Monthly Archives: March 2008

big-a-dog, big-a-bite

Posted on by October 4, 2012
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John Ferdinand Woodstock & The Rebirth Experience    Once upon a foggy night, I put on my hunting shoes. Told my Lady not to wait— said, I go hunting for a goose.  Rays of moonlight on my way, make me running with the pack. Far and wide—needless to say— no goose—cause I was off the track …  Big-a-dog, big-a-bite, small-a-dog must not fight. Have a problem with the right? Wake me up in the night.  Something screaming in the woods, make my blood surge to my face. Just in time I understood— I’ll be gone without a trace.  Slap, Bang—I’m … Continue reading →

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the unholy trinity—compulsory reading

Posted on by October 3, 2012
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↑DAWKINS, RICHARD. 2006. The god delusion. New York City: Bantam Books. ↑HARRIS, SAM. 2004. The end of faith: Religion, terror, and the future of reason. New York City: W. W. Norton. ↑HITCHENS, CHRISTOPHER. 2007. God is not great: How religion poisons everything. New York City: Twelve Books. … Continue reading →

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but then I saw her case …

Posted on by October 1, 2012
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… and now I’m a believer    It may have started a lot earlier, but the immediately preceding events, which led up to the present condition, started with ↵that keyboard. My enthusiasm never broke, and then TK reminded me, that, as university staff, I get a heavy discount at Apple. The dam broke in the middle of the night between Sunday and Monday last week—I ordered a MacBook online. On Tuesday it was here. After having carried it home I switched it on and everything worked like a charm. Except that I could not connect the machine to my wireless … Continue reading →

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21st century man

Posted on by October 1, 2012
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  ‘It is like you to be more concerned for a machine than for a man.” He [eminent professor of sociology Simon Ninheimer] looked at her with savage contempt.     It left her [US Robots’ Chief Robopsychologist Dr. ↑Susan Calvin] unmoved. ‘It merely seems so, Professor Ninheimer. It is only by being concerned for robots that one can truly be concerned for twenty-first-century man. You would understand this if you were a roboticist.’     ‘I have read enough ↵robotics to know I don’t want to be a roboticist!’     ‘Pardon me, you have read a book on … Continue reading →

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robots and suicide bombing

Posted on by March 6, 2011
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a bizarre relationship in a decidedly cyberpunked world On Monday, 4 February 2008 in a shopping mall in Dimona, southern Israel, a “woman has been killed in a suicide bombing […], the first such attack by Palestinian militants in over a year,” ↑reported the BBC. Very sad and tragical (absolutely no irony or cynicism here), as the most of what I heard from the Middle East via the traditional mass media as far as my memory reaches back. The relationship between robots and human beings has become an issue spawning quite some media attention recently. In Japan robots are used … Continue reading →

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the cyberpunk educator

Posted on by October 3, 2012
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  Andrew J. Holden’s “↑The Cyberpunk Educator“ is “a documentary study of mainstream ‘cyberpunk’ films of the 1980’s- with a heavy focus on their literary, political, and cultural content. The film uses the structure of literary theorist Northrop Frye, and the cultural critiques of renowned anthropologist Michel Foucault to describe the common, repeating stories in Western culture, and their application to the political process. Though it’s an academic film, its also film about existentialist robots with guns, and it’s fun to watch.” … and it is free for download. … Continue reading →

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sterling before and after westphalia

Posted on by October 3, 2012
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  ↑Bruce Sterling currently is jotting down ↑notes for a projected science fiction novel—maybe we again can, ↵like ↵before, witness a novel by a cyberpunk legend grow online. As a first Sterling published a list of political entities, plus according structuring principles and asked his readers: “Lemme know if you can think of more of these. Especially something that could plausibly replace the ↑Westphalian system, somewhere in the 21st century, without anybody much noticing.” Meanwhile he has recieved some ↑reader comments on ‘after westphalia’—now I have to make a new t-shirt for my “↑Second Life“ (SL) avatar, reading: “↑John Romero … Continue reading →

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nine per cent

Posted on by October 4, 2012
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Dear ↑Mr. President, Come take a walk with me … ;-) ‘Tis a strange realm, cyberspace. Since a couple of years here at ↑Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München (LMU), the institution where I am working—or am pretending to do so, there is a lot of talk about the university’s corporate identity, its profile, its international publicity, and so on. Well, you people up there, treat me well if you care about the international reputation of our house. Treating me well starts with calling me Mr. Nine Per Cent [not to be confused with ↑50 Cent] from now on … here is a snippet … Continue reading →

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bounded vision

Posted on by October 3, 2012
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WENDLANDT, SEBASTIAN. 2007. “The bounded vision,” in ↓Proceedings of Scandinavian Student Interaction Design Research Conference 2007 [.pdf | 7.21MB] edited by Sara Eriksén, Bo Westerlund, and Johan Beronius, pp. 103-108. Karlskrona: Akademi sydost.  abstract: A vision is an indispensable precondition to take creative action; it is the source of inspiration. In this paper I want to reflect critically to what degree the designer’s vision is bound. Furthermore I explore the relationship between the designer’s vision and the user’s actual employment of the designed good. … Continue reading →

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