NASAs 3D-printed Pizza in Space
Die NASA ist grade – recht überschaubar mit einer 125.000 Dollar-Förderung – beim einem Entwickler für 3D-printed Food eingestiegen. Die Space-Behörde will die Technologie für Weltraumspeisen und man arbeitet explizit an 3D-gedruckter Pizza für die Mars-Mission. 3D-PRINTED PIZZA IN SPACE FTW!
Pizza is an obvious candidate for 3D printing because it can be printed in distinct layers, so it only requires the print head to extrude one substance at a time. Contractor’s “pizza printer” is still at the conceptual stage, and he will begin building it within two weeks. It works by first “printing” a layer of dough, which is baked at the same time it’s printed, by a heated plate at the bottom of the printer. Then it lays down a tomato base, “which is also stored in a powdered form, and then mixed with water and oil,” says Contractor.
Finally, the pizza is topped with the delicious-sounding “protein layer,” which could come from any source, including animals, milk or plants.
The audacious plan to end hunger with 3-D printed food
Vorher auf Nerdcore:
Pizza on the Moon
NASAs Space Food Lab
X-Box One
Microsoft klaut grade das Mojo von Sony, die Präsentation der neuen X-Box One – bzw. das, was ich davon mitbekommen habe, ich bin eben erst aus München zurück – ist durchaus beeindruckend. Am bemerkenswertesten sind wohl TV-Integration und Spracherkennung, das neue Kinect (das so hochauflösend scannen soll, dass es den Puls erkennt) – und Steven Spielberg dreht ‘ne Halo-Serie, die selbstverständlich exklusiv auf der X-Box One zu sehen sein wird (und auf Piratebay). w00t?!
Und: Auffallend hässlich, das Teil.
Wired: X-Box One Revealed
Gadget Lab: Close Up With Xbox One: Every Photo You Could Ever Want
[update] Jetzt neu mit Commercial oben.
Stanislaw Lems Summa Technologiae in English for the first time in 50 Years
I know there are some people from english speaking countries reading this thing here and this is a recommendation that really comes from my heart. Stanislaw Lems Summa Technologiae is available in English for the first time since (nearly) 50 Years! I read this monster more than twenty years ago, then again and then again and it totally blew my mind, every single time – actually it is one of the reasons, why this blog is what it is.
Imagine scientific Futurism combined with Electronics, Engineering and that Lemian Weirdness, that only he could achieve. Kevin Kelly on Steroids right from the dawn of the space age. Read this, it’s totally and highly recommended. Yes, it is indeed that good.
With Summa Technologiae, his masterwork of non-fiction which has been translated into English for the first time, Lem has taken Western civilisation for a spin – with spectacular consequences. The book will be a fabulous shock to those who know only his science fiction, such as Solaris or The Cyberiad. Others will have caught tantalising glimpses of Summa, published in 1964, in a few essays. Diehards may even have read it in translation, notably German or Russian. […]
Summa is not for the faint-hearted. Starting with a title that pastiches Thomas Aquinas’s 13th-century Summa Theologiae, Lem sets out to replace god with reason. Zylinska’s introduction lays out the map. Is the phenomenon that is humanity typical or exceptional in the universe? Does plagiarising nature count as fraud? Do we need consciousness for human agency? Should we trust our thoughts or perceptions? Are we controlling technology – or vice versa?
It is amazing how much Lem got right, or even predicted. This ranges across artificial intelligence, the theory of search engines (he called it “ariadnology”), bionics, virtual reality (“phantomatics”), technological singularity and nanotechnology.
American Scientist: A brilliant trip back to the technological future – Stanislaw Lem’s forgotten masterwork Summa Technologiae, now in English half a century after publication, is a heady mix of prescience, philosophy and irony
Amazon.com: Summa Technologiae (Electronic Mediations)
Vintage Virus-Demos
Youtube Direktvirus, via Adafruit
YT-User danooct1 hat ‘nen superunterhaltsamen Channel voller Demos von Viren, Trojanern und Malware, mit denen er olle DOS- und Windows-Maschinen infiziert und zeigt, was passiert. Könnte ich den ganzen Tag lang drin rumklicken. Oben der Cascade DOS Virus, which is „forcing all of the letters on the screen to collapse to the bottom in a giant heap.“
This channel’s main purpose is to entertain users with the effects of (mainly older) pieces of malware, while educating them as to how they work. No, I will not send you any malware shown in any video, regardless of whether it is considered “harmless” or not. Malware is not a toy and additionally, it is against the YouTube terms of service to distribute it.
Glitched P2P-Moviestream as Art
Schönes Projekt von Nicolas Maigret, der zusammen mit Brendan Howell eine Installation gecoded hat, die zufällige Torrents aus den Pirate Bay Top 100 runterlädt und die Datenpakete on the fly auf eine Leinwand schmeisst. Das Teil ist vor allem eine Visualisierung von P2P im Kontrast zu vergangener „Piraten-Technologie“ wie VHS und setzt das in den Kontext fragmentierter Narration. Spannend!
From a cinematic perspective this preliminary fragmentation of the media is also a fragmentation of the film material and of the narration. These “broadcasting mechanics” come with specific formal opportunities: mashup cinema, random editing, weaving together different films frame by frame, glitches and merging of different fragments.
This installation suggests a way to perceive the digital filmic medium as a stream, or rather as streams distributed on a global scale. In other words, The Pirate Cinema intends to re-explore films through the logic of cables, which is unique to each connection and location.
We Make Money Not Art: The Pirate Cinema, A Cinematic Collage Generated by P2P Users
List of awesome Turing Machine Drawings:
Luki hat sich eine weile mit den zeichnenden Turing Machines beschäftigt und schreibt mir: Nach einigem ausprobieren, habe ich mal ein Pad gemacht mit besonders schönen, ungewöhnlichen, seltsamen, interessanten Turing Drawings. Ich habe sie etwas geordnet nach dem was passiert. Nice Patterns erzeugt nach einer weile meist ein stabiles Bild. Die Longtime stable dinger erzeugen ein sich veränderndes Muster, dass aber nicht ‘chaotisch’ wird. Teilweise dauert es recht lange, bis sie ihr Endstadium erreicht haben.“
Lasers tracking Soap Bubbles dancing to Daft Punk
Laser tracken Seifenblasen, die zu Daft Punk tanzen. Von Creative Applications:
What happens when you mix soap bubbles and lasers? Memo Akten, 1/3 of Marshmallow Laser Feast, just got hold of Etherdream DAC laser and has been “messing” with it using openFrameworks.
Memo developed software to control this ILDA controllable laser projector (or any other pro laser projector), for realtime interactive laser interaction with openFrameworks, on OSX, and is releasing everything (including firmware of the etherdream) opensource.
Micro-Flower-Crystals on a Razorblade
Wim Noorduin manipuliert Kristallwachstum und hat für die Mai-Ausgabe des Science Mags diese rund 50 Mikrometer großen Karbonat-Silizium-Blumen auf einer Rasierklinge wachsen lassen.
Wim L. Noorduin […] dissolved barium chloride (a salt) and sodium silicate (also known as waterglass) into a beaker of water. Carbon dioxide from the air dissolved naturally into the water, fomenting a reaction to form barium carbonate crystals. In response to the crystals the pH of the solution surrounding them lowers, triggering a reaction with the dissolved waterglass, and adding a layer of silica to the growing structure. This reaction uses up acid from the solution and allows the barium carbonate crystals to continue to form.
As this process takes place, the shape the crystals take can be manipulated through changes to the solution–increases in carbon dioxide levels in the water creates “broad-leafed” structures. Reversing the pH gradient at the right moment can create curved, ruffled structures. “You can really collaborate with the self-assembly process,” said Noorduin.
Google goes Quantum Computing for AI-Development
Google macht ernst bei der Entwicklung künstlicher Intelligenz und Machine Learning, hat sich mit der NASA zusammengeschmissen und betreibt zusammen mit denen das Quantum Artificial Intelligence Lab gegründet, in dem ein kommerzieller Quantenrechner von D-Wave Systems rumrechnet. Dürfte eine der ersten Früchte des Engagements von Ray Kurzweil sein, der ja seit Ende letzten Jahres dort an genau solchen Sachen arbeitet und die gestern auf der Google I/O vorgestellten Neuerungen an ihrer Suche dürften da bereits erste oberflächliche Anzeichen sein. Spannend!
Google and NASA are forming a laboratory to study artificial intelligence by means of computers that use the unusual properties of quantum physics. Their quantum computer, which performs complex calculations thousands of times faster than existing supercomputers, is expected to be in active use in the third quarter of this year.
The Quantum Artificial Intelligence Lab, as the entity is called, will focus on machine learning, which is the way computers take note of patterns of information to improve their outputs. Personalized Internet search and predictions of traffic congestion based on GPS data are examples of machine learning. The field is particularly important for things like facial or voice recognition, biological behavior, or the management of very large and complex systems.
NYTimes: Google Buys a Quantum Computer
Google: Launching the Quantum Artificial Intelligence Lab
Turing Machine Music:
Gestern hatte ich Maxime Chevalier-Boisverts zeichnende Turing Maschinen gebloggt, jetzt hat sie dasselbe Prinzip auf generative Musik angewendet: „Turing Tunes uses randomly generated Turing machines to produce sequences of musical notes, as a form of generative art.“ Turing Rave, anyone?
Turing Drawing Machines
Toll: Maxime Chevalier-Boisvert hat ein Spielzeug gecoded, das zufällige Turing Maschinen erzeugt, die generative Kunst ausgeben und denen man beim „Zeichnen“ zusehen kann. Ich klick da jetzt seit rund einer halben Stunde auf random, hier ein paar der hübschesten zeichnenden Turing-Maschinen, die dabei rausgekommen sind:
http://wry.me/hacking/Turing-Drawings/#4,3,2,1,1,1,2,2,0,1,0,1,2,2,2,1,1,3,1,1,1,2,1,3,2,1,3,1,1,3,1,2,2,1,2,1,1,0
http://wry.me/hacking/Turing-Drawings/#4,3,0,2,3,1,1,2,0,1,0,1,1,2,1,2,2,0,1,2,2,2,0,2,1,3,3,1,1,3,2,2,0,1,3,2,2,3
http://wry.me/hacking/Turing-Drawings/#4,3,0,1,3,3,2,0,1,2,3,2,1,2,0,2,0,0,1,0,3,2,3,2,2,2,3,1,2,0,2,3,3,2,0,1,1,2
http://wry.me/hacking/Turing-Drawings/#4,3,1,1,0,2,1,2,0,1,1,1,2,3,3,2,2,2,1,0,2,2,3,2,1,3,0,1,2,1,1,2,1,2,3,1,1,1
http://wry.me/hacking/Turing-Drawings/#4,3,0,1,2,0,2,1,0,1,2,3,1,3,3,2,1,1,1,1,0,1,0,2,2,1,2,1,1,1,1,2,3,2,1,2,1,3
http://wry.me/hacking/Turing-Drawings/#4,3,2,1,1,2,2,3,3,2,3,0,1,0,2,1,1,1,2,1,1,2,0,3,1,3,3,1,0,0,2,0,2,2,0,0,2,2
Aus ihrem Blogposting:
After watching a documentary about Alan Turing, I started thinking about Turing machines again. They’re a very useful tool for computer science proofs and an elegantly simple computational model. Beyond this, however, Turing machines seem relatively useless in terms of “real-world” applications. […]
One possible application for Turing machines is to use them as programs to generate data procedurally. Their simplicity makes it possible, for example, to create working programs randomly. Generating a random stream of x86 instructions that doesn’t crash could be tricky, but with a Turing machine, it’s quite easy. I decided to try something like this to produce so-called generative art. The program I wrote generates random Turing machines that operate on a two-dimensional grid instead of a one-dimensional tape. The symbols written on the grid can be interpreted as colors, and voilà: we have procedural drawings.
Turing Drawings, auf Hacker News gibt’s noch mehr Links zur tollen Patterns…
Project Steampunk-Dickhead: Neural Network grown from Foreskin-Cells
Guy Ben-Ary und Dr. Kirsten Hudson haben für ihr In-Potentia-Projekt aus Zellen einer Vorhaut zunächst Stammzellen generiert und die per Bio-Engineering in Gehirnzellen verwandelt. Die haben dann ein „lebendes“ neuronales Netzwerk gebildet: Ein Gehirn aus einem Penis. Ein Pimmelkopf, sozusagen. Und der lebt in einem Steampunk-Dingsbums. Ich halte das Ding hier für ein bisschen bullshitty und das Steampunk-Teil für ein sinnloses Gimmick, so ein wahlloses „Wir schmeißen mal das hippe Steampunk und das hippe Bio-Engineering zusammen und packen noch Pimmel mit rein, höhö“. Aber egal, einen Pimmelkopf muss ich mir dann doch hier reinkleben, und sei es nur zur Dokumentation egalerer Science-Art.
In potēntia by Guy Ben-Ary and Kirsten Hudson, is a liminal, boundary creature of animate and inanimate matter that visually problematises the shifting cultural, ethical and political forces that govern and determine understandings of life, death and personhood.
Informed by the aesthetics of steam punk, retro-futurism and eighteenth century scientific paraphernalia, in potēntia is a speculative techno-scientific experiment that uses a stem cell reprogramming technique called induced pluripotent stem cell technology (iPS) to reverse engineer foreskin cells purchased from an online catalogue into embryonic (like) stem cells, which Ben-Ary and Hudson then transform into neurons. What results is a real functioning neural network or “biological brain” encased within a purpose built sculptural incubator, containing a DIY bio-reactor (or life-support system) as well as a custom-made electrophysiological recording setup that converts neural activity into an unsettling soundscape.
In-Potentia (via AnimalNY)
Interview auf WMMNA: In-Potentia, from foreskin cells to ‘biological brain’
Character Encoding Poetry
Ich hasse Type-Encoding! Spätestens, seit ich wegen Datenbank-Blödsinns vor ein paar Jahren fast sämtliche Sonderzeichen „verloren“ habe und mit viel Gefrickel wieder herstellen musste. Jedenfalls: Ich hätte dem Thema damals auch ein Gedicht widmen können, wäre aber wahrscheinlich nicht so grandios geworden, wie diese Ode an einen Adressaufkleber. Fantastisch! Und den etwas holprigen Rythmus lassen einfach mal unter Latin1 fallen. GO LÓPEZ!
ODE TO A SHIPPING LABEL
Once there was a little o,
with an accent on top like só.It started out as UTF8,
(universal since ’98),
but the program only knew latin1,
and changed little ó to “ó” for fun.A second program saw the “ó”
and said “I know HTML entity!”
So “ó” was smartened to “ó”
and passed on through happily.Another program saw the tangle
(more precisely, ampersands to mangle)
and thus the humble “ó”
became “ó”
Capitalism is evil, now proven by Science (and mice!)
In einem Experiment haben Wissenschaftler Belege dafür gefunden, dass wirtschaftliche Entscheidungen am Markt die Wertschätzung anderer Lebewesen beeinträchtigt. Konkret ging es darum, Überschüsse an Labormäusen aufzukaufen, die andernfalls getötet werden würden. Die Probanden haben durchaus bezahlt, die wirtschaftlichen Verhandlungen aber haben die Preise gedrückt. Daraus folgt, dass wirtschaftliches Handeln den moralischen Kompass verändert und das Leben der Mäuse an Wert verliert: Capitalism is evil.
The possibility that market interaction may erode moral values is a long-standing, but controversial, hypothesis in the social sciences, ethics, and philosophy. To date, empirical evidence on decay of moral values through market interaction has been scarce. We present controlled experimental evidence on how market interaction changes how human subjects value harm and damage done to third parties.
In the experiment, subjects decide between either saving the life of a mouse or receiving money. We compare individual decisions to those made in a bilateral and a multilateral market. In both markets, the willingness to kill the mouse is substantially higher than in individual decisions. Furthermore, in the multilateral market, prices for life deteriorate tremendously.
Commander Hadfield sings Space Oddity in Space
Commander Chris Hadfield fliegt heute von der ISS aus die Erde zurück, nachdem er ein paar Monate lang die Erde per Twitter und Reddit mit News aus dem All beschallt hat. Zum Abschied hat er jetzt mal flugs das erste Musikvideo in Space gedreht, natürlich ein Cover von David Bowies Space Oddity.
Das Teil ist keine wirklich spontane Nummer und tatsächlich war Emm Gryner daran beteiligt, die eine Weile in Bowies Liveband gespielt hat, in seinem Facebookdings erzählt sie ein bisschen was dazu:
The task was in front of me. I came up with a piano part. i then enlisted my friend, producer and fellow Canadian Joe Corcoran to take my piano idea and Chris’ vocal and blow it up into a fully produced song. Drums! mellotrons! fuzz bass! We also incorporated into the track ambient space station noises which Chris had put on his Soundcloud. I was mostly blown away by how pure and earnest Chris’ singing is on this track. Like weightlessness and his voice agreed to agree.
And voila! And astronaut sings Space Oddity in space! I was so honoured to be asked to be a part of this. You wouldn’t get too many chances to make a recording like this and not only that, to make music with someone who – through his vibrant communications with kids in schools to his breathtaking photos to his always patient and good-humoured demeanour – has done more for science and space than anyone else this generation. Planet earth IS blue, and there’s nothing left for Chris Hadfield to do. Right. Safe travels home Commander!
Chris Hadfield: Space Oddity, in diesem Video hier reflektiert er nochmal ein bisschen über das allgemeine Astronautendasein und seinen Aufenthalt in Space…
