garbagescout blog

Spimes are virtual objects first and actual objects second. Bruce Sterling, another bullshitter*, invented the word. He doesn’t hunt for his shoes in the morning, he googles them.

[SXSW speech - 23M, 48 minutes]

(Thanks to Brian Cohen for the link.)

“The semantic web is turning into a wetlands of language.” “A theory object [like ’spime’] is a word that is a platform for development.”

He’s created a ‘theory object’ which will soon have a web site, a wiki, and an FAQ.

How is this relevant to garbagescout? In the future, you will keep track of your objects automatically throughout their life.

* Why do I call him a bullshitter? Not because I think he is always lying, or bacause I dislike him, but because I believe he often makes statements which seek to create an impression on the listener, but which are not germane to the enterprise of describing reality.

I learned about the book Possum Living from this Fark thread. From the preamble:

Do you want to get out of the rat race but not drop out? Do you want to live a life of leisure without worry or guilt? If your answer is yes, Dolly Freed will show you how to live well without a job and without working very hard.

Uh, the answers would be yes and yes. But this book goes way beyond finding free stuff. For instance, it covers raising rabbits in your basement for food. Should you choose this path, I salute you.

Then, as I walked down Second Avenue towards St. Mark’s Place,
where all those people sell used books and other junk on the street,
I saw my penis lying on a blanket
next to a broken toaster oven.
Some guy was selling it.
I had to buy it off him.
He wanted twenty-two bucks, but I talked him down to seventeen.
I took it home, washed it off,
and put it back on. I was happy again. Complete.

- King Missile, Detatchable Penis

It’s anyone’s guess.

At this point it’s still receiving some excellent press, and I’ve gotten a lot of very insightful comments and suggestions from users and bloggerz. A lot of people want to see it expand to other cities, but that probably will have to wait until I have more than 3 or 4 regular posters on the New York City site. I think the concept’s good but it won’t be useful until the user base expands.

After that, there are other directions to take the basic concept of immediate, geographically specific, anonymous or semi-anonymous communication. So many!

Thanks very much especially to those posting stuff to the site. I don’t know who you are, but you rule. For me, at this point, posting is more motivated by my interest in trash than by a sense that people will actually find stuff through the site. I have to post stuff. It’s a compulsion that replaces my hording compulsion.

I think, though, that at some point soon this site can become a useful tool. For instance, I could use a monitor right now. Doesn’t have to be fancy…