A mugshot, the picture taken after an arrest, is a photo designed to tell the state’s side of a story. The subject of the photo,…

“A mugshot, the picture taken after an arrest, is a photo designed to tell the state’s side of a story. The subject of the photo, taken at one of the lowest points in their life, has no voice, but the language of the form—the unflattering bright light, the drab background, the name and prisoner ID at the bottom—tells us we are looking at a “criminal.””

–Should Gawker Publish Mugshots? (viaiamdanw)

Kofuku-ji temple’s chief priest, Bungen Oi, offers a prayer during the funeral for 19 pet robot dogs on January 26. The dogs,…

Robotics, Aibo, animism, Sony, automation, dogs

Kofuku-ji temple’s chief priest, Bungen Oi, offers a prayer during the funeral for 19 pet robot dogs on January 26. The dogs, created by Sony, were first-generation Aibo robots from June 1999 that had artificial intelligence and developed personalities and learned from their owners. Toshifumi Kitamura/AFP/Getty

It’s a problem that we encounter from the very beginning of our walk; as the Thames Path leaves behind the Isle of Dogs and…

“It’s a problem that we encounter from the very beginning of our walk; as the Thames Path leaves behind the Isle of Dogs and enters Limehouse, it immediately plunges down a forbidding passageway with a closed gate at the end, overlooked by a CCTV camera. “Everything about this is designed to suggest that there is no way through,” observes Anna. “If you didn’t know any better, you’d assume it was just private property and turn on to the road instead.” In fact, a series of buttons does let intrepid walkers make their way to a small fenced-off car park by the river at certain times of the day, before swiftly twisting them back out on to Narrow Street”

–Privatised London: the Thames Path walk that resembles a prison corridor (viaiamdanw)

The Rabbits Have Fallen To Pieces

Warren Ellis, technology, magic, illusion, delusion, democracy, internet, intent, IoT, enchantment

We were sold magic as the affordance of technology, from the term “automagic” on down, and we were sold this magic as the provision of personal agency – fifteen years ago I couldn’t move on the web for people talking about the internet as channel for emergent democracy, five years ago everyone couldn’t shut up about smartphones as the new computing paradigm that put the world in our hands.  And now we’re at the end of the current cycle and the five dark towers of big digital technology are reduced to bullshit squabbles.  I mean, sure, large ones, rolling across the world and throwing their shadows over us all.  But the sleight of hand is all over.  There’s a bit at the end of the tv series THE THICK OF IT, where spin doctor Malcolm Tucker, frequently self-described as “a practitioner of the dark arts,” says, in his final extremity, “Look at me.  I’m not pulling anything out of my magic hat.  The rabbits have fallen to pieces.  Their fucking heads are coming off and frightening the kids.”

http://morning.computer/2015/03/the-rabbits-have-fallen-to-pieces/