Monthly Archives: October 2012

massive filing up

Posted on by October 31, 2012
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You might perhaps have noticed that during the past weeks the overall number of entries here at xirdalium has substantially increased. Including this one, there now are 1058 posts all in all. This is due to my finally having imported all the content from my first blog, ye ole xirdalium, which is no longer in existence. You can access all this content via the pages menu at the very bottom of the page, via the monthly archives at the bottom of the sidebar to the right, or, best of all, via the search field, also in the sidebar. Every single … Continue reading →

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between which worlds?

Posted on by October 31, 2012
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zeph’s pop culture quiz #47 Between which worlds is the man the depicted hand belongs to travelling?     Just leave a comment with your educated guess—you can ask for additional hints, too. [Leaving a comment is easy; just click the ‘Leave a comment’ at the end of the post and fill in the form. If it’s the first time you post a comment, it will be held for moderation. But I am constantly checking, and once I’ve approved a comment, your next ones won’t be held, but published immediately by the system.] UPDATE and solution (31 October 2012): This … Continue reading →

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nand to tetris

Posted on by November 1, 2012
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  Two years ago I belatedly ↵reported on Shimon Schocken’s and Noam Nisan’s book ‘The elements of computing systems: Building a modern computer from first principles’ (2005). Since then quite some things have happened, and at the website ↑From NAND to Tetris you’ll now find a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC ;)—the whole course, including all the materials, has been put online open-source fashion. The idea is to lead you from the uttermost basics, in this case the logical NAND gate [Negated AND or NOT AND] to build a system on which you finally can program and run a Tetris … Continue reading →

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mountains of madness

Posted on by October 25, 2012
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Panel from page 89 of ‘At the Mountains of Madness’ (Lovecraft & Culbard 2010). Back in late 2010 we had scottish illustrator and graphic designer ↑Murray Groat‘s wonderful ↑Tintin–↑Lovecraft ↵crossover covers [check out Murray’s ↑blog, ↑portfolio and ↑deviant art page—there’s more Lovecraftia to discover]. Matchingly enough in the same year a wonderful graphic novel version (Lovecraft & Culbard 2010) of H. P. Lovecraft’s ‘↓At the Mountains of Madness‘ (1936) by ↑I. N. J. Culbard was published—drawn in the best ↑ligne claire tradition. For the full experience you first might want to read Poe’s ‘The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of … Continue reading →

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latour’s cyberpunkish world

Posted on by October 22, 2012
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In a review of Bruno Latour’s ‘We have never been modern’ (Latour 1993 [1991]) by Barbara Tuchanska (1995) I just found the following paragraph trying to describe the world Latour paints: The reality of our everyday life is populated by computers that transform all spheres of life, frozen embryos, cable television networks, psychotropic drugs, whales equipped with radar sounding devices, sexuality changed by AIDS, poverty and the exploitation of man, totalitarian political systems destroying ecosystems, deforestation, the ozone hole, and thousands of other monsters that are the hybrids of nature and culture. Now, if you got time, compare that to … Continue reading →

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comic book newsstand

Posted on by October 17, 2012
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↑Mike’s Amazing World of Comics features an amazing tool for historians of popular culture: ↑The Newsstand. It allows you to choose any month, beginning in 1934, and then the system will give you the covers of all comic books which were on sale [in the US of A] this very month. Included publishers are: Marvel, DC, Archie, Charlton, Dark Horse, Dell, Gold Key, Harvey, and Image. via ↑entry at ↑boingboing … Continue reading →

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the quantified body

Posted on by October 14, 2012
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Whenever I hear or read about the ↑quantified self—a lifestyle obviously deeply influenced by the heritage of ↵cybernetics—I am reminded of conversations I led and overheard while I still was visiting the gym regularly, three times a week. Already when just eavesdropping I was amazed by the topics the real bodybuilders talked about. The weights lifted almost aren’t a topic at all—with the exception when they spot somebody they care about using too heavy weights. This not only has negative training effects but greatly heightens the risk of injuries, too. Then, somewhat related to the former, there is the topic … Continue reading →

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moving the map

Posted on by October 14, 2012
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Here is yet another example from the ↵games with defects: ↑PlaygroundPong. From ↑the documentation: PlaygroundPong is a proof of concept for inverting Avatar & Playground. The player cannot move the paddles at all like in a regular Pong game. The ball seems to move from side to side but clearly it does not! The player cannot identify with the avatar (playing object), he or she has to get to terms with moving the background (from left to right, right to left, top to bottom and bottom to top) in order to bring the paddles in a position where they manage … Continue reading →

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Favorite what is this?

Posted on by October 25, 2012
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zeph’s pop culture quiz #46 What is the tiny shiny artefact displayed by the hands? From which movie does the screencap stem, and what role in the plot of that movie does the artefact play?     Just leave a comment with your educated guess—you can ask for additional hints, too. [Leaving a comment is easy; just click the ‘Leave a comment’ at the end of the post and fill in the form. If it’s the first time you post a comment, it will be held for moderation. But I am constantly checking, and once I’ve approved a comment, your … Continue reading →

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