2005 March | xirdalium

chip reads mind

Posted on Thursday, 31st March 2005 by zephyrin_xirdalOctober 4, 2012

This ↑BBC story would be a hell of a lot easier to judge, if it had been published tomorrow: “Brain chip reads man’s thoughts A paralysed man in the US has become the first person to be fitted with a brain chip that reads his mind. Matthew Nagle, 25, was left paralysed from the neck down and confined to a wheelchair after a knife attack in 2001. The pioneering surgery at New England Sinai Hospital, Massachusetts, means he can now control everyday objects by thought alone. The brain chip reads his mind and sends the thoughts to a computer to … Continue reading →

call for papers: book on games

Posted on Wednesday, 30th March 2005 by zephyrin_xirdalJuly 6, 2012

Games without frontiers—war without tears Computer games as a sociocultural phenomenon In Germany a new academic book on computergames is in the making. Here is an excerpt from the ↑call for papers: As a rule Computer games remain to be the focus of media attention when specific acts of violence which deeply horrify the audience (war and ampage – Iraq and Erfurt) draw the public’s perception to them. The first ever occuring impetus then is aimed at a more or less serious examination of their dangerous and problematic aspects (blunting people’s senses, playing down and provoking violence, player’s loss of … Continue reading →

call for papers: cyberspace 2005

Posted on Wednesday, 30th March 2005 by zephyrin_xirdalJuly 6, 2012

The call for papers for the ↑Cyberspace 2005 Conference has been released: Paper abstracts are solicited for submission to the following workshops of III. International Conference Cyberspace 2005: 1) e-government, e-justice 2) philosophy and sociology of cyberspace 3) psychology and internet 4) law in cyberspace 5) crime and security in cyberspace 6) regulatory framework of electronic communications. [↑Read all] The conference will take place 7 to 8 November 2005 in Brno, Czech Republic. … Continue reading →

cyber syllabi

Posted on Tuesday, 29th March 2005 by zephyrin_xirdalJuly 6, 2012

So, you never knew where to find the courses on the really hot topics—Aaron Delwiche maintains a list of ↑ Games-related Syllabi on the Web, and a list of ↑ Courses in Cyberculture. Especially ↑ Claudia A. Engel‘s course on “Virtual Communities: Online Technologies and Ethnographic Practice” suits my interests: “Traditionally the fieldwork of cultural anthropologists has been based on face-to-face interaction with informants from an oftentimes local community. As modern communication technologies and the Internet are spreading this course invites you to explore ethnographic methods and the field of cultural studies from a new perspective: How can an ethnographic … Continue reading →

digital genres

Posted on Tuesday, 29th March 2005 by zephyrin_xirdalJuly 6, 2012

“The ↑ DGI [Digital Genres Initiative] is a loosely organized network of fellow-thinking intellectuals, academics, and computer geeks. The goal of the DGI is to spur debate and thinking about the way that digital technology allows us to think and communicate with one another. The DGI is dedicated to the idea that some of the best thinking about new digital technologies comes from the people who make and use them even as academics and intellectuals provide a unique and valuable perspective. The DGI is committed to creating a space where the academy and the internet can cross-polinate. The DGI is … Continue reading →

no phone

Posted on Tuesday, 29th March 2005 by zephyrin_xirdalOctober 1, 2012

Finally someone who shys away from cell phones like I do: “I’m not a cell phone guy. I resisted getting one at all for years, and even now I rarely carry it. To a first approximation, I don’t really like talking to most people, so I don’t go out of my way to enable people to call me. However, a little while ago I misplaced the old phone I usually take to Armadillo, and my wife picked up a more modern one for me. It had a nice color screen and a bunch of bad java game demos on it. … Continue reading →

call for papers: cyberanthropology

Posted on Monday, 21st March 2005 by zephyrin_xirdalJuly 6, 2012

The new website of the GAA conference 2005 now is online, and the German abstract of my workshop ‘cyberanthropology’ can be viewed there. Please understand the German and the English abstract as a call for papers. Proposals must not exceed 1500 characters and have to be sent to me by e-mail: Alexander.Knorr [at] vka.fak12.uni-muenchen.de before 15 June 2005. Proposals can be in either English or German language—presentations at the workshop can also be in English or German, but must not exceed 20 minutes. The workshop is tentatively scheduled on Thursday, 06 October 2005, 13.45-15.45 and 16.00-18.00. … Continue reading →

batconcept

Posted on Saturday, 19th March 2005 by zephyrin_xirdalNovember 8, 2012

Sing to the tune of Dylan’s ‘Rising Sun’: “There is a house down in Agatha | They call the ragin’ bull!” Seemingly it is cars week for me: Lamborghini has done it again, as they already did when I was kid. Back in 1971 the first prototype of the ↑ Countach was introduced—the futuristic aztec architecture flabbergasted the audience, and several years later, when it went into production and on sale, us kids, too. We were standing at our preferred kiosk and wondered at glossy magazine pictures of that supercar of a never-seen-before kind. The car-magazines featuring the Countach even … Continue reading →

bososoku

Posted on Friday, 18th March 2005 by zephyrin_xirdalJuly 6, 2012

The nipponese metropolitan nights not only know the yakuza—there are the bososoku, too: “Studies of the bososoku motor cycle gangs of Japan have shed light on a population that engages in illegal and reckless biking stunts that endanger, injure, and kill thousands of gang members and innocent bystanders every year.” (↑ sirtomas) Those gangs are on the road—preferrably after midnight—not only with motorcycles, but also with tuned cars. One goal of the tuning seems to be making the cars as loud as possible, in order to lift the sleeping citizens straight up from their futons by means of exhaust-pipe symphonies. … Continue reading →

zelda vans

Posted on Thursday, 17th March 2005 by zephyrin_xirdalJuly 6, 2012

“They tower above the traffic like extra-purfled ceremonial elephants, or dinosaurs in wedding gowns.” (↵ bedford’s metamorphosis) In Japan there is truck-modding, too. And the Nipponese obviously know how to don their vans dressing gowns of neon. Alas, this heavily anime-influenced specimen looks like the A-Team—meanwhile living on old-age pension—had sold its van on the used-car market, Batman had acquired it, dragged it down into his Batcave and, being stone drunk, customized it to his needs. After having sobered up he immediately resold it. tnx to endo … Continue reading →

xirdalium

Blog by Zephyrin Xirdal (since 2001)

Monthly Archives: March 2005