randform

While looking for the classic russian winter animation ded maros i lyeto (santa claus and the summer) from 1969 by soyusmultfilm I stumbled on youtube over this jewel for all lovers of ascii animation made at the “department of educational and scientific fotography and cinematography” at the Lomonossov university (N. Konstantinov, V. Minakhin, V. Ponomarenko, A. Skuridin, V. Shurkin). In the comment section it was said that the animation is from 1967, which I unfortunately couldn’t verify.

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There had been quite some discussions about a recent case control study (in german) where cases were children younger than 5 years (diseased between 1980 and 2003) registered at the german childhood cancer registry (GCCR). According to a statement by Minister Gabriel of the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conversation and Nuclear Safety

“In this study by the German Childhood Cancer Registry (Deutsches Kinderkrebsregister) in Mainz, increased cancer incidences were ascertained statistically for children living in the vicinity of the 16 sites of German nuclear power plants.

Experts (see below) consider the study to be the world-wide methodically most elaborate and comprehensive study regarding the correlation between a higher risk of childhood cancer and proximity to a nuclear power plant. So what were the discussions about?

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The main topic of the last issue of the magazine of the Deutsche Hochschulverband was “trust” or “confidence” (in german “Vertrauen”) Various authors were discussing multiple manifestations of trust. The lesson was inspiring and made me think about it the issue and in particular the role of trust in connection to robots. My sister said that this blog post sounds like the thought of the day. So you have been warned if you read further.

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“no-clohning” artwork by On von Nomann

THE ETHICS OF PROGRESS
theatre + science by TANGLE – UNLIMITED THEATRE

A mind-melting, jargon-free, whistlestop tour of leading edge Quantum Physics.

a co-production with Oxford Playhouse
and Leeds Met Studio Theatre

” Mind-blowing stuff ” The Scotsman
” Unexpectedly gripping and improbably pleasurable ” The Guardian

via artscatalyst.org

Tomorrow is World Aids day (WAD). On monday the thirteenth session of the Conference of the Parties (COP) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is taking place at Bali, Indonesia from December 3–14, 2007, reason enough to talk about health issues.

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According to world-nuclear-news.org today -on French President Nicholas Sarkozy`s state visit to China- a deal was signed which ensures that

France’s national nuclear champion Areva will build two power reactors at Taishan, China and undertake a feasibility study for a used nuclear fuel reprocessing plant as part of an Eur8 billion deal ($12 billion).

Areva are also to provide “all the materials and services required to operate” the forthcoming 1600 MWe EPR units, to be sited at Taishan, 100 km southwest of Guangzhou and 150 km west of Hong Kong in Guangdong province.

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The communicative aspect of fashion had interested us already previously (like in our project d-room). In particular in this old post I was fascinated by the possibility to convey messages via fashion (here in form of the accessory fan). Buttons are also a popular method for conveying messages, but the “interactivity” potential which is given by the fan can’t be resumed by the buttons. The new possibilities of e-textiles can certainly be extended from interactive camouflage to a fully fledged on-body messaging board (like e.g. with a flexible e-paper-fabric). I like electronics (and in particular everything which has to do with light and LEDs) and admittingly I have a soft spot for the works of Hussein Chalayan however given the recent IPCC reports on climate change it is may be better not to look at Hussein Chalayan (at least for the moment) but at simpler environmental friendly solutions.

The below images* display a suggestion of how one can e.g. convey messages via ribbons to which I attached a little piece of velcro (unfortunately plastic) so that they stick to a woolen sweater. Of course one could take ribbons in different colors and different shapes as well (a microeconomy entrepreneur could make almost a business!). You can make up your own messages to the images, there is no fixed code to them. The last gif animation displays how one can wobble with the ribbons like with a fan.

Last not least – this messaging solution will face problems in summer.

*thanks to Chrissii for modelling.
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Today Wednesday, Oct 3 the Wired Science Series premieres at 8 p.m. (east coast time?) on PBS. I am usually not announcing new TV shows on this blog, but looking at wired in general i think it will probably be a nice show which deserves more attention.
Among others the Wired Science show is intended for teachers in order to “electrify Science & Tech Instruction”. So if you have access to PBS hurry up, since as I understood the archived online versions are not free (?).

Moreover I would like to use this announcement as an introduction to a pledge for some help from you – the anonymous reader.

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