Thank you to everyone who filled out last week's audience survey!
Module 5 Update
The fifth and final instalment of the Protocol Kit will ship in the first week of September. Each module thus far has centered on a theme. Rules, the built environment, memory, time, danger, safety, social science. Just in case those felt too lighthearted, the theme of this ultimate mailer is death and regeneration.
Retrofitting the Web by Dorian Taylor and Good Death by Sarah Friend are our two centerpiece essays. The former explores how the World-Wide Web is underutilized. One of the Web's major drawbacks is link rot. Dorian specifies a solution, dubbed The Intertwingler. Sarah's project is a theory of how protocols die, based on a study of the lifecycle of worlds – like online multiplayer videogames, Decentralized Autonomous Organizations, and social media platforms. These essays both touch on death, but also on how protocols can regenerate and take on new life.
If you felt like you were waiting a while, you were. Module five is huge. It's full of other artifacts and essays. Some complement the main theme, some are the final item of a serialized project:
Capital and Enclosure in Software Commons: Linux & Ethereum by Trent Van Epps
Killswitch Protocols by Eric Alston
Time Machines: Missives 4 & 5 by Aaron Lewis et al.
Addressable Space: Examples 7-10 by Chenoe Hart
A Protocol Pattern Language for Urban Space: Patterns 9-10 by Drew Austin
The Swarm Effect: China's 2022 Covid Protests by Anonymous
Founding Memorabilia by Sarah Friend
The Death and the Death of Orkut by Alice Noujaim
Zero-Knowledge Proofs: Explainer #5 by Mario Havel and Tim Beiko
The Fundamentals of Protocol Systems by Angela Walch
Keep an eye on the forum for notifications about early online releases.
Protocol Pulse
Picks from the past week's newsfeed:
"Cool First, Treat Second" a new protocol for acute heat illness is gaining traction.
UXD Protocol is shutting down, pending a DAO vote.
United Nations Refuge agency will monitor the Italy-Albania protocol on migration.
Canadian company Farm Health Guardian Ltd. received federal funding to commercialize its facial recognition tech, which could help enforce biosecurity protocols