The Struggle for Survival is an Incredible Waste of Time
Occupy Wall Street might have started in Zuccotti Park on September 17th, 2011, but it is streaming into 2012 attached to no particular stretch of land, except for those on Earth. Stories from the 99% are still pouring in from around the globe and the word ‘Occupy’ has been seen on signs from the Arctic tundra to Antarctica.
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What’s next?
What isn’t next?
Looking for something to track this month that doesn’t involve you eating better or exercising more?
Better understand your caffeinated ways with this DIY print from Column Five Media, on which you can paint the results using your coffee. If your wallet is light (and your eyes are good), you can try working with this preview image and check out their blog for clues on what you can’t read.
Meanwhile, if you’re not the tracking type, Coop is here to let you in on a little secret that can make a difference every day of the year.
[Chart via Laughing Squid]We’ve talked about SOPA, one of the Internet Blacklist Bills currently simmering in Congress, and the actions against it. We’ve also talked about the need to do business with the companies we want to see thrive, as opposed to just the ones who make it convenient. Now, the two are coming together.
Today, Go Daddy customers have been called on to transfer their domains as part of the #MoveYourDomain Day of action in protest of Go Daddy’s support of SOPA. As such, at midnight on this December 29th, 2011, Ape Con Myth initiated the transfer of the following domains:
ApeConMyth.com
SandwichCorp.com
TheShutUpSociety.com
TheParty.us
YellowTreeGranfalloon.org
They will now be residing with ACM’s hosting company, Dreamhost.
If you have a domain with Go Daddy, want to get out, but don’t know where to go with it, a few registrars are offering discounts along with donations to EFF for each transfer. And for those happy enough with Go Daddy’s reversal on SOPA, what are your feelings on elephants?
It wasn’t just crickets and then computers. Civilization has been wrestling with data since the start. Do a Google search and you’ll find that we’re still struggling to get a handle on what we know. Perhaps it would help to consider our approach historically. Wolfram|Alpha has prepared a special timeline of computable knowledge for just such an endeavor…
(click to explore the timeline)
Before December turns into a blur and we suddenly find ourselves deposited on the sure to be weird shores of 2012, let’s take a quick riffle through the soon to be scraps of 2011. So far Ape Con Myth has produced 225 posts this year. The most democratic way to look at it must be by the number of eyeballs drawn to it, so with no further ado…
Here’s the Top 11 posts of 2011:
11. Copyright Triple Threat – Meet S.968, S.978 and H.R. 3261 – November 1st
This action is still in play and there’s still time to add your voice to your representatives’ ears. It’s only the internet as you know it at stake.
10. The Self-Employed: Same As It Ever Was? – May 11th
Having a job shelters you from a lot of things, both good and bad.
9. Regarding Your Lack of Privacy Online – July 26th
If it’s not one thing, it’s the other.
8. You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet – April 20th
ACM’s first infographic, providing perspective on who has seen what online.
7. Wasted URLs: Color.com – March 28th
No comment.
6. @Peanutweeter – May 26th
The wonderful yet short-lived Peanutweeter, RIP.
5. 2007 U.S. GDP in Pie-Vision! – May 3rd
The culmination of many posts, this chart breaks down our national effort. It’s what we do.
4. Plato Sucks – April 19th
An easy win.
3. For the People in the Tents – November 14th
ACM’s proposed cover for Time’s Person of the Year issue in support of Occupy Wall Street and the 99%.
2. Moo Cow Moo Cow – September 13th
Apparently there is consistent demand for “cow moo” results on Google. This is the tortoise going for post of the decade.
1. Google’s Six Front War Visualized – July 14th
The runaway winner of 2011, with nearly 4 times the cow’s visits, a look at who Google is up against.
There you have it. Well, almost. Here’s the Top 3 Ape Con Myth thinks got away…
3. 2,000 Years of Darkness and Bafflement and Wonder – June 10th
A little something to get you into the holiday spirit.
2. GDP by NAICS (or, Here Come the Numbers) – July 12th
Still a work in progress, a presentation of Ape Con Myth’s favorite dataset, the North American Industry Classification System.
1. Conway’s Game of Life – April 12th
Fun with a cellular automaton. Whatever that means.
Thanks to everyone who has been reading!
A recent marketing study found that 79% of college students do not know how to scan QR codes and 75% considered themselves “not likely” to scan one in the future.
Good for them.
Not only is that a logical conclusion, but a sign that they might have better things to do. While there is plenty of fun to be had and useful things to be done with QR codes, when they are part of a marketing campaign, it’s a little like junk mail coming in the form of a puzzle you have to solve just to hear the pitch. As if what everyone’s day needs more of is extra steps.
QR codes? You know, for computers.
[via The Consumerist]
Soon after Nixon created the Environmental Protection Agency in 1970, the agency recruited a small army of photographers to document the state of the natural environment in the United States. The DOCUMERICA project collected over 20,000 photographs between 1971-1977 and along the way captured the state of American life itself, driving home the connection between the two.
The National Archives has digitized 15,000 of these images, selections of which can be found on Flickr or in their entirety through the Archival Research Catalog.
Your 70’s time machine awaits you…
(A D.C. parking lot during a bus strike in 1974 – Jim Pickerell/NARA)
An idea is better than no idea. In the face of run-away consumerism, perhaps the first step is slamming on the brakes. It won’t stop the train, but it could provide a much needed jolt.
Or you can wait for it to hit a wall, which always gets people’s attention.
That’s where we are now. But during tough times, over-consumption isn’t our problem. Remaining consumers, in the most basic sense, is the challenge now.
We need a new approach to spending. Looking at the current state of American economics and politics, the key could be a realization.
Spending is the new voting.
There’s not a corporation on Earth that can survive without customers. They exist purely on our whim. Support the ones you want to see thrive. Better yet, support the ones that want to see you thrive.
It isn’t easy. Convenience is making a lot of decisions these days. Who has the time to do more? If today could be used for anything, perhaps it should be to inconvenience ourselves. Rather than buy nothing, we could go out of our way to consider our spending more thoughtfully. To think about the businesses we default to and take the time to find alternatives to those we’d rather not be supporting.
We can call it Inconvenience Day. And unlike Buy Nothing Day, everyone camping out for Black Friday sales can say they participated too.
During hard times, being thankful for what we have comes a little easier. Here’s a map to help guide your thoughts of thanks in regards to food.
But before you breath a sign of relief over there being so much room to grow more, remember that only 29% of the Earth’s surface is land and only 9% of it is arable. And guess what, we’re not taking good care of it.
We have much to be thankful for, but it’s not a guaranteed condition. They’ll still call it Thanksgiving, even if there’s hardly anything on your plate. Just ask anyone with hardly anything on their plate.
[Map 1 from Radical Cartography, Map 2 from The Global Education Project]