卦Trigram 2.0
Asian Snowcrash

• The Times: Ditching the office is the most modern way to operate these days, it seems.
• Paul Graham: In an artificial world, only extremists live naturally.

The Guardian has an interesting piece on Beijing’s music scene…. no idea if I’ll have time to get to any gigs, but Beijing is a really happening place, with all sorts of underground and overground cultural stuff going on…

Just as with TED, the LIFT08 conference has a large number of utterly fascinating videos of their speakers online. A few days ago, I was watching the keynote speech by Bruce Sterling, and at the end was not impressed. I came away with the impression of a rant about Nicolas Sarkozy and Carla Bruni, who really aren’t a big presence on my Asian radar. I even went so far as to comment in an email to Niti that I’d been disappointed. Still… I guess I should have wondered about that; I’ve been a really big fan of his books. I put it down to an off-day and thought no more about it.

As it happens, I’m a long-time RSS subscriber to Pasta & Vinegar, blogged by Nicolas Nova - who also happens to be LIFT organizer. This morning I opened up a post about Bruce’s speech, which made me go back and watch the video again… and OK, now I see what he was doing. I should have known better than to think that he would have gotten tied up in a discussion of celebrity gossip

In my defence, I can point out that a) I seem to have been far from the only person who didn’t catch the point, and b) which is far more relevant, I’m only a few days away from moving to Beijing, and I didn’t have my full attention on the video. In fact, rather more than half of my attention was at that point devoted to packing, shredding, putting aside for recycling, or otherwise attending to, my dwindling pile of possessions…

So, lesson learned: when Bruce Sterling speaks, give your full attention or you’ll miss something important!

I was impressed as well by Jasmina Tesanovic’s presentation. She was talking about Radio B92, the student radio station that evolved into the multimedia channel for dissent in Slobodan Milosovic’s Serbia. I was following what they were doing at the time, ie mid 90s, especially because they were very innovative in their use of the internet; furthermore, I’ve only just finished reading Matthew Collins’ Guerrilla Radio, which tells the story of B92 during that period - and in which Jasmina’s name appears more than a few times! (Bruce and Jasmina also happen to be married now, which is why I mention them both here!).

I’ve just found Tim O’Reilly’s report from the Beijing Foo Camp, posted a week ago. It chimes with everything I feel about Beijing after my time there, and in particular, this:

There are (reportedly) very large differences between the tech cultures in Shanghai and Beijing. Shanghai is very entrepreneurial, with money as a common language. Beijing is more complex, richer by most opinions, but more difficult. We might have felt more at home in Shanghai, but because of the complex interactions between government, academic institutions (which are centered in Beijing), the artistic revival here, and business, many felt that the future is here in Beijing. Of course, they also said that the rivalry between the two cities is like the rivalry between LA and New York.

I totally agree - and it’s one of the reasons why I keep touting Beijing as one of the most interesting places in the world to be right now - and why I’m going back next year

The whole of Tim’s post is worth reading for his thoughts on Beijing, China, and the tech/arts scene.