Making Newspapers out of Newspapers. And the new serendipity

Making newspapers out of newspapers •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• and the new serendipity •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• Chris Thorpe, September 11th 2010, London @jaggeree

I really rather like newspapers

Actually, that’s not true.

I love them.

They’re wonderful.

Wonder & magic. Every day. $1.00 ✭ ✭ ✭ ✭ ✭

A personal illustration. 1960sMan I’m really quite surprised, I only thought you could use this speech bubble shape for things people had said on #twitter

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • In 1998 I travelled to New York. Photo Kriston Lewis • • • • • • • • • bear with it, there is a point to this story, it will get somewhere soon. • • • • • Honest. It will. It really will. Somewhere about how unexpected • • • • • • things will suddenly emerge out of nowhere and transform your life, • • • • • • either by telling you about things you had no idea you wanted to • • • • • • know about, or in this case about just the sort of thing you really • • • • • • wanted to know about, but wouldn’t have a clue where it was. • • • • • • • http://www.ﬂickr.com/photos/87634257@N00/255224254/sizes/z/in/photostream/ •

MUSIC It’s more fun to compute... Kraftwerk Hammerstein Ballroom, June 1998 In a wonderful moment of pure chance I found myself next to a hip-hop fan and before the concert we had a fascinating conversation about how Kraftwerk had inﬂuenced New York hip-hop, with me telling him of the inﬂuences on the UK techno scene and also on Detroit house. Through happenstance of seating (proximity) and a shared interest we each

TRAVEL SoHo Grand Hotel 310 West Broadway, New York, NY 10013 Haven’t stayed here in years, but very good restaurant and excellent cocktails, rooms could be a lot bigger though (although I was in the cheapest ones). Very lovely and relaxing. As long as you’re not on the side of the hotel facing the ﬁve way junction. Most memorable moment, checking in just as Massive Attack were checking out. I felt we could have shared a moment. I was wrong. Reading the New York Times when I ﬂopped tired onto my bed made me immediately go outside and do the most obvious thing you rarely do in New York and look up.

Whiteread’s water tower is like a beacon in daylight sky. The first thing that strikes you about Rachel Whiteread’s monumental water tower is how it seems to pull in the sun and radiate it back over the SoHo skyline. It literally glows, A perfect cast of the iconic New York water towers in pure crystal clear resin, the tower is possibly one of Whiteread’s most simple, yet complex pieces. Not only does the object represent the negative space of the water tower, it mimics the interior contents of the vessel, encouraging you to imagine a tower, full to the brim, and then stipped of it’s outer jacket. Frozen in space and time.

Wonder

But, I worry

What if they disappear? I’d be lost in many ways.

There is a reason why they do what they do.

2 in fact.

CURATION

serendipity (sɛrənˈdɪpɪtɪ) 1754 (but rare before 20c.), coined by Horace Walpole (1717-92)in a letter to Mann (dated Jan. 28); he said he formed it from thePersian fairy tale "The Three Princes of Serendip," whose heroes"were always making discoveries, by accidents and sagacity, of things they were not in quest of." The name is from Serendip, an old name for Ceylon (modern Sri Lanka), from Arabic Sarandib, from Skt. Simhaladvipa "Dwelling-Place-of-Lions Island." Serendipitous formed c.1950. Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serendipity

there are precise mechanics at play

2 at least...

GAMEYNESS

Finishability

New York Times Weekend Edtion Chances of buying Chances of ﬁnishing Chances of ﬁnishing unaided “The weekend edition is the end of level boss of newspapers, there is almost no chance of vanquishing it unless you play in two player co-operative mode”

Progress bars

Mass of Paper moves ✭✭✭✭✭ from right hand to left

Pristine smooth pages become crumpled

Neat stack becomes shufﬂed

Neat stack becomes shufﬂe d

Neat stack becomes shufﬂ e d

Neat stack becomes shuf ﬂ e d

Neat stack becomes shu fﬂ e d

Neat stack becomes sh u fﬂ e d

Finishability makes us read everything (for fear of missing out)

JUXTAP OSITION

THINGS YOU KNOW YOU WANT It’s all about proximity Serendipity in newspapers is so much about physical proximity on the printed page. It’s not just newspapers, radio does this too. As do music compilations. Things you already know about and are interested in, throug the sheer physicality of the objects and through curatorial design are placed next to things you either knew about, but weren’t previously interested in, or things you never knew existed. THINGS YOU NEVER KNEW ABOUT Ooh, look at that, I never knew about that, tell me more. See, and now you’re reading it and you’re either not interested and have moved on, or you’re reading it intently and have either found something new to love or to learn about.

what else does this?

The new serendipity •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• but is it really? •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• Chris Thorpe, Friday 10th September 12pm. RIBA Cafe. || 51.521321 , -0.144871 Well yes and no, these folks are filters of me, I choose them and select them for what they bring to me. Obviously they bring more than just links to cool stuff and Coatseian point at things links, they bring conversation and friendship and wonder. But they are a filter, a facet of me. And are this not truly serendipitous. What is though? Tweetie. Sometime around Friday lunchtime. Screenshot, models own.

Clay visits The Guardian, gets asked a semi ﬂippant question involving the phrase “Chatroulette for News”. Fortunately gives a serious answer. Photo Joi Ito The question was from your’s truly and was a serious one about where the new serendipity came from in the light of my thoughts about ﬁltering on the previous page. His answer was that yes, we should build Chatroulette for News, but that also he thought it was friends of friends, which was my suspicion too.

Internet caught up in strange addiction to random news stories Faster than I could get out of a meeting to do something far less elegant, Dan had made it. And deployed it and everyone was grinning. In the next 24 hours people were ﬁghting off addictions to randomly delivered news and discovering all sorts of wonderful things. Dan Vydra. Pythonista and creator of The Random Guardian. Photo Dan Vydra

Friends The people I’m friends with, my ﬁlter have similar interests to me, some personal, some professional. They are facets or ﬁlters of me, I may have already seen what they share and they’re too close to be totally serendipitous. They also know me and will sometimes gift me links and cuttings out of kindness. These will largely be about shared interests. Illustration: Chris Thorpe. Neither I or my friends are drawn to scale, it just feels that way.

Friends of friends Are farther out, their shared interests with my friends may be part of why I ﬁnd my friends interesting. Some of these people will share things of extreme interest to me and somtimes will share things that I don’t even know I’m interested in yet. They’re less a Ooh , ﬁlter of me. why you’re don in ’t I k teresti now ng you , yet Footnote: Friends of friends also not to scale.

TECHNOLOGY AND TRAVEL Chirp Hackday San Francisco Hackday Seating Discovering a volcano had messed up your travel plans A day, sitting on a very uncomfortable picnic bench (although it did have network connectivity) or sitting at a hotel desk when I got too numb to sit on the picnic bench any more. Coding: 12 hours Coﬀee drunk: 4-7 cups (went a bit hazy after 4) Muﬃns eaten: 2-ish CPU hours on Google AppEngine: 49 hours Task queue items: about 25,000 (had to ask for more) A hackday. With picnic benches. Does not want. Photo Laughingsquid

How do they make that? Man (or woman) beams Twitter beams to man (or Man beams thoughts at thought of what to share woman) what their friend computer to write code to at Twitter had beamed at them. decode who shares what and makes newspaper out of it.

How do they make that? get follows StringList

How do they make that? get follows StringList get follows Sharded StringList

How do they make that? get follows StringList get follows Sharded StringList get follows Sharded Fulltext

How do they make that? get shares get follows String StringList get follows Sharded StringList get follows Sharded Fulltext

How do they make that? Find a route back, from right to left get shares get follows String StringList get follows Sharded StringList get follows Sharded Fulltext

ooh, MAGIC

THE FUTURE

Newspaper atom checklist ✓ Ink ✓ Paper ✓ Server power ✓ Printing press ✓ Links to content ✗ Content

An enormous “without who this would have been impossible” to...

Making Newspapers out of Newspapers. And the new serendipity

by Chris Thorpe on Sep 23, 2010

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Making Newspapers out of Newspapers. And the new serendipity — Presentation Transcript