The Hidden Life of Garbage: An interview with Heather Rogers, the author of a new book about our ever-increasing 'waste stream' and the people and corporations that feed it.
 Link SSETI Express suffers power loss: Europe's student-built SSETI Express spacecraft has been put into standby mode after it unexpectedly began to lose power just hours after launch. It is not yet clear whether the mission can be recovered.
Link Iran Reverses, Bans Foreign Films: Quote: "Iran's hardline Islamic regime has banned all foreign films deemed to promote 'secular, feminist, liberal or nihilist ideas.' The decision reverses prior moves by ex-president Mohammad Khatami to open up Iran to Western culture and will likely add more fuel to Iran's massive black market and illicit satellite viewership."
Link Big Bangs Theory Blames Lava Fields for Mass Extinctions: Vast sheets of prehistoric lava that oozed across the land millions of years ago were probably caused by meteorites slamming into the Earth's crust, scientists say. Dr Linda Elkins-Tanton: "There's no reason it couldn't happen again."
Link New monochrom content // Direct Intervention Engine: The flap of a butterfly's wings can set off a tornado.
 Link Six degrees of separation at sea: Quote: "David Lusseau, from the University of Aberdeen, UK, has spent years researching the social world of dolphins, to find out who knows whom and how often they meet. For the 130-strong community living off the east coast of Scotland, he found, it takes an average of just 3.9 steps to link any two dolphins by the shortest possible route through mutual friends."
Link Reexamining the Distinction Between Open Information and Secrets: "What use is the CIA?" asked Richard Nixon. "They’ve got 40,000 people over there reading newspapers." Not a bad idea, actually...
Link Are Video Games Ready For Serious Work? Quote: "'Serious gaming' is the idea of using [video] gaming technology, gaming theory and those kinds of things to understand complex dynamic processes. For example, powerful computer hardware and software have been used for years to help train pilots and other operators of complex machines. And as graphical capabilities continue to expand, such simulations have expanded to other areas — virtual worlds where soldiers can learn how to fight in urban surroundings, or doctors can practice difficult surgical procedures."
Link Motivating Science, a collection of articles from the first five years of The Pantaneto Forum is now available.
Link China, India Superpower? Not so Fast! China and India are sure to rise as the next superpowers. Or maybe not. Pranab Bardhan sets the slogans aside and looks at the realities...
Link Elephants May Pay Homage to Dead Relatives: Karen McComb, University of Sussex says: "It begs the question why do they do this? This interest in remains of animals, long-dead, hasn’t really been observed in any other species apart from humans."
Link Attention, Electronic Gadgets: Shut Up! The modern world is too damn noisy. Car alarms, beeping microwaves, chirping beepers, cell phones that play that hideous 50 Cent hook... it's all just a bit much, isn't it? "The people who make all these things obviously think we're idiots. That without their constant, irritating reminders, we'd go wandering off, our minds blank, to drool down our shirts or spend 30 minutes tying our shoes. The world is noisy enough without adding completely useless aural pollution to the mix."
Link Formula One engine plays 'We are the Champions': Renault have tuned one of their Formula One engines to sing: "making an engine 'sing' is a fairly simple matter of finding the engine rpm that generates an exhaust sound of the right frequency for each musical note. The engine management system of the dyno is then programmed to manage engine rpm and duration to 'sing the song.'" There's a sound sample at Autoblog.
Link Puppy Purse:
 "Whether you wear it like a shoulder bag, a fanny pack, or carry it like a purse, PuppyPurse lets you find the perfect fit for you and your dog. You will spend the day close and comfortable, and ready for anything. Anytime. Everywhere." Link Lone Star Statements: An article containing excerpts from actual one-star Amazon.com reviews of books from Time’s list of the 100 best novels from 1923 to the present.
Lord of the Flies: “I am obsessed with Survivor, so I thought it would be fun. WRONG!!! It is incredibly boring and disgusting. I was very much disturbed when I found young children killing each other. I think that anyone with a conscience would agree with me.” One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest: “I guess if you were interested in crazy people this is the book for you.” The Grapes of Wrath: “While the story did have a great moral to go along with it, it was about dirt! Dirt and migrating. Dirt and migrating and more dirt.” Link Accidental Invention Points to End of Light Bulbs: The main light source of the future will almost surely not be a bulb. It might be a table, a wall, or even a fork.
Link New monochrom content // "Scrota Contra Vota": Attention, male individuals (biological and/or gender)! "Scrota Contra Vota" is a form of radical political comment for 50 percent of the elective population. So, please undress and sit down on a flat bed scanner and scan your scrotum. Please anatomize the hi-res JPEG to monochrom via email. As a form of protest, monochrom reserves the right to send these digital images to various public people of political interest.
 Your scrotum counts! Link The 10,000-Year Wonder-Clock: A clock being built in Southern California is being constructed to be accurate for 10,000 years. "Everything about this clock is deeply unusual. For example, while nearly every mechanical clock made in the last millennium consists of a series of propelled gears, this one uses a stack of mechanical binary computers capable of singling out one moment in 3.65 million days. Like other clocks, this one can track seconds, hours, days, and years. Unlike any other clock, this one is being constructed to keep track of leap centuries, the orbits of the six innermost planets in our solar system, even the ultraslow wobbles of Earth's axis."
Link Did You Know You've Been 20 Percent Patented? A new study shows that 20 percent of human genes have been patented in the United States, primarily by private firms and universities. Researchers can patent genes because they are potentially valuable research tools, useful in diagnostic tests or to discover and produce new drugs. 'It might come as a surprise to many people that in the U.S. patent system human DNA is treated like other natural chemical products'."
Link The Tampa 14:
 In a July 2005 undercover operation, Florida cops busted 15 strippers on a variety of criminal charges, including prostitution and exposure of a sexual organ. The arrests came at five different gentlemen's clubs (Bare Assets, Lollipops, Extasy, Brass Flamingo, and Calendar Girls) along U.S. Highway 19 in the Tampa area. Fourteen of the arrestees posed for Pasco County Sheriff's Office mug shots. Link Great Galloping Crinoids: Lilylike sea animal takes a brisk walk: A video has caught an underwater animal, which looks like a flower, practically jogging along the ocean bottom.
 William I. Ausich: "People were speechless. It adds a whole new dynamic to understanding a very important group of animals." Link Put what where? 2,000 years of bizarre sex advice: Orgasms can kill, tight corsets cause nymphomania and, uh, never fool around sexually with a vacuum cleaner. A little friendly advice...
Link Catchin' Some Rays - The New DVDs: Quote: "Sony's Blu-ray DVD technology has won over another heavyweight supporter in the battle to be Hollywood's format of choice for the next generation of DVDs."
Link Out-of-this-world sex could jeopardise missions: Romantic entanglements among astronauts could derail long-haul space trips, a top-level panel warns NASA, though they could alleviate boredom.
Link Stelarc's Prosthetic Head:
 Intro: >>Our desire to construct simulated human talking machines may be traced to Joseph Faber's Euphonia (1830) an artificial face attached to the front of a series of exposed bellows; plates, chambers and an artificial tongue that could make it speak. Advanced computer technologies of the twenty first century, such as complex modeling and animation, audio speech synthesizing, text to speech systems and image manipulation, have enabled the construction of virtual characters that closely mirror their human counterparts. Envisioned, as standing in for the human these virtual beings may be used as virtual actors, interactive memory albums or visual speech tools for hearing impaired people, replacing people altogether. To date, designers of these virtual beings have concentrated on simulating the human visage and language, however Norman Badler explains that although animation quality is essential to creating a life-like simulation, the virtual being "...needs to have goals, emotions, motivations...a background, a culture, and history". It is within this context that I will discuss Stelarc's recently exhibited Prosthetic Head -- an enhanced and modified Alice chat-bot that resembles the artist.<< Link Astrology is Scientific Theory, Courtroom Told: Astrology would be considered a scientific theory if judged by the same criteria used by a well-known advocate of Intelligent Design to justify his claim that ID is science, a landmark US trial heard on Tuesday.
Link Man Goes Wrong On Own Death Prediction! Hundreds of people came and stared, waiting to see whether an astrologer who forecast his own death would indeed die as predicted. But 75-year old Kunjilal Malviya lived to see another day.
Link What makes Kevlar so strong? And how can it be so light at the same time? Chemist Vlodek Gabara, a DuPont Fellow, explains.
 Link "No Direction Home": A Complete Unknown:
 It's not about Dylan. It's about his critics, fans, and colleagues. The question is, did any of them love his music? Link David vs. Google: How a mathematician from New Jersey wants to overcome the world's biggest search engine: a trip into the world of algorithms.
Link Into the woods: Americans may love British fantasy fiction because it hearkens back to simpler times. But it might have more to tell us about the horrors of the present.
Link Habitually Rewiring Our Brains: Habits are extremely difficult to break. Why? Turns out there's a physiological reason. "Important neural activity patterns in a specific region of the brain change when habits are formed, change again when habits are broken, but quickly re-emerge when something rekindles an extinguished habit -- routines that originally took great effort to learn."
Link Brazilian Condom Artist: The Italian newspaper La Repubblica has published pictures of the work of artist Adriana Bertini, who uses expired or defective condoms to create sculptures and clothing.
 From the artist's website: "She transforms into art and awareness the material that would be destined to incineration (that pollutes the environment due to the high levels of sulfur) or common litter because the material is not bio degrading. Creatively preserving man's individuality, her work has the objective of wide spreading the use of the condom in the manner of art, creating a new form of thinking in the people in order that they become aware of the reality in situations of risk in the face of HIV. How can we alert people against the danger of pleasure without advocating self-denial, which we know is impossible?" Link Lady In Red: Andromeda Galaxy Shines In Spitzer's Eyes:
 NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope has captured a stunning infrared view of Messier 31, the famous spiral galaxy also known as Andromeda. Andromeda is the most-studied galaxy outside our own Milky Way, yet Spitzer's sensitive infrared eyes have detected captivating new features, including bright, aging stars and a spiral arc in the center of the galaxy. The infrared image also reveals an off-centered ring of star formation and a hole in the galaxy's spiral disk of arms. Link Dinosaur flew 'like a biplane': Could prehistoric flyer have rivalled Wright brothers for aerobatic ability?
Link Taiwan's Mobile Phone Service: Good Fortune in Fortune-Telling: The art of fortune telling is reaching out to the masses as mobile phone companies beat a path to the soothsayers. Fortunes are beginning to be transmitted to Taiwan's 23 million mobile phone users on a grand scale with more than 250,000 texts transmitted every month.
Link A Sheltered Life, Widely Shared: "Eudora Welty: A Biography", reviewed by Michael Malone. Intro: "The writer Eudora Welty (1909–2001) lived a long, full, kind life, and Suzanne Marrs has given her a long, full, kind biography. In some ways it was an ordinary life, with family and friends, work and travel, a little romance and plenty of heartbreak, and daily duties done (dinner parties cooked, an ailing mother cared for) while the dramas of the world outside rumbled past on the radio and then on the television—the Depression, World War II, the struggle for civil rights in the South, the war in Vietnam, assassinations and resignations and impeachments, war in the Persian Gulf."
Link Forgotten Saturdays: So few people are watching TV on Saturday nights, the program schedule has become a wasteland. "Saturday has become the forgotten night for broadcasters, who aren't entirely sure what to do there anymore. They just know it's not worth spending much to seek an audience that clearly has other plans. The state of network television on Saturday nights has become so dire that ABC has essentially put a prime-time slot up for auction to anyone who has a compelling idea — as long as it's done very cheaply."
Link Do We Still Need Copyright? Quote: "A world without copyright is easy to imagine. The level playing field of cultural production - a market accessible for everyone - would once again be restored. A world without copyright would offer the guarantee of a good income to many artists, and would protect the public domain of knowledge and creativity. And members of the public would get what they are entitled to: a surprisingly rich and varied menu of artistic alternatives."
Link monochrom update // "Soviet Unterzoegersdorf" is Edge's Internet Game of the Month: Edge is the world's most respected multiformat videogame magazine... and we are really proud that they selected Soviet Unterzoegersdorf/Sector 1 as Internet Game of the Month/November 2005.
 Link (Scan of review) Link (Edge Homepage) Tactics, Psychosis and Techno-Contaminants: By Matthew Fuller. Intro: "It's the ersatz-pseudo-authentic-phoney-original-fake-reproduction-real thing Software pirates and crackers already know this, and those who still cling to notions of property, of authorship, and of copyright are going to have to come to terms with or find a way to defeat it: the propensity of all digitally stored material is to reproduce infinately until it is made available to all who want it."
Link Democracy on the Defensive: An interview with Michael Hardt, Co-Author of "Empire" and "Multitude". By Glenn Brigaldino. Globalization is swiftly mutating from an economic and political process of the introduction of liberal capitalism and global interdependencies to an openly aggressive, US-driven neo-imperial type of rule over societies and their institutions. Political theorists and authors Antonio Negro and Michael Hardt have analysed and situated 21st century "Empire" in its historical context. Michael Hardt shares his views on a mix of current questions on historical and potentially new political struggles for global democracy.
Link The tyranny of design: Saddam's palaces were sheer monstrosities, like the ghastly homes of Idi Amin, Mobutu, or Ceausescu. Absolute power corrupts taste, absolutely.
Link Ripped From The Tabs: Dali Sculpture In Exorcist Basement! Quote: "A sculpture of Christ that Salvador Dali gave to his exorcist has been found among the belongings of the deceased Italian priest."
Link PEZ MP3 Player and DRM:
Q: What's up with the DRM support? I thought you were opposed to DRM? A: Personally, I think DRM is a failed concept. It punishes the honest people and doesn't even slow down the dishonest people. I would love for the entertainment industry to listen to Cory Doctorow and others. But the reality is that DRM is the current solution for a lot of music sales. It is only fair to give the consumer the choice. Hopefully one day, I will not need to sell an digital music player that needs to decode DRM files. Link US Against The World On UNESCO Initiative: The United States is opposing a major new UNESCO convention on cultural diversity. Quote: "The convention's supporters argue that the treaty will protect and promote cultural diversity in the face of cultural globalization, but the United States believes it is intended to restrict exports of American audiovisual products, particularly Hollywood movies and television programs."
Link Video On The Go - Still Some Hurdles: Apple's announcement of a video iPod has people excited that they'll be able to watch TV on their handhelds. But it's not as easy as that. "The future for watching video on a portable player is uncertain, with the latest iPod offering the industry a chance to gauge interest. So the question for the big companies will be asking themselves is how much should they invest in a technology if the demand for the product is not yet proven?"
Link The Singing Neanderthal:
 Every child in every society creates song and dance: it’s a fundamental activity of Homo sapiens. Why and when did music evolve? Link Fundamentalist mind siege and psychic terrorism: Katrina. Rita. Indonesia. London. Madrid. Gaza. Iraq. Sudan. In the past year or so, the real world has been battered by natural disasters, terrorist attacks, war, and famine. Even as you read the prequels to the Left Behind series, you're drawn into a fictional world revealing the dark side of life and the coming judgment for those who reject God's redemption.
Link Fat Man On The Left XXI: Quote: "In most European papers, including British papers, a professional journalist must be truthful and honest and as fair as he or she can be. But pure objectivity -- sorry, journalism is not a science. It is, at best, an art. That's why people buy papers with the world view they are most comfortable with." By Lionel Rolfe.
Link 10 Foods you should never eat: Does Mother Nature want you eating half a cup of oats coated with three teaspoons of sugar and laden with more artery–clogging fat than you'd get in a McDonald's hamburger?
Link Algebra of Identity: Skin of Wind, Skin of Streams, Skin of Shadows, Skin of Vapor: By D. Fox Harrell.
Introduction & Braiding: "Here, I braid three cords together, identity, algebra, and poetry. Identity is the subject matter, algebra is a tool for representing sign systems of fluid identity, poetry is used as the enactment of the view of identity described with the algebra. I also use algebra to aid in the development of computational techniques for implementing a system that generates prose poetry in response to a user's prompts -- a call and response form which is thematically fixed but variable in particular expression and metaphor. The subtitle of this paper: Skin of Wind, Skin of Streams, Skin of Shadows, Skin of Vapor is meant to evoke a restricted notion of identity, and the insubstantiality of that notion. A focus on skin is obsessive and solipsistic. I am expected to write about it in a paper on identity. When ethnic identity is made binary and colorized, we talk in bodily terms, of skin. It is evocative -- it is a membrane, protecting, projecting, coating, an exterior, a superficial, obvious and immense organ. I shan't disappoint these expectations of skin obsession, but when I write of the traits of ethnic identification these are just symbols for a classification based conception of social identity. Wind whips, shrieks, or is unnoticeable. Streams bears small creatures below rocks, rush with energy and transparency. Shadow obscures, cools, relaxes. Vapor moistens, hides, causes ships to crash, is fluid but hangs in the ether. If we can imagine these four skins, we can also imagine skin of tangled roots, illicit love, unscratched itches, crossed senses, angels, or demons. I shall get back to this later. What I wish to conjure is a sense of the fleeting nature and contingency of classification based identity as it is typically conceived of. I propose why some current notions of identity seem damaging, and discuss alternative ways to address it. My belief is in internalizing and exposing this very contingency, accepting this as the reality in how we perceive ourselves, others, and the concept of identity as a whole." Link An epic film about the emperor of the world in the far reaches of the galaxy: The first Finnish full-length scifi parody is made from astounding special effects, action and loads of dark humour. It is the product of a core group of five Finns and many people who've helped them during the seven years it has been in the making. Movie is downloadable for free (of course, as the website states).
Link Iceman Ötzi Court Fight Heats Up: The discovery of Ötzi the Iceman is being marked by a court fight among a group of four people, one of them deceased, who all lay claim to the reward for finding the world's oldest and best-preserved mummy.
Link Doubting the doubters: Deepak Chopra and Michael Shermer agree that many skeptics want to rid the universe of the supernatural.
Link China launches two 'taikonauts' into orbit:
 The Shenzhou VI flight is scheduled for nearly five days, far longer the 21-hour one-man flight in 2003, and the pair have a new orbital capsule to explore. Link The People's Choice Awards (Minus The People): Quote: "J.K. Rowling, Jon Stewart, and Stephen King were among the winners last night of the first annual Quills Awards, people's choice book prizes better known so far to the industry than to the public. Rowling, author of the multimillion-selling Harry Potter books, won for book of the year and best children's chapter book for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince... But the Quills can hardly claim a broad mandate with readers. According to comScore Networks Inc., which tracks the Internet, the Quills site attracted so little Web traffic during the voting period, fewer than the threshold of 25,000 unique visits a week, that it can't even offer an exact number."
Link Will ISPs Kill Off Municipal Wi-Fi Before It Starts? Quote: "Plans are afoot in [cities across the U.S.] to provide residents with low-cost or free wireless internet access. It's a great idea whose time has come, like drinking fountains, public toilets and park benches." [...] "Without legislation, ISPs have no legal basis for stopping community Wi-Fi. But legislation is a distinct possibility."
Link Forty Million Missing Girls: Land, Population Controls and Sex Imbalance in Rural China: Abstract: "In the study of China's rural development, economists and political scientists have frequently examined land policy, while demographers, sociologists and anthropologists look at family planning. Yet in real life the two domains are closely related as households attempt to match and manage their land and labor resources. This article brings together questions about land, gender and family planning in relation to both policy and practice. It draws on fieldwork in rural north China and comparative data to examine and assess local and regional variations in the critical gender imbalance in contemporary rural China."
Link Fakers and Innocents: The One Million Dollar Challenge and Those Who Try for It. James Randi describes some of the difficult, innocent, and impossible people who apply to be tested for his foundation’s $1 million challenge for evidence of paranormal powers.
Link Making marketing difficult: Abstract: "A critique of conventional science journalism is offered in this paper. The convention of science journalism as science transmission is claimed to be incapable of coping with challenges emerging from the present commercialization of science — letting science into society by embracing and being embraced by the market-place, while maintaining the old scientific alienation from political life. The case is made that modern science was born ambiguous towards the market-place, and that such ambivalence — relating to different interpretations of the idea of knowledge as a common good — is still to be encountered among scientists. Drawing on series of interviews with scientists from bioscience and biotechnology it is argued that, on the one hand, scientists are into marketing and PR exercises; but, on the other hand, they also voice a demand that journalists should make such marketing difficult. It is the conlusion of the paper that journalists must break with the convention of science transmission in order to fulfil that demand, and in order to spur a political discussion, among scientists and in public, on how to maintain the idea of knowledge as a common good."
Link In the Asylum: In Michel Foucault’s dark vision, all human institutions, however benign their intent, are products of a will to power. Insane asylums will always be chambers of horrors...
Link Poll: Texas Chainsaw Is Scariest: Readers of Total Film magazine have voted the "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" the scariest horror movie of all time. Made in 1974 "for just $140,000 US, it is based on the exploits of real-life serial killer Ed Gein and stars Gunnar Hansen as the axe-wielding Leatherface."
Link 2001: A Space Odyssey: Stargazers, Navelgazers: The search for an answer makes a monkey of us all.
 Link Scientists dangle bait for screenwriters: Film summit puts a spotlight on untold stories from the lab.
Link Satellite Technology Allows Scientists To Track Warm Sharks In Cold Polar Seas: Electronic tags broadcasting from the dorsal fins of salmon sharks reveal that these top predators migrate from the glacial waters of Alaska to the warm seas off Hawaii, according to a new study in the journal Science. The salmon shark's ability to survive such a broad range of thermal conditions is attributed to high levels of specialized proteins that keep its heart muscle cells beating at very low temperatures, say the study's authors.
Link A 6,000-Year Dales Story of Ritual & Cannibalism: They roamed the earth almost 6,000 years ago, performing rituals on animal remains and devouring human body parts. But these are not the strange creatures of film or fiction – they were farmers in the Yorkshire Dales.
Link Moral Luck & the Iraq War: Will Iraq become a failed state terrorized by warlords, or maybe a future South Korea, not exactly free, but on the road to prosperity?
Link Deadly Serious: A major exhibition at the Tampa, Florida-based Museum of Science and Industry consisting of 20 Chinese corpses, split open to reveal muscles and organs and manipulated into jaunty poses, has been attracting interest and controversy in roughly equal parts since its opening in August. "The corpses are, depending on whom you ask, magnificent figures created in the spirit of education or an insulting mockery created in the service of greed... The bodies are displayed in various states of simulated animation alongside placards that dryly explain basic elements of anatomy." Florida's anatomical board, which regulates the importation and treatment of corpses, is objecting vociferously, but the museum insists that it is acting responsibly.
Link monochrom event update // FAKE: Critique Of Pure Image: monochrom is taking part in "FAKE", an interesting interdisciplinary project in Plovdiv, Bulgaria. monochrom is part of the symposium and the exhibition (Georg Paul Thomann). A live performance about Soviet Unterzoegersdorf / Sector 1 is scheduled for Saturday.
 Info: >>In its definition of notions, the project makes use of the term of “technics” introduced by Lewis Mumford in "Technics and Civilization" in place of the universally accepted "technologies", when it comes to the primary terminological framework defining artistic events closely linked to digital and communicational technics and their use in an artistic process and language. In line with these thoughts we will refrain from using such terms as "creative", "innovative", "new", etc., as terms defining the structure, aims and methods of this project. If their use should be unavoidable, we propose to open them to close scrutiny and to make sense of them not only in their contemporary context but also as part of a historical approach and methodological process, which has started substantially before the appearance of digital and communicational technics. The history of human civilization is also the history of technics. Even with the first instrument used by prehistorical man, technics are entangled in a complex structure of mutually linked and dependent components making up human societies, such as myth, power, gender, energy, struggles. Based on critical theoretical analysis of the discourse on technical progress Lewis Mumford proposes a fundamental structure of the development of society – social life, art, science, theory. The industrialization is also the history of capitalism. The dominating role of technics in an ever-spreading world leads to an existence in fragments, defining the working space, occupying everyday life and the "normal" places of everyday life. By creating certain habits, technics modify the structure of society, human habits, human consciousness and human anatomy. The sources and references of this discussion are obviously much older than the digital technics themselves and their use as means for artistic goals.<< FAKE: Critique Of Pure Image Center for Contemporary Art - PlovdivArt Today Lab, 36 Konstantin Stoilov St., 4025 Plovdiv, Bulgaria. October 7th-10th, 2005. Link The Rebirth of the Author: By Nicholas Rombes. Intro: "Roland Barthes's famous prediction about the death of the author has come to pass, but not because the author is nowhere, but rather because she is everywhere. Indeed, the author has grown and multiplied in direct proportion to academic dismissals and denunciations of her presence; the more roundly and confidently the author has been dismissed as a myth, a construction, an act of bad faith, the more strongly she has emerged. The recent surge in personal websites and blogs -- rather than diluting the author concept -- has helped to create a tyrannical authorship presence, where the elevation of the personal and private to the public level has only compounded the cult of the author. We are all authors today. We are all auteurs. We are all writers. We are all filmmakers. And we are all theorists, because what we make theorizes itself. Perhaps it was all a mistake, a terrible act of misreading."
Link The Pepto-Bismol Dancers: You can make the Pepto Bismol dancers do their own little dance to five common stomach problems. This is so awful, it is way beyond trash-chique. The title could also have been: when online-advertising goes wrong. Maybe this so bad, because it is actually meant to cause nausea (which would raise all sorts of questions about business ethics.)
Link The Cracked Ambience: new and recommended sounds for your personal space
 AVIA GARDNER - more than tongue can tell (intr_version) DÉSORMAIS - dead letters to lost friends (intr_version) HANNA HARTMANN - longitude / cratere (komplott) Math Unites The Celestial And The Atomic: In recent years, researchers have developed astonishing new insights into a hidden unity between the motion of objects in space and that of the smallest particles. It turns out there is an almost perfect parallel between the mathematics describing celestial mechanics and the mathematics governing some aspects of atomic physics. These insights have led to new ways to design space missions.
Link It's alien versus predator in Glades creature clash: A giant exotic snake's fatal mistake of trying to swallow an alligator has provided scientists with strange new evidence that pythons are continuing to spread in the Everglades.
Link Hellbent: First ever gay slasher film? Quote: "Hellbent is the terrifying original new feature from writer/ director Paul Etheredge-Ouzts and Joseph Wolf, the co-creator of such horror classics as Halloween and A Nightmare on Elm Street. Taking place at the famed West Hollywood Halloween Carnival, there is a serial killer on the loose. A group of four gay friends will have to fight for their lives to make it through a night where flamboyant costumes, beautiful people, drugs, music, dancing and sex are everywhere. A wild, relentless ride that combines winning and appealing characters, unexpected surprises, and shocking scares, HELLBENT is a refreshing new classic for the horror genre."
Link Halloween Pumpkin Carving Patterns for 2005: SpookMaster Pumpkin Carving Patterns are Not Sold in Stores - Available Only Online.
Link The Opiates Of The Middle Classes: Popes and preachers were once the main beneficiaries of human gullibility. These days, says Nassim Taleb, it's stock fund managers.
Link My Name Is Shakespeare, Theory #3,482: The latest theory in the who-was-Shakespeare sweepstakes has arrived: "An Elizabethan diplomat named Sir Henry Neville was the real author of William Shakespeare's plays, a new book claims."
Link "Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the purest neocon of all?" Rice? Wolfowitz? Cheney? Perle? Kagan? Who else? Guess before you click...
Link Another 9/11 Memorial Clashes With Critics: This time it's a design to commenmorate the crash of flight 93 in a Pennsylvania field. "The debates suggest an age-of-terror version of the fights over identity politics, provocative artworks and the Western canon that flared up 20 years ago. In the case of Flight 93, the Hallmark-card Minimalism that is now the lingua franca for memorials — and the design world's version of political correctness — has clashed with the notion that what we ought to remember about its passengers, above all else, is their onboard rebellion."
Link Science in court – experts and advisers as post-academic science communicators:
Intro: >>Scientific communication in court is particularly important for the understanding of the process of post-academic science communication. The purpose of this study, carried out through a qualitative approach, is: (·) verify whether and how the dynamics of an expert's science communication in court can be traced back to the problem of public science communication (·) underline specific characteristics of science communication in court. (·) propose a sample of a 'general table on science communication', in order to be able to analyse every possible communication between the different parties of a legal proceeding. Twelve narrative interviews have been collected, divided in two groups: experts and non-experts (such as lawyers, judges, journalists and others). The analysis of the interviews has revealed an analogy between the public communication of science in court and the proposal of the 'Venice model', based on the assumption that in the post-academic era the public communication of science follows more than one direction to reach different audiences in different ways, not necessarily bound to the scientific community. Experts communicate science in different ways and with different interlocutors. But they are not the only ones speaking of science in court: judges, lawyers, speak of science among themselves with different expectations and results, not depending on the expert's mediation. This analogy allowed the creation of a general table that can identify every possible 'bridge' of scientific communication in court. The narrations have allowed the identification of some peculiarities of scientific communication in the legal context. First of all, the conflict of experts' and jurists' expectations in the legal proceeding. While the expert's priority is the correct understanding and use of the scientific truth, the other legal parties have another starting point: the acceptance of a scientific truth, or its refusal, in order to reconstruct that truth that in the legal context is the highest, that is the legal truth.<< Link One Face, One Neuron: Storing Halle Berry in a single brain cell. Quote: "When you spot a celebrity on a magazine cover, your brain recognizes the image in an instant--an effect that seems to occur because of a single neuron. A recent study indicates that our brains employ far fewer cells to interpret a given image than previously believed, and the findings could help neuroscientists determine how memories are formed and stored."
Link Americans Watching Record Number Of Hours Of TV: Quote: "During the 2004-2005 television season, members of average American homes collectively spent 8 hours and 11 minutes per day watching TV. (The season ran from Sept. 20, 2004, to Sept. 18, 2005.) The figure - 2.7 percent higher than last year and 12.5 percent above viewing levels a decade ago - represents the greatest amount of time being spent watching TV in American homes since Nielsen began measuring national audiences in the 1950s."
Link Doctor Atomic - Some Kind Of Masterpiece: Quote: "Some of the evening sputters, most of it is a forceful blend of tenderness and urgency leavened with occasional touches of graveyard wit. But any piece crowned by a stretch of writing as visionary and as stubbornly unforgettable as that Act 1 finale is already some kind of masterpiece."
Link An Ex-Child Actor Tells Of Her Trauma: When she was 10 years old, Sarah Polley starred in Terry Gilliam's "The Adventures of Baron Munchausen". Seventeen years later she recalls the experience as terrifying, and, upon hearing that Gilliam is shooting another movie with a young Canadian actress, writes to tell him of her traumas back then.
Link Tenth Planet Has A Moon:
 The newly discovered 10th planet, 2003 UB313, is looking more and more like one of the solar system's major players. It has the heft of a real planet (latest estimates put it at about 20 percent larger than Pluto), a catchy code name (Xena, after the TV warrior princess), and a Guinness Book-ish record of its own (at about 97 astronomical units-or 9 billion miles from the sun-it is the solar system's farthest detected object). And, astronomers from the California Institute of Technology and their colleagues have now discovered, it has a moon. Link The Movie Box Office Problem? People Zigged While Hollywood Zagged: Hollywood movies had a great September, rebounding from a dreadful summer slump. Quote: "Amid 19 weekends of diminished box office — a record stretch that started in late February and ended in early July — many said they believed a cultural sea change was underway. Among the theories: People preferred to consume their entertainment in the comfort of their homes, whether watching DVDs on super-sharp plasma screens, surfing the Internet or playing video games." The real reason? Movies nobody wanted to watch.
Link The Battle For New Orleans: Quote: "Rebuilding 'The City That Care Forgot' represents the greatest urban renewal project in American history, but nearly everyone with a stake in the city's future agrees that the outcome is far from certain: Will officials oversee a process that yields a stunning model for 21st-century living, or will fighting among special interests produce a more homogeneous, tourist-centric New Orleans?"
Link [The Archives] 
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. . 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.
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[ 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 Cracked Foundation For The Fine Arts Oh my God, they use a history which repeats itself! (T-Shirt) Administrating:  . . . . . |
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