Diomede II, 1989-90, from Projects 1981-1990
Alexander Brodsky and Ilya Utkin
Both Russian, born 1955
Etching 11 x 17
©1990 Brodsky & Utkin, courtesy of Ronald Feldman Fine Arts, New York
Friday, 10 April 2009
Alexander Brodsky and Ilya Utkin
Diomede II, 1989-90, from Projects 1981-1990
Alexander Brodsky and Ilya Utkin
Both Russian, born 1955
Etching 11 x 17
©1990 Brodsky & Utkin, courtesy of Ronald Feldman Fine Arts, New York
Smout Allen-Geofluidic Landscape
The Geofluidic Landscape
The passage of abundant water on the Oslo site provides a source of kinetic energy that invades the building. Trenches, gullies, and reservoirs are cut into the rock to channel water and counterbalances and weights shift building pieces. The floors become walls, panels move to reveal new spaces, and garden beds are raised and tilted toward the sun.
Smout Allen-Ballistic Devices
Ballistic Devices
A series of ballistic instruments are designed to momentarily occupy the space between the sky and the ground. Camouflage strategies can be designed to accentuate and reveal figure and position. The instruments use shape, shine, shadow, and silhouette to enable visual recognition of form and consequently to examine the apparent depth of the horizon.
Three ballistic devices are deployed in the deep space of the horizon.
Adaptive Waveform Control?
http://www.springerlink.com/content/ecblyg2n3nbpcwkt/
 | Adaptive Waveform Control in a Data Transceiver for Multi-speed IEEE1394 and USB Communication
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
PDF (231.3 KB)Applications
| (1) | MIRAI, Advanced Semiconductor Research Center, AIST, Tsukuba Central 2, 1-1-1 Umezono, Tsukuba 305-8568, Japan |
| (2) | Graduate School of Systems and Information Engineering, University of Tsukuba, 1-1-1 Tennoudai, Tsukuba 305-8577, Japan |
Abstract
This paper proposes an adaptive waveform control in a data transceiver and demonstrates an adaptive transceiver LSI with a waveform controller. The LSI optimizes on-site transmission performance, with adjustments based on measurements for the whole transmission system, including cable properties. Utilizing genetic algorithm (GA), our adjustment method has achieved a transmission speed that is four times faster (1.6GHz) than current standards (400MHz) for IEEE1394.
Wednesday, 8 April 2009
Thomas Ruff
Nacht 14 I
1993
C-print
Image Size: 74 3/4 x 74 3/4 inches 190 x 190 cm
Edition of 2
Nacht 10 III
1992
C-print
Image Size: 74.8 x 74.8 inches 190 x 190 cm
Edition of 2
pg 15
...Palestine emerged as a hologramatized 'hollow land' that seemed spawned of the imaginary world of seventeenth-century British astronomer Edmund Halley, or the nineteenth century novels of Edgar Allan Poe and Jules Verne, who themselves foresaw a hollow earth inhabited in layers. With it, the imaginary spaces of conflict have seemingly fully adopted the scale of a building, resembling a complex architectural constructions, perhaps and airport, with its separate inbound and outbound levels, security corridors, and many checkpoints. Cut apart and enclosed by its many barriers, gutted by underground tunnels, threaded together by overpasses and bombed from its militarized skies, the hollow land emerges as the physical embodiment of the many and varied attempts to partition it.
...Palestine emerged as a hologramatized 'hollow land' that seemed spawned of the imaginary world of seventeenth-century British astronomer Edmund Halley, or the nineteenth century novels of Edgar Allan Poe and Jules Verne, who themselves foresaw a hollow earth inhabited in layers. With it, the imaginary spaces of conflict have seemingly fully adopted the scale of a building, resembling a complex architectural constructions, perhaps and airport, with its separate inbound and outbound levels, security corridors, and many checkpoints. Cut apart and enclosed by its many barriers, gutted by underground tunnels, threaded together by overpasses and bombed from its militarized skies, the hollow land emerges as the physical embodiment of the many and varied attempts to partition it.
Constructive ambiguity
from wiki
Constructive ambiguity is a term generally credited to Henry Kissinger, said to be the foremost exponent of the negotiating tactic it designates. It refers to the deliberate use of ambiguous language on a sensitive issue in order to advance some political purpose. Constructive ambiguity is often disparaged as fudging. It might be employed in a negotiation, both to disguise an inability to resolve a contentious issue on which the parties remain far apart, and to do so in a manner that enables each to claim obtaining some concession on it. It warrants further hopes that the ensuing postponement of resolution on this particular point, in a way that causes neither side excessive discomfort, will enable them to make real progress on other matters. If this progress takes place, the unresolved question might be revisited at a later date, if not voided altogether by the passage of time. On the other hand, since ambiguity in agreements can generate subsequent controversy, the likelihood of its employment proving constructive in comparison to further attempts to negotiate the point in question in clear terms, is a question best left for historians.
A DICTIONARY OF DIPLOMACY by G. R. Berridge & Alan James 2004
constructive ambiguity. [elaborated] A term widely attributed to Henry Kissinger and also known as 'fudging', the deliberate use of ambiguous language on a sensitive issue in order to advance some political purpose. In a negotiation, for example, constructive ambiguity might be employed not only to disguise an inability to resolve a question on which the parties remain far apart but to do so in a manner that enables each to claim that some concession on it has actually been obtained. (The UN Security Council's Resolution 242 of November 1967 regarding the withdrawal of Israel from territory she had occupied in the recent *Six Day War was such a case.) It may also be hoped that, having thereby shelved this particular point in a way that causes neither side excessive discomfort, they will be able to make real progress on other matters. If this should prove to be the case, the ground might be prepared for a return to the unresolved question at a later date; time might even see it dissolve altogether. Of course, such hopes often prove ill-founded, and ambiguity in *agreements can also generate subsequent controversy. Whether on balance, therefore, its employment proves 'constructive' in relation to any further attempts to negotiate the point in question is for historians to determine. See also step-by-step diplomacy.
UN Security Council's Resolution 242
The UN Security Council agreed on the text of the Resolution 242 after the crushing defeat that Israel inflicted on joint Arab forces during the Six Day War in 1967. As a result of bargaining between the powers sitting in the Security Council, the resolution reflected the deeply polarized political opinion. The provision of the resolution which prompted different and incompatible interpretations was the one immediately following the preamble of the text, reading: “establishment of just and lasting peace in the Middle East should include the application of both the following principles:
- withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from territories occupied in recent conflict;
- termination of all claims or states of belligerency and respect for…territorial integrity…of every State in the area and their right to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries.”
The use of an unnatural English construction “territories occupied in recent conflict”, omitting the expected definite article “the”, made it possible to question whether Israel was asked to withdraw from all the territories occupied in the recent conflict, or to withdraw from some, but not all, such territories. Notably, the French translation of the document, unlike the English original, used the definite article, demanding the “retrait des forces armées israéliennes des territoires occupés lors du récent conflit”. Thus the French version, which together with the English version was an official UN version of the document, suggested that Israel must withdraw from all territories that it occupied during the Six Day War. Naturally, the French interpretation suited the interests of Arab countries, who made numerous attempts to prove its validity. By contrast, Israel opposed such an interpretation, and the sponsor of the resolution, Lord Caradon, appears to have had no intention of inserting the definite article into its text. Caradon additionally emphasized the additional and clarifying light that the second part of the first provision shed on its first part, and insisted that it must be given uppermost consideration. According to him, the boundary that existed before the Six Day War did not satisfy the right of Israel to live within secure and recognised boundaries. Consequently, under this interpretation, Israel did not have to withdraw to its pre-Six Day War borders.
Tuesday, 7 April 2009
quotes from Hollow Land, Israel's Architecture of Occupation by Eyal Weizman-3
pg 8
Chaos has its peculiar structural advantages. It supports one of Israel's foremost strategies of obfuscation: the promotion of complexity - geographical, legal or linguistic. Sometimes, following a terminology pioneered by Henry Kissinger, this strategy is openly referred to as 'constructive blurring'. This strategy seeks simultaneously to obfuscate and naturalize the facts of domination.
...many settlements were indeed constructed with the aim of creating a 'irresolvable geography'
Chaos has its peculiar structural advantages. It supports one of Israel's foremost strategies of obfuscation: the promotion of complexity - geographical, legal or linguistic. Sometimes, following a terminology pioneered by Henry Kissinger, this strategy is openly referred to as 'constructive blurring'. This strategy seeks simultaneously to obfuscate and naturalize the facts of domination.
...many settlements were indeed constructed with the aim of creating a 'irresolvable geography'
quotes from Hollow Land, Israel's Architecture of Occupation by Eyal Weizman-2
pg 6
The following chapters form an 'archival probe', investigating the history and modus operandi of the various spatial mechanisms that have sustained - and continue to sustain - the occupation's regime and practices of control.
(see footnote re: use of this term in Mutations published 2001))
pg 6-7
Elastic geography
...the frontiers of the Occupied Territories are not rigid and fixed at all; rather, they are elastic, and in constant transformation. The linear border, a cartographic imaginary inherited from the military and political spatiality oft eh nation state has splintered into a multitude of temporary, transportable, deployable and removable border-synonyms - 'separation walls', 'barriers', 'blockades', 'closures', 'road blocks', checkpoints', 'sterile areas', special security zones', 'closed military areas', and 'killing zones' - that shrink and expand the territory at will. These borders are dynamic, constantly shifting, ebbing and flowing, they creep along, stealthily surrounding Palestinian villages and roads.... The anarchic geography of the frontier is an evolving image of transformation, which is remade and rearranged with every political development or decision.
...
The Separation Wall, merely one of a multiple barriers, is constantly rerouted, its path registering like a seismograph the political and legal battles surrounding it. Where territories appear to be hermetically sealed in by Israeli walls and fences, Pal. tunnels are dug underneath them. Elastic territories could thus not e understood as benign environments: highly elastic political space is often more dangerous and deadly than a static, rigid one.
The following chapters form an 'archival probe', investigating the history and modus operandi of the various spatial mechanisms that have sustained - and continue to sustain - the occupation's regime and practices of control.
(see footnote re: use of this term in Mutations published 2001))
pg 6-7
Elastic geography
...the frontiers of the Occupied Territories are not rigid and fixed at all; rather, they are elastic, and in constant transformation. The linear border, a cartographic imaginary inherited from the military and political spatiality oft eh nation state has splintered into a multitude of temporary, transportable, deployable and removable border-synonyms - 'separation walls', 'barriers', 'blockades', 'closures', 'road blocks', checkpoints', 'sterile areas', special security zones', 'closed military areas', and 'killing zones' - that shrink and expand the territory at will. These borders are dynamic, constantly shifting, ebbing and flowing, they creep along, stealthily surrounding Palestinian villages and roads.... The anarchic geography of the frontier is an evolving image of transformation, which is remade and rearranged with every political development or decision.
...
The Separation Wall, merely one of a multiple barriers, is constantly rerouted, its path registering like a seismograph the political and legal battles surrounding it. Where territories appear to be hermetically sealed in by Israeli walls and fences, Pal. tunnels are dug underneath them. Elastic territories could thus not e understood as benign environments: highly elastic political space is often more dangerous and deadly than a static, rigid one.
quotes from Hollow Land, Israel's Architecture of Occupation by Eyal Weizman
pg 4
Against the geography of stable, static places, and the balance across linear & fixed sovereign borders, frontiers are deep, shifting, fragmented and elastic territories. Temporary lines of engagement, marked by makeshift boundaries, are not limited to the edges of political space but exist throughout its depth. distinctions between the 'inside' and 'outside' cannot be clearly marked. In fact, the straighter, more geometrical and more abstract official colonial borders across the 'New Worlds' tended to be, the more the territories of effective control were fragmented and dynamic and thus unchartable by an conventional mapping technique.
pg. 5
the spatial organization of the occupied territories is a reflection on only of an ordered process of planning and implementation, but, an increasingly so, of 'structured chaos', in which the -often deliberate- selective absence of govt intervention promotes an unregulated process of violent dispossession.
...
b/c elastic geographies respond to a multiple and diffused rater than i single source of power, their arch cannot be understood as the material embodiment of a unified political will or as the product of a single ideology. Rather the organization of the Occupied Territories should be seen as a kind of 'political plastic', or as a map of the relation between all the forces that shaped it.
Against the geography of stable, static places, and the balance across linear & fixed sovereign borders, frontiers are deep, shifting, fragmented and elastic territories. Temporary lines of engagement, marked by makeshift boundaries, are not limited to the edges of political space but exist throughout its depth. distinctions between the 'inside' and 'outside' cannot be clearly marked. In fact, the straighter, more geometrical and more abstract official colonial borders across the 'New Worlds' tended to be, the more the territories of effective control were fragmented and dynamic and thus unchartable by an conventional mapping technique.
pg. 5
the spatial organization of the occupied territories is a reflection on only of an ordered process of planning and implementation, but, an increasingly so, of 'structured chaos', in which the -often deliberate- selective absence of govt intervention promotes an unregulated process of violent dispossession.
...
b/c elastic geographies respond to a multiple and diffused rater than i single source of power, their arch cannot be understood as the material embodiment of a unified political will or as the product of a single ideology. Rather the organization of the Occupied Territories should be seen as a kind of 'political plastic', or as a map of the relation between all the forces that shaped it.
Thursday, 2 April 2009
Dawn of the cyberstudent
This week, the Open University (OU) recorded about two million downloads from its presence on iTunes U, a source of higher education podcasts and videos freely available on the web. About 87% of these downloads were from outside the UK. "I'm betting most of them have been downloaded by US students studying at American universities," says Peter Scott, director of the OU's Knowledge Media Institute. He predicts that students will soon be mixing their higher education experiences from resources all over the world, choosing to study at Harvard, say, while listening to lectures from Oxford, taking part in discussion groups at the University of Mumbai, and sitting exams somewhere entirely different.
Thanks to ever more rapid advances in technology, the university experience of undergraduates and academics in 2020 will be radically different from that of their 2008 predecessors. But it will be an experience these predecessors have helped shape, no matter what country they come from.
A recent report looking into international use of web 2.0 technologies, produced for Lifelong Learning UK chairman David Melville's committee of inquiry into the changing learner experience, found that all the countries it examined were beginning to exploit the potential in these technologies. Levels of technical infrastructure made it easier for some countries than others — for example broadband-width was comparatively limited in South Africa and Australia — but in all countries it was individual academics, administrators and students that were driving developments, rather than national or institutional policy.
The fact students often have more experience of using new technologies than many university managers — even if they need guidance in using them effectively — is one reason they are influencing the way learning is delivered. But it is also to do with the collaborative nature of web 2.0.
This is likely to be another very different feature of higher education in future.
Malcolm Read, executive secretary of the universities' Joint Information Systems Committee, says one big change is students' increased openness and willingness to share. "What students do now if faced with a problem is essentially talk to a couple of strangers on the internet saying, 'This is my problem, can you help?' And then they will talk to another couple of strangers about what they have found out and what they are doing," he says. "This is a fundamentally different approach."
It is an approach that has knock-on effects for universities' teaching, research and administrative roles.
A generation on
When today's students become tomorrow's researchers, the research process is likely to become much more open, Read predicts. Research findings will become more quickly accessible to students and other researchers across the world through websites, blogs and online discussion, while commercial exploitation of some ideas may become trickier. "It's hard to patent an idea if you have discussed it with the whole world first," says Read.
In teaching terms, calls for universities to provide open source material, such as lectures, teaching notes and even seminars will become louder. Use of wikis, peer-to-peer and collaborative learning will also become more important, predicts Judith Hardy, who has been managing the Lead project at Edinburgh University looking at learner experience across the disciplines, although she stresses that students still value face-to-face interactions. "People look for a balance that suits them, which may lead to more varying degrees of face-to-face and online contact," she says.
Gaynor Backhouse, director of TechWatch, which predicts future technological developments, says virtual worlds will have an increasing impact. Sophisticated visuals and the development of "touch technology" will make it more and more difficult to tell the difference between imaginary and real worlds, she says, raising new teaching opportunities for universities — but also new challenges. Where academics are now anxious about their students' digital literacy, in terms of their ability to judge the provenance of information on the web, future concerns may be more to do with "reality literacy". To make things more complicated, she predicts that a new generation of "smart drugs" will raise other ethical issues over what is and isn't real.
According to Scott, the success of technologies such as virtual worlds will depend not simply on translating existing models of higher education, but on developing entirely new ways of learning.
"If you are in Second Life listening to a lecture, your ability to fly through a bush isn't that relevant," says Scott. Instead, the challenge is to come up with new experiences for students that make the most of what technology now makes possible. You can still lecture online, he says, but you have to do it differently.
At the same time, he says, universities will need to develop entirely new business models, with flexibility becoming paramount. Institutions will need to disaggregate every aspect of the university experience — from the chance to mix with peer groups to attending an online lecture or taking an exam — and work out how to assemble them in different ways. This could lead to separate charges for each element. They will also need to learn to work with each other, across countries and even continents, while developing their own strong brands to maintain their position in an increasingly competitive market.
Meanwhile, he predicts an increasingly pick-and-mix approach from students, who are likely to slip between full- and part-time study, take different courses at different institutions, and learn in different ways — be it online, face-to-face or virtual world — depending on mood and preference.
All this will put added pressure on university staff, with increasing demands to respond to students 24/7. Read suggests one answer could be for universities in different parts of the world to share the load so that, as often happens already in industry "the work moves around with the sun".
He predicts huge opportunities for providers of online learning, which is relatively cheap and is likely to prove essential in meeting as-yet-untapped demands from India and China. While the more collaborative approach of web 2.0 technologies poses particular challenges for many Asian countries, which have a more top-down learning culture, it also gives institutions in these countries a chance to compete with those in wealthier parts of the world. So, for the UK, the pressure is on.
"Our HE system is unlikely to stay world class without taking advantage of current and developing technologies," says David Lammy, minister of state for higher education. "That is why, as part of a wider debate we are having on the future of higher education, we are discussing how we can become a world leader in e-learning over the next 10 to 15 years."
Open University on iTunes U: www.open.ac.uk/itunes
The Committee of Inquiry into the Changing Learner Experience: clex.org.uk
Learner Experiences across the Disciplines: www2.epcc.ed.ac.uk/~lead/
TechWatch: jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/services/techwatch.aspx
Giant squid 'attacks French boat'
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/2661691.stm
Wednesday, 15 January, 2003, 16:50 GMT 
Wednesday, 15 January, 2003, 16:50 GMT
Giant squid 'attacks French boat'
De Kersauson says his squid was three times as big
French sailors taking part in the round-the-world Jules Verne Trophy say they have come across one of the most elusive monsters of the sea: the giant squid.
Veteran yachtsman Olivier De Kersauson, who sailed from Brittany on Saturday, said that several hours into his voyage he found that a giant squid had clamped on to the hull of his boat. 
Olivier de Kersauson
The creature, scientifically known as Architeutis dux, is the largest of all invertebrates. Scientists believe it can be as long as 18 metres (60 feet).
Giant squid have been found washed ashore or caught in the nets of trawlers, but scientists have never seen one alive.
Stuff of legend
Olivier de Kersauson said the sighting occurred off the Portuguese island of Madeira.
"I saw a tentacle through a porthole," Olivier de Kersauson said from his boat. "It was thicker than my leg and it was really pulling the boat hard."
Mr de Kersauson says two of the tentacles were blocking the rudder. 
The squid has long flaps of muscle attached to each arm
Giant squid often feature in maritime legends and novels - including Jules Verne's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.
But unlike Jules Verne's fictional Captain Nemo, Mr de Kersauson did not have to fight with the monster and cut off its tentacles.
The French sailor says the squid released its grip when he stopped the boat.
"We didn't have anything to scare off this beast, so I don't know what we would have done if it hadn't let go," Mr de Kersauson said.
"We weren't going to attack it with our penknives."
Rare sighting
Mr de Kersauson says the squid must have been seven or eight metres (22 to 26 feet) long.
"I've never seen anything like it in 40 years of sailing," he says.
Giant squids are carnivorous mollusks who live deep under the sea.
Only about 250 sightings - mostly of dead animals - have ever been recorded.
A giant squid measuring about 15 metres (50 feet) was found washed up on an Australian beach in July.
A smaller one was caught by a trawler's net off the coast of Scotland a year ago.
Octopus loves Mr. Potato Head
http://www.metro.co.uk/weird/article.html?in_article_id=83550&in_page_id=2
The octopus who loves his Mr Potato Head
Louis the octopus clearly thinks two heads are better than one when it comes to toys.
The 1.8m-wide (6ft) creature is so attached to Mr Potato Head that he turns aggressive when aquarium staff try to remove it from his tank.
Louis cuddles his Mr Potato Head
The giant Pacific octopus was given the toy for Christmas and has even learned to dig out food hidden in a secret box at the back of it.
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