from Drunkmenworkhere1
Jaron Lanier, a computer scientist and musician, is a pioneer of virtual reality, and founder and former CEO of VPL Research. He is currently the lead scientist for the National Tele-Immersion Initiative. -------> xtrct from Jaron Lanier: The hive mind is for the most part stupid and boring. Why pay attention to it? The problem is in the way the Wikipedia has come to be regarded and used; how it's been elevated to such importance so quickly. And that is part of the larger pattern of the appeal of a new online collectivism that is nothing less than a resurgence of the idea that the collective is all-wise, that it is desirable to have influence concentrated in a bottleneck that can channel the collective with the most verity and force. This is different from representative democracy, or meritocracy. This idea has had dreadful consequences when thrust upon us from the extreme Right or the extreme Left in various historical periods. The fact that it's now being re-introduced today by prominent technologists and futurists, people who in many cases I know and like, doesn't make it any less dangerous.

Amnesty International today (20 July) urged users of Yahoo!, Microsoft and Google to use their power as consumers to help end corporate complicity in suppression of the internet in China. The call to action - part of a new campaign for free speech online called irrepressible.info - came as Amnesty launched a new report accusing the firms of hypocrisy by talking about freedom of expression and access to information while denying it in order to access the lucrative Chinese market.

The Teche Blog editors have compiled a list of the “Top 5 Strangest (or Coolest) Art-Inspired Gadgets” for your enjoyment. Which ones are your favorites?

'I regard it as a modern tribute to femininity, disability and motherhood. It is so rare to see disability in everyday life – let alone naked, pregnant and proud.' - Alison Lapper

A friend of mine Romana Scheffknecht, draw my attention beginning of the year onto the work of Marc Quinn. A sculpture called 'Alison Lapper Pregnant' in Trafalgar Square. I find it quite non British positioned in context of Nelson and friends and the very romantic floating flock of tourists, climbing on the Brits lions up and down. Finally after crossing numerous times Trafalgar I managed to make a picture. Visit the place before its disappears in 2007.

Playful interaction and goal-oriented gaming explored through media arts practice. Game/Play

The exhibition opens at two different venues, in the UK and then joins, to tour as a single touring show. Game/Play is a networked national touring exhibition in the UK, focusing on the rhetorical constructs game and play. This collaboration between Q Arts, Derby and HTTP Gallery, London provides a basis for exchange and interaction between audiences, artists, curators and writers through the exhibitions and networked activity.

the Stephen Hawking's F&Q blogg on Yahoo Answers.

Dr. Stephen Hawking
I'm a theoretical physicist and the Lucasian Professor of mathematics at the University of Cambridge, and a fellow of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. I've continued my career there, despite enduring severe disability caused by motor neurone disease (specifically, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis). My 1988 book, A Brief History of Time, became a best-seller and brought my work in physics to a broader group so that all people could learn from it, rather than just academics.

The Extreme Diet Coke & Mentos Experiments: Fizz fountain!
What happens when you combine 200 liters of Diet Coke and over 500 Mentos mints? The first part of this video demonstrates a simple geyser, and the second part shows just how extreme it can get. Over one hundred jets of soda fly into the air in less than three minutes. It's a mint-powered version of the Bellagio Fountains in Las Vegas, brought to you by the scientists at EepyBird.