On the eve of dConstruct 2012, Jeremy Keith hosts an evening of readings and chat with three of the brightest stars of the science-fiction world at the Pavilion Theatre in Brighton.
Event details: http://brightonsf.adactio.com/
Transcript: http://adactio.com/articles/5740/
“Those who don’t remember history are doomed to repeat it. Those who can’t imagine the future are doomed to fuck it up.”
Lauren Beukes explores how fiction is a model our brains run to explore other lives and possibilities, overcome issue fatigue and fire our cultural imagination.
http://2012.dconstruct.org/conference/beukes/
Lauren Beukes is the author of Zoo City, which won the 2011 Arthur C. Clarke award. That’s because it’s bloody brilliant. Seriously, if you haven’t read it, grab a copy now.
Her first novel, the excellent near-future dystopia Moxyland, was set in Cape Town, where Lauren lives with her husband and daughter. Her next book, The Shining Girls, will be set in Chicago and feature a time-travelling serial killer.
As well as being a novelist, Lauren is a journalist and has collaborated on television and comic book projects.
What kind of future do you want to live in? What excites or concerns you about the future? Intel Futurist Brian David Johnson poses these questions as part of The Tomorrow Project, an initiative to investigate not only the future of computing but also the broader implications on our lives and the planet. Science and technology have progressed to the point where what we build is only constrained by the limits of our own imaginations. The future is not a fixed point in front of us that we are all hurtling helplessly towards. The future is built everyday by the actions of people. The Tomorrow Project engages in ongoing discussions with superstars, science fiction authors and scientists to get their visions for the world that’s coming and the world they’d like to build.
The future is Brian David Johnson’s business. As a futurist at Intel Corporation his charter is to develop an actionable vision for computing in 2020. His work is called “future casting” – using ethnographic field studies, technology research, trend data and even science fiction to provide Intel with a pragmatic vision of consumers and computing. Along with reinventing TV, Johnson has been pioneering development in artificial intelligence, robotics, and using science fiction as a design tool. He speaks and writes extensively about future technologies in articles and scientific papers as well as science fiction short stories and novels (Fake Plastic Love, Nebulous Mechanisms: The Dr. Simon Egerton Stories and the forthcoming This Is Planet Earth). He has directed two feature films and is an illustrator and commissioned painter.
The relationship most adults have with science is one of observation: watching government agencies explore on behalf of us, but not actually exploring it ourselves. Science should be disruptively accessible – empowering people from a variety of different backgrounds to explore, participate in, and build new ways of interacting with and contributing to science. By having a fresh set of eyes from those who solve different types of problems, new concepts often emerge and go on to influence science in unexpected ways. A grassroots effort called Science Hack Day aims to bridge the gap between the science, technology and design industries. A Hack Day is a 48 hour all-night event that brings different people with good ideas together in the same physical space for a brief but intense period of collaboration, hacking, and building ‘cool stuff’. By collaborating on focused tasks during this short period, small groups of hackers are capable of producing remarkable results.
Presenters:
Ariel Waldman, Spacehack.org
Ariel Waldman is the founder of Spacehack.org, a directory of ways to participate in space exploration, and the creator of Science Hack Day SF, an event that brings together scientists, technologists, designers and people with good ideas to see what they can create in one weekend. She is also the coordinator for Science Hack Days around the world, an interaction designer, and a research affiliate with Institute For The Future.
Additionally, she sits on the advisory board for the SETI Institute‘s science radio show Big Picture Science, is a contributor to the book State of the eUnion: Government 2.0 and Onwards, and is the founder of CupcakeCamp. In 2008, she was named one of the top 50 most influential individuals in Silicon Valley. Previously, she was a CoLab Program Coordinator at NASA, a Digital Anthropologist at VML (a WPP agency), and a sci-fi movie gadget columnist for Engadget.
Jeremy Keith, Web Developer, Clearleft Ltd
An Irish web developer living in Brighton, England making websites with Clearleft.
Matt Bellis, Research Assoc, Northern Illinois University
Matt is a particle physicist by training and is searching for signs of New Physics using data from the BaBar electron-positron collider experiment and the CoGeNT dark matter detection experiment. To these ends he is exploring new computing solutions to these challenges.
He is interested in both data visualization and sonification. He is also involved in efforts to engage the public in science and teach them as much physics as they can handle.
Matt received his PhD from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and later worked at Carnegie Mellon University and Stanford University. He is currently teaching and doing research at Northern Illinois University.
In the fall, Matt will begin his new job as a professor, teaching and continuing his physics research at Siena College in upstate-NY.
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/08/02/a-fresh-look-at-population-bombs-and-bulges/
"…a variety of experts discuss the path past 7 billion people. One voice is that of Mara Hvistendahl, the Asia correspondent for the journal’s news staff and author of “Unnatural Selection,” a potent and revealing book about selective abortion and related issues. In this case, she discusses her piece on the potential benefits and perils of “youth bulges” like those underlying the turmoil in many Arab countries this year.?
The Biohackers: mucking about with the stuff of life A growing network of ‘biohackers’ want to get biology out of the lab and into homes, garages and community spaces. It’s about making biology more accessible for everyone. But how big is the movement? And are there any safety concerns?
Tagged with biology science diy biohackers biohacking hacking genetics
A good game—whether it’s a pro football playoff, or a family showdown on the kitchen table—can make you feel, at least for a little while, like your whole life hangs in the balance. This hour of Radiolab, Jad and Robert wonder why we get so invested in something so trivial. What is it about games that make them feel so pivotal?
We hear how a recurring dream about football turned into a real-life lesson for Stephen Dubner, we watch a chessboard turn into a playground where by-the-book moves give way to totally unpredictable possibilities, and we relive a moment where rooting for the underdog makes us rethink what a truly happy ending is.
Tagged with games science stephen dubner
Robin Ince and Brian Cox are joined by Stephen Fry, Simon Singh and Aleks Krotoski to discuss the maths behind 6 degrees of separation and whether there is something special about Kevin Bacon that seems to make him so well connected?
Featuring "Down on the Farm"
From http://www.starshipsofa.com/20090929/aural-delights-no-102-charles-stross/
Want to find out why Charlie Stross thinks that the singularity, if it happens at all, may not leave any room for humans? Check out his interview for www.SingularityWeblog.com
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