Essays listed alphabetically

Del.icio.us was an early bookmarking site, that began in 2003, was bought, mismanaged and sold by Yahoo, and then relaunched under new owners in 2011, arguably after its moment had long passed.

At its height, in 2008, the service claimed more than 5.3 million users and 180 million unique bookmarked URLs. The site had three urls. The first two were amusing (but difficult to remember) hacks around the .us domain: de.icio.us and later delicio.us. The third (and current) domain is delicious.com.

In September 2005 the site looked like this:

In February 2008, it looked like this:

Today, January 30 2013, it looks like this:

The middle image shows Del.icio.us three years after they had been bought by Yahoo. Clearly, whatever Yahoo did or din’t do with the site, they didn’t spend a lot of time or money on its design.

A much fuller history of the site is available at Wikipedia.

Pixelache is “is a transdisciplinary platform for experimental art, design, research and activism”. I have been aware of it for several years, and I have occasionally attended workshops. Last year In 2011 became more involved, and organised a Virtuality Grand Tour in the autumn. I then helped with Camp Pixelache in summer 2012, where I met Vinay Gupta for the first time.

After this I joined the board, and I am now a board member.

According to the Pixelache web site, among

our fields of interest are: experimental interaction and electronics; renewable energy production/use; bioarts and art-science culture; grassroot organising and networks; politics and economics of media/technology; alternative economic cultures; VJ culture and audiovisual performances; media literacy and engaging environmental issues.

The name of Pixelache was found in an article that predicted new words which we would need in future. The word ‘pixelache’ (similar to ‘headache’) was supposed to describe the feeling that results from an overdose of digital media content. This overdose can happen easily if the content is too monotonic – which is the case if standards, formats, tools and design principles converge to a narrow set of options.

Pixelache wants to challenge mainstream standards and conventions, not only related to media and technology, but in the contemporary society in general.

At the time I first became seriously involved, Pixelache operated from an office in the Cable Factory. At the end of 2012 the organisation moved to new premises in Suvilahti at Kaasutehtaankatu 1/21 in Rakennus/Building 7.

[googlemap src=”https://maps.google.com/maps?q=Kaasutehtaankatu+1/21&ie=UTF-8&ei=LzoKUbmTI8KG4ATTmoCoAw&ved=0CAsQ_AUoAA”]

Zucchini is a small vegetarian restaurant in the centre of Helsinki.

Its address is Fabianinkatu 4, 00130 Helsinki, and its phone number is (09) 622 2907. Oddly, or at least interestingly, it does not seem to have a web site, although a Google search brings up a lot of reviews from different tourism sites.

It is about five minutes walk from Kaisaniemi metro station.

[googlemap src=”https://maps.google.com/maps?q=zucchini+fabianinkatu+4&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&ei=XzEKUbrzCcrm4QSezoCIBg&ved=0CAgQ_AUoADgU”]

Stefan introduced me to Zucchini in November 2012, as a meeting place where we could also have lunch.

The room is perhaps just too small and crowded to be a comfortable meeting place, but as a place to have lunch it is truly excellent. In fact, I would say that the lunch is so excellent as to make it worth risking a slightly cramped meeting.