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Poetry Friday

Here's a poem by Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven (penned in her own hand!) to celebrate the last Friday of National Poetry Month. This poem, along with several others, appears in Body Sweats: The Uncensored Writings of Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven. Click on the image to enlarge.

 

 

Can Robotic Dogs Help Socialize Children with Autism?

In Technological Nature: Adaptation and the Future of Human Life, Peter Kahn shows how technological nature is better than no nature but not as good as actual nature. In Chapter 9 of Technological Nature, Kahn zeroes in on the first part of his proposition (technological nature is better than no nature) when he investigates whether robotic dogs can help socialize children with autism.

Autism is a developmental disorder that is characterized by three main symptoms: impaired social interaction, impaired communication, and the presence of repetitive behaviors and restricted interests. Kahn states, “In the field of human-robot interaction (HRI), there have been some pioneering studies that suggest that robots might be able to ameliorate one or more of these symptoms.” Many such studies found that AIBO, a robotic dog used to conduct this cutting-edge research, was “more attractive [to children] than a nonrobotic toy.”

How can a robotic animal aid in the social development of a child with autism? Kahn suggests two ways that this might happen: the child interacts with the robot as a social other and robots may provide children with autism with a “pivotal medium for enhanced communication with adults.”

Kahn leaves us with this parting thought: “The key idea, then, is this: AIBO is patterned simply, but it is not simply repetitive. In this sense, AIBO is similar to much of nature. People can be captivated, for example, by looking at ocean waves breaking onto the shore, or experiencing a waterfall, because the water’s pattern is always changing, simple but compelling. I suspect that these engaging 'repetitive' properties of nature—and of technological nature if it is designed right—have not yet been fully recognized as a means to benefit children with autism.”

Check out Technological Nature for more information about Kahn’s study of how robotic dogs might aid children with autism—and, on a completely unrelated but still fun note, here’s a video of an “AIBO on the Typewriter.”

 

Monday Eye Candy: Lucio Fontana

Happy Monday! Today's eye candy is from Lucio Fontana: Between Utopia and Kitsch by Anthony White, which features 101 illustrations. Click on each image to enlarge.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lucio Fontana, Spatial Concept, The Moon in Venice, 1961.

 

 

 

Georges Mathieu, Capetians Everywhere, 1954.

 

 

 

 

 

Mauro Reggiani, Composition R 3, 1934.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lucio Fontana, Banana and Pear, 1938.

 

 

 

 

Lucio Fontana, Spatial Concept, Expectations, 1959.

Poetry Friday

Happy Friday! Today's poem in honor of National Poetry Month is from The Absence of Work: Marcel Broodthaers, 1964-1976 by Rachel Haidu.

 

 

 

From Pense-Bête, 1963

 

 La moule

 Cette roublarde a évité le moule de la société

Elle s’est coulée dans le sien propre.

D’autres, ressemblantes, partagent avec elle l’anti-mer.

Elle est parfaite.

 

The Mussel

This clever thing has avoided socety’s mold.

She’s cast herself in her very own.

Other look-alikes share with her the anti-sea.

She’s perfect.

 

2012 Guggenheim Fellows

We are pleased to announce that several MIT Press and Semiotext(e) authors and editors have been named Guggenheim Fellows for 2012. The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation website states, "Often characterized as 'midcareer' awards, Guggenheim Fellowships are intended for men and women who have already demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the arts." The MIT Press 2012 Guggenheim Fellows are as follows:

John Bowen, author of Blaming Islam;

Susan Landau, author of Surveillance or Security?: The Risks Posed by New Wiretapping Technologies and (with Whitfield Diffie) of Privacy on the Line: The Politics of Wiretapping and Encryption;

Eileen Myles, author of Not Me and The Importance of Being Iceland: Travel Essays in Art and editor (with Liz Kotz) of The New Fuck You: Adventures in Lesbian Reading;

Alva Noë, editor (with Evan Thompson) of Vision and Mind: Selected Readings in the Philosophy of Perception and author of Action in Perception;

David A. Rosenbaum, editor (with Charles E. Collyer) of Timing of Behavior: Neural, Psychological, and Computational Perspectives;

Eldar Shafir, editor of Preference, Belief, and Similarity: Selected Writings (by Amos Tversky);

Beth A. Simmons, editor (with Lisa L. Martin) of International Institutions: An International Organization Reader.

Congratulations to these winners, as well as to all of the 2012 Guggenheim Fellows! Check out the Guggenheim Foundation website for a complete list of this year's Guggenheim Fellows.

Earth Day Giveaway: Food Justice

We're giving away a copy of Food Justice by Robert Gottlieb and Anupama Joshi to celebrate Earth Day! Food Justice tells the story of how the emerging food justice movement is seeking to transform the American food system from seed to table. 

Answer the questions below, which are culled from our previous Earth Day-related posts, for a chance to win a copy of Food Justice. Submit your answers as a comment on this post and you will be entered into a drawing to win. Your comment won't show up so that it's fair. The deadline to enter the contest is April 22nd, and we will notify the lucky winner by April 25th.

Why are the recycling rates that are commonly quoted deceptive?

How much waste is estimated to be produced in the United States each year? Of that, what percentage is actually recycled?

How many  species of invertebrate are estimated to live in Costa Rica?

Costa Rica has built up a system of almost 250 national parks, wildlife refuges and biological reserves. Who owns the vast majority of this land?

 

Stop Taxing Yourself

Feeling the tax time blues? Are you confused, confounded, and in despair? So are we. Luckily, Joel Slemrod and Jon Bakija have outlined America’s tax system from its origins to the debates circulating today in Taxing Ourselves: A Citizen’s Guide to the Debate over Taxes.

Confusion about filing taxes is common and even expected of most taxpayers. But it’s not an issue of American intelligence; rather it is the product of the system. Slemrod and Bakija discuss the complex nature of America’s tax system, stating, “The fact that in some situations, neither tax professionals nor the IRS itself can be sure of the taxpayer’s tax liability is just one indicator of the tax system’s complexity. Another is the sheer length of the tax code.”

Did you know that America’s first income tax was a temporary emergency measure used during the Civil War? It was enacted in 1861. The Tax History Project is a great site to visit if you’re interested in finding out more about the history of taxation in America.

 

Eye Candy That You Can Taste

Today's eye candy focuses on “sense-ational perceptions.” On April 16, 1943, Swiss chemist Albert Hoffman discovered the hallucinogenic effects of LSD when he accidently consumed part of the drug. In Wednesday Is Indigo Blue: Discovering the Brain of Synesthesia, Richard Cytowic and David Eagleman explain the neuroscience and genetics behind synesthesia's multisensory experiences, a phenomenon that can be imitated by taking LSD.

According to Cytowic and Eagleman, “synthesia” means “joined sensation, such that a voice or music, for example, is not only heard but also seen, tasted, or felt as a physical touch.” Other examples of synesthesia include an “icy voice” or a “warm color,” creating a union of separate sensory perceptions.

In the following passage, Cytowic and Eagleman explain how LSD creates synesthetic effects in users:

LSD, mescal, and other anti-serotonergic hallucinogens sometimes produce synesthesia, particularly the sound-to-sight variety. Almost all measures of color vision are affected in volunteers given LSD. Given the drug’s rapid onset of action, we conclude that it must operate on preexisting pathways. LSD is thought to have two main effects: increasing transmission of primary sensory inputs at early levels while inhibiting pathways within the cortex.

In general, serotonin dampens overactive neurons to various internal and external stimuli. Given that serotonin is primarily an inhibitory neurotransmitter and LSD blocks its receptors, the resulting disinhibition allows neural targets to be more easily activated by abnormal inputs, hence synesthesia. Serotonin receptors are maximally concentrated in the hippocampus, thalamic nuclei, basal ganglia, and cerebral cortex. Depth electrodes implanted in animals and humans while on LSD reveal a desynchronized cortex and synchronized, paroxysmal discharges in hippocampus and amygdale. This means that such individuals are aroused but unable to discriminate among sensory channels. In humans, these subcortical discharges coincide behaviorally with heightened emotion and perceptual distortion during the drug high.

Synesthesia is also a naturally occurring phenomenon. Take a Synesthesia Test to see if you can taste the colors of the rainbow.

Jack Tramiel Changed Your Life

Jimmy Maher, author of The Future Was Here: The Commodore Amiga, on computer visionary Jack Tramiel.

 

Jack Tramiel. Photo courtesy of vonguard.

A famously private and often difficult man, Jack Tramiel resists easy eulogization in death with the same stubbornness that made him such an enigma throughout his life. We know that he was born Jewish in Poland at just about the worst possible historical moment, and that he alone of his family survived the horrors of Auschwitz. Yet we know little more about his early life; he has a few different birthdates on record, and even his own sons are not certain of his birth name. We know that he came to America, and in a classic American tale transformed himself from a penniless refugee into a computer executive and millionaire. Yet even in those later years there was an air of mystery about this brash bulldog of a man. You never quite knew what he was thinking, never knew whether to label him a scoundrel or a visionary. Perhaps he was both.

Tramiel's two most famous quotations are "Business is war" and "Computers for the masses, not the classes." Together they illuminate some of the contradictions of the man. Under the former mantra, Tramiel seemed to positively delight in betraying and destroying not just competitors but also suppliers, dealers, and even his own employees when they crossed or betrayed him in reality or in his imagination. Under the latter, he placed computers in the hands of an entire generation who couldn't afford the pricier, more respectable, and much less fun machines from Apple and IBM. Even if your childhood memories don't include a friendly blue screen and a blinking BASIC READY prompt (too bad for you!), Tramiel changed your life. Linus Torvalds is only the most famous of the thousands who discovered the wonders of computers through the VIC-20 or Commodore 64, then grew up to build the digital future we live in today. In the process of living through one of the most crazy life stories I know, Jack Tramiel changed the world. 

 

Poetry Friday

Happy Friday! Today's poem in honor of National Poetry Month is from ThermoPoetics: Energy in Victorian Literature and Science by Barri J.  Gold.

 

 

 

 

 

Report on Tait’s Lecture on Force:—B.A., 1876
James Clerk Maxwell

 

Ye British Asses, who expect to hear

                        Ever some new thing,

I’ve nothing to tell, but what, I fear,

                        May be a true thing.

For Tait comes with his plummet and his line,

                                    Quick to detect your

Old bosh new dressed in what you call a fine

                        Popular lecture.

 

Whence comes that most peculiar smattering,

                        Heard in our section?

Pure nonsense, to a scientific swing

                        Drilled to perfection?

That small word “Force,” they make a barber’s block,

                        Ready to put on

Meanings most strange and various, fit to shock

                        Pupils of Newton.

 

Ancient and foreign ignorance they throw

                        Into the bargain;

The shade of Leibnitz mutters from below

                        Horrible jargon.

The phrases of the last century in this

                        Linger to play tricks—

Vis Viva and Vis Mortua and Vis 

                        Acceleratrix:—

 

Those long-nebbed words that to our text books still

                        Cling by their titles,

And from them creep, as entozoan will,

                        Into our vitals.

But see! Tait writes in lucid symbols clear

                        One small equation;

And Force becomes of Energy a mere

                        Space-variation.

 

Force, then, is Force, but mark you! not a thing,

                        Only a Vector;

Thy barbèd arrows now have lost their sting,

                        Impotent spectre!

Thy reign, O Force! is over. Now no more

                        Heed we thine action;

Repulsion leaves where we were before,

                        So does attraction.

 

Both Action and Reaction now are gone.

                        Just ere they vanished,

Stress joined their hands in peace, and made them one;

                        Then they were banished.

The Universe is free from pole to pole,

                        Free from all forces.

Rejoice! ye stars—like blessed gods ye roll

                        On in your courses.

 

No more the arrows of the Wrangler race,

                        Piercing shall wound you.

Forces no more, those symbols of disgrace,

                        Dare to surround you:

But those whose statements baffle all attacks,

                        Safe by evasion,— 

Whose definitions, like a nose of wax,

                        Suit each occasion,—

 

Whose unreflected rainbow far surpassed

                        All our inventions,

Whose very energy appears at last

                        Scant of dimensions:—

Are these the gods in whom ye put your trust,

                        Lordlings and ladies?

The hidden potency of cosmic dust

                        Drives them to Hades.

 

While you, brave Tait! who know so well the way

                        Forces to scatter,

Calmly await the slow but sure decay,

                        Even of Matter.