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Tag Archives: technology
Leverage
The Madonna of Metropolis
Technocracy
Changing science fiction, changing the world: Scholars & Rogues honors William Gibson
I have been known to say that William Gibson is arguably the most important author of the past 30 years. That’s a mouthful of an assertion, especially since we’re talking about a genre writer, I know. But even if I’m wrong, I’m not off by much. The man who more or less invented Cyberpunk, then abandoned it as quickly as he
Read moreHow digital is transforming politics: a special report from Mashable that’s well worth a look
Unless you’ve been off-world for a few years, it’s not news that electronic media technologies are exerting a dramatic impact on our political sphere. However, being generally aware of the fact and having a more detailed understanding of the hows and whys, that’s another thing. Our good friend Josh Catone and his colleagues over at Mashable have just released a
Read moreThe DaVinci Gallery: a study in High Dynamic Range
Lately I’m working not only on my actual camera ability, but also on better understanding the technology of processing images. Yesterday I spent a couple of hours in the DaVinci Machines Exhibit in Denver working on both composition and technical skills (shooting in lower light, for instance) and doing so with an eye toward how I’d be outputting the images
Read moreS&R 701 Final Exam, Spring Semester 2012
Watch the two TED talks below. The question, which represents 100% of your final grade, follows. First, Nick Hanauer in 2012.
Read moreKara is self-aware: technology is climbing out of the uncanny valley, but toward what?
The uncanny valley is a hypothesis in the field of robotic and 3D computer animation, which holds that when human replicas look and act almost, but not perfectly, like actual human beings, it causes a response of revulsion among human observers. The “valley” in question is a dip in a proposed graph of the positivity of human reaction as a
Read moreAtlantis makes final touchdown
Eleventh in a series
Read moreRemembering the Space Shuttle: “Something has happened…”
First in a series. A few moments ago, at 11:30am EDT, Atlantis lifted off, marking the 135th and final mission in NASA’s historic Space Shuttle program, which began in 1981. The Shuttle era was defined by glory and tragedy and perhaps even a bit of banality. After all, the first time you do something it’s exciting, but at some point
Read moreArt and music and a special Friday Night edition of the Saturday Video Roundup: let’s get the 4th of July weekend started!
Heading down to the First Friday event in the Highlands Gallery District here in a bit, and am very much looking forward to seeing mentalswitch’s eyePhone show at Sports Optical. You’ve seen some of his iPhone art here before, in fact, and tonight – lots more. Head this way, Denver folks. Meanwhile, I’m ramping up for the evening with some
Read moreSkepticism vs. Denialism and how to tell the difference
I suppose, as a general rule, the human animal is built to prefer knowing to not knowing, but I have been struck over the course of the past decade or so at how much worse our society has gotten at tolerating uncertainty. It’s as if having to say “I don’t know” triggers some kind of DNA-level existential crisis that the
Read moreWhat would a progressive society look like? The Tricentennial Manifesto
One of my lists is currently engaged in a fairly dynamic discussion about “what is a progressive?” In thinking about the issue, I realized that it might help to ask the question a slightly different way: what would a progressive society look like? Maybe I can better understand what it means to be progressive in 2010 if I reverse-engineer the
Read moreAmusing ourselves to death, circa 2010
This is the future – people, translated as data. – Bryce, Network 23 The future has always interested me, even when it scares me to death. I wrote a doctoral dissertation that spent a good deal of time examining our culture’s ideologies of technology and development, for instance (and built some discussion of William Gibson and cyberpunk into the mix).
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lullaby pit 