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Feed aggregatorFlying Robotic Swarm of Nano Quadrotors Gets Millions of Views, New Company
These acrobatic robots can launch themselves through rings, duck and weave around obstacles, and even fly through your bedroom window. Hell, they can construct your bedroom window. Flying quadrotors first developed at UPenn’s GRASP Lab by Daniel Mellinger have reached the big time. Their latest video, released last week on YouTube, has garnered nearly 3 million views! What’s the big draw? Mellinger and his colleagues Prof. Vijay Kumar and Alex Kushleyev have created a swarm of 20 “nano quadrotors” – miniature versions of the stunt bots that can fly in complex 3D formations. The coordinated acrobatics of these quadrotors is truly amazing and exciting to behold (don’t miss the video below). Not only have the quadrotor team out done themselves with this latest demonstration, they’ve apparently formed a new company, KMel Robotics around the devices. Could swarming flying bots be coming soon to a store near you? Mellinger has been developing various versions of the quadrotor system at UPenn for several years. In previous demonstrations he and Vijay Kumar have shown larger incarnations of the quadrotors buzzing around at high speeds, revving up their engines to “leap” through obstacles, and dashing about like mad hornets. The swarm showcased in the video above adds the element of coordinated movement across a large number of the robots, up to 20, and in complex three dimensional formations. While the scale of these movements is really impressive (3 million views doesn’t lie) it should be noted that the swarm relies upon external sensors for tracking position and movement. These robots aren’t quite smart or aware enough to fly so smoothly entirely on their own. Vicon cameras (the boxes seen along the walls in the video) provide a central control computer with necessary data to help the robots keep from smacking into one another. Simpler instances of coordination were seen in earlier demonstrations when quadrotors worked together to build basic structures out of prefabricated beams. In that light this nano swarm should be seen as a natural progression of the technology rather than a quantum leap. On a related note, previous demonstrations from Mellinger also revealed that the larger quadrotors were purchased form Ascending Technologies, not produced in-house at UPenn. While the latest video doesn’t address this issue, the nano quadrotors bear a remarkable resemblance to AscTec’s Hummingbird ResearchPilot drone. Undoubtedly Mellinger and his colleagues augmented the devices to work with their tracking and coordinating system, but the robots themselves may not be proprietary to the team. Which raises some interesting questions about what the new startup, KMel Robotics, will focus on. The KMel site has almost no information beyond the statement that they are preparing to tell the world more (that’s actually very understandable considering the enormous interest from the press and public the latest video has received). However, I will venture two guesses on the subject. First, while you can go to the AscTec site today and rent one of their quadrotors for aerial photography or acquire one for research, the capabilities developed by KMel are clearly above and beyond what the robot producer provides. That means KMel is likely going to focus on the networking/tracking/coordination side of swarm robotics, and that the quadrotors themselves may not be their actual product – just a test platform. Can you imagine similar feats of piloting performed with full scale military drones or surveillance UAVs? Definitely something worth forming a company around. My second guess? Daniel Mellinger’s online handle is “The Dmel”, which probably means that the ‘K’ in KMel Robotics is for Professor Vijay Kumar. Singularity Hub is glad to see that partnership continue, likewise with their impressive work on flying drones. Kudos to KMel for pushing the envelope; showing the world that modern robots have evolved beyond their awkward origins and can now move with the beauty of a perfectly synchronized ballet. [image and video credits: KMel Robotics]
Globalized cosmopolitanism versus neo-medieval dark age“…surely the number of individuals with organs from individuals of other nationalities is too insignificant to serve as a basis for a grand theory of transformation of the world order.” *I’m enjoying this debate. It has a good solid topic. http://breakthroughjournal.org/content/debates/against-cosmopolitanism-michae.shtml Design Fiction: Noah Raford, “Three Examples of Good Design Fiction”http://news.noahraford.com/?p=1349 *Noah Raford: “Three Examples of Good Design Fiction “My last post, “On Glass & Mud: A Critique of (Bad) Corporate Design Fiction“, generated a lot of discussion about commercial design futures. “Mick Costigan suggested I was being too “high-horse” in my criticism. He (and several others) suggested that we should focus on the positive aspects of doing futures work in a constrained organizational setting. “Several people also asked me for good examples of futures videos done right (that aren’t about mud). You should check out the comments in “On Glass & Mud” for a deeper discussion of ethics and responsibility in design futures. “In the mean time, here are three examples of what I think are excellent examples of design futures.” (((Those are indeed pretty good design fiction videos, as you will see if you venture over there and look. The number of design fictions around on the net now are frankly embarrassing. They’ve overwhelmed my ability to curate them. Something constructive should be done. That’ll be a good topic for discussion at this forthcoming EMERGE event in Phoenix.))) The Web is Dead — find out for yourself.*Huh. Well, it’s good to see SOMEBODY’S happy about that.
http://battellemedia.com/archives/2011/12/on-this-whole-web-is-dead-meme.php Design Fiction: Corning, “A Day Made of Glass 2″*Sequel to the biggest corporate design-fiction hit to date. Computer Algorithm Used To Make Movie For Sundance Film Festival The Pandora of movies. Films by Eve Sussman and Rufus Corporation are clips pieced together by a computer algorithm. Indie movie makers can be a strange bunch, pushing the envelope of their craft and often losing us along the way. In any case, if you’re going to produce something unintelligible anyway, why not let a computer do it? Eve Sussmam and the Rufus Corporation did just that. She and lead actor Jeff Wood traveled to the Kazakhstan border of the Caspian Sea for two years of filming. But instead of a movie with a beginning, middle and end, they shot 3,000 individual and unrelated clips. To the clips they added 80 voice-overs and 150 pieces of music, mixed it all together and put it in a computer. A program on her Mac G5 tower, known at Rufus as the “serendipity machine,” then splices the bits together to create a final product. As you might imagine, the resultant film doesn’t always make sense. But that’s part of the fun! As the Rufus Corporation writes on their website, “The unexpected juxtapositions create a sense of suspense alluding to a story that the viewer composes.” It’s a clever experiment even if some viewers end up wanting to gouge their eyes out after a sitting. And there is some method to their madness. The film, titled “whiteonwhite:algorithnoir,” is centered on a geophysicist named Holz (played by Wood) who’s stuck in a gloomy, 1970’s-looking city operated by the New Method Oil Well Cementing Company. Distinct scenes such as wire tapped conversations or a job interview for Mr. Holz are (hopefully) woven together by distinct voiceovers and dialogues. When the scenes and audio are entered into the computer they’re tagged with keywords. The program then pieces them together in a way similar to Pandora’s stringing together of like music. If a clip is tagged “white,” the computer will randomly select from tens of other clips also having the “white” tag. The final product is intended to be a kind of “dystopian futuropolis.” What that means, however, changes with each viewing as no two runs are the same. Watching the following trailer, I actually got a sense…um, I think…of a story. Rufus Corporation says the movie was “inspired by Suprematist quests for transcendence, pure space and artistic higher ground.” I have no idea what that means but I hope they’ve achieved it. Beautiful things can happen when computers create art. And it’s only a matter of time before people attempt the same sort of thing with novel writing. Just watching the trailer, it’s hard to tell if the movie’s any good or not. I missed the showings at the Sundance Film Festival, but even so, they probably didn’t resemble the trailer anyway. And that’s okay, because that’s the whole point. [image credits: Rufus Corporation and PRI via YouTube]
Weekly LW Meetups: Salt Lake City, Melbourne, Atlanta, NYC, Cambridge
Submitted by FrankAdamek 0 comments
There are upcoming irregularly scheduled Less Wrong meetups in:
The following meetups take place in cities with regularly scheduled meetups, but involve a change in time or location, special meeting content, or simply a helpful reminder about the meetup:
Cities with regularly scheduled meetups: Austin, Berkeley, Cambridge, MA, London, Madison WI, Melbourne, Mountain View, New York, Ohio, Ottawa, Oxford, Portland, San Francisco, Seattle, Toronto, Washington, DC, and West Los Angeles. If you'd like to talk with other LW-ers face to face, and there is no meetup in your area, consider starting your own meetup; it's easy (more resources here). Check one out, stretch your rationality skills, and have fun! If you missed the deadline and wish to have your meetup featured, you can reach me on gmail at frank dot c dot adamek. In addition to the handy sidebar of upcoming meetups, a meetup overview will continue to be posted on the front page every Friday. These will be an attempt to collect information on all the meetups happening in the next weeks. The best way to get your meetup featured is still to use the Add New Meetup feature, but you'll now also have the benefit of having your meetup mentioned in a weekly overview. These overview posts will be moved to the discussion section when the new post goes up. Please note that for your meetup to appear in the weekly meetups feature, you need to post your meetup before the Friday before your meetup! If you check Less Wrong irregularly, consider subscribing to one or more city-specific mailing list in order to be notified when an irregular meetup is happening: Atlanta, Chicago, Helsinki, London, Marin CA, Pittsburgh, Southern California (Los Angeles/Orange County area), St. Louis, Vancouver, Waterloo. If your meetup has a mailing list that you'd like mentioned here or has become regular and isn't listed as such, let me know! A Few More by Bowler
The announcement of Brian Neher's free online art contest, which is beginning next week, and Joe Bowler's donation toward the grand prize, got me digging through my old magazine collection once again for more examples of Bowler's fantastic artwork.
I haven't had much time this week to post, but I hate to leave you to get through the weekend with no new mid-century artwork to inspire you. So here are a few more pieces by Bowler. I find it fascinating to see the artist's stylistic development in a compressed format like this. Below, Joe Bowler from Cosmopolitan magazine, 1951...  ... from the Saturday Evening Post, 1959...  ... and from Woman's Day, 1962. In each piece you can see Bowler getting looser, rougher, and more energetic with his technique...  ... until one could almost imagine that Bowler's rough sketch from the early '50s might have looked like the finished art from the early sixties! Finally, below, an actual Joe Bowler "sketch/study" for an illustration, found at the Heritage Auctions website. (This last, incidentally, is currently open for bidding)  Have a great weekend - and don't forget, I'll be at The Nook next Wednesday evening talking about Female Illustrators of the Mid-20th Century 
Dropping the F-BOMB, A Disposable Spy Computer Funded by DARPA Witha PogoPlug NAS box, a few antennae, flash memory and some batteries, and you've got a cheap, disposable F-BOMB with which to collect data on adversaries. Attach a camera to a drone, fly the drone around the back of the house, locate the bad guys. Robotic UAVs are being used for surveillance by everyone from the military to local law enforcement to emergency personnel. But if you think about it, drones are kind of big and really noisy, not the ideal tool for spying on someone. Their data gathering capabilities are limited too and they’re really expensive. What about a computer, small and durable enough for you to toss over a fence or inconspicuously attach to a car? Equipped with Wi-Fi cracking software or GPS, it could infiltrate someone’s computer or track someone’s location without them knowing. Allow me to drop the F-BOMB. The Falling or Ballistically-launched Object that Makes Backdoors, that is. Invented by Brandon O’Connor as an alternative to high-tech and costly spy devices, the F-BOMB is made so cheaply with off-the-shelf parts that you’ll feel perfectly okay with losing one or two. Very convenient when it’s sitting in the backyard of a drug lord hideout. Before building the F-BOMB, O’Connor challenged himself with several constraints. He wanted multiple wireless radios, USB capability for expansion (add GPS for example), battery life that lasted hours to days, a size small enough that it won’t be found by the “bad guys with guns,” as he calls them, and do all this without spending thousands or even hundreds of dollars. The key addition was the PogoPlug. The PogoPlug is a NAS (Network Attached Storage) box, a data storage device through which people can share information over the Internet. It runs on Linux which makes it pretty user-friendly, according to O’Connor. Normally the boxes cost about $150, which would have made the F-BOMB too expensive for O’Connor’s purposes, but the company is having a hard time selling the devices. PogoPlug’s misfortune becomes O’Connor’s advantage as he can now purchase them for just $25 on Amazon.com. And that’s the most expensive bit of hardware. Add the antennae, eight gigabytes worth of flash memory and a plastic casting that’s 3D-printed and you’ve got a little spying computer you can build for under $49. Four D batteries will provide power for 30-plus hours. Aside from being cheap and reproducible, building a monitoring device with commercial off-the-shelf, or COTS, components from Amazon or craigslist means when the bad guys find it in their backyard they won’t be able to trace it to you. Were the F-BOMB to require any kind of made-to-order, a determined person could find the manufacture, start asking questions. O’Connor talked about the F-BOMB (“because one time I worked for DARPA and they love terrible acronyms”) at ShmooCon 2012. As you’ll see in the video, he’s nothing if not enthusiastic. The F-BOMB won an award from DARPA’s Cyber Fast Track program. The title of the project is “Reticle: Leaderless Command and Control,” which kind of makes me wonder what else he’s developing. As Forbes reports, O’Connor was tight-lipped about what DARPA might do with the technology. But we can venture a few guesses. The platform can be attached to a quadcopter and dropped onto a roof. It can be hidden inside a carbon monoxide casing, or any other imaginative cover container such as a box of stale Triscuits that you’re pretty sure no one’s going to touch. As I mentioned before, Wifi-cracking software will allow you to eavesdrop on a person’s computer, and you can track someone with a GPS module. And if you’re more in the business of science than spying, you can add temperature or humidity sensors to collect data for meteorological research. O’Connor has a security and software consultancy called Malice Afterthought. He learned about such things teaching at cybersecurity schools for the military as well as working in the security devisions of VeriSign and Sun Microsystems. The website describes him as “dreamer and mad scientist capable of making even the most challenging tasks into reality.” Being that he kind of runs the consultancy himself, he probably wrote the description himself, which is kind of weird. Anyway, he certainly has created a little security monster in the F-BOMB. Effin’ cool. [image credits: Forbes and Wired]
Web Semantics: How To Name Things, by Ribbonfarm*I don’t wanna get all mystical-neologistic here, but this weblog post has a very “dark euphoria” feeling. http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2012/02/02/how-to-name-things/ (…) “1.0, 2.0, 3.0, NT, 3.1, 95, 98, ME, 2000, XP, Vista, 7, 8. “This is no accident. Microsoft, has always been a company that has sought its way in the existing world, rather than inviting the world into a fabricated universe of non sequiturs like Apple, Macintosh and Lisa. “The original portmanteau, MICRO-computer SOFT-ware, was a seeking of a place in a world defined by others. The micro-computer was ordinally a lesser thing than the mini-computer. Soft-ware was one of three wares: hard, soft and firm. An element in a set of cardinality three. It was a shy, retiring and polite name, that knew its place in the scheme of things. “But the personality worked, and Microsoft quietly took over the universe it entered so politely. Windows was a literal-minded appropriation of the name of a key element of the desktop metaphor. Office seeks to belong in the workplace rather than redefine it. Internet Explorer remains the only browser that presumes to name itself after the thing it explores. “How a company names itself, its products and services, and its organizational parts, tells you a great deal about it. “To number something — implicitly or explicitly, cardinally or ordinally — is the first step in a grander project to order, tag and classify a part of reality; to prepare it for timeless forms of manipulation: replacement and interchange. To number is to subsume the particular within the general. “But to really name something in the sense of Le Guin, is to disrupt that project at every turn by discovering new magic that confounds the creeping logic of a rigidly ontological enterprise….” Design Fiction: Changeist, “Political Fiction”*I told you things were hopping today. http://www.changeist.com/changeism/2012/2/1/political-fiction.html “It hasn’t escaped my notice that, in the current US presidential election race, two of the most prominent super PACs, or nominally independent political action committees that support a presidential candidate, use the word “future” in their names: the Mitt Romney-supporting Restore Our Future and Newt Gingrich-supporting Winning Our Future. One could also count Steven Colbert’s Making a Better Tomorrow, Tomorrow super PAC, but will put that on the side for the moment. “Use of time, invocation of eras and projection of visions come and go in political messaging. As this handy list shows, for US presidential campaigns, when they do invoke time, slogans tend to talk about the short-term—often in one-term increments. McKinley’s “Four More Years of a Full Dinner Pail,” or Reagan’s “Are You Better Off Now Than Four Years Ago” use this yardstick, for example, in either direction. It probably wasn’t until Reagan ushered in the era of slick political communication on a grand scale that we started getting competing visions about epic futures, but even then, they sought a future that would be a return to a fictional past—what I’ve called imagined authenticity. The Tea Party has built almost its entire “brand” on this, right down to the costumed characters at rallies recalling an 18th century idea of America. “Campaigning as he was in the late 1990s, Bill Clinton took a stab a roadmapping the future rhetorically, with his “Building a Bridge to the 21st Century” call to action, urging the country to embrace the investments that he and others thought would help us make this transition to a new century—an idea that evokes a leap to the “other side” of this century divide, like jumping through a time portal. Plenty has been written about fin de siècle psychology, but it was an interesting attempt to appeal not just to progress, but to an active embrace of the future. Contrasted with a WWII hero in Bob Dole, it was a very stark rhetorical choice. “Now, with the Republican race at full tilt, we are seeing two different uses of the future emerge. The “going back to go forward” idea is what Romney has put forth, for example, rhetorically calling for the US to return to some lost path as the way to the future—inherently conservative, from the historically moderate candidate. Gingrich, on the other hand, is painting an increasingly detailed image of a future as he sees it—an odd mix of restored historical “norms” (as he sees it) and very modern, almost aggressively futuristic ambitions, like his moonbase concept. Gingrich’s fondness for grand future visions is well documented, and has even become a campaign issue in debates….” Design Fiction: Superflux explains “Design Futurescaping”*I was hoping they would explain how much it cost to buy a kilo of “design futurescaping,” but unfortunately the value proposition there isn’t quite so specific. *It’s a central issue in “design fiction” that hasn’t yet been properly addressed: who’s supposed to do it? “Who’s supposed to get paid for doing design fiction” is not the same question at all, because (a) the barriers to entry are so low you don’t need much capital and (b) “design fiction” may be an epiphenomenon of other efforts, like governance, academia, the military, social activism or even just visionary daydreaming. *I agree with Noah Raford that Corning’s advertising company has a big budget and got a lot of viewer viral eyeballs, but so does Shakira. Compare Shakira — who’s a pretty good global popstar, really, cute, well-groomed, multicultural and can really dance — with the stellar planetary impact of Lady Gaga, who actually gets it about design and hangs out with industrial design firms like “Ammunition.” I’d say that’s what’s at stake here — it’s not that Lady Gaga is gonna start wearing pants in public, it’s that she’s got a shiny new arrow in the quiver and is clearly wondering what she can shoot, bag and skin now that the analog music biz is a shabby-genteel ghost of its past self. http://www.superflux.in/blog/design-futurescaping-value (((Again I’m omitting all the best stuff — if you’re into design fiction, you really need to go have a contemplative look at this Superflux pontification, and, more specifically, try to figure out which part of “design futurescaping” is billable.))) “Enter design futurescaping – the short tail of long term thinking. Embracing risk and volatility, we lever our existing expertise in foresight, design, and technology, to help prototype new ideas. Working with clients to produce a shared inventory of possibilities, we filter the relevant variables into a set of scenarios, prototypes, and experiences; allowing stakeholders to appreciate the full impact and workings of their proposals. “DESIGN FUTURESCAPING WORKSHOPS “We prefer to get involved early in the project cycle, working with the client to draft an initial brief. Previously, we’ve worked in areas as diverse as neural retinal prostheses (scenarios, invention and design), platforms for informal services in ‘smart cities’ within India, strategic scenarios for the future of Emirati families, and the invention of domestic product systems for the internet-of-things. “Within the frameworks of design futurescaping, we focus in on: “1. The uncertainties within the field “Identifying key uncertainties and drivers of change, we work with workshop participants to unpick interconnections and map the systemic properties of the field. “2. Existing business models and alternative opportunities “Without understanding the client’s existing activities, it can be difficult to instigate a sense of ‘risk-openness’. Behavioural change needs to be cultivated, with support from the upper echelons of the organisation. By comparing our map of key uncertainties and weak signals with current business models, we can start to plot a way forward – building a strategy that works with the client’s existing structures, culture and values, focusing on manageable change in the service of long-term goals. “3. The range of stakeholders (broadly defined) “Who are the people who will be on the front-line of these new business models and strategies? Ideally, we like early involvement from ‘end-users’, and aim to include insights from a range of stakeholders: business leads, technologists, product/service managers, researchers, and even manufacturers. “Design Futurescaping Workshop, New Music Experiences Project, Brigade Group, Bangalore “STRUCTURE, TOOLS, PARTICIPANTS “Usually, we kick off with a two-day intensive workshop, lead by two members of the Superflux team; one of the co-founders (Jon or Anab), and an associate with domain-specific expertise (designer, technologist, futurist). From the client’s side, we try to involve the key stakeholders and decision-makers, alongside anyone with relevant interests, or prior experience in the area under consideration. “We work closely with the client to prepare initial materials for the workshop – including maps, quotes, pictures, videos, case studies of existing projects, lego, and physical artifacts. These items provide an anchor for participation, allowing all the participants to get involved, regardless of their level of pre-existing knowledge. Though the precise combination of tools and initial materials depends on the nature of the client and project, we find this default structure works well….”
Design Fiction: Noah Raford, “On Glass and Mud”*Super day for design-fiction blogging. Even my design-fiction class here in Mexico City is going pretty good. http://news.noahraford.com/?p=1313 (…) (((I’m omitting all the fun stuff that should be causing Corning to blush, but if you have a serious interest in the topic. you need to go read this Raford post right away. In the meantime, back to principles suitable for writing on whiteboard in front of design-fiction class.))) ” … We still need more video in futures work and more futures work in product design. So instead of discouraging the use of video to engage and communicate, designers and futurists working on these projects should consider the follow criteria for making high-quality futures videos that are also profound and thoughtfully reflective of future change. “Don’t stare at your navel: Yes, you may be a glass company (or soda company or whatever), but that doesn’t mean the world revolves around glass. Futures and scenario planning is about exploring how larger, external factors will impact your market segment over time. Many changes internal to your market are likely to influence the future (technology, etc.), but the more important ones will likely have to do with forces outside of your control (the economy, attitudes towards consumption, political disposition, etc.). “Consider how a broader array of forces will impact who your customers are, what they care about and how this might affect your product. “Don’t extrapolate to infinity: It is a natural human tendency to look at today’s trends and extrapolate them into the future forever. Don’t. Instead, look at the system of forces which drive or hinder change in your industry, then play those out in a systematic way. “Don’t fetishize technology: In short, social change matters more than technological change. See Andrew Curry’s excellent “The 1910 Time Traveller” for more detail. “Don’t ignore what people care about: What is really important to the segment you are trying to reach? Often, it is themselves and the people around them. If you sell a product targeted at young, technology savvy people, consider what makes them tick. Do they care about IP? Do they like to share or horde? Are they private or public? Consider how (and why) people will interact differently relative to these issues in the future. Who will be in charge? Where will they work? How will they feel about each other? “The emotional, social aspects of the future are far more important to most people than the technological and material ones. The more you connect with issues that people care about, but in a new or surprising way, the more people will care about your production and the more effective your videos will be. “Don’t dumb it down: You don’t have to write a thesis on identity politics in the 21st century in order to do a good futures video. (((Well, maybe you do, actually.))) But don’t ignore the things that are likely to effect your subject in the future, either. Most people, especially those viewing your work on the web, will be relatively savvy and sophisticated viewers; doubly so if they actually care about the subject at hand. The more layers and sophistication you can add, the more they’ll appreciate and enjoy the money you spent thinking about it. “In the end, it is all about layers and depth. If you are going to spend a fortune on a design fiction video, at least listen to your futures consultants. It is their job to consider these elements in the same way it is your job to consider the camera, lighting and pacing of a video. “The take-away message is not, “Don’t take a risk on design fiction”. Quite the opposite. The message is, “Take a risk on design fiction, but be sure to do it right so that you get the maximum impact and reward for your time.” Hire (and listen to) what your futures consultants have to say. Working together, you will be able to make just as slick and high-gloss a production as before, except this time it will actually be rich and meaningful, as well….” Drone Culture-War Arrives*Lethal Big Brother eyes-in-the-sky, or the colorful googlebot butterflies of civil society? via @justinpickard http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/feb/02/surveillance-drone-industy-pr-effort (…) “A talk three months ago at the Royal Aeronautical Society by Colin Burbidge, UAVSA’s head of information services, cited the website Drone Wars UK as an example of the negative publicity the industry must overcome. Drone Wars documents the use of drones in conflict zones and features a database of over 80 UAV crashes around the world dating back four years. “Chris Cole, the Drone Wars founder, accused the industry of trying to undermine “genuine public debate” about the use of UAVs in Britain. “They know the public don’t like it,” Cole told the Guardian. “John Moreland, the general secretary of UAVSA, said the industry is uncomfortable with the word “drones” and wants to find new terminology. “If they’re brightly coloured, and people know why they’re there, it makes them a lot more comfortable,” he said. “We want to be associated with safe, civil applications [of UAVs] that have a humanitarian, ecological and environmental benefit.” “Another UAV consortium, including arms manufacturer BAE Systems, has been advised by airspace regulator the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) to “paint a more positive picture” of drones to combat fears about “big brother” and “spy in the sky”. “The consortium, named Astraea, has received over £30m in public funding as part of an eight-year programme aiming to enable the deployment of drones in all classes of UK airspace, unhindered by restrictive conditions of operation. “Since July 2010, the Ministry of Defence has tested Watchkeeper drones at two restricted “danger zones” in Aberporth, West Wales, at a dedicated UAV centre, and at Salisbury Plain, Wiltshire, a military zone. “UAVs for commercial use have also been tested by private firms in Aberporth, the Guardian has learned, with plans afoot to create corridors of segregated airspace between the Wales drone site and others, including Salisbury, though the CAA says a formal proposal has not yet been made. “Industry sources see the move as part of a progression towards larger sections of UK airspace becoming segregated in the near future, leading to an area of the sky sanctioned explicitly for the use of drones for a range of purposes, including law enforcement, border patrol, firefighting and road traffic monitoring. “The full integration of UAVs across all levels of UK airspace, however, is still considered a long way off…. (((Although it isn’t. Not at all.))) (((Boing-Boing: PASSIVE TOOL OF DARPA GENOCIDE COVER-UP?!))) http://demilit.tumblr.com/post/16586056738/waiting-for-doctorow (((Being a drone fan, and imagining this emergent struggle has nothing to do with you… it’s like being a fan of atom science and thinking Nagasaki was some kind of accident. You just gotta be aware of the ambiguities while also knowing that there will be tremendous efforts to freeze, personalize and polarize the issues. If you don’t believe me, try writing the words ISRAELI DRONE on a t-shirt and walk around outside. You don’t even have to say you like ‘em or don’t like ‘em; the mere fact that you acknowledge them is enough for some piping geopolitical hot water.)))
http://dronewarsuk.wordpress.com/
A Look At BMW’s Semi-Autonomous Driving Car The upright, folded hands is a sign of confidence. So is driving a BMW. With ConnectedDrive Connect, BMW owners can do both! While robotic cars have a ways to go yet before rolling (themselves) out onto showroom floors, BMW is incorporating driver assistance features into its cars that drivers can use – and they can sell – sooner rather than later. Their semi-autonomous driving system, ConnectedDrive Connect, was announced last year. The car maker has finished its closed track test runs and has released a video of the car out on the Autobahn for some good old fashioned hands off driving fun. ConnectedDrive Connect includes four types of sensors – radar, camera, laser scanners and ultrasound distance sensors – that allow it to track cars in front of it up to a distance of 50 meters. It also detects cars in adjacent lanes. A driving simulator produces driving strategies on the go. For example, the car slows if it’s moving to fast into a turn, and it taps the brakes to maintain control going downhill. Like any cruise control the driver sets the speed and the maintains a safe distance behind a car in front of it. The system can be enabled between speeds of 30 and 180 km/h (81 mph). I’d be a little worried if that truck in the next lane splashes some mud on the car that it doesn’t go pell mell into the car in front of me. The sensors are “largely resistant to dirt build-up” according to BMW, but I’d wipe down regularly just to be safe. BMW owners probably don’t need to be reminded of that anyway. But it’s really no fun to just simply maintain a safe distance, not with a Beamer. If the car in front of you is going too slow, ConnectedDrive Connect senses your impatience, changes lanes, and leaves the slowpoke in the dust. To date the BMW 5 Series has logged 5,000 kilometers in “highly-automated” mode on freeways. When can we expect to see BMW drivers begin using both hands to apply their makeup? The company says it’s a few years yet before CDC goes into production. One of the things they’ll have to improve is the GPS tracking. Right now they only take the car out on roads that they’ve mapped to within centimeter accuracy. It is becoming increasingly likely that your next car will have some kind of driver assistance. Last year carmakers spent over $10 billion in advanced driver assistance systems. By 2016 that number could increase to $130 billion, according to an ABI Research projection. The rapid spread will be due largely to their incorporation into more mainstream cars rather than being an option for luxury cars. As the technology is improved production costs are decreasing, making it increasingly feasible to add driver assistance to less expensive cars. Volkswagon’s Temporary Auto Pilot (TAP) is similar to ConnectDrive Connect in that it maintains a safe distance behind cars and keeps the car from veering out of the lane. And both Volkswagon and BMW get the job done without the ungainly periscope-looking sensor on Google’s Prius. [image credits: World Car Fans]
Showtime: Adrien M / Claire B, “XYZT présentation”Présentation de l’exposition XYZT, Les paysages abstraits. am-cb.net/projets/xyzt-les-paysages-abstraits à la casemate du CCSTI de Grenoble, 2 place Saint Laurent jusqu’au 28 décembre. Musique : Madrid – Dooh making of : flickr.com/photos/martingautron/sets/72157625445247119/ Rationality Quotes February 2012
Submitted by GabrielDuquette 195 comments
Here's the new thread for posting quotes, with the usual rules:
Science Writing in the Age of Denial*Let’s hope this is more like a “fit of denial” than an entire “age.” http://sciencedenial.wisc.edu/ APRIL 23-24, 2012 “Irrationally held truths may be more harmful than reasoned errors.” INTRODUCTION “Science writers now work in an age where uncomfortable ideas and truths meet organized resistance. Opposing scientific consensus on such things as anthropogenic climate change, the theory of evolution, and even the astonishingly obvious benefits of vaccination has become politically de rigueur, a litmus test and a genuine threat to science. How does denial affect the craft of the science writer? How can science writers effectively explain disputed science? What’s the big picture? Are denialists ever right? “To find out, join us in Madison, Wis. on April 23-24, 2012, for Science Writing in the Age of Denial, a conference and workshop for science writers to explore the phenomenon of denial and how to address issues of science in question. The daylong conference April 23 will examine the history of organized doubt, denial and political persuasion, journalistic insight into the phenomenon, and an exploration of denialist themes that transcend political and topical boundaries. The conference will be followed by a half-day workshop on the morning of April 24. The workshop is intended to help science writers explore practical strategies and tactics for reporting and writing about science in the crosshairs of denial.” Drone Diplomacy: Comply or Die*Makes sense to me. *Given that this is “Global Guerrillas,” I’m a little surprised to see no speculation about drone attacks by non-state actors. If you want to force victims to go “into deep hiding and disconnect from the global system,” why not target physical groups of legitimately elected nation-state officials? They’re forced by law and custom to meet in famous statehouses that would be much easier to drone-strafe than guerrilla deep-hideouts. http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2012/01/drone-diplomacy-comply-or-die.html “Monday, 30 January 2012 “Drone Diplomacy: Comply or Die “Gunboat diplomacy was the essence of military power projection for centuries. Want to coerce a country? Sail a aircraft carrier battle group into their national waters. “However, carrier battlegroups are hideously expensive, increasingly vulnerable to low cost attack, and less lethal than they appear (most of the weapons systems are used for self-defense). “What are nation-states replacing them with? Drones. You can already see it in action across the world as drone staging areas are replacing traditional military bases/entanglements. Further, drones already account for the vast majority of people killed by US forces. “Of course, the reason for this is clear. Drones are relatively cheap, don’t require many people to deploy/operate, don’t put personnel directly at risk, can be easily outsourced, can be micromanaged from Washington, and are very effective at blowing things up. “The final benefit of Drone Diplomacy: drones make it possible to apply coercion at the individual or small group level in a way that a blunt instrument like a carrier battle group can’t. “What does this mean? “It allows truly scalable global coercion: the automation of comply or die. “Call up the target on his/her personal cell (it could even be automated as a robo-call to get real scalability — wouldn’t that suck, to get killed completely through bot based automation). (((That would be a super-interesting development — a criminal botnet that assembles and deploys drones. Any state can say “you can run but you can’t hide,” but what if there’s no “you” there to intimidate? Fabricated crowdsourced drones are in reach already. The swarm of drones from “AnonymousDrones.”))) “Ask the person on the other end to do something or to stop doing something. “If they don’t do what you ask, they die soon therafter due to drone strike (unless they go into deep hiding and disconnect from the global system). “With drone costs plummeting, we could see this drop to something less than <$1000 a strike in the next half dozen years (particularly if kamikazee drones, like Switchblade, are used to reduce explosive payload requirements). "What can we look forward to?..." “Death from above,” morally A-OK: http://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/death-from-above “Hence we come to the basic reason why the drone is so loathed: it represents the latest evolution of a near continuous move away from direct tactical confrontation, strongly linked in the popular mind with basic norms of reciprocity. The emphasis on the moral force of the offensive, in some ways, was a philosophical response to the collision of a given ideal of soldiering with new technologies that made it impossible. Every new disruptive weapon is threatening to intellectuals because it upsets a given system of values, beliefs, and aesthetics they build around the use of force in their era.” (((Okay, I guess I’m an “intellectual” rather than a military theorist (if there’s somehow a difference) but I wonder how this guy would react if he found out that some airy Wikileaks-style group of hacker intellectuals had crowdsourced cheap drones and sent ‘em out stealthily to specifically target guys who write for “Small Wars Journal.” I mean, how fair would that be? I’m guessing we’d suddenly be hearing a lot about the moral loathsomeness of “terror” and how a struggle of that kind isn’t “war” etc etc. Nobody’s much in favor of THEIR OWN “death from above.” They’re just keen to justify it when they’ve got it and the victim doesn’t.))) *George Monbiot waving the bloody drone shirt. We’re gonna see a lot more of this as drones get less and less “covert.” Pretending people aren’t dying from drones is like pretending people aren’t dying from AIDS — the unspeakable is unspeakable, when the unspeakable is falling over covered with sores in the public arena, it gets speakable pretty fast. Anybody who walks past a demo and sees police drones knows that there’s something up. *Maybe you could get “drone denial” worked up to the ironclad, iron-headed ideological stage of “climate-change denial,” but Exxon-Mobil would have to pay for it. If Exxon buys a drone company, watch out. http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jan/30/deadly-drones-us-cowards-war *Drone design-fiction (well, semiliterate sarcasm anyway), via @johnrobb :
A Free Art Contest with a Joe Bowler Prize!
Brian Neher got in touch with me this morning to let me know about a free online art contest that he’ll be having beginning next week.
Some great artists (including Joe Bowler, below, an illustrator that has been featured on "Today's Inspiration" several times in the past) as well as several art supply manufacturers and companies have helped sponsor the contest by donating one or more of their products to be included in the Grand Prize.  Brian asked for my help in reaching as many artists as possible so that they too could have the opportunity to showcase their work and enter for a chance to win the incredible Grand Prize that would help them in their studies. Anything that involves a Joe Bowler prize sounds like a worthy thing to promote -- so here it is. Here’s a list of each participating sponsor and their donation: • Richard Schmid (www.richardschmid.com) Donated a signed copy of his book Alla Prima and also a copy of his book The Landscapes. • Dan Gerhartz (www.danielgerhartz.com) Donated a signed copy of his book Not far From Home. • Joe Bowler (www.joebowler.com) Donated a set of his instructional art DVDs. • Brian Neher (www.brianneher.com) Donated a complete set of 5 instructional art DVDs. • Yale University Press (www.yalepress.yale.edu) Donated a copy of their book John Singer Sargent, Figures and Landscapes Vol. 5. • Jack Richeson Co. Inc. (www.richesonart.com) Donated a $200 gift certificate towards the purchase of artist’s paint. • Blick Art Materials (www.dickblick.com) Donated a $50 gift card. • ASW Express (www.aswexpress.com) Donated $100 in Lukas 1862 paint. • Silver Brush Limited (www.silverbrush.com) Donated a “Bart Lindstrom Adagio Portrait Set” of professional artist brushes. • Jerry’s Artarama (www.jerrysartarama.com) Donated a $100 gift card. • American Artist Magazine (www.artistdaily.com) Donated a one year digital subscription to their magazine. Here's a little video Brian put on youtube for anyone interested in joining the contest: 
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