Technology Review: Blogs: Jason Pontin's blog: Davos Day 3: Technology Is Like Magic Although today the skies above the Swiss village of Davos were clear and a toothachingly chill blue, everything else was a blur. I saw panels discuss the future of journalism (the verdict? Health uncertain), debate what should happen after the failed Copenhagen summit on the climate (the answer? No one really knew), and consider the benefits of nuclear power (attractive! But the planet would need to build more than 20 plants a year to really reduce the use of coal, and the politicians said that would be hard to sell). But for the readers of Technology Review, perhaps the most interesting event was a panel discussion on “Technology for Society,” moderated by Adam Lashinsky, editor-at-large at Fortune. What surprised was that there was such broad, optimistic consensus amongst men who had little in common except their general age, race, and professional responsibilities. Schmidt gave two slightly more futuristic examples. Did anything dampen the panelists’ enthusiasm?
An Interesting “Collapse” Hypothetical Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, the famous Reagan administration economist and now an embittered and cranky paleoconservative social critic, penned a short but intriguing American ”collapse” scenario set in the near future. Some of what Roberts writes fits neatly with the thesis in Joseph Tainter’s The Collapse of Complex Societies: The Year America Dissolved ….As society broke down, the police became warlords. The state police broke apart, and the officers were subsumed into the local forces of their communities. Several interesting things here. When hubris sent America in pursuit of overseas empire, the venture coincided with the offshoring of American manufacturing, industrial, and professional service jobs and the corresponding erosion of the government’s tax base, with the advent of massive budget and trade deficits, with the erosion of the fiat paper currency’s value, and with America’s dependence on foreign creditors and puppet rulers.The Roman Empire lasted for centuries.
Site des PUPS Artists Re: Thinking Games Liverpool University Press - Foundation for Art Creative Tec: Amazon.de: Ruth Catlow, Marc Garrett, Corrado Morgana: Englische Bücher Piazzza Gives Classmates An Online Forum To Trade Their Knowledge Ah, the college library photo. Look through any school’s brochure, and there’s a good chance you’ll see photos of an ethnically diverse group of students pouring over the same math problem together, all of of them inexplicably grinning ear to ear. It’s a nice thought, but unfortunately it doesn’t happen all that often — instead, many students wind up studying alone, and when they can’t figure something out, they’re out of luck. Now, entrepreneur Pooja Nath is looking to turn this kind of group learning into a reality for more students (at least online) with her startup Piazzza. Piazzza is still in a private beta and has quite a ways to go before public launch, but we got a sneak peek at its current progress. Students are free to independently create Piazzza hubs for their classes, but I suspect the site will get more traction if it gets professors to sign up. Nath says that Piazzza was inspired by her own personal experience.
Mindy S. Lubber: Lessons from the Edge Jared Diamond is the prophet of sinking societies. His acclaimed book, "Collapse," chronicled the demise of simple and advanced civilizations alike - the deforestation that ravaged Easter Island, the soil and water depletion that undid the Mayans, the drought and overpopulation of New Mexico's Anasazi Indians. So what is Diamond's take on threats facing society today - and what lessons are there for 250 hardheaded investors at Deutsche Bank, who gathered Monday in New York to hear Diamond and other experts discuss climate change and other sustainability challenges. There is opportunity in the bad. The Pulitzer Prize-winning author rattled off a dozen dire challenges facing humanity - including climate change, soil depletion, water constraints, threatened fisheries and low-cost energy. And he was quick to remind the investors that these threats are absolutely relevant to their jobs. "This is a money-making opportunity you need not apologize for," he said.
Hommage à Jacques Bouveresse - Colloque "la Reconstruction de la Raison" (27-29 Mai 2013, Paris) Dialogues avec Jacques Bouveresse 27, 28 et 29 mai 2013 Collège de France, Paris Amphithéâtres Budé (les 27-28) et Halbwachs (le29) Colloque organisé par la Chaire de Métaphysique et philosophie de la connaissance La raison était supposée autrefois constituer ce qui unit les êtres humains, elle n’a plus à présent de forme unitaire et dominante et est au contraire fragmentée en une multitude de rationalités diverses, réelles ou supposes telles, qui coexistent de façon conflictuelle. Parmi les philosophes qui ont le plus compté au cours du XXe siècle, bien peu ont été des défenseurs de la raison et des Lumières ; et certains de ceux qui ont exercé et continuent, encore aujourd’hui, à exercer l’influence la plus considérable ont été ses adversaires déclarés. LUNDI 27 MAI 9 H Claudine TIERCELIN (Collège de France) OUVERTURE 9 H 15 Pierre WAGNER (Université Paris1– Panthéon – Sorbonne) TOLÉRANCE ET RATIONALITÉ 9 H Pascal ENGEL (EHESS) LA DIVERSITÉ DU DOMAINE DES RAISONS
Mez Breeze Work[edit] "Mez does for code poetry as jodi and Vuk Ćosić have done for ASCII Art: Turning a great, but naively executed concept into something brilliant, paving the ground for a whole generation of digital artists." Breeze developed, and continues to write in, the hybrid language mezangelle. Her unorthodox use of language demonstrates the ubiquity of digitization and the intersections of the digital and the real that are increasingly common in 21st century life. As well as creating static literary texts using mezangelle, Breeze also creates multi-disciplinary multimedia works online, and participates in online happenings that blur the lines between on- and off-line behavior. Code poetry[edit] "These works are not content to let code remain below the surface but rather show it erupting through the surface of the screen to challenge the hegemony of alphabetic language." Online interventions[edit] Exhibitions[edit] Awards[edit] Publications[edit] Notes[edit] Jump up ^ Grau, Oliver.