Winning Slowly

Social circles on- and offline and differences between our embodied and virtual selves. We talk about how we present ourselves on social media: what happens as we present different aspects of ourselves over time? How do we manage those changes? How does the flattening out effect of social media and search ability intersect (or conflict) with the way we think about our social circles in “real” (that is, embodied, non-virtual) life? Links * Geocities * Tripod * Friendster * Xanga * Augustine’s Retractions * First Friday in Raleigh * “Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg thinks telepathy tech is on its way” – The Guardian * Google Buzz * Google Plus Circles * Configuring the Networked Self, Julie Coen Before You Go * “Ahmed Mohamed swept up, ‘hoax bomb’ charges swept away as Irving teen’s story floods social media” – The Dallas Morning News * “We Stand with Ahmed (and We Hope He’ll Join Us for Astronomy Night)” – WhiteHouse.gov * #standwithahmed Music * “Modern Language” by Postcards from Jeff. Used by permission. * “Winning Slowly Theme” by Chris Krycho. Sponsors Many thanks to the people who help us make this show possible by their financial support! This month’s sponsors: * Jeremy W. Sherman * Jeremy Cherfas If you’d like to support the show, you can make a pledge at Patreon or give directly via Square Cash. Respond We love to hear your thoughts. Hit us up on Twitter, App.net, Facebook, or via email!

Phones, technological determinism, Christian ethics, and life in community. We start talking about phones again, and this time manage not to veer off into talking about robots. On the other hand, we do end up talking about a broad Christian ethic of technology, life in communities, and the pull toward social constructivism or technological substantives. Links * Sap.py – Chris’ podcast with his wife about her experience learning Python * Experience economy * Post-scarcity economy * Social constructivism * Substantivism * Previously on the show: * 3.08: Juice Up the Weird Edges of the Ecosystem Before You Go Two good bits from The Atlantic: * “Almost Half of Syria’s Population Has Been Uprooted” * “A Map That Dramatizes (and Helps Explain) the Refugee Crisis” Music * “Song of the Sun” by Fell Runner. Used by permission. * “Winning Slowly Theme” by Chris Krycho, who thinks you should check out the theme for Sap.py, too. Bells are fun! Sponsors Many thanks to the people who help us make this show possible by their financial support! This month’s sponsors: * Jeremy W. Sherman * Jeremy Cherfas If you’d like to support the show, you can make a pledge at Patreon or give directly via Square Cash. Respond We love to hear your thoughts. Hit us up on Twitter, App.net, Facebook, or via email!

In which we spend some time talking with Ryan O’Neal of Sleeping at Last about his soundtrack for the film Many Beautiful Things, and then branch out to discuss business and distribution models for artists in the 21st century. Music * All music from Many Beautiful Things by Sleeping at Last. Used by permission. Go buy this fantastic album! * Intro: “Overture (Instrumental)” * 5:38–6:58: “Almost Idyllic” * 17:07–18:58: “Seeing” * 27:10–28:28: “Ill Equipped” * “Winning Slowly Theme” by Chris Krycho, who wishes he were cool enough to write 36 songs in a year. Sponsors Many thanks to the people who help us make this show possible by their financial support! This month’s sponsors: * Jeremy W. Sherman * Jeremy Cherfas If you’d like to support the show, you can make a pledge at Patreon or give directly via Square Cash.

In which we start by looking at how to think about buying new phones… And then pivot into a discussion of major economic transitions. Like robots. Links * Carriers dropping subsidies: * “T-Mobile faces war of words after killing subsidies, contracts” (CNET) * “Verizon Wireless moving away from contracts and phone subsidies” (Ars Technica) * “Sprint to end two-year contracts - now here come the deals” (CNN) * Motorola Razr * “Pre to postmortem: the inside story of the death of Palm and webOS” (The Verge) * How Blackberry Fell (The New Yorker) * MMS (multimedia messaging hack) * on iOS: “iOS bug lets anyone crash your iPhone with a text message” (The Guardian) * on Android: “950 million Android phones can be hijacked by malicious text messages” (Ars Technica) * Xiaomi * Windows Phone * From the Garden to the City * Previously on the show: * 1.18: Keep on Keepin’ On Before You Go The Atlantic’s new Notes (blogging) section, with “comments” via email. Perhaps particularly relevant to our listeners is their response to Chris’ email. Note that they followed up a couple days after the episode was recorded with a personal email noting that they’d launched Music * “Pirates”, by Heptagon Heaven. Used by permission. * “Winning Slowly Theme” by Chris Krycho. Slowly winning the “can’t get it out of your head” spot in every listener’s inner ear. Sponsors Many thanks to the people who help us make this show possible by their financial support! This month’s sponsors: * Jeremy W. Sherman * Jeremy Cherfas If you’d like to support the show, you can make a pledge at Patreon or give directly via Square Cash. Respond We love to hear your thoughts. Hit us up on Twitter, App.net, Facebook, or via email ([email protected]).

In which we quite aggressively tackle Amazon’s corporate treatment of its workers, and launch into a discussion of corporate ethics and responsibility. We also note that though we critique Amazon’s practices, we recognize that it has good effects in the world, some of them significant. The question is: at what point to the externalities associated with those benefits make dealing with any given company morally unjustifiable?

These are the voyages of the starship Winning Slowly...

Things were… messy this episode.

‘The Web We Have to Save’—hyperlinks, the stream, algorithms, and human responsibility.

Generational shifts in social media and the diversifying web.

Adultery, hacking, blackmail, and trying to be Batman on the internet.