Archives for June 2012
the sky above the port
30 June 2012 | Art | No Comments
в бездну
29 June 2012 | Art | No Comments
в поисках света:
Light is one of the most fundamental and essential elements in art. As such, James Turrell uses it as the sole subject for large-scale installations <...>. He makes the architectural spaces seem grand as well as intimately scaled by using the interior structure to shape the light.
<...>
The impressive work entitled Spread, a 4000-square foot environment, encompasses visitors with coloured light fields that feel infinite. An element of pure, Zen-like respect is introduced when visitors are required to remove their shoes before entering. The overall experience is humbling. Turrell terms these works the Ganzfeld pieces, named for the optical phenomenon where there is nothing for the eye to focus on. In these works, the light is so convincing that the space becomes a glowing abyss, much as if viewers were enclosed within Colour Field paintings.
вот так:
о зеркалах
28 June 2012 | Google, History | 1 Comment
между тем, вот они, инновации, my ass:
The Nexus Q is certainly not for everyone’s taste. For starters, it’s … well, let’s call it distinctive in appearance. It is most certainly made to be seen as well as heard.
It’s also pricey, at $299 without speakers or cables, and it works only with Android devices.
Put those pieces together and you have to wonder whether Google is deliberately trying to limit the market for this product to diehard Google loyalists.
In the industrial design of its new media player, Google has broken out of the box, quite literally. The Nexus Q is a black orb, 4.6 inches in diameter, with a ring of 32 LEDs that “shift and change color in time to your music,” Google says. I guess that makes it a 21st Century lava lamp.
а в свете буквально только что обдуманного эта новинка и вовсе кажется лишь тем смешнее и беспомощнее.
о мировоззрении
28 June 2012 | Culturology, Sport | No Comments
и, к слову сказать, это именно то, чего никогда не понимала сборная Англии по футболу (1 + 2 + …).
stay hungry
28 June 2012 | Culturology, Economics | 2 Comments
о том, что впереди:
One of my favorite Apple product announcements happened on September 7, 2005. In an Apple music event announcement, Steve Jobs got on stage, gave the usual state of the business update, and then he did something I’d never seen before. He killed a wildly successful product.
все так и есть:
You have a hit. Congratulations, you’ve built something that is perceived as being best of class. Seminal moment – go you. What’s your next move?
<...>
The reward for winning is the perception that you’ve won. In your celebration of your awesomeness, you are no longer focused on the finish line, you now lack a clear next goal, and while you sit there comfortably monetizing eyeballs, you’re becoming strategically dull. You’ve forgotten that someone is coming to eat you and if you wait until you can see them coming, you’re too late. Just ask Nokia or RIM.
культурно отдыхать умеем
27 June 2012 | Personal | No Comments
у летнего дождя есть только один плюс — когда в этом время ты сидишь в шортах на террасе, подставив теплым каплям голые ступни, и пьешь вино.
the light is strong
27 June 2012 | AI, Science | No Comments
и еще Брюс Стерлинг об Алане Тьюринге и вечном поиске знаний:
My own problem comes when you’re an Artificial Woman Artist. Computation is demanding the aura of artistry that was commonly associated with cognition. That’s tougher, because now we’re back in the Turing Test interrogation cells, and I’m a woman, and you’re a woman, while that other woman there, the machine artist, is claiming to be Yoko Ono or Marina Abramovic.
I can ask the artist these innocent, quaint Alan Turing-test questions, like “do you have long hair?” “do you like to run marathons?”, and Marina just sits there gently bleeding and staring into space for six solid hours.
<...>
How do we judge what we’re doing? How do we distribute praise and blame, rewards and demerits, how do to guide it, how do we attribute meaning to it?
я помню все твои черточки
27 June 2012 | Art | No Comments
создавая вселенные
26 June 2012 | Biology, Lifeform | No Comments
еще о моделировании:
How do you design a utopia? In 1972, John B. Calhoun detailed the specifications of his Mortality-Inhibiting Environment for Mice: a practical utopia built in the laboratory. Every aspect of Universe 25—as this particular model was called—was pitched to cater for the well-being of its rodent residents and increase their lifespan. The Universe took the form of a tank, 101 inches square, enclosed by walls 54 inches high. The first 37 inches of wall was structured so the mice could climb up, but they were prevented from escaping by 17 inches of bare wall above. Each wall had sixteen vertical mesh tunnels—call them stairwells—soldered to it. Four horizontal corridors opened off each stairwell, each leading to four nesting boxes. That means 256 boxes in total, each capable of housing fifteen mice. There was abundant clean food, water, and nesting material. The Universe was cleaned every four to eight weeks. There were no predators, the temperature was kept at a steady 68°F, and the mice were a disease-free elite selected from the National Institutes of Health’s breeding colony. Heaven.
и о будущем:
So what exactly happened in Universe 25? Past day 315, population growth slowed. More than six hundred mice now lived in Universe 25, constantly rubbing shoulders on their way up and down the stairwells to eat, drink, and sleep. Mice found themselves born into a world that was more crowded every day, and there were far more mice than meaningful social roles. With more and more peers to defend against, males found it difficult and stressful to defend their territory, so they abandoned the activity. Normal social discourse within the mouse community broke down, and with it the ability of mice to form social bonds. The failures and dropouts congregated in large groups in the middle of the enclosure, their listless withdrawal occasionally interrupted by spasms and waves of pointless violence. The victims of these random attacks became attackers. Left on their own in nests subject to invasion, nursing females attacked their own young. Procreation slumped, infant abandonment and mortality soared. Lone females retreated to isolated nesting boxes on penthouse levels. Other males, a group Calhoun termed “the beautiful ones,” never sought sex and never fought—they just ate, slept, and groomed, wrapped in narcissistic introspection. Elsewhere, cannibalism, pansexualism, and violence became endemic. Mouse society had collapsed.
о комплексах
25 June 2012 | Culturology, Linguistics, Psychology | No Comments
прислали чудесное (плюс, вот дальнейшее обсуждение[1]):
Откуда берутся граммар-наци? Как выглядят такие люди с точки зрения врача-психиатра?
<...>
Но, на самом деле, значение правильной грамматики так же преувеличено. Для них это действительно имеет значение, потому что это их способ чувствовать более комфортно и спокойно. Они приняты в среде себе подобных и пропагандируют весьма узконаправленные принципы, ограничивая в первую очередь себя.
там много смешного и много интересного. и много опечаток и ошибок, разумеется. но я согласен, да, значение грамматики и пунктуации в ежедневном общении действительно сильно преувеличено.
с другой же стороны, куда интереснее, то, что я фактически не наблюдаю аналогичных проблем в иных языках и культурах (даже в Urban Dictionary подобное истолкование фразеологизма “grammar nazi” лишь второе по счету — и то отчасти; а Wikipedia и вовсе отсылает к статье о нормативной лингвистике, познавая, то есть, именно науку, а не людей). и в этом, мне кажется, скрыта какая-то удивительно обидная мораль.
—
[1] — там-то и начинается основное веселье:
<...> на мой взгляд, отсутствие грамотности (не считая обусловленных психпатологией случаев), таки-да, свидетельствует кое-о чем негативном.
или еще:
<...> родной язык – это из области базовых знаний.
итд, итп.