Bruce Sterling's Blog, page 805

Generative Science

*Uh-oh.

http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/04/robotscientist.html

Adam is the first automated system to complete the cycle from hypothesis, to experiment, to reformulated hypothesis without human intervention.

Adam's British designers, led by Ross King at Aberystwyth University in Wales, acknowledge that the robot's discoveries have been "of a modest kind" thus far. Its proving ground as a scientist has been the genome of baker's yeast, a popular laboratory species. Baker's yeast is o

Arduino King Massimo Banzi Invades America

IconNicholson Hosts North America Workshop On Designing Interactive Environments with the Arduino Physical Prototyping Platform

New York – April 2 –IconNicholson, a leading full-service digital agency, will host the first workshop in North America on developing interactive environments using Arduino, a world-renowned electronics prototyping platform from Tinker.It!.

The exclusive event, which will take place April 7-8, will be led by Massimo Banzi, co-founder of the Arduino platform an

You know newspapers are screwed when even the CARTOONISTS catch it

http://editorialcartoonists.com/news/article.cfm/857

Ben Sargent

Ben Sargent, who has been the editorial cartoonist for the Austin American-Statesman for the last 35 years, has opted to take what he described as a “pretty generous buyout.” His last day with the paper will be March 13th. His wife, who is the paper's longtime TV critic, is also taking a buyout.

Sargent says that management has expressed interest in buying cartoons on a contractual basis, but nothing has been finalized. Sargen

Homing Pigeons and Prison Cellphones

*It's fantastic. Magic-realist, even. Rivals the Franco-Prussian seige of Paris, which combined pigeons
with hot-air balloons.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/apr/01/pigeons-mobile-phones-brazil-prison

Inmates have devised an innovative way to smuggle in mobile phones into a prison farm in Brazil – carrier pigeons.

Guards at the Danilio Pinheiro prison near the south-eastern city of Sorocaba noticed a pigeon resting on an electric wire with a small cloth bag tied to one of its legs l

Yochai Benkler Tackles General Motors

*Gosh... maybe "WHAT'S IN IT FOR ME?" denominated in dollars, is NOT the
long-term answer to every social, political and economic relationship.
I know that's counterintuitive... but Yochai Benkler here is an Ivy League professor,
we pay him a lot to think these matters through.

http://www.edge.org/documents/archive/edge279.html#benkler

(...)

"In organizational sociology, in management science, you look — Toyota production system was the big ah-ha moment, when Toyota came to the U.S. for

British Pop Music Critic As International Military Strategist

*I hope you're listening, DANGER ROOM.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/caitlin_moran/article1329415.ece

...had the Americans read the report, they would have noted two vital findings. The first is that while the same old countries — Iran, China, North Korea, France probably, haha — want to have a pop at the US, America has to accept that we are now in a “nonpolar” world and must redefine its strategies to cope with “nonstate actors” — your Hezbollahs and al-Qaedas. Th

Processing Sketches

*Sketches written in Processing now arranged as "favorites" by a wondering public.

http://www.openprocessing.org/browse/?viewBy=most&filter=favorited

"Here it is April Fools' Day, yet I somehow imagined I'd get some work done...
instead of idly clicking on this devilish host of interactive rectangles... Oh wait.
I could PASS THIS WICKED PRANK ON to somebody else. Ha ha HA!"

"Gosh uncle thanks for the kaleidoscope."

http://www.openprocessing.org/visuals/?visualID=1210

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Dead Media Beat: Microsoft Encarta

*The lesson here? Moving from the "analog" version of encyclopedia
to the "digital" version of an encyclopedia does not save you from decay and
obsolescence. On the contrary. The legendary 1912 Britannica
will probably be pretty legible in 100 years; in ten years, you'll
have to explain "Microsoft Encarta" to people --- assuming that they
know enough to ask.

http://encarta.msn.com/guide_page_FAQ...

Important Notice: MSN Encarta to be Discontinued

On October 31, 2009, MSN® Encart

The iPhone as multitool

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http://broadcast.oreilly.com/2009/03/pc-10-iphone-30-and-the-woz-ev.html

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http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200811/cell-phones

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Be My Valentine, Ukrainian Anti-Crisis Girl

*Gee whiz, Svetlana, that's some kinda oil crisis you've got happening over there.

Svetlana Loboda will sing "Be My Valentine! (Anti-crisis Girl)" at the 2009 Eurovision Song Contest. She will represent Ukraine. ...

http://www.eurovision.tv/page/multime...

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