{"id":2543,"date":"2008-10-08T21:30:16","date_gmt":"2008-10-09T01:30:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nearfuturelaboratory.com\/?p=2543"},"modified":"2017-08-18T18:06:20","modified_gmt":"2017-08-18T18:06:20","slug":"merit-badges-for-things","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.nearfuturelaboratory.com\/2008\/10\/08\/merit-badges-for-things\/","title":{"rendered":"Merit Badges for Things"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/farm4.static.flickr.com\/3116\/2925063915_904daee11e_b.jpg\"><img src=\"http:\/\/farm4.static.flickr.com\/3116\/2925063915_904daee11e.jpg\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>I was awed for some reason today by this power brick for a Lenova ThinkPad thingie. The assemblage of certifications, warrants and authentication badges almost defines how large the brick can be. What this made me think of is the thicket of contested hurdles objects and devices must vault over in order to become certificated, first-class citizens in the world. Each of these indications are backed, I&#8217;m fairly sure, by thick volumes of rules, parameters, minimums and maximums and costs for laboratory verifications, all part of the knotted assemblages of social-political-technical blessings that make a thing into a Thing.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Why do I blog this?<\/strong> Been <a href=\"http:\/\/www.anthem-group.net\/bruno-latour-audio-video\/\">reading<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.archive.org\/download\/BrunoLatourKeynoteMay232008\/BrunoLatourUOfT.m4a\">listening to quite a good bit of Latour these days. Stumbled across <a href=\"http:\/\/prnetworks.blogspot.com\/2008\/05\/bruno-latours-keynote-at-reclaiming.html\">this from Peter Ryan<\/a>, a Ph.D. student at the University of Toronto while looking for Latour&#8217;s statements about visualization.<br \/>\n<!--more--><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I was awed for some reason today by this power brick for a Lenova ThinkPad thingie. The assemblage of certifications, warrants and authentication badges almost defines how large the brick can be. What this made me think of is the thicket of contested hurdles objects and devices must vault over in order to become certificated, &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.nearfuturelaboratory.com\/2008\/10\/08\/merit-badges-for-things\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Merit Badges for Things<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[121,153,176],"tags":[672,1072],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v14.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Merit Badges for Things - Near Future Laboratory<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blog.nearfuturelaboratory.com\/2008\/10\/08\/merit-badges-for-things\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Merit Badges for Things - Near Future Laboratory\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I was awed for some reason today by this power brick for a Lenova ThinkPad thingie. The assemblage of certifications, warrants and authentication badges almost defines how large the brick can be. What this made me think of is the thicket of contested hurdles objects and devices must vault over in order to become certificated, &hellip; Continue reading Merit Badges for Things\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/blog.nearfuturelaboratory.com\/2008\/10\/08\/merit-badges-for-things\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Near Future Laboratory\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2008-10-09T01:30:16+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2017-08-18T18:06:20+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/farm4.static.flickr.com\/3116\/2925063915_904daee11e.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@nearfuturelab\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@nearfuturelab\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blog.nearfuturelaboratory.com\/#organization\",\"name\":\"Near Future Laboratory\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/blog.nearfuturelaboratory.com\/\",\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/nearfuturelaboratory\/\",\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/company\/near-future-laboratory\/\",\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/nearfuturelab\"],\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blog.nearfuturelaboratory.com\/#logo\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/blog.nearfuturelaboratory.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/NearFutureLaboratoryLogo-CS4.jpg\",\"width\":1049,\"height\":206,\"caption\":\"Near Future Laboratory\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blog.nearfuturelaboratory.com\/#logo\"}},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blog.nearfuturelaboratory.com\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/blog.nearfuturelaboratory.com\/\",\"name\":\"Near Future Laboratory\",\"description\":\"Clarify Today, Design Tomorrow\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blog.nearfuturelaboratory.com\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":\"https:\/\/blog.nearfuturelaboratory.com\/?s={search_term_string}\",\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blog.nearfuturelaboratory.com\/2008\/10\/08\/merit-badges-for-things\/#primaryimage\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"url\":\"http:\/\/farm4.static.flickr.com\/3116\/2925063915_904daee11e.jpg\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blog.nearfuturelaboratory.com\/2008\/10\/08\/merit-badges-for-things\/#webpage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/blog.nearfuturelaboratory.com\/2008\/10\/08\/merit-badges-for-things\/\",\"name\":\"Merit Badges for Things - 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