Artificial Eye

boingboing/craphound cyberpunk Cory Doctorow has a new book out, titled "Someone comes to town, Someone leaves town" which is a small departure and a great leap forward in style and subject matter from his previous outings in the SF genre, but which remains true to his contemporary areas of interest. Lets just say that i can't agree with him more in his framing of the freedom of access debate in a zeitgeist fairy tale of good vs evil remniscent of the science fiction trilogy by C.S. Lewis. For sound i award him the musical accompaniement of "silverocelli" by the Order of The Silver Cosmonauts whose aim is to "create a vortex of attention and sound in galactic propulsion preparation with the resulting momentary sonic gravity lens enabling ontological tweening and planetary preening." Enjoy the clip, download the book, support the creative commons :)

boingboing/craphound cyberpunk Cory Doctorow has a new book out, titled "Someone comes to town, Someone leaves town" which is a small departure and a great leap forward in style and subject matter from his previous outings in the SF genre, but which remains true to his contemporary areas of interest. Lets just say that i can't agree with him more in his framing of the freedom of access debate in a zeitgeist fairy tale of good vs evil remniscent of the science fiction trilogy by C.S. Lewis. For sound i award him the musical accompaniement of "silverocelli" by the Order of The Silver Cosmonauts whose aim is to "create a vortex of attention and sound in galactic propulsion preparation with the resulting momentary sonic gravity lens enabling ontological tweening and planetary preening." Enjoy the clip, download the book, support the creative commons :)

From wikipedia: Colorless green ideas sleep furiously is a sentence composed by Noam Chomsky in 1957 as an example of a sentence whose grammar is correct but whose meaning is nonsensical. If you havent noticed, fALk's favorite colour is green, that of this blog and its elements... home of where "Newly formed bland ideas are unexpressible in an infuriating way." And this time without music :)

From wikipedia: Colorless green ideas sleep furiously is a sentence composed by Noam Chomsky in 1957 as an example of a sentence whose grammar is correct but whose meaning is nonsensical. If you havent noticed, fALk's favorite colour is green, that of this blog and its elements... home of where "Newly formed bland ideas are unexpressible in an infuriating way." And this time without music :)

So the truth has to come out...falk has been so busy NOT posting to the blog that i sort of put an unofficial boycott on myself since my content was filling up the site (and this is supposed to be a group project!)... but since its been soooo long, i figured, well, better get SOMETHING up... so if u could just imagine for a second that i havent been posting to the site because i suffered a Distributed Denial of Service Attack, well, u might understand why we have been so b0rk3d around here this last month. How's that for a good excuse? Music is an unreleased IDM (intelligent dance music) track from a barista named Bayrak who makes my daily fredocino in the gourmet coffeeshop i frequent in istanbul, which now has WIFI. What a great combination.

So the truth has to come out...falk has been so busy NOT posting to the blog that i sort of put an unofficial boycott on myself since my content was filling up the site (and this is supposed to be a group project!)... but since its been soooo long, i figured, well, better get SOMETHING up... so if u could just imagine for a second that i havent been posting to the site because i suffered a Distributed Denial of Service Attack, well, u might understand why we have been so b0rk3d around here this last month. How's that for a good excuse? Music is an unreleased IDM (intelligent dance music) track from a barista named Bayrak who makes my daily fredocino in the gourmet coffeeshop i frequent in istanbul, which now has WIFI. What a great combination.

Seems everyone has been too busy with other things to get anything posted.

A couple of things caught my eye this week. AgentCell, a joint University of Chicago and Department of Energy project has developed software to simulate the intracellular processes and behavior of individual cells. The software, which includes a 3D environment for the cells to move about in, is being released under a BSD license.

The Patriot Act was quietly extended to grant the FBI the power to conduct searches without having to obtain Judicial order.

Music: Morganistic's In The Shadow mixed with the argument from the U.S. Supreme Court hearing of Kent v. Dulles.

Seems everyone has been too busy with other things to get anything posted.

A couple of things caught my eye this week. AgentCell, a joint University of Chicago and Department of Energy project has developed software to simulate the intracellular processes and behavior of individual cells. The software, which includes a 3D environment for the cells to move about in, is being released under a BSD license.

The Patriot Act was quietly extended to grant the FBI the power to conduct searches without having to obtain Judicial order.

Music: Morganistic's In The Shadow mixed with the argument from the U.S. Supreme Court hearing of Kent v. Dulles.

There's a cultural war going on that IMHO is far more determinative for our future than the superficial one being waged by the christian right against islam - a battle for our ability to communicate with one another creatively and interactively with the products of our shared culture. Todays vlogpost is a remix of the cover image from Lawrence Lessig's book, Free Culture some creative commons images, and Lost in the plot from The Dears, who took the SXSW festival this year by storm.

Lessig talks, in the opening paragraphs of this phenomenal book about "Disney creativity,"--a form of expression and genius that builds upon the culture around us and makes it something different. Disney (or Disney, Inc.) ripped creativity from the culture around him, mixed that creativity with his own extraordinary talent, and then burned that mix into the soul of his culture. Rip, mix, and burn. Most of the content from the nineteenth century was free for Disney to use and build upon in 1928. It was free for anyone--whether connected or not, whether rich or not, whether approved or not--to use and build upon, without permission. Yet today, the public domain is presumptive only for content from before the Great Depression.

Lessig has been instrumental in the Orphan Works project as well, and is probably the most important contemporary legal activists fighting to maintain a common culture, and therefore our ability to collectively communicate with each other via the powerful tools that have been put on our desktop.

As noted by Tom Sherman in 1996, "We are willing participants in the creation of a second nature. While the biological world is collapsing, we are busy constructing an elaborate media environment."

Lets hope this environment wont collapse as well.

There's a cultural war going on that IMHO is far more determinative for our future than the superficial one being waged by the christian right against islam - a battle for our ability to communicate with one another creatively and interactively with the products of our shared culture. Todays vlogpost is a remix of the cover image from Lawrence Lessig's book, Free Culture some creative commons images, and Lost in the plot from The Dears, who took the SXSW festival this year by storm.

Lessig talks, in the opening paragraphs of this phenomenal book about "Disney creativity,"--a form of expression and genius that builds upon the culture around us and makes it something different. Disney (or Disney, Inc.) ripped creativity from the culture around him, mixed that creativity with his own extraordinary talent, and then burned that mix into the soul of his culture. Rip, mix, and burn. Most of the content from the nineteenth century was free for Disney to use and build upon in 1928. It was free for anyone--whether connected or not, whether rich or not, whether approved or not--to use and build upon, without permission. Yet today, the public domain is presumptive only for content from before the Great Depression.

Lessig has been instrumental in the Orphan Works project as well, and is probably the most important contemporary legal activists fighting to maintain a common culture, and therefore our ability to collectively communicate with each other via the powerful tools that have been put on our desktop.

As noted by Tom Sherman in 1996, "We are willing participants in the creation of a second nature. While the biological world is collapsing, we are busy constructing an elaborate media environment."

Lets hope this environment wont collapse as well.