“This brings us to the verge of discussing OOO’s unconventional notion of what an object is. In everyday language, the word…

carvalhais:

“This brings us to the verge of discussing OOO’s unconventional notion of what an object is. In everyday language, the word ‘object’ often has the connotations of something physical, solid, durable, inhuman or utterly inanimate. In OOO, by contrast, ‘object’ simply means anything that cannot be reduced either downward or upward, which means anything that has a surplus beyond its constituent pieces and beneath its sum total of effects in the world.”

— Harman, Graham. Object-Oriented Ontology: A New Theory of Everything. London: Pelican Books, 2018.

From Nature Magazine: Spark of destruction. Tom Houghton (Media editor). This incredibly powerful moment — a lightning strike…

rjzimmerman:

From Nature Magazine:

Spark of destruction. Tom Houghton (Media editor). This incredibly powerful moment — a lightning strike during the Taal Volcano eruption in the Philippines back in January — looks like a dramatic oil painting by a nineteenth-century artist. Volcanic lightning is an incredible phenomenon caused by static electricity generated from ash particles colliding in the volcano plume. It results in the most breathtaking examples of destructive power. Credit: Domcar C Lagto/PACIFIC P/SIPA/Shutterstock

“Furthermore, since reality is always radically different from our formulation of it, and is never something we encounter…

carvalhais:

“Furthermore, since reality is always radically different from our formulation of it, and is never something we encounter directly in the flesh, we must approach it indirectly. This withdrawal or withholding of things from direct access is the central principle of OOO.”

— Harman, Graham. Object-Oriented Ontology: A New Theory of Everything. London: Pelican Books, 2018.

“As a consequence of the slavish “categoryitis” the scientifically illogical, and as we shall see, often meaningless questions…

inthenoosphere:

“As a consequence of the slavish “categoryitis” the scientifically illogical, and as we shall see, often meaningless questions “Where do you live?” “What are you?” “What religion?” “What race?” “What nationality?” are all thought of today as logical questions. By the twenty-first century it either will have become evident to humanity that these questions are absurd and anti-evolutionary or men will no longer be living on Earth.”

— R. Buckminster Fuller, Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth

Motherlands are castles made of glass. In order to leave them, you have to break something—a wall, a social convention, a…

Elif Shafak, place, glass, home, emigré, belonging, 2020, migration

“Motherlands are castles made of glass. In order to leave them, you have to break something—a wall, a social convention, a cultural norm, a psychological barrier, a heart. What you have broken will haunt you. To be an emigré, therefore means to forever bear shards of glass in your pockets. It is easy to forget they are there, light and minuscule as they are, and go on with your life, your little ambitions and important plans, but at the slightest contact the shards will remind you of their presence. They will cut you deep.”

–Elif Shafak on What It Means to Belong in Many Places at Once

“It will come as no surprise that Joyce himself coined a word — a neologism, by way of a productive repetition — for this…

carvalhais:

“It will come as no surprise that Joyce himself coined a word — a neologism, by way of a productive repetition — for this impasse. As we would just as easily be squeezed to death by pure unbroken order (cosmos) as dissipated by pure unleashed chaos, we are enjoined by the hermeneutic imperative to embrace what Joyce called the chaosmos, the chaosmic, the mutual interplay and continual disturbance of one side by the other, which is the condition of possibility of producing novel effects.”

— Caputo, John D. Hermeneutics: Facts and Interpretation in the Age of Information. London: Pelican Books, 2018.

The Great Conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn

nasa:

image

Credits:  NASA/Bill Ingalls

Have you noticed two bright objects in the sky getting closer together with each passing night? It’s Jupiter and Saturn doing a planetary dance that will result in the Great Conjunction on Dec. 21. On that day, Jupiter and Saturn will be right next to each other in the sky – the closest they have appeared in nearly 400 years!

Skywatching Tips from NASA

image

Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech

For those who would like to see this phenomenon for themselves, here’s what to do:

  • Find a spot with an unobstructed view of the sky, such as a field or park. Jupiter and Saturn are bright, so they can be seen even from most cities.
  • An hour after sunset, look to the southwestern sky. Jupiter will look like a bright star and be easily visible. Saturn will be slightly fainter and will appear slightly above and to the left of Jupiter until December 21, when Jupiter will overtake it and they will reverse positions in the sky.
  • The planets can be seen with the unaided eye, but if you have binoculars or a small telescope, you may be able to see Jupiter’s four large moons orbiting the giant planet.

How to Photograph the Conjunction

image

Credits: NASA/Bill Dunford

Saturn and Jupiter are easy to see without special equipment, and can be photographed easily on DSLR cameras and many cell phone cameras. Here are a few tips and tricks:

  • These planets are visible in the early evening, and you’ll have about 1-2 hours from when they are visible, to when they set. A photo from the same location can look completely different just an hour later!
  • Using a tripod will help you hold your camera steady while taking longer exposures. If you don’t have a tripod, brace your camera against something – a tree, a fence, or a car can all serve as a tripod for a several-second exposure.
  • The crescent Moon will pass near Jupiter and Saturn a few days before the conjunction. Take advantage of it in your composition!

Get more tips HERE.

Still have questions about the Great Conjunction?

Our NASA expert answered questions from social media on an episode of NASA Science Live on Thursday, Dec. 17. Watch the recording HERE.

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com.

the influencerization of everything

robhorningreallife:

From this LARB essay by Sarah Brouillette about Caroline Calloway:

We see in her case a set of conditions that are likely to intensify as the publishing industry continues to struggle: toward convergence with social media culture, the self-branding industry, gig work in the form of self-publishing, with a growing army of hungry creatives vying for attention. They are serving a new kind of consumer, too — a topic for another piece — who is drawn less to physical paperbound books and more to free content with options added, like that $100 personal phone call, and to the kinds of subscription-based services that reduce the risk of disappointment if you don’t get what you paid for.

For a long time now, I’ve argued that social media incentivize (and then ultimately compel) the production of the self as a commodity — they reconstitute self-expression as perpetual advertisements for the self, demonstrations of one’s human capital, as well as one’s capacity to leverage attention and, as Brouillette emphasizes, the promotional labor of others. The rise of influencers is indicative of the normalization of these practices, and a harbinger — it seems like most forms of work will eventually be influencerized, and workers will have to leverage their personality, their “personal brand,” to get work or to perform it up to managerial expectations. Taylor Lorenz points out in this piece how this has happened in journalism.

But the other side of the coin that Brouillette gestures toward above seems just as important: how influencerization has changed consumption, how it reflects and drives a destabilization of the object of consumption. In other words, once static objects (books, etc.) become “content” — fluid, upgradable, networked, subject to spontaneous (or spurious) customization, directly social in that one can immediately recirculate it, comment on it, argue about it, “react” to it with a button, and so on.

It may become increasingly strange to consume objects we cannot immediately imprint with some avatar of ourselves, that we can’t immediately augment (by paying extra or performing some kind of labor). It’s not “interactivity” per se, because it is not reciprocal and it is mostly systematized and delimited by the interfaces through which media is consumed. But it is a matter of manifesting “influence.” No kind of consumption can occur outside the awareness of the asymmetries of attention that directly govern it. 

When one thinks of, say, free-to-play games, it’s easy to construe their constant attempts to milk money from you as annoying. But it may be more accurate to think of that as part of the entertainment, part of the means for subjectivizing the player, for making them feel as though they are being paid attention to, being recognized. 

This is how I understand the “new kind of consumer” Brouillette mentions. The vicarious fantasy inherent in consumption can be supplemented by more direct forms of engagement; consumers no longer need to be trained how to enjoy vicarious, imaginative experiences in the same way they used to. The emulative, mimetic aspects of consumption are more straightforward now, given the channels consumers have to immediately produce their responses and see what reactions they attract. 

Every commodified experience concretizes some aspect of the “influence” that has produced and circulated it, and the process of consuming it is now a matter of tapping into that and trying to realize it somehow for oneself.  

A huge tent was put up over the former site of an insecticide factory in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, to contain a peculiar…

Hangzhou, pollution, tent, inflatable, smell, 2014, China Daily

A huge tent was put up over the former site of an insecticide factory in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, to contain a peculiar smell emanating from polluted soil. The tent in downtown Hangzhou covers about 20,000 square meters and is 36 meters high. It was built on top of where Hangzhou Qingfeng Agricultural Chemical once stood. It was relocated in 2009, but the more than 50-year-old company left many contaminants buried in the ground.

Following an investigation and risk assessment, treatment of the polluted soil was initiated in September. However, in the process of the treatment, a peculiar smell was released, seriously affecting nearby residents.

A woman surnamed Shao, who lives two bus stops away from the site, said she can still smell a pungent odor.

(via http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2014-05/14/content_17506217.htm )