Thursday, 8 September 2011

Cheney's Love Letter to Himself

The Cambodian Space Project - Love Like Honey

evgenymorozov Evgeny Morozov

Ever since WikiLeaks has added my name to the list of people media should talk to about them, my inbox is, well, not what it used to be

Nothing left to leak?

Revisiting the David Nutt debate: Is it possible to rank different drugs by the harm they cause?

Wikipedia’s Jimmy Wales calls out security follies of Julian Assange and The Guardian

Anders Breivik's spider web of hate

Did the use of psychedelics lead to a computer revolution?

Psychedelics and creativity: 'Any drug experience is determined far less by the drug than by what we bring to it.' Photograph: Fredrik Skold/Alamy

" … in terms of our view of the universe – or my view of the universe – perception can be more powerful than physics can be."

You might be excused for thinking these are the words of a philosopher or a stoned Grateful Dead fan, but no. It's from an interview in 2000 with Mike Lynch, the CEO of Autonomy and Britain's first software billionaire, currently in the process of selling his company to Hewlett-Packard for $10bn (£6bn). Lynch, who was talking about the power of the pattern recognition that forms the basis of Autonomy's success, went on to talk about the fascination of dreams, near-death experiences and the accounts of those experimenting scientifically with LSD in the 1960s: all forms of altered perception.
Did psychedelic drugs play a substantive role in the development of personal computing? In 2009, Ryan Grim, as part of publicising his book This Is Your Country on Drugs: The Secret History of Getting High in America wrote a piece for the Huffington Post that made public a letter from LSD inventor Albert Hofmann to Apple CEO Steve Jobs in 2007 asking for funding for research into the use of psychedelics to help relieve the anxiety associated with life-threatening illness.
He picked Jobs because, as New York Times reporter John Markoff told the world in his 2005 book, What the Dormouse Said: How the 60s Counterculture Shaped the Personal Computer Industry, Jobs believed that taking LSD was one of the two or three most important things he'd done in his life. That 2001 conversation inspired Markoff to write the book: a history of computing with the drugs kept in.
From 1961 to 1965, the Bay Area-based International Foundation for Advanced Study led more than 350 people through acid trips for research purposes. Some of them were important pioneers in the development of computing, such as Doug Engelbart, the father of the computer mouse, then heading a project to use computers to augment the human mind at nearby SRI. Grim also names the inventors of virtual reality and early Cisco employee Kevin Herbert as examples of experimenters with acid, and calls Burning Man (whose frequent attendees include Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page) the modern equivalent for those seeking mind expansion.
There's a delicious irony in thinking that the same American companies who require their employees to pee in a cup rely on machines that were created by drugged-out hippies. But things aren't so simple. Markoff traces modern computing to two sources. First is the clean-cut, military-style, suit-wearing Big Iron approach of the east coast that, in its IBM incarnation, was so memorably smashed in the 1984 Super Bowl ad for the first Apple Mac.
Second is the eclectic and iconoclastic mix of hackers, hippies, and rebels of the west coast, from whose ranks so many of today's big Silicon Valley names emerged. Markoff, born and bred in the Bay Area and 18 in 1967, argues the idea of the personal computer as a device to empower individuals was a purely west coast idea; the east coast didn't "get" anything but corporate technology.
There's a basic principle to invoke here: coincidence does not imply causality. As early Sun employee John Gilmore, whom Grim calls a "well-known psychonaut", says in that article, it is very difficult to prove that drug use led directly to personal computers. The 1960s were a time of extreme upheaval: the Vietnam war and the draft, the advent of female-controlled contraception, and the campaign for civil rights all contributed to the counterculture. Was it the sex, the drugs or the rock'n'roll – or the science fiction?
In 1998 Vint Cerf, one of the fathers of the internet, said in a discussion of his enjoyment of science fiction: "I think it's also made it easier for me to think about things that weren't quite ready yet but I could imagine might just possibly be feasible."
Annie Gottlieb, in Do You Believe in Magic? Bringing the 60s Back Home, recounts the personal exploratory experiences of a variety of interviewees, and comes to this conclusion: "Any drug experience is determined far less by the drug than by what we bring to it." Many people tried acid. Only one became Steve Jobs.
Wendy M. Grossman @'The Guardian'

David Hockney: 'I turned down request to paint Queen'

Artist David Hockney has revealed he turned down a request to paint the Queen because he was "very busy".

The 74-year-old told BBC Radio 4's Front Row programme she would make a "terrific subject" but he prefers to paint people he knows.
"When I was asked I told them I was very busy painting England actually. Her country," he said.
An exhibition showcasing his landscape work is to be presented at the Royal Academy of Arts in London next year.
Speaking at the London launch of David Hockney: A Bigger Picture, the artist said: "I generally only paint people I know, I'm not a flatterer really.
"I've been requested and it's actually a terrific subject, but I require quite a bit of time."
The Hockney exhibition, which runs from 21 January to 9 April, will be one of the countdown events to the London 2012 Festival, the culmination of the Cultural Olympiad.
With works spanning 50 years, it will explore the artist's fascination with landscape.
Inspired by his native Yorkshire, many of its large-scale paintings will have been created specifically for the exhibition.
The works will be shown alongside related drawings and films.

The artist, who was born in Bradford, said he had returned to paint in Yorkshire because "it is a landscape I know from my childhood and it has meaning.

"I never thought of it as a subject until 10 years ago when I realised that at my age that it is a terrific subject, a marvellous place.
"I love looking at the world, there is an intense pleasure from my eyes. Enjoyment of the landscape is a thrill."
The exhibit will feature three groups of new work created since 2005, when the artist returned to live in Bridlington, East Yorkshire, which use a variety of media.
A series of films produced using 18 cameras will also be displayed, on multiple screens.
"We filmed on a quiet road and no one never ever stopped us," Hockney said. "It is unique there because there are not many people.
"You can drive along the road in a car and not see anyone. It is a lovely little bit of England that is not spoiled."
The artist has embraced new technology in his recent works, using iPhones and iPads as tools for making art.
A number of his iPad drawings will also be on show at what will be the first major UK exhibition of his landscape work.
@'BBC'

The Passing Show: The Life and Music of Ronnie Lane

Via

Golden Cyberfetters

Peter Hitchens: The War On Drugs

The war on drugs is something often talked about, and for the most part we’re lead to believe our Governments and Police force takes quite a serious stance on their tolerance for narcotics. But is the war on drugs all it’s made out to be? Peter Hitchens from the Mail on Sunday would have you believe otherwise – labelling the war on drugs, at least in the United Kingdom, a sham.