Category Archives: science

lego serving science

Posted on by March 24, 2012
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I especially like this Google Science Fair 2012 video, because it shows how much makeshift and creative improvisation takes place in laboratory work—quite to the contrary of the usual renditions of hight-tech labs in movies. And I of course do like it, because Lego is used. Another instance of Lego serving science is a recent publicity stunt: The personnel of the German research-station ↑Neumayer III in antarctica are ↑recreating their station out of 7000 Lego pieces [in German]. Seemingly as a kind of group therapy to overcome the boredom during the antarctic winter :-) … Continue reading →

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the construction of social computing

Posted on by March 7, 2012
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Just yesterday I received an e-mail from ↑Maurizio Teli [whom I know from back in 2005, when we met at the Cyberspace conference in Brno, Czech Republic] containing a call for papers for a workshop he is organizing together with ↑Vincenzo D’Andrea and ↑David Hakken. The workshop will take place at this year’s annual meeting, called ↑Design and displacement—social studies of science and technology, of the ↑Society for Social Studies of Science (4S), taking place 17 through 20 October 2012 in Copenhagen, Denmark. Here is the workshop’s full abstract: In the last few years, the label “Social Computing” (SC) has … Continue reading →

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brains ain’t computers

Posted on by February 3, 2012
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When, ↵like recently, I am talking about the historical significance of cybernetics for contemporary culture and society I more often than not mention that in the process of marking itself off from mechanistic visions (Ashby 1957 [1956]: 1-6), cybernetics quite early emphasized a whole array of concepts: networks, complexity, self-organisation, reproduction, adaptation, cognition, aiming at and maintaining goal-states, purposeful behaviour (or action?), and autonomy. This line-up implicitly leads towards a vision of cybernetic systems as independent actors, maybe even gifted with ‘free will’. Therefore it is not astounding that a hypothetical analogy emerged early on: ‘mind to body’ is like … Continue reading →

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commodifying bodies

Posted on by November 25, 2011
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At one level, then, the commodification of the body is a new discourse, linked to the incredible expansion of possibilities through recent advances in biomedicine, transplant surgery, experimental genetic medicine, biotechnology and the science of genomics in tandem with the spread of global capitalism and the consequent speed at which patients, technologies, capital, bodies and organs can now move across the globe. But on another level the commodification of bodies is continuous with earlier discourses on the desire, need and scarcity of human bodies and body parts for religious edification, healing, dissection, recreation and sports, and for medical experimentation and … Continue reading →

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paleofuture

Posted on by October 30, 2011
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Since January 2007 Matt Novak runs the weblog ↑paleofuture, collecting and presenting past visions of futures that never were. Drawing on his “physical archive of materials related to retro-futurism” his project is of such quality that it meanwhile has ↑moved to the Smithsonian. Above that Matt edits an ↑according magazine and produces ↑paleofuture.tv. On the latter’s first episode: The ↑shiny happy futurism of the 1950s gave way to much darker predictions for humanity in the 1970s. With ↑energy crises, fears of terrorism and skyrocketing unemployment, it’s really no wonder that Americans of the 1970s were often pessimistic about the future. … Continue reading →

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marco tempest

Posted on by October 14, 2012
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… get to the poetry faster  This is way overdue. It must have been in the late 1980s or early ’90s that for the first time I saw ↑Marco Tempest perform live. It was at one of those bigger magicians’ conventions in Germany where you can see and meet—if you’re a bit lucky—real top acts. Marco Tempest’s act was top, plus it was completely not off the peg. Brilliant stage magic lacking every standard element. Centerstage there was a big television set, Mr Tempest acted left, right, and behind that set and made flashy colored rubber balls move and jump … Continue reading →

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final problem

Posted on by March 1, 2011
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‘Of late I have been tempted to look into the problems furnished by Nature rather than those more superficial ones for which our artificial state of society is responsible.’ (Doyle 1893) DOYLE, Sir ARTHUR IGNATIUS CONAN. 1893. The adventure of the final problem. The Strand Magazine 6(36) [December 1893]. … Continue reading →

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2012 scorcher

Posted on by February 8, 2011
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‘Apocalyptic blockbuster absurd, say NASA scientists‘—thus headlines an article by John Harlow in ‘The Australian’, published yesterday. NASA is very unhappy with scientifically overflawed science-fiction movies like Roland Emmerich’s ‘2012‘ of 2009 (which they deem to be the worst), or Michael Bay’s ‘Armageddon‘ (1998). But they are quite fond of the cyberpunk genre. Here’s some water on my mills: NASA and the SEE [Science & Entertainment Exchange, a group of physicists and others campaigning for more authentic science fiction] also praise “good” science fiction films such as Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner [1982], which convincingly portrayed a futuristic Los Angeles now … Continue reading →

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lego antikythera

Posted on by March 1, 2011
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Andrew Carol’s hobby is building complex machines using LEGO [note the design of the site, and where it’s hosted]. After recreating Charles Babbage‘s difference engine, he now did the Antikythera mechanism. Have a look behind the scenes and watch the video at vimeo (in HD there, too), or at YouTube. MARCHANT, JO. 2010. Mechanical inspiration. Nature 468: 496-498. initially via tweet @ jimeh—lsfcil! [btw, congrats for making it to the top 100 in just two months :-] … Continue reading →

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