Reflections on Technology, Media & Culture
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A.S.M.R. Results appear in reverse date order. You can also use the search box above or the Google menu. 3D printing 4D printing Accelerationism Activism Affective and emotion Africa Agon Alberti Ambience Anger Animals Anime Apocalypse Art Artificial Intelligence Attention Audience engagement Augmented reality Aura Ayn Rand Bad Actors Bauhaus Belief Big Bang Theory Big … Continue reading
AI revisited
John Lee and I sat down to talk about AI (artificial intelligence). Both of us were involved in the field in so far as it related to computer-aided design. That experience dates back to the 1980s. In our conversation we touched on how the AI focus has changed since the 1980s. We started by identifying … Continue reading
Decode this
Political statements come coded: “I think there’s blame on both sides. I don’t have any doubt about it and you don’t have any doubt about it either.” That was Trump on the white supremacist contingent at the Unite the Right demonstration in Charlottesville this week (with violence resulting in deaths and injury). The statement sounds … Continue reading
What’s wrong with accelerationism
“You can’t always get what you want” is the puzzling refrain that echoed out over the PA at the end of Trump rallies, and was repeated at his subsequent post-victory reprieve rallies. The less audible punchline of the song is, “You just might find you get what you need.” Getting what you need is more important than … Continue reading
Emotional labourers
If you run a tutorial, advise students, front a counter to answer queries, or deliver marks and feedback then you are an emotional labourer. Lecturers attempt to deliver and manage enthusiasm, curiosity, passion, and hope amongst students and colleagues. They may also encourage respect, fear, and even anger about their subjects. In the academic service economy emotional labour may also require academic and support personnel to appease distress, … Continue reading
Life-changing technologies
Devices, programs, and apps enable us to do things we couldn’t do otherwise. This is undoubtedly their main value. But they also reveal something about ourselves (i.e. the human species) and the world we live in. Smartphones obviously enable communication over distance and while on the move. They also reveal that we are mobile creatures, … Continue reading
Branded Meeting Places
Branded Meeting Places Ubiquitous technologies and the design of places for meaningful human encounter Designing for the 21st Century Initiative Also see final report. Meetings are now less constrained to offices, shops and fixed points of service, and can take place in a range of environments, including branded places: coffee houses, transportation hubs, customised meeting … Continue reading
Wired-Up Words
An A–Z of Awkward Ideas for a Wired World (DRAFT in process, Admin) Introduction: Networks and Word Play The public platform of the Word Wide Web (sic) is populated with neologisms, portmanteau terms, the alleged language of the street, and bad puns — not to mention spelling mistakes. Writers for the web now have license to … Continue reading
Computer-supported collaborative distraction
Communicating with others via laptop, mobile phone or tablet computer while I’m supposed to be listening to a lecture, contributing to a meeting, or socialising face-to-face can be desperately unproductive, and profoundly anti-social. The cure for a wandering mind is to unplug according to recent reports (THE). But social media can nudge the architectural design studio … Continue reading
Being practical
The recent raid at Abbottabad has shown President Obama to be a leader capable of decisive action after all, as opposed to just an academic (ie a “dithering nerd-in-chief”), at least according to critical commentators (The Guardian, 7 May 2011, p.21). Having read Obama’s The Audacity of Hope, I’m hard-pressed to think of Obama as an intellectual … Continue reading
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