http://machinemachine.net/stream/feed en-us http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Sweetcron therourke@gmail.com http://www.nature.com/news/we-must-set-planetary-boundaries-wisely-1.10694 As pressure on resources increases, pollution accumulates and humanity's impact on Earth escalates, global-scale governance of the environment is increasingly necessary. In June, the United Nations' Rio+20 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, will grapple with these difficult political issues. Up for discussion is a relatively new scientific concept: planetary boundaries. Formulated in 2009 by Johan Rockström, director of the Stockholm Environment Institute, and his colleagues, the concept is based on the idea that humanity flourished under the conditions on Earth in the 10,000 years leading up to the industrial revolution — the Holocene epoch. So, to maintain human… ]]> Wed, 23 May 2012 09:39:50 -0700 http://www.nature.com/news/we-must-set-planetary-boundaries-wisely-1.10694 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fsXhtJ9BTJA&feature=youtube_gdata ]]> Fri, 09 Mar 2012 02:18:57 -0700 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fsXhtJ9BTJA&feature=youtube_gdata http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2012-02-08-metzger-en.html The new political ecology is thus emerging from a call for greater humility toward the world and all the life forms it may hold, both literally and figuratively. Rather than contrasting mankind to nature and the rest of the world, this perspective consistently perceives humans as relays in a dynamic mélange of relations that can be more or less open, inclusive, and stable over time, but without any preordained knowledge about how these relations may develop or change. ]]> Mon, 13 Feb 2012 03:09:31 -0700 http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2012-02-08-metzger-en.html http://www.e-flux.com/journal/in-conversation-with-adam-curtis-part-i/ Since the early 1990s Adam Curtis has made a number of serial documentaries and films for the BBC using a playful mix of journalistic reportage and a wide range of avant-garde filmmaking techniques. The films are linked through their interest in using and reassembling the fragments of the past—recorded on film and video―to try and make sense of the chaotic events of the present. I first met Adam Curtis at the Manchester International Festival thanks to Alex Poots, and while Curtis himself is not an artist, many artists over the last decade have become increasingly interested in how his films… ]]> Sun, 12 Feb 2012 05:36:52 -0700 http://www.e-flux.com/journal/in-conversation-with-adam-curtis-part-i/ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iiTTrT29HI0&feature=youtube_gdata ]]> Wed, 07 Dec 2011 10:29:31 -0700 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iiTTrT29HI0&feature=youtube_gdata http://www.wired.com/magazine/2011/07/mf_chainworld/all/1 How do you make a videogame that, in some sense, is a religion, especially if you’re an atheist? Rohrer began by defining the sort of spiritual practice that interested him, which had to do with the physical mysteries of everyday human experience. Rohrer spoke about his late grandfather, a colorful man who served as mayor of a small town in Ohio and left behind a legacy that soon turned into legends—the house he had built and the interstate whose path he had altered, forcing it to swerve around his town. (“It’s like my grandfather’s dogleg,” Rohrer said, putting up a… ]]> Sun, 24 Jul 2011 04:03:46 -0700 http://www.wired.com/magazine/2011/07/mf_chainworld/all/1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D570jB_1sHs&feature=youtube_gdata ]]> Tue, 12 Apr 2011 00:37:24 -0700 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D570jB_1sHs&feature=youtube_gdata 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://www.spiked-online.com/index.php/site/article/10324/ The earthquake confirms that a pre‑Enlightenment urge to blame human greed for natural disasters is making a comeback.

The Japanese proverb ‘fix the problem, not the blame’ captures an attitude towards life that has served Japan well in the post-Hiroshima era. It makes a powerful point, which is that looking for someone or something to blame is often a time-consuming exercise that rarely has positive outcomes. Whereas nothing can be done about an unfortunate event that has already occurred, we can mobilise our creative powers to fix problems that stare us in the face. History shows that… ]]> Sat, 26 Mar 2011 13:48:19 -0700 http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php/site/article/10324/ http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/print/1969/12/north-korea-8217-s-digital-underground/8414/ The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is the very archetype of a “closed society.” It ranks dead last—196th out of 196 countries—in Freedom House’s Freedom of the Press index. Unlike the citizens of, say, Tunisia or Egypt, to name two countries whose populations recently tapped the power of social media to help upend the existing political order, few North Koreans have access to Twitter, Facebook, or YouTube. In fact, except for a tiny elite, the DPRK’s 25 million inhabitants are not connected to the Internet. Televisions are set to receive only government stations. International radio signals are routinely jammed, and… ]]> Wed, 09 Mar 2011 07:11:43 -0700 http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/print/1969/12/north-korea-8217-s-digital-underground/8414/ http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/02/22/the_new_virology?page=full Largely unseen by the world, two dangerous germs homed in on their targets in the spring and early summer of 2009. One was made by man to infect computers. The other was made by nature, and could infect man.

The man-made virus could invade a computer running Windows, replicate itself, wreck an industrial process, hide from human operators, and evade anti-virus programs. The natural pathogen could invade human cells, hijack them to replicate billions of copies of itself, and evade the body's immune system.

The man-made weapon was Stuxnet, a mysterious piece of computer… ]]> Thu, 03 Mar 2011 08:45:07 -0700 http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/02/22/the_new_virology?page=full http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XuKjBIBBAL8&feature=youtube_gdata ]]> Thu, 03 Mar 2011 02:11:22 -0700 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XuKjBIBBAL8&feature=youtube_gdata http://chronicle.com/article/The-New-Athe-ists-Nar-row/126027/ With tongues in cheeks, Rich­ard Daw­kins, Chris­to­pher Hitch­ens, Sam Har­ris, and Dan­iel Dennett are embracing their reputation as the "Four Horsemen." Lampoon­ing the anx­i­eties of evan­geli­cals, these best-sell­ing athe­ists are em­brac­ing their "dan­gerous" sta­tus and dar­ing be­liev­ers to match their for­mi­da­ble philo­soph­i­cal acu­men.

Ac­cord­ing to these sol­diers of rea­son, the time for re­li­gion is over. It clings like a bad gene rep­li­cat­ing in the pop­u­la­tion, but its use­ful­ness is played out. Sam Har­ris's most re­cent book, The Moral Land­scape (Free Press, 2010), is the lat­est in the continuing bat­tle. As an ag­nos­tic, I find much of the… ]]> Mon, 24 Jan 2011 03:58:29 -0700 http://chronicle.com/article/The-New-Athe-ists-Nar-row/126027/ http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2011-01/07/russians-penetrate-lake-vostok Lake Vostok, which has been sealed off from the world for 14 million years, is about to be penetrated by a Russian drill bit.
The lake, which lies four kilometres below the icy surface of Antarctica, is unique in that it's been completely isolated from the other 150 subglacial lakes on the continent for such a long time. It's also oligotropic, meaning that it's supersaturated with oxygen -- levels of the element are 50 times higher than those found in most typical freshwater lakes.
Since 1990, the Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute in St Petersberg in Russia has… ]]> Sun, 09 Jan 2011 12:23:10 -0700 http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2011-01/07/russians-penetrate-lake-vostok http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-12012082 It could be one of the most ambitious computer projects ever conceived.

An international group of scientists is aiming to create a simulator that can replicate everything happening on Earth - from global weather patterns and the spread of diseases to international financial transactions or congestion on Milton Keynes' roads.

Nicknamed the Living Earth Simulator (LES), the project aims to advance the scientific understanding of what is taking place on the planet, encapsulating the human actions that shape societies and the environmental forces that define the physical world.

"Many problems we… ]]> Sat, 08 Jan 2011 08:50:13 -0700 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-12012082 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dE1DuBesGYM&feature=youtube_gdata ]]> Wed, 08 Dec 2010 08:50:00 -0700 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dE1DuBesGYM&feature=youtube_gdata http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100721/full/466432a.html So what would happen if there were none? Would anyone or anything miss them? Nature put this question to scientists who explore aspects of mosquito biology and ecology, and unearthed some surprising answers.

There are 3,500 named species of mosquito, of which only a couple of hundred bite or bother humans. They live on almost every continent and habitat, and serve important functions in numerous ecosystems. "Mosquitoes have been on Earth for more than 100 million years," says Murphy, "and they have co-evolved with so many species along the way." Wiping out a species of mosquito could… ]]> Tue, 27 Jul 2010 08:17:00 -0700 http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100721/full/466432a.html 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://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/06/should-this-be-the-last-generation/ Have you ever thought about whether to have a child? If so, what factors entered into your decision? Was it whether having children would be good for you, your partner and others close to the possible child, such as children you may already have, or perhaps your parents? For most people contemplating reproduction, those are the dominant questions. Some may also think about the desirability of adding to the strain that the nearly seven billion people already here are putting on our planet’s environment. But very few ask whether coming into existence is a good thing for the child itself.… ]]> Thu, 10 Jun 2010 02:45:00 -0700 http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/06/should-this-be-the-last-generation/ http://www.wired.com/techbiz/people/magazine/17-10/ff_smartlist Warning: The ideas expressed here may be dangerous. For this year's list, we walked right past the usual suspects and went looking for trouble. We wanted radicals, heretics, agitators—big thinkers with controversial, game-changing propositions. We found a prison reformer who wants to empty jails, an economist who thinks foreign aid hurts more than it helps, and a military theorist who believes the US should launch preemptive cyberattacks, right now. Then there's secretary of defense robert gates, who wants to win wars, not just prep for them. Risky? Sure. But this is no time to play it safe. ]]> Sun, 06 Jun 2010 03:54:00 -0700 http://www.wired.com/techbiz/people/magazine/17-10/ff_smartlist