1. An Idea: Smart Auto-Biography and 'The Blockchain'
(or 'How I learned to drink more water, measure time and that analogue dog shit smells better in the digital present'):
In 1976, somewhere on a council estate called Bilborough, on Nottingham's west side, just before the Derbyshire Dales begin with Sandiacre and 'Il'ston', I was running around playing football and climbing trees and riding my new Grifter bike - more trouble free than I'd ever have imagined then...
Somehow, I was aware that 'punk' had happened. Not in the way that my 8 year old self might now be aware, but in a distanced, filtered, image and text free sense, which for me basically boiled down to a fetishisation of a blue and red striped jersey. I was only vaguely aware it could've been worn by someone from The Clash - or more likely, one of their already more commercially savvy imitators - let's say Tenpole Tudor, for example (apologies to Tenpole https://youtu.be/5AywIL5_eYM if his intentions - and his 10,000 swords were no less than authentic).
I do vaguely remember it being a now famously long hot summer and I can remember 'playing out' for hours without water under a scorching sun and then lying on my back prostrate with dehydration, smelling of grass and maybe dog shit and noticing how a violet sky holds infinite miniscule stars which seem to form our whole vision. The focus of my thought then was: What really is SIX weeks - and how can it ever end? Isn't SIX weeks, in fact, the same as Forever?...
Then, of course after a succession of blissful days like that one, it would end. A new teacher, new responsibilities, new younger folk, and just new - everything is new when you're 8... and then you turn 9. Girls appear. They hold your hand during BBC schools sessions and play games with names only girls know which involve intimidation - blindfolds - and kissing. If Suzanne Butler is anywhere out there (and Samantha Smith for that) I think we are still married...
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Its the 2nd February 2017 now - spacetime star dates. I'm writing this in the Norfolk Millennium Library AKA The Forum - a hugely successful glass brick and aluminium edifice built in ___ by ____ and now the most popularly frequented library in England. I find myself writing a research proposal which has something to do with things like: " The Blockchain Scalability Problem and it's gossip protocols" and - “19thC Principles of cooperation, mutuality etc... being given fresh legs by C21 technology. The blockchain supports mutuality, co-operation, and shared venturing much more than the C20 phenomenon of the LTD company - discuss".
I miss grass - and dog shit - and maybe Suzanne Butler - a bit.
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The interesting thing about this new bit of writing is that I am aware of two things: 1. Ive got to tell my story. I'm convinced we all do - or should, as no-one else will and 2. I know very little about the business of rights clearances when I add in links like the one above from 'Eddie Tudor' (think that was his name...). Since all of our lives get lived to a soundtrack and image board of pop music and films - an auto biography might be a paler thing without some of that background.
Part of my thesis, research project and business start-up idea revolves around these two poles: One - the urge to create and Two - the need to give credit and to pay and be paid - as a creator. One of the more interesting things about my current dalliance (research interest) with 'Blockchain' ( a rather germane if not prosaic word on which to pin the hopes of the next politico-technological revolution) is that it seems to propose a future solution to both problems at once. If our Eddie Tenpole ( or, more likely his corporate rights holder - I will go look that up - see footnotes) has attached a blockchain code with smart contract and payment details under license arrangements etc to the digital file I'm using, then I don't need my publishers legal department anymore to cite his song. That is surely good for him ( or his rights holder) me and you - dear reader. The only sufferer in our happy peer to peer arrangement is my publishing department and my publisher and since I have neither - all's well in the state of Blockchain Media - if only I can find a way to Ascribe https://www.ascribe.io/ it. (Footnotes here will point out that 'Acribe' has been taken over by: https://www.coalaip.org/. Make of that what you will. The elegant site created by those 3 Berlin based young entrepreneurs was much more elegant and seemingly user-friendly...)
But hey, those of you interested in Blockchain may not be interested in my long hot summers and those (fewer?) of you who might be probably don't want to hear about 'blockchains'...
Ever on with the vanity publish on demand research cum autobiography that this would appear to want to be: "Publish On Demand And Be Damned" being the slightly updated equivalent of an old maxim.
------
(or 'How I learned to drink more water, measure time and that analogue dog shit smells better in the digital present'):
In 1976, somewhere on a council estate called Bilborough, on Nottingham's west side, just before the Derbyshire Dales begin with Sandiacre and 'Il'ston', I was running around playing football and climbing trees and riding my new Grifter bike - more trouble free than I'd ever have imagined then...
Somehow, I was aware that 'punk' had happened. Not in the way that my 8 year old self might now be aware, but in a distanced, filtered, image and text free sense, which for me basically boiled down to a fetishisation of a blue and red striped jersey. I was only vaguely aware it could've been worn by someone from The Clash - or more likely, one of their already more commercially savvy imitators - let's say Tenpole Tudor, for example (apologies to Tenpole https://youtu.be/5AywIL5_eYM if his intentions - and his 10,000 swords were no less than authentic).
I do vaguely remember it being a now famously long hot summer and I can remember 'playing out' for hours without water under a scorching sun and then lying on my back prostrate with dehydration, smelling of grass and maybe dog shit and noticing how a violet sky holds infinite miniscule stars which seem to form our whole vision. The focus of my thought then was: What really is SIX weeks - and how can it ever end? Isn't SIX weeks, in fact, the same as Forever?...
Then, of course after a succession of blissful days like that one, it would end. A new teacher, new responsibilities, new younger folk, and just new - everything is new when you're 8... and then you turn 9. Girls appear. They hold your hand during BBC schools sessions and play games with names only girls know which involve intimidation - blindfolds - and kissing. If Suzanne Butler is anywhere out there (and Samantha Smith for that) I think we are still married...
-----
Its the 2nd February 2017 now - spacetime star dates. I'm writing this in the Norfolk Millennium Library AKA The Forum - a hugely successful glass brick and aluminium edifice built in ___ by ____ and now the most popularly frequented library in England. I find myself writing a research proposal which has something to do with things like: " The Blockchain Scalability Problem and it's gossip protocols" and - “19thC Principles of cooperation, mutuality etc... being given fresh legs by C21 technology. The blockchain supports mutuality, co-operation, and shared venturing much more than the C20 phenomenon of the LTD company - discuss".
I miss grass - and dog shit - and maybe Suzanne Butler - a bit.
------
The interesting thing about this new bit of writing is that I am aware of two things: 1. Ive got to tell my story. I'm convinced we all do - or should, as no-one else will and 2. I know very little about the business of rights clearances when I add in links like the one above from 'Eddie Tudor' (think that was his name...). Since all of our lives get lived to a soundtrack and image board of pop music and films - an auto biography might be a paler thing without some of that background.
Part of my thesis, research project and business start-up idea revolves around these two poles: One - the urge to create and Two - the need to give credit and to pay and be paid - as a creator. One of the more interesting things about my current dalliance (research interest) with 'Blockchain' ( a rather germane if not prosaic word on which to pin the hopes of the next politico-technological revolution) is that it seems to propose a future solution to both problems at once. If our Eddie Tenpole ( or, more likely his corporate rights holder - I will go look that up - see footnotes) has attached a blockchain code with smart contract and payment details under license arrangements etc to the digital file I'm using, then I don't need my publishers legal department anymore to cite his song. That is surely good for him ( or his rights holder) me and you - dear reader. The only sufferer in our happy peer to peer arrangement is my publishing department and my publisher and since I have neither - all's well in the state of Blockchain Media - if only I can find a way to Ascribe https://www.ascribe.io/ it. (Footnotes here will point out that 'Acribe' has been taken over by: https://www.coalaip.org/. Make of that what you will. The elegant site created by those 3 Berlin based young entrepreneurs was much more elegant and seemingly user-friendly...)
But hey, those of you interested in Blockchain may not be interested in my long hot summers and those (fewer?) of you who might be probably don't want to hear about 'blockchains'...
Ever on with the vanity publish on demand research cum autobiography that this would appear to want to be: "Publish On Demand And Be Damned" being the slightly updated equivalent of an old maxim.
------
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