Estes Hydrogen Fuel Rocket:
 Quote: "I loved Estes rockets as a boy. I in fact made a horizontally launching rocket tube device that I shot at my shed. I wore a helmet and didn't kill anybody but I know that if a bored kid in America's Heartland made one of those today they'd be on him or her like lightning. I suppose its a sign of the times that Estes is now making hydrogen fuel rockets. I'm not quite sure if these really generate hydrogen, which might be dangerous. They seem to use some sort of flavor crystal for lift-off." Link The Woodstock of Evolution: The World Summit on Evolution, held in the Galapagos Islands, revealed a science rich in history and tradition, data and theory, as well as controversy and debate.
Link Google Maps: I guess this has been around, but it is a great and somewhat scary thing nonetheless. Use it to find the location of your holiday resort or to plan a missile attack (if you are the US government...) Almost as addictive as Mah Jongg.
Link End of 'Roswellism' & Creation of Ufological 'Third Way':
 Quote: "In ufology, the failure of Roswellism and the Roswellites (and the Klasskurtzians on the opposite extreme) has been their inability to moderate their position, and to change their conclusions, as new evidence has been discovered, and old evidence has been discredited." Link NASA's Cassini Reveals Lake-Like Feature On Titan:
 Scientists are fascinated by a dark, lake-like feature recently observed on Saturn's moon Titan. NASA's Cassini spacecraft captured a series of images showing a marking, darker than anything else around it. It is remarkably lake-like, with smooth, shore-like boundaries unlike any seen previously on Titan. Link Turn On, Tune In, Veg Out: "Star Wars" has much to say about geeks - and also about a society that loves them, hates them and depends upon them. Article by Neal Stephenson.
Link Self Tattoo Removal: Want to get rid of unwanted tatoos? DIY? Well... visit the link and think about it.
Link The cybernetic parrot sausage: If you tell a German sausage that it is a German sausage it should answer. (Thanx to Sharon for pointing out the link!)
 Link monochrom tour update // Experience The Experience Of Being Buried Alive: June 30 @ Contemporary Art Gallery/Vancouver.
 Link Art, Science and Democracy: Essay by Lee Smolin. Intro: "The myth of Galileo identifies science with the stance of the rebel, who ignores the teaching of authority and sees for himself what the truth is. This myth was popularized in the twentieth century by Bertold Brecht, for whom Galileo may have served as a vehicle for making sense of his own tangle of rebellions and commitments. But in our period in which, as Brian Eno says, the most valuable currency is attention; the stance of the rebel is easy. The currency of attention does not distinguish between art and advertising or argument and propaganda. As a result we live in a world in which the stance of the rebel is adopted as easily by those who seek to deny rights to others as it is by those who are protecting their own freedoms. The natural result is that criticism is often reduced to irony and irony is itself degraded to the point it can be invoked merely by the reproduction of familiar images. But the trajectory of postmodernism tells us that irony and even protest are not enough: Damien Hirst may claim he is a brand, but indeed is the White Cube Gallery anything but a boutique for expensive collectibles? No, at this time when we have no lack of well educated and well off rebels, when Marxism is so deservedly repudiated it is hard to even imagine the conviction of our grandparents, and no one seems to mind very much that in some parts of the United States a fair proportion of the vote hasn'9t been counted for years, some new thinking is needed. In this situation the interesting question is not what we should be against, but what should we be for?"
Link G-Force:
 DaddyD writes: "G-Force were one of my favorite cartoons when I was a kid. It featured a bunch of helmet headed kids and spaceships rendered in jumpy animation. I haven't heard or seen anything about them since somewhere around 1984. Until the Power Rangers came out. I was already too old to get them, but I always had to think about G-Force when I saw them. Of course, I was also a fan of the classic Japanese monster movie involving loads of latex. Cool. It turns out, I could have had my helmet-head fix AND my rubbermonster fix satisfied in one easy shot with the movie Inframan. It appears to be the earliest known sighting of the helmet-headed hero. A hero who goes on to fight rubber suit monsters. The trailer looks surprisingly familiar, and I suspect a Beastie Boys track layed over it might fit surprisingly well." Link MIT Physicists Create New Form Of Matter: MIT scientists have brought a supercool end to a heated race among physicists: They have become the first to create a new type of matter, a gas of atoms that shows high-temperature superfluidity. Their work, to be reported in the June 23 issue of Nature, is closely related to the superconductivity of electrons in metals. Observations of superfluids may help solve lingering questions about high-temperature superconductivity, which has widespread applications for magnets, sensors and energy-efficient transport of electricity.
Link The Cracked Ambience: new and recommended sounds for your personal space
 ACCELERA DECK - pop polling (Scarcelight) FINN - the ayes will have it (Sunday Service) MERZBOW - rattus rattus (Scarcelight) REC OVERFLOW - Madrid (sp.ARK) VIOLET - the sun is shining ... (Scarcelight) Headpress Guide To The Counter Culture: A Sourcebook For Modern Readers. Edited by Temple Drake & David Kerekes.
 Link Creature beacon reunites lost pets and owners: A device that clips onto a pet's collar and calls home with its coordinates whenever an animal strays too far could put and end of the misery of losing a much-loved pooch or kitty.
Link Common sense and fantasy in a private immigration prison: Intro: >Maybe it was cynical courtroom theatre, or maybe the attorney for the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) believed it when he ridiculed the very idea that correctional officers would retaliate against prisoners for conducting a hunger strike to protest their incarceration by the Immigration & Naturalization Service (INS). In his closing for the defense late last year in Aboyade and Dafali v. CCA (US District Court, Newark, NJ, cv-00-2067) lead counsel Brad Simon made repeated, sarcastic references to "wild conspiracy theories about retaliation" and asked jurors to rely on their "common sense" rather than on the "fantasies" offered by plaintiffs that CCA guards had beaten and isolated frustrated detainees. Simon was either unaware that such repression in INS facilities is the norm, or he cleverly chose to rely on the "common sense" that gives a uniformed abuser the benefit of the doubt. The plaintiffs were suing CCA on the theory that "consistent with corporate practices, [the company] promoted individuals who demonstrated a willingness to use excessive force and harsh behaviors toward the detainee population." CCA attorneys countered that plaintiffs were suing the company rather than individual officers or the INS because they wanted money. Simon told the jury that CCA "has the right not to be extorted." He also reminded them that the plaintiffs were "illegal immigrants."<
Link Gains for Democracy Could Jolt Iran's Theocrats and America's Neocons: Iran's most repressive clerics and the USA's most militaristic neocons share a common interest: They're very eager to see the failure of Iranian activism for democracy and human rights.
Link monochrom tour update // Experience The Experience Of An Illegal Space Race: Saturday, 2 PM @ Machine Project/Los Angeles.
 Link Joining tracks with the world: The impossibility of politics in China. Intro: "Shortly before the October Revolution, Lenin challenged his comrades: 'I don't know how radical you are or how radical I am. I am certainly not radical enough; that is, one must always try to be as radical as reality itself.' A large part of Lenin's challenge was to defamiliarize reality so as to find the possibility of transforming it. Indeed, in the 1920s, Lukács identified Lenin’s particular genius as his explicit focus on revolution as 'an everyday issue', the recalling of radical philosophy to its ostensible vocation of finding a possibility for politics. This possibility entailed, as Lukács put it, 'that the recognition of a fact or tendency as actually existing by no means implies that it must be accepted as a reality constituting a norm for our own actions.' For, he added, 'there is always a reality more real and therefore more important than isolated facts and tendencies – namely, the reality of the total process, the totality of social development.' In this light, today one could well ask how to be as radical as reality, when contemporary analysis becomes ever more resistant to radical totalization, as leftist radicalisms slip into endless particularisms or into quotidian totalisms that appeal more to nominalism than to historicity, while rightist radicalism roots itself ever more firmly in some version of theocracy. Indeed, it seems that analyses of contemporary life increasingly can only configure our current moment through that totalization identified by Hegel's eternal present, or that symptom of history that presented itself as a defining moment of the historical itself and that was thence the occasion for an immanent philosophy of a global unfolding and a return. As in Hegel's moment, today eternality has become enshrined as the end of politics. This is quite clear from the vantage of contemporary China, where the Hegelian eternal present that renarrated global contingency and historical disjuncture in the early nineteenth century into historicist inevitability has been adduced, perhaps paradoxically, to the endless standstill of Hegel's enabling Oriental nightmare."
Link The Wicker Man: Games of truth, anthropology, and the death of 'man'.
 Despite appearances, it's Foucault's philosophy that provides the dread that makes this film a horror classic. Link Beware, Coffee Lovers! Quote: "Experiments with web-weaving spiders have demonstrated that caffeine consumption can seriously impair one's ability to focus on tasks at hand. Now back to my java."
 Link A Brief History of the Apocalypse: Quote: "The 21st century has begun in earnest! And despite the cries of doomsayers, psychics and prophets, the world has not come to an end! Is the idea that the End is near a recent phenomenon? Far from it. Indeed, Chicken Littles have crying doom since ancient times. The aim of this page is to debunk end-time prophecy by listing hundreds of failed doomsday predictions, allay the fears spread by end-time preachers, and demonstrate that doomcrying is nothing new. I also hope you will derive amusement from some of the more bizarre prophecies." (via Histologion)
Link History of Jewish Philosophy: Edited by Frank & Leaman. Ralph Blumenau considers the long and distinguished history of Jewish Philosophy.
 Intro: >This massive book, consisting of contributions from 35 scholars, is obviously a valuable and learned resource for anyone interested in Jewish philosophy, and it contains an immense amount of illuminating material. However, that it is "accessible to general readers as well as to scholars", as one of the blurbs on the back cover claims, is true of only a few of its 39 chapters. The bulk of the book is certainly unsuitable for anyone who isn't already very familiar with philosophy in general and technical philosophical vocabulary in particular, or who hasn't a good knowledge of Judaism. A knowledge of Arabic philosophical terms is sometimes taken for granted. One chapter even assumes that the reader knows of "the infamous meeting" between Heidegger and Cassirer in Davos in 1929 (p.794): there is no explanation here or elsewhere of what this meeting was about.< Link Kitten, 5 legs:
 This kitten was born with 5 legs in Changfu Street, Nanjing, China. The extra leg of the kitty, which grows in the middle of its back legs, is just like the other normal ones. Link Father of integrated circuit dies: Jack Kilby, credited with inventing the integrated circuit in 1958, passed away earlier this week at the age of 81.
Link Linda Pollack's contribution to European Unity: Los Angeles,
6.05.
  (Click lower picture to enlarge) Kingdom of Heaven: Why Ridley Scott's Story Of The Crusades Struck Such A Chord In A Lebanese Cinema
Link Women, space travel and infection: Bed-rest study investigates female immune response: A bed-rest study with female participants will help scientists understand changes to the immune response and decreased resistance to infection in space.
Link monochrom tour update // Experience The Experience Of A Brick Of Coke: Today @ Machine Project/Los Angeles.
 Link Paris Burger Ad Remixed: I have no idea why this issue keeps on hassling me, but this is hilarious.
Link Hooters goes for exposure:
 Risqué restaurant chain Hooters of America Inc. is inflating its brand exposure by busting into several new business ventures -- none of which are directly related to serving up hot wings and cold beer at its 400 restaurants. Airlines, casinos, magazine and now credit cards and tv channels. Link EU breakthrough for Irish language: Gaelic activists are celebrating a landmark decision to make Ireland’s first language an official language of the European Union.
Link Nanoparticles carry cancer-killing drugs into tumor cells: University of Michigan scientists have created the nanotechnology equivalent of a Trojan horse to smuggle a powerful chemotherapeutic drug inside tumor cells – increasing the drug's cancer-killing activity and reducing its toxic side effects (via Baloney).
Link Gödel And The Nature Of Mathematical Truth: A Talk with Rebecca Goldstein.
 Intro: "Gödel mistrusted our ability to communicate. Natural language, he thought, was imprecise, and we usually don't understand each other. Gödel wanted to prove a mathematical theorem that would have all the precision of mathematics—the only language with any claims to precision—but with the sweep of philosophy. He wanted a mathematical theorem that would speak to the issues of meta-mathematics. And two extraordinary things happened. One is that he actually did produce such a theorem. The other is that it was interpreted by the jazzier parts of the intellectual culture as saying, philosophically exactly the opposite of what he had been intending to say with it." Link A Tale of Two Nationalisms: As tensions are ratcheted up across the Taiwan Strait, Wang Chaohua analyses the distinctive trajectory of national consciousness on the island. Contradictions of identity, as the legacies of KMT and Cold War confront local particularities and democratic impulses, and possibilities for an exit from the impasses of geography and history.
Link Neanderthal Love: A debate is raging among anthropologists over whether and how much our ancestors mated with Neanderthals. Eric Trinkaus, anthropologist: 'People find the idea of early-man/Neanderthal interbreeding both titillating and disgusting. Neanderthals are human, but they aren't quite us. It borders on bestiality.'
Link Deserts set to expand: Many of the world's dry regions, currently home to some 2.1 billion people, are in danger of becoming useless for growing food, according to the latest in a series of reports on the world's ecosystems. It blames climate change and human activities.
Link Microsoft's new Chinese internet portal has banned the words "democracy" and "freedom" from parts of its website in an apparent effort to avoid offending Beijing's political censors.
Link Why Do Scientists Get So Angry When Dealing With ID Proponents? Essay by Jason Rosenhouse. Intro: "I am sometimes asked why supporters of evolution get so angry when addressing proponents of Intelligent Design (ID). My answer is that if the evolution/ID dispute were simply a discussion of rival scientific claims, say about whether known evolutionary mechanisms are capable of explaining the formation of complex systems, then the discussion would be far less acrimonious. In reality, however, ID proponents spend most of their time leveling bogus charges against evolution. Professionals in the relevant fields possess the expertise to see immediately that the charges are scientifically untrue, but the lay audiences to which these charges are directed are unlikely to be similarly equipped. The result is that ID proponents present a picture of modern biology that is completely unsupported scientifically and disingenuous. And this is what causes ID proponents to be so reviled by scientists. In this essay I will document one specific example of blatant ID duplicity. It provides a useful study of the depths to which ID proponents must sink in order to make their case."
Link The Supreme Court Decision on Texas Death Row Prisoner, Thomas Miller-El: Race Bias and the Death Penalty, One More Time: Intro: "In the recent dispute between Supreme Court justices over the question of race discrimination in jury selection, we find two warring camps of legal theory. By issuing its order to give one death row prisoner a new trial in Texas, the court majority seems to be forging a legal theory that can advance the long, good fight for racial justice. On the other side are some truly dangerous leanings."
Link Saddam's psychic sandbox: Saddam Hussein, who among other occult pursuits, "studied the sands", would have been better equipped with orbitary American weather satellites. During sand studies, the Black Arts Saddam conjured up jinn (genies) to do his bidding. Said to have inherited some of his mother Sabha’s psychic prowess, Saddam was believed by many to have seven jinn lined up for his personal protection. According to these people, the Butcher of Baghdad spoke on a daily basis with the king and queen of the jinn, who actually advised him.
Link Cape Fear: The View Through Dani's Window:
 For all the violence, what is real here is the skeleton in the closet. Link monochrom tour update // Experience The Experience Of A Magnetism Party: Today @ Machine Project/Los Angeles.
 Link The Cracked Ambience: new and recommended sounds for your personal space
BUMBLEBEES - cissetive (emolution) FREIBAND - flying (scarcelight) GENTLE ASSASSINS - they knew too much (endgame) HANGED UP - clatter for control WHY? - sanddollars EP (Anticon) The Basis of Morality: Tim Madigan on scientific versus religious explanations of ethical behaviour.
Link 73.7 mln Web users went to porn sites in April 2004, 70.7 mln in April 2005: ComScore Networks and VeriSign came up with an interesting set of statistics in regards to the newly approved .xxx domain. In April 2004 7.6 bln minutes was spent on adult sites, while in April 2005 the number went down to 6.3 bln. The users generated 18.6 bln adult page views in April 2004, and 17.7 bln in April 2005. The number of unique visitors to adult sites went down by a whopping 3 mln, with 73.7 mln visiting adult sites in April 2004 and 70.7 mln in April 2005.
Link Cosmos 1 Set to Test Solar Sail: A group of space enthusiasts will attempt to prove that you really can fly a spacecraft without a single drop of onboard fuel.
Link Bi-Gender Crab Amazes Watermen, Interests Scientists: Sometimes Mother Nature works in mysterious ways, refusing to pigeonhole an animal into one category or another. David Johnson and Robert Watson of Middlesex County realized that after making a remarkable discovery a few weeks back. While inspecting crab pots near the mouth of the Rappahannock River, they spotted an unusual crustacean.
Link Sustainable Energy Source Could Solve Bermuda Triangle Riddle: Deep-sea bacteria produce methane that accumulates in 'gas hydrates'. One theory suggests that when this covering of 'methane ice' becomes unstable, it causes instability of the sea and an explosive mixture of air and methane above.
Link The Eclectic Tech Carnival: The Eclectic Tech Carnival is a gathering of women interested in technology. It's held once a year, each time in a venue where there is an interest in it. The first was in Pula, Croatia in 2002. Its roots are in the Gender Changers hardware and FLOSS courses. Women from all over the world organise the /etc through mailing lists, IRC and IRL meetings - and women come from all over the world to the /etc itself. The week-long carnival includes workshops on installing open source and free software, looking at Linux, building websites, other chat and conferencing software like GAIM, Jabber and Gnomemeeting. In addition there are art exhibitions and cultural presentations. This year, the fourth Eclectic Tech Carnival will take place in Graz, Austria, July 11-15. Link
genderchangers monochrom tour update // Experience The Experience Of Being Buried Alive: Today @ Machine Project/Los Angeles.
 Link After 2,000 Years, a Seed From Ancient Judea Sprouts: Israeli doctors and scientists have succeeded in germinating a date seed nearly 2,000 years old. The seed, nicknamed Methuselah, was taken from an excavation at Masada.
Link Waiting for Bigfoot: San Francisco-based American artist Jill Miller is participating in Norwich Gallery's EAST 05 international exhibition, July 2 - August 20, 2005. Although she will exhibit a performance work, she will not appear in the gallery. At least not in the flesh. Miller's durational performance-installation, "Waiting for Bigfoot," will be located in a remote Northern California forest ("Bigfoot Country"). A live video feed will be delivered to the Norwich Gallery as real-time video via satellite uplink, 24 hours a day. The artist will live at the campsite, situated in the epicenter of Bigfoot sightings, for the duration of EAST 05.
Link THE NO CLOWN ZONE:
 Clowns represent anarchy, the personifications of unreason, and a force of nature out of control. Who knows what really lies behind their unchanging painted faces and outlandish costumes? These are all good enough reasons for even the strongest and most adult of us to feel unease in the presence of a clown. In other words: I hate clowns. LINK Urgent Business Proposal: "It is with my profound dignity that I write to you in Nigeria with this very important and highly confidential letter. First, I must solicit your strictest secrecy in this transaction. I am Dick Cheney of the United States of America, and I have an URGENT and CONFIDENTIAL business proposal for you. Due to the arcane and reactionary "insider-trader" laws of the democratic country of the United States of America of which I am Vice-President, certain money that I have obtained in a completely respectable fashion is now in dispute. I assure you that said money was obtained in honorable transactions during my time as Chief Executive Officer of an American oil company and as a result of my secret business partnership and torrid love affair with Martha Stewart, of whom I am sure you are familiar ..."
Link Ocean's Twelve: John Barth Goes to Hollywood.
 George Clooney and the difference between smartly self-aware and dumbly self-involved. Link Giant Balls of 'Snot' Explain Ocean Mystery: Scientists have discovered giant sinking mucus 'houses' that double the amount of food on the sea floor. Now they know how bottom dwellers find enough sustenance.
Link PARIS BURGER SWIMWEAR: If you wondered, where that swimsuit Paris Hilton is wearing in that infamous burger-ad for Carl Jr. (the best burger-chain there is, I remember when I was still eating meat) comes from: Shay Todd.
Link P.S.: I wonder if monochrom will kick me off this blog for bringing it to such a shameless low. Cloning experiment shows cancer reversible: A cloning experiment may show that the body itself has the ability to reverse cancer, U.S.-based researchers said Saturday. They cloned mouse embryos from a melanoma skin cancer cell, and created healthy adult mice using some of the cloned cancer cells, showing that malignancy is not the inevitable fate of a cancer cell. "This settles a principal biological question," said Dr. Rudolf Jaenisch of the Whitehead Institute at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, one of the country’s leading experts in cloning.
Link How to build an Ultimate Water Gun:
 DaddyD writes: "It's the American in me I guess, but I just love playing with guns. Water guns. The kind that can soak someone down in 15 seconds. The trouble is that most commercial makers of people sprinklers don't think big enough. Super Soakers are getting there, but they can empty pretty fast, leaving you unable to defend yourself against some wet and angry people. The Ultimate Water Gun is closer to the ideal. It can carry a LOT of water, it features a shiny golden motorcycle helmet, and comes with a waterproof coat. So not only do you get to make everyone around you very wet, but you get to do it while looking good too. I really really want one of these." Link Chinese gamer sentenced to life: A Shanghai online gamer has been given a suspended death sentence for killing a fellow gamer. Qiu Chengwei stabbed Zhu Caoyuan in the chest when he found out he had sold his virtual sword for 7,200 Yuan (£473).
Link Sex huts: how romantic: A German city is rushing to install a series of drive-in wooden "sex garages" in time for next year's Soccer World Cup and an expected boom in the local sex trade, a city official said Wednesday.
Link How Humble BBS Begat Wired World: Clunky and slow, the bulletin board system ultimately proved irresistible. Jason Scott's new three-DVD set, BBS: The Documentary, tracks the birth of an online subculture.
Link Titan disappoints ocean hunters:
 Saturnian moon has no seas, but may well be volcanically active. Quote: "Although pictures of Titan seem to show rivers, deltas and oceans, Saturn's giant moon is as dry as a bone, scientists say. Researchers know that the moon has methane in its atmosphere, and they had speculated that this came from fumes evaporating from giant lakes of hydrocarbons. They envisaged rainstorms of liquid methane and other wild weather events on the alien surface." Link The Cracked Ambience: new and recommended sounds for your personal space
V/A - now02 (underscan) ROB STEADY - ask no lies (clumsybeats) MORCEAUX DE MACHINES - estrapade (no type) ANDREY KIRITCHENKO - true illusion (nexsound) GONE BALD - exotic klaustrofobia (narrominded) GUISEPPE IELASI - gesine (Häpna) and finally KRAKEN OXEN - titan deceit (space patrol) monochrom tour update / changing dates // Experience the Experience: monochrom's USA/Canada Tour, June/July 2005. Only a couple of days left. Please note that some of the San Francisco dates changed!
 Link / Tour Page Link / New hi-res press picture 21st Century Graffiti: Detroit Tagging: Essay by Jeff Rice. Intro: >Compuware Headquarters, located at 1 Campus Martius near the base of Woodward Avenue in downtown Detroit, marks the site of the new, urban landscape. Compuware, a leading Information Technology corporation, manufactures management, software applications and offers IT services to a number of global businesses. Where Detroit once signified the success and perils of Modernism, specifically those moments denoted by Fordist assembly line methodology, today Detroit emerges as the signifier of techno-salvation. The lure of Compuware to Detroit, solidified in its 2003 opening, begins the final replacement of industrialization with information technology. The sixteen story, $350 million building is now the focal point of what the city itself calls "Digital Detroit," a title embodied in an annual conference of the same name. Wayne State University contributes to this technology-driven enthusiasm with plans for its own downtown technology site, TechTown, a "new multi-million dollar entrepreneurial village" "located along the Digital Drive in the heart of the city of Detroit." Detroiter Iggy Pop's declaration "Look out, honey, cause I'm using technology," in the 1973 song "Search and Destroy," is no longer a threat, but instead a desired reality as Detroit embraces the turn to the digital. This desire is realized in Digital Detroit, which dubs itself "New Ideas, New Culture, New Community." The label updates the Fordist plan of "Americanization" in the early half of the 20th century with a digitized sense of urban identity. Fordism triumphed homogenous identity for the sake of manufacturing; Digital Detroit triumphs "newness" in order to generate new media. The empty factories which initially gave birth to Ford and Chrysler supremacy throughout the first half of the 20th century have yielded to the McLuhanist vision of information dominance. "In the new electric Age of Information and programmed production," Marshall McLuhan wrote in the 1960s, "commodities themselves assume more and more the character of information." How has Detroit come to represent the new signifier of urban information? How has its commodification placed urbanity at the center of new media logic? The commodification of our cities (through franchises, capital, gentrification) has not yielded "better" places to live. No matter how many Hard Rock Cafés or Borders we attract to downtown environments, life remains the same. Buildings remain unoccupied. Ruins surround the franchises. This paradox, the Detroit Free Press notes, continues even as the city claims a high profile for attracting IT and other commercial investment.<
Link Trying to reverse the tide: Intro: "Bolivia was hailed a model pupil by the IMF in the 1990s for its government’s wholehearted embrace of neo-liberal reforms. But they reckoned without the backlash of the impoverished and largely indigenous majority who have since 2003 increasingly taken to the streets causing governments to fall and multinationals to flee. "While the poor don’t have food, the rich won’t have peace," reads the graffiti scrawled onto the wall adjoining the dual carriageway that sweeps breathlessly from one of the world’s highest airports into Bolivia’s Andean city of La Paz. In front of the graffiti lie six smashed-up toll booths, destroyed by protestors who have marched almost daily in May 2005 from the impoverished city of El Alto towards the seat of Government in the centre of La Paz. Suddenly the traditional centre of power has been full of those excluded from power for centuries – indigenous women with swirling skirts and bowler hats, Aymara men in deep-red ponchos with mouths bulging with coca leaves, rural farmers with weathered faces shaded by faded baseball caps, miners with sticks of dynamite ready to storm the Congress building. The resounding call by the largely indigenous protestors is for nationalization of Bolivia’s gas reserves, currently controlled by six multinational companies including British Gas and B.P."
Link Archaeologist believes Chinese found Cape Breton: Chinese discovered the eastern coast of North America. Intro: "A nine-kilometre road winds its way up an isolated mountain where a stone wall sits amid fields of wild blueberries and mayflowers. A closer look reveals a series of stone platforms. At first glance, the scene is not an unfamiliar one in Cape Breton's sprawling wilderness. But this one, nestled along the island's east coast, has become the latest battleground for archeologists with the startling claim it was discovered by the Chinese, long before the arrival of any European explorers. [...] 'This is probably the most important archeological site in the world right now and it's going to change world history.'"
Link 'Walking' octopus inspires soft robots: Octopus marginatus was the first "walking" species to be identified he surprise discovery that octopi can "walk" along the sea bed on two tentacles has inspired scientists seeking to create of a new generation of soft, flexible robots.
Link City in USA goes medieval on prostitution: People who solicit prostitutes in Oakland, California, could find their faces plastered on billboards under a new shaming program that one civil rights group calls bad public policy.
Link A Logical Vacation: Julia Nefsky on the curiously strong connections between logic and humour. Intro: "What would you say if I asked you to describe humour? What type of ‘thing’ is it? Perhaps you’d say that humour is a form of entertainment and creativity. Humour is colourful and free, unbounded by rules and norms. Humour is lively. It has personality; in fact, it takes on all kinds of different personalities. Humour is tied with one’s emotions – happiness, delight, hilarity… laughter. Now, describe the nature of logic. What type of ‘thing’ is logic? Perhaps you’d say that logic is a mathematical system. Logic is cold, serious and strict. Logic is bound by rules. Logic is a very intellectual field of study. Logic is a systematic part of reasoning, specifically meant to leave out emotions. These descriptions of humour and logic may be largely true, and may imply something fairly accurate about the degree to which each appeals to the general population. It seems to follow from conceptions like these that logic and humour must be involved with two very different spheres of the mind. After glancing at their apparent nature, logic and humour seem to be totally unrelated. However, despite their opposite images when considered apart, logic has a very real and very important role in humour. Take the following part of a Monty Python skit in which an accountant is addressing the board of a company [...]"
Link Talk TV: No evidence required: On shout-TV, serious consideration of evidence slows down a show, which means viewers might drift away, which would lower ratings, which drives down the ad rates, which eventually means... no more show.
Link Millennium Simulation -- The Largest Ever Model Of The Universe:
 The Virgo consortium, an international group of astrophysicists from the UK, Germany, Japan, Canada and the USA has today (June 2nd) released first results from the largest and most realistic simulation ever of the growth of cosmic structure and the formation of galaxies and quasars. In a paper published in Nature, the Virgo Consortium shows how comparing such simulated data to large observational surveys can reveal the physical processes underlying the build-up of real galaxies and black holes. Link Frog with Implanted Webserver:
 Overview: "Experiments in Galvanism is the culmination of studio and gallery experiments in which a miniature computer is implanted into the dead body of a frog specimen. Akin to Damien Hirst's bodies in formaldehyde, the frog is suspended in clear liquid contained in a glass cube, with a blue ethernet cable leading into its splayed abdomen. The computer stores a website that enables users to trigger physical movement in the corpse: the resulting movement can be seen in gallery, and through a live streaming webcamera." (via Der Wiener Lloyd) Link The Body Farm:
 The green, spongy character at the bottom of this picture might look like the latest kids TV icon, or a scene from the next Grinch movie, but in fact it's a good old-fashioned decomposing corpse. Link The Centrality of Peasant Movements in Latin America: Article by James Petras. Intro: "For over a century social analysts of the right and left have been predicting the disappearance of the peasantry, with the advance of capitalism. Even today some of the more prominent authors of the Left, like Eric Hobsbawn, write of the marginalization of the peasantry deducing their conclusions from quantitative demographic data. In terms of policy, on the neo-liberal right, President Da Silva of Brazil and his Agricultural Minister have provided vast resources to the agro-business export sector, and have relegated ecological, human rights, small farmers and landless workers demands to the lowest of priorities."
Link Just Words, Just The European Constitution: Markets, not democracy, liberty or peace. Yes, it is a cheap shot - impressive nonetheless. From Technologies du Langage (via Histologion).
Fashion industry covets 'iPod factor': Intro: "Can you imagine putting your address book and photo album on in the morning along with your socks? Or how about using a "3D printer" to make your own shoes on demand? How about clothes peppered with plastic LEDs that let you change the fabric's pattern at will? These are just some of the bizarre predictions coming from an unlikely research partnership between the London College of Fashion (LCF), based in London's übertrendy Soho district, and the staid UK telecoms firm BT."
Link Psychometrics: An Ancient Construct for Maori: Capacity to measure the mind and monitor changes in psychological attributes is an ancient and inherent component of classical Maori culture.
Link Spook: Spook... is a distributed web based artwork which explores issues of surveillance, tracking and covert activity on the web in an interactive website based on the conventions of computer games.
On June 1st 1999 an unusual pattern of hits was noticed on the Stunned ArtZine server. Stunned ArtZine a contemporary visual art site does not normally receive a large number of hits from military sites yet unusual activity from a military server known by the identifier "gate1.mcbbutler.usmc.mil" was logged. In response to this activity a server trace was initiated using the Stunned Spook-Bot™. Spook-Bot™ over time tracked this military server's path through the net, mapping and logging it's activities. Spook-Bot's continuing activities are an important ongoing part of this project. This project seeks to analyse this raw data and establish a purpose for this activity. As part of this we invite visitors to submit their theories on the purpose of this server activity in the feedback section. (via Stunned) Link Colorful online demonstration against software patents: This online demonstration is not a distributed Denial of Service attack, but it combines the pictures of all participants to a great mosaic that makes up to a huge transparent with a "no software patent" logo. You can join in by sending a picture (you can have your picture pixelized if you don't want to be recognized - or send one of your pet :)) (via Rena Tangens)
Link Extinct cave bear DNA sequenced: Researchers have sequenced the DNA of two extinct cave bears and say their method is accurate enough to try doing it on extinct humans such as Neanderthals, a report says.
Link Use the Farm, Cuke! The pro-organic Store Wars film, a must-see force of meme-remixing for the cause of crunchier granola (via mp).
Link New Labour, Old Britain: Imperial Nostalgia: Britain not only conveniently still forgets the crimes of its imperial past, but it has also again begun to romanticise its colonial achievements and declare them a proper source of pride.
Link Albanian Literature: Robert Elsie's Albanian authors in translation: "This web site contains the largest selection of Albanian literature ever to have appeared in English translation. It comprises a wide range of Albanian authors from past and present, including writers from Albania, Kosova and the Albanian diaspora. These translations are the fruits of over twenty years of research in the field of Albanian studies. Some were published, but most of them appear here for the first time. Compared to other Balkan literatures, very little Albanian writing has ever been translated into English... The scarcity of translations of Albanian literature has, thus, nothing to do with a lack of quality in the original (although there are admittedly many works of dubious merit which would be better left untranslated), but simply rather with a lack of literary translators from Albanian into English. It is to be hoped that the situation will improve in the future. In the meanwhile I trust that these modest translations of mine will provide some stimulus. An excellent idea, and I hope it does something to raise the profile of Albanian literature." (via Languagehat)
Link Nee! to the 'capitalist locusts': Quote: "Anyone got a fork? This turkey is done. [...] Salvaging what they can from the French referendum, the blinkered inhabitants of Planet Mandelson - where they breathe not oxygen but unfiltered, vanilla-scented and compressed neo-liberalism sponsored by Evian - are trumpeting the fact that while it may be true that all but nine départements in the country voted Non, urbaine, cosmopolitaine, educated Paris voted Oui! Ah hah! [...] Capital is mobile, so should we be." (via Histologion)
Link Exploring the 'Corner-of-Your-Eye' Phenomenon: Medical News Today reports about a little-understood phenomenon: this "implicit attentional selection" is outside conscious control and we are unaware of its functioning.
Link Revenge of the Brick:
 DaddyD writes: "It's basically a Star Wars trailer made to look like it was done entirely in legos. It's well directed, focused, and done with a sense of humor and style that makes it a joy to watch. Everything that ROTS wasn't." Link Sudoku: Some readers might know this one already, especially if they're joining us from Britain, since you couldn't NOT notice lately that everyone is talking about the japanese number-place-puzzle called sudoku (sometimes also spelled su doku).
So this post pretty much concerns euro-readers mainly, and brace yourself for what will come to us sooner or later. It's impact has been compared to that of the rubik's cube...and it's really quite an amazing little game, especially because of its simplicity. As you can see below, sudoku is all about numbers. 9 boxes, aligned 3x3 vertically and horizontally respectively (nice one). You need to place the numbers 1-9 in each of the boxes but never the same number in either box or line (again, vertically or horizontally). And that. is. it. Simple and gripping, it's a real joy to play. I've become familiar with it on my trip to Scotland last week, and I'm very happy to hear that an Austrian newspaper (the best of the lot) is featuring sudoku this Saturday, I think for the first time in Austria. Fecking right on. So get yourself a paper this Saturday and become addicted, fool!  Link 1 (Wikipedia) Link 2 (Su Dokupage at the Times Online) Link 3 (Article in the Guardian) If you fool around with consumerism, you'll get what you deserve: Two young Czech filmmakers have produced a hilarious interesting movie about consumer-dreams and what happens if you fool people big way. An unclassifiable sort of documentary.
  Link Mickey Rourke: Before & After: Gallery of the Absurd features dazzling before/after drawings of the victim.
Before:  After: [...] Link Condom Ads Hit (US) Network TV: Fleshbot writes: "History is being made as we’re writing this: for the first time, condom ads will air on US network television during prime time. You European readers can stop rolling your eyes now, thanks."
Link Camouflage Comics:
 On Thursday 19 May 2005, the website Camouflage Comics was officially launched at the ABK, the Academy of Fine Arts (Maastricht, the Netherlands). The web project was made at the Jan van Eyck Academy Maastricht, by Aarnoud Rommens (°1977, Belgium) and Ingrid Stojnic (°1976, Croatia / Rekall Design). This website deals with issues of visual narration, censorship, human rights, comics and remembrance in the context of the Argentine military dictatorship of 1976-83. The comics and illustrations featured on Camouflage Comics are all new; they were made between 2002 and 2005. However, there is a strange continuity between these comics and the handful of what one could call "critical avant-garde" comics published during or around the time of the military regime, by such pioneers as Alberto Breccia, Carlos Trillo, Hector Oesterheld, and others. Indeed, the two parallel timelines cannot be clearly separated. On the contrary, they continuously intersect, urging us to interpret the 'new' in light of the 'old' - and vice versa. The "dirty war" of 1976-83 still informs the "structures of feeling" of Argentine society at this very moment. This project is a reflection of/on this, on how the junta had affected and how it still, posthumously, produces after-effects in the shaping of discourse, arts, and social memory - the "hearts and minds" of contemporary Argentine society if you will. Camouflage Comics: Dirty War Images can be read as a specific manifestation of this memory-work; it is a space intended for the ongoing visual and verbal reflection on the legacies of a (recent) past. Link Foo Fighters Rock Roswell: Quote: "This is one of those things that probably should have happened a lot earlier: The Foo Fighters are playing in a hangar in the fabled Roswell, N.M. The band will play a private show in Roswell’s Walker Air Force base, the location, if you listen to X-files enthusiasts and UFO nuts, where an extraterrestrial craft was stored after its 1947 crash in the desert. The band is set to play in the same hangar that’s said to house the wreckage of the craft. Dave Grohl's an admitted UFO fanatic. His band takes its name from air force slang for a covert unit that investigated UFO sightings."
Link Turn Me On, Dead Man: What do the Beatles, the Virgin Mary, Jesus, Patricia Arquette and Michael Keaton all have in common?
Link Capitalism & Other Kids' Stuff:
 Excellent film. Runtime 49 minutes. Quote: "It was made by four socialists on one freezing Saturday afternoon in a church hall at Hebburn in the north east of England. On a budget of £80 which was spent on travel expenses the cost of hiring the hall and some cold cheese pasties the film may be rough and ready but it's hoped that it says something real to you. The ideas it proposes are one's you're unlikely to see on any TV show, art house play or even the news networks. Already seen by many to critical acclaim (and some critical comments too but we don't mention that) we're proud to present Capitalism & Other Kids' Stuff." Link kollabor8:
 A web site for collaborative image creation. Register, download an image, add to it, then re-upload. The online successor to mail art, exquisite corpse, or Rauschenberg's ROCI. Entirely excellent (via Rhizome Raw). Link The Start of Computer Games:
 Intro: >The first game invented specifically for the computer appeared in early 1962. A new $120,000 computer had just arrived at MIT that was faster and easier to use than the handful of other hulking machines on campus. And a group of young MIT programmers who just happened to be reading science fiction books about space battle had been itching to test it out. In less than a year, the programmers, led by Steven Russell, produced Spacewar, a game complete with rocket-powered spaceships, missiles, gravitational effects, and even an unpredictable "hyperspace" function. Although it was never commercialized, Spacewar inspired those who would bring video games to the masses 10 years later.< Link Foetus: "Blessed Evening":
 From the forthcoming studio album LOVE, on Birdman Records. Video directed by Karen O. Director of Photography: Spike Jonze. Link Important Safety Tip: Sometimes Messages in Bottles Work: Quote: >Incredibly, it seems that the boat's crew took the equipment and so these people, who had no (sailing) experience, wrote the message 'Help, please help me' and placed it inside a bottle," which they threw overboard and which fortunately was found by a Costa Rican fisherman, he continued.< (via DRT)
Link monochrom tour update // Experience the Experience:
monochrom's USA/Canada Tour, June/July 2005.
Only a couple of days left. Soon we're heading west!  Dates: Los Angeles: Basecamp: The Machine Project Experience The Experience Of Being Buried Alive (June 14) Experience The Experience Of A Magnetism Party (June 18) Experience The Experience Of A Brick Of Coke (June 21) Experience The Experience Of An Illegal Space Race (June 25) Vancouver: Basecamp: Contemporary Art Gallery Experience The Experience Of Being Buried Alive (June 30) San Francisco: Basecamp: RxGallery/Blasthaus Experience The Experience Of Being Buried Alive (July 8) Experience The Experience Of Growing Money (July 14) (changed) Experience The Experience Of Catapulting Wireless Devices (Workshop: July 9, Event: July 16) Experience The Experience Of 1 Baud (Workshop: July 20, Event: July 22) (changed) Link / Tour Page Link / Boing Boing Entry Project Orion - The True Story of the Atomic Spaceship: Book by George Dyson.
 From the preface: "In 1957, tail fins, not seat belts, were standard equipment on American cars. Tail fins reached a peak in popularity with the 1957 Chevrolet Bel-Air. Powered by a 235-cubic-inch straight six or a 283-cubic-inch V-8, with either manual overdrive or a powerglide transmission, the Bel-Air had a two-tone exterior, accented by anodized aluminum suggesting space-age Los Angeles rather than iron-age Detroit. Optional equipment, besides seat belts, included power windows, six-way power seats, and a built-in electric razor. The Russians were ahead in space, but General Motors was ahead on the road. This book is the story of Project Orion. In 1957, a small group of scientists, led by physicist Theodore B. Taylor and including my father, Freeman J. Dyson, launched a serious attempt to build an interplanetary spaceship propelled by nuclear bombs. This account, as best as I can reconstruct it, is the story my father could tell me only in fragments at the time." Link 1 Link 2 Fertilizer from the stars: Could a gamma-ray burst have provided nutrients for early plants? Quote: "The explosion of a star in our cosmic neighbourhood may not sound like good news for life on Earth. But a team of US researchers says that just such a catastrophe could have showered our planet with fertilizer that helped plants to colonize the land about 440 million years ago."
Link iRobot Swarm project: Robot and Frontline Robotics are teaching robots how to work together. The goal of iRobot's swarm project is to coordinate the actions of groups of hundreds of individual robots. A Swarm Operating System (SwarmOS) is under development to control as many as 10,000 robots or SwarmBots (via MAKE).
Link Spamusement: Steven Frank, like all of us, receives spam on a daily basis. Instead of just deleting it, he thinks up cartoons when he sees the subject lines. Like this one:
"Does your girlfriend like surprises?"  Link [The Archives] 
. . . . . |
. . monochrom is an art-technology-philosophy group having its seat in Vienna and Zeta Draconis. monochrom is an unpeculiar mixture of proto-aesthetic fringe work, pop attitude, subcultural science, context hacking and political activism. Our mission is conducted everywhere, but first and foremost in culture-archeological digs into the seats (and pockets) of ideology and entertainment. monochrom has existed in this (and almost every other) form since 1993.
[more] Booking monochrom: [Europe] [USA] External monochrom links: [monochrom Wikipedia] [monochrom Flickr] [monochrom blip.tv] [monochrom GV] [monochrom Youtube] [monochrom Facebook] [monochrom iTunes] [monochrom Twitter] 
[ P r o j e c t s ] Soviet Unterzoegersdorf / Sector 2 / The Adventure Game Krach der Roboter: Hello World! Slacking is killing the DIY industry (T-Shirt) Carefully Selected Moments / CD, LP Freedom is a whore of a word (T-Shirt) International Year of Polytheism 2007 Santa Claus Vs. Christkindl: A Mobster Battle Kiki and Bubu and The Shift / Short film Kiki and Bubu and The Privilege / Short film Kiki and Bubu and The Self / Short film Kiki and Bubu and The Good Plan / Short film Kiki and Bubu and The Feelings / Short film / Short film Soviet Unterzoegersdorf / Sector 1 / The Adventure Game I was a copyright infringement in a previous life (T-Shirt) Firing Squad Euro2008 Intervention I can count every star in the heavens above -- The image of computers in popular music All Tomorrow's Condensations / Puppet show The Redro Loitzl Story / Short film Law and Second Order (T-Shirt) They really kicked you out of the Situationist International? When I was asked to write about new economy Arse Elektronika 2007, 2008, 2009 etc. The Void's Foaming Ebb / Short film The Charcoal Burner / Short film Fieldrecording in Sankt Wechselberg / Short film Campaign For The Abolition Of Personal Pronouns Entertainment (Unterhaltung) / Short film Nicholas Negroponte Memorial Cable Experience the Experience! (West Coast USA/Canada Tour 2005) A Holiday in Soviet Unterzoegersdorf Massive Multiplayer Thumb-Wrestling Network Soviet Unterzoegersdorf Metroblogging Every Five Seconds an Inkjet Printer Dies Somewhere 452 x 157 cm² global durability Blattoptera / Art for Cockroaches An attempt to emulate an attempt The Department for Criticism against Globalisation Disney vs. Chrusov / Short film Turning Threshold Countries Into Plows Roböxotica // Festival for Cocktail-Robotics | |||
