http://machinemachine.net/stream/feed en-us http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Sweetcron therourke@gmail.com http://www.lrb.co.uk/v34/n07/john-lanchester/marx-at-193/john-lanchester-marx-at-193-lrb-5-april-2012 Marx at 193 : http://t.co/VUOlefTJ via @LRB ]]> Thu, 29 Mar 2012 15:17:18 -0700 http://www.lrb.co.uk/v34/n07/john-lanchester/marx-at-193/john-lanchester-marx-at-193-lrb-5-april-2012 http://www.slate.com/articles/life/culturebox/2012/02/the_mystery_of_the_millionaire_metaphysician_slate_republishes_one_of_the_greatest_magazine_stories_ever_written_.html/the-mystery-of-the-millionaire-metaphysician-slate-republishes-one-of-the-greatest-magazine-stories-ever-written-slate-magazine A Strange Philosophical Manuscript. A Secret Benefactor: The Mystery of the Millionaire Metaphysician : http://t.co/jOiITp72 @slate classic ]]> Wed, 22 Feb 2012 17:21:17 -0700 http://www.slate.com/articles/life/culturebox/2012/02/the_mystery_of_the_millionaire_metaphysician_slate_republishes_one_of_the_greatest_magazine_stories_ever_written_.html/the-mystery-of-the-millionaire-metaphysician-slate-republishes-one-of-the-greatest-magazine-stories-ever-written-slate-magazine http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2011/11/04/142016962/the-friday-podcast-how-fear-turned-a-surplus-into-scarcity?sc=tw&cc=share/the-friday-podcast-how-fear-turned-a-surplus-into-scarcity-planet-money-npr How Fear Turned A Surplus Into Scarcity http://t.co/xYUXyLn3 via @nprnews ]]> Tue, 29 Nov 2011 11:52:00 -0700 http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2011/11/04/142016962/the-friday-podcast-how-fear-turned-a-surplus-into-scarcity?sc=tw&cc=share/the-friday-podcast-how-fear-turned-a-surplus-into-scarcity-planet-money-npr http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/160/tech-wars-2012-amazon-apple-google-facebook And as every sci-fi nerd knows, you totally need a tricked-out battleship if you're about to engage in serious battle. To state this as clearly as possible: The four American companies that have come to define 21st-century information technology and entertainment are on the verge of war. Over the next two years, Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google will increasingly collide in the markets for mobile phones and tablets, mobile apps, social networking, and more. This competition will be intense. ]]> Mon, 17 Oct 2011 12:25:13 -0700 http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/160/tech-wars-2012-amazon-apple-google-facebook http://articles.boston.com/2011-05-22/bostonglobe/29571858_1_data-privacy-public-health Who owns the data in that cloud has been the subject of ferocious debate. It’s not all stored in one place, of course — our lives are tracked and documented by a diffuse assortment of entities that includes private companies like Google and Visa, as well as governmental agencies like the IRS, the Department of Education, and the Census Bureau. Up to now, the public conversation on this kind of data has taken the form of an argument about privacy rights, with legal scholars, computer scientists, and others arguing for tighter restrictions on how our data is used by companies… ]]> Mon, 30 May 2011 15:11:01 -0700 http://articles.boston.com/2011-05-22/bostonglobe/29571858_1_data-privacy-public-health http://www.canopycanopycanopy.com/10/to_have_is_to_owe We need to understand what philosophers in the Middle Ages, from Italy to India to China, already understood perfectly well: Money is not a thing, and is certainly not a scarce resource. Money is a promise. And it is a promise we keep to those we value and break to those we do not. In Greece, Ireland, Portugal, and Spain, sovereign-debt default seems ever more likely. If it occurs, then what will happen? Certain promises will be kept, and others will be broken. As we learn from politicians every day, it is rarely possible to keep all promises exactly as… ]]> Tue, 05 Apr 2011 01:36:15 -0700 http://www.canopycanopycanopy.com/10/to_have_is_to_owe http://chronicle.com/article/Capitalisms-Dismal-Future/126659/ A remarkable feature of the commentary on today's economic troubles is that, despite constant reference to the Great Depression of the 1930s, as well as to the many downturns since World War II, there has been little mention of the fact that business depressions have been a recurrent feature of the capitalist economy since the Industrial Revolution. But even the briefest attention to history makes recent events appear far from unusual. From the early 1800s to the late 1930s, in fact, capitalism spent between a third and a half of its history in depressions (depending on how they are dated… ]]> Wed, 30 Mar 2011 02:30:54 -0700 http://chronicle.com/article/Capitalisms-Dismal-Future/126659/ http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/07/the-politically-incorrect-guide-to-ending-poverty/8134 In the 1990s, Paul Romer revolutionized economics. In the aughts, he became rich as a software entrepreneur. Now he’s trying to help the poorest countries grow rich—by convincing them to establish foreign-run “charter cities” within their borders. Romer’s idea is unconventional, even neo-colonial—the best analogy is Britain’s historic lease of Hong Kong. And against all odds, he just might make it happen.

Halfway through the 12th century, and a long time before economists began pondering how to turn poor places into rich ones, the Germanic prince Henry the Lion set out to create a merchant’s mecca on… ]]> Sat, 12 Jun 2010 09:21:00 -0700 http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/07/the-politically-incorrect-guide-to-ending-poverty/8134 http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2010/01/caleb_larsens_a_tool_to_deceive_and.html Perpetual online auction, internet connection, custom programming and hardware, acrylic cube... Combining Robert Morris' Box With the Sound of Its Own Making with Baudrillard's writing on the art auction this sculpture exists in eternal transactional flux. It is a physical sculpture that is perptually attempting to auction itself on eBay. Every ten minutes the black box pings a server on the internet via the ethernet connection to check if it is for sale on the eBay. If its auction has ended or it has sold, it automatically creates a new auction of itself. If a person buys it on eBay,… ]]> Sun, 14 Feb 2010 18:45:00 -0700 http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2010/01/caleb_larsens_a_tool_to_deceive_and.html http://seedmagazine.com/content/article/the_outer_limits In April 1965, a young researcher named Gordon Moore wrote a short article for the now-defunct Electronics Magazine pointing out that each year, the number of transistors that could be economically crammed onto an integrated circuit roughly doubled. Moore predicted that this trend of cost-effective miniaturization would continue for quite some time. Two years later Moore co-founded Intel Corporation with Robert Noyce. Today, Intel is the largest producer of semiconductor computer chips in the world, and Moore is a multi-billionaire. All this can be traced back to the semiconductor industry’s vigorous effort to realize Moore’s prediction, which is now known… ]]> Wed, 16 Dec 2009 18:05:00 -0700 http://seedmagazine.com/content/article/the_outer_limits http://ask.metafilter.com/mefi/129825 Last minute Japan travel: after making an error with timing I need to arrange one-way travel from Tokyo to Kumamoto quite quickly. What are the cheapest options? I have looked into flights and trains (for the 17th of August) and both seem expensive (about £200-£250 a ticket). I am in the UK at the moment. Would it be worth waiting until we arrive in Japan? Perhaps trying to get last minute flights at the airport? Information on this site suggests cheap train travel, but has no links to buy: frommers.com

Air travel is looking pricey: farecompare.com or… ]]> Tue, 11 Aug 2009 04:09:56 -0700 http://ask.metafilter.com/mefi/129825 http://www.americanscientist.org/issues/pub/2009/5/the-higher-arithmetic Last year the National Debt Clock in New York City ran out of digits. The billboard-size electronic counter, mounted on a wall near Times Square, overflowed when the public debt reached $10 trillion, or 1013 dollars. The crisis was resolved by squeezing another digit into the space occupied by the dollar sign. Now a new clock is on order, with room for growth; it won’t fill up until the debt reaches a quadrillion (1015) dollars. The incident of the Debt Clock brings to mind a comment made by Richard Feynman in the 1980s—back when mere billions still had the power… ]]> Wed, 05 Aug 2009 03:32:00 -0700 http://www.americanscientist.org/issues/pub/2009/5/the-higher-arithmetic