Say What!?

obsolete skills

Sadly, you have to be over 30 to really get most of this. Still it is humbling and funny at the same time.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/02/080216175953.htm

I’ve been discussing this for some time now.  One of the first things to get out of the way is the notion of “Natural” selection.  Nature has changed, some say it no longer exists.  However, the notion of how selection works in a Darwinian framework still applies to artificial selection; as seen in Dog evolution.  These principles still apply to culture, as they do to markets, and species. Of course the time scales are vastly different, but cultures and civilizations evolve at much greater rates than to biological systems. Domestic animals are especially interesting because they are a perfect blend of cultural and biological selection manifesting themselves.  I’m currently exploring the other side of this coin: the blending of cultural and technological selection as it applies to the homo sapien. Or more simply stated, the evolution of Man™

http://amazon.com/gp/product/B000FI73MA/
https://www.irexshop.com/
http://www.eink.com/
http://www.technologyreview.com/Infotech/19736/?a=f

I have been quietly watching and cheering for the developments in e-paper.  Certainly, there will always be a need for a physically permanent method of storing information. However, most of our daily requirements include lightweight, portable, low-power, e-book readers; with the same visual characteristics of paper. Amazon.com’s new Kindle looks to be a good beginning.  If they could combine the features of the Kindle with the iRex Illiad 2, eliminate the “Page flash” and delay when changing the page, I’d probably buy one.  Color isn’t as important to me as portability.  I currently carry several thousand pages of dead-tree with me between classes and it gets tiresome.

http://www.shapelock.com/index.html

http://www.zoomr.com

home made hover board

nothing more to say except, HELL yeah!

Concrete Canvas
Sometimes someone comes along and makes something so useful that it’s embarassing that it wasn’t made decades earlier. This “concrete” tent has an estimated life of 10 years, but the real beauty is in its super-efficient deployment. Mainly designed as emergency shelters, I don’t see how one would retrofit a door or windows. 

GarbageScout.com
I have a theory as to why mapping apps are such a hot thing right now. Until recently conceptualizing space, online space ( i won’t use the “c” word) has been too abstract. Trying to map 3D spacial metaphors onto an essentially dimensionless void filled only with ideas hasn’t been very satifying. It always ends up being underwhelming and not worth the effort to suspend any disbelief.

Now comes a way to scrub the planet and all of its nooks and crannies. The best part is that there are alot of uncharted territories. Screw virtual reality, this hybrid reality via Yahoo! and Google maps is way more interesting because you actually might find yourself!
Isn’t that what we try to do first?

another cool new thing (http://grou.ps) has an uncanny similarity to the consolidation of net tasks that the original web browser, Mosaic achieved in its time. 

Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at an Elingsh uinervtisy, it deosn’t mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht frist and lsat ltteer is at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae we do not raed ervey lteter by itslef but the wrod as a wlohe.

I found this great tid-bit while cleaning out my electronic desk/filing cabinet. Pretty cool eh?

Aside from being a bull month for the stock market, I missed November completely! I did manage to change the style for Nov. to a Halloween theme.  Well, here’s the December theme.

Campaign Facts

As you might already know, the above link requires a free registration at the NYT’s site. 
Glad to see that someone is checking the facts in this campaign.  Know the truth before you vote, please!

Yes, I fell victim to the hype of this film “Sky Captain”.  The cinematography was rich and beautiful. They did a good job of simlating the look of the 1940’s film noir genre.  They even went to great lengths to simulate the bad jump cuts seen in vintage film.  In fact, they did too good a job. After the allure of the medium has waned, the writing was certainly not up to the task.  The story seems to be a comingled mish-mash of War of the Worlds, and the 70’s James Bond film, Moonraker.  Poorly directed and acted, I kept having to remind myself that I wasn’t watching a made-for-tv-after-school- special. I don’t really blame the bad acting of the actors/actress themselves as the story and genre don’t lend themselves to “depth” of character.  However, the director needs to learn how to get the actors to perform the script and not just read it. Indiana Jones films do quite well with this task.

For lack of a better vernacular, the film is a “blonde bombshell”; beautiful on the outside, empty on the inside. Hey, why should I be surprised?  Save your money for the “Incredibles” instead.

http://www.folkways.si.edu/

From the site:
“Folkways Records & Service Co. was founded in 1948 in New York City by Moses Asch (1905-1986) and Marian Distler (1919-1964). Under Asch’s enthusiastic and dedicated direction, Folkways sought to record and document the entire world of sound. Between 1948 and Asch’s death, Folkways’ tiny staff released 2,168 albums. Topics included traditional, ethnic, and contemporary music from around the world; poetry, spoken word, and instructional recordings in numerous languages; and documentary recordings of individuals, communities, current events, and natural sounds.”

Moses Asch in many ways started what amounts to the equivalent of “photojournalism” for sound. Think of it, there are sounds that have died with either places, species, or cultures that are to never to be heard again. Too bad Darwin didn't have the technology at his disposal. I suspect that he would have considered it an important undertaking.

In many ways, Asch was as serious as Darwin, and we as both country and peoples are indebted to him.

http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/2003/03/rauch.htm

It’s always startling when you see yourself in someone else’s words.
My name is Troy Bennett and I am an Introvert. Now piss off…

http://caedefensefund.org/

Several days ago, I posted some of the goings on in regard to artist Steve Kurtz.  Well, rhizome’s Lewis LaCook has this to add,

“In the dim morning hours of May 11, 2004, American artist Steve Kurtz, a member of the internationally-acclaimed art collective Critical Art Ensemble, called 911 to tell dispatchers that his wife Hope had passed away in her sleep. When police arrived at the couple’s Buffalo, New York, home, they discovered that Kurtz posessed a mobile DNA extraction laboratory, part of the Critical Art Ensemble’s latest art project, ‘Free Range Grain’. The small labortory was being used to test food for possible genetic tampering—an endeavor quite in keeping with the Critical Art Ensemble’s emphasis on revealing and resisting bio-imperialism. Saturated with post-September 11 anti-terror rhetoric, the police called in the FBI to investigate, and, on June 8, seven subpoenas were issued to artists associated with the Critical Art Ensemble, including Kurtz. The artists are to appear before a Federal Grand Jury on June 15. A protest is being planned for the same day at 9 a.m. outside the courthouse in Buffalo, New York, at 138 Delaware Ave. A defense fund has also been established, and suggestions for ways to support Kurtz and the Critical Art Ensemble are available on the CAE Defense Fund website .”

http://slate.msn.com/id/2102086

I got the heads-up from slashdot.  The above article discusses how human preception of people is far more discriminating than we give credit.  My study, Human-IntoFace approaches things from the other direction. it plays with just how far we can take actual images of human faces and mess with them, before we get creeped out. The article is an interesting read especially for those of you into 3D character design.

My guess is that Pixar has already figured this out to some degree.  They typically try to minimize human characters in their work.  I remember how I felt the first time I saw the mother in Toy Story 2...eewwww. The more plastic one in TS 1 was far better, despite it’s being more ‘fake’ looking. the Incredibles looks great, but notice the cartoon quality of the characters? we don’t need realism here.

I guess we have to wait for Blade Runner level quality before we don’t get creeped out?