Interesting Things on the Internet: June 16th Edition

• We lost the war. Welcome to the world of tomorrow. This piece on surveillance technology could have been written today. However, it was actually written back in 2005!
• The art of asking: or, how to ask and get what you want.. This is something I still struggle with, especially when it's for important things like work. Go on, hire me to build you an interesting IoT device. (Always be practising ;-)
• And via that last link, also Creative People Say No. I always find that tricky to balance, particularly while trying to grow a culture, which puts me more in the manager role where you have to be available to help people...
• Industry clusters: The modern-day snake oil. It's all about the people. As ever. Which makes it trickier to engage with. (But I don't think it's impossible. Anyone want to pay me to work up my ideas into an alternate strategy?)
• Leila Johnston is interviewed by Cory Doctorow. Lots of good thinking about tech, art and capitalism (but much more readable than I've just made it sound!)
• Consumers, users, people, mammals. Russell doing his usual sterling job of clarifying things that you hadn't spotted needing clarification until he showed you.