electricity pole, transmission towers, cable - universal icons crossing earth's surface; physical markers helped structure fundamental changes in everyday life - instant comm on global scale; equipment around which cities were built

transportation and telecom infrastructures caused both expansion and contraction

impact of sound transmission of urban theory - telecom engineering absorbed by modernist architects - Lewis Mumford, Frank Lloyd Wright illustrated assimilation of modern tech landscape - management of suburban sprawl

Mumford: transportation (cars), communication (interpersonal comm -> telephone lines; "the telegraph symbolically follows the railroad..."; "radio is a potentially distributive and decentralizing agency...")

Wright: "all pole and wires overhead [will be] a bad memory of ugliness and danger"; "crude, utilitarian scaffolding...does violence to our own character..."

1890 NY: Bell started laying wire underground

New version of splitstree () can label branches by characters supporting them. Cool! #phylogenetics #networks

"Here there are feedback mechanisms that produce more affect and pleasure – for instance the feedback involved in tuning a musical instrument, sound system or a radio. Gardening also seems to be a rich area for examination – where there is frequent work, but the sensual and systemic rewards are tangible." Beautiful work, as ever: I really liked the rewards-for-effort they point out.

"So over the last few months BERG and Ericsson have been working in partnership to explore some practical and poetic approaches to networks and smart products. We have been developing concepts around the rituals and rhythms of life with connected things, and creating some visualisations based on network behaviours."

"I think of a line by my friend Jennifer, who has worked on the New York Times app and hand-made artists’ books, and says the only difference between the two is “the velocity of the material”. I think that the physical and the digital are inseparable in culture in the same way that waves and particles are inseparable in light. I think the network permeates all things, is an extension of the eye, which is an extension of mind. It is all made of light."

"If everything goes to plan, Segerstrale believes that EA's numerous connected games will capture players' attention whether they're using their console, their mobile device, or their favorite social network." Can I just say HOW DUMB it is to in effect make me feel like I've been forced to play ME3 multiplayer and Infiltrator just to get a better war readiness rating so I have a chance at the "good ending"? Ham-fisted forcing of engagement, no thanks.