All posts by zap-editor

11. you tickle, therefore I am

g. Richard Feynman, Why

WHY

Richard Feynman, BBC, Fun to Imagine
1983, 7 min 32 sec

 Filmed as part of the 1983 TV program Fun to Imagine, the interview takes a rather tense turn when the interviewer poses what I’m sure seemed like a very simple question in his head: If you hold two magnets with the same poles close, you’ll feel a force pushing them away, and if they have opposite poles, they will snap together. “What I want to know is, what’s going on between these two bits of metal?” he says, as Feynman does little to mask his annoyance. “Why are they doing that, or how are they doing that?”

11. you tickle, therefore I am

I. Isaac Asimov, Is the Universe a Simulation?

ISAAC ASIMOV MEMORIAL DEBATE:
IS THE UNIVERSE A SIMULATION?

Isaac Asimov Memorial Debate, USA
2016, 2 hour

What may have started as a science fiction speculation—that perhaps the universe as we know it is a computer simulation—has become a serious line of theoretical and experimental investigation among physicists, astrophysicists, and philosophers. Neil deGrasse Tyson, Frederick P. Rose Director of the Hayden Planetarium, hosts and moderates a panel of experts in a lively discussion about the merits and shortcomings of this provocative and revolutionary idea. The 17th annual Isaac Asimov Memorial Debate took place at The American Museum of Natural History on April 5, 2016.

06. the thought police

i. David Bollier, Creativity & Collaboration in the Academy

CREATIVITY & COLLABORATION IN THE ACADEMY

David Bollier, USC & Norman Lear Center, USA
2010,  2 min 59 sec

In Spring 2010, the USC Office of Research asked the Norman Lear Center to lead a series of small faculty meetings on the topic of Creativity & Collaboration in the Academy.  In this talk David Bollier asks 3 important questions:

Who are the primary agents of change for stimulating collaborative research in the Academy and what strategy should they use? How can fledgeling projects and ideas in collaborative research be supported, scaled and sustained? How do we imagine new social roles and identities and what design principles should guide us?

What we need to realise it that this is about entirely new genres of knowledge that are being created, we don’t know the character of the social and institutional containers for them.

03. zombie ontology

i. What does information really want?

WHAT DOES INFORMATION REALLY WANT?

Big Think, USA
2012, 5 min 16 sec

In 1984, Stewart Brand said that “information wants to be free” (and also expensive). A quarter century later, he revisits his famous phrase. Brand’s response to what he wants for information is “more, choice, options, sifting,…”.

He mentions the importance of blogs – a digital commons –  to lead him to information he otherwise would not get to. The fact that his research sources for his book are available through the internet and you can make up your own mind about it is a fantastic gain for Brand.

07. transition town

g. man building his own island out of plastic bottles

MAN BUILDING HIS OWN ISLAND OUT OF PLASTIC BOTTLES

Ripley’s Believe It or Not!, Bravo TV; Cancun, Mexico 
2011, 4 min 16 sec

If you can’t afford to buy your own tropical island paradise, why not build your own? That is exactly what Richie Sowa did back in 1998, from over a quarter million plastic bottles. His Spiral Island, destroyed years later by a hurricane, sported a two-story house, solar oven, self-composting toilet and multiple beaches. Better yet, he has started building another one. His ultimate goal? To build an even bigger island and finally float out to sea, travelling the world from the comfort of his own private paradise. The original Spiral Island was – as its successor will be- built upon a floating collection used plastic bottles, all netted together to support a bamboo and plywood structure. Located in Mexico, the original mesured 20 by 16 meters, supported full-sized mangroves to provide shade and could be moved from one place to another thanks to a simple motorized system.

05. poetry is not a luxury

i. Acta Defeat

ACTA DEFEAT, A HUGE VICTORY FOR ONLINE FREEDOM & DEMOCRACY

Strasbourg, France
2012, 5 min 30 sec

The European Parliament has rejected ACTA, a controversial trade agreement, which was widely criticized over its likely assault on internet freedoms. Supporters of the treaty suggested postponing the crucial voting at the Parliament plenary on Wednesday, but members of the parliament decided not to delay the decision any further. MEPs voted overwhelmingly against ACTA, with 478 votes against and only 39 in favor of it. There were 146 abstentions. Citizen advocacy group founder Jeremy Zimmerman believes copyright laws must be reformed, but not at the expense of the online users. 

08. on bio-piracy & guerrilla gardening

j. Biocultural Community Protocols

BIOCULTURAL COMMUNITY PROTOCOLS:
ARTICULATING AND ASSERTING STEWARDSHIP

Sanjay Barnela, Philadelphia, USA
2012, 13 min 1 Sec

Different groups of people that are skilled in breeding and taking care of animals, such as the Raika People from Rajasthan – India, help a great deal to maintain the biodiversity of the environment they live in. Across the world there are innumerable such examples of  communities with animals that live in a landscape that supports and is supported by them.

05. poetry is not a luxury

j. Insane in the Chromatophores

INSANE IN THE CHROMATOPHORES:
EXPERIMENT WITH THE SQUID CHROMATOPHORES

Larry Muggerud, Senen Reyes, Louis Freese, Backyard Brains
2012, 3 min 31 sec

During experiments on the axons of the Woods Hole squid (Loligo pealei), we tested our cockroach leg stimulus protocol on the squid’s chromatophores. The results were both interesting and beautiful. The video is a view through an 8x microscope zoomed in on the dorsal side of the caudal fin of the squid. We used a suction electrode to stimulate the fin nerve. Chromatophores are pigmeted cells that come in 3 colors: Brown, Red, and Yellow. Each chromatophore is lined with up to 16 muscles that contract to reveal their color.

Paloma T. Gonzalez-Bellido of Roger Hanlon’s Lab in the Marine Resource Center of the Marine Biological Labs helped us with the preparation.  Research paper