Archives for January 2011
лица
30 January 2011 | Art | No Comments
работы Франца Ксавера Мессершмидта; прекрасные:
удивительная грусть, что, словно забытый, брошенный навсегда жилец, вырывается стремительно прочь из тюремных камер нескончаемых гримас, — так шутим мы на пороге смерти, мышцами крика отрабатывая все, что происходило с нами в жизни, так пляшем мы эти знаменательные танцы души, высчитывая невероятные па, кружась от улыбки до скроби.
последний из могикан
30 January 2011 | Hardware, Music instruments, Technology | No Comments
двигатель прогресса не остановить:
Sony will be closing down one of the company’s largest CD manufacturing plants, located in Pitman, New Jersey, on March 31st, 2011. The company will be closing the doors for the final time after 50 years of being in business, where the plant originally manufactured vinyl records.
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The plant itself is half-a-million square feet, and at full capacity was able to turn out over 18 million CDS every month. CD sales dropped 18 percent between 2008 and 2009, while vinyl record sales have actually climbed 33 percent in the same time frame.
теоретически, конечно, есть еще DVD-Audio и даже Blu–ray, но фактически на CD все и закончится. а я[1] так до сих пор и не купил себе пару бобин на сладкое.
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[1] — есть у меня еще и несколько пачек минидисков; тоже не знаю, что с ними делать.
voiceless, passive, inanimate objects
29 January 2011 | Robots, Sex | 2 Comments
She can speak four different languages fluently, listens to you, can be sexy and flirty or mothering and nurturing. To some she might be the perfect companion, to others she is stereotyping women by being the world’s first sex robot.
а уж какое разнообразие, прямо дух захватывает:
The robot comes with different personalities, including “Young Yoko”, a beginner at the sex game, and “S&M Susan”, an experienced lover who will have no problem with causing a little pain if requested.
Roxxxy can also be programmed into a “Frigid Farrah” personality where according to Truecompanion website, “if you touched her in a private area, more than likely, she will not be too appreciative of your advance”.
но вообще, конечно, я только рад:
Data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics confirms that having a companion, particularly in one’s elder years, can increase life expectancy.
хотя самое смешное — это корни, разумеется:
“I wouldn’t be surprised if, say fifteen years from now, there’s a Time magazine cover story on the man who invented the world’s first commercially successful sex robot, and it turns out that he, and it will almost definitely be a “he”, came from a military R&D background,” [Peter] Nowak says.
чистый “Мир на земле”, не меньше.
в зависимости от обстоятельств
29 January 2011 | Censorship, Internet, Politics, Twitter | No Comments
впрочем, не стоит переоценивать значимость сетевых коммуникаций (ага) — вот они, факты:
Egypt appears to have cut off almost all access to the internet from inside and outside the country from late on Thursday night, in a move that has concerned observers of the protests that have been building in strength through the week.
завтра в России, послезавтра и в остальном мире.
тем не менее, сегoдня, в пику недавним событиям, Twitter снова последний бастион и оплот свободы и демократии. как ожидаемо.
больше страсти
29 January 2011 | Sport | No Comments
немного[1] о современном футболе:
Every player has his own script, what to do, when to do it, information on the player he’s up against, including weight, height, age, strengths, weaknesses, even what that opponent is likely to do when the ball comes to him in certain situations. We memorise every single set piece, where we have to stand, run and end up. We even memorise this for the other players so we know where everyone else will be at any given time.
You know that pass when you say to yourself: “How did he spot that?” Often he didn’t need to; he knew the player would be there because, the night before in the hotel, he read about the runs he would be making.
It’s exactly the same pass after which sometimes you might find yourself saying: “Who was that to?” The receiving player either forgot to be there or was taken out of the game by a tactical manoeuvre by his opposite number.
и дальше самое главное:
Football at this level is very chess-like, maybe not to those outside of football but certainly to those inside. I sometimes wonder whether it’s more enjoyable playing lower down the leagues. After all, who wants to play chess?
именно, об этом я и говорю, только там еще и осталась настоящие чувства.
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[1] — заметка, вообще, бесконечно хорошая и на актуальную тему:
While I found the whole episode with Gray and Richard Keys at Molineux cringeworthy, inside the world of football nobody is particularly bothered. Don’t interpret that as evidence that players are condoning Gray and Keys for their behaviour. It’s more a case that most of my team-mates would have no interest in listening to anything pundits say in the first place.
church wants you on your place
29 January 2011 | Internet, Lifeform | 2 Comments
Папа Римский Бенедикт XVI призвал не замещать виртуальным миром жизнь реальную:
It is important always to remember that virtual contact cannot and must not take the place of direct human contact with people at every level of our lives.
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Entering cyberspace can be a sign of an authentic search for personal encounters with others, provided that attention is paid to avoiding dangers such as enclosing oneself in a sort of parallel existence, or excessive exposure to the virtual world.
а так же, самое главное, обратил внимание на новые соблазны:
In the search for sharing, for ‘friends’, there is the challenge to be authentic and faithful, and not give in to the illusion of constructing an artificial public profile for oneself.
натурально, поддельные католики не попадут в рай. как верно и то, что паству лучше (и безопаснее, разумеется) знать в лицо.
впрочем, как бы там ни было, однако понтифик снова немного опоздал — добро пожаловать в новый мир.
новые элементы
29 January 2011 | AR, Art | No Comments
манифест художников дополненной реальности:
We are breaking down the mysterious Doors of the Impossible! Time and Space died yesterday. We already live in the Absolute, because we have created eternal, omnipresent Geolocative Presence.
очень хороший.
совокупность миллиардов
28 January 2011 | Lifeform | No Comments
Пол Ди Филиппо наконец-то предельно точно озвучил то, что давно уже меня терзало:
Did you ever feel that all the world’s problems–environmental, cultural, political–could be the result of just too many fucking people on the planet? (“Fucking,” as used here, is a precisely descriptive adjective, and not a mere kneejerk intensifier.)
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I was born in 1954. (Geezer alert! Feel free to chalk up this whole rant to “You damn kids get off my lawn” syndrome.) The global population then was 2.7 billion. Today it’s nigh on seven billion, over 2.5 times greater than when I was a kid. Tell me that adding nearly five billion hungry mouths and goal-seeking individuals to our planet has no detrimental consequences. Dwindling resources, diminished elbow room, clashing ideologies–it’s all down to over-crowding.
хотя “терзало” — это и не совсем точное слово. раздражало, скорее. убивало:
The sheer presence of seven billion people devalues the existence of any single person.
вены мира
28 January 2011 | Internet, Lifeform, Technology | No Comments
мы боремся с расстояниями, как умеем:
New York Talk Exchange illustrates the global exchange of information in real time by visualizing volumes of long distance telephone and IP (Internet Protocol) data flowing between New York and cities around the world.
однако, и это нас не спасет.
выставка
27 January 2011 | AR | 2 Comments
а вот и снова расширенная действительность:
A groundbreaking iPhone app launched last month as part of the opening of the Galleries of Modern London, bringing the Museum of London’s extensive art and photographic collections to the streets of the capital. Streetmuseum, developed with creative agency Brothers and Sisters, guides users to sites across London, where hidden histories of the city dramatically appear.
Over 200 sites have been picked where users can look through their iPhones and see the past emerge, locked as an overlay across the present scene. These can be viewed as ghostly alignments, or the archive images can be brought up and explored in detail, along with information about Streetmuseum’s photographs and paintings.