11 JUL 2017 by ideonexus
Engineering New Ways to Think About Things
One cluster looks, for example, for new ways of representing and understanding complex systems. A second cluster aims for more access to knowledge by undoing contemporary media’s restrictions (such as the restriction of the screen, which produces, with its peek-a-boo access to complexity, impenetrable forms of knowledge such as the trillions of lines of code, written on screens and then stared at on screens). A third cluster explores new forms of representing time, and a fourth one more eff...
1 30 MAY 2015 by ideonexus
The Rights Revolutions Erase Their Victories
The Rights Revolutions have another curious legacy. Because they are propelled by an escalating sensitivity to new forms of harm, they erase their own tracks and leave us amnesic about their successes. As we shall see, the revolutions have brought us measurable and substantial declines in many categories of violence. But many people resist acknowledging the victories, partly out of ignorance of the statistics, partly because of a mission creep that encourages activists to keep up the pressure...Folksonomies: civil rights social justice
Folksonomies: civil rights social justice
1 
notes
notes02 JAN 2014 by ideonexus
Hu Shi's Advice on Writing
Hu was well known as the primary advocate for the literary revolution of the era, a movement which aimed to replace scholarly classical Chinese in writing with the vernacular spoken language, and to cultivate and stimulate new forms of literature. In an article originally published in New Youth in January 1917 titled "A Preliminary Discussion of Literature Reform", Hu originally emphasized eight guidelines that all Chinese writers should take to heart in writing:
1.Write with substance. By t... 1 notes
notesAs part of the Chinese literary revolution. It breaks with tradition, argues for plain-spoken language of the time, and urges writing new ideas.
30 JUN 2013 by ideonexus
Digital Archiving Creates an Immense Wealth of History
With digital archiving in all its forms, however, a new regime of technologies for holding past experience has emerged. Our past has always been malleable, but now it is malleable with a new viscosity. Whereas in the past our experiences were frequently (literally!) pigeonholed into rigid classification systems, leading to a relative paucity of tales we could tell of our past, today the traces have multiplied and the rigid classifications are withering. (Who now does a “tree” search using... 1 notes
notesWe once had to document history, but now our lives are documented for us all over the place online.
05 JUN 2012 by ideonexus
Nature contains no one constant form.
With respect to those who may ask why Nature does not produce new beings? We may enquire of them in turn, upon what foundation they suppose this fact? What it is that authorizes them to believe this sterility in Nature? Know they if, in the various combinations which she is every instant forming, Nature be not occupied in producing new beings, without the cognizance of these observers? Who has informed them that this Nature is not actually assembling, in her immense elaboratory, the elements ... 1 notes
notesIt has the propensity to produce new forms, not just what we see today.
07 MAY 2012 by ideonexus
Human Space Exploration is Overrated
Perhaps what we should do is genetically engineer new forms of Intelligent life that can survive the stress of space yet still conduct scientific experiments. Actually, such creatures have already been made in the lab. They're called robots. You don't have to feed them, they don't need life support, and they won't get upset if you don't bring them back to Earth. People, on the other hand, generally want to breathe, eat, and eventually come home.
It's probably true that no city has ever held...Folksonomies: space exploration space flight
Folksonomies: space exploration space flight
1 notes
notesWe don't remember most of the astronauts, but we do have favorite space photos taken by all the robots we've sent out into the solar system.
20 SEP 2011 by ideonexus
Speciesization in a Test Tube
We can even see the origin of new, ecologically diverse bacterial
species, all within a single laboratory flask. Paul Rainey and his colleagues
at Oxford University placed a strain of the bacteria Pseudomonas fluorescens
in a small vessel containing nutrient broth, and simply watched
it. (It’s surprising but true that such a vessel actually contains diverse
environments. Oxygen concentration, for example, is highest on the
top and lowest on the bottom.) Within ten days—no more than a few
...Folksonomies: evolution experiment
Folksonomies: evolution experiment
1 notes
notesBacteria evolve into different species in order to adapt to the different environments at the bottom and top of a test tube.
12 SEP 2011 by ideonexus
The Art of Preserving Health
The blood, the fountain whence the spirits flow,
The generous stream that waters every part,
And motion, vigour, and warm life conveys
To every Particle that moves or lives;
This vital fluid, thro' unnumber'd tubes
Pour'd by the heart, and to the heart again
Refunded; scourg'd forever round and round;
Enrag'd with heat and toil, at last forgets
Its balmy nature; virulent and thin
It grows; and now, but that a thousand gates
Are open to its flight, it would destroy
The parts it cherish' d and ...A poem by John Armstrong.
20 MAY 2011 by ideonexus
An Origami Metaphor for Fetal Development
The sheets of tissue that
fold, invaginate and turn inside out in a developing embryo do indeed grow, and it is that very growth that provides part of the motive force which, in origami, is supplied by the human hand. If
you wanted to make an origami model with a sheet of living tissue instead of dead paper, there is at
least a sporting chance that, if the sheet were to grow in just the right way, not uniformly but faster
in some parts of the sheet than in others, this might automatically cau...Cells divide and fold into new forms, just as origami structures become other structures through new folds.
01 JAN 2010 by ideonexus
Oulipo - "workshop of potential literature"
Finally elaborated, this definition remains the Oulipo's rule. In his conversations with Charbonnier, Queneau returns to it nearly word for word: The word "potential" concerns the very nature of literature; that is, fundamentally it's less a question of literature strictly speaking than of supplying forms for the good use one can make of literature. We call potential literature the search for new forms and structures that may be used by writers in any way they see fit.
Finally, and more recen... 1 notes
notesExample: a book of poems, with each line of the poem given its own cut on the page, so that you can flip individual lines and create new poems. An early form of mashup.
