links for 2009-03-04

"Now, my larger suspicion here -- let's call it a hypothesis -- is that there is some grand unified theory for speculative cultural activity. In other worlds, "speculative culture" is not a crazy-quilt, it is a nexus. Every creative discipline has methods to shake up its preconceptions and think inventively. I want to catalog, compare and contrast those methods. I surmise that they have some inner unity, a consilience. If there's no such thing, then that's a useful discovery, too.

Since I am a writer, the first deliverable for this project is a book, the book to be called "User's Guide to Imaginary Gadgets." Composing a book is my own way to test the waters: to create a work that would be a typical "Speculative Culture" book. The very act of writing books creates culture. So, perhaps we'll do some useful work here."

...echoes of the Whole Earth Catalog as discussed in _From Counterculture to Cyberculture_ -- a catalog for speculative future technologist lifestyles?