links for 2009-10-16

  • How Long is Your City’s Tail? — O’Reil­ly Radar
    Although I see a lot to agree with here (pro­vid­ing access to city data is a good thing). I can’t help but wince at the tech­no-opti­mism ooz­ing from this piece. The author seems to think the aver­age cit­i­zen is flu­ent in data­ma­nip­u­la­tion. Geeks are also flock­ing to this city as a plat­form stuff because it’s shiny new tech. But they’re for­get­ting about all the mun­dane infra­struc­tures reg­u­lar peo­ple are already deal­ing with, and need help with, which the tech­no-elite have for­got­ten about, since, well, it’s got­ten bored with it.
    (tags: tech­nol­o­gy cities plat­forms data long­tail gov­ern­ment)

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Kars Alfrink

Kars is a designer, researcher and educator focused on emerging technologies, social progress and the built environment.