der Leun. [Hey, hey, hey, we'll have none of that here. Maybe it's time for Gerard to get out of the EFF HQ a bit more!! =) Just kidding - I better watch myself cuz I think he's still on the FC list..... ] CNN: And a cover story on high-tech war by Cyberpunk maven Bruce Sterling. [Hmmm, CNN calls Sterling a cyberpunk maven and Sterling called me a net maven...Wow, I feel parallels eclipsing! =)] The story is called "War is Virtual hell" CNN: -- topics designed to appeal to people already holding membership cards in the digital generation. [Oh, sorry, folx, I haven't gotten around to mailing out yer membership cards yet...But, this damn snail-mail post office - so slow at times...] cut to shots of the mag. I have to comment on this Wired and Tired section. It's an in-out list with an oh-so-OUT let's-hide-behind -catchy-cath-word-phrase-crazez..... Here's what I can see on my cheap 4 head SVHS-challenged VCR: with all-new fresh-scented grape-flavored unsolicited comments by me: Tired Wired ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Cindy Crawford Jane March REM The Jayhawks [if they had any sense of hyperreality thet would've compared REM to Alex Patterson, or Prodigy {the group} or Ministry] Clinton Gore [what about Gore's wife, folx? Ms. Fascist-Reigns-Supreme] Car Phones Videophones Manhattan The WELL [I'm taking this as a cut to MindVox. Completely uncalled for - MindVox has always been more over the edge than the WELL will ever be] Energizer Bunny Ads Sega Ads [no, Nintendo, because they steal 808 State, which wired of course has never heard of because they are already appearing in the mirror as unhyperreal.] Chaos Theory Complexity Theory [is it just me or are they just bum-rushing the constructs of technoculture just because they can identify them and want to appear hip?] Nintendo 3DO [the obligatory "we don't know it was hip til we wrote an article about it and labelled it as such, inclusion] Baudrillard McLuhan [no argument there other than that *both* are necessairy gridpoints need to survive when postmoedrnism is applied to reality] Japan Indonesia [my ass. Indonesia doesn't even rave, let alone appropriate to an extreme the bowels of global-tinged-pop-culture.] NPR BBC [pirate radio, you wankers] California Real Estate Intellectual property [oh, wow, man, like totally groovy in a humourous kinda vibe. ] Performance Painting [I guess that's cool.] John hughes Francis Coppola [yeah, replace a mainstream parallel with a mainstream parallel, good way to show you're on the cutting edge folx.] Virtual anything Virtual anything [AAAAGH!] WIRED: Take a look at Mondo 2000's completely sarcastic Good/Bad Art DAmage. The rests of these lists WANK! Even Esquire's "Curve" list, which they dropped a bout a year ago, was tons hipper than this, and IT WAS DROPPED. Now, I don't wan't to have to come up there....... This pisses me off - stop trying, start doing. Words don't mean crap unless you apply them to your life, so don't just talk about the culture, start liivng it, like the rest of us have been doing for SOME TIME NOW, if you want to succeed. cut to shot of McLuhanism spouted through funk-ee fonts and shit. cut to shot of Prof. ANNE BALSAMO [yeah! another FC-familiar] in front of some flying toasters. AB: It will synthesize things for people in a way that helps them make sense of their own interests. So, it'll be more interactive in its audience appeal. cut to more editors performa-ing their magic. god. CNN: The look is hip and trendy [gawd, like, gag me, like, totally] -- typestyles change, stories seem unanchored to a single page, unusual artowkr abounds. But, if Wired is on the cutting edge of a high-tech takeover, what's it doing on paper? [not only what's it doing on paper, but what's it doing on a publishing schedule, why isn't it real-time global interaction, like, oh, I dunno, say.....FUTURECULTURE!?!?!!?] [and FC is free, damnit. Like Gumby, damnit.] cut to Mr. Clinical-Psychologist-Classic-Look-#423 PROF. JAY BOLTER: If it's prediction is true that the digital revolution will come to pass, then in some way this magazine will have to go out of existence, transmute itself into a computer program that appears before us on a video screen, or a hologram or a 3d image that appears in our living room [damn, turn off Star Trek, bud]. [oh, gee, better yet, let's go one step further and create a real-time global e-community, like, oh, I dunno, say FUTURECULTURE!] cut to JANE METCALFE. JM: You get beautiful images, full color, it's a fully interactive product [keywordkeywordkeyword] and as far as we're concerned that's the best use of the available technology. cut to yet more editing shots of te mag. CNN: The editors do have plans to expand Wired beyond the limits of paper, but that's down the road a bit. cut to LR in guess where. EGGMAN: A cable-television show, on-line interactive magazine, it would include perhaps a book range, it would include a wide variety of products for a much more wide-ranging audience then we have today. [dude, it isn't even out yet. whaddya mean audience?] [anyway, sounds to me that in their conquests they're planning to combine stuff like FutureCulture, FringeWare, FutureWatch {this CNN show}, the Beyond Cyberpunk stack, and MindVox all into one giant easily-digestible info-pill.] so, anyway, the Eggman walks through the feaux-brick office littered with wires and cables and empty Cappios and Gap receipts. For all yo cineman fans out there, there's a definite element of German Expressionism and entrapment in this shot that forces me to go back to the beginning hallway scenes of Pink Floyd's The Wall - if you get the analogy between Eggman and Pinkerton Floyd, you heard it hear first. HEY! It's Mr. Ray-GUn-Mstching-Shirt! Eggman is pretending like he's doing something, involving himself in a Miles Drentell [sp?] sort of way with Mr. Ray-Gun-Shirt. CNN: Before Wired can become the Rolling Stone of Silicon Valley, it must first survive the lean start-up times, for most magazines that's about 3 years. cut to even more editors, one of whom we'll call Ms. One-too-Many-X-Concerts-Back-in-1981-with-Bubblegum-Hair. cut to some guy reading Wired, and, boy (can u guess what am I gonna say), boy am I TIRED. CNN: So it could be awhile if we know if the public is really plugged in to Wired. MArtin Hill, CNN, Futurewatch. CNN: Wired will hit the newsstand on january 26th and come out every other month. The cost, $4.95 on the newsstand. Screw this, it's 3:30 in the afternoon and I need to take a shower. Be back in a sec. N-Joi my rants intertwined so appropriately with the boring report. Yawn. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- My analysis and apologies to the zine to follow after I take a shower. -- ahawks@nyx.cs.du.edu FutureCulture: In/f0rmation ahawks@mindvox.phantom.com future-request@nyx.cs.du.edu ______________________________ Date: Wed, 20 Jan 1993 15:53:07 -0700 From: Drow Subject: Re: Aeon Flux I asked that question a few months back to the guy who did onsome of the sound work. He said that Aeon Flux wasn't planned to be released on video tape :( but things might change... anybody know better? This is your MIND. This is your MIND on VOX. Any questions? : drow : ______________________________ Date: Wed, 20 Jan 1993 16:18:02 CST From: "John Coryell." Subject: Re: Kroupa At least we're still to the point where our beloved revolutionary list personalities -- most of them -- will respond to personal email, even when faced with a mire of over 200 messages. Whether it's fawning or not, this is very much part of the construction of the idealized "net community". John Coryell. ______________________________ From: ahawks (farting in your general direction) Subject: On Being Wired Date: Wed, 20 Jan 93 17:05:41 MST On Being Wired: A RealTime Improvisational Rant on The Magazine Wired In Relation to Technoculture. by Andy Hawks. I began hacking in 1986, about the time I turned 13. I remember the first time I was inside a computer I shouldn't've been in. It was the first time I felt high - felt the information and the power flowing through my fingernails. It seemed as if the energy in my hands was such that the circuits that seemd to lay dormant under each individual key on the keyboard might explode at anytime, it was that intense. There was noone there but me. 'who' command, what's that? 'accounting'? screw that, no one looks at that. I was alone, aside from the sounds of Standing on the Beach by the Cure being pumped through my ears via my walkman. Standing on the Beach - The Singles. That was the title of the tape, and it was the embodiment of my thoughts. Standing on the Beach - The Singles, alone in front of this sea of information, it is mine. I own it. I can swim, I can surf, I can taint the waters, I can..... It's my beach. It was Case and Wintermute personified in present day reality. I had not heard of William Gibson. When I was about 17 or so, I took acid for the first time. I took a lot of acid that first time. I realizaed I had been wrong. The beach was not mine, it did not belong to me - I was only a presence on it. Sure, I affected it, but so did the wind, so did the millions of microscopic creatures compromised it's seemingly dormant ecosystem. I could still surf, I could still swim, but it wasn't the same. I was no longer alone. In fact, in the seemingly infinite ocean, I mattered just as much as any one of those microscopic organisms, and they mattered just as much as me. Matter. It's an amazing concept. To know that my matter is the same matter of the organisms, ultimately. That the waters and sand and other creatures all come together at some ultimate point of existence. Only then do you truly understand the exponential possibilities of reality. Hyperreality - this is it. Now I knew who William Gibson was, I knew some stuff about cyberpunk, I knew some stuff about my place in a world that was also changing exponentially. The vast space and time, at once a void and at the same time so incredibly fast and dense. Flowing energy lines, particles, memes that were subjective amoebas, these were the very constructs of my reality. My hyperreality. Or so I thought. LSD for me provided that jump into hyperspace, the jump that some feel will eventually reveal itself as a primordial seed of the future evolution of man. Beyond the beach, out of space, out of ime. Pure energy. It seemed to be a break from the confines of the constructs of my subjective realities. Ultimately it was all real, somehow. Then, one day, I had a video camera. An everyday item, nowadays, an icon of modern society. I picked it up, and looked through it, unconsciously projecting my childhood teacher, television, onto my world. The video camera was the way to show people what I saw in my own world, how I perceived things. Suddenly, the LSD relevations seemed to take on a whole new infinite degree of possible meanings as I could reflect and refract my own world via digital eyes to the rest of the world. I began taping everything around me - every movement, every non-movement, every sound, every color, everything. I didn't jsut tape Christmas or a Wedding, and I certainly just didn't tape myself getting kicked in the balls to send in to some anonymous entitty in the hopes of winning $10000 on some poor pathetic application of communal human experience reflected back to me to define and provide evidence for the relative idiodicy of the current state of humanity. So, my world was on tape. My reality, recorded for others to examine and critique, admire, learn from, or ignore. Fast-forward, rewind, slo-mo, dub, it was all there. Beyond the subjective reality of sitting at my Apple //e and finding myself in some unknown virtual entity for my own unconsciously selfish phun, beyond the plateau of acid revelations that brought to me the potential expansiveness of existence, I reached a new plateau of communal, time-escaping reality via the digital eye of the camera. And then, I thought that was it. All there was. But then came a new generation in the continuing processes of my mind which previously might be checked off in some sort of Darwinistic linear mode as Subjective -> Hyperreal -> Objective. I'm sure others might find similar reference points applicable to their own realities. At any rate, the next reference point to tack on is Transreal. Transreal. I took my seemingly objective video tapes and used them for *myself*. Me. I watched myself. So many people talk about having an out-of-body experience and the possible means to achieve that, like via acid or other psychedelic or consciousness-altering means. You want to have a out of body experience? Tape yourself. Don't have other people tape you, because that's just seeing yourself through their eyes. set up a camera in a room where you are, and just tape yourself. Tape yourself being you - eating cereal, typing on the computer, playing basketball with friends, shopping, driving, working. When you tape yourself, time and space become completely coherent, real in both subjective and objective means, you are not limited by your own subjective interpretations of the world and reality, which we always seem to be victim to, since we are always ourselves, within ourselves. When you view hour after hour of yourself being you, you gain insights into yourself that you can via no other means. And it is important to do this in a multitude of environments, under a multitude of different situations, emotions, perceptions. It is truly incredible. To me, this is what transreal is all about. You notice yourself in the first and thir person, with your own eye, through the eyes of others, and through an objective eye. Your perceptions are altered, your senses explode, your reality changes, you change yourself both consciously and subconsciously. Transreal. The video camera can be the wire to a hyperreal or transreal existence. Get yourself wired. Which conveniently brings us to the new magazine, Wired. In writing up the transcript for the CNN segment, which I just did today, I was viewing the gestalt reality of Wired. Not only viewing it, but analyzing it via slow-mo, rewind, fast-forward, in a transreal way that even the participants themselves have probably not done. Contexts pile on top of contexts which pile upon perceptions, it is a wonderful mindset to engage in. That brings up the key point - analyzing this new reality of technoculture and the part Wired plays in that. We find ourselves entrenched in an infinite hall of mirrors, constructed from the infinite variety of cultures and subcultures and memes available to us through the communal reality of the American (and global) here-and-now. Wired, is analyzing us. We who propagate technoculture, we who analyze it, we who feed it, and we who receive its feedback. All of you who are reading this, here-and-now find yourselves as part of this gestalt. We shape, mold, construct, deconstruct, appropriate. We learn, grow, evolve, alter, morph technoculture, and it ultimately does the same to us, since ultimately we are it. We are technoculture. At the same time that Wired is analyzing us, we are analyzing it via the same methods, as just one portion, one expanding self-replicating construct of technoculture. It becomes a 4th-dimensional Moebius. We are technoculture. We are Wired. I have yet to see a copy of the magazine, but from what I have analyzed via the CNN segment, what I hear from the communities and community of the net, and what I construct from those perceptions whether consciously or subliminally, I know Wired. We are all wired to varying degrees. My connections, my circuits are a lot clearer, crisper, definite and real than others. And yet at the same time it is all relative - there are others out there who might be comparable to Stelarc, in terms of information and applying technoculture as reality, while I am working on an abacus. Thus Wired provides itself as a gridpoint in hyperspace, even literal cyberspace, and it is our forum, it is our reality to mold and shape and evolve. Some may argue that it is dated before its inception as compared to the realtime global communication available via e-mail-lists or Internet Relay Chat. Yet to others, it is a new doorway to be opened, a new perception of reality to be explored and mapped. Wired is the past. It is the future. Yet it exists in the Here-and-Now. Wired is transreal. It is hyperreal. Yet also very real. Wired, ultimately, is who and what we are. ______________________________ From: ahawks (farting in your general direction) Subject: On Being On Being Wired and Transcript Date: Wed, 20 Jan 93 17:16:51 MST -=) If anyone would like a "clean" transcript of the CNN report, minus my rants and rambling and self-entertainment, let me know and I can fix it up for you. -=) On Being Wired, from a philosophical standpoint, sums up my views of stuff. -=) Hopefully, and as Jan. 26th release date of Wired approaches, we can have some conversations about Wired, specifically on a practical level of who'se working on it, what it's going to focus on, what we like / hate about it, what this means to the rest of technoculture oriented media (spec. Mondo) etc. -=) Don't forget that Wired is on-line. FutureCulture, FringeWare, Leri, MindVox, the WELL, Scream Baby, FutureTech, et al probably have at least a *passing* interest in this, and hopefully an action-oriented one as well. It's my belief that Wired *needs* to know ho we all are, not only the Biggies that contriuted, but the mailing lists and other net.entitites that *matter* and who've been out here for awhile now not only talking about technoculture, but shaping to it and contributing to it in different forms/forums. I'm serious when I say Wired should conduct a gestalt interview with FutureCulture, ie, have some staff person (maybe someone who's already been on the list) out here asking questions to the list, receiveing replies from the list, etc. We shouldn't be passive in this sense, especially considering Wired is made up of a bunch of people who are close to the same circles on the net - it's too good to pAss up. If I can, I might pass on my On Being Wired thingy I just typed up over there, and have a little blurb about who I am and what FutureCulture's all about, and ask them to monitor the list, and suggest other lists/newsgroups/forums to monitor, if they aren't already doing so. I have a feeling that they aren't as "transreal" or "future-oriented" as many of us are hoping they'll be, so, we should e-speak out. -- ahawks@nyx.cs.du.edu FutureCulture: In/f0rmation ahawks@mindvox.phantom.com future-request@nyx.cs.du.edu ______________________________ From: ahawks (farting in your general direction) Subject: Re: Kroupa Date: Wed, 20 Jan 93 17:25:28 MST New fresh-scented *Charles Rubinstein* (150% real fruit juices!) says: | |*little* right, but not true, the biggest online "celeb" on MindVox is |someone named 3Jane, followed up by a list of around 20 online |personalities who say the most and like to hang out there. Can someone please explain who/what this 3jane person/thing is? Is it a he/she/ or it? And what's all the big deal? Oooh, whoppe, it posts to some forums and it hangs out on IRC, so does everyone else who calls MindVox. The 3jane "phenomena" [to mindlessly ego-boost] is completely reminiscent (sp?) to me of the BMOBBS phenomena of the eLiTe and post-eLiTe days -- there's always some figure who subconsciously or consciously dominates the conversation with or without that intent, and then those who follow for unconscious reasons engage in the power game. I'll tell you right now, if MindVox had a WarBoard (remember those?) there would be some serious implications -- reputations being destroyed, credit ratings being destroyed, huge phone bills, phones disconnected, etc. Luckily the Vox doesn't have such a palce, but I believe they were talking about it a one time or another, and it just seems to me to be the most supremely wank possibility, that would ruin some of the potential of the Vox by entrapping itself to deeply within the constraints of an eLiTe-daze nostalgia. (IMHO, the "joshua" and "call-151" are bad enough. And I was depressed to learn that I couldn't reboot the whole damn system by dooing a "call-151" and then a "c600g" [Anybody remember that?]). -- ahawks@nyx.cs.du.edu FutureCulture: In/f0rmation ahawks@mindvox.phantom.com future-request@nyx.cs.du.edu ______________________________ From: wixer!pacoid@cs.utexas.edu (Paco Xander Nathan) Subject: Re: Meme Synergy (yet *another* possible thread) Date: Wed, 20 Jan 93 8:48:08 CST > However, does anyone get the feeling that some of these > net.dark.corners are overlapping to the point of a synergy? I don't > want to expand upon this until I hear if people agree or not, and > until people say what net.dark.corners they feel are coming together > in the light.... I'm not saying this is some sudden realization or > spasmatic evolution, it just seems part of a slow continual process > that the net has been engaging in for a long time now..... > > ahawks@nyx.cs.du.edu FutureCulture: In/f0rmation Ditto. That's what I've felt since that weird email/alife thread.. These grottos overlap to the point that it seems like another life or personality goes online whenever I read email.. Digital schis. But from leri-l, FC, alt.cyberpunk, cypherpunks and my time doing fringeware, the people and memes involved converge to the point of being more than just ASCII rants. Zat what u mean by net.dark.corners ? 1/e^2 pxn. ______________________________ Date: Wed, 20 Jan 1993 18:02:09 -0700 From: Drow Subject: 3jane somewhere out THERE, certainly not HERE, FreshJive writes... Can someone please explain who/what this 3jane person/thing is? Is it a he/she/ or it? And what's all the big deal? Oooh, whoppe, it posts to some forums and it hangs out on IRC, so does everyone else who calls MindVox. well, hawkeye, 3jane is just this goddess, you know? seriously, she is really a great lady, and admittedly the devotion attached to 'mistress' by some of we 'ilk' is preposterous in the extreme, but what the hell, you know? and it's not quite the power game/domination thing you suggest ;) but more along the lines of a joke god has deserted us, 3jane has not. everybody is really just 3jane. 'laugh!' - whats-his-name-from Labyrinth Warboards et al yeah, i remember all those. i think that ultimately, most of the members of Vox are a little mature to get screwed up in that, such as yourself and i, don't you think? anybody who is so tragically nostalgic about that shit as to actually get into it again kinda deserves it, imho. ps : thanks a billion solar masses for putting up the cnn breadline newz trans... : drow : 'watashi, watashi NINGEN da!' - Shinma no Baka Kyuuketsuhime Miyuu ______________________________ From: "Dana WATANABE" Subject: godammit Date: Wed, 20 Jan 93 17:06:49 PST i hate posting or sending mail and even though tis been said MINDVOX IS NOT ABOUT HERO WORSHIP people who arent on mindvox talk about hero worship people on mindvox may act like some people are heros but it doenst happen on mindvox i dont jump up and down with glee whne bruce sends me mail i just take it as mail cuz thats what it is sheesh and 3jane is the mother goddess who flies over the moon at night and sing among the trees when the net dies there will be 3jane and when it is born again there will be 3jane as the dog barks at teh man in the sun 3jane looks kindly upon the world to restore the nothingness that shall belong , dana If we were still going barefoot the world would be a much softer place. ______________________________ Subject: Who _is_ Michael Synergy? Date: Wed, 20 Jan 93 20:16:36 EST From: Mitchell Porter does anyone have any info on michael synergy: like his history, what he's done, what he's involved with, etc..? i first saw him in that "cyberpunk" video which featured interviews with leary and gibson.. then this morning i was browsing in an omni [nov 92] and ran across a mention of him in their articles on 'cyberpunks'.. and i think he also coauthored a series of sidebars on conspiracies in mondo #7. info anyone? ______________________________ Date: Wed, 20 Jan 93 09:59:02 -0600 Subject: re: Stuphs From: wixer!wixer.cactus.org!fringeware@cs.utexas.edu (FringeWare Inc.) >-=) If Paco reads this, could you forward that post to the Fringeware list > about your [potential, but hopefully soon2b-real] catalog? Or maybe > someone else could forward it here...I just thought there might be a > decent amount of interest on this list... > > ahawks@nyx.cs.du.edu FutureCulture: In/f0rmation Indeed! Thanx for the cool mention. Here's the announcement.. Blast it outwards freely. To summarize, our goals with the new publication are to foster growth of s/w, h/w, media, gizmos, etc. from the Fringe. Kinda like what Factsheet Five did (and does again!) for zines, we're looking to breed a similar meme for "New Edge"/underground/fringe products.. ------ >From: fringeware@wixer.cactus.org (FringeWare Inc.) Subject: FringeWare Catalog & Review FringeWare Catalog & Review Notice For Submissions, 17jan93 Okay, lemme spill the beans.. FringeWare Inc. has a catalog/zine planned (one of the main things Jon & I have been looking forward to!) The zine is to be known as "FringeWare Catalog & Review" and we estimate it'll be published within a couple months - sometime in March 93.. Much of the focus will be to review products that we carry, but we also intend to feature articles on the Fringe: garage-tech, cyberarts, weird science, products we don't carry, etc. Might even run fiction if it's in the genre. Authors get $0.03/word; hey, we're young and it's money. Of course, we could trade advert space or give purchase discounts/credit. We'll need at least 3-4 feature articles and some fun, appropriate cover art.. Based on our mailing list topics and a bit of Fringe surveillance around the world, here's a few ideas for articles: X-10 use, the "intelhouse" email list, DIY smart homes Board development from PC based design to shrinkwrap wares PowerGlove applications (Mark Pflaging, r u there?) DIY cyborg performance arts Ezines vs. Internet mailing lists (bladex/hawkeye showdown?) Home digital recording and/or desktop animation We're taking proposals & submissions. Email fringeware@wixer.cactus.org for more details. Regular column proposals are welcomed. We also intend to run regular "departments" such as Classified Adverts and a Resource Directory of services, suppliers, consultants, etc. We'll be happy to publicize cyberarts' events; send a press release.. If you're a vendor, contact us for advert rates. Expect no gloss. The focus is on New Edge, DIY & marginal/underground.. We're gonna be careful not to overlap FW Catalog & Review features with existing memes, eg. Midnight Engineer's how-to-run-a-startup-firm, Mondo 2000's fashion show or KeelyNet's side show. This will probably be closer to Whole Earth Review's approach, but weirder & ultimately more commercial: "Pretend you're talking to an intelligent but uninformed friend who might want to buy something offbeat." What do you think? ______________________________ From: Steven J. Subject: a reply from WIRED! Date: Wed, 20 Jan 93 22:03:41 CST I thought y'all would be interested in this. I just dropped a note to the postmaster at the WIRED! site, et voila... _____________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________ From: the!fringeware@wixer.cactus.org Steve J. White ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- The opinions expressed herein are aragorn@convex.csd.uwm.edu sometimes those of others. aragorn@csd4.csd.uwm.edu ______________________________ From: wixer!bladex@cs.utexas.edu (David Smith) Subject: Just plain stuff Date: Wed, 20 Jan 93 20:46:16 CST I need to keep up with the FutureCulture digest more....every time I look my name is being dropped left and right, so I better clarify some things. 1. Gerard Van I-never-could-remember-his-last-name is not going to make the transition when EFF-National closes their Cambridge office. Where he turns up next......I don't know. The rest of mcomments deal with Interzine #1, featuring one of my fab cyber- buddies, Jagwire X. 2. Jag : you referred to Paco, me, and you, as the "three big freaks" I forgot to tell you that we are calling ourselves "The Wixer X Men". Next time. 3. X is the algebraic equation for the unknown. I chose my handle before I even knew who Malcolm X was. 4. Jag has been talking about doing an issue of SunDawg for almost a year now. Any day now, apparently. 5. The Scream N *me*me --> Scream Baby connection. Here's my e-pub hirstory : About a year and a half ago I started my first e-zine, Scream N *me*me. It was about 30-40 articles, mixed between originals and "found" items, came out quarterly, and programmed in hypertext for the IBM. It was also a big pain in the ass. I spent all of my time tracking down contributors, getting them to submit promised material, and on and on and on. I was doing very little writing/experimentation on my own as well, and so when my hypertext programmer fell off the face of the planet, I decided to revamp, reduce, and re-introduce to the USENET community, Scream Baby. My roots are as a New Edge fanzine, focused on social and cultural aspects of cyberspace, but I'm moving farther and farther away. I'd call myself a post- cyberpunk if I knew what the hell it meant. 6. EFF-Austin. As of last Wednesday we are no longer an official chapter of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, according to the press release. All the Board is going to do is vote to delete a sentence in our charter, the one that says "we are an official chapter of Electronic Frontier Foundation". That's it. I am on the Board of Directors, and chair the Info Disk, BBS, Newsletter (WORD), and Atlanta Summit meeting committees. I am one of the representatives at Atlanta this weekend, but don't expect that we will do anything. 7. There is no number seven. 8. Any other questions? ______________________________ From: dionf@ERE.UMontreal.CA (Francois Dion) Subject: Re: On Being On Being Wired and Transcript Date: Wed, 20 Jan 93 23:42:06 EST Beyond the ultraworld of one of the zillions alias of Andy Hawks: > > -=) Hopefully, and as Jan. 26th release date of Wired approaches, we > can have some conversations about Wired, specifically on a > practical level of who'se working on it, what it's going to focus > on, what we like / hate about it, what this means to the rest of > technoculture oriented media (spec. Mondo) etc. There is a 'zine that everybody on this list will appreciate. It is planned for march, and will be distributed in raves free or by subscribing or in some stores. It will cover a lot of technoculture stuff, mostly axed on raves, electronic equipment, fringe technology, arts&tech, how-to etc... It will be called Fuzzy Logic and if you are on ne-raves (north east raves list) you have probably heard of it. > It's my belief that Wired *needs* to know ho we all are, not only > the Biggies that contriuted, but the mailing lists and other And you enumerated just some of the new-edge mailing lists (i consider several others i'm on to be like that). In fact, for the vast majority of people, internet is the cutting edge. They have a vague idea, and when you start explaining, they look at you and say: "I get it! It's the global village thing, right?". Montreal, is such an attarded city (hey i dont consider we got a real rave yet...) in this field. Probably has to do that only a handfull can keep an email account for several years, and that only 1 bbs permits you internet emailing (biz opportunities here... more than 2 millions peoples). > If I can, I might pass on my On Being Wired thingy I just typed > up over there, and have a little blurb about who I am and what > FutureCulture's all about, and ask them to monitor the list, and > suggest other lists/newsgroups/forums to monitor, if they aren't > already doing so. > > I have a feeling that they aren't as "transreal" or > "future-oriented" as many of us are hoping they'll be, so, we > should e-speak out. Ciao, -- Francois Dion ' _ _ _ CISM (_) (_) _) FM Montreal , Canada Email: CISM@ERE.UMontreal.CA (_) / . _) 10000 Watts Telephone no: (514) 343-7511 _______________________________________________________________________________ Audio-C-DJ-Fractals-Future-Label-Multimedia-Music-Radio-Rave-Video-VR-Volvo-... ______________________________ From: Steven J. Subject: Re: Kroupa Date: Wed, 20 Jan 93 23:10:46 CST ______________________________ From: the!fringeware@wixer.cactus.org Sure, I remember this, if we're talking about the same thing. I can't re-meme-ber how many times I typed in c600g during my early days as a computer tech. Sheeeesh ... how many hard-disks did I have to re-format. "What do you mean all the data is gone ... where the hell did it GO!?!?" Steve J. White ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- The opinions expressed herein are aragorn@convex.csd.uwm.edu sometimes those of others. aragorn@csd4.csd.uwm.edu ______________________________ From: ahawks (100% of the us rda daily allowance) Subject: Re: Who _is_ Michael Synergy? Date: Wed, 20 Jan 93 22:24:54 MST New fresh-scented *Mitchell Porter* (150% real fruit juices!) says: | |does anyone have any info on michael synergy: like his history, what he's |done, what he's involved with, etc..? i first saw him in that "cyberpunk" |video which featured interviews with leary and gibson.. then this morning |i was browsing in an omni [nov 92] and ran across a mention of him in |their articles on 'cyberpunks'.. and i think he also coauthored a series |of sidebars on conspiracies in mondo #7. info anyone? Well, Michael Synergy is one of those names that scurries by like a floater in your eyeball, you could be staring right at it and not even know it's there, depending on what you're choosing to focus on... Umm, from memory I know that he is/used-to be one of the editors at Mondo... I heard/saw his name on a computer show a little while ago, I think within the context of Apple/IBM collaboration, or maybe the Casper system or something like that.... Oh, ok, I just whipped out my Mondo [ahem, hehehehe], he's still a contributing editor along the lines of Tim Leary, Gracie & Zarkov, and John Perry Barlow....[As far as the last 3 are concerned, are their books out? ] He's a cracker/hacker too, aside from his Mondoidness..... What did Omni say 'bout him? -- ahawks@nyx.cs.du.edu FutureCulture: In/f0rmation ahawks@mindvox.phantom.com future-request@nyx.cs.du.edu ______________________________ From: ahawks (100% of the us rda daily allowance) Subject: I'm shaving I'm shaving Date: Wed, 20 Jan 93 22:33:22 MST I'm shaving my head. Byebye. I can do two things at once. I am talented. Letg me kjnow if there's any scretarial work for typists who shave their heads at the same time. I need to get a new job next week. Hope someone will hire a bald raving cyberpunk loonie. There's alwwas 7-11. The qiuck bald fox jumped over the lazy rave cyberdaawg, byebye.!! -- ahawks@nyx.cs.du.edu FutureCulture: In/f0rmation ahawks@mindvox.phantom.com future-request@nyx.cs.du.edu _________________________________________________________________________ | | | That's all for today! | | To send a message to the list: future@nyx.cs.du.edu | | To subscribe/unsubscribe/change format: future-request@nyx.cs.du.edu | | All other requests: future-request@nyx.cs.du.edu | | List Maintainer is: (andy [aka hawkeye]) ahawks@nyx.cs.du.edu | |_________________________________________________________________________| | | | The opinions expressed in FutureCulture are those of the individual | | author only. | |_________________________________________________________________________|