Monday, April 11, 2011
Sunday, April 10, 2011
1869 Harvard entrance exam
from slashdot
"The New York Times remembers back to when 'college was a buyer's bazaar' and digs up 19th-century classified ads from Columbia, Harvard, Yale, and others. In competitive efforts to attract students from the limited pool of qualified candidates, applications were taken as late as September for an October freshman class. Vassar offered lush room accommodations. The expectations were high: Latin, Greek, Virgil, Caesar's Commentaries; Harvard's entrance exam from 1869 is posted (PDF). Could any of us pass the exam today?"
"The New York Times remembers back to when 'college was a buyer's bazaar' and digs up 19th-century classified ads from Columbia, Harvard, Yale, and others. In competitive efforts to attract students from the limited pool of qualified candidates, applications were taken as late as September for an October freshman class. Vassar offered lush room accommodations. The expectations were high: Latin, Greek, Virgil, Caesar's Commentaries; Harvard's entrance exam from 1869 is posted (PDF). Could any of us pass the exam today?"
Thursday, March 31, 2011
Annie Collinge
I've been shamelessly reposting things from The Fox is Black but you could skip my filtering and spend sometime enjoying their artful curating.
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Bernard Voita
It's hard to find much on this artist online, image wise but this and a few other photos are very nice. Go HERE for a flickr set with a few images
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
more energy, less dimensions?
New Theory suggests that the universe at higher energy/temperatures has less dimensions
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
Cheap jammer screws GPS
Which is cool, but now I want a program that will randomize my word use and punctuation/capitalization to avoid this type of crap. Which I'm pretty sure all started with some nerd who wanted to know which roles Shakespeare performed in his plays. The idea being that the density of word use in the plays he was writing (which we had the dates for) could be cross correlated with the individual characters in the plays being performed (which we had the dates for). Or more precisely, if Juliet really liked the word wherefor, then that word frequency was likely to increase in the play Shakespeare was writing if he was playing that character.
Somehow this had something to do with unmasking the anonymous author of Primary Colors but I can't find anything on the web about this. So maybe I or someone else dreamed it up, if you remember details let me know.
Somehow this had something to do with unmasking the anonymous author of Primary Colors but I can't find anything on the web about this. So maybe I or someone else dreamed it up, if you remember details let me know.
Monday, March 7, 2011
language acquisition, son
After having recently attended a DARPA conference (STORyNET-download pdf describing STORyNET's goals) where the project manager said he would like "individual level narrative stimulus forecasting", or in other words, he would like to know what an individual will do when they hear a story, how narratives will play out in the global theater, the technology above is a little disturbing.
At the end of the Fast Company article Deb Roy mentions his new goals and the company he has started to pursue them: Bluefin Labs
Friday, March 4, 2011
Thursday, March 3, 2011
social rollercoaster
so before some teenager in Russia invented chatroulette, i came up with this less aptly named game description, but imagined it wouldn't work until it could function on smart phones, i still think the timed parameters would make the whole thing better, the idea initially emerged when trying to imagine a way to have online parties with friends in distant locations, the randomness imitating the way people bump into each other in the process of getting another beer, peeing, etc. the below was some kind of futuristic dictionary entry i probably write while high
social rollercoaster
a. a games show featured on the now defunct NBC that involved an incredibly sophisticated machine for moving people about violently and then putting them in front of other violently moved people, where they would then discuss something or other for 1, 5, or 10 minutes. The rules changed as the show progressed. It still is common to refer to show events and meeting of new people as 'the roll' .
b. as part of the media bath introduced with Social Rollercoaster, NBC introduced an online app that allowed people at home to enjoy the game. With rudimentary translation apps and crude graphics between rolls that suggested vertigo, rollers would choose 1, 5, or 10 minute coasts ending abruptly at the assigned time, two rollers would have only a few minutes to decide what to talk about and do it. This spawned over time the birth of the various coasts, tossed up at the edge of clouds, overlapping in an electrical thunderstorm. When Google introduced translatez the app improved quickly as Google assembled massive collections of sounds, sighed, barked, brittly formed, representing the elements of every sound of every language programs evolved, poets and musicians began to hammer together voices, overlapping phenomes, mashing 6 accents into a single sentence, users browsed a plethora of possible translatez. it is impossible to imagine anything before Coasts that compares in the overwhelming influence it has achieved in the behavior of the human.
social rollercoaster
a. a games show featured on the now defunct NBC that involved an incredibly sophisticated machine for moving people about violently and then putting them in front of other violently moved people, where they would then discuss something or other for 1, 5, or 10 minutes. The rules changed as the show progressed. It still is common to refer to show events and meeting of new people as 'the roll' .
b. as part of the media bath introduced with Social Rollercoaster, NBC introduced an online app that allowed people at home to enjoy the game. With rudimentary translation apps and crude graphics between rolls that suggested vertigo, rollers would choose 1, 5, or 10 minute coasts ending abruptly at the assigned time, two rollers would have only a few minutes to decide what to talk about and do it. This spawned over time the birth of the various coasts, tossed up at the edge of clouds, overlapping in an electrical thunderstorm. When Google introduced translatez the app improved quickly as Google assembled massive collections of sounds, sighed, barked, brittly formed, representing the elements of every sound of every language programs evolved, poets and musicians began to hammer together voices, overlapping phenomes, mashing 6 accents into a single sentence, users browsed a plethora of possible translatez. it is impossible to imagine anything before Coasts that compares in the overwhelming influence it has achieved in the behavior of the human.
Saturday, February 26, 2011
Complexity=Melodrama
Quality television melodrama and cultural complexity by Michael Kackman explores the melodramatic tendencies of narrative complexity in contemporary television
Open Xerox
Open Xerox is the place where you can experiment with technologies being developed in the Xerox labs around the globe.
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
Monday, February 21, 2011
Steve Lambert is the bees knees
Steve Lambert invented SELF CONTROL a program that allows you (on osx) to block access to email and the like (read facebook). Check him out
Saturday, February 19, 2011
Friday, February 18, 2011
micro granting projects
Philly Stake is a locally sourced, recurring dinner in which money is raised for creative & relevant community engaged projects. As a micro granting program, community members become creators.
InCUBATE is a research group dedicated to exploring new approaches to arts administration and arts funding. InCUBATE's microgranting project is called Sunday Soup.
FEAST is a recurring public dinner designed to use community-driven financial support to democratically fund new and emerging art makers.
The FEAST website has a much more comprehensive list of micro granting projects on its website.
InCUBATE is a research group dedicated to exploring new approaches to arts administration and arts funding. InCUBATE's microgranting project is called Sunday Soup.
FEAST is a recurring public dinner designed to use community-driven financial support to democratically fund new and emerging art makers.
The FEAST website has a much more comprehensive list of micro granting projects on its website.
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
Monday, February 7, 2011
Boston Tree Party
Boston Tree Party website
The Boston Tree Party is a collaborative campaign to plant 100 pairs of heirloom apple trees in civic spaces across Greater Boston. We’re planting with schools, hospitals, faith communities, businesses, neighborhood groups, nonprofits, restaurants, social clubs, assisted living centers, and more. We want to plant with you!
The Boston Tree Party is a collaborative campaign to plant 100 pairs of heirloom apple trees in civic spaces across Greater Boston. We’re planting with schools, hospitals, faith communities, businesses, neighborhood groups, nonprofits, restaurants, social clubs, assisted living centers, and more. We want to plant with you!
Sunday, February 6, 2011
Muir web visualization
This Muir Web shows all the habitat relationships for all the species on Mannahatta. Visualization by Chris Harrison of Carnegie-Mellon University. ©WCS
Beyond Mannahatta website
Prefuse Visualization Toolkit website
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)