ISSUE 0.15

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The New Reality

This has been a great couple weeks for news. Enjoy articles in art, weird future culture, coding fascinations, and of course, robots.

digital transformations []

The Expansion of Digitalism and the New Reality

This is an interesting look into the dynamics of the digitization of art. I've spent a decent amount of time thinking about this as well. Once an art piece is digitized - or started digitized - what happens to it in our minds and experiences? The understanding of availability and reproducibility of a thing impacts how we regard it. I can't imagine a digitally-produced work selling for millions, except by the scale of redistribution (which happens in software today), which then becomes a fight for eyes and attention. Are we on the cusp of mass consumerism in the arts? Maybe we're already there and I just haven't been paying attention.

fatal narcissism []

Selfies Are Killing More People Than Shark Attacks

Unsurprising. Don't take selfies and run with the bulls, people.

the internet is coming []

The Weird, Wide World of an Internet Flea Market

When you give physical space to a virtual space, it somehow seems even stranger. Surreal. I particularly like the NoPhone - I might just buy one for a friend. (Okay, really, I'd just stare at it in social situations to confuse people. Maybe throw it on the floor. Lots of applications!)

black is the best color []

Not satire, not evil: The growing Satanic Temple of Detroit

Satanism is pretty futuristic. interesting expression of religious freedom. They also have pretty sick outfits.

we're gonna do it anyway []

Is it ethical to genetically engineer higher intelligence?

This is a real interesting question that I find even more interesting than the question altering of our bodies. Our minds are what enable us to change the world in a large way. Changing our minds accelerates that process. Those with the most money will always have the most access to this technology, and so the powerful may gain even more power. Not that that's a new thing, though. (There's also no guarantee we won't accidentally make a few supervillians along the way.)

Coding Concerns

that's a lot of code! []


An interesting look into the code infrastructure of the world's most well-known technology company. Like most massive companies I've heard of, they home-grew their own system for handling the massive amounts of code they create and maintain.

process this []

Meet Processing, the Lingua Franca of Creative Coding

Not to be confused with meat processing, the lingua franca of the meat industry.

i wish i could control gta with music []

This City - Audio-visual performance of a simulated world

This is awesome. It's basically a game engine that's been hooked up to a MIDI controller. Stick around for the antigrav.

Robots Are Our Friends

exoskeleton report []

DARPA Tests Battery-Powered Exoskeletons on Real Soldiers

This is a really cool video of a load-bearing exoskeleton in action. I've read a lot about them but haven't seen any demonstrations showing off the application so cleanly yet. What's particularly impressive about this one is how small the exoskeleton seems - you can easily imagine lining a uniform or bodysuit with it.

hey that's not cool []

Why can’t Twitter kill its bots?

As someone whose Twitter feed is almost exclusively bots, I take offense to this article.

the markov chains that bind us[]

The god of Reddit bots and his weird, automated kingdom

I love SubredditSimulator. The titles that come out of it are always so interesting, yet I know that it's all automatically generated, and the content and comments never match the actual titles, which leads to a serene feeling of simultaneous excitement and disappointment. Pretty much anyone can make their own Markov chain text generator bot, but a good source choice creates the most interesting results.