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nprbooks: Neal Stephenson can be a divisive writer – his science is, indeed, merciless, but some readers feel it can overwhelm his storytelling. Our reviewer Jason Sheehan has some choice thoughts: “The moon blew up with no warning and with no apparent reason.” That’s the beginning of Neal Stephenson’s newest epic,Seveneves. And in terms of…
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Engineering a Better Future with Neal Stephenson
davidnaimon: Listen in to my nearly hour-long chat with Neal Stephenson whose latest book is Seveneves. Our conversation touched on so many great topics: why women are better equipped to survive long-term in space, why so many SFF novels and films create humanoids with race-based character traits and the limitations of this, advances in epigenetics…
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robertogreco: Statement and Counter-Statement, posters by Experimental Jetset for a show at the Walker Art Center, 2011 (ht referencescout) Let us explain the concept. As one of the themes, you mentioned “the culture of making”… which immediately made us think about “the culture of unmaking”, or better said, the relationship between creation and destruction (creation as destruction,…
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The situation at U.S.C. is a small scene in a much larger drama, one concerning the place of art in the new, more corporate university order. Traditionally, art education has been a little too vocational to fit in with the rest of the humanities. But lately it seems that art education isn’t vocational enough. Or,…
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futurescope: Electroloom – First 3D Fabric Printer Interesting 3D printing use case with potential. Electroloom uses an electrospinning process to convert liquids into solid fibers which are then deposited onto a 3D mold. It’s basically a machine that shoots fibers onto a 3D shape, where they bond together. The Electroloom Developer Kit is a tool…
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vjeranski: Robert BarryOne Million Dots (detail) via
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vjeranski: Corinna Belz’s documentary depicts Gerhard Richter at work. CreditKino Lorber Films
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Ben Vautier, [via the absolute ART blog…]
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Design itself has moved on. It’s the design of the largely invisible and infinite crystalline network structures of interactions and services, or the planetary-scale manufacturing and supply chains that drive Tesla’s business, that could be seen as cathedrals, or perhaps even something closer to the mystical forces that cathedrals were built in thrall to. Essay:…
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Scientists develop a self-destruct button for DNA
Scientists develop a self-destruct button for DNA futurescope: CRISPR could protect genetic intellectual property by self-destructing synthetic sequences: “A lot of efforts have been made around creating [biological] kill switches. We’re building on that, so that [a bacterium] wouldn’t just kill itself, but delete its synthetic DNA before doing that.” It’s like the biological version…