[ B l o g / / Archive]


A Transcendental Philosophy of Science? 
Massimo Pigliucci reports.
Unfortunate it may be, but despite the spectacular successes of modern science, there is no ultimate foundation for our knowledge of the world. This was David Hume’s great insight, when he formulated his famous problem of induction. Hume realized that all knowledge about the world is ultimately derived from a process of induction, ie by generalization from specific instances to broader rules. But how do we know that induction works? Because it has worked in the past, obviously. Yet this itself is an example of inductive reasoning, which makes the justification of induction and science itself perilously circular.
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New: Laptop orchestras bridge the distance 
Laptop performances have been around since the '80s, when they became de rigueur in trend-setting clubs from L.A. to Berlin. But laptop orchestras are quite new. Wang co-founded the first one in 2005, at Princeton University, where he was a doctoral student in computer science. Stanford's laptop orchestra was founded by Wang just last year.
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Why Does the Brain Need So Much Power? 
New study shows why the brain drains so much of the body's energy.
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Wired, Arse Elektronika and "Why Your Boss Should Send You to Sex Conferences" 
monochrom content info
Wired's Regina Lynn writes:
When it comes to technology, it's the great unfulfilled needs that matter most. That's where the next fortunes will be made. But if you're in the tech biz, how do you know what users want if you're hanging out with techies all the time?

You turn to sex. Here are seven reasons why your tech company should send you to sex conferences like Sex 2.0, Arse Elektronica and Sex in Video Games rather than to mainstream events like this week's Web 2.0 Expo.
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Polar Bears? Don't kill them, they may save us from McDonald's 
To protect the health of humans, save other species. That's the message from Eric Chivian and Aaron Bernstein from Harvard Medical School in Boston, who say that human health depends crucially on biodiversity. Chivian gives the example of polar bears, which are threatened by pollution and global warming. Unlike most mammals, they can both gain and shed fat very rapidly with no health consequences. "When we lose polar bears we may be losing the single best research model for understanding obesity-related diseases," he says.
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Torture and the Ticking Time Bomb 
Gordon Hull posted a version of his paper, "One View of the Dungeon: The Ticking Time Bomb between Governmentality and Sovereignty"...
The paper is a critique of one of the standard justifications for torture: "what if there were a ticking time bomb about to blow up Manhattan, and you have the terrorist. Would you torture him to save the lives of millions?" Versions of this argument show up in most efforts to justify torture, and its soundness has been thoroughly criticized by writers such as Kim Scheppele and David Luban. My paper takes a different tack, and tries to understand how the TTB functions as a rhetorical device. The gist of my argument is that it sanitizes the torture question of any real world difficulties, thereby making it appear as an act of governmental efficiency. I frame the paper in terms of Judith Butler's work on administration detention policies, and in particular her appropriation of Foucault in that essay.
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Percival Lowell: The Man Who Invented Mars 
Long before the space race and space shuttle, a brilliant, wealthy, charming Boston Brahmin named Percival Lowell popularized the idea that we are not alone in the universe. As the next US spacecraft prepares to descend upon the Red Planet, it's an idea worth revisiting.



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Forget 'Brain Age': Researchers Develop Software That Makes You Smarter 
Brain researchers for the first time claim to have found a method for improving the general problem-solving ability scientists call fluid intelligence, otherwise known as "smarts."

Fluid intelligence was previously thought to be genetically hard-wired, but the finding suggests that with about 25 minutes of rigorous mental training a day, healthy adults could improve their mental capacities.

The method, if commercialized, could be a boon to the growing, multimillion-dollar market for "brain fitness" software like Nintendo's Brain Age.
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Chernobyl: the great cover-up 
For 50 years dangerous concentrations of radionuclides have been accumulating in earth, air and water from weapons testing and reactor incidents. Yet serious studies of the effects of radiation on health have been obscured – not least by the World Health Organisation.
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Next Step In Robot Development Is: Child's Play 
The team behind the iCub robot believes it, like children, will learn best from its own experiences.

The technologies developed on the iCub platform – such as grasping, locomotion, interaction, and even language-action association – are of great relevance to further advances in the field of industrial service robotics.

The EU-funded RobotCub project, which designed the iCub, will send one each to six European research labs. Each of the labs proposed winning projects to help train the robots to learn about their surroundings – just as a child would.


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What is the Gift of Grace? On Lars von Trier's "Dogville" 
Great essay by Lorenzo Chiesa (University of Kent), published on Film-Philosophy.
The term 'grace' designates a key-notion of Christian theology. 'Grace' derives from the Latin 'gratia', which is the translation of the Greek term 'charis' as used in the New Testament. In the Bible of the Seventy, ‘charis’ renders in its turn a similar notion which is already present in the Old Testament in the guise of the Biblical term 'hén' / 'chén'. In his philological review of Lars von Trier's film Dogville, Charles Baladier (2003) reminds us that this Hebrew term has three different intertwined meanings: it refers to the abstract favour that is awarded by a high rank personality to one of his subjects, the concrete witnessing of this benevolence on the part of the benefactor who thus fait grâce, as well as the charm that the beneficiary receives from the fact of being in the benefactor's good graces. Grace can never be attributed to just one person. The dialectical character of this notion is even more evident in the Latin term 'gratia', which can signify both generosity in giving and gratitude for having received. To put it simply, both the Biblical and the Roman pagan grace are ultimately based on a continuous exchange of favours, or gifts, in which what Marcel Mauss named the gift-exchange of primitive societies still resonates.
More precisely, Mauss describes the gift-exchange as the 'exchanges and contracts [that] take place in the form of presents [...] given and reciprocated obligatorily [...] a "total" social phenomen[on] [that gives expression to] all kinds of institutions at one and the same time – religious, juridical, moral, [...] economic' (1990, 3). From this standpoint, the whole social fabric, the symbolic order as such, however complex, is born out of and constantly relies on the gift. Jacques Lacan fully endorses this, as is shown in Seminar IV, when he relates the mythical emergence of primitive symbolisation in the child to the transformation of the virtual object into a gift. After the mother has neglected the child's appeal, objects – first of all the breast – that up to this point were, for the child, virtual objects that satisfied a biological need, are transformed into gifts that may or may not be donated by the real mother as a power. What is more, the real object of need can be perceived as such only after the child has confronted himself with a lack of object, after having realised that the object may not be donated: the relation subject-object is clearly based on the productive nature of the lack. The virtual Real precedes the Symbolic but it can be 'given' as actual only by the symbolic dimension of the gift.

In Dogville, something definitely goes wrong at the level of the gift-exchange. And this for two main reasons: first, the gift of the charming fugitive named Grace (Nicole Kidman), the gift of Grace – who gives herself away to the townspeople, as Lars von Trier remarked in an interview – is not reciprocated, or better, stops being reciprocated. As we have just seen, following Mauss, the gift, and the symbolic order it sustains, is nothing but reciprocation. Second, the unconditional way in which Grace offers herself to Dogville is as such dangerous: the pure gift soon turns into a poison (Mauss 1990, 62-63), a dis-grace. On this point, von Trier states the following: 'The idea behind Grace's treatment at the hands of the townspeople was that if you present yourself to others as a gift, then that is dangerous. The power that this gives people over the individual corrupts them'.

[...]
Link (PDF)



Where Have All the Racists Gone? 
Excellent new blog called "Racism Review" (via SGRP). Here is an excerpt of a nice post by Adia Harvey.
Over the last year, several celebrities have gone on media rants where they let slip (or unleashed) racial slurs and tirades that are typically relegated to backstage social spaces. Among the most notable: Michael Richards' tirade at the Laugh Factory where he used the "n-word" repeatedly, Duane "Dog" Chapman's use of the same racial slur in a telephone call to his son, and Mel Gibson's verbal barrage of anti-Jewish stereotypes when pulled over for a DUI.

What I find ironic and interesting about these issues is that no matter how offensive and inflammatory the statements are, somehow the speakers themselves are rarely, if ever, labeled racist. The statements they make may be labeled racist, but the speakers vehemently deny that they are. The idea seems to be that racists are only those who self-identify as such: Klansmen, neo-Nazis, or members of other hate groups who openly claim "racist" as a self-identity that they embrace and accept. Even among everyday Americans, people who openly and regularly engage in racist acts, statements, and behaviors stubbornly insist that despite these actions they really are not racist people.

Is being racist now simply subject to the individual's choice? Are you only racist if you self-identify as such? [...]
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monochrom 1998: FringeWare! 
monochrom content info
Jon Lebkowsky just twittered that Scott Casey has published a history of FringeWare, Inc.

Wow. Flashbacks! Memories! Nostalgia! Brrrr!

monochrom's first performance in the US of A was staged at the FringeWare Store in Austin in September 1998.
FringeWare is pleased to announce our in-store presentation of Austria's culture-jamming heroes from "monochrom" magazine, currently travelling throughout North America on their 1998 "monochrom bringt amerika den sozialismus tour". The illusive and infamous "der jg" and company of media subversives will appear for a special signing of their publication, and also spin as DJs for a show featuring "a really strange mixture of austrian and german music scores..." FringeWare will provide the beer.


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What elevators can teach us about superstition 
In the old system—board elevator, press button—you have an illusion of control; elevator manufacturers have sought to trick the passengers into thinking they're driving the conveyance. In most elevators, at least in any built or installed since the early nineties, the door-close button doesn't work. It is there mainly to make you think it works. (It does work if, say, a fireman needs to take control. But you need a key, and a fire, to do that.) Once you know this, it can be illuminating to watch people compulsively press the door-close button. That the door eventually closes reinforces their belief in the button's power. It's a little like prayer. Elevator design is rooted in deception—to disguise not only the bare fact of the box hanging by ropes but also the tethering of tenants to a system over which they have no command.
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Cat and Dog: Or: How to deal with an attacking philosopher 
"Feminist philosophers" writes:
Below we have a cat demonstrating an effective strategy for dealing with an attacking philosopher (as discussed here and elsewhere): keep your cool and soon he'll be going around in circles.


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Conference: The Place of Epistemic Agents 
Upcoming concerence in Madrid: "The place of epistemic agents: Autonomy and dependence in epistemology".
Among the intellectual ideals inherited from the Enlightenment, autonomy is considered the most valuable and essential in the pursuit of a rich intellectual life. But this ideal contrasts with the reality of our permanent dependence in epistemic matters. We constantly rely on others and need to place our trust in them in order to epistemically secure most of our more cherished beliefs. Some recent versions in virtue epistemology emphasize the role of the agent in the acquisition of epistemically valuable beliefs. No doubt, the cognitive character of epistemic subjects and how they are involved in the task of knowing are crucial in our understanding of the very value of knowledge. Moreover, a reflective turn suggested by certain foundationalist trends in epistemology has shaped under a new light the question of the normativity of our epistemic agency, specially in cases of judging and other active epistemic tasks performed by the subject. What is then the place we have to give to agents in epistemology? The aim of this conference is to discuss both the role of the autonomous epistemic agent in the acquisition of knowledge and the role that the dependence on others (and also on artifacts) has in our epistemic endeavors.
University Carlos III, Madrid (UC3M) -Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (UAM). October 2-3, 2008.
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Regrowing lost limbs 
The Pentagon is participating in a $250 million research institute focused on regenerating tissues and whole limbs. The Army's surgeon general says he can see a future in which stem cells taken from soldiers will be used to replace limbs lost during combat.



Link (via Bioethics Blog)



Maker Faire: "I can count every star in the heavens above but I have no heart I can't fall in love..." -- The image of computers in popular music 
monochrom content info
A talk (with examples) by monochrom, presented by Johannes Grenzfurthner

@ Maker Faire Bay Area 2008; Saturday, May 3, 8:30 PM, main stage.

Bourgeois culture was paralyzed and finally overrun by modern technologies which broke through the traditional class barriers. It went into a panic and produced these very stupid technophobic manifestos and images e.g. of "the computer". Pop music discovered and explored the computer not only as a musical instrument but also as something to sing and reflect about in a less aversive way. In doing so it influenced the conception people had of computers. The public image of computers was shaped by groups such as Kraftwerk as well as through obscure Schlager songs such as France Gall's "Computer No. 3". Not only was that image influenced by high culture computer panic but also by naïve technomania, and so it delivered the very dialectics of the computer as a means of cultural technology in capitalist society.



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Trepanation News: Incan skull surgery 
When Incan healers scraped or cut a hunk of bone out of a person's head, they meant business. Practitioners of this technique, known as trepanation, demonstrated great skill more than 500 years ago in treating warriors' head wounds and possibly other medical problems, rarely causing infections or killing their patients, two anthropologists find.



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Suckers: How Alternative Medicine Makes Fools Of Us 
Rose Shapiro's excellent book, Suckers: How Alternative Medicine Makes Fools Of Us All, won't be read by the people who would most benefit from it. It's a potted history of alternative medicine, as well as a thorough rebuttal of it, and her research is both fascinating and illuminating. Did you know that traditional Chinese medicine, described so often as dating back thousands of years, was actually a rag-bag of ideas put together under Chairman Mao to try to fill in the gaps left by a shortage of "the superior new medicine"? Me neither.
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Scanning world's every book means turning many, many pages 
Inside Google's Book Digitization Project...
Many libraries began digitizing books a decade ago to preserve them. Funding from Google allows the 28 libraries it's working with to cut their digitizing costs because they don't have to pay for scanning the books Google wants to include in Book Search. More than 1 million rare or fragile books have been digitized through the Google-Michigan partnership since it began in 2004, with an estimated 6 million to go.
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monochrom's Innermost Unifier @ World-Ex-Position Vienna 
monochrom content info
Johannes Grenzfurthner will present a talk/audio performance @ World-Ex-Position Vienna (LABfactory, Praterstrasse 42/1/3, 1020 Vienna). Saturday, April 26, 7:30 PM.
The Innermost Unifier: Today it's the Corporate Anthem
A talk/audio performance by Johannes Grenzfurthner, monochrom (Vienna, Austria)

Using different historical and current examples (especially from the area of the hardware/software-industry), Johannes Grenzfurthner gives a theoretical and applied - and not unamusing - overview on the musical genre of corporate anthems.

Come and sing along. Powernapping is welcome, too.


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Lynchings in Congo as penis theft panic hits capital 
Police in Congo have arrested 13 suspected sorcerers accused of using black magic to steal or shrink men's penises after a wave of panic and attempted lynchings triggered by the alleged witchcraft.
Link (via Uncertain Times)



Reminder! monochrom's Prixxx Arse Elektronika 
monochrom content info
An unobjectionable award for sex machines, orgasmotrons and teledildonics.



This is an open call for machinery.

Please send us a PDF containing description and pictures of your working device or a detailed proposal by April 30, 2008.

We plan to present the winners of Prixxx Arse Elektronika in autumn 2008 @ Arse Elektronika.

The winners will be honored with the "Golden Kleene" (*)

Signed:
A team of specialists
(*)
There was a young man named Kleene
Who invented a fucking machine.
Concave or convex,
It fit either sex,
And was remarkably easy to clean!

(limerick, attributed to John von Neumann)
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Ozone Hole Recovery: Warmer Antarctica? 
A full recovery of the stratospheric ozone hole could modify climate change in the Southern Hemisphere and even amplify Antarctic warming, according to scientists from the University of Colorado at Boulder, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and NASA.
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If God Is Dead, Who Gets His House? 
The fastest-growing faith in America is no faith at all. And now some atheists think they need a church.
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The 10 worst musicals of all time 
As the knives come out for 'Gone with the Wind', Dominic Cavendish looks back on the history of stage disasters.
#1: Carrie (1988)

This atrocious adaptation of Stephen King's novel - taken by the Royal Shakespeare Company to Broadway where it folded after 21 performances - remains the primus inter pares of the musical flop. King's story of a menstruating schoolgirl with telekenetic powers and a mad religious mother was served up with a ghastly gloop of rock-pop and fake blood. It was hailed as "a resounding mistake" in England and duly went on to be ferociously panned in New York, losing a neat $8 million.
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Conference in Vienna: The Islamic Republic, Israel's struggle for existence and the European Reactions 
Upcoming conference in Vienna.
I would like to invite you to the international conference "The Iranian threat - The Islamic Republic, Israel's struggle for existence and the European Reactions", which will be held on May 3rd and 4th at the Vienna University. Details concerning the program can be found on our website www.stopthebomb.net.

The conference will start with a screened video message by Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Elie Wiesel who is also a supporter of the STOP THE BOMB online petition.
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Taxonomy Fail 

Coca-Cola rips off Evan Hecox' Artwork 
Even if you don't skate you probably came across Evan Hecox artwork sooner or later. Well, Coca-Cola has. Their ad-agency asked him to do a billboard-campaign for Diet Coke and he declined. So they just ripped him off. Nice one.

Link (via crailtap)



monochrom in Oakland: "I Can't Be Blamed For Transfiguring History But For Laziness, Though" 
monochrom content info
May 9 we will have a performance in Oakland, California.
I Can't Be Blamed For Transfiguring History But For Laziness, Though

A musical gala evening with monochrom featuring Damon Smith (acoustic bass), Phillip Greenlief (saxophone), Weasel Walter (drums), Aurora Josephson (vocals).
At 21 Grand gallery, Oakland, CA; 415 25th St. / Friday, May 9 2008 / 8 PM



Heaven is Hotter than Hell 
The temperature of Heaven can be rather accurately computed. Our authority is Isaiah 30:26, "Moreover, the light of the Moon shall be as the light of the Sun and the light of the Sun shall be sevenfold, as the light of seven days." Thus Heaven receives from the Moon as much radiation as we do from the Sun, and in addition 7*7 (49) times as much as the Earth does from the Sun, or 50 times in all. The light we receive from the Moon is one 1/10,000 of the light we receive from the Sun, so we can ignore that.... The radiation falling on Heaven will heat it to the point where the heat lost by radiation is just equal to the heat received by radiation, i.e., Heaven loses 50 times as much heat as the Earth by radiation. Using the Stefan-Boltzmann law for radiation, (H/E) temperature of the earth (-300K), gives H as 798K (525C). The exact temperature of Hell cannot be computed.... [However] Revelations 21:8 says "But the fearful, and unbelieving...shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone." A lake of molten brimstone means that its temperature must be at or below the boiling point, 444.6C. We have, then, that Heaven, at 525C is hotter than Hell at 445C.
~From Applied Optics, vol. 11, A14, 1972



"Krach der Robot" on Boing Boing TV 
monochrom content info
Good news! Our good friend Andreas "Krach" Stoiber is featured on Boing Boing TV. I'm so happy that I got Xeni into contact with His Shiny Robotness.



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Al-Qaeda is stuck in Web 1.0 
A new study by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty examines how Al-Qaeda-affiliated groups use the Internet to spread their message of global jihad.
Al-Qaeda, which was very, very advanced and very, very impressive in its use of new technology, is, I think, a bit behind the curve," Kimmage says. "They are sort of stuck in Web 1.0. They are producing what they think is the coolest content, the best videos, the most impressive press releases. And they are creating the most sophisticated — the best network — to distribute it to the web. What's missing is interactivity in user-generated content — a world in which users generate a lot of the content and in which people what to interact with others. Al-Qaeda really seems stuck in the old model.
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Helvetica: The Film 
Helvetica is a feature-length independent film about typography, graphic design and global visual culture. It looks at the proliferation of one typeface (which is celebrating its 50th birthday this year) as part of a larger conversation about the way type affects our lives. Helvetica is currently screening at film festivals, museums, design conferences, and cinemas worldwide, and is now available on DVD.



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Solar system will remain stable for just 40 million years 
How will life on Earth end? The answer, of course, is unknown, but two new studies suggest a collision with Mercury or Mars could doom life long before the Sun swells into a red giant and bakes the planet to a crisp in about 5 billion years.

The studies suggest that the solar system's planets will continue to orbit the Sun stably for at least 40 million years. But after that, they show there is a small but not insignificant chance that things could go terribly awry.

On human timescales, the solar system seems to move as regularly as clockwork. But Isaac Newton realised three centuries ago that the gravitational tugs the planets exert on each other can potentially nudge them out of their orbits over time.

Predicting what will happen is extremely challenging because so many bodies are involved. Even small errors in the observed positions of the planets today can translate into huge uncertainties in projections of the future. Because of this, astronomers can only say for sure that the solar system will remain stable for the next 40 million years.
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Mars Radar Instruments Work Together To Discover Hidden Martian Secrets 
A radar instrument co-sponsored by NASA on the European Space Agency's Mars Express orbiter has looked beneath the surface of Mars and opened up a new dimension for planetary exploration.



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30 Years Ago Haiti Grew All the Rice It Needed. What Happened? 
Riots in Haiti over explosive rises in food costs have claimed the lives of six people. There have also been food riots world-wide in Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Cote d'Ivorie, Egypt, Guinea, Mauritania, Mexico, Morocco, Senegal, Uzbekistan and Yemen.
The Economist, which calls the current crisis the silent tsunami, reports that last year wheat prices rose 77% and rice 16%, but since January rice prices have risen 141%. The reasons include rising fuel costs, weather problems, increased demand in China and India, as well as the push to create biofuels from cereal crops.
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Laser Pointers Classed as Weapons in Australia 
New South Wales (of which Sydney is the capital) will prohibit the possession of certain types of laser pointers, defining them as weapons, and make it an offense to carry any laser pointer "without a lawful reason."
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LOLpr0n 

Marx and the philosophy of time 
By Peter Osborne.
What is Marx's contribution to the philosophy of time? Or, to put it another way, what has a temporal reading of Marx's writings to contribute to the understanding of the philosophical aspects of his thought? How, for example, might it reconfigure the relationship between the historical, analytical and political dimensions of his work? These are not merely, or even primarily, historical questions, but constructive and critical issues about the philosophical present: constructive, because with only a couple of notable – and notably partial – exceptions (Antonio Negri and Moishe Postone), the temporalphilosophical side of Marx's thought has yet to be systematically disinterred; critical, because of the light such a construction promises to throw on a range of issues, not least the specific contemporaneity of Marx's thought. This is a propitious time for such an investigation, for a number of reasons.
PDF link (on Radical Philosophy)



"Demographic Winter"? 
"Demographic Winter" -- the title of a new film -- denotes the worldwide decline in birthrates.



From their FAQ site:
What is population stability, and why is the number 2.1 so important?

Answer:
Population stability is the point of equilibrium at which a country’s population is neither growing nor declining. In order to maintain current population, the average woman must have 2.1 children during her lifetime. Essentially, she needs to replace herself and a man. Because some children will die before reaching maturity, slightly more than two children are needed. Hence, 2.1.

A birthrate of more than 2.1 equals population growth. A birthrate of less than 2.1 means long term population decline. The rate of 2.1 is based on currently low infant mortality rates. In countries where infant mortality is higher, the birthrate required for population replacement would also be higher.
Here is the link to the film's homepage (via Metaphilm).

"Times & Seasons" weblog is wondering...
...to what degree this is a Mormon project. A fellow named Smoot appears to be a major sponsor and Merril Jenson is listed as doing the music and I get a "strengthen the family" vibe. For another, the production values look high and what discussion there is on the website looks credible (though a 1.3 TFR for Europe as a whole is on the low side, if I recall) but I'd like to get some sense for the scholars and sources they rely on before I spring for a copy of the DVD.
See discussion here.



Sensitive military items for sale on eBay 
Investigators from the US Government Accountability Office (GAO) wanted to know if it was possible for countries or organisations opposed to the US to obtain sensitive items of military equipment over the internet. They were astonished to discover how easy it was.

Using the online trading sites eBay and Craigslist and posing as members of the general public, the team had no trouble at all picking up 10 pieces of US military body armour, which are supposed to be destroyed if no longer required by the DoD. They also managed to buy a used nuclear-biological-chemical protective suit, an antenna for an F-14 jet fighter and several other sensitive items, the GAO says in a report it released last week. While the US has retired its F-14 fleet, one nation has not: Iran - and it is known to be in need of components to maintain the aircraft.
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On Not Choosing The Alternative: Raymond Tallis reflects on living longer 
Woody Allan once observed that he didn’t like the idea of getting old until he thought of the alternative. For those who don’t like the alternative, there is good news. According to a recent report from the House of Lords Select Committee on Science and Technology, life expectancy in the UK is increasing at the rate of about two years for each decade that passes. Hang around long enough and you’ll live for ever. These trends are almost certainly going to continue. The dramatic decline in mortality from cardiovascular disease will be sustained as the identification and treatment of people with risk factors becomes more comprehensive and effective (in the UK, deaths from coronary heart disease below 65 have fallen by nearly 50% in the last decade).

These cheerful statistics have been greeted by some with cries of woe. They translate ‘the ageing population’ into more people living restricted and miserable lives due to chronic and disabling diseases. In fact this is not how things are turning out: despite large increases in life span, the length of the period of illness before death is remaining steady, and the proportion of life spent ill is declining. What is more, if present progress in postponing disabling disease is maintained, we might reasonably anticipate a ‘compression of morbidity’, in which the health span approximates ever more closely to the life span.
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"Campfire At Will": Best of Boing Boing TV 
monochrom content info
Wrapping up our week-long retrospective of the most crowd-pleezin' episodes in Boing Boing tv's first 6 months of existence, we revisit an episode in which...

Vienna-based art-pranksters monochrom teach us how to "hack the urban context" with campfires, sausages, beer, and an elderly Austrian gentleman who speaks LOL. In the second segment of today's episode, someone constructs a campfire, complete with beer bottles and half-cooked links, right in the middle of the Vienna airport. American kids, don't try this at home unless you want a one-way to Camp X-Ray.
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Portal - "Still Alive" - Credits Song 
Portal's closing credits song "Still Alive" is a really great piece of music.
The song was written by Jonathan Coulton and sung by Ellen McLain as the GLaDOS character.

MP3 (thanx, johl!)
YouTube



Runglish 
Runglish (Ruglish, Russlish Russian), is a neologism increasingly used to denote at least three different interferences of Russian and English languages: pidgin, spoken manner, and informal latinizations of the Cyrillic alphabet.

Humor:
The following joke vividly illustrates some of the grammatical issues presented above. It is patterned on the famous dialog from Casablanca (film)

Two gentlemen have the following conversation in Trafalgar Square:

"Excuse me, which watch?"
"Near six."
"Such much?"
"To whom how..."
"MGIMO finished?"
"Ask!..."


While mostly or fully incoherent for someone without good knowledge of Russian, this exchange is immediately understood by native speakers; each sentence is merely a direct ("word-for-word") translation into English while keeping Russian grammatical structure intact; in most cases, when a Russian word has several English translations (each with a different meaning, appropriate in different context), additional incoherency (and humor) is obtained by choosing an incorrect version. Similar issues are commonly encountered in machine translation.
You can find a sentence-by-sentence explanation of the dialogue on Wikipedia (via Languagehat).



From Jamestown to Virginia Tech: Colonization and Massacres 
By Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz.
What does it mean, if anything, that a student, child of Korean immigrants, killed thirty classmates and faculty at a Virginia university while nearby celebrations of the onset of colonialism was taking place?

In April 2007, all the news seemed to be coming from Virginia and was about mass murder, occurring yesterday (400 years ago in Jamestown) and today. I heard no commentary on the coincidence of those bookends of colonialism. Maybe I noticed because I was working on the first chapter of a history of the United States and had colonialism and massacres on my mind.

Jamestown famously was the first permanent settlement that gave birth to the Commonwealth of Virginia, the colonial epicenter of what became the United States of America nearly two centuries later, the colony that in turn gave the United States its national capitol on the Potomac River up the coast. A few years after Jamestown was established, the more familiar and historically revered Plymouth colony was planted by English religious dissidents, but still under the auspices of private investors with royal licenses, accompanied by massacres of the indigenous farmers, just as Jamestown was. This was the beginning of British overseas colonialism, which led to its eventually far more powerful spawn.

343 years after ragged mercenaries set foot on Powhatan territory at Jamestown and began massacring the indigenous farmers and stealing their food crops, the United States invaded Korea, a half-million troops strong, with 30,000 remaining more than a half century later.

The Virginia Tech killings were heralded as the worst "mass killing," and "worst massacre," in the United States.

Descendants of massacred ancestors--indigenous peoples, African Americans, Mexicanos, Chinese--took exception to that designation.

But, we know what those headlines meant; they meant the largest number of innocents killed by one armed civilian, although even that's probably not accurate either, so they really mean with guns and in the last half-century or so, maybe beginning in 1958 with nineteen-year-old Charles Starkweather, and his even younger girlfriend Caril Fugate, who killed eleven in Nebraska and Wyoming.
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Edward Lorenz, father of chaos theory, dead at 90 
Edward Lorenz, the father of chaos theory, who showed how small actions could lead to major changes in what became known as the "butterfly effect," died of cancer on Wednesday at the age of 90, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology said.

Lorenz, a meteorologist, figured out in the 1960s that small differences in a dynamic system such as the atmosphere could set off enormous changes. In 1972 he presented a study entitled "Predictability: Does the Flap of a Butterfly's Wings in Brazil Set Off a Tornado in Texas?"
Link



The Pirate Bay Launches Uncensored Blogging Service 
In their ever continuing battle to free the Internet, The Pirate Bay has now launched an uncensored blogging service, called Baywords. The service is intended to be a safe haven for bloggers who want to be able to write whatever they want, without being afraid to get shut down by their blog host.
Link



The End of the World as You Know It ...and the Rise of the New Energy World Order 
Energy of all sorts was once hugely abundant, making possible the worldwide economic expansion of the past six decades. This expansion benefited the United States above all -- along with its "First World" allies in Europe and the Pacific. Recently, however, a select group of former "Third World" countries -- China and India in particular -- have sought to participate in this energy bonanza by industrializing their economies and selling a wide range of goods to international markets. This, in turn, has led to an unprecedented spurt in global energy consumption -- a 47% rise in the past 20 years alone, according to the U.S. Department of Energy (DoE).

An increase of this sort would not be a matter of deep anxiety if the world's primary energy suppliers were capable of producing the needed additional fuels. Instead, we face a frightening reality: a marked slowdown in the expansion of global energy supplies just as demand rises precipitously. These supplies are not exactly disappearing -- though that will occur sooner or later -- but they are not growing fast enough to satisfy soaring global demand.

The combination of rising demand, the emergence of powerful new energy consumers, and the contraction of the global energy supply is demolishing the energy-abundant world we are familiar with and creating in its place a new world order. Think of it as: rising powers/shrinking planet.
Link



Terahertz speed circuits get closer 
Tools to direct and combine signals carried by terahertz radiation are bringing super-fast data-processing closer, say US researchers. Their new devices are to high-frequency waves what wires are to electricity.

Terahertz frequencies are the only part of the electromagnetic spectrum not used by humans and are now being explored for higher bandwidth wireless communications or security scanners able to look through clothing.

But engineers at the University of Utah, US, led by Ajay Nahata are more interested in using them to process information.
Link



Who Owns Captain America? It Seems Not The Guy Who Drew Him 
On the frontier of a new industry, [comic book] writers and artists are creating scores of characters, but publishers profiting from them. These days creators have learned from the past by self-publishing or otherwise securing the rights to their progeny. But some of the founding fathers of American superheroes are still seeking justice.
Link



monochrom best-of CD / LP wanted? / Survey! 
monochrom content info
As some of you probably already noticed, we've been working on a best-of-compilation of our old and more recent monochrom hits - and will make them available as mostly new and improved versions on a CD. To ensure high standards of quality, we got support from lots of musicians, like Hans Nieswandt, Gamejew, Matthias Kertal, Gerald Votava and many more...

The CD is ready and should be available in May 2008.

Now we additionally consider releasing a limited small vinyl edition (most likely a double LP) and now we want to survey the demand for such a product.

If you might be interested in purchasing a monochrom-best-of-double-LP, we would therefore ask you to send a short e-mail (subject: double lp) to frank.apunkt.schneider at gmx.net until Friday.
The mail will not oblige you to actually buy the LP, it will only help us figure out if our target group is interested in vinyl at all.

We would on the other hand collect the mails and in case of an actual purchase the senders will qualify for special conditions. Price and release date of the LP are yet to be determined.

Best regards and thanks a lot.



Dept. of Applied Office Arts: New Submissions 
monochrom content info



We got new submissions for the Dept. of Applied Office Arts. You don't know the Dept.? Well...
Office art (especially office drawing) is a regular technique used by people in white-collar working situations. There may not necessarily be a creative impulse to create office work, but the impulse of overcoming general work boredom or the necessity to help office workers keeping focus during telephone conversations and/or office meetings. This page is dedicated to collecting office art.


Please submit!
Link



Whose Environment Is It? 
By Joel Marks.
A peculiarity about the contemporary discussion of the proper human treatment of other animals is that, when the topic is broached at all, it often falls under the rubric of 'environmentalism'. No doubt this is an unintended consequence of the otherwise welcome prioritizing of an ‘environmental crisis’, which was highlighted in the last issue of this magazine. It is peculiar nonetheless because it begs a rather key question: whose environment is it?
Link



Feeling Machines: Engineers Develop Systems For Recognizing Emotion 
Emotions are an intrinsic part of communications. But machines don't have, perceive or react to them, which makes us – their handlers – hot under the collar. But thanks to building blocks developed by European researchers, machines that 'feel' may no longer be confined to science fiction.
Link



Flaws of Gravity: Netwon about sex, gold, and religion 
Even the idlest stroll through Cambridge, England, calls to mind a pantheon of great scientific minds, but none is greater than Isaac Newton, who revolutionized the world of "natural philosophy" while the rest of England was paralyzed by the plague. Reading an enlightening new biography by Peter Ackroyd, Christopher Hitchens learns that Newton probably didn't get bonked on the head by an apple—but he did have some pretty funny ideas about sex, gold, and religion.
Link



The Cracked Ambience: new and recommended sounds for your personal space 

Michael Jackson will Thrill you 
Michaeljackson.com is pushing a viral marketing campaign to promote something or other. The upswing is you can upload a photo of yourself (or a friend or a duck) and they will insert you (or them or it) into the "thriller" video.

It is somewhat poor quality and takes an hour.
But with enough camera angles and computer power I'm sure an artist could insert a viewer into classic movies such as "The Passion of the Christ" or that Rick Astley music video.
Link



monochrom's Toyps / new entries 
monochrom content info
Toyps is a collection of aesthetically beautiful typing errors of the so-called >English< language. An unpretenitous listong. And we got new submissions! Such beautiful and involuntary creations as "System of a Dow", "canilla sauce" or "border feces"...



We need your errors!
Link



A Brief History of Exoskeletons 
The first patent for a mechanical suit appeared in 1890, but exoskeletons, both real and imagined, took off only recently.



Link



The Mufti and the Holocaust 
John Rosenthal reviews "Der Mufti von Jerusalem und die Nationalsozialisten" by Klaus Gensicke.
Germany stands for an uncompromising struggle against the Jews. It is self-evident that the struggle against the Jewish national homeland in Palestine forms part of this struggle, since such a national homeland would be nothing other than a political base for the destructive influence of Jewish interests. Germany also knows that the claim that Jewry plays the role of an economic pioneer in Palestine is a lie. Only the Arabs work there, not the Jews. Germany is determined to call on the European nations one by one to solve the Jewish problem and, at the proper moment, to address the same appeal to non-European peoples.

—Adolf Hitler to Haj Amin Al-Husseini, mufti of Jerusalem, November 28, 1941
The persistence of widespread Judeophobia in the Muslim world is hardly a matter of dispute, even if many commentators are inclined to dismiss it as merely an "understandable" reaction to Israeli "oppression." Among those who take the phenomenon seriously, however, a debate has been taking place of late about its origins. The debate has been spurred on, notably, by the publication in English translation of the German political scientist Matthias Küntzel's book Jihad and Jew-Hatred: Islamism, Nazism and the Roots of 9/11. The central thesis of Küntzel's book is that anti-Semitism — or, more precisely, modern anti-Semitism as crystallized in the "Jewish world conspiracy" theory — was largely imported into the Muslim world from Nazi Germany.
Link



monochrom's SCULPTURE MOBS: Training Camp @ Maker Faire Bay Area 2008 
monochrom content info
Counter culture? Art? Your average guy does not go to exhibitions, concerts nor does he get in touch with art and counter culture media. Counter culture and the art world are niche places. And even if people would go there they would consider what happens there to be 'just art'. Art is the place where things might be reflected. But that amounts to nothing because it is not linked to everyday life. Art is a special task and a special place for special people. Many post-bourgeois artists were trying to bring the art back to the people ­ not as a handy service (as it is to the bourgeois elite art consumer) but as a form of irritation. They created many forms of street theatre and pranks. But even art hackers are often helpless against official "art in public space"! Oh, the horror! Those endless atrocities! All of them labeled "sculpture in public space"! Ah! Monstrous "public art installations" on roundabouts, on main streets, in shopping malls!



It is time to reclaim the street art! It is time to create your own public art! Get your hammers! Get your welding equipment!
It is time for SCULPTURE MOBS!

monochrom offers free courses, in-depth training and invites people on a couple of guerrilla field trips.



Where? At Maker Faire Bay Area 2008!



Typhoid Fever dolls 
Cozy!



Link (thanx, Mela M!)



Spain/France: Is this the beginning of water wars? 
As Barcelona runs out of water, Spain has been forced to consider importing water from France by boat. It is the latest example of the growing struggle for water around the world – the "water wars".
Link



US Cops and Former Secret Service Agents Ran Black Ops on Green Groups 
Mother Jones reports:
A private security company organized and managed by former Secret Service officers spied on Greenpeace and other environmental organizations from the late 1990s through at least 2000, pilfering documents from trash bins, attempting to plant undercover operatives within groups, casing offices, collecting phone records of activists, and penetrating confidential meetings. According to company documents provided to Mother Jones by a former investor in the firm, this security outfit collected confidential internal records—donor lists, detailed financial statements, the Social Security numbers of staff members, strategy memos—from these organizations and produced intelligence reports for public relations firms and major corporations involved in environmental controversies.
Link



Joseph Weizenbaum and Eliza's World 
The machine's influence shapes not only society's structures but the more intimate structures of the self. Under the sway of the ubiquitous, "indispensable" computer, we begin to take on its characteristics, to see the world, and ourselves, in the computer's (and its programmers') terms.
Link



Roboexotica 2008 // 10 Years Of Roboexotica! 
monochrom content info
Finally we can announce a date. Roböxotica 2008 -- and 10 YEARS OF ROBÖXOTICA!! -- will take place in Vienna from December 4 thru December 7.

Roboexotica (or Roböxotica) is the first and inevitably leading festival concerned with cocktail robotics.
Until recently, no attempts had been made to publically discuss the role of cocktail robotics as an index for the integration of technological innovations into the human Lebenswelt, or to document the increasing occurrence of radical hedonism in man-machine communication. Roboexotica is an attempt to fill this vacuum. It is the first and, inevitably, the leading festival concerned with cocktail robotics world-wide. A micro mechanical change of paradigm in the age of borderless capital. Alan Turing would doubtless test this out.
Scientists, researchers, computer geeks and artists from all over the world participate to build cocktail robots and discuss about technological innovation, futurology and science fiction.

Roboexotica is a cooperation with Shifz and 'Bureau für Philosophie', Vienna.



Link



Godzilla: A Tactical Approach 

Iran's government shut down 'Zanan' 
Iran's government has shut down the magazine 'Zanan' after 17 years and 151 issues, ending its advocacy of women's rights and its fearless exposures of wrongs against women under the current regime.
Link



The First Animal On Earth Was Significantly More Complex Than Previously Believed 
A new study mapping the evolutionary history of animals indicates that Earth's first animal -- a mysterious creature whose characteristics can only be inferred from fossils and studies of living animals--was probably significantly more complex than previously believed.



Link



Films in 3D? *Really*? 
Films in 3D are back - and poised to revolutionise the cinema. And even the new-style specs are comfortable. Jeremy Kay reports.
Link



The Show Must Go On? Aging acts = music industry's live performance revenue 
Aging acts account for most of the music industry's live performance revenue. What happens when these acts are gone?
Link



Hyper-Americana: Squirrel melts 
You know how squirrels like nuts?
That's why you should cook them with pecans!



Link (thanx, Chris Palmer!)



Roboexotica USA! Register now! 
monochrom content info
Cocktails, art, and bars. It's like heaven, only without the harps. Started 10 years ago in Vienna, this is the first time the show comes to America. If you've got a bar-bot, this is your chance to show it off - it can deliver beer, mix drinks, or just hang out and hit on girls. We'd also like to see your art robots. Whether it hangs on a wall stands against one, this is really fun show and exhibit. The opening party is May 10th in SF, but your bots will get to stick around and be seen by gallery-goers.

Some photos...
http://roboexotica.com/gallery/Photos2006
http://flickr.com/search/?q=roboexotica&w=all

Register by emailing D. Calkins: dave AT robogames.net



George Lucas sues over sale of replica film costumes 
"Although the last Star Wars movie came out three years ago, the battle over rights and ownership of the costumes used in the films is still raging. George Lucas, the director who dreamed up the lucrative series, is suing the prop designer who made the stormtrooper helmets and suits for the original 1977 film because he is selling replicas to fans for £1,800 a time."


Link



Blood, Copper... Camera? 
Wayne Martin Belger is a freaky pinhole photographer who makes cameras out of titanium, brass, wood, glass, human skulls, human organs, formaldehyde, HIV positive blood, and other relics that are tools of what he calls "the horrors of creation and the beauty of decay." Pictured above is a creation of his called The Untouchable, a 4x5 inch camera made of aluminum, copper, titanium, acrylic, and HIV positive blood. The blood acts as a red filter by pumping through the camera to the front of the pinhole.
Link (via Annalee Newitz)



Carl Zimmer's Science Tattoo Emporium 
Underneath their sober lab coats and flannel shirts, scientists hide images of their scientific passions. At Carl Zimmer's Science Tattoo Emporium they are revealed to all.



Link (thanx, yxynaxen!)



Upcoming: hardhack 
hardhack is a thing that will take place in Berlin, Germany from April 18th - April 20th, 2008. It's a meeting of dedicated hardware hackers without the usual conference bullshit. You should check it out:
  • hardhack is a place with hands-on workshops
  • hardhack is for anyone who loves to understand circuits
  • hardhack is about reverse engineering
  • hardhack is about haring knowledge in a hands-on way
  • hardhack is making your hardware do what ou want it to do
hardhack is not really a conference (nor is it an un-conference), and it is definitely not a place for powerpoint presentations. that doesn't mean you can't bring slides, but be prepared to bring hardware with concrete working examples as well. if you are someone who likes to reverse engineer embedded devices, or someone who enjoys soldering, or someone who makes hardware work with hardware that it wasn't made to work with, then hardhack will be for you. hardhack will be an event so that we can all get our hands dirty, learn a thing or two, and have fun with hardware.
You can sign up now. Link



Staring in Vienna inspires incredible Art-Project 
Ask anyone who visits Vienna and they will tell you that they can't believe the amount people in public stare at one another. I'm from Vienna and lived abroad for 4 years, and when I returned I couldn't believe the rudeness myself - I saw it with outsider's eyes.

Kevin Connolly from Montana, USA was born without legs and uses a skateboard to travel from A to B. On a trip to Europe he happened to be in Vienna when he felt a man staring at him. His reaction was to just take a photo of the man as he stared at him, and this sparked an long project of snapping gawkers from the hip, thereby holding a mirror at those around him.

It's a very cool project called The Rolling Exhibition, and it's featured in this little film on Yahoo-News. I found it through crailtap, a skateboarding website, but the bit on Vienna gives it a special twist for me. The staring in Vienna just pisses me off a great deal. And here's somebody who got pissed off so much, he made an exhibition out of it. This is inspiring stuff. Thanks Kevin.

Link



The Caped Crusader: Frederic Wertham's campaign against comic books 
For comic-book fans, Fredric Wertham is the biggest villain of all time, a real-life bad guy worse than the Joker, Lex Luthor, and Magneto combined. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, Wertham was the intellectual spearhead of the anti-comics crusade, arguing in many articles and his 1954 best-seller, Seduction of the Innocent, that comic books stultified the imagination of normal kids (giving them a taste for blood and gore that would prevent them from ever appreciating literature and fine art) and severely damaged the socially vulnerable, contributing to juvenile delinquency. For Wertham, even the most beloved comic-book heroes were suspect: Superman reminded him of Nazi Germany's SS (a cadre of self-styled supermen), the adventures of Batman and Robin had homoerotic overtones, and Wonder Woman threatened to turn healthy young girls into lesbians. At the time Wertham made his attack on comics, the medium was at the height of its popularity, selling between 80 million and 100 million copies every week in scores of genres, ranging from funny animals and superheroes (for kids) to romance and horror (for teenagers and young adults).
Link



The Origin of Menopause: Why Do Women Outlive Fertility? 
New research sheds light on why women survive for decades when females in many other species die after they lose the ability to reproduce.
Link



India Allows Pakistani Film To Open 
A critically acclaimed Pakistani film on Islam has been released across cinemas in India. It is the first Pakistani film to get a wide commercial release in India in over four decades... Officially, India and Pakistan have banned each other's films since going to war in 1965.
Link



Heroine Sheik recommends Arse Elektronika 
monochrom content info
Heroine Sheik recommends Arse Elektronika 2008.
Arse Elektronika, the awesome San Francisco sex tech conference that last year brought us talks like "Fucking Machines" and "Porn, Tech, and Creativity," has opened up its 2008 call for submissions. The event will take place from September 25th-28th, and the theme is "Do Androids Sleep with Electric Sheep?: Critical Perspectives on Sexuality and Pornography in Science and Social Fiction" (so… good…). Interested sex dorks like yours truly can submit presentations in any one of the three "panel" topics: narration, technology, and politics.
Link



New Crawling Fish Discovered 
A fish that would rather crawl into crevices than swim, and that may be able to see in the same way that humans do, could represent an entirely unknown family of fishes, says a University of Washington fish expert.



Link



Prosecutor investigating reports of trafficking in organs of missing Kosovo Serbs 
Serbia's war crimes prosecutor is looking into reports that dozens of Serbs captured by rebels during the war in Kosovo were killed so their organs could be trafficked, the prosecutor's office said Friday.
The Serbian prosecutor's office said it received "informal statements" from investigators at the U.N. tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands, that dozens of Serbs imprisoned by Kosovo Albanian rebels were taken to neighboring Albania in 1999 and killed so their organs could be harvested and sold to international traffickers.
Link (via histologion)



Austrian Military "Krocha" 
"Krocha" is an ultra-proletarian Viennese jumpstyle dance, and I frequently check YouTube for new "Krocha" obscurities. Here is a compelling video labeled "Bundesheer Krocha 07 presented by checki und leimi"... two Austrian military guys, two gas masks, a Catholic cross, a trash bin and ...well... rhythm.



Link (thanx, Thomas Thurner @ IND06)



monochrom, KPMG and a hero from Argentinia: BBtv 
monochrom content info
Johannes storms the front doors of various multinational corporations to ask employees (and random folk on the street) if they're aware that these companies have "corporate anthems." Yes, theme songs, sometimes official, sometimes unofficial, always painfully cheesy. KPMG boasts a particularly heinous ditty, and while renditions sometimes pop up on YouTube, none can be quite so rich as the one we paid an Argentinian street musician $20 to sing. "KPMG, we're strong as can be -- a dream of power and energy!" Bet you $20 the song sticks in your brain longer than you'd like.



Link



Internet Movie Cars DataBase 
Like one of the fossil fuel wasting devices you saw in a movie?
Welcome to the Internet Movie Cars Database. You will find here one of the most complete list on the web about cars, bikes, trucks and other vehicles seen in movies, image captures and information about them.
For example, a Kia featured in "Grey's Anatomy":



Link



Why Isn't There More Science Fiction Theatre? 
monochrom content info
Good question. I'm happy that monochrom actually wrote and staged a sci-fi theatre play in 2006... "Warten auf Goto"... and there is a good chance we will translate it into English.
As well as being regarded with a certain warmth, there's also a sense of mistrust around the genre. Writers fear that it's somehow a bit uncool - a bit 70s - and so we get interminable plays about Urgent Contemporary Issues rather than coolly speculative projections. It's a shame. After all, some of the 20th century's greatest literature was set in the future - consider 1984, Brave New World and A Clockwork Orange.
Link



The Financialization of Capital and the Crisis 
By John Bellamy Foster.
With the benefit of hindsight, few now doubt that the housing bubble that induced most of the recent growth of the U.S. economy was bound to burst or that a general financial crisis and a global economic slowdown were to be the unavoidable results. Warning signs were evident for years to all of those not taken in by the new financial alchemy of high-risk debt management, and not blinded, as was much of the corporate world, by huge speculative profits. This can be seen in a series of articles that appeared in this space: "The Household Debt Bubble" (May 2006), "The Explosion of Debt and Speculation" (November 2006), "Monopoly-Finance Capital" (December 2006), and "The Financialization of Capitalism" (April 2007). In the last of these we wrote:
So crucial has the housing bubble been as a counter to stagnation and a basis for financialization, and so closely related is it to the basic well-being of U.S. households, that the current weakness in the housing market could precipitate both a sharp economic downturn and widespread financial disarray. Further rises in interest rates have the potential to generate a vicious circle of stagnant or even falling home values and burgeoning consumer debt service ratios leading to a flood of defaults. The fact that U.S. consumption is the core source of demand for the world economy raises the possibility that this could contribute to a more globalized crisis....
Link



How sweet... universe's tiniest black hole discovered 
Only 3.8 times the Sun's mass and spans just 24 kilometres across.
Link



xbiz features Arse Elektronika 2008 
monochrom content info
Art, sex and technology collide as monochrom discuss the intersection of science, porn and culture in the digital age
Link




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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.
[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]
 


Soviet Unterzoegersdorf / Sector 2 / The Adventure Game

Climate Training Camp

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)

#fullboycott

International Year of Polytheism 2007

Santa Claus Vs. Christkindl: A Mobster Battle

Could It Be (Video clip)

Pot Tin God

Hacking the Spaces

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

Sculpture Mobs

Nazi Petting Zoo / Short film

The Great Firewall of China

KPMG / Short film

The BRAICIN / Short film

Soviet Unterzoegersdorf / Sector 1 / The Adventure Game

I was a copyright infringement in a previous life (T-Shirt)

Brave New Pong

Leben ist LARPen e.V.

One Minute / Short film

Firing Squad Euro2008 Intervention

RFID Song

A tribute to Honzo

Lessig ist lässig

I can count every star in the heavens above -- The image of computers in popular music

All Tomorrow's Condensations / Puppet show

Bye Bye / Short film

Revaluation

PC/DC patch

Proto-Melodic Comment Squad

myfacespace.com

The Redro Loitzl Story / Short film

Hax0rcise SCO

Law and Second Order (T-Shirt)

They really kicked you out of the Situationist International?

Death Special: Falco

Applicant Fisch / Short film

When I was asked to write about new economy

Taugshow #6

Taugshow #7

Taugshow #9

Taugshow #10

Taugshow #11

Taugshow #14

Taugshow #15

Campfire at Will

Arse Elektronika 2007, 2008, 2009 etc.

The Void's Foaming Ebb / Short film

Remoting Future

When you / Short film

Elf

Free Bariumnitrate

Toyps / Typing Errors

ARAD-II Miami Beach Crisis

The Charcoal Burner / Short film

Digital Culture In Brazil

Hegemonchhichi

Nation of Zombia

Lonely Planet Guide action

CSI Oven Cloth

Dept. of Applied Office Arts

Farewell to Overhead

Google Buttplug

Fieldrecording in Sankt Wechselberg / Short film

Dark Dune Spots

Campaign For The Abolition Of Personal Pronouns

Zeigerpointer

Space Tourism

In the Head of the Gardener

Entertainment (Unterhaltung) / Short film

Cthulhu Goatse

Nicholas Negroponte Memorial Cable

Coke Light Art Edition 06

Experience the Experience! (West Coast USA/Canada Tour 2005)

April 23

Overhead Cumshot

Irark / Short film

Wart

Instant Blitz Copy Fight

A Patriotic Fireman

A Micro Graphic Novel Project

Noise and Talk

The Exhilarator

H&M

SUZOeG Training / Short film

The Flower Currency

Gastro-Art/Gastrokunst

A Holiday in Soviet Unterzoegersdorf

How does the Internet work?

Paraflows 2006 and up

Special Forces

Coca Cola

About Work

Turing Train Terminal

Me / Short Film

Massive Multiplayer Thumb-Wrestling Network

Doormat

Some Code To Die For

The Year Wrap-up

Soviet Unterzoegersdorf Metroblogging

Project Mendel

Display, Retry, Fail

Manifesto of Ignorantism

Actionfilm

Towers of Hanoi

Heisenberg

Opto-Hedonism

Every Five Seconds an Inkjet Printer Dies Somewhere

Milk

Mobutobe

Brandmarker

We know apocalypses

452 x 157 cm² global durability

A Good Haul

Blattoptera / Art for Cockroaches

Minus 24x

Gladiator / Short Film

Eden

An attempt to emulate an attempt

Paschal Duct-Taping

Laptop Crochetication

Russka

Somewhere in the 1930s

Soul Sale

The Department for Criticism against Globalisation

Dot Smoke

Georg Paul Thomann

Nurgel Staring

War On

Let's network it out

Nude

Mackerel Fiddlers

Whales

Disney vs. Chrusov / Short film

Bulk Mail

Easter Celebrations

Mouse Over Matter

Condolence for a Crab

Force Sting

Turning Threshold Countries Into Plows

System

A Noise

A. C. A.

Hopping Overland

Achy Breaky Heart Campaign

Hermeneutic Imperative III

Holy Water / Franchise

Roböxotica // Festival for Cocktail-Robotics

Spears

Engine Hood Cookies

Ikea

The Watch

Creative Industry 2003

This World

Cracked Foundation For The Fine Arts

Sometimes I feel

Fit with INRI

Growing Money

Catapulting Wireless Devices

Buried Alive

Illegal Space Race

Magnetism Party

Brick of Coke

1 Baud

Scrota Contra Vota

Direct Intervention Engine

Oh my God, they use a history which repeats itself! (T-Shirt)

Administrating:

Dorkbot Vienna





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