[microsound] RIP Steve Jobs

[Dan Graham]

This is what I think:

BlahBlahBlah <http://dl.dropbox.com/u/11845161/MalFuncto.mp3>


On Thu, Oct 6, 2011 at 8:03 AM, John Hopkins <jhopkins at tech-no-mad.net>wrote:

>
>  advancing this: a paired statement and question: i dislike software
>> patents, and, would ios be as consistent as it is without them, or to
>> generalize, without the autocratic enforcements?
>> supporting that: as re: gnome / aqua: and paraphrasing with real
>> trepidation, ezra pound: wouldn't gnome be yet "better" if someone
>> handed it a fistful of money?
>>
>
> ANY technology is the (optimized) application of a protocol on a range of
> energized material.  A reproducible technology which is inter-operable (with
> itself) has to have (on a sliding scale) a more rigorous set of protocols
> that guide its use.  This, by nature, restricts the use to within the
> definitions of that protocol.  The more open the system, the more potential
> for evolution, for change, and in that same way, for failure (to do a
> defined task).  Technology is about (human) control of pathways of energy
> flow through the world we are part of.  Tighter control means being able to
> take huge energies 'out there' and direct them precisely where one likes
> (think about owning (or even building) an amplifier!).  Less control allows
> for more noise in the system which can give rise to interesting and
> unforeseen possibility, but it can also, in the case of an amplifier, shred
> your speakers, overheat, and burn down your house.
>
> In any technological deployment there is an explicit struggle between
> control and freedom.  (think 'o-ring' on the shuttle booster rocket!)  More
> control requires more overall energy input into the system.  (This is simple
> thermodynamics -- which is not an optional concept, "it's the LAW.")  With
> infinite energy supplies, one can completely control a system and that
> system will not fail in its task.  Obviously this is impossible, so we have
> to make do with something less than perfect control.  But to make a device
> that can be deployed widely across a huge range of environmental conditions
> and have it so that it fails infrequently, one has to exert intense control
> over the production process, all of the way.
>
> That's why military systems are triple-redundant, for example.  When
> needing to launch a chunk of lead across a space and into another human's
> body who is attempting to do the same thing at the same second at you, you
> don't want your technological support system to fail.  You would not want
> the manufacturer of that weapon system to have employees who were smoking
> pot the day your weapon was rolling off the assembly line!  Thus the idea of
> wide-scaled social engineering to ensure that command-and-control systems
> are in place throughout the supply chain.
>
> Apple, as a techno-social system within a wider techno-social system, is no
> different than any other techno-social system in these issues.
>  (nation-states, military organizations, manufacturing entities,
> corporations, clans, whatever)
>
> Just a few reflections prompted by the somewhat facile comments here on the
> list regarding a human passing, and how that human's presence affected other
> humans across the planet.  More can be found below...
>
> cheers,
> JH
>
> for example -- http://tech-no-mad.net/blog/**archives/2657<http://tech-no-mad.net/blog/archives/2657>
> or http://tech-no-mad.net/blog/**archives/2390<http://tech-no-mad.net/blog/archives/2390>
> or http://tech-no-mad.net/blog/**archives/2014<http://tech-no-mad.net/blog/archives/2014>
> or http://tech-no-mad.net/blog/**archives/2008<http://tech-no-mad.net/blog/archives/2008>
> or just http://tech-no-mad.net/blog/**archives/tag/technology<http://tech-no-mad.net/blog/archives/tag/technology>
>
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