http://machinemachine.net/stream/feed en-us http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Sweetcron therourke@gmail.com http://www.digitalbookworld.com/2012/publication-isnt-preservation/ Publication used to mean preservation but it no longer does. Let me explain. When a print book is published its metadata is literally attached to its content. The author and title, publisher and imprint, price, ISBN and barcode, as well as the size, the shape, the binding are clear, easily referenced at a glance. Part of the complicated process of digitizing books that the Hathi Trust, the Internet Archive, and Google, for example, faced was how to record and connect all of this information to a digital file. For scanned and even more seriously for born-digital e-books, as Digital Book… ]]> Mon, 21 May 2012 10:46:01 -0700 http://www.digitalbookworld.com/2012/publication-isnt-preservation/ http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2012/05/2012519123159732261.html With regard to the relativity of value, Karl Marx expressed this function of ideology in the clearest terms in Volume I of Capital: "... one man is king only because other men stand in the relation of subjects to him. They, on the contrary, imagine that they are subjects because he is king" (Karl Marx, Capital, vol. I. London: Penguin, 1974, p. 63). It is up to us to translate Marx's dialectical insight into a couple of simple formulas, according to which the balance of your influence is positive if you have more followers than the number of people you,… ]]> Mon, 21 May 2012 10:39:58 -0700 http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2012/05/2012519123159732261.html http://debategraph.org/Stream.aspx?nid=100641&iv=09&mac=100641- The debate about the nature of time and its passage is a long and venerable one. The issues addressed by pre-Socratic philosophers such as Heraclitus and Parmenides about whether time 'flows' or not prefigure present day philosophical arguments. In his talk to the Blackheath Philosophy Forum Huw Price chose as his starting point the views of cosmologist Sir Arthur Eddington - a prominent figure in the first half of the 20th century, but little known today. What made Eddington's view of time interesting is that he was prepared to part company with most physicists - who conceive time as it… ]]> Fri, 11 May 2012 08:12:52 -0700 http://debategraph.org/Stream.aspx?nid=100641&iv=09&mac=100641- http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2012-05/03/heritage-sandbox "We're trying to work out whether places have memories and if so, how can we help people relate to these memories," says Tim Cole, a lecturer in History at the University of Bristol. His project, Reflecting the Past, will see augmented reality mirrors deployed in the saloon of the ship, SS Britain, to allow visitors to "glimpse characters from the past in a fragmentary, fleeting kind of way". When in situ in September, the content will not be triggered by the visitor but played on a random loop, he adds. "Sometimes you'll see things and sometimes you won't. We want… ]]> Fri, 04 May 2012 04:47:37 -0700 http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2012-05/03/heritage-sandbox http://www.psychologydegree.net/psychology-of-hoarding/ Infographic on compulsive hoarding ]]> Fri, 04 May 2012 03:47:14 -0700 http://www.psychologydegree.net/psychology-of-hoarding/ http://rhizome.org/editorial/2012/apr/26/jonathan-lethem/ The Ecstasy of Influence, now the title of his recent collection of writings, often addresses the process of integrating and "cobbling together" ideas and culture to make something new. Yet, stories Lethem relates of hosting "mailing parties" for the Philip K Dick Society or working in a bookstore seem like snapshots from pre-digital age. Recently I talked with the author about our rapidly dematerializing culture as well as appropriation as an art practice: ]]> Thu, 26 Apr 2012 12:43:24 -0700 http://rhizome.org/editorial/2012/apr/26/jonathan-lethem/ http://engadget.com/default/article.do?artUrl=http://www.engadget.com/2012/04/24/google-explains-how-it-searches-the-internet-in-under-half-a-sec/&category=classic&postPage=1 Ever wonder how Google manages to search the entire web and return results in half a second? Well, RobertvH from Munich did, and Mountain View’s head of web-spam, Matt Cutts, talks you through it in the above YouTube video. The short answer? Lots of backend firepower and, you know, a few years in the search game. If you remember the Google dance, Cutts explains what caused that, before going on to give a good idea about how today’s version of the site does what it does. If you’re thinking this all sounds a bit too much like SEO 101, you’d… ]]> Wed, 25 Apr 2012 16:49:39 -0700 http://engadget.com/default/article.do?artUrl=http://www.engadget.com/2012/04/24/google-explains-how-it-searches-the-internet-in-under-half-a-sec/&category=classic&postPage=1 http://www.sciencemag.org/content/336/6079/341?utm_content=tweetdeck&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=science&utm_source=shortener Genetic information storage and processing rely on just two polymers, DNA and RNA, yet whether their role reflects evolutionary history or fundamental functional constraints is currently unknown. With the use of polymerase evolution and design, we show that genetic information can be stored in and recovered from six alternative genetic polymers based on simple nucleic acid architectures not found in nature [xeno-nucleic acids (XNAs)]. We also select XNA aptamers, which bind their targets with high affinity and specificity, demonstrating that beyond heredity, specific XNAs have the capacity for Darwinian evolution and folding into defined structures. Thus, heredity and evolution, two… ]]> Fri, 20 Apr 2012 12:31:07 -0700 http://www.sciencemag.org/content/336/6079/341?utm_content=tweetdeck&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=science&utm_source=shortener http://stunlaw.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/what-is-new-aesthetic.html The New Aesthetic is now subject to discussion and critique on a number of forums, blogs, twitter threads, and so forth (for a list, see bibliography on Berry 2012a, but also Bridle 2012, Kaganskiy 2012, Sterling 2012). Many of these discussions have a particular existential flavour, questioning the existence and longevity of the New Aesthetic, for example, or beginning to draw the boundaries of what is 'in' or 'out' of the domain of New Aesthetic things (See Twitter 2012).[1] Grusin (2012), for example, claims: '[t]he "new aesthetic" is just the latest name for remediation, all dressed up with nowhere to… ]]> Thu, 19 Apr 2012 01:21:06 -0700 http://stunlaw.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/what-is-new-aesthetic.html http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/04/the-new-aesthetic-needs-to-get-weirder/255838/ A really new aesthetics might work differently: instead of concerning itself with the way we humans see our world differently when we begin to see it through and with computer media that themselves "see" the world in various ways, what if we asked how computers and bonobos and toaster pastries and Boeing 787 Dreamliners develop their own aesthetics. The perception and experience of other beings remains outside our grasp, yet available to speculation thanks to evidence that emanates from their withdrawn cores like radiation around the event horizon of a black hole. The aesthetics of other beings remain likewise inaccessible… ]]> Wed, 18 Apr 2012 09:33:37 -0700 http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/04/the-new-aesthetic-needs-to-get-weirder/255838/ http://www.ctheory.net/articles.aspx?id=703/ctheorynet Doing with Icons makes Symbols; or, Jailbreaking the Perfect User Interface http://t.co/t4bOSiYv Norm Friesen – khaoid (khaoid) http://twitter.com/khaoid/status/192507088491126784 ]]> Wed, 18 Apr 2012 00:29:31 -0700 http://www.ctheory.net/articles.aspx?id=703/ctheorynet http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/04/turing-test-revisited/artificial-intelligence-could-be-on-brink-of-passing-turing-test-wired-science-wiredcom Artificial Intelligence could be on brink of passing The Turing Test : http://t.co/oLsEJN33 ]]> Sat, 14 Apr 2012 08:37:53 -0700 http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/04/turing-test-revisited/artificial-intelligence-could-be-on-brink-of-passing-turing-test-wired-science-wiredcom http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/04/the-new-aesthetic-needs-to-get-weirder/255838//the-new-aesthetic-needs-to-get-weirder-ian-bogost-technology-the-atlantic The New Aesthetic Needs to Get Weirder : http://t.co/ZyPWq121 by @ibogost ]]> Sat, 14 Apr 2012 08:21:55 -0700 http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/04/the-new-aesthetic-needs-to-get-weirder/255838//the-new-aesthetic-needs-to-get-weirder-ian-bogost-technology-the-atlantic http://www.extremetech.com/computing/123929-just-how-big-are-porn-sites/just-how-big-are-porn-sites-extremetech "It’s probably not unrealistic to say that porn makes up 30% of the total data transferred across the internet" : http://t.co/T7MFHbvo ]]> Tue, 10 Apr 2012 08:06:36 -0700 http://www.extremetech.com/computing/123929-just-how-big-are-porn-sites/just-how-big-are-porn-sites-extremetech http://www.economist.com/node/21551450?fsrc=scn/tw/te/ar/justpressprint/bespoke-pets-just-press-print-the-economist Thanks to 3D printing, it will soon be possible to design and build household animals to order http://t.co/gJnpIQiJ – The Economist (TheEconomist) http://twitter.com/TheEconomist/status/185881511801794560 ]]> Thu, 05 Apr 2012 03:02:41 -0700 http://www.economist.com/node/21551450?fsrc=scn/tw/te/ar/justpressprint/bespoke-pets-just-press-print-the-economist http://www.wired.com/beyond_the_beyond/2012/04/an-essay-on-the-new-aesthetic//an-essay-on-the-new-aesthetic-beyond-the-beyond-wiredcom The New Aesthetic concerns itself with “an eruption of the digital into the physical.” That eruption was inevitable : http://t.co/0uTYTcth ]]> Thu, 05 Apr 2012 03:02:38 -0700 http://www.wired.com/beyond_the_beyond/2012/04/an-essay-on-the-new-aesthetic//an-essay-on-the-new-aesthetic-beyond-the-beyond-wiredcom http://dailymaverick.co.za/article/2010-11-16-building-smarter-machines-that-serve-humanity/daily-maverick-daphne-koller-when-machines-are-almost-human Daphne Koller: when machines are almost human - http://t.co/pYs9zvvH – Dan R.D. (Ddrrnt) http://twitter.com/Ddrrnt/status/187448712191152130 ]]> Wed, 04 Apr 2012 01:42:57 -0700 http://dailymaverick.co.za/article/2010-11-16-building-smarter-machines-that-serve-humanity/daily-maverick-daphne-koller-when-machines-are-almost-human http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/04/everything-you-wanted-to-know-about-data-mining-but-were-afraid-to-ask/255388//everything-you-wanted-to-know-about-data-mining-but-were-afraid-to-ask-alexander-furnas-technology-the-atlantic Essential knowledge! "Everything You Wanted to Know About Data Mining but Were Afraid to Ask" http://t.co/D8S8u6re @theatlantic – Pedro Monteiro (psesinando) http://twitter.com/psesinando/status/187280680881881088 ]]> Tue, 03 Apr 2012 14:33:32 -0700 http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/04/everything-you-wanted-to-know-about-data-mining-but-were-afraid-to-ask/255388//everything-you-wanted-to-know-about-data-mining-but-were-afraid-to-ask-alexander-furnas-technology-the-atlantic http://roychristopher.com/mechanisms-new-media-and-the-forensic-imagination/digging-in-the-gates-the-digital-socratic-shift-roy-christopher Nice. MT @RoyChristopher: > @GreatDismal's 'Agrippa', @mkirschenbaum's 'Mechanisms' and the haunting of the #archives: http://t.co/dUrcY5BM – Matthew Kirschenbaum (mkirschenbaum) http://twitter.com/mkirschenbaum/status/187231717617180672 ]]> Tue, 03 Apr 2012 12:26:31 -0700 http://roychristopher.com/mechanisms-new-media-and-the-forensic-imagination/digging-in-the-gates-the-digital-socratic-shift-roy-christopher http://www.themorningnews.org/article/the-sound-of-the-internet?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:%20TheMorningNews/features%20(The%20Morning%20News) If the internet makes a sound (and it does), are you listening? Our correspondent uses software to transform the digital ephemera of web browsing—from network traffic to JavaScript, browser histories to JPGs—into music. ]]> Thu, 29 Mar 2012 09:44:48 -0700 http://www.themorningnews.org/article/the-sound-of-the-internet?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:%20TheMorningNews/features%20(The%20Morning%20News)