MachineMachine /stream - tagged with death http://machinemachine.net/stream/feed en-us http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Sweetcron therourke@gmail.com Philip K. Dick, Sci-Fi Philosopher, (Part 3) : Adventures in the Dream Factory http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/22/philip-k-dick-sci-fi-philosopher-part-3/ Philip K. Dick’s admittedly peculiar but passionately held worldview and the gnosticism it embodies does more than explain what some call the dystopian turn in science fiction from the 1960s onward, it also gives us what has arguably become the dominant mode of understanding of fiction in our time, whether literary, artistic or cinematic. This is the idea that reality is a pernicious illusion, a repressive and authoritarian matrix generated in a dream factory we need to tear down in order to see things aright and have access to the truth. And let’s be honest: it is simply immensely pleasurable… ]]> Wed, 23 May 2012 10:00:42 -0700 http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/22/philip-k-dick-sci-fi-philosopher-part-3/ Is Chernobyl a Wild Kingdom or a Radioactive Den of Decay? http://www.wired.com/magazine/2011/04/ff_chernobyl//is-chernobyl-a-wild-kingdom-or-a-radioactive-den-of-decay-wired-magazine-wiredcom Is Chernobyl a Wild Kingdom or a Radioactive Den of Decay? : http://t.co/kh6tlzxk #hybrids #mutants #nature #thezone ]]> Fri, 20 Apr 2012 07:36:29 -0700 http://www.wired.com/magazine/2011/04/ff_chernobyl//is-chernobyl-a-wild-kingdom-or-a-radioactive-den-of-decay-wired-magazine-wiredcom Buying the Body of Christ http://killingthebuddha.com/mag/dogma/buying-the-body-of-christ//buying-the-body-of-christ-lt-killing-the-buddha Branding the communion wafer : “We’re proud to put our name on what will become the body of Jesus.” http://t.co/RBrsOghu #transubstantiation ]]> Sun, 08 Apr 2012 01:06:18 -0700 http://killingthebuddha.com/mag/dogma/buying-the-body-of-christ//buying-the-body-of-christ-lt-killing-the-buddha Ways Machines Can Hurt You http://www.notcot.com/archives/2012/03/ways-machines-can-hurt-you.php Wandering the LA Convention Center at WESTEC - the ultimate manufacturing show from the Society of Manufacturing Engineers… wandering the amazing tools, waterjets, 3D printers, CNCs, microCNCs, robot arms, welding devices… and SO much more. With mobile phone in hand, i walked away with even MORE pictures than you’ll see on the next page of warning graphics labels than i imagined. They are AWESOME. You can see about 30 of my favorites on the next page… it’s amazing how many ways these machines can hurt you… and the way they are depicted! See the graphical goodness on the next page! ]]> Wed, 28 Mar 2012 03:48:53 -0700 http://www.notcot.com/archives/2012/03/ways-machines-can-hurt-you.php Interview with Umberto Eco: 'We Like Lists Because We Don't Want to Die' http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/0,1518,659577,00.html/spiegel-interview-with-umberto-eco-we-like-lists-because-we-dont-want-to-die-spiegel-online-news-international Umberto Eco - "The list is the origin of culture... What does culture want? To make infinity comprehensible" : http://t.co/daRqmUvj ]]> Wed, 21 Mar 2012 09:35:40 -0700 http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/0,1518,659577,00.html/spiegel-interview-with-umberto-eco-we-like-lists-because-we-dont-want-to-die-spiegel-online-news-international This is what a week-long car crash looks like http://io9.com/5894474/this-is-what-a-week+long-car-crash-looks-like/this-is-what-a-week-long-car-crash-looks-like So, this is what a week-long car crash looks like: http://t.co/SPfDwWrJ #physics + #art = #win ]]> Mon, 19 Mar 2012 16:25:02 -0700 http://io9.com/5894474/this-is-what-a-week+long-car-crash-looks-like/this-is-what-a-week-long-car-crash-looks-like Anatomy of Norbiton: labyrinthine http://anatomyofnorbiton.org/anatomy%20pages/labyrinthine.php/anatomy-of-norbiton-labyrinthine "Some deaths are linear; others are labyrinthine" RT @owenbooth: All manner of labyrinths at @AnatomyNorbiton http://t.co/ccdpyQ8T ]]> Sun, 11 Mar 2012 04:12:40 -0700 http://anatomyofnorbiton.org/anatomy%20pages/labyrinthine.php/anatomy-of-norbiton-labyrinthine The Body Counter: A statistician’s guide to mass atrocities http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/02/27/the_body_counter?page=full/the-body-counter-by-tina-rosenberg-foreign-policy A statistician’s guide to mass atrocities: http://t.co/GdyiVo8T ]]> Thu, 01 Mar 2012 10:59:31 -0700 http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/02/27/the_body_counter?page=full/the-body-counter-by-tina-rosenberg-foreign-policy How We Won the Hominid Wars, and All the Others Died Out http://m.discovermagazine.com/2011/evolution/23-how-we-won-the-hominid-wars/how-we-won-the-hominid-wars-and-all-the-others-died-out-human-evolution-discover-magazine RT @HumanOrigins: How We Won The Hominid Wars and All the Others Died Out : http://t.co/yMFzhqTF #Neanderthals #x ]]> Sat, 25 Feb 2012 10:35:33 -0700 http://m.discovermagazine.com/2011/evolution/23-how-we-won-the-hominid-wars/how-we-won-the-hominid-wars-and-all-the-others-died-out-human-evolution-discover-magazine How did we forget about mutually assured destruction? http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-17026538#FBM59197/bbc-news-how-did-we-forget-about-mutually-assured-destruction BRING BACK MUTUALLY ASSURED DESTRUCTION : http://t.co/jUC0VJGt #GameTheory ]]> Wed, 15 Feb 2012 06:51:09 -0700 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-17026538#FBM59197/bbc-news-how-did-we-forget-about-mutually-assured-destruction Freud: The last great Enlightenment thinker http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/2011/12/freud-the-last-great-enlightenment-thinker//freud-the-last-great-enlightenment-thinker-prospect-magazine John Gray on Freud (the last great Enlightenment thinker?) http://t.co/cKMdkDWl ]]> Sun, 22 Jan 2012 12:07:00 -0700 http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/2011/12/freud-the-last-great-enlightenment-thinker//freud-the-last-great-enlightenment-thinker-prospect-magazine Paper On Super Flu Strain May Be Banned From Publication http://science.slashdot.org/story/11/11/29/0015216/paper-on-super-flu-strain-may-be-banned-from-publication/paper-on-super-flu-strain-may-be-banned-from-publication-slashdot "A Dutch researcher has created a virus with the potential to kill half of the planet's population." http://t.co/vrjY2W6V via @dsjkvf ]]> Tue, 29 Nov 2011 07:53:26 -0700 http://science.slashdot.org/story/11/11/29/0015216/paper-on-super-flu-strain-may-be-banned-from-publication/paper-on-super-flu-strain-may-be-banned-from-publication-slashdot The Scariest Zombies in Nature http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/The-Scariest-Zombies-in-Nature.html Once the fungus invades its victim’s body, it’s already too late. The invader spreads through the host in a matter of days. The victim, unaware of what is happening, becomes driven to climb to a high spot. Just before dying, the infected body—a zombie—grasps a perch as the mature fungal invader erupts from the back of the zombie’s head to rain down spores on unsuspecting victims below, starting the cycle again. This isn’t the latest gross-out moment from a George A. Romero horror film; it is part of a very real evolutionary arms race between a parasitic fungus and its… ]]> Sat, 29 Oct 2011 16:45:31 -0700 http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/The-Scariest-Zombies-in-Nature.html Steven Pinker on the History and decline (and myth of) Violence http://aminotes.tumblr.com/post/10416268270/steven-pinker-on-the-history-and-decline-of Some of the evidence has been under our nose all along. Conventional history has long shown that, in many ways, we have been getting kinder and gentler. Cruelty as entertainment, human sacrifice to indulge superstition, slavery as a labor-saving device, conquest as the mission statement of government, genocide as a means of acquiring real estate, torture and mutilation as routine punishment, the death penalty for misdemeanors and differences of opinion, assassination as the mechanism of political succession, rape as the spoils of war, pogroms as outlets for frustration, homicide as the major form of conflict resolution—all were unexceptionable features of… ]]> Tue, 20 Sep 2011 03:05:16 -0700 http://aminotes.tumblr.com/post/10416268270/steven-pinker-on-the-history-and-decline-of The Astronaut Suicides http://tumblr.machinemachine.net/post/9874744077

The Astronaut Suicides

Bonus: original photos by Neil Dacosta

]]> Tue, 06 Sep 2011 04:53:01 -0700 http://tumblr.machinemachine.net/post/9874744077 Death Is Not the End (Long Live theory!) http://nplusonemag.com/death-not-end Was theory a gigantic hoax? On the contrary. It was the only salvation, for a twenty year period, from two colossal abdications by American thinkers and writers. From about 1975 to 1995, through a historical accident, a lot of American thinking and mental living got done by people who were French, and by young Americans who followed the French. The two grand abdications: one occurred in academic philosophy departments, the other in American fiction. In philosophy, from the 1930s on, a revolutionary group had been fighting inside universities to overcome the “tradition.” This insurgency, at first called “logical positivism” or… ]]> Tue, 30 Aug 2011 09:08:16 -0700 http://nplusonemag.com/death-not-end Death Is Not the End (Long Live theory!) http://nplusonemag.com/death-not-end Was theory a gigantic hoax? On the contrary. It was the only salvation, for a twenty year period, from two colossal abdications by American thinkers and writers. From about 1975 to 1995, through a historical accident, a lot of American thinking and mental living got done by people who were French, and by young Americans who followed the French.

The two grand abdications: one occurred in academic philosophy departments, the other in American fiction. In philosophy, from the 1930s on, a revolutionary group had been fighting inside universities to overcome the “tradition.” This insurgency, at first called… ]]> Thu, 18 Aug 2011 01:48:43 -0700 http://nplusonemag.com/death-not-end How to fix horror, Part I: Stop trying to be so respectable http://www.slate.com/id/2297938/entry/0/ My new book Shock Value: How a few Eccentric Outsiders Gave Us Nightmares, Conquered Hollywood and Invented Modern Horror, explores how horror went mainstream by revisiting the golden age that began in 1968 with Rosemary's Baby and Night of the Living Dead and reached its zenith in the 1970s with movies like Halloween and Alien. Today the genre is bigger, more diverse, and more lucrative than it was back then, but its films rarely shock or inspire as they once did. There are many good new scary movies, but few great ones. It doesn't have to be this way. That's… ]]> Tue, 05 Jul 2011 09:34:09 -0700 http://www.slate.com/id/2297938/entry/0/ Heaven for Atheists http://thehumanist.org/july-august-2011/heaven-for-atheists/ It’s human nature, I suppose, to want to survive, to resist succumbing to the same fate all living things do. It’s the reason we write books, create art, have children—we’re hardwired to want to leave a legacy. Many even invent afterlives, rarely accepting death at face value but instead saying that someone who’s died has “gone on to a better place.” Some don’t even call it death but rather feel the need to be polite in saying someone “passed away.” These are the comforts we afford ourselves so we don’t have to confront the inevitable. Cryonics, I have decided, is… ]]> Mon, 04 Jul 2011 09:01:26 -0700 http://thehumanist.org/july-august-2011/heaven-for-atheists/ Risks to civilization, humans and planet Earth http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Risks_to_civilization,_humans_and_planet_Earth Risks to civilization, humans, and planet Earth are existential risks that could threaten humankind as a whole, have adverse consequences for the course of human civilization, or even cause the end of planet Earth.[1] The concept is expressed in various phrases such as "End of the World", "Doomsday", "Ragnarök", "Judgment Day", "Armageddon", "the Apocalypse", "Yawm al-Qiyāmah" and others.
[edit]Types of risks

Various risks exist for humanity, but not all are equal. Risks can be roughly categorized into six types based on the scope (personal, regional, global) and the intensity (endurable or terminal). The following chart provides… ]]> Sun, 26 Jun 2011 11:00:14 -0700 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Risks_to_civilization,_humans_and_planet_Earth