ON THE SHORES OF A MUDDY RIVER

npr: Robots Encountering Socks “Consider the perceptual...

Mon, 06 Feb 2012 19:43:47 +0000

Robots Encountering Socks

“Consider the perceptual challenges inherent in the robotic manipulation of unseen socks,” says an engineering team at the University of California, Berkeley.

Suppose you’re a robot. If you had a camera in your head, and you could watch a human doing a simple task, like bunching a pair of socks, could you, just by watching, learn to do it too?

Well, let’s see…

- Robert Krulwich

Your Lawrence Weschler moment of the day:

"Semantic Infiltration"

Tue, 19 Jul 2011 23:47:16 +0100

"Semantic Infiltration":

claytoncubitt:

“But what do we cut when we cut government, or public, spending? We don’t just cut the disbursement of funds. We cut what those funds purchase. And what do they purchase? They purchase goods and services. National parks. The U.S. Navy. Some slight assurance that our air, food, and pharmaceuticals won’t poison us. Public safety (not “government safety”). Education. Highways. Air traffic control. Bridges that don’t fall down. Enforcement of the rules that make a “free market” free, sort of. Basic research. The Smithsonian.”

"Man is a ship on woman’s ocean."

Sun, 10 Jul 2011 20:38:11 +0100

“Man is a ship on woman’s ocean.”

- Twitter / Clayton Cubitt (via claytoncubitt)

"O, I’m the man who sailed those early seas In search of what I meant to be my home– For I’m..."

Sun, 17 Apr 2011 16:28:40 +0100

“

O, I’m the man who sailed those early seas
In search of what I meant to be my home–
For I’m the one who left dark Ireland’s shore,
And Poland’s plain, and England’s grassy lea,
And torn from Black Africa’s strand I came
To build a “homeland of the free.”

The free?

Who said the free? Not me?
Surely not me? The millions on relief today?
The millions shot down when we strike?
The millions who have nothing for our pay?
For all the dreams we’ve dreamed
And all the songs we’ve sung
And all the hopes we’ve held
And all the flags we’ve hung,
The millions who have nothing for our pay–
Except the dream that’s almost dead today.

O, let America be America again–
The land that never has been yet–
And yet must be–the land where every man is free.
The land that’s mine–the poor man’s, Indian’s, Negro’s, ME–

”

- Lanstong Hughes, via today’s dose of misappropriated literature.

thedailywhat: Quote of the Day: Don’t mind me, just leaving...

Tue, 12 Apr 2011 18:14:09 +0100

thedailywhat:

Quote of the Day: Don’t mind me, just leaving this here and getting as far away as possible.

[sirmitchell.]

"This very way of recording our world, this tension between an automated camera and a human who seeks meaning, reflects our modern experience. As social beings we want to matter and we want to matter to someone, we want to count and be counted, but loneliness and anonymity are more often our plight."

Fri, 08 Apr 2011 20:39:14 +0100

"This very way of recording our world, this tension between an automated camera and a human who seeks meaning, reflects our modern experience. As social beings we want to matter and we want to matter to someone, we want to count and be counted, but loneliness and anonymity are more often our plight."

"There are 15 to 20 dead I think. I’ve never seen anything like this. It’s like something in the..."

Fri, 08 Apr 2011 20:29:50 +0100

““There are 15 to 20 dead I think. I’ve never seen anything like this. It’s like something in the United States.””

- A Brazilian rescue worker, after surveying the carnage from Rio de Janeiro’s worst-ever school shooting yesterday for The Guardian. (via motherjones)

For fuck's sake, Nashville

Sat, 19 Mar 2011 16:13:25 +0000

For fuck's sake, Nashville

Finally, as he was about to be sentenced, the court asked him if he would like to speak. He did. He rose and said, “I wish to use the words of Justice Brandeis dissenting in Olmstead to speak for me. He wrote, ‘Our government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or ill, it teaches the whole people by its example.’” Then McVeigh was sentenced to death by the government.

Wed, 09 Mar 2011 19:41:25 +0000

Finally, as he was about to be sentenced, the court asked him if he would like to speak. He did. He rose and said, “I wish to use the words of Justice Brandeis dissenting in Olmstead to speak for me. He wrote, ‘Our government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or ill, it teaches the whole people by its example.’” Then McVeigh was sentenced to death by the government.

The rhetoric of an “age of austerity” is being used as a cloak for the privatization of all public services and a reinstatement of class privilege: a sad retreat from the most civilized Keynesian initiatives of the post-war period, in which education, healthcare, and culture were understood to be a democratic right freely available to all.

Fri, 04 Mar 2011 10:34:13 +0000

The rhetoric of an “age of austerity” is being used as a cloak for the privatization of all public services and a reinstatement of class privilege: a sad retreat from the most civilized Keynesian initiatives of the post-war period, in which education, healthcare, and culture were understood to be a democratic right freely available to all.

but you can feel the hole left in the exhibit by the removal of DW's video. There's a missing piece, a missing sense of mourning and awareness of impending death. But as performance art, man, this can't be beat. The absence of the piece—and how it was removed, and why it was removed—echoes through the room. ... You either have the stomach for the fight that comes with art, or you don't, and if you don't, get out.

Fri, 11 Feb 2011 01:05:00 +0000

but you can feel the hole left in the exhibit by the removal of DW's video. There's a missing piece, a missing sense of mourning and awareness of impending death. But as performance art, man, this can't be beat. The absence of the piece—and how it was removed, and why it was removed—echoes through the room. ... You either have the stomach for the fight that comes with art, or you don't, and if you don't, get out.

Photo

Tue, 01 Feb 2011 21:37:57 +0000

This is the Big Society, you see. It must be big, to contain so many volunteers.

Thu, 27 Jan 2011 14:36:22 +0000

This is the Big Society, you see. It must be big, to contain so many volunteers.

"If you use the word, “Administrate” Your grammar I won’t admirate If your computer is..."

Mon, 17 Jan 2011 10:52:55 +0000

“If you use the word, “Administrate”
Your grammar I won’t admirate
If your computer is configurated
To say it is a word, you’ll have to reinterpretate
What it says, ’cause it’s not, I have been reliably informated.”

- William Lindley

And therein lies a big problem for American capitalism.

Thu, 30 Dec 2010 22:31:00 +0000

And therein lies a big problem for American capitalism.

Read: Consumer Products by Stephen Marche

Sun, 19 Dec 2010 22:25:24 +0000

Read: Consumer Products by Stephen Marche: France’s Louis XIV was the first modern-era king to recognize that image mattered more than actual accomplishment. Battlefield triumphs were each depicted immediately on engravings, which could be quickly and cheaply duplicated and disseminated. He built Versailles, which served as the model for all the other courts of Europe, and insisted that Israel Silvestre, designer and engraver to the king, produce high-quality books with images of “all his palaces, royal houses, the most beautiful views and aspects of his gardens, public assemblies, carousels, and outskirts of cities.” Louis was the original king of poses, announcing his status as Sun King in the performance of a ballet when he was fourteen years old, and maintaining power explicitly as a kind of performance art centred around his personality. Celebrity culture was born in the middle of his orgy of conspicuous consumption as he mastered the ability to project his personality through stuff. The king’s preference for champagne made it the beverage, his love of diamonds made them the most precious jewel, fashion began to change with the seasons according to his taste, French replaced Latin as the global language because it was his language.

via claytoncubitt

thedailywhat: Stargate Quote of the Day: Frakkin’...

Wed, 15 Dec 2010 17:36:22 +0000

thedailywhat:

Stargate Quote of the Day: Frakkin’ Cylons.

[buzzfeed.]

Earlier: Star Trek QOTD.

Why aren't we supporting the students? Maybe we've been psychically kettled

Sun, 05 Dec 2010 13:27:18 +0000

Why aren't we supporting the students? Maybe we've been psychically kettled:

“We agreed you to have ask the big questions about what kind of society you want to live in. And we live in one in which we are told there is no more money while we see it washing around the upper echelons.”

Occupation of UCL and the Slade School as of 1/12/10, part of...

Thu, 02 Dec 2010 22:02:44 +0000

Occupation of UCL and the Slade School as of 1/12/10, part of ongoing student demonstrations against coalition plans to triple university fees and cut out funding for arts and the humanities in UK universities.

Britain’s children’s crusade has not been cowed by police brutality: they are dancing in the snow. Some of them quite obscenely.

Thu, 02 Dec 2010 11:01:29 +0000

Britain’s children’s crusade has not been cowed by police brutality: they are dancing in the snow. Some of them quite obscenely.