It seems to me that MFA programs have become a tool of indoctrination that has had an unprecedented homogenizing effect on artistic practices worldwide, an effect that is now being replicated with curatorial and critical writing programs. […]

The market of art is not merely a bunch of dealers and cigar-smoking connoisseurs trading exquisite objects for money behind closed doors. Rather, it is a vast and complex international industry of overlapping institutions which jointly produce artworks’ economic value and support a wide range of activities and occupations including training, research, development, production, display, documentation, criticism, marketing, promotion, financing, historicizing, publishing, and so forth. The standardization of art greatly simplifies all of these transactions. For a few years now I have experienced a certain sense of déjà vu while walking through art fairs or biennials, a feeling that many other people have also commented on: that we have already seen all these works that are supposedly brand new. We are experiencing the impact of contemporary art as a globally traded commodity that is produced, displayed, and circulated by an industry of specially trained professionals. […] This is not a new observation: I think Marcel Duchamp already fully understood this danger a hundred year ago. […]

Today it would be rather futile to try to reconstitute bohemia—the free-flowing, organic creative space—because it never really existed within the constellation of institutions of art, the art market, and the art academy. If Warhol’s Factory was an entry into art that enabled a group of people of very different backgrounds to enter a certain kind of productive modality (both within and in spite of the surrounding economy), it was a space of free play that no longer exists. Instead, what we have now are MFA programs: a standardization not even of bohemia, but only its promise. […]

As artists, curators, and writers, we are increasingly forced to market ourselves by developing a consistent product, a concise presentation, a statement that can be communicated in thirty seconds or less—and oftentimes this alone passes for professionalism.

{ Anton Vidokle/e-flux | Continue reading }

photo { Adam Broomberg & Oliver Chanarin }

What constitutes a dangerous equation? […] Few would disagree that the obvious winner in this contest would be Einstein’s iconic equation

E=MC²

for it provides a measure of the enormous energy hidden within ordi- nary matter. Its destructive capability was recognized by Leo Szilard, who then instigated the sequence of events that culminated in the construction of atomic bombs.

This is not, however, the direction I wish to pursue. Instead, I am interested in equations that unleash their danger, not when we know about them, but rather when we do not; equations that allow us to understand things clearly, but whose absence leaves us dangerously ignorant.* There are many plausible candidates that seem to fill the bill. But I feel that there is one that surpasses all others in the havoc wrought by ignorance of it over many centuries. It is the equation that provides us with the standard deviation of the sampling distribution of the mean; what might be called De Moivre’s equation:

For those unfamiliar with De Moivre’s equation let me offer a brief aside to explain it.

Why have I decided to choose this simple equation as the most dangerous? There are three reasons, related to

(1) the extreme length of time during which ignorance of it has caused confusion,
(2) the wide breadth of areas that have been misled, and
(3) the seriousness of the consequences that such ignorance has
caused.

{ Howard Wainer | PDF }

photo { Adam Broomberg & Oliver Chanarin }

Paula Broadwell,who had an affair with CIA director David Petraeus, similarly took extensive precautions to hide her identity. She never logged in to her anonymous e-mail service from her home network. Instead, she used hotel and other public networks when she e-mailed him. The FBI correlated hotel registration data from several different hotels — and hers was the common name. […]

The Internet is a surveillance state. Whether we admit it to ourselves or not, and whether we like it or not, we’re being tracked all the time. Google tracks us, both on its pages and on other pages it has access to. Facebook does the same; it even tracks non-Facebook users. Apple tracks us on our iPhones and iPads. One reporter used a tool called Collusion to track who was tracking him; 105 companies tracked his Internet use during one 36-hour period. […]

If the director of the CIA can’t maintain his privacy on the Internet, we’ve got no hope.

{ Bruce Schneier/CNN | Continue reading }

related { We were hacked: Here’s what you should know. }

photo { Adam Broomberg & Oliver Chanarin }

Swiss police arrest “healer” accused of infecting 16 with HIV.

Penis Snatching on the Rise — Africa’s Genital-Stealing Crime Wave Hits the Countryside.

Swarming cockroaches turn bus to New York into roach-mobile.

MTA Sets New Tactic In Rat War.

China Is Engineering Genius Babies.

Most people probably think of tastebuds as existing only on their tongues, but did you know there are taste buds in testes? They aren’t exactly like the taste buds in your mouth. Male germ cells–the cells that are destined to become sperm–have molecules on them that can detect bitter tastes.

Unhealthy eating can make a bad mood worse.

The cost of genetic sequencing and synthesis continues to plunge, but the functions of many genes in even the simplest forms of life, like bacteria and yeast, stubbornly hold on to their secrets. Genetic networks interact in complex, mysterious ways. Engineered parts take wild, unexpected turns when inserted into genomes. […] Where biotechnology of the past used cut-and-paste tools to introduce single genes into DNA, “we’re looking at introducing networks of genes and other elements under regulated control to rewire the internal workings” of the organism. […] The almost irrational complexity of life has been one of the biggest surprises to synthetic biologists.

Scientists have discovered a molecular process in the brain triggered by cocaine use that could provide a target for treatments to prevent or reverse addiction to the drug.

The ‘narcoanalytic interview’ is sometimes described as the application of a ‘truth drug’ but the actual practice is far more interesting.

Mothers are easily worried and this cannot always be avoided. But mothers are often worried unnecessarily by insensitivity, unwise choice of words, failure to determine what they are really concerned about, by criticizing them for being over anxious and ignoring their fears, or by inadequate explanation and counselling. [PDF]

The Economics of Spam.

In the context of preventing and fighting crime, the analysis of mobile phone traffic, among actors of a criminal network, is helpful in order to reconstruct illegal activities on the base of the relationships connecting those specific individuals. Thus, forensic analysts and investigators require new advanced tools and techniques which allow them to manage these data in a meaningful and efficient way. In this paper we present LogAnalysis, a tool we developed to provide visual data representation and filtering, statistical analysis features and the possibility of a temporal analysis of mobile phone activities.

A Discussion With Evgeny Morozov, Silicon Valley’s Fiercest Critic.

Coffee takes a wide and unpredictable range of forms throughout the world.

Abercrombie & Fitch, catalog 2003, copy by Slavoj Žižek.

Fashion bloggers and street style stars: Take my picture.

Report: Chinese Third-Graders Falling Behind U.S. High School Students in Math, Science.

Fooling the police with a ‘safety belt T-shirt’ in China.

This Bubble Wrap iPhone Case Will Keep You Satisfied 365 Days a Year.

Bengale Fire Man.

Ultimately, the most structured society will be a society in which every action has to comply with some rules, i.e. its citizens will de facto be robots with no brains. Why does brain/mind want to get rid of brain/mind?

{ IEET | Continue reading }

Medical and health journals have a bias towards publishing findings which are statistically significant, even when they may not also be clinically relevant. This results in authors describing their non significant findings with creative language, to try and make them seem more interesting.

{ Annie Bruton | Continue reading }

Turning to Foucault, of course we see that power is not simply the ability to dominate. Rather, power

is a set of actions on possible actions; it incites, it induces, it seduces, it makes easier or more difficult; it releases or contrives, makes more probable or less; in the extreme, it constrains or forbids absolutely, but it is always a way of acting upon one or more acting subjects by virtue of their acting or being capable of action. A set of actions upon other actions.

In other words, anyone subject to power is free to act, is an acting subject, but the power relationship either subtly or explicitly contains the subject’s possible courses of action. There is freedom in power, because freedom operates within power.

{ First Monday | Continue reading | Thanks Rob | Michel Foucault, The Subject and Power, 1982 }

{ Deep in the belly of New York’s subway system, a beautiful untouched station resides that has been forgotten for years with only a limited few knowing of its existence. | Travelette | full story | Related: The Underbelly Project has turned it into a kind of art gallery. }

{ EB Hughes, from a men’s room bar in LA }

Competition is supposed to lead to lower prices and improvements in quality. But, as a study on the automobile smog-testing industry shows, competition can lead to corruption and even public health problems.

{ United Academics | Continue reading }

photo { Mike Brodie }

What your mother ate around your conception could have affected your genes, or at least how they function, by switching certain genes on and off through DNA methylation. […]

People in rural parts of the Gambia have dramatic seasonal changes in their diet, because crops are planted at the beginning of the rainy season and harvested at the end, as there is no irrigation the rest of the year. […]

In a paper published in PLoS Genetics, the children conceived in August and September, the peak of the rainy season when nutrition is poor, had higher levels of DNA methylation in five genes, which surprised the researchers, as they had expected lower levels. These included the SLITRK1 gene associated with Tourette’s syndrome, and the PAX8 gene linked to hypothyroidism.

{ Genome Engineering | Continue reading }

photo { Marianna Rothen }

Mortuary admits burying wrong woman.

Palestinian supporters saw the photo as evidence of the Israeli military’s aggression against Palestinian civilians; Israel’s supporters viewed it as a carefully orchestrated bit of propaganda. It turns out that it was quite likely neither one.

He denied that he personally requested a blow job, but said that he told Ashleigh he knew of a magazine where “young ladies can get on the cover if they do some type of sexual favors with the people at the magazine.” The Dark Underbelly of the Miss USA Pageant.

This wireless brain implant could make telekinesis a reality.

Are people either left-brained or right-brained? Like many popular psychology myths, this one has a basis in fact that has been dramatically distorted and exaggerated.

Events in the Future Seem Closer Than Those in the Past.

Life expectancy effects on low self-control and criminal intent. [PDF]

Why do innocent people go to jail in the United States every year for violent crimes they did not commit? Study Reveals 10 Factors in Wrongful Conviction Cases.

Sleepwalkers sometimes remember what they’ve done.

Invented in the 1950s by an artificial-intelligence expert, the device is known as the “useless machine.”

Researchers show that graphene’s superior physical and electrical properties allow for an earphone with frequency response comparable to or better than a pair of commercial Sennheiser earphones.

The Problem with Tumblr and Photography.

Why It’s Nearly Impossible to Make GPS Work for India.

Why the Pope Wears Red Shoes.

Why does Starbucks not need my signature on payment receipt when I pay by credit card?

Japanese remote-controlled toilet.

Webcam Venus.

Water & Sound Experiment.

Larry the Edutainment Gator.

Every month, during each menstrual cycle, there is a very small window in which women can conceive. Most estimates are between five to six days, with the peak ovulatory window being a few hours at the end of the fertile window. The onset of a woman’s period is actually at the beginning of the ovulatory cycle, not the end. Though the exact length varies from woman to woman, the average menstrual cycle lasts about twenty-eight days. During the length of a woman’s overall cycle, she goes through three phases: menses, follicular, and luteal. Ovulation occurs between the follicular and luteal phases. The term “peak fertility” refers to a small window (usually thought to be anywhere between two to six days) when a woman’s conception rate goes up. Though technically every woman only ovulates one day a month, the chemistry of the vagina during this time facilitates sperm life (whereas in other phases, the chemistry produces a spermicidal effect). Sperm can actually retain the capacity to fertilize ova after five days at room temperature. However, unlike in many other species, human females are continuously proceptive and receptive to sex regardless of where they are in their monthly cycle.

Thus, Thornhill and Gangestad (2008) propose that women possess dual sexuality – estrous sexuality and extended sexuality – and that these two distinct forms of sexuality function during different periods of the menstrual cycle. Estrous sexuality (i.e., conceptive or reproductive sexuality) occurs within the fertile period of the menstrual cycle and female sexual preferences and motivations function to obtain “good genes” for offspring through mating with high-quality males. Extended sexuality (i.e., non- conceptive or non-reproductive sexuality), is complementary to estrous sexuality, functioning during unfertile periods to obtain non-genetic material benefits from mates in exchange for sexual access.

{ Journal of Social, Evolutionary, and Cultural Psychology | PDF }

World’s total wealth (including all bank savings, stocks, homes, company treasuries, government funds, pension funds, mines and other natural resources) amounts to $200 trillion or about $25,000 per person.

{ Quora | Continue reading }

{ At standard pressure and 59 °F a metric ton of carbon dioxide gas would fill a sphere 33 feet across. If this is how New York’s emissions actually emerged we would see one of these spheres emerge every 0.58 seconds. }

The telepathy experiment was conducted under the following conditions;

There were 6 people in the laboratory; 2 engineers from the factory that makes thermography (they both are graduates of Tokyo Denki University), 2 students assistants, myself and Mr. Geller.

Under no circumstances, Mr. Geller could have seen my drawing before the experiment was all over. Only after Mr. Geller drew the image he received, my drawing was revealed.

{ Prof. Yoshio Machi/Tokyo Denki University | Continue reading }

The defendant in the deadly Colorado theater shooting could be given “truth serum” under a court order issued Monday to help determine whether he is insane if he pleads not guilty by reason of insanity. […]

A narcoanalylitic interview is a decades-old process in which patients are given drugs to lower their inhibition. Academic studies have shown that the technique has involved the use of sodium amytal and pentothal, sometimes called truth serum.

{ AP/Mercury News | Continue reading }

[T]here is nothing bad about never being born. Therefore, having a child creates suffering that wouldn’t otherwise exist.

{ Rhys Southan/TNI | Continue reading }

A 75-year-old Japanese man died after 25 hospitals refused to admit him to their emergency rooms 36 times over two hours.

Ukrainian media reported earlier this month that only two of five military-trained dolphins returned to their base. The killer-dolphins are trained to attack enemy combat swimmers using special knives or pistols fixed to their heads.

Clues Suggest Malware Is Moving from PCs to Mobile Devices.

Whole Foods says all products in its North American stores that contain genetically modified ingredients will be labeled as such by 2018.

The ranks of China’s ultra-wealthy in its legislature swelled 20 percent this year. Ninety members of the National People’s Congress are on a list of China’s 1,000 richest people, up from 75 last year. Everyone on the Hurun list had a fortune of at least 1.8 billion yuan ($289.4 million), more than former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney.

The two studies seem to indicate that both reading and writing on rant-sites tend to be unhealthy practices.

Young men can have multiple orgasms within ten minutes or so, but this ability drops off sharply after age 30.

Scientists Enhance Intelligence of Mice with Human Brain Cells .

Like a car that can switch to ethanol when it runs out of gasoline, heavy drinkers’ brains could tap energy from an alternate fuel source.

Courage and Cowardice in Wartime.

Co-Existence of Vampires and Humans Is Possible: Proofs Based on Models Derived from Fiction Literature, Comic Books and Films [PDF]

Genetic experiments could bring back extinct animals.

Aquaponics is a method of combined fish and vegetable farming that requires no soil.

This is What Happens When You Give Thousands of Stickers to Thousands of Kids. [Thanks Tim]

Empty wine bottle holder.

Oversharing dude gets vibrating dildo stuck up his ass, livetweets trip to ER, X-ray.

For the last six months, Cody Wilson and his non-profit group Defense Distributed have worked towards a controversial goal: To make as many firearm components as possible into 3D-printable, downloadable files. Now they’re seeking to make those files searchable, too–and to make a profit while they’re at it.

In a talk at the South By Southwest conference in Austin, Texas Monday afternoon, Wilson plans to announce a new, for-profit spinoff of his gun-printing project that will serve as both a repository and search engine for CAD files aimed at allowing anyone to 3D-print gun parts in their own garage.

{ Forbes | Continue reading }

related links posted between april 2012 and today in every day, the same, again:

The world’s first 3D-printed gun.

Airbus designer hopes to see planes roll out of hangar-sized 3D printers by 2050.

MIT students reveal PopFab, a 3D printer that fits inside a briefcase.

Japanese company will 3D print your fetus for $1,275.

PayPal Founder Backs Synthetic Meat Printing Company.

3D print glove is a wearable mobile phone.

Ever wanted a life-like miniature of yourself or loved ones? Now’s your chance, thanks to Omote 3D, which will soon be opening a 3D printing photo booth in Harajuku, Japan.

In October, 3D-printing startup Shapeways opened its New York production facility in Long Island City, Queens, the biggest consumer-focused 3D printing factory in the world.

The Pirate Bay launches crazy Physibles category for printing 3D objects.

Which 3D printers should you buy?

In many ways, today’s 3D printing community resembles the personal computing community of the early 1990s.

China’s first 3D printing museum opens.

“3D pen” can write in the air.

An Artificial Ear Built By a 3D Printer and Living Cartilage Cells.