April 2012
1 post
1 tag
Apr 17th
2 notes
July 2011
2 posts
1 tag
Jul 11th
2 notes
3 tags
“What was made to look like a series of disconnected incidents now appears as...”
– This is the news of the world… 110708 Reality Management: Hack-gate, Hari, Milibot and the Cyber War: Mark Fisher, K-Punk: openDemocracy
Jul 11th
12 notes
May 2011
16 posts
6 tags
“What Dawkins says is that we are just machines - our function is just machines...”
– 110524 Adam Curtis: The Rise of the Machines: The Register
May 24th
7 notes
1 tag
McDonald's Wi-Fi blocks spark anger →
May 11th
2 tags
May 11th
2 tags
May 11th
2 tags
“Essentially the system we have evolved is based around wealthy farmers feeding...”
– Real-food campaigner Michael Pollan: how the food industry works. 110510 Guardian
May 11th
1 tag
May 10th
1 tag
May 10th
2 tags
Taco Bell and the Golden Age of Drive-Thru →
After a while, I do begin to detect a pleasing, steady rhythm to the system, the transaction, the delivery of the food. Each is a discrete, predictable, scripted interaction. When the order is input correctly, the customer drives up to the window, the money is paid, the Frutista Freeze or Atomic Bacon Bombers (a test item specific to this Taco Bell) handed over, and you send people on their way...
May 10th
3 tags
May 4th
2 notes
3 tags
May 4th
2 notes
2 tags
May 4th
7 notes
3 tags
“my standards for technological innovation:- 1. The new tool should be cheaper...”
– Wendell Berry 1987 Why I am NOT Going to Buy a Computer
May 4th
2 notes
2 tags
May 3rd
3 notes
2 tags
“This is to inform you what you have to undergo. Gentlemen if providing you don’t...”
– A letter from “Captain Swing” to farmers introducing a new threshing machine, 1830. From Captain Swing: A Social History of the Great English Agricultural Uprising of 1830, Eric Hobsbawm and George Rudé  p208.
May 3rd
1 note
3 tags
May 3rd
1 note
1 tag
“a kind of not-fully-abandoned utopian wish for an appropriate, even benign kind...”
– 06 Against Technology: Steven E Jones p21
May 3rd
April 2011
25 posts
3 tags
Apr 12th
2 tags
Apr 12th
4 tags
“The vast concourse of people who had assembled to witness the truimphant arrival...”
– The opening of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, 15 September 1830: Fanny Kemble. Records of a Girlhood, 1878.
Apr 12th
2 tags
Apr 12th
4 tags
“Some of the directors observed, that they were but trustees for property to an...”
– Discussion following the death of William Huskisson, run over by George Stephenson’s locomotive engine Rocket during the opening of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, 15 September 1830. 25 September 1830: Mechanics’ Magazine
Apr 12th
2 tags
“… the engine having received its supply of water… was set off at its...”
– Fanny Kemble, letter to a friend 26 August, 1830 Records of a Girlhood, 1878
Apr 12th
2 tags
“We are credibly informed that there is a Steam Engine now preparing to run...”
– Trevithick’s Portable Steam Engine 8 July 1808, The Times
Apr 12th
1 tag
Apr 12th
1 tag
Apr 12th
1 tag
Apr 8th
1 note
3 tags
“Like a classic German U-boat, the drug-running submarine uses diesel engines on...”
–  The most valuable feature, though, is the cargo bay, capable of holding up to 9 tons of cocaine — a street value of about $250 million. Wired’s Jim Popkin reports on the new wave of innovative DIY supersub design coming out of Colombia. 1104 Wired Magazine
Apr 8th
4 tags
Apr 6th
1 note
3 tags
More Reactors! →
Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) submits plans to build more reactors in Fukushima…
Apr 6th
3 tags
“It was grim. We went from hospital to hospital and from one contaminated village...”
– John Vidal remembers a visit to Chernobyl five years ago. 110401 Guardian
Apr 6th
3 tags
“Up close and still dangerous… the scene of the total meltdown 25 years ago”
– BBC’s Daniel Sandford enters Chernobyl’s contaminated reactor block. 110406 BBC video
Apr 6th
1 note
4 tags
“We are seeing something that has never happened – a multiple reactor catastrophe...”
– Dr. Alexey Yablokov, Russian Chernobyl scientist, warns of dire consequences for health around Fukushima. 110325 Common Dreams
Apr 6th
3 notes
2 tags
Apr 5th
2 tags
Hackers steal names and email addresses of... →
Apr 4th
1 note
2 tags
“A technology that gave citizens the ability to retrieve public space and public...”
– Becky Hogge 110329 Open Democracy
Apr 4th
1 tag
Apr 4th
1 note
3 tags
Apr 4th
1 note
3 tags
“You listen for the roar of the engines or the fierce rush and vibration of the...”
– 1937 Hindenburg booklet: Flickr
Apr 4th
1 note
4 tags
Apr 4th
5 tags
Apr 4th
2 tags
“I think it would be good if a few people like me spiked the future, punctured it...”
– Gruffalo author Julia Donaldson vetoes the ebook. 110325 Guardian
Apr 2nd
March 2011
5 posts
3 tags
“My question is not can you - can you reach someone in two seconds? Fine. Have...”
– Malcolm Gladwell on CNN: face to face beats social media if you want long-lasting social change. 110327 Gigaom
Mar 31st
1 note
6 tags
2001: A Space Odyssey
Interviewer: HAL, you have an enormous responsibility on this mission, in many ways perhaps the greatest responsibility of any single mission element. You're the brain, and central nervous system of the ship, and your responsibilities include watching over the men in hibernation. Does this ever cause you any lack of confidence?
HAL: Let me put it this way, Mr. Amor. The 9000 series is the most reliable computer ever made. No 9000 computer has ever made a mistake or distorted information. We are all, by any practical definition of the words, foolproof and incapable of error.
Mar 30th
2 notes
2 tags
Mar 30th
4 tags
“This new faith has emerged from a bizarre fusion of the cultural bohemianism of...”
– Richard Barbrook, The Californian Ideology
Mar 30th
1 note
1 tag
Testing
Houston, I think everything is turning out A-OK…
Mar 30th