Talk about the newspaper I made at Chirp Hackday of news items shared by friends of friends of @ev and @biz and how and why I made it.

1. Making newspapers
out of newspapers
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and the new serendipity
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Chris Thorpe, September 11th 2010, London
@jaggeree

2. I really rather like newspapers

3. Actually, that’s not true.

4. I love them.

5. They’re wonderful.

6. Wonder & magic. Every day. $1.00 ✭ ✭ ✭ ✭ ✭

7. A personal illustration.
1960sMan
I’m really quite surprised, I only thought you could
use this speech bubble shape for things people
had said on #twitter

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• In 1998 I travelled to New York. Photo Kriston Lewis •
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• bear with it, there is a point to this story, it will get somewhere soon. •
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• Honest. It will. It really will. Somewhere about how unexpected •
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• things will suddenly emerge out of nowhere and transform your life, •
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• either by telling you about things you had no idea you wanted to •
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• know about, or in this case about just the sort of thing you really •
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• wanted to know about, but wouldn’t have a clue where it was. •
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http://www.flickr.com/photos/87634257@N00/255224254/sizes/z/in/photostream/
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11. MUSIC
It’s more fun to compute...
Kraftwerk
Hammerstein Ballroom, June 1998
In a wonderful moment of pure chance I found myself next to a hip-hop fan and
before the concert we had a fascinating conversation about how Kraftwerk had
influenced New York hip-hop, with me telling him of the influences on the UK
techno scene and also on Detroit house.
Through happenstance of seating (proximity) and a shared interest we each

12. magic

13. TRAVEL
SoHo Grand Hotel
310 West Broadway, New York, NY 10013
Haven’t stayed here in years, but very good restaurant and excellent
cocktails, rooms could be a lot bigger though (although I was in the
cheapest ones). Very lovely and relaxing. As long as you’re not on
the side of the hotel facing the five way junction.
Most memorable moment, checking in just as Massive Attack were
checking out. I felt we could have shared a moment. I was wrong.
Reading the New York Times when I flopped tired onto my bed
made me immediately go outside and do the most obvious thing
you rarely do in New York and look up.

14. Whiteread’s water tower is
like a beacon in daylight sky.
The first thing that strikes you about Rachel Whiteread’s monumental
water tower is how it seems to pull in the sun and radiate it back over the
SoHo skyline. It literally glows,
A perfect cast of the iconic New York water towers in pure crystal clear
resin, the tower is possibly one of Whiteread’s most simple, yet complex
pieces. Not only does the object represent the negative space of the water
tower, it mimics the interior contents of the vessel, encouraging you to
imagine a tower, full to the brim, and then stipped of it’s outer jacket.
Frozen in space and time.

15. Wonder

16. But, I worry

17. What if they disappear? I’d be lost in many ways.

18. There is a reason why they do what they do.

20. 2 in fact.

21. CURATION

22. serendipity (sɛrənˈdɪpɪtɪ)
1754 (but rare before 20c.), coined by Horace Walpole (1717-92)in a
letter to Mann (dated Jan. 28); he said he formed it from thePersian
fairy tale "The Three Princes of Serendip," whose heroes"were always
making discoveries, by accidents and sagacity, of things they were not
in quest of." The name is from Serendip, an old name for Ceylon
(modern Sri Lanka), from Arabic Sarandib, from Skt. Simhaladvipa
"Dwelling-Place-of-Lions Island." Serendipitous formed c.1950.
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper

23. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serendipity

24. there are precise mechanics at play

26. 2 at least...

27. GAMEYNESS

28. Finishability

29. New York Times
Weekend Edtion
Chances of buying
Chances of finishing
Chances of finishing unaided
“The weekend edition is the end
of level boss of newspapers, there
is almost no chance of
vanquishing it unless you play in
two player co-operative mode”

30. Progress bars

31. Mass of Paper moves
✭✭✭✭✭
from right hand to left

32. Mass of Paper moves
✭✭✭✭✭
from right hand to left

33. Mass of Paper moves
✭✭✭✭✭
from right hand to left

34. Mass of Paper moves
✭✭✭✭✭
from right hand to left

35. Mass of Paper moves
✭✭✭✭✭
from right hand to left

36. Mass of Paper moves
✭✭✭✭✭
from right hand to left

37. Mass of Paper moves
✭✭✭✭✭
from right hand to left

38. Mass of Paper moves
✭✭✭✭✭
from right hand to left

39. Mass of Paper moves
✭✭✭✭✭
from right hand to left

40. Pristine smooth pages become crumpled

41. Pristine smooth pages become crumpled

42. Neat stack becomes shuffled

43. Neat stack becomes shuffle d

44. Neat stack becomes shuffl e
d

45. Neat stack becomes shuf fl e
d

46. Neat stack becomes shu ffl e
d

47. Neat stack becomes sh u ffl e
d

48. Neat stack becomes sh u ffl e
d

49. Neat stack becomes sh u ffl e
d

50. Neat stack becomes sh u ffl e
d

51. Finishability
makes us read everything
(for fear of missing out)

52. JUXTAP
OSITION

53. THINGS YOU KNOW YOU WANT
It’s all about
proximity
Serendipity in newspapers is so much about physical proximity on
the printed page. It’s not just newspapers, radio does this too. As
do music compilations. Things you already know about and are
interested in, throug the sheer physicality of the objects and
through curatorial design are placed next to things you either knew
about, but weren’t previously interested in, or things you never
knew existed.
THINGS YOU NEVER KNEW ABOUT
Ooh, look at that, I
never knew about
that, tell me more.
See, and now you’re reading it and you’re either not interested and
have moved on, or you’re reading it intently and have either found
something new to love or to learn about.

54. what else does this?

55. The new serendipity
••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
but is it really?
••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
Chris Thorpe, Friday 10th September 12pm. RIBA Cafe. || 51.521321 , -0.144871
Well yes and no, these folks are filters of me, I choose them and
select them for what they bring to me.
Obviously they bring more than just links to cool stuff and
Coatseian point at things links, they bring conversation and
friendship and wonder.
But they are a filter, a facet of me. And are this not truly
serendipitous. What is though?
Tweetie. Sometime around Friday lunchtime.
Screenshot, models own.

56. Clay visits The Guardian, gets asked a semi flippant question
involving the phrase “Chatroulette for News”. Fortunately
gives a serious answer. Photo Joi Ito
The question was from your’s truly and was a serious one about where the
new serendipity came from in the light of my thoughts about filtering on the
previous page.
His answer was that yes, we should build Chatroulette for News, but that
also he thought it was friends of friends, which was my suspicion too.

57. Internet caught up in
strange addiction to
random news stories
Faster than I could get out of a meeting to do something far
less elegant, Dan had made it. And deployed it and
everyone was grinning. In the next 24 hours people were
fighting off addictions to randomly delivered news and
discovering all sorts of wonderful things.
Dan Vydra. Pythonista and creator of
The Random Guardian. Photo Dan Vydra

58. Friends
The people I’m friends with,
my filter have similar interests
to me, some personal, some
professional.
They are facets or filters of me,
I may have already seen what
they share and they’re too close
to be totally serendipitous.
They also know me and will
sometimes gift me links and
cuttings out of kindness. These
will largely be about shared
interests.
Illustration: Chris Thorpe. Neither I or my friends are drawn to scale, it just feels that way.

59. Friends of
friends
Are farther out, their shared
interests with my friends may
be part of why I find my friends
interesting. Some of these
people will share things of
extreme interest to me and
somtimes will share things that
I don’t even know I’m
interested in yet. They’re less a Ooh
,
filter of me. why you’re
don in
’t I k teresti
now ng
you ,
yet
Footnote: Friends of friends also not to scale.

60. TECHNOLOGY AND TRAVEL
Chirp Hackday
San Francisco
Hackday
Seating
Discovering a volcano had messed up your travel plans
A day, sitting on a very uncomfortable picnic bench (although it did
have network connectivity) or sitting at a hotel desk when I got too
numb to sit on the picnic bench any more.
Coding: 12 hours
Coffee drunk: 4-7 cups (went a bit hazy after 4)
Muffins eaten: 2-ish
CPU hours on Google AppEngine: 49 hours
Task queue items: about 25,000 (had to ask for more)
A hackday. With picnic benches. Does not want.
Photo Laughingsquid

63. How do they make that?
Man (or woman) beams Twitter beams to man (or Man beams thoughts at
thought of what to share woman) what their friend computer to write code to
at Twitter had beamed at them. decode who shares what
and makes newspaper
out of it.

64. How do they make that?
get follows
StringList

65. How do they make that?
get follows
StringList get follows
Sharded StringList

66. How do they make that?
get follows
StringList get follows
Sharded StringList
get follows
Sharded Fulltext

67. How do they make that?
get shares
get follows String
StringList get follows
Sharded StringList
get follows
Sharded Fulltext

68. How do they make that?
Find a route back, from right to left
get shares
get follows String
StringList get follows
Sharded StringList
get follows
Sharded Fulltext

69. How do they make that?
Find a route back, from right to left
get shares
get follows String
StringList get follows
Sharded StringList
get follows
Sharded Fulltext

70. How do they make that?
Find a route back, from right to left
get shares
get follows String
StringList get follows
Sharded StringList
get follows
Sharded Fulltext

71. ooh, MAGIC

82. THE FUTURE

83. Newspaper atom checklist
✓ Ink
✓ Paper
✓ Server power
✓ Printing press
✓ Links to content
✗ Content

84. An enormous “without who this would have been impossible” to...