During a GDC panel that mainly focused on Eidos Montreal’s struggle to create a distinct visual style for its Deus Ex prequel, art director Jonathan Jacques-Belletete slide a few gameplay details into his presentation. Deus Ex: Human Revolution takes place in the year 2027 and chronicles the rise of cybernetic augmentation, a technological renaissance Jacques-Belletete dubbed the “transhuman …
Who is Afraid of General Artificial Intelligence? (Content-Wire)
March 4, 2010 — adminQuestions and answers with Ben GoertzelI was searching for answers to an old issue that bugged me for years: is there anything like ‘chinese logic’. By chinese logic I refer to odd reasoning patterns, that do not seem to follow what in the west is called ‘logical thinking’.
Items of Interest
March 3, 2010 — adminHere are some collected links that have caught my eye recently:
- Digital Security and Tactics By (and For) Anti-Authoritarians event this March 12th at the 8 Days of Anarchy in the Bay Area
- Latvian “Robin Hood” hacker leaks bank details
- Ultimate griefing: publishing the private info on the rich to fuel public outrage
- The complicated politics of Italian transhumanism Part 1: Stefano Vaj defends against claims that his overhumanism politics are fascist
- The complicated politics of Italian transhumanism Part 2: the critics lay out their evidence for claiming the overhumanists are fascists (see also this and this)
- The MikroKopter: small, cheap, carries a camera, and there are instructions to build your own
- Public reactions to terrorist threats: projecting leadership qualities onto political figures, with serious political consequences
- Survival of the kindest: how evolution drives compassion and collaboration
- Security implications of volume shadow copy in Windows 7/Vista: no secure deletion possible
- Microsoft 7/Vista Law Enforcement Forensics Guides
- Hackers brew code to counter police forensics: COFFEE, meet DECAF
NEW LOCAL HOME PAGE (Washington Post)
February 18, 2010 — adminFeb. 18 SECOND THURSDAY ART NIGHT This open-gallery event, rescheduled from last week, includes a 6-8 p.m. reception at the Target Gallery for “Imprint,” a juried exhibition of contemporary printmaking; a printmaking demonstration at 7:30 in Studio 325; and music by Mercury Fools the Alchemist. 6-9…
Advanced Algorithms to Enhance Mobile Autonomous Robots (Space War)
February 11, 2010 — adminEglin AFB FL (AFNS) Feb 11, 2010 – Air Force Research Laboratory awarded Imagination Engines, Inc., a Phase II Small Business Innovation Research contract to develop advanced algorithms for mobile autonomous robots. The Air Force needs creative terrain-sensing and multivalued behavior-fusion algorithms for these robots due to the high uncertainty and complexity of battlefield environments.
Arts Agenda (DCist)
January 28, 2010 — adminImage of work by Adam “5100″ Feibelman, courtesy Project 4 The neighborhood around the Convention Center seems to be the hot spot for new galleries lately. First Long View Gallery moved a few blocks down 9th Street to their new location last autumn, followed by Civilian Art Projects’ move to the old Warehouse spot on 7th Street a few months ago. If you remember, all three tenants of the Penn …
A Singularity 101 Project (GOOD)
January 21, 2010 — adminLook into the future with our singularity experts. A Project inspired by GOOD’s miniseries on the singularity by Michael Anissimov and Roko Mijic. Over the past few months we’ve been lucky to have Michael Anissimov of Accelerating Future and Roko Mijic of Transhuman Goodness writing a series of posts about the future of technology and artificial intelligence called Singularity 101. With these …
Biomega Vol. #01 (Mania)
January 13, 2010 — adminWhat They Say Searching for the key to save a world beyond hope. Tsutomu Nihei’s sci-fi horror epic…
First Friday features full slate of arts and artists (Sarnia Observer)
January 6, 2010 — adminTARA HAGAN The Observer Visitors to this month’s First Friday event will have the chance to ÔMeet the Robinson’s’ at Stardust Book Lounge/Rhapsody Glassworks. The downtown venue will feature Michael and Isabelle Robinson — a husband and wife duo who will offer a mix of photography and music.[...]
If SXSW Film Were a Superhero, It Would Be Kick-Ass (Austinist)
January 6, 2010 — adminAaron Johnson is Kick-Ass We’ll try not to hype this up too much, but we are very-happy-head-exploding-excited to announce that the Opening Night Film for SXSW 2010 is the World Premiere of the filthy-mouthed, bloody-fisted, superhero re-imagining Kick-Ass , directed by Matthew Vaughn ( Layer Cake ) and starring Aaron Johnson ( Nowhere Boy , the upcoming John Lennon biopic). About a month ago …
Dawn of the Transhuman age (The New Straits Times)
December 10, 2009 — adminSci-fi graphic novel Transhuman explores the brave new world of genetic engineering. RIZAL SOLOMON reviews. Transhuman Image Comics TRANSHUMAN takes multiple genres and turns them into something else entirely. It’s sci-fi. It’s satire. It’s a drama about the relentless pursuit of dreams.
SEE VIDEO: First Friday dresses up for winter (Sarnia Observer)
December 3, 2009 — adminWatch Video [...]
First Friday dresses up for winter (Sarnia Observer)
December 2, 2009 — adminTYLER KULA The Observer A Sarnia woman is using the First Friday stage this month to invoke remembrance and respect.[...]
Scientology foe’s arrest raises issue of rights (Las Vegas Sun)
November 17, 2009 — adminThe arrest of a member of an anti-Scientology group on terrorism-related charges last month thrust Las Vegas into the forefront of a worldwide dispute between the group and the celebrity-laden church.
A Bad Week For Govt Snoops
November 14, 2009 — admin* How to Deny Service to a Federal Wiretap
It turns out that the standard sets aside very little bandwidth — 64K bits per second — for keeping track of information about phone calls being made on the tapped line. When a wire tap is on, the switch is supposed to set up a 64Kbps Call Data Channel to send this information between the telco and the law enforcement agency doing the wiretap. Normally this channel has more than enough bandwidth for the whole system to work, but if someone tries to flood it with information by making dozens of SMS messages or VoIP (voice over Internet protocol) phone calls simultaneously, the channel could be overwhelmed and simply drop network traffic.
That means that law enforcement could lose records of who was called and when, and possibly miss entire call recordings as well, Sherr said.
…
Of course, criminals have plenty of easier ways to dodge police surveillance. They can use cash to buy prepaid mobile phones anonymously, or reach out to their accomplices with encrypted Skype calls, said Robert Graham, CEO with Errata Security. Luckily for the cops, criminals usually don’t take their communications security that seriously. “Most criminals are stupid,” he said. “They just use their same cell phone.”
* Microsoft Police Forensics Tool Leaked
The police-only forensics tool made by Microsoft to capture forensics data from a live system has been leaked online. The tool, Coffee, has been the subject of much speculation by the tech media who now finally has a chance to see it. According to reports, it grabs process information, network data, user passwords, and all sorts of information. Could the methods needed to gather that data be exploited by others? Given Microsoft’s security history the answer is most likely.
Coffee is hosted on Cryptome. User guide here.
Anarchist Sci-Fi Goodness
October 28, 2009 — adminThis new book from AK Press, Mythmakers and Lawbreakers: Anarchist Writers On Fiction combines two of our favorite topics. I’ll definitely have to check that one out. I may even check out Red Planets: Marxism and Science Fiction while I’m at it.
Speaking of @ and sci-fi, Bruce Sterling’s recent post on sci-fi and anarchism brought these two resources to our attention:
- Anarchism and Science Fiction Readling List (organized by author)
- Recommendations from the “”Beyond The Dispossessed: Anarchism and Science Fiction” panel at the Seattle Anarchist Bookfair last weekend.
Collected Links 10-27-09
October 27, 2009 — adminSo we’ve been too busy elsewhere to post here lately, so until we get back in the game, here are some interesting links that we’ve been perusing over the past couple of weeks/months:
- SentDev on Cognitive Liberty and the Right to One’s Mind
- The democratization of virulence
- How Technology and the Open Source Movement Can Save Science
- On sleeplessness, the iphone, and you
- Economics of the singularity
- The economic impact of intelligent machines
- Cascio on three possible economic models: part one, part two (connects to previous talk on economic forecasting we did here)
- Cascio on the desktop manufacturing revolution
- Rebooting environmentalism for the 21st century
- Anarchist Arrested for Twittering (more)
- “Project Gaydar” and Online Privacy
- US Spies Buy Stake In Firm That Monitors Blogs and Tweets
- Oklahoma and Abortion
- Anarchybuntu — project for a new linux version made for anarchists
- Build your own DIY Bedazzler
- Hack your phone to prevent snooping
- “Evil maid” attacks on encrypted hard drives
Oh baby, where are we going? (The Age)
October 17, 2009 — adminThis week my pregnant wife had her 20-week ultrasound, a crucial examination that’s ripe with hope but fraught with nerves. As the sonographer checked bones, scanned kidneys and counted toes, I kept fearing the words, “Your baby is a baboon.”
Oh baby, where are we going? (Brisbane Times)
October 16, 2009 — adminThis week my pregnant wife had her 20-week ultrasound, a crucial examination that’s ripe with hope but fraught with nerves. As the sonographer checked bones, scanned kidneys and counted toes, I kept fearing the words, “Your baby is a baboon.”
Organization analyzes how new war weapons will impact society (PhysOrg)
October 15, 2009 — admin(PhysOrg.com) — In the year 2009, when astronauts live in a space station, people send messages around the world with the touch of a finger, and diseases such as polio have virtually been eradicated from the Earth, warfare between nations still includes men with rifles shooting at each other.
Citygarden: An artistic oasis in downtown St. Louis (Student Life)
October 7, 2009 — adminBetween the Arch and the Civil Courts Building, at the corner of 8th and Market Street, lies the newly opened Citygarden.
Book World: Ron Charles Reviews ‘Generosity’ by Richard Powers (Washington Post)
October 7, 2009 — adminGENEROSITY An Enhancement By Richard Powers Farrar Straus Giroux. 296 pp. $25 Sixteen years after Peter Kramer’s “Listening to Prozac,” Richard Powers has heard the alarming implications of treatments that let us buy better moods and personalities. His cerebral new novel offers a chilling examina…
Citygardens: An artistic oasis in downtown St. Louis (Student Life)
September 30, 2009 — adminBetween the Arch and the Civil Courts Building, at the corner of 8th and Market Street, lies the newly opened Citygarden.
Vanishing online posts
September 28, 2009 — adminThis Vanish program/service for limiting data persistence on things you post online has some interesting implications:
Computing and communicating through the Web makes it virtually impossible to leave the past behind. College Facebook posts or pictures can resurface during a job interview; a lost or stolen laptop can expose personal photos or messages; or a legal investigation can subpoena the entire contents of a home or work computer, uncovering incriminating or just embarrassing details from the past.
Vanish is a research system designed to give users control over the lifetime of personal data stored on the web or in the cloud. Specifically, all copies of Vanish encrypted data — even archived or cached copies — will become permanently unreadable at a specific time, without any action on the part of the user or any third party or centralized service.
For example, using the Firefox Vanish plugin, a user can create an email, a Google Doc document, a Facebook message, or a blog comment — specifying that the document or message should “vanish” in 8 hours. Before that 8-hour timeout expires, anyone who has access to the data can read it; however after that timer expires, nobody can read that web content — not the user, not Google, not Facebook, not a hacker who breaks into the cloud service, and not even someone who obtains a warrant for that data. That data — regardless of where stored or archived prior to the timeout — simply self-destructs and becomes permanently unreadable.
Though this is a research prototype, it’s available as a downloadable program (with a firefox plugin) or an online service. It will be interesting to see how projects like this develop and what legal ramifications they will have.
[Link]
DIY Bio FAQ
September 28, 2009 — adminA new FAQ is being put together for DIY Bio questions. Check it out and/or add to it (it’s a wiki).
