MachineMachine /stream - search for concept https://machinemachine.net/stream/feed en-us http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss LifePress therourke@gmail.com <![CDATA[What happens in your mind when you read this paragraph?]]> http://ask.metafilter.com/mefi/387587

When I read the very 1st paragraph of this article, I had a series of mini revelations about how my mind works, and perhaps the minds of others. I'd appreciate it if you read it first (just the 1st paragraph), and then came back here to explore with me why I think it was interesting... Thanks for coming back!

So, my question is slightly loaded, because I have what is called 'aphantasia', and reading this paragraph made me wonder whether the way non-aphants think (around 96% of the population) was fairly represented by this writer.

When you pictured the scene, how specific was it? Did the follow-up descriptions the writer gives fairly mirror your own experience?

Because when I read it, I didn't get a visual 'picture' in my head, (there is nothing visual in my head, because I am an aphant) but I did imagine the scene conceptually. The thing is, for me the scene I imagined was absolutely abstracted. It was the idea of a person washing hands at a sink. There was little to no specificity. There was no bathroom or kitchen, circular or square sink in my inner imagination. There was no specific person, man or woman, black or white, no specific way their hands moved, no specific relationship between the redness of the liquid, and what it might be (i.e. blood or paint). I just imagined an abstracted set of related ideas: person, washing hands, sink, red. That was it.

So when the writer goes on to then assume everyone pictured something really specific, that made me wonder: is the abstractness of aphantasic thinking universal? Do aphants always imagine in a kind of realm of Platonic ideals? Do none aphants always picture specific things? How much of the writer's assumption here is fair, given that we ALL sit on the spectrum of mental visual imagination? What are the social implications of these different ways of thinking?

What happened in your mind when you read this paragraph? I am intrigued to know, and where you usually sit on the spectrum of visual imagination.

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Sun, 12 Oct 2025 07:01:27 -0700 http://ask.metafilter.com/mefi/387587
<![CDATA[AI and Indigenous Languages]]> https://blog.westerndigital.com/indigenous-languages/

It is estimated that one language dies every 14 days, with it a world of concepts and ideas that could only be expressed in its words. Most of the languages at risk of extinction belong to Indigenous communities.

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Mon, 19 Feb 2024 16:42:43 -0800 https://blog.westerndigital.com/indigenous-languages/
<![CDATA[How Nintendo Solved Zelda's Open World Problem]]> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZzcVs8tNfE

GMTK is powered by Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/GameMakersToolkit

To mark the release of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, let's look back at the making of Breath of the Wild's open world.

Sources

How the "Open Air" world was created... | Gamer.Ne https://www.gamer.ne.jp/news/201709010048/

Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild has become a game... | IGN Japan https://jp.ign.com/cedec-2017/16928/news/botw

The Perfect Game World Born under Nintendo's New Development Approach... | GNN Gamer https://gnn.gamer.com.tw/detail.php?sn=152054

The perfect game world of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild... | 4Gamer https://www.4gamer.net/games/341/G034168/20170901120/

Did the map for "Zelda" start in Kyoto!? | Game.Watch.Impress https://game.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/news/1078569.html

The Making of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild Video – Open-Air Concept | Nintendo https://youtu.be/vLMGrmf4xaY

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild’s map is based on Kyoto | Polygon https://www.theverge.com/2017/3/6/14827832/the-legend-of-zelda-breath-of-the-wild-map-kyoto-japan

=== Credits ===

Music provided by Epidemic Sound - https://www.epidemicsound.com/referral/vtdu5y (Referral Link)

=== Subtitles ===

Contribute translated subtitles - https://amara.org/videos/eB3GnQWpxx4M/

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Tue, 09 May 2023 10:15:52 -0700 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZzcVs8tNfE
<![CDATA[Personal Entropy - Journal #126 April 2022 - e-flux]]> https://www.e-flux.com/journal/126/460209/personal-entropy/

Recently I began realizing that my perception of the world is beginning to change in a peculiar way. There are no longer distinctions between more and less important themes or work; both conceptually and visually, everything is becoming equally (un)important.

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Fri, 03 Jun 2022 05:53:07 -0700 https://www.e-flux.com/journal/126/460209/personal-entropy/
<![CDATA[towardsdatascience.com]]> https://towardsdatascience.com/but-what-is-entropy-ae9b2e7c2137

This write-up re-introduces the concept of entropy from different perspectives with a focus on its importance in machine learning, probabilistic programming, and information theory.

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Fri, 03 Jun 2022 05:52:21 -0700 https://towardsdatascience.com/but-what-is-entropy-ae9b2e7c2137
<![CDATA[Personal Entropy - Journal #126 April 2022 - e-flux]]> https://www.e-flux.com/journal/126/460209/personal-entropy/

Recently I began realizing that my perception of the world is beginning to change in a peculiar way. There are no longer distinctions between more and less important themes or work; both conceptually and visually, everything is becoming equally (un)important.

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Fri, 03 Jun 2022 01:53:07 -0700 https://www.e-flux.com/journal/126/460209/personal-entropy/
<![CDATA[towardsdatascience.com]]> https://towardsdatascience.com/but-what-is-entropy-ae9b2e7c2137

This write-up re-introduces the concept of entropy from different perspectives with a focus on its importance in machine learning, probabilistic programming, and information theory.

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Fri, 03 Jun 2022 01:52:21 -0700 https://towardsdatascience.com/but-what-is-entropy-ae9b2e7c2137
<![CDATA[Cultural theory of 'The Edgelord'?]]> http://ask.metafilter.com/mefi/362417

The figure of 'The Edgelord' has been gaining traction in recent years. But I haven't read anything directed specifically at (theorising) this phenomena. Do you have any recommendations? Books, essays, YouTube polemics, podcasts etc. are all very welcome. OR The Edgelord's perceived relation to other concepts, frameworks, cultures, or pop notions.

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Thu, 07 Apr 2022 07:55:05 -0700 http://ask.metafilter.com/mefi/362417
<![CDATA[A Critique of Memes and Meme Culture]]> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4qXvnA8P1k0

This video critiques memes. It doesn't aim at judging which memes are based and which are cringe, nor at declaring this or that meme to be dead, but rather at explaining and critiquing the concept of the meme, starting with the original meaning as Richard Dawkins defined it.

Relevant Titles

The Memeing of Mark Fisher by Mike Watson https://www.waterstones.com/book/memeing-of-mark-fisher-the/mike-watson//9781789049336

Support Zero Books on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/zerobooks Subscribe: http://bit.ly/SubZeroBooks Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ZeroBooks/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/zer0books

Zero Books Manifesto:

The modern world is at an impasse. Disasters scroll across our smartphone screens and we’re invited to like, follow or upvote, but critical thinking is harder and harder to find. Rather than connecting us in common struggle and debate, the internet has sped up and deepened a long-standing process of alienation and atomization.

Zero Books aims to work against this trend.

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Sun, 01 Aug 2021 18:29:26 -0700 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4qXvnA8P1k0
<![CDATA[Writing fiction as scholarly work | Impact of Social Sciences]]> https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2020/12/11/writing-fiction-as-scholarly-work/

Writing for academic publication is highly stylised and formalised. In this post Rob Kitchin describes how writing fiction has shaped his own academic praxis and can provide scholars with an expanded range of conceptual tools for communicating their research.

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Thu, 08 Jul 2021 23:55:29 -0700 https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2020/12/11/writing-fiction-as-scholarly-work/
<![CDATA[Creating Famous Movie Title Sequences Without CGI - 'The Thing' (1982)]]> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wGRPK22yvko

How to create famous movie title cards all with practical effects, no CGI needed! Creating famous movie titles of your own can be done easily by following this InCamera practical fx tutorial; where we use the famous The Thing (1982) title sequence as an example of the practical filmmaking techniques used.

We provide an in depth tutorial for this practical effects masterclass and show you in an informative, entertaining show; how to recreate it. Demonstrating a mix of classic and modern practical filmmaking techniques.

INCAMERA OFFICIAL SOCIAL MEDIA ACCOUNTS:

INSTAGRAM - https://www.instagram.com/incamerafx/ TWITTER - https://twitter.com/InCameraFX FACEBOOK - https://www.facebook.com/InCameraTV REDDIT - https://www.reddit.com/user/InCameraFX LINKEDIN - https://www.linkedin.com/company/68500456/ TIK TOK - @InCameraFX

CREDIT/THANKS: All credit to Peter Kuran, who did the practical fx for the original film. All footage from 'The Thing' (1982) courtesy of Universal Pictures. The original 'The Thing' (1982) title burn - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWidoMhF9Qw

EQUIPMENT USED FOR THIS VIDEO: Camera - BlackMagic Pocket Cinema Camera 4k with a small HD 502 monitor, rigged by a Tilta cage. Lighting - Dedo 150w fresnel and used a full ctb gel to bring to it to daylight. Stencils - Stencils were machine cut by an external company from vinyl onto glass. Smoke - Concept Colt 4 smoke machine. Video Editing Software - The retiming and colour grading were all done onAdobe Premiere Pro.

WHY SUBSCRIBE TO INCAMERA? - We post original content monthy. - We have step-by-step, informative & entertaining tutorials on how to create amazing practical effects. - We're extremely engaging with our community across all social media platforms. - We'd love to make InCamera our full time jobs, so need all the support possible!

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Wed, 23 Sep 2020 04:00:29 -0700 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wGRPK22yvko
<![CDATA[Understanding Interactive Media: Critical Questions & Concepts]]> https://docs.google.com/document/d/1FnsSHCJjW0vLCqpyEjNUVJ_f9haSS_tFxMroFbpxwwA/edit?usp=drivesdk&usp=embed_facebook&usp=embed_facebook&usp=embed_facebook&usp=embed_facebook

This seminar course is an introduction to the concepts, questions, and components that encompass interactive media as it relates to creative expression and critical engagement. Students will learn to analyze interactive media’s constituent parts, engage in readings that critically examine both the impact that interactive media and technology have on culture and societies as well as the ways in which social contexts shape the development and application of these technologies, and apply these concepts in a series of creative exercises. The contexts become apparent by examining interactive media and interactivity through the lenses of relevant critical perspectives including politics, economics, ethics, race, gender, psychology, and the environment. Throughout the semester students will learn and apply critical texts to analyze interactive media and build a vocabulary for making sense of our increasingly mediated world. The course thus serves to introduce a conceptual foundation for students to inform and direct their own creative practice by establishing a lexicon of basic operating definitions and reinforcing a culture of makers capable of critical reflection and awareness. Readings, discussions, research, creative exercises and writing constitute the body of this course.

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Tue, 25 Aug 2020 22:59:19 -0700 https://docs.google.com/document/d/1FnsSHCJjW0vLCqpyEjNUVJ_f9haSS_tFxMroFbpxwwA/edit?usp=drivesdk&usp=embed_facebook&usp=embed_facebook&usp=embed_facebook&usp=embed_facebook
<![CDATA[introducing Media Art — jonCates (2019) - jonCates - Medium]]> https://medium.com/@joncates/introducing-media-art-joncates-2019-2de25929aa99

jonCatesAug 21 · 7 min readover the last 15 years of my full-time teaching, i’ve collected, compiled, and processed a number of different ways and approaches for introducing students to Media Art in terms of the aestheticonceptechniques and the theorypractices.

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Thu, 22 Aug 2019 05:47:41 -0700 https://medium.com/@joncates/introducing-media-art-joncates-2019-2de25929aa99
<![CDATA[PhD Thesis: The Practice of Posthumanism]]> http://research.gold.ac.uk/26601/

Post-humanism is best understood as several overlapping and interrelated fields coming out of the traditions of anti-humanism, post-colonialism, and feminist discourse. But the term remains contested, both by those who wish to overturn, or even destroy, the ‘humanism’ after that decisive hyphen (post-humanists), and those engaged in the project of maximising their chance of merging with technologies, and reaching a supposed point of transition, when the current ‘human’ has been augmented, upgraded, and surpassed (transhumanists). For both those who wish to move beyond ‘humanism’, and those who wish to transcend ‘the human’, there remains a significant, shared, problem: the supposed originary separations, between information and matter, culture and nature, mankind and machine, singular and plural, that post-humanism seeks to problematise, and transhumanism often problematically ignores, lead to the delineation of ‘the human’ as a single, universalised figure. This universalism erases the pattern of difference, which post-humanists see as both the solution to, and the problem of, the human paradigm. This thesis recognises this problem as an ongoing one, and one which – for those who seek to establish posthumanism as a critical field of enquiry – can never be claimed to be finally overcome, lest the same problem of universalism rear its head again.

To tackle this problem, this thesis also enters into the complex liminal space where the terms ‘human’ and ‘humanism’ confuse and interrupt one another, but rather than delineate the same boundaries (as transhumanists have done), or lay claim over certain territories of the discourse (as post-humanists have done), this thesis implicates itself, myself, and yourself in the relational becoming posthuman of which we, and it, are co-constituted. My claim being, that critical posthumanism must be the action it infers onto the world of which it is not only part, but in mutual co-constitution with.The Practice of Posthumanism claims that critical posthumanism must be enacted in practice, and stages itself as an example of that process, through a hybrid theoretical and practice-based becoming. It argues that posthumanism is necessarily a vibrant, lively process being undergone, and as such, that it cannot be narrativized or referred to discursively without collapsing that process back into a static, universalised delineation once again. It must remain in practice, and as such, this thesis enacts the process of which it itself is a principle paradigm.After establishing the critical field termed ‘posthumanism’ through analyses of associated discourses such as humanism and transhumanism, each of the four written chapters and hybrid conclusion/portfolio of work is enacted through a ‘figure’ which speaks to certain monstrous dilemmas posed by thinkers of the posthuman. These five figures are: The Phantom Zone, Crusoe’s Island, The Thing, The Collapse of The Hoard, and The 3D Printer (#Additivism). Each figure – echoing Donna Haraway – ‘resets the stage for possible pasts and futures’ by calling into question the fictional/theoretical ground upon which it is predicated. Considered together, the dissertation and conclusion/portfolio of work, position critical posthumanism as a hybrid ‘other’, my claim being that only through representing the human as and through an ongoing process (ontogenesis rather than ontology) can posthumanism re-conceptualise the ‘norms’ deeply embedded within the fields it confronts.The practice of critical posthumanism this thesis undertakes is inherently a political project, displacing and disrupting the power dynamics which are co-opted in the hierarchical structuring of individuals within ‘society’, of categories within ‘nature’, of differences which are universalised in the name of the ‘human’, as well as the ways in which theory delineates itself into rigid fields of study. By confounding articulations of the human in fiction, theory, science, media, and art, this practice in practice enacts its own ongoing, ontogenetic becoming; the continual changing of itself, necessary to avoid a collapse into new absolutes and universals.

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Thu, 08 Aug 2019 05:56:23 -0700 http://research.gold.ac.uk/26601/
<![CDATA[Robots Help Bees Talk to Fish - IEEE Spectrum]]> https://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/robotics-hardware/robots-help-bees-talk-to-fish

I am honestly not sure whether fish have any concept of bees. I am equally unsure whether bees have any concept of fish. I am even more unsure whether bees and fish could be friends, if they knew that the other existed. But thanks to robots, it turns out that the answer is definitely yes.

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Sat, 30 Mar 2019 18:45:15 -0700 https://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/robotics-hardware/robots-help-bees-talk-to-fish
<![CDATA[Revolutionary Monsters: the Suicide of Identity Politics]]> https://medium.com/@juliereshe/identities-can-be-emancipated-and-empowered-but-only-queer-monsters-can-liberate-18667779b7c3

In their discourse on the revolution, Negri and Hardt use the concept of a positive generative monster. Monstrosity arises as otherness, something contrary to the existing order. It is a freak child who differs from her mother. Monstrosity implies imbalance and terrifying excess.

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Sat, 20 Oct 2018 20:36:13 -0700 https://medium.com/@juliereshe/identities-can-be-emancipated-and-empowered-but-only-queer-monsters-can-liberate-18667779b7c3
<![CDATA[The End of the Line – A Climate in Crisis]]> https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/08/03/the-end-of-the-line-a-climate-in-crisis/

The world of academia is starting to pick up on the concept that humanity is unknowingly cruising on a train ride to doomsday, a surefire encounter with collapse of society based upon climate crises brought on by exponential climate change.

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Sat, 11 Aug 2018 03:42:17 -0700 https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/08/03/the-end-of-the-line-a-climate-in-crisis/
<![CDATA[Practical Magic: Assimilating John Carpenter’s The Thing | VHS Revival]]> https://vhsrevival.com/2017/09/22/practical-magic-assimiliating-john-carpenters-the-thing-cedric-smarts/

In an era of countless reboots, we have come to regard the whole process as a cynical exercise whose primary goal is to slash expenditure, but that was not always the case. There was a time when remaking movies was about taking a classic conception and upgrading it to meet modern standards.

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Sun, 24 Jun 2018 02:18:13 -0700 https://vhsrevival.com/2017/09/22/practical-magic-assimiliating-john-carpenters-the-thing-cedric-smarts/
<![CDATA[Pretty Loud For Being So Silenced | Current Affairs]]> https://www.currentaffairs.org/2018/05/pretty-loud-for-being-so-silenced

Irony can be a difficult concept to grasp, but some hypothetical examples can illustrate it clearly. It would be ironic, for instance, if people who claimed their free speech was being trampled on were actually being heard more than anybody else.

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Thu, 10 May 2018 18:26:26 -0700 https://www.currentaffairs.org/2018/05/pretty-loud-for-being-so-silenced
<![CDATA[10. Salon Digital: #Additivism and the Art of Collective Survival - Daniel Rourke]]> https://vimeo.com/250198657

In diesem Video geht es um den Salon Digital 10. Dokumentation des 10. Salon Digital an der Hochschule für Künste Bremen am 29.11.2017. Mit Daniel Rourke. / filmische Dokumentation: Eva Klauss Rather than try and solve the problems we face as a planetary species - political and social problems which have been with us for millennia; or problems which come with new, and shiny names like ‘The Anthropocene’ - Daniel Rourke and Morehshin Allahyari, in their #'Additivism project, look to question the very notion of ‘the solution’: asking how the stories our problem come wrapped in are products of particular privileges, identities, and points of view. In this talk Daniel Rourke introduces The 3D Additivist Manifesto and Cookbook, showcasing some of the 'post-solution' projects it contains, and asking difficult questions of how to act once there are no solutions left. What is #Additivism? In March 2015 Allahyari & Rourke released The 3D Additivist Manifesto, a call to push the 3D printer and other creative technologies, to their absolute limits and beyond into the realm of the speculative, the provocative and the weird. The 3D Additivist Cookbook is composed of responses to that call, an extensive catalog of digital forms, material actions, and post-humanist methodologies and impressions. - The program for Digital Media at the University of the Arts Bremen launched a regular series of salon-style gatherings titled “Spectacle: Reenactments in the Arts, Design, Science and Technology.” The events have an open format and provide a forum for experiments, presentations and performances from a range of different fields, but with a common focus on old and new media, as well as technologies. The salon thereby enables a practice of reenactment as a way to make things past and hidden visible, present and also questionable. Contemporary new technologies and media seem to cover knowledge with complex layers of materials, code/sign systems and history/organization. Reenacting can translate obscured knowledge, ideas and theories into bodies and actions. At the heart of this conceptual approach is a desire to turn past events into present experiences—although the very nature of the past prohibits such an endeavor. The salon pursues the primary goal of opening closed systems and constructions (black boxes). Global power structures, as well as complex processes in development and production—leading to hermetic constructs—have made it even harder to understand science, economy and contemporary media, as well as new technologies. Recipients therefore tend to mostly grasp only their superficial level. The spectacle is a way to condense actions and processes. Reenactment, on the other hand, builds on repetition and history. But the spectacle is a moment in the here and now where everything flows together and culminates. Organised by: Andrea Sick, Ralf Baecker und Dennis Paul salon-digital.comCast: Digitale Medien KuD der HfK

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Mon, 16 Apr 2018 11:01:13 -0700 https://vimeo.com/250198657