EFF's net.culture archives
Files available in this archive
- Richard Curtis on the Internet
- File containing an article from UK's Guardian newspaper. Richard Curtis, screenwriter for "Blackadder" (a successful British comedy series) and the movie "Four Weddings and a Funeral," offers a humorous look at the Internet from the view of a novice user.
- Cyberspace Bibliography
- Anne Balsamo's bibliography of Cyberspace, Cyberpunk, Electronic Communication, and Postmodernism materials. (March 1993)
- Cyborg Links
- Links to cyber anthropology resources.
- History of the ethernet
- George Gilder's history of the ethernet entitled "Metcalf's Law and Legacy," first published in Forbes ASAP. (September 13, 1993)
- The Implications of Electronic Information for the Sociology of Knowledge
- Richard A. Lanham, professor of English, UCLA. "This paper argues that the fundamental "operating system" for the humanities is changing from the book to the digital multimedia computer screen. It outlines the consequences of this move for the creation, performance, teaching, and study of literature, music, and the visual arts. It concludes with a suggestion for how this movement from page to digital display might inform the administrative changes forced upon the university by the current shortage of money."
- History of the Internet
- Geof Bowker's remarks as discussant on three very interesting papers on the history of the Internet at the recent conference of the Society for Social Studies of Science at the University of Virginia.
- A Short History of the Internet
- Bruce Sterling, published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. (February 1993)
- Beyond Orality/Literacy Dichotemy: James Joyce and the Prehistory of Cyberspace
- Donald Theall links the work of Joyce and his modernist contemporaries to the development of electric communication and to the prehistory of cyberspace and virtual reality. (1992)
- The History of the Net
- Henry Edward Hardy. (Sept 1993)
- The Net and Netizens: The Impact the Net has on People's Lives
- Michael Hauben. "We are seeing a revitalization of society. The frameworks are being redesigned from the bottom up. A new more democratic world is becoming possible."
- Overhearing the Internet
- Robert Wright surveys what the internet is and ponders its social consequences. (1993)
- Usenet FAQ
- Jerry Schwarz, Gene Spafford, Mark Moraes. (March 1994)
- What is Cyberspace?
- David G.W. Birch & S. Peter Buck, Hyperion. The authors see cyberpsace as comprising "computers, telecommunications, software and data in a more abstract form," with the core being the Net, and see the works of such cyberpunk authors as William Gibson as being not-so-far-flung extensions of the realities that exist today and accurate predictions of the not-so-distant future.
- What is the Internet?
- Paul Jones.
- What is Usenet?
- Chip Salzenberg, Gene Spafford. (July 19, 1992)
- What is the Internet, Anyway?
- John S. Quarterman, Smoot Carl-Mitchell. Introductory, and easy to read description of what the Internet really is, published in Matrix News. (1994)
Subdirectories available in this archive
- Artificial_life
- Adventures in artificial intelligence and
artificial life! Articles in this directory include information
about the philosophy, technology and social issues surrounding
humanity's attempt to create life.
- Consciousness
- What does it mean to think and how are our views of self
and other affected by the profound forces of Cyberia/Third
Wave/Information Era? This directory explores our understanding of the
mind, consciousness, personality, identity, etc...
- Criticisms
- This directory includes criticisms of Information Era
society and general warnings about how not to overexagerate the utopian
possibilities of a wired globe.
- Cyberpunk
- "The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned
to a dead channel" - William Gibson. What will society be like in the
near future? This directory focuses on one genre of futurists, the
Cyberpunks, who present a particularly dystopic version of information
society.
- Cyborg_anthropology
- "Given the rate of change of biological
evolution, and the fact that homo sapiens began appearing around 500,000
years ago, we're about due for some sort've evolutionary shift" -
Selena Sol. This directory focusses on how technology infiltrates
the body and what changes that process invokes in humanity.
- Ethnic_studies
- How will the division between info haves and have-nots
be affected by traditional racial/ethnic lines? And how can we mold our
future in ways that discontinue previous mistakes and evils? This
directory deals with race, ethnicity and culture, in Cyberia, and
includes information about how cyberian societies will manage diveristy
and conflict.
- Folklore
- Including directories like Games, Hoaxes, Humor, Chain
Letters, Art, Flaming, and Spam, this directory attempts to survey the
newly developing folklore of the net.
- Gender_issues
- How are the traditional issues relating to gender
affected by the new social media? This directory covers such issues as
gender swapping on the net, gendered linguistics in computer mediated
communication, and gender issues in technology or technological
disciplines.
- Global_village
- The net is by nature a global creature. It is a sorry
mistake to conceive of it legally, philosophically, or politically in
terms of national, bordered states. This directory explores online
jurisdiction and sovereignty issues, and the deterioration of the
nation-state in cyberspace, as well as the policy and historical changes
that such a transformation promotes. Also includes material about the
development of networking around the world.
- Hackers
- "Mentor was a hacker zealot who regarded computer intrusion as
something close to a moral duty" - Bruce Sterling. This directory is
devoted to thge anthropology of hackers, phreaks, crackers and their
emerging culture. Hackers are to information as the underground
railroad was to the slaves. Information wants to be free.
- Handicapped_access
- Directory of information relating to online access
for the handicapped/disabled.
- Infotopia
- This directory includes all the wonderful (but
questionably practical) visions of Information Era Paradise.
- Linguistics
- Computer mediated.communication creates wholly new ways
for humans to speak. Both empowering and limited as a form of
communication, CMC, includes :) abilities and :( problems. This
directory includes information on the effects of CMC on human
communiation and the emerging linguistic rules and customs. "The
discovery of the alphabet will create forgetfulness in the learners'
souls" - Aristotle.
- MOO_MUD_IRC
- This directory is devoted to the anthropology of Intenet
Relay Chat, Multi-User Domains, and other real-time online
inter-personal communication.
- Misc
- Miscellaneous unsorted information
- Net_info
- Basic Internet technical and introductory information
- Postmodernism
- This directory deals with the postmodern philosophy and
how it relates to the living experiences of cyberians.
- Ritual
- Sex, Drugs, and Dance in Cyberia.
- Statistics
- This directory includes all the statistics that we've been
able to gather. Because oif the decentralized nature of the net,
gathering statistics is particularly difficult and begins to show how
Newtonian concepts of information management break down in the new era.
Statistics become limited, if not useless, in a truly complex adaptive
systems!
- Virtual_reality
- A general catch-all directory for things having to to
with "virtual reality", including technical as well as philosophical
and editorial discussions of VR.
- Virtual_community
- How are virtual communities different than
communities IRL? This directory focuses on the virtual community, the
problems they face and the power of connectivity they grant.
Related EFF Pages
- Net Information Archive
- This directory contains miscellaneous networking information,
some of it very outdated and here fo historical purposes
only, including guidebooks such as EFF's Guide to the Internet,
resource lists, beginner and introductory information,
Internet/Usenet technical documents, and more.
Related Off-Site Pages
- Cosmopolis,
a magazine on current affairs and culture in German and English
- List of links to
Cyborg Anthropology pages.
- Cybersociology Newsgroups (Note:only available to you if your site
carries them!)
- alt.2600 Hierarchy
- alt.comp.academic-freedom
- alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk
- alt.comp.acad-freedom.news
- alt.culture.internet
- alt.culture.usenet
- alt.cyberpunk
- alt.cyberpunk.movement
- alt.cyberpunk.tech
- alt.cyberpunk.chatsubo
- alt.cyberspace
- alt.discordia
- alt.extropians
- alt.folklore.computers
- alt.hackers
- alt.industrial
- alt.life.internet
- alt.memetics
- alt.music.techno
- alt.net.personalities
- alt.rave
- alt.security
- alt.security.pgp
- alt.soc.ethics
- alt.techno-shamanism
-
alt.uu.virtual-worlds.misc
- alt.virtual hierarchy
- alt.wired
- comp.admin.policy
- comp.ai Hierarchy
- comp.org.cspr News and talk
- comp.org.eff.talk
- comp.patents
- comp.risks
- comp.security.misc
- comp.security.unix
- comp.society
- comp.society.privacy
- comp.virus
- misc.legal.computing
- misc.legal.moderated
- news.admin.policy
- rec.arts.bodyart
- rec.music.ambient
- rec.music.industrial
- sci.crypt
- sci.virtual Hierarchy
- sci.virtual-worlds
- soc.net-people
- talk.politics.crypto
