Reading report: Shaping Things

Title: Shaping Things
Author(s): Bruce Sterling
ISBN: 9780262693264
Read: November 2008
Summary

Interesting bits

Artifacts – Machines – Products – Gizmos – Spime

Line of no Return: we cannot voluntarily return to a previous technoculture condition.

Line of Empire: those who lack the means or capacity to evolve in the new technoculture are force into colonial or defensive postures.

There is more than them monetary metric: cognitive load (pay attention to things) and opportunity cost (have to sacrifice something to support another something) are also present in the gizmos technoculture.

Everyone can’t be a designer, Design is not science

Metahistory is important so we can learn from it more effectively.

The ability to make many small mistakes in a hurry is a vital accomplishment for any society that intends to be sustainable. [p.47] Rapid prototyping is important: “mistakes” become a source of wealth.

The rubbish maker and “obsolesence is innovation in reverse” (mirrored double S-curve)

MAYA from Raymond Loewy: Most Advanced, Yet Accpetable

A SPIME is, by definition, the protagonist of a documented process. It is an historical entity with an accessible, precise trajectory through space and time. [p.77]

He traces the history of marking stuff, from barcodes to RFID, to SPIME, to SPIME monitors, connected/GPS enabled => An Internet of Things

A WRANGLER is someone who can manage and distille the information space of SPIMEs.

I can’t possibly waste my time trying to tell the Internet what’s handy for me. I want a world that’s auto-Googling [p. 100-101]

The model is the message, Fabbing is to become important, crowd sourcing, public onlookers provide information and knowledge at the fringes of current product/service commercial spaces.

SPIME is all about timescale and the traceable knowledge encompassed with it.

People can’t outguess themselves through planning. Their needs, and desires and wishes defy prediction, for they are hierarchical, nonlinear, time-bound and inherently conflicted.

A successful human lifespan is a homeostatic tumbling with enough flexibility to allow effective action, but enough continuity to avert terrifying chaos. [p. 140] Ublopia vs Otivion

One three basic kinds of “technology” are truly worthy of civilized use.
-technology that can rot and go away all by itself
-technology that is monumental (monument that last multi-generations, timeless pieces)
-technology that is fully documented, trackable, searchable technology.