tom moody
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Every couple of weeks the art and technology website Eyebeam reBlog invites a guest reBlogger to act as a combination curator, editor, and DJ, surfing and reposting noteworthy material from blog feeds. Paddy Johnson criticizes the tendency of the reBloggers of late to rely too much on known "tech news" sites (Make, Boingboing, et al) for recycled material. I agree with her, but then I would, because the practice violates my own self-declared "rules for reBlogging," posted at the end of my gig there in '04.
Generally speaking, there are entirely too many stories in the category Michael Bell-Smith calls Talking Refrigerators.
These are whimsical items about some engineering marvel, usually from a college robotics department or venture capital startup, that are at best consumerist PR and at worst the kind of ridiculous '50s gee whiz utopianism that we all should know by now has a down side and a dark side (just thinking of that nightvision video clip of the helicopter gunner blasting a wounded Iraqi soldier to hamburger--"squeeze the joystick, instant no soldier!").
Case in point: a recently reBlogged item offers a clip from a local news station about an alarm clock that rolls off your nightstand, forcing you to chase it across the floor until you wake up. Hey, that same fuzzy gear could be repurposed to make "rolling landmines" that follow you around till they blow your legs off! Less fluff, more stories about the world we live in I guess is what I'm hoping for.
And from the not-biting-the-hand-too-hard-that-feeds-me department, thanks to L.N.R., George Hotelling, Angus Galloway, Perry Lowe, Huong Ngo, Evan Roth, and David Jacobs for reBlogging me this year--you guys rule!