Apr 07
‘What Ali Wore’: A Fashion Blog Dedicated to the Most Dapper Old Man on the Planet: Just about every day, Zoe Spawton takes a picture of Ali, an 83 year old Turkish tailor, living in Germany, who has 18 kids and a sense of style. Word of Ali’s new-found fame has even reached his native …
Oct 04
55 years ago, Russia put the first man-made satellite in space. Happy birthday, Sputnik.
Aug 11
Singularity Hub is reporting that dozens of underwater drones have been deployed to waters near Iran: As US talks with Iran over their nuclear program began to sour and the possibility of sanctions against the country rose, Iran responded by threatening to cut off the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow waterway and the only way …
Aug 07
click image for full size This infographic — created by Column Five for Akorn Entertainment — looks at the growingconcern over keeping the Internet as a free and open platform by visualizing the concepts from George Orwell’s book 1984, and Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World; then comparing them to the current Internet censorship techniques of the Iranian government, and the flood …
Jun 17
Bio-mimicking MAV (micro aerial vehicles) are nothing new. (Been blogging about them almost as long as I’ve been blogging.) But, if you’re new to this, these are drones, that is, flying robots, that look and act like natural creatures. Insects, birds, whathaveyou. There’s some new work being done out of John Hopkins university –funded by US Defence agencies– that …
May 26
IARPA (Intelligence Advanced Research Projects) is working with torture-tool manufacturer Raytheon to develop a metaphorical language analysis system: The system will automatically find, identify and categorize large numbers of linguistic metaphors in foreign language texts. Under the contract, Raytheon BBN will: Develop tools and techniques to identify, qualify and categorize metaphors; Build a metaphor repository that identifies and links …
Apr 29
After Philip K. Dick got his first glimpse of Bladerunner (based on his “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?”) he wrote this letter to the production company: October 11, 1981 Mr. Jeff Walker, The Ladd Company, 4000 Warner Boulevard, Burbank, Calif. 91522. Dear Jeff, I happened to see the Channel 7 TV program “Hooray For …
Apr 27
I have a couple pieces of news regarding Technicolor Ultra Mall. The first is that my publisher has made the ebook version available through the Amazon Lending Library. So, if you’re an Amazon Prime Member, you can borrow it for zero dollars. If you’re old fashioned like me, it looks like the Canadian Amazon has …
"This ultra-sharp, darkly satiric, hyper-speed novel is set in a world where multi-level mega malls serves as city states and everything on the outside lies in ruin. On the lower red levels, gang violence and media saturation and bio-tech designer drugs rule. During the weekend, slummers from the green levels leave their safe lives of jobs and families to partake in risky, sometimes deadly, fun on the red levels. And on every level, TV and advertisements literally penetrate the mind. Death is easy and life cheap, until that life is your own or your beloveds. Extreme stylization, great characters, and a high-level of intensity is maintained throughout. This is a whip-smart, truly violent novel that has at its core a still very human pulsing heart."
