Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
Oh, good: I always wondered what one looked like!
  

    
Following SOTW will be our own beloved Ed Ward, as we discuss his
new book The History of Rock and Roll Volume 1...be there or be
square!
  

    

 HAnd baskets look just like those things you carry around the store
on your arm when you don't get a big wheeled basket.  The only
difference is that formerly they used to be woven out of straw and
other kinds of organic materials. Now they're made of plastic.  So
to be completely accurate: we are all now going to hell in a plastic
handbasket. 
  

    
aaargh! That's like saying you have a temperature...of course you
do; but when feeling unwell, you have an elevation of temperature.
Wife drove me nuts with that one.
  

    
One can also have a low grade fever, or a low temperature...
  

    
Yuppers...please spread upcoming SOTW around to all your
conferences...I put a blurb on our FB page...as soon as we go live I
will put a fancy tiny url together to broadcast far and wide...this
one should be one for the books!
  

    
October 17-30, Ellen Ullman will join join us for a discussion of
her new book, _Life in Code: A Personal History of Technology_. 

Excerpt from the New York Times review
(https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/17/books/review/life-in-code-ellen-ullman-memo
ir.html?_r=0):

"The first three-fifths of “Life in Code” is primarily composed of
essays published elsewhere between 1994 and 2004, while newer
material from 2012 to early 2017 fills out the rest. The technology
mentioned within those early chapters often recalls quaint
discovery, like finding a chunky, clunky Nokia cellphone in the back
of the junk drawer. The piece on preparing computers for the Year
2000 has a musty time-capsule feel, but the philosophical questions
posed in other chapters — like those on robotics and artificial
intelligence — still resonate.

"While the electrified economy had yet to complete its first
dramatic cycle of boom and bust when her first book came out, a 1998
essay in 'Life in Code' shows Ullman, Cassandra-like and ever the
pragmatic pessimist, already bracing for the coming storm. 'I fear
for the world the internet is creating,' she wrote. 'Before the
advent of the Web, if you wanted to sustain a belief in far-fetched
ideas, you had to go out into the desert, or live on a compound in
the mountains, or move from one badly furnished room to another in a
series of safe houses.' These days, she’s still concerned about the
damage the internet is doing to culture, privacy and civility."
  

    
November 28 - December 11 Matrix Redux

Riffing off of Elon Musk's remark that we are all living in the
Matrix, we are fortunate to have Robert Scoble, the Fourth
Transformation
(https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnkoetsier/2016/12/12/the-fourth-transformation
-augmented-reality-artificial-intelligence/#3b0876612f63),

Derek Woodgate, The Futures Lab (http://futures-lab.com/home) and 
Patrick Litchy, www.voyd.com 

to discuss the positive applications of VR/AR/MR in our digital
universe(s), our realities and the implications of all this tech.

This should be spectacular  and a nice bridge from Ellen's
conversation re Code and our annual extravaganza, State of the
World, with Bruce Sterling and Jon Lebkowsky.
  

    
If I were to spread the word (which I was just doing), to what URL
should I direct attention between now and Nov 28?
  

    
There isn't one yet Ari, topic is hidden. However you can spread the
Inkwell.vue link which is public and it will show up on the 28th of
November...https://people.well.com/conf/inkwell.vue/topics/
  

    
I see we have a coupla new users!  
  

    
New topic looks good, but it's still Ellen Ullman on well.com
  

    

I had some trouble changing the home page last night...I'm working
on it now.
  

    
https://www.well.com/conferences/inkwell/
We are live with Matrix Redux, please use the above link to point
your off-WELL friends to the conversation.

Robert Scoble will not be participating after all, but the
conversation will be quite lively and we appreciate your inputs.
  

    
Beginning 2/20-3/5 Roger McNamee will be joining us to discuss his
recent articles "Can we fix Facebook before it fixes us?"

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/i-mentored-mark-zuckerberg-heres-my-ro
ad-map-for-fixing-facebook/2018/01/14/0f976dea-f71b-11e7-b34a-b85626af34ef_sto
ry.html?utm_term=.bb73599207a7

This is a much broader issue than just Facebook and very timely.
Please let anyone you think might be interested be aware of this.

We are calling it Brain Hacking for Dummies.
  

    
This is an important discussion, and I'm glad to see Roger here.
  

    
We are live!! Brain Hacking for Dummies with Roger McNamee...

Here is the link for your off-Well friends:

https://people.well.com/conf/inkwell.vue/topics/504/Brain-Hacking-for-Dummies-
page01.html
  

    
We want to add one more host to <inkwell.vue.>. 

Inkwell is a world-readable conference (i.e. viewable by people not
on the WELL). Our usual focus is on discussions with authors and
other guests. We'd like to get as many guests as possible from among
WELL members, but we also invite guests who are not on the WELL. The
idea of the conference is to attract attention and members to the
WELL, by showing the kinds of discussions we have here.

We have three hosts currently: <lrph>, <julieswn> and <jonl>. We're
adding one more. Four is an unusual number of hosts, but we're an
unusual conference. Our hosts also produce guest interviews and
panel discussions, which involves interacting with potential guests
and their publicists, maintaining a schedule, finding discussion
leaders, etc. It's a bit of work but a lot of fun.

If you're interested, please send an email to confteam@well.com no
later than January 31.
  

    
Since I made that last post in 2020, our host lineup had changed to
David Gans <tnf>, Emily Gertz <emilyg> and yours truly <jonl>.
  

    
Coming up next week, September 19th through October 2: Wagner James
Au will discuss his new book, _Making a Metaverse That Matters: From
Snow Crash and Second Life to A Virtual World Worth Fighting For_.
It's an up-close account from the world's first metaverse-embedded
reporter - WJA was a white-suited avatar named "Hamlet Au," the
first embedded journalist in a virtual world, Second Life, beginning
in 2003. 

"In Making a Metaverse That Matters: From Snow Crash & Second Life
to A Virtual World Worth Fighting For, the celebrated author of The
Making of Second Life and Game Design Secrets, Wagner James Au,
delivers an engrossing exploration of how nascent metaverse
platforms have already captured the imagination of millions."
<https://www.wiley.com/en-us/Making+a+Metaverse+That+Matters%3A+From+Snow+Crash
+%26+Second+Life+to+A+Virtual+World+Worth+Fighting+For-p-9781394155828>

Please join us for this compelling conversation.
  

    
Coming up on Inkwell, Jan 30 - Feb 12: the State of the News, with
veteran journalists and journalism educators John Schwartz and Paula
Span.

On her website paulaspan.com, Paula describes herself as "an alumna
of the alternative press and Boston University." A former longtime
reporter for The Washington Post, since 2009 Paula has been writing
the "New Old Age" column for The New York Times. The essays she
wrote for another Times column, "Generation Grandparent," have been
adapted into an audio book titled "The Bubbe Diaries" in 2021, and
is now working on a book about octogenarians. Paula is a longtime
adjunct faculty member of the Columbia Graduate School of
Journalism.

John recently traded in his 30+-year reporting career for being a
professor of journalism at the University of Texas at Austin, where
he is also associate director of U.T.'s Global Sustainability
Leadership Institute. John covered science, technology and climate
for 21 years at The New York Times, following stints as a business
reporter/senior business editor for Newsweek Magazine and a science
reporter for The Washington Post. His books include "Oddly Normal:
One Family's Struggle to Help Their Teenage Son Come to Terms with
His Sexuality," and "This Is the Year I Put My Financial Life in
Order.”

As fellow members of The WELL, I have long had the amazing luck (as
a journalist) to benefit from Paula and John's support and
knowledge, and am far from the only person here who enjoys their
takes on news coverage, business, personalities and practice (not to
mention life, the universe and everything). 

jonl, gans and I look forward to hosting them on Inkwell to explore
teaching, creating and consuming the news in 2024.
  

    
Ohh, good event!