Name: 2 - Introduction by Joseph Matheny
Duration: 26 min 9 s
Description: Ong's Hat: The Beginning by Joseph Matheny

Ong's Hat: The Beginning by Joseph Matheny

2 - Introduction

We get into a secret partnership between the New Orleans Police Department and Project NOLA, a private nonprofit organisation that owns and operates an extensive network of cameras blanketing New Orleans. For years, Project NOLA has been running live facial recognition through their cameras and sending automated notifications to the police when a match is made using Project NOLA’s privately maintained list of “wanted people.” By going through an unofficial private partner, police have been able to sidestep and undermine legal prohibition on their use of AI technologies like facial recognition. We get into the history of using New Orleans as a testbed for policing technology, the dangerous precedent being set by this public-private relationship, and how this surveillance nightmare is on track to become even more expansive and unleashed thanks to potential policy changes.

••• Police secretly monitored New Orleans with facial recognition cameras https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2025/05/19/live-facial-recognition-police-new-orleans/ 
••• A bad facial recognition match costs Jefferson Parish Sheriff Joe Lopinto's office. See how much https://www.nola.com/news/jefferson_parish/facial-recognition-sheriff/article_3ed262bc-e360-4383-82fb-728b3783cb93.html 
••• New Orleans City Council proposed ordinance https://cityofno.granicus.com/MetaViewer.php?view_id=42&clip_id=5115&meta_id=741682 

Standing Plugs:
••• Order Jathan’s new book: https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520398078/the-mechanic-and-the-luddite 
••• Subscribe to Ed’s substack: https://substack.com/@thetechbubble 
••• Subscribe to TMK on patreon for premium episodes: https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills

Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (bsky.app/profile/jathansadowski.com) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.x.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (bsky.app/profile/jebr.bsky.social)


411. Big Easy’s Big Brother

Moyers & Company's Michael Winship writes:

A week and a half ago, just as a blizzard was barreling up the East Coast, I traveled to my hometown, Canandaigua, NY, and before a standing-room-only audience of more than 400 at Finger Lakes Community College, had a conversation with author and climate activist Naomi Klein.

Our talk was part of the George M. Ewing Forum, named in honor of the late editor and publisher of our local newspaper. He was a worldly and informed man, dedicated to good talk and a lively exchange of ideas. The forum brings to town a variety of speakers each year, some of them from the area, others not.

The Finger Lakes region is a beautiful part of the country. As has often been said, it runs on water, and as I grew up, there was an increasing realization that what we have is an invaluable natural resource we could be in danger of losing. Over the years, the threats have grown ever more complex with greater hazards revealed as pollution and development have encroached on the landscape. As a result, much of our audience was composed of environmentalists and concerned citizens, including a contingent from We Are Seneca Lake, the grass roots campaign fighting against the use of crumbling salt mines under the hillsides to store fracked natural gas and liquefied petroleum gases. (One of its leaders is biologist, mother and Moyers & Company guest Sandra Steingraber.)

The conversation with Naomi Klein was billed as “Capitalism vs. The Climate: Reflections on the 2015 UN Climate Conference,” and while we certainly spoke a great deal about that recent climate agreement in Paris, our talk ranged more widely as we discussed her life and work, politics, the continuing right-wing denial of global warming, and the climate justice movement.

Naomi Klein is an award-winning journalist, syndicated columnist and author of the bestseller, The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. She’s a member of the board of directors for 350.org, the global grassroots movement to solve the climate crisis. Among many other honors, in 2015 she received The Izzy Award – named after the great writer and editor IF Stone -- celebrating outstanding achievement in independent journalism and media.

Klein's most recent book, This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs the Climate, was shortlisted for the 2015 PEN Literary Awards in the nonfiction category. A documentary based on the book, directed by Avi Lewis, was released last fall.

Our conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

Naomi Klein on Our Hotter, Meaner Future, and How to Avoid It

In episode 24 we return to our roots and discuss the failed coup attempt in Turkey against President Erdogon with Chapo Foreign Policy correspondent Derek Davison. We also preview the RNC in Cleveland and break down the doomed We Are The Left Manifesto. 

SUBSCRIBE TO CHAPO GET AN EXTRA SHOW A WEEK: www.patreon.com/user?u=3343736

BUY TICKETS FOR OUR LIVE SHOW IN PHILLY 7/28: www.streetfightradio.com/tickets/

Derek's blog: attwiw.com/

http://lobelog.com/

Episode 24 - Gulens Gonna Gulen feat. @dwdavison9318 (7/18/16)

Overshoot Catton 1

Catton Overshoot 1

V 2.0-2.9

WAVEFORM TRANSMISSION (ROD MODELL & CHRIS TROY) V 2.0-2.9 (Excerpt 1)

Originally from "Sounds True: Insights At The Edge" podcast

Sounds True: Insights at the Edge

Guided Lesser Banishing Ritual Of The Pentagram w/Damien Echols

An audio story told by Mark Moran with sound collage by Clay Pigeon. One of a series of Waking Weird episodes which can be heard broadcast live every Monday at 8:39 am (EST) at WFMU FM and WFMU.org. Hear the program archives at www.wfmu.org/playlists/WA. 

The New Jersey Pine Barrens have a plethora of deserted villages, most of them simply abandoned decades, even centuries ago. One of the most infamous of these is Ongs Hat, which some believe to be a mysterious portal to another dimension. Continue reading → http://weirdnj.com/stories/ongs-hat/

The Dusty Show

The Strange Story of Ong's Hat

Some of the things I have achieved as an inventor, creator, product manager, CEO, CTO, writer, and artist include: Playing a role in establishing and evangelizing standards and practices such asPDF, DVD,  Podcasting, ARG and digital video. I am an inventor. I have designed apps for iPhone, iPad and other mobile platforms [1] [2] [3]. I am a published author of screenplays, white papers, technology, sci-fi, marketing and gaming books.

My pioneering work in Transmedia is chronicled in the University level textbook: Legend-Tripping Online: Supernatural Folklore and the Search for Ong’s Hat – University Press of Mississippi (May 17, 2011) Also see here. My transmedia work, Ong’s Hat, is known throughout the gaming industry and academia as the first, proto-ARG. (Alternate Reality Game)

I have also been the executive producer and originator of the Santa Barbara International Film Festival Podcast the first film festival to podcast from the event and the executive producer/director of the Los Angles Film Festival podcast.

I was one of the two founders/curators of the Greylodge Podcasting Company, an Independent film review site covered on MSNBC, Wall Street Journal, Boing-Boing, Dangerous Minds and Torrentfreak as well as a founder of Piltolite/Hukilau.

I  was the podcast editor at TheNervousBreakdown.com.

I have staged and orchestrated very successful, large-scale, mass media Alternate Reality Game/Transmedia style projects since the mid-80s, utilizing print, phone, fax, email, Internet, advertising, video, film, audio, CD ROM, DVD, and on-demand media. My work has been featured on CBS Marketwatch, CNN, CNET TV, Kiplinger’s, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, NHK, MTV, PBS, LA Times, Clear Channel Radio, BBC, MSNBC,  Boing-Boing, and many other weekly newspapers, trade magazines, local and regional radio, television and newspapers.

My work was profiled in Games(TM) magazine, where it was said of my work, Ong’s Hat:
“Ong’s Hat was more of an experiment in transmedia storytelling than what we would now consider to be an ARG but its DNA – the concept of telling a story across various platforms and new media- is evident in every alternate reality game that came after.” Ong’s hat/Incunabula is universally recognized as the prototype for  Alternate Reality Games.

The Incunabula Papers CDROM was recently included by invitation in the BNF (Bibliothèque nationale de France) digital art collection.

Also, Slate recently profiled Incunabula as did Gizmodo. If you want to know “what it is“, these are probably the best profiles to date.

2 - Introduction

Joseph Matheny

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