Distortion.
Throughout Twenty One Several Books of Mr. William Bridge (1657). Original from Oxford University. Digitized October 26, 2006.
Long before there was the Kindle, there was the 16th-century book wheel by Italian engineer Agostino Ramelli, an ambitious reading “interface” that would allow the reader to browse and reference multiple books.
Complement with other vintage versions of modern social technology, then wash down with 27 of history’s strangest inventions.
As the exchange of missiles between Israeli and Hamas intensifies, Israeli programmers have created an update for the Yo mobile app that alerts users when a rocket strike is imminent. The Silicon Valley messaging app lets users exchange only a single word (“Yo”) and has been hailed as both “downright idiotic” and “unrivalled genius” after receiving more than $1 million in funding last month. According to the Times of Israel, the new use for the app was created by local coders to complement their iOS and Android app Red Alert – a free download that use information from the Israeli Defense Force and Homefront Command to deliver the location and time of predicted rocket strikes. Yo users in Israel and abroad can now add the user name REDALERTISRAEL on the app to receive push notifications on their smartphones whenever a rocket is inbound.
“When I say it’s a game, you say it’s a business. When I say it’s a business, you say it’s a game.” -(from North Dallas Forty)
Apple brought in around $182 billion in revenue last year. Their tech peers came in with the following: Google at $66 billion. Microsoft at $87 billion. Amazon at $89 billion. IBM at $93 billion.
Ford at $147 billion. GM at $155 billion. Volkswagen at $225 billion.
(Why one only writes in tech, anymore, as spice to the fiction project.)
“This course surveys contemporary thinking about complex systems, coexistence and strategy, through a mathematical lens. We will explore system theories, cooperation, networks, and related ideas. We will use them as a framework to develop relevant math concepts, such as sets, algebra and statistics, and simultaneously explore their social context and think critically about ways to use and question them. Students will gain broadly applicable math skills and resources to develop them further, and a survey of culturally relevant discourses. The instructor will work with students to develop class projects relevant to their interests. Students will be evaluated on a mix of coursework and projects.”
“Verso Books have offered Rhizome readers in the UK a chance to win a 3D printed Guy Debord action figure.”
(via Front Page)”>Rhizome | Guy Debord Limited Edition Action Figure Giveaway)
Networked Optimization | silviolorusso.com
Networked Optimization is a series of three crowdsourced versions of popular self-help books. Each book contains the full text, which is however invisible because it is set in white on a white background. The only text that remains readable consists of the so-called “popular highlights” – the passages that were underlined by many Kindle users – together with the amount of highlighters. Each time a passage is underlined, it is automatically stored in Amazon’s data centers.
Among the books with the most popular highlights, there is a striking number of self-help books. This points to a multi-layered, algorithmic optimization: from readers and authors to Amazon itself. Harvesting its customers micro-labour, the act of reading becomes a data-mining process.
What happens when you try to suggest that even the most sophisticated critiques of our technosphere may themselves have a limited amount of humanity.
