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everyday life slow theory

Slow – the open alternative to platform capitalism

Uber is the new Google (which was already the new Microsoft, that was maybe the new United Fruits, or the new Standard Oil). And while we hear that “Software is eating the world”, we learn with how little control we are left with. Like shopping malls the walled gardens of the Facebook’s and Google’s Internet […]

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everyday life twitter

Short Messages – 20 Years of SMS

At instant speeds all reaction and adjustment are inevitable but too late to be relevant. McLuhan ἔρρει τὰ κᾶλα. Μίνδαρος ἀπεσσύα. πεινῶντι τὤνδρες. ἀπορίομες τί χρὴ δρᾶν. Xenophon, Helenika Twenty years ago today the first SMS was sent. And with the SMS begins the age of short messages, of asynchronous real time communication, and the […]

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everyday life web service

“Everything is turned into a highway”

(three weeks without Google) [Original German Blog Post] “The building of new ELECTRONIC SUPERHIGHWAYS will be an even bigger enterprise [compared to building the Interstate Network]. Suppose we connect New York and Los Angeles with multi-layer of broadband communication networks, such as domestic satellites, wave guides, bunches of co-axial cables, and later the fiber-optics laser […]

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everyday life web service

Digital Literacy
My fourth day without Google.

[Original German Blog Post] “Ask any kid what Facebook is for and he’ll tell you it’s there to help him make friends. […] He has no idea the real purpose of the software, and the people coding it, is to monetize his relationships. He isn’t even aware of those people, the program, or their purpose. […]

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economy everyday life web service

Cenorship?!
My third day without Google.

[Original German Blog Post] Leave aside the fact that Google was happy to censor results for China until its servers were hacked. The fact is, Google still censors search results in other countries at the request of their governments. […] Censoring results for years, shifting course for entirely unrelated reasons, and then vilifying competitors who […]

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everyday life web service

Orientation with OpenStreetmap
My second day without Google.

[Original German Blog Post] Today again no search engines. My day today is a day of travel. Munich-Dusseldorf, then further to Berlin. To get oriented in Dusseldorf I use OpenStreetmap. Where is the difference to Google Maps? OpenStreetmap is a Wiki-project. It is open. I can participate. Of course, Google Maps also offers the option […]

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everyday life twitter web service

Valueable recommandations instead of fruitless rummaging

Without Google: Day 1 [Original German Blog Post] Yesterday I made my mind to abandon all search engines for some time; I now don’t want to hesitate to tell you how my use of the Internet is changed by that. The most important means to get to valuable information are my networks, Twitter at first. […]

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everyday life web service

Without Google

[Read this post in German] “The world is not a ball”. The night is made by the shadow, thrown by the mountain of the north. Changing the perspective like shown here, in the “Christian Topography” by Cosmas Indicopleustes. I would probably not have found that via Google. Figure from Cosmas Indicopleustes, Christian Topography, Ed. J. […]

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everyday life philosophy slow theory

Slow Media and borrowed time

When more than thirty years are told, As good as dead one is indeed Goethe, Faust II “Why Slow Media?” This is certainly one of the questions we get asked most frequently on events and in many conversations. “Why do you ask for more slowness in media?” For me, Hippocrates’ famous aphorism Ὁ μὲν βίος […]

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everyday life slow theory twitter web service

Schoenheit von Vogelsang

[Original German blog post} “Every time I hear about Twitter I want to yell Stop. The notion of sending and getting brief updates to and from dozens or thousands of people every few minutes is an image from information hell. It scares me, not because I’m morally superior to it, but because I don’t think […]