The Guestbar!
A tiny, guest-edited blog!
Rudy Rucker
Rudy Rucker is a writer, a mathematician and a computer scientist. Born in Kentucky in 1946, Rucker moved to Silicon Valley when he turned 40. Rucker has published twenty-five books, primarily science-fiction and popular science. He was an early cyberpunk and an editor at Mondo 2000. He often writes SF in a style is characterized as transreal. His most recent novels were Frek and the Elixir, a far-future epic about a boy's galactic quest to restore Earth's ecology and As Above So Below, a historical novel based on the life of the sixteenth century painter Peter Bruegel. Rucker is a professor emeritus of computer science at San Jose State University, where he created a number of freeware programs relating to chaos, artificial life, cellular automata, higher dimensions, and computer games. He is presently working on The Lifebox, the Seashell and the Soul, a nonfiction book about computers and the nature of reality. Rucker's website can be found at www.cs.sjsu.edu/faculty/rucker or at www.rudyrucker.com.
Entanglement nets form part of the less-than-lethal-weapons armory that was heralded in past years as a step to a new kind of war: bloodless, and therefore “humane”. Short intro (pre-Iraq War) and good link list on world-info.org;
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An anagram: Talked about morality and media recently? Hmm?
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Ten ways of thinking about deconstruction: What does one have to do or say in order to be a deconstructivist? Nice intro by Willy Maley.
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Mego: Mego likes to see itself as a platform for all kinds of infomation and communication carried via modern electronic media, whether it be a compact disc, MiniDisc, DVD, internet, video, live PA or a vinyl record release. Quote: "It is our aim that Mego releases and ideas should be collected and experienced for many years to come and not be seen as some fodder for hopeless fashion victimized disc jockeys."
Out now: Rob Mazurek: "Sweet And Vicious Like Frankenstein" (CD)
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Makrolab is an experimental science/art laboratory, equipped to accommodate artists, scientists, tactical media workers and creators and provides them with tools and means for their joint independent progressive work. People in the Makrolab do research primarily in the fields of telecommunicatons, weather systems and migrations.
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Mary Poppins - Practical Citizenship for Toddlers: Jonathan Newquist on how Mary Poppins corrupts the minds of our good capitalist youth.
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Cheap: I'd like to recommend the marvellous Viennese electronic music label "Cheap", run by such experts as Erdem Tunakan. For ten years now, Cheap is the place for innovative music without borders, non-destructive artist development, disinformation, in/expensive limited clothes and goodies nobody needs. I asked them to send me a short description. What did I get? This line: "Dada, Christ, Marx, Feminism, Guy Debord, Capitalism, Modernism, Postmodernism, War On Terrorism, is there anything to believe in? Yes, Cheap!"
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Reverse ventriloquism: Poor ventriloquists. Scientists - as Laura Nelson reports - have explained their trick in detail, and have managed to produce the reverse effect.
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Francisco Claure Ibarra: Yesterday I had the very great honor to open the exhibition "gente hecha a mano" of Bolivian artist Francisco Claure Ibarra. Francisco presents some of his portrait photographs in our monochrom space at Museumsquartier Vienna.
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Coerced Confessions: Craig Garrett (editor at Flash Art) writes about snapshot photography's subjective objectivity.
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9-11 remembrance! This is a very .. uhm ... interesting disaster tribute. a) It's very ... let's say "frivolous". And b) there seems to be an algebraic problem: "By the time you read this it will be September 11, 2003 and it will be the one year anniversary of the attack on America [...]"
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Expressionism and Insanity: As Thomas Röske explains, a recent exhibition in Germany shows the impact of the idea of insanity on Expressionist art.
(via Raw Vision)
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Sartre & Peanuts: Nathan Radke claims that Charlie Brown is an existentialist.
(via Philosophy Now)
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Repetition: The Ring and the Diabolical Imaginary: Matthew Sharpe's elaborate analysis of the Japanese and English movie versions of 'The Ring' (on Cinetext).
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The Rorschach Inkblot Test, Fortune Tellers, and Cold Reading: An excerpt from "What's Wrong With the Rorschach?" published on the 'Skeptical Inquirer' site.
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Zombie Infection Generator: Oldie but goodie. I like epidemiology JavaApplets. Zombies are grey, humans are pink and panicked humans are bright pink. The rest is georgeromeroesque tragedy... especially if two or three bright dots are trapped in a one way street by a grey dot...
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Pit gallery: This guy carves faces and objects from the seeds of fruit. Hardcore handicraft.
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posted by johannes grenzfurthner at 3:44:25 AM | permalink
The Mumford Time Machine: "The Mumford Time Machine is a programmable controller and intervalometer for special photographic effects. It allows you to trip the shutter of your camera or fire an electronic flash at specific intervals or in response to events. These trigger events can be sound, light, motion, or electrical signals."
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Orphan Drift: An artist group active in London and Oslo. Currently working on a mixture of source codes and poetry.
>> alien zone- future wants contagious with other dimensions. _ streched light _ mayan calender speed within it is . _pro ducing detail _ vandal to time calender without clock _ . _
zoo(hiatus)] > FAMA; 2p f a-é.chil [pl.pl.play] <> [wa.war.ar][zone][#grey][connect pCCC] Special_Fx: #_$2VOW.ght [third vi94] [c-funny teeth] [.tmp if.txt][invisible] <<
(via rebel:art)
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Bellymasks? Quote: "A bellymask is an heirloom sculpture created right on your pregnant torso in a simple one-hour process. Made of plaster gauze, it is an exact replica of your pregnant form."
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UK Patent Application No. GB2272154: A ladder to enable spiders to climb out of a bath.
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Fair cake-cutting procedure: NY University professor Steven Brams and his team developed a political-economic theory for efficiently sharing out a cake.
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Making Snow: On the intellectual property rights of snowmakers. (via IPKat)
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Free Bitflows: In early June 2004 a digital culture event will be held in Vienna to examine the theories and practices for making new cultures of access viable. The problem is clear, but not the solution. As some means of production are becoming as cheap as to be practically freely accessible (last year's computer equipment, software, basic Internet access), a new question confronts independent cultural producers: "how can we organize access to cultural works to match the new freedom of production?"
Please propose presentations for the conference and themes for the workshops or submit works for the exhibition, or apply for a residency.
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The Awful German Language: This is a classic by Mark Twain. I'm a native speaker of German. And I agree. Totally.
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"Frequency Analysis of English Vocabulary and Grammar": Based on the LOB Corpus by Stig Johansson and Knut Hofland (OUP, 1989, ISBN 0-19-8242212-2); gives the top eighteen English words and their frequencies...
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Arcade History Database: Great arcade video games database.
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Noise and Talk: It is not all too long ago that 24-hour-a-day broadcasting was something unknown in Central Europe. Sometime after the last talk show, the late film or the news came the inevitable nightly signoff. Snow. I remember from my childhood how that was a moment of terrifying stillness and clarity. [...]
One of my latest rants.
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Dio for America: America's self-acclaimed "most enduring and well regarded heavy metal vocalist" wants to run for presidency. Of course it's a spoof. But to quote DaddyD: "It would be fun to see hordes of satans minions united in the cause of universal healthcare and same sex marriages." (via DaddyD)
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Killer Fonts: Psst. Are you interested in computer fonts in serial killer's handwriting?
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Gelatin: The members of Gelatin combo do projects like the 'Human Elevator' (strong men were needed to man a scaffolding three stories tall; guests would enter at ground level, be grabbed by buff arms and passed up, hurtling to the top and be dropped on the roof of an apartment building) or the 'The B-Thing' (in 2000 they constructed an improvised balcony on the 91st floor of the World Trade Center) or 'Tierfick' (a softcore video where they shag preparation animals in sailor outfit).
But see for yourself.
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Cryptographever: Secret messages are everywhere. Do you understand? *Everywhere!* Here is the prove. Cryptographever is an on-line application which lets you find hidden messages in webpages published on the net.
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Mixmaster: Simple idea. Take two websites and merge them. One site provides the web appearance, one site provides the content. Applied surrealism.
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Dyne:bolic GNU/Linux: I happen to know some folks of the Dyne network and they're doing a great job. Dyne:bolic is a live bootable distribution, an operating system which works directly from the CD without the need to install or change anything on the hard disk. It is user-friendly, recognizes your hardware devices (sound, video, firewire, and USB), and offers a vast range of software for multimedia production, streaming, 3D modeling, photo, peer-to-peer filesharing, Web browsing and publishing, word processing, email, encryption, and networking. It does automatic clustering, joining the CPU power between any other dyne:bolic on the local network, and works on modded XBOX consoles as well.
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The Digital Death Rattle of the American Middle Class: A Cautionary Tale by Dion Dennis (Assistant Professor of Sociology and Criminal Justice at Bridgewater State College). Published on ctheory.
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MakulaTure: In cooperation with Australian scientists, Austrian artist Robert Jelinek will reconstruct the pheromone scent (musk extract) of the Tasmanian tiger (extinct since 1936), nasally resettle it in the flora and fauna of Australia and Tasmania, and utilize it as a territorial scent fence for farmers.
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Kingdom: You may have come across the name Lars von Trier in connection with his activities as a filmmaker. The Danish director has made movies like "Dancer in the Dark" (with Björk) or "Dogville" (with Nicole Kidman). I'd like to seize the opportunity of being the Boing Boing guestblogger to present one of my all-time favourite TV series: "Kingdom". Lars von Trier directed the extraordinary series (1994-1997) and if you haven't seen it yet you should definitely get your hands on it - trust me! "Kingdom" has a unique look and a unique blend of horror and humour. A crossover of hospital series, ghost story, experimental film and smouldering comedy. Actually, I'm unhappy with the term "crossover", but "mixture", "hybrid" or "crossbreed" don't work either. I'm not sure what kind of genre Lars von Trier created with this work but I disagree with the common reflex to compare it to Lynch's "Twin Peaks". Both concepts are "outsiderish" or "strange" on a mass market level, but they are - in my humble opinion - different in almost any way. What more can I tell you? Expect malpractice suits and seances, severed heads and Volvos, liver transplants and divining rods, a back-stabbing Swedish neuroscientist and a female doctor giving birth to Mister Udo Kier. Provocative, entertaining, witty. Period.
Kingdom I (DVD): Link
Kingdom II (DVD): Link
Pinhole Photography: Artist Justin Quinnell takes pinhole photographs from inside his mouth. Pure magic...
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The Internet Pathology Laboratory for Medical Education: This site invites you to solve "The Case of the Week". Will the real forensic pathologist please stand up?
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Aresa Biodetection: Aresa is working on a biodetection system able to identify the presence of specific components in the soil. The technology being developed is based on genetically modified plants that are able to change colour from green to red when growing nearby specific compounds. If it works out Aresa will present a plant that can detect explosives (such as landmines and unexploded ordnance) or heavy metals just by growing.
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Portraits of Taliban: A collection of astounding portraits of Taliban by Afghan photographers in Kandahar after the fall of the Taliban regime in 2002. Considering Taliban interpretation of Islamic rules, photography was illegal. But when passport photography was reallowed Taliban would ask for some pictures, secretly taken in the backroom of the studio.
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Saving One Life: Spielberg’s Artificial Intelligence as redemptive memory of things. A tentative exploration of affinities between Steven Spielberg’s and Siegfried Kracauer’s conceptions of cinema and memory / by Drehli Robnik.
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Madonna Wannabe: On video conferencing, music and sadism. Ouch. (via DaddyD)
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WIMP (Windows Interface Manipulation Program) is a program for creating full-screen visual animations synchronized with sound in real time. WIMP utilizes - and exploits - the GUI of the Windows operating system. WIMP can be used as a VJ tool, a screensaver, a cool grafix generator or as a piece of conceptual art. Clever, elegant, ironic software by Victor Laskin and Alexei Shulgin.
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Silicon Zoo: Putting computer chips under the microscope can show you some very interesting creatures hiding there. Complex, beautiful designs of integrated circuitry carefully compsed by some creative chip designers.
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Invaders: Press Space to play. (Yes, Sir!)
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Cryo: Just found this frosty case modding project. Maybe it already was in the glorious blogosphere charts for over twelve months and I didn't realize it... anyway. I definitely *love* it. Build a cryogenic chamber for Lego figures out of your mouse.
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"Discipline Design: The Rise of Media Philosophy": An Email Exchange with Frank Hartmann (Vienna), by Geert Lovink
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posted by johannes grenzfurthner at 5:50:59 AM | permalink
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