Beware Of Unreal Things

Memorial to UTA Flight 772 in Niger, as seen in google earth...

Fri, 17 May 2013 13:33:02 +0100

Memorial to UTA Flight 772 in Niger, as seen in google earth (more picures in the gallery here)

"Imagine a mesh network of stratospheric drones functioning as high-altitude Internet infrastructure...."

Fri, 17 May 2013 12:25:29 +0100

“Imagine a mesh network of stratospheric drones functioning as high-altitude Internet infrastructure. One HAP every 600 miles or so would be sufficient to cover the globe.”

- Disrupting the Satellite | The Ümlaut

The geopolitics of Google’s autocomplete | FP...

Thu, 16 May 2013 17:47:46 +0100

The geopolitics of Google’s autocomplete | FP Passport

On Wednesday, a German federal court ruled that libelous autocompletes are a violation of privacy.
And this is far from an isolated case. The BBC goes on to report:

“The ruling could also have a bearing on another case involving auto-complete. Bettina Wulff, wife of former German president Christian Wulff, sued Google because auto-complete suggested words linking her to escort services. Mrs Wulff denies ever working as a prostitute and has fought several legal cases over the accusation. The case against Google is due to be heard soon in a Hamburg court.”

Stanislaw Lem: On the Structural Analysis of Science Fiction | will-ellwood.com

Wed, 15 May 2013 19:49:54 +0100

Stanislaw Lem: On the Structural Analysis of Science Fiction | will-ellwood.com:

“If SF is something more than fairy tale fiction, it has the right to neglect the fairy tale world and its rules. It is also not realism and has the right to neglect the methods of realistic description. Its generic indefiniteness facilitates its existence, for it is supposedly not subject to the whole range of criteria by which literary works normally are judged. SF is not allegorical, but then it says allegory is not its task: SF and Kafka are quite different. It is not realistic, but then it is not a part of realistic literature. The future? How often have SF authors disclaimed any intention of making predictions! Finally, it is the Myth of the 21st Century. But the ontological character of myth is anti-empirical, and though a technological civilization may have its myths, it cannot itself embody a myth, for myth is an interpretation, an explication, and you must have the object that is to be explicated. SF lives in but strives to emerge from this antinomical state of being. It becomes more and more apparent that its narrative structures deviate more and more from any real processes, having been used again and again since they were first introduced and having thus become frozen, fossilized paradigms. SF involves the art of putting hypothetical premises into the very complicated stream of socio-psychological occurrences. Although this art once had its master in H.G. Wells, it has been forgotten and is now lost. But it can be learned again”

Ganked from facebook and I have no source or further info about...

Tue, 14 May 2013 17:06:17 +0100

Ganked from facebook and I have no source or further info about this. (google and tineye were no help..)

LieDar LieDar is a fake lidar sensor that you can attach to the...

Mon, 13 May 2013 17:20:45 +0100

LieDar

LieDar is a fake lidar sensor that you can attach to the top of your car to instantly turn it into a self-driving vehicle. Whereas some companies have spent millions of dollars developing the technology to have conversations about the future of transportation, you can butt in for a mere fraction of the cost. To join the multimillion dollar conversation all you need is a 3D printer, and a little gumption.

When your car sports fashionable technology you can experience first-hand what it is like to be a leader in innovation. Everywhere you go people will stop dead in their tracks in wonder and admiration. Children will look back and remember the day they first encountered a self-driving car — your self-driving car! Overnight you can go from merely being a terrible driver to a well-respected and beloved ambassador of the future.
“Impress your neighbors. Meet new people. Become more attractive to members of all sexes. Own the road! The LieDar can do all of this for you and more. Retrofit your car today!”

via fffff.at

"Change hurtles ever onward, and the only thing more corrosive than the fact that the future isn’t..."

Sun, 12 May 2013 09:15:49 +0100

“

Change hurtles ever onward, and the only thing more corrosive than the fact that the future isn’t evenly distributed is the fact that there are plenty of humans who don’t want this future at all. It’s all too much change, it may be literally too much change to process for human hardwiring. Many older humans are living future shock, right now. It was ever thus.

But the difference now is that those people are alive.

In 1900 the percentage of the American population over the age of 45 was 17.8%. In 1950 it was 28.4%. As of the last census the share of the US population over 45 is 36.4%. Hell, the 65+ share’s gone from 4.1% in 1900 to 13.3% in 2010. More and more people still in the society, with greater and greater influence, still constructing societal and legal norms based on emotional, psychological, cultural and technological frames of reference that are less and less relevant.

We’d all like to think we’d reinvent ourselves, re-assimilate, learn and grow along a constantly regenerative learning curve. But most of us wouldn’t. We’re just not cognitively wired for it. We crave stasis, because our lizard brains crave safety and security.

…

Imagine it now. A functional lifespan of, say 200 years. Working with people who owned slaves. Trying to negotiate international trade treaties to deal with global warming by reconciling voters who watched their brother’s head get spun into a fine red mist by a Boston infantryman or a Georgian cavalryman. Getting funding for stem cell research from voters who grew up believing not only were black people a genetically inferior race, but other versions of white people were, too. 200 years is what Bruce Sterling posits in Holy Fire, a gerontocracy, and it’s a goddam mess.

”

- http://kfmonkey.blogspot.com/2013/04/arcanum-immortality-is-so-so-creepy.html (via grinderbot)

Serious current this week
(via wolvensnothere)

new-aesthetic: “These are paintings which know that they will...

Sun, 12 May 2013 08:39:46 +0100

new-aesthetic:

“These are paintings which know that they will be Googled as well as seen. It’s not at all hard to imagine someone stood in front of another C-M-Y-K painting, ‘Give You My Lovin’’ (2012), smartphone in hand, listening to the song the title refers to.”

Techno-primitivism | The White Review

"When a system is set up to accomplish some goal, a new entity has come into being — the system..."

Sat, 11 May 2013 19:32:12 +0100

“When a system is set up to accomplish some goal, a new entity has come into being — the system itself. No matter what the “goal” of the system, it immediately begins to exhibit system behavior; that is, to act according to the general laws that govern the operation of all systems. Now the system itself has to be dealt with. Whereas before, there was only the problem — such as warfare between nations, or garbage collection — there is now an additional universe of problems associated with the functioning or merely the presence of the new system.”

- Systemantics

Put another way: When faced with a problem, you might try building some sort of system to address that problem.

Now you have two problems.

(via paperbits)

"The legacy of identity politics has produced a problematic language idealism where we focus more on..."

Sat, 11 May 2013 18:59:30 +0100

“The legacy of identity politics has produced a problematic language idealism where we focus more on correct words and phrases rather than the material basis of oppression… And even in the moment where we imagine we are indeed combatting real world oppression we are, in fact, simply engaging with the level of appearance. […] This language idealism becomes nothing but a self-righteous exercise when it refuses to contemplate a praxis of mass pedagogy based on actually changing the material circumstances and instead focuses on anti-oppression training, atomized concepts of privilege, and how to speak correctly.”

- J. Moufawad-Paul (via selucha)

Finally.
(via mehreenkasana)
Fucking. Yes.

Skateboarders form village green preservation society for Southbank

Sat, 11 May 2013 14:08:14 +0100

Skateboarders form village green preservation society for Southbank:

“Aghast at plans to redevelop the site into retail units to help fund the refurbishment of the centre’s Festival Wing, the skateboarding community is trying to have the undercroft declared a village green.”

"This argument leads directly into a damning (and to me entirely convincing) indictment of the UK..."

Fri, 10 May 2013 13:43:02 +0100

“This argument leads directly into a damning (and to me entirely convincing) indictment of the UK government’s privatization and ‘marketization’ of public services from Margaret Thatcher on. These have not created true markets. Instead, they have resulted in a kind of horrid chimera of government and private actor, with no obvious lines of accountability.”

- Henry Farrell at Crooked Timber. Colin Crouch – The Strange Non-Death of Neo-Liberalism

Book (Amazon)

A cynic might argue that this was the exact goal they had in mind.

Untangling the Web A Guide To Internet Research

Fri, 10 May 2013 13:21:21 +0100

Untangling the Web A Guide To Internet Research:

A 2007, 650ish page pdf guide to Internet use bythe US National Security Agency. Includes some useful search tips and other basic (and some less basic) guides to using web resources.

Limited edition ‘FUCK 3D PRINTING’ badge Each badge...

Thu, 09 May 2013 15:52:00 +0100

Limited edition ‘FUCK 3D PRINTING’ badge

Each badge is artisanally produced and individually dipped in cyanoacrylate by hand. The badge features a dusty, rough finish and is available in a nearly-white and dull red colorway. The item is not guaranteed in any way, and we cannot promise that it won’t damage you, your clothing or your family. The item is not regulated by the FCC, Kite mark or CE systems and quality is likely to vary significantly. By buying this badge, you waive all your traditionally offered consumer rights. This item cannot be returned and is limited to 35 pieces.

via Near Future Laboratory

((nb. I automatically treat any use of the word ‘artisanally’ as being ironic.))

GooglePoetics: I woke up with a lazy eye I …

Thu, 09 May 2013 13:37:36 +0100

GooglePoetics: I woke up with a lazy eye I …

The First Real Object Ever 3D Scanned And Rendered Was A VW...

Thu, 09 May 2013 10:10:00 +0100

The First Real Object Ever 3D Scanned And Rendered Was A VW Beetle

To “scan” a 3D object, they needed two key things: An object and a scanner. The object was Sutherland’s wife Marsha’s 1967 VW Beetle, and the “scanner” was Sutherland’s students, armed with paint and yardsticks.

They mapped out polygons right on the Beetle itself, and measured every line in what must have been that uniquely scientific mix of tedious and exciting. The resulting dataset was entered into Sutherland’s programs, and produced this first 3D wireframe model of a car. Actually, the first 3D model of any physical-world thing, ever.

Via Bruce Sterling

We are facing the emergence of a real, collective madness...

Wed, 08 May 2013 13:05:06 +0100

We are facing the emergence of a real, collective madness reinforced by the synchronization of emotions: the sudden globalization of affects in real time that hits all of humanity at the same time, and in the name of Progress. Emergency exit: we have entered a time of general panic.

Paul Virilio The Administration of Fear

Everything You Know Has Changed.

Wed, 08 May 2013 11:03:00 +0100

Everything You Know Has Changed.

BLDGBLOG: Documentary Holography they aim to...

Wed, 08 May 2013 10:12:13 +0100

BLDGBLOG: Documentary Holography

they aim to “capture” and then illicitly reproduce, using multi-axis milling machines, architectural details scanned around London. These are what they call “detail thefts… arguably cloning the original architect’s intellectual property.

This is fascinating to me. I am also kinda intrigued by the mention in the article of the duo’s “stealth objects, part of their ‘subverting the LiIDAR landscape’ project”.

[Image: A “detail theft” by ScanLAB Projects].

"The hack that Defense Distributed have committed is a social one. Like many before, they have found..."

Tue, 07 May 2013 23:31:16 +0100

“The hack that Defense Distributed have committed is a social one. Like many before, they have found and exploited the notoriously unpatched hole in the press’ defences — a vulnerability to sensational headlines.”

- Controlled by Guns — Weird Future — Medium (via paperbits)