This is a moving and engaging presentation given by Karen Sandler, executive director of the GNOME foundation, at OSCON 2011. After she received a hypertrophic cardiomyopathy diagnosis, she realized that the source code running her defribrillator implant was closed, proprietary, and unregulated by the FDA. She does a great job outlining the numerous implications closed-source [...]
Tag Archives: programming
“I want my heart to be open”
Posted in biology, computing, media studies Also tagged biotech, embodiment, technology Leave a comment
Genetic Premunition
BUENOS AIRES — An Argentine laboratory announced that it had created the world’s first transgenic cow, using human genes that will allow the animal to produce the equivalent of mothers’ milk. “The cloned cow, named Rosita ISA, is the first bovine born in the world that incorporates human genes that contain the proteins present in [...]
Interview with Ben Fry (Where 2.0 2011)
I found this on Nathan Yau’s excellent blog, Flowing Data. The video link comes from Ben Fry’s firm Fathom Design, and features a talk on data visualization with Mac Slocum, O’Reilly Radar’s editor. One of Fry’s answers will get anyone into media history, media ecology or mediology to watch the whole interview: Q: A point [...]
Posted in computing, media studies Also tagged communication, technology, visibility Leave a comment
DNA Sequencing Cost Falls
I found the news first on Slashdot to realize they’re a little everywhere. Although they misleadingly tend to depict the contemporary cost of sequencing a genome as a cheap affair compared to what it was, the graphs, coming from the National Human Genome Research Institute, look surprising. Details available on the NHGRI’s website.
Designing Complexity
The point is that there is no ‘easy energy future’. We’ve got to stop trying to sell people the idea that there are obvious ways to deal with the kinds of complex systems that govern both our social and environmental lives. It is often expressed that it is the task of designers to “make things [...]
Posted in art & design, computing, media studies Also tagged communication, materiality, participation, space, technology Leave a comment
Close to the machine
The video comes from Matthew Sarnoff’s website and describes one of his projects: Sadly, I was born a couple years too late to grow up with an 8-bit home computer. (though I did use Apple IIs in elementary school.) In an attempt to compensate, and relive a childhood I never had, I’ve decided to design [...]
Fract – “Indie Adventure Game”
FRACT – Indie Adventure Game from Richard Flanagan on Vimeo. “FRACT is an atmospheric adventure game set in an abstract forgotten world of analog sounds, samples and glitches. Myst + Rez with a heavy dose of Tron.” The game, designed by Richard Flanagan, “has been selected as one of the 2011 Independent Games Festival student [...]
Posted in art & design, computing, physics Also tagged materiality, space, technology Leave a comment
Runxt Life
Runxt Life – Introduction from Firma 103 on Vimeo. From Runxt: « Runxt Life is a generative music application created for the iOS® platform based on the cellular automaton theory “Conway’s Game of Life” by John Horton Conway. The ‘game’ is a zero-player game, meaning that its evolution is determined by its initial state, requiring [...]
Posted in art & design, computing Also tagged art, biology, creation, performance, technology Leave a comment
Dynamics and technology
By the early 1990s, remarkable advancements in two commercial 3–D modeling software packages, Alias/Wavefront and Softimage, offered revolutionary possibilities for architectural design. Alias, the forerunner of todays Maya, was developed for the automobile industry to model complex car parts, and it got architects talking when filmmakers used it to create the 3–D special effects in [...]
Posted in art & design, computing, media studies, physics Also tagged embodiment, film, materiality, mathematics, space, technology, visibility Leave a comment
Mechanics of thought
When one considers the structure of the Difference and Analytical Engines, their resemblance to living “computers” becomes even more apparent. Babbage knew little or nothing about anatomy or physiology, and before the articulation of cell theory in the late 1830s, the organization of the nervous system was poorly understood. By his own admission, however, Babbage [...]
