http://machinemachine.net/stream/feed en-us http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Sweetcron therourke@gmail.com 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 http://www.cabinetmagazine.org/issues/14/turner.php/cabinet-the-influencing-machine On Victor Tausk's 'The Influencing Machine' http://t.co/CBehMiY8 from #Cabinet, 2004 ]]> Tue, 25 Oct 2011 03:21:41 -0700 http://www.cabinetmagazine.org/issues/14/turner.php/cabinet-the-influencing-machine http://newhumanist.org.uk/2565/favourite-things What I’ve learned, the hard way, is that the one thing you must never ask a collector is “why?” It’ll get you nowhere. They’ll just stare at you in baffled amazement before returning to contemplation of their most recent acquisition, or dreaming of the next one. These are people who thrive on making classifications, pondering the arrangements of their trophies and annotating them with informative labels. Often their obsession seems to derive from a need to impose order on a chaotic world, from the fear of death and oblivion. The collection will ward off mortality, carrying the illusion of eternity.… ]]> Mon, 11 Jul 2011 04:54:06 -0700 http://newhumanist.org.uk/2565/favourite-things http://seedmagazine.com/content/article/uncanny_valley/ Disturbing experiences that feel both familiar and strange are instances of the “uncanny,” an intuitive concept, yet one that has defied simple explanation for more than a century. Interest in the particular occurrences of the uncanny, in which humans are bothered by interaction with human-like models, began as a psychological curiosity. But as our ability to design artificial life has increased—along with our dependence on it—getting to the heart of why people respond negatively to realistic models of themselves has taken on a new importance. Attempts to understand the origins of this reaction, known since the 1970s as the “uncanny… ]]> Mon, 07 Dec 2009 18:08:00 -0700 http://seedmagazine.com/content/article/uncanny_valley/