Posts tagged technology

Jaron Lanier: The Internet Destroyed The Middle Class

“Kodak employed 140,000 people. Instagram, 13. A digital visionary says the Web kills jobs, wealth — even democracy”

Laser-Cut Wooden Records Give New Meaning to ‘Tree Rings’ or ‘Organic’. “Amanda Ghassaei, creator of the 3-D printed record, is at it again, this time with lasers. Diverting from additive manufacturing to subtractive, Ghassaei etched tracks on another medium — wood — using a 120-watt Epilog Legend EXT laser cutter. The strains of Radiohead’s “Idioteque” and The Velvet Underground’s “Sunday Morning” are easily recognizable, but infused with an almost electric whine, a strange sound to hear emanating from a piece of wood. Ghassaei is a software engineer at Instructables, so she naturally published a how-to on the DIY site.”

Laser-Cut Wooden Records Give New Meaning to ‘Tree Rings’ or ‘Organic’. “Amanda Ghassaei, creator of the 3-D printed record, is at it again, this time with lasers. Diverting from additive manufacturing to subtractive, Ghassaei etched tracks on another medium — wood — using a 120-watt Epilog Legend EXT laser cutter. The strains of Radiohead’s “Idioteque” and The Velvet Underground’s “Sunday Morning” are easily recognizable, but infused with an almost electric whine, a strange sound to hear emanating from a piece of wood. Ghassaei is a software engineer at Instructables, so she naturally published a how-to on the DIY site.”

A Queer History of Computing: Part Three

Jacob Gaboury writes: “In this third segment of our genealogy we begin to form a connection, and to examine those lesser-known but foundational figures that radiate out from Turing’s early work. Perhaps appropriately, given the venue, this second figure leads us to one of the earliest examples of computational art ever produced, though he did not claim the title of artist for himself. This history also moves us forward to those pivotal years surrounding Turing’s arrest and death.”

A Queer History of Computing: Part Two

Jacob Gaboury writes, “In this second part of our genealogy, we move not forward in time, but look back to an encounter that took place between two foundational figures in logic and mathematics, in an attempt to identify the conflicting role of contradiction, misunderstanding, failure, and disagreement in the queer history of computation. While again these figures are well known, the encounter between them is often dismissed as a missed connection and a failed opportunity. As such, it is often relegated to an uninteresting footnote in the history of mathematics. By reengaging this encounter I hope to blur the lines between computing, philosophy, and mathematics, and to disrupt the narrative trajectory that would see Turing as the single foundational figure within this history.”

The Living Computer Museum is where old computers go to live.

The Living Computer Museum is where old computers go to live.

Can Technology End Poverty?

“If you believe the hype, technology is going to help us end global poverty. Advances have indeed made a huge difference in the lives of the poor, but there’s also a healthy amount of skepticism out there. Berkeley researcher Kentaro Toyama has a blog dedicated to calling out naïve or inappropriate uses of information and communication technologies (ICT). Calling himself the ICT4D jester (using the development jargon for “information and communication technologies for development”), he has no shortage of material. We’ve all heard stories of computers that sit unused in African classrooms; on a recent post, the jester takes aim at texting cows. The prospect of billions rising up from poverty with nothing more than gadgets is indeed a fanciful notion — and not a helpful one, either. But the evidence says that when we tether enthusiasm to reality, the reality starts to budge.”

Forget the Cellphone Fight , We Should Be Allowed to Unlock Everything We Own

We live in a digital age, and even the physical goods we buy are complex. Copyright is impacting more people than ever before because the line between hardware and software, physical and digital has blurred. The issue goes beyond cellphone unlocking, because once we buy an object — any object — we should own it. We should be able to lift the hood, unlock it, modify it, repair it … without asking for permission from the manufacturer.

Gestural Abstractions

“In the early ’80s, Vilém Flusser, the late media theorist, anticipated this shift from a reactive relationship with technological interfaces, in which our actions are governed by remote controls and keyboards, to a world in which we pattern our behavior and maneuver our bodies according to increasingly complex—and eventually factitiously intelligent—programs of apparatuses. ‘At the current stage of key development, there will continue to be faulty keys, namely, those that permit me to choose but not to express myself (e.g. the television control panel),’ Flusser writes in Ins Universum der technischen Bilder (Into the Universe of Technical Images, 1985). ‘But we can expect to be enraptured by all keys at a later stage of automation because they will all be instruments that permit us to join with all others, giving meaning to the whirring chaos of the particulate universe.’

Dreaming of the Pre-Drone World, reminded of this quote from Arthur and Marilouise Kroker, electronic journal CTheory editors. Arthur’s most recent book, Body Drift: Butler, Hayles, Haraway, was published last year by the University of Minnesota Press. “If those images of Reaper and Predator drones circling the empty skies do not seem truly ominous, perhaps it is because we long ago drifted into the first symptoms of the coming of drone culture: thinking in algorithms, seeing computationally, our bodies and brains packed with technology, energized by the kinetic flows of connectivity. Has human adaptive capacity allowed us to become a data haven for drone technology? Are we a drone called freedom?”

Dreaming of the Pre-Drone World, reminded of this quote from Arthur and Marilouise Kroker, electronic journal CTheory editors. Arthur’s most recent book, Body Drift: Butler, Hayles, Haraway, was published last year by the University of Minnesota Press.

“If those images of Reaper and Predator drones circling the empty skies do not seem truly ominous, perhaps it is because we long ago drifted into the first symptoms of the coming of drone culture: thinking in algorithms, seeing computationally, our bodies and brains packed with technology, energized by the kinetic flows of connectivity. Has human adaptive capacity allowed us to become a data haven for drone technology? Are we a drone called freedom?”

A Queer History of Computing

“This is the first post in a series on the queer history of computing, as traced through the lives of five foundational figures. It is both an attempt to make visible those parts of a history that are often neglected, erased, or forgotten, and an effort to question the assumption that the technical and the sexual are so easily divided.”

Yesterday, they had compact music.

Yesterday, they had compact music.

Paul Prudence is a performer and installation artist who works with computational, algorithmic and generative environments, developing ways to reflect his interest in patterns, nature and the mid-way point between scientific research and artistic pursuit

Paul Prudence is a performer and installation artist who works with computational, algorithmic and generative environments, developing ways to reflect his interest in patterns, nature and the mid-way point between scientific research and artistic pursuit

Need Replacement Parts For Your Synthesizer, Embrace a 3-D Printer - “Want a new part for your synthesizer? Need a replacement knob or dial? In a first, one company is telling its customers to just print their own..Teenage Engineering, makers of a popular synthesizer known as the OP-1, posted the 3-D design files of various components on digital object repository Shapeways, and is instructing 3-D printer-equipped users to print them out instead of buying them”

Need Replacement Parts For Your Synthesizer, Embrace a 3-D Printer - “Want a new part for your synthesizer? Need a replacement knob or dial? In a first, one company is telling its customers to just print their own..Teenage Engineering, makers of a popular synthesizer known as the OP-1, posted the 3-D design files of various components on digital object repository Shapeways, and is instructing 3-D printer-equipped users to print them out instead of buying them”

Zeal Optics iON HD Camera Goggles - Zeal has developed the ‘iON’ a pair of goggles capable of capturing 1080p video and shooting 8 megapixel photos with its integrated HD camcorder. A 170 degree wide angle camera lens that automatically adjusts light levels with infinite focus, impact resistant frame and anti-fog high density UV optics are all included. Hmmm. for downhill racing or capturing your next DJ gig?

Zeal Optics iON HD Camera Goggles - Zeal has developed the ‘iON’ a pair of goggles capable of capturing 1080p video and shooting 8 megapixel photos with its integrated HD camcorder. A 170 degree wide angle camera lens that automatically adjusts light levels with infinite focus, impact resistant frame and anti-fog high density UV optics are all included. Hmmm. for downhill racing or capturing your next DJ gig?