h+ spring issue is out.

I just had a quick flick through and it’s full of goodness.  Check it out!

As regular readers know, we’re pretty into QRCodes on Grinding. From dating sites, to carpets to graffiti pirate radio stations to.. just about everything.  I thought by now we’d have documented most of the usages of this simple, but powerful technology.

And then those crazy Japanese come up with this:

“Over the Paper” content distribution

In the real world, the network is not always available, reliable, or the best means to install content to a mobile phone.

A printed QR code (2D barcode) on paper can hold the content itself.  Shoot it with a built-in camera and install the content on the phone.

This enables a simple but revolutionary paper-based content distribution through QR.

Previous usages of QRCodes have just been to encode some text and/or a URL.  Which is handy.  And simple.

But this is encoding a whole application into a picture!  Next-level stuff, that is both awesome and scary. Because while text is technically innocent, and URLs, despite physical malware drops, you can at least see what you’re clicking through; with this you could install anything that can run on a phone.

As far as I can tell, this isn’t out in the wild yet.  But it’s coming, mark my words!

From The Dominion Post:

Nadya Vessey lost her legs as a child but now she swims like a mermaid.

Ms Vessey’s mermaid tail was created by Wellington-based film industry wizards Weta Workshop after the Auckland woman wrote to them two years ago asking if they could make her a prosthetic tail.

…

The suit was made mostly of wetsuit fabric and plastic moulds, and was covered in a digitally printed sock. Mermaid-like scales were painted by hand.

Mr Taylor said not only did the tail have to be functional, it was important it looked realistic. “What became apparent was that she actually physically wanted to look like a mermaid.

Just.. wow!

via Coilhouse

This is a neat video from Tonchidot demoing their Augmented Reality tech:

Why can’t I have this now?

Given the video was uploaded on August, 08 why haven’t we heard more about this?!

thanks to cnawan for finding this

Link via imgfave.com.

From Santiago Sierra, an art exhibit about October 12th, which is the National Day of Spain. Previously known as the Día de la Raza (Day of the Race), it celebrates the arrival of Columbus to the Americas. Sex and color combine to provide a very visual artistic presentation of past, present and possible future exchanges.

Couples are geometrically arranged into compositions of up to 110 bodies with two colours. The Acts feature the various possible combinations of penetrator / penetrated: white man-white woman, white man-white man, white man-black woman, white man-black man, black man-black woman, black man-black man, black man-white woman, black man-white man. The persons’ faces have been digitally erased to accentuate the modular character of the actors. A mirror set at an angle behind the actors multiplies the couples and the viewpoints.

Sierra explains his work as a comment on immigration and racial issues: “The traditional paranoia of white people towards black people or of Europeans towards Africans is linked to a strong phobia. We thinks that sooner or later we will have to pay for our past and present greedy misdeeds. But this white paranoia is also related to the size of the dick or to the fear of a sexuality that demeans us. Our female and males might fall in love with it and that frightens us more than the perspective to lose our jobs, only your boss can take work away from us. The political reflections and the actions that derive from them are more primitive than what is ordinarily thought. Behaviours of racial identity are very animal because we are animals.“

Link via we-make-money-not-art.com.

Forget about filling out forms or your resume, your brain scan may one day determine your job.

Prof. Verbeke heads the department of neuro-economics, (NSIM), at Erasmus University in Rotterdam. He predicts in an interview with Good Morning Netherlands radio station that employers demanding compulsory brain scans from their job applicants will soon become the most normal thing in the world – in fact within five years’ time’, he believes.

Especially after the economic fiascos which are plunging the world into recession, a great deal of interest is being shown by the economic sector in their neuro-testing job application scheme, which is now being developed and tested, he said. Neuro-economics is a new research field, combining economics, psychology, genetics and neuro-science.

One of the most important developments in this field are the use of EEGs and MRI-scans to determine the suitability of candidates for specific jobs, he said. It’s been known for the past thirty years that one can determine human psychological disabilities such as autism and psychopathic tendencies in brain-scans, he said. However exact guidelines are only now being developed for practical applications in industry and the economic field by his department.

While brain-scanning their volunteers, the Erasmus University researchers can identify exactly to which extent people react ’spontaneously’, i.e. subconsciously, to specific social interactions – such as financial trading on the stock market or shop personnel interacting with customers.

Thus they could also test job applicants for important posts such as bank directors and financial institutions to determine whether they are even suitable — or whether they have psychopathic tendencies which would exclude them from such jobs.

Via nextnature.net.

Everyone needs their own radio controlled flying death squad robots.

Link and video via core77.com

See also:

• Killer robots to get silent running whisper mode

Found on tumblr without attribution

      As US TV stations switch over to digital signal, the government is subsidizing the purchase of converter boxes so that older TVs can still receive television.  There are a lot of places on the internet where this has been met with a bit of skepticisim as conspiriacy theorists wonder what the purpose of these boxes really is.  (Aside from maintaining the ability for impoverished Americans to get some form of information via television.)

     Well, the truth came to light recently in a shocking video posted to YouTube:

Actually, according to Wired and the gentleman who posted the video, it is all a simple hoax. 

Last week Chronister’s video was promoted on the conspiracy-friendly Alex Jones radio show, and as of Monday the clip has chalked up almost 200,000 views and over 850 comments, many skeptical, but an equal number expressing alarm. “This is nuts! I had an odd feeling when the government planned to pay for everyone [to] get one of these,” wrote one viewer. “Yup, that’s a camera, and a mic. Holy shit. I am taking my DVR apart tonight,” added another.

In an interview with Threat Level, Chronister admits the whole thing was a hoax, concocted in about five minutes with a hot glue gun and parts from an old cell phone. The reaction surprised even him.

“I was listening to the Alex Jones show … and I heard him mention the video,” Chronister says. “I just about fell out of the shower.”

Chronister says the video is partially true: A friend really did share the rumor about hidden camera in the DTV converters.  “I originally opened up the device with the intention of proving him wrong,” says Chronister. “At which point the thought popped in my head, wouldn’t it be funny if I proved him right instead?”

Still, debate can be found on various parts of the internet and the hoax seems to have taken on a life of its own.  (Even as recent as a few minutes ago, comments stream into the video’s YouTube site amazed that the government is doing this.)  

Me?  I love a good hoax, esecially when they gain a secondary life and expecially when they exploit a segement of the internet’s perverse fear of technology.  Are hoaxes like this a twisted reaction to western society’s increasing comfort with surveilence culture?  Have we bought into the Participatory Panopticon to the extent that if this had been real, it wouldn’t have been much of a surprise?

I’m tempted to suggest a homework assignment where we invite you upload your own video showing a hidden camera discovered in an everyday object.

Extra points if it’s a biological object.   

Any takers?

Found on tumblr without attribution..

Presenting Haile – the robotic drummer:

Haile is a robotic percussionist that can listen to live players, analyze their music in real-time, and use the product of this analysis to play back in an improvisational manner.

Check out this video to see it in action.

thanks to aboniks for the tip-off!

Photo via suspiciousminds‘ flickr stream.

As cnawan tweeted:  “I’ll bet in a year or two this won’t qualify as a joke any more”

iScreener *

Juan Enriquez‘s TED talk is online now and very, very pertinent. It’s also hilarious!

So sit down for 18mins and watch him run through the reasons for the Economic Crisis, and then show how the seeds for a beautiful, transhuman future are here and our rebirth as Homo Evolutis is just over the horizon.

thanks to Midare for the tip-off!

Thirty eight years ago, in 1970 there was a hundred year anniversary of Vladimir Lenin, the guy who inspired Russian people to overthrow the previous Tsar government in Russia in 1917… Siberian town some woodcutters decided to celebrate this anniversary by cutting all the trees on a big field leaving only those that would form a really huge message “100 Years to Lenin”

Now you can see it yourself via Google Maps.

More stunning examples over on English Russia.

via Futurismic

David Forbes, journalist and Coilhouse contributor, whom we’ve linked to a few times, has written a very thoughtful response to my recent rant “It’s going to get worse, before it get’s better”.

I’m going to quote and respond to a few key points now.

People, yes, do have a right to separate from mainstream society and live the way they please, it’s not something to marvel at when an event like the Tarnac crackdown happens. The pattern goes like this. An alternative culture gets some radical insight, decides it wants to break out of society and does so in a way that’s immediately, easily identifiable. Again, they have every right to do this. But it shouldn’t surprise anyone when the equivalent of shouting to the people and ideas running the show “hey bastards, we’re here!” gets a backlash. Well, what do they expect?

I disagree.  The best argument the French authorities seemed to have here was that by throwing away their mobile phones, this group was trying to drop off-the-grid and be untrackable; ie by ‘hiding’, they’re Terrorists.  When actually all they were doing was trying to live out their ideal utopia in a peaceful manner.

I think they didn’t shout “We’re Here!” loudly enough.  What they should have done is be far more public.  Showcase their revolution-in-living with blogs; get testaments from the much happier locals.  In short, make it cool and appealing to the greater public.

Status quo literally means “where things stand.” Said dominant cliques and cultural institutions “stand” and clawed to the top in the first place because they’re very, very good at handling straight-up, blatant opposition. If alt cultures put more energy into building political connections or spreading in a manner less separatist and more viral or developing tactics to deal with this kind of response, the future would be closer already.

Again, I think demonstrating loudly and publicly that an alternate way can exist is a far better response to ‘working within the System’.  Be the Leader and the rest will follow.  Make it cool, and they will beg to join.  Imagine some bastard hybrid of this scenario and Big Brother.  Not only should the Revolution Be Televised, it should be the highest rating show on the planet!!!

The idea that tech will save us from our sins should itself be a thing of the past.

I don’t think technology itself will save us.  But we’ve reached a radical point here; the creation of a technologically-facilitated, global human network.  Through social media (twitter, blogs, wikis, forums, etc etc) we can collaborate world-wide and prototype in parallel a wide array of solutions to the world’s problems.  All in real-time, with immediate feedback. It’s going to take everyone working together to get us out of this mess.

This time around those who want to build tomorrow need to spend as much time thinking about those old thorny questions of power as new technology. The alternative is that it won’t be “worse before it gets better,” it will just be worse and worse, down into the dust.

I think the politics here comes with the technology.  In short, the need for a Managerial Class is eliminated.  The hierarchies are collapsed and we can revert to our natural state of individuality and equality.

OK, that’s all I’ve got.  I want to thank David for his contributions and insight.  I’ve only quoted a fraction of his response; I encourage everyone to click through and read the whole thing.

I hope this is a discussion that continues to occur both publicly on the internet and in private.

We need to understand the potential we have to re-shape things, in light of the changes and challenges ahead of us.  Let’s all do our best to make this the best of all possible Futures!

From Mother Jones:

Many successful biological invasions capitalize on mayhem. Both melaleuca and lionfish are what biologists call drivers of ecosystem changes—causing, for instance, changes in biodiversity. But both are also passengers of ecosystem changes, piggybacking on changes already under way: melaleuca on disrupted landscapes, lionfish on overfished reefs. The potential for more powerful hurricanes as a result of global climate change threatens to amplify existing invasions and maybe even foster new ones—a process known as invasional meltdown. Fifty miles to the west of Hixon’s lab, in the waters of the North Pacific, a synergy of ecological changes appears to be fueling the invasion of Humboldt squid—aggressive predators reaching nearly seven feet in length (not counting their tentacles) and 110 pounds in weight, and living in schools hundreds or thousands strong. They are known to ecologists as r-strategists: species that live fast, die young, and breed early and profusely. (Humboldt squid produce up to 32 million eggs per female.) R-strategists, like locusts and rats, thrive in unstable environments since their generational turnaround time is short enough for adaptation and evolution to work their miracles.

At the moment, a seriously unstable world beckons the Humboldt squid. Typically confined to the tropics and subtropics, they’re now moving northward explosively as waters warm, as their main predators, tuna and billfish such as marlin, are overfished, and as global-warming-induced dead zones appear—Humboldt squid are one of the few animals tolerant of their low oxygen levels. Although the squid have not been accidentally released from a home aquarium or carried across the Panama Canal in the ballast water of a ship or towed around on portable oil drilling platforms (as with Australian spotted jellyfish in the Gulf of Mexico), they are nevertheless invading new realms and are now established as far north as the once-chilly Gulf of Alaska.

Everything is changing, all at the same time.

It’s clear now that the world of our grandchildren will be something unrecognizable to our grandparents.

There’s no wonder the latest Seminar About Long Term Thinking was sold-out well in advance; screw the Long Now, this was all about The Now!

During the Bush Era it seemed to me (as an outsider looking in) that the US’s Future was heading for something a lot like Israel. I don’t think it quite qualifies as a Black Swan, but did anyone really expect it to turn into Russia in ’90s?

Dmitry Orlov lived through that and gave the standing-room only audience some tips for the years ahead.

I’m just cut’n'pasting in the summary from Stewart Brand now, from the Long Now mailing list; all emphasis is mine, etc:

With vintage Russian black humor, Orlov described the social collapse he witnessed in Russia in the 1990s and spelled out its practical lessons for the American social collapse he sees as inevitable. The American economy in the 1990s described itself as “Goldilocks”—just the right size—when in fact is was “Tinkerbelle,” and one day the clapping stops. As in Russia, the US made itself vulnerable to the decline of crude oil, a trade deficit, military over-reach, and financial over-reach.

Russians were able to muddle through the collapse by finding ways to manage 1) food, 2) shelter, 3) transportation, and 4) security.

Russian agriculture had long been ruined by collectivization, so people had developed personal kitchen gardens, accessible by public transit. The state felt a time-honored obligation to provide bread, and no one starved. (Orlov noted that women in Russia handled collapse pragmatically, putting on their garden gloves, whereas middle-aged men dissolved into lonely drunks.) Americans are good at gardening and could shift easily to raising their own food, perhaps adopting the Cuban practice of gardens in parking lots and on roofs and balconies.

As for shelter, Russians live in apartments from which they cannot be evicted. The buildings are heat-efficient, and the communities are close enough to protect themselves from the increase in crime. Americans, Orlov said, have yet to realize there is no lower limit to real estate value, nor that suburban homes are expensive to maintain and get to. He predicts flight, not to remote log cabins, but to dense urban living. Office buildings, he suggests, can easily be converted to apartments, and college campuses could make instant communities, with all that grass turned into pasture or gardens. There are already plenty of empty buildings in America; the cheapest way to get one is to offer to caretake it.

The rule with transportation, he said, is not to strand people in nonsurvivable places. Fuel will be expensive and hoarded. He noted that the most efficient of all vehicles is an old pickup fully loaded with people, driving slowly. He suggested that freight trains be required to provide a few empty boxcars for hoboes. Donkeys, he advised, provide reliable transport, and they dine as comfortably on the Wall Street Journal as they did on Pravda.

Security has to take into account that prisons will be emptied (by stages, preferably), overseas troops will be repatriated and released, and cops will go corrupt. You will have a surplus of mentally unstable people skilled with weapons. There will be crime waves and mafias, but you can rent a policeman, hire a soldier. Security becomes a matter of local collaboration. When the formal legal structure breaks down, adaptive improvisation can be pretty efficient.

By way of readiness, Orlov urges all to prepare for life without a job, with near-zero burn rate. It takes practice to learn how to be poor well. Those who are already poor have an advantage.

And just when we thought the Present was already Science Fictional, all the missing elements of Cyberpunk will be arriving soon enough it seems.

The full text of Dmitry Orlov’s SALT talk is posted at his blog. You can also check out the slides he used for a famous 2006 talk, “Closing the Collapse Gap“.

For the podcast favouring, check the LongNow site for the mp3 later in week, or just grab the feed.

Presenting Farm Fountain:

..a system for growing edible and ornamental fish and plants in a constructed, indoor ecosystem. Based on the concept of aquaponics, this hanging garden fountain uses a simple pond pump, along with gravity to flow the nutrients from fish waste through the plant roots. The plants and bacteria in the system serve to cleanse and purify the water for the fish.

The perfect water feature for a re-claimed McMansion turned artist’s colony. Or for the lounge of a low-gravity space habitat.

They’ve included full instructions and a video overview. It’s a simple, but powerful concept. Great work!

thanks to Nova for the tip-off!