THE FUTURE DOES NOT COMPUTE

For those who don’t know, digg.com is was a technology news website, but unlike other new sites it has no editors to censor and pick out the stories, it is all run by it’s users. It’s a collective community that submits and promotes their own stories. It started as a technology only news site rivaling veteran sites such as slashdot.org expanding to such heights that stories linked from their site have been know to shut down other websites due to massive traffic. Today on June 26th marks a new era for digg.com as they venture forward to include World, Science, Enterntainment and Politics news, amongst others. Make sure to check out the site and start Digging those stories.

New York City – 11:26 P.M. – A pack of 8 to 10 messy looking, somewhat smelly, and hungry humans lurk in an alley behind a restaurant. They are delighting themselves in an all they can eat fest at the garbage dump, they search and ravage through the dumpster like a flock of starving vultures feasting over a carcass. After they are satisfied, they collect what they can and take it back home to a neglected run down building where there was a fire weeks ago. They are not quite homeless or starving due to the economy, in fact they hate mainstream economy and have rejected all of the social norms we live under. They have chosen to live like this. They are Freegans.

“The word freegan is derived from “free” and “vegan”. Vegans are people who avoid products from animal sources or products tested on animals in an effort to avoid harming animals. Freegans take this a step further by recognizing that in a complex, industrial, mass-production economy driven by profit, abuses of humans, animals, and the earth abound at all levels of production (from acquisition to raw materials to production to transportation) and in just about every product we buy.”

What may seem eerie and disgusting at first, the Freegan morals and messages are one to admire. You could call them the bacteria of the city, consuming and recycling our waste not only for their own survival but also as a statement against the society we live in.

“By recovering the discards of retailers, offices, schools, homes, hotels, or anywhere by rummaging through their trash bins, dumpsters, and trash bags, freegans are able to obtain food, beverages, books, toiletries magazines, comic books, newspapers, videos, kitchenware, appliances, music (CDs, cassettes, records, etc.), carpets, musical instruments, clothing, rollerblades, scooters, furniture, vitamins, electronics, animal care products, games, toys, bicycles, artwork, and just about any other type of consumer good. Rather than contributing to further waste, freegans curtail garbage and pollution and lessening the over-all volume in the waste stream.”

To me, they are a mix of anarchists and tree huggers in an urban set. They are young and strong-minded, never deviating from their beliefs, the belief that one can still exist and be part of something living outside of society.

“Freeganism is a total boycott of an economic system where the profit motive has eclipsed ethical considerations and where massively complex systems of productions ensure that all the products we buy will have detrimental impacts most of which we may never even consider. Thus, instead of avoiding the purchase of products from one bad company only to support another, we avoid buying anything to the greatest degree we are able.”

Just like you, when I first heard about them, I wondered why someone would want to live that like? Eating food from dumpsters, not having a stable reliable home, hitchhiking from place to place. But as I dug deeper into their society I began to understand why they were doing it. My whole life I have shared some of their beliefs. I have always considered myself to be a just a bit outside of mainstream society, trying my best to be different from all others (a very hard task in today’s world) and that is why I admire them, Freegans and all other “different” subcultures and societies.

For more information visit: www.freegan.info

A hot Saturday in the city and what better way to spend it than at Central Park? Except it wasn’t just any other day at the park. Today the four elements: Sun, Rain, Cloud and Ice battled for “Element of the Year Award”. It was all part of Improv Everywhere, a group of pranksters and hoaxers based in NYC. Today hundreds of people shared in on the experience of the latest Mp3 Experiment (III): The Search for Steve, including me.

It all began when I received an e-mail from their mailing list telling me all about the event. It was on a Saturday so it was perfect since I had nothing to do. The instructions said to download a specific mp3 file according to the season you were born in, autumn for me. We were assigned an element according to our season that led us through a bunch of social activities and games such as Simon says. It was great seeing such warm New Yorkers actually talking and socializing with complete strangers. Before the event I was talking with some people I had just met and out of nowhere some girl comes up to us and decides to join our group, she said something like “Hi I’m (name), and I’m joining your group”.

Bystanders were dumbfounded by our actions, here you have a big group of people running, jumping and dancing around all silently listening to their iPods, they were in awe of the sight. After several activities, our group leader led us through the park to our final destination where we met up with the other 3 elements and rest of their followers. Our search for Steve was almost complete, but we had one last thing to do to summon Steve. We had to dance, dance our hearts out in the middle of Central Park. (Props to anyone who can spot me in the picture to the right. Hint: I’m the left half of the picture).

After the summoning was complete Steve emerged from a cloud of haze by the lake. He told us he was summoned on this day to bring us word about a great battle. The contestants? Our group leaders, the Elements. They would battle it out in a free-for-all match until the last man standing for the “Element of the Year Award”.

The battle commenced and the four Elements battled one another. People cheered others booed; it was just like a Roman Arena during a gladiatorial fight. The first to fall was Cloud, then minutes later Ice. The fight was intense, now only 2 contestants were left.

It was a clash of the titans as Rain and the Sun battled it out for the final prize. The match kept going back and forward until The Sun with sudden blow delivered the final punch. Rain was down and The Sun was declared the winner. After the excitement of the fight was over there was one last thing to do. Build the longest conga line ever, and so we did. We danced all around Central Park.

Great day today with the Improv Everywhere crew, thanks for an awesome evening. I only wished more of my friends were able to come out and those I forgot to tell. But next time, it will be better, larger and more fun.

Highlight of the day: seeing those unplugged bystanders trying to understand just what the hell was going on. Oh yea and sorry to those people that were having the birthday party at the park but the Elements do not choose time or date of their epic battles.

To view more pictures of the event click here.

Click here to download the mp3 files from Improv Everywhere.

Tokyo’s futuristic image as the world’s most technologically advanced broadband internet-enabled city is under attack from a vicious but decidedly low-tech foe: the crow.

read more | digg story

“You Have Not Been Paying Attention”, that’s what I told some idiot at the Radiohead show last night when he confused the date on his ticket for the wrong show. How do you not double check the date on your ticket for an amazing night with Radiohead. Confused by the multitude of people and numbers of lines, the sorrowful guy told me his story, that’s when I asked myself “If this guy has no ticket, then what is this line for?”. I promptly interrupt his pittyful yet stupid story (on his part) and asked him if this was the admissions line, he said “no, you can just walk right in over there if you have a ticket”. Relief. I pulled my ticket out of my pocket and his eyes widened, here I was standing next to a person who thought I was on the same plane as him but when that ticket came out I was the richest man in the world at the moment. So I tell “What the hell am I doing here then? peace!” and that was the end of it. I went on see Radiohead perform and he was probably stuck out there trying to scalp a ticket. No surprises.

If you were wondering that night’s playlist here it goes:

1. The Gloaming
2. National Anthem
3. 15 Step
4. Arpeggi
5. Kid A
6. Dollars and Cents
7. Videotape
8. Nude
9. I Might Be Wrong
10. Paranoid Android
11. Bangers ‘n Mash
12. Pyramid Song
13. My Iron Lung
14. Bodysnatchers
15. Myxomatosis
16. No Surprises (dedicated to Michael Stipe)
17. Everything in it’s Right Place

Encore 1:
18. A Wolf at the Door
19. Down is the New Up
20. Like Spinning Plates
21. Spooks
22. Idioteque

Encore 2:
23. Just
24. The Tourist

So as you can see I have finally begun to customize the blog. It’s been a little slow since there are several CSS files I have juggle between. I got a good understanding of how the site is organized which will help me a lot when making changes to the looks. I am still not sure where I want to go with the look of the blog, I might have seasonal changes with the weather. We’ll see.