Archive for the 'Technology' Category

Pioneer of Electronic Sculpture, Alan Rath (1959–2020)

Tuesday, November 3rd, 2020

  • Irrational Exuberance – Alan Rath (See more here)

  • FIRST31B-C-26OCT01-DD-PC Sculptor/artist Alan Rath has created a series of sculptures using computer components and video screens which blink and wink at viewers. PAUL CHINN/S.F. CHRONICLE

    Alan Rath, Bay Area Artist who pioneered electonic sculptures dies at 60

    With a degree in electrical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Rath cited a wide range of inspiration, including Alexander Calder, David Smith, Jimi Hendrix, NASA and Robert Moog, who designed analog synthesizers.

    In Memory of Alan Rath


  • (Alan Rath – First work)

  • Alan Turing – (23 June 1912 – 7 June 1954)

    Saturday, June 22nd, 2019
  • Alan Turing
    Alan Turing by Henrik Olsen

  • Charles Darwin and Alan Turing

  • A. T. Machine

  • Alan Turing digital archive


  • (Age 16 3/4)

  • Chemistry

    A membrane that can remove salts from water more efficiently

  • Google celebrates Alan Turing

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    What interests me about the TURING biography is not only the way it illustrates the boundaries and histories of the 20th century, but that it also seems almost like a gendered prophecy. In a horrifying way, TURING ’s body was injured by the violence of modern ideology, he lost his own body, in a way, but he also made a new one. In 1936, he published a theoretical model of a machine that was to constitute the basis of all post-war computing, making him the father of all modern computer science. And this part of his biography is a futuristic tale about thinking machines, artificial intelligence and the appearance of possible future bodies. And to me, this is a long-needed escape from biological, heterosexual reproduction. – HENRIK OLESEN for Mousse Magazine

    Stephen Hawking Died on Einstein’s Birthday on March 14, 2018

    Thursday, March 14th, 2019
  • Marie Curie’s Pict0410
    Sex scandal?
    (photo by Fung Lin Hall from the supermarket rack).

  • 1aErrollHawlking
    Stephen Hawking (previous post)

  • See more March 14 birthdays here.


    (Einstein and Robert Oppenheimer – photo by Alfred Eisenstaed)


  • Einstein and Tagore

    On July 14, 1930, Albert Einstein welcomed into his home on the outskirts of Berlin the Indian philosopher, musician, and Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore. The two proceeded to have one of the most stimulating, intellectually riveting conversations in history.

    Great Day for the World, Gladys West Receives Air Force Honor

    Friday, December 21st, 2018
  • via

    Gladys West receives Air Force Honor (Mental Floss)

    Decades after she helped develop Global Positioning System (GPS) technology, 87-year-old Gladys West has received one of the Air Force space program’s highest distinctions, First Coast News reports.

    West was inducted into the Air Force Space and Missile Pioneers Hall of Fame at a ceremony at the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. earlier this month. The honor was given in recognition of the work she did as one of the agency’s “human computers” in the era predating high-powered data processors. When West joined the Naval Surface Warfare Center in Virginia in 1956, she was one of just four black employees, two of whom were men. One of those men, Ira West, would later become her husband.

    Early in her career, West contributed to an astronomical study that proved the regularity of Pluto’s rotation relative to Neptune. From the mid-1970s through the 1980s, she programmed a computer to come up with a super-accurate model of the Earth, accounting for variations in the planet’s shape caused by gravitational, tidal, and other forces. This model laid the groundwork for the Global Positioning System (GPS) that’s ubiquitous in the military, smartphones, and cars today.

    West retired from the military in 1998, but she hasn’t stopped her pursuit of knowledge. In 2018, she completed her Ph.D. through a remote program with Virginia Tech.

    Marcella Hansch – Garbage Screening (Eco Design) + Lego – First Sustainable Pieces

    Friday, March 9th, 2018
  • Marcella_neu_web

    1aCarpus_Pacific-Garbage-Screening1_01

    Marcella Hansch (Meet Marcella Hansch, on a quest to save world’s oceans)

    But during a 2013 dive in Cape Verde, it wasn’t a fish that alarmed her–but a plastic bag. This led Hansch (who was studying architecture in Aachen, Germany) to come up with an idea for her university thesis project–a concept that could ultimately solve what many regard as one of our planet’s biggest environmental problems: plastic pollution.

    Pacific Garbage Screening (An Innovative Approach to Cleaning Up Our Oceans)

    Meet the team here.

  • Lego – First Sustainable Lego Pieces to go on Sale.

  • Bill Binney, the Original NSA Whistleblower – A Good American, a Documentary about Binney

    Monday, September 25th, 2017
  • 1aaBBNSA
    Computer Weekly.com – Interview (The Original NSA Whistleblower)

    Bill Binney, the ‘original’ NSA whistleblower, on Snowden, 9/11 and illegal surveillance

    Binney was responsible for feeding targeting rules gleaned from the analysis back into the analytical tools. This self-refinement was key, allowing analysts to hone in on their targets, without the need for mass data collection.

    Boing Boing – 9/11 could have been prevented

    After his resignation, Binney and his fellow whistleblowers faced retaliation from the NSA, as the agency prevented him from getting work as a private intelligence contractor and eventually staged a guns-drawn dawn raid on his home.

    Binney has been a sharp, articulate, deeply knowledgeable critic of mass electronic surveillance ever since, refusing to be intimidated by the NSA despite the risks to himself.

    Documentary Films on Robert Noyce + Michael Fassbender as Steve Jobs

    Saturday, July 18th, 2015
  • Silicon Valley Rebels (youtube)

  • These two documentaries recount the history of Silicon Valley and the creation of the digital integrated circuits without which modern digital technology would not exist. They focus on pioneer Fairchild Semiconductor founded by Robert Noyce, Gordon Moore, and others and their second move to start Intel (founded on this day July 18, 1968), creator of the microprocessor. Forming the backbone of a new industry, the later work of Apple and others would not have been possible. Yet these pioneers and their companies do not get the attention given to those applying their technologies. Early on, Gordon Moore saw that advances in digital integrated circuitry was so rapid that the capacity of the devices doubled every 18 months. This became known as “Moore’s Law” and still holds today. Your tiny phone with built in camera, GPS, WIFI, etc. is the result of these continuous advancements now in their fifth decade.

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    Robert Noyce Intel

    Robert Noyce

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    Steve Jobs and Robert Noyce

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  • Alan Turing – Thinking Machine by Henrik Olesen

    Sunday, June 7th, 2015
  • 1Alan-Turing-428x600

    What interests me about the TURING biography is not only the way it illustrates the boundaries and histories of the 20th century, but that it also seems almost like a gendered prophecy. In a horrifying way, TURING ’s body was injured by the violence of modern ideology, he lost his own body, in a way, but he also made a new one. In 1936, he published a theoretical model of a machine that was to constitute the basis of all post-war computing, making him the father of all modern computer science. And this part of his biography is a futuristic tale about thinking machines, artificial intelligence and the appearance of possible future bodies. And to me, this is a long-needed escape from biological, heterosexual reproduction. – HENRIK OLESEN for Mousse Magazine

    Alan Turing Art project by Henrik Olesen

    1alanTOlsen

  • Alan Turing 1954 (7 June): Death (suicide) by cyanide poisoning, Wilmslow, Cheshire.

    Can machine think?

  • How Alan Turing solved the enigma of Solitaire in letter to girl, 8

    Nico Muhuly takes on Alan Turing

    See the codebreaker.. (not starring Benedict Cumberbatch).

    More link on the Imitation game –

    Google Honors Dorothy Hodgkin – (12 May 1910 – 29 July 1994)

    Monday, May 12th, 2014
  • Dorothy Hodgkin

    (12 May 1910 – 29 July 1994), known professionally as Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin or simply Dorothy Hodgkin, was a British biochemist, credited with the development of protein crystallography. She was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1964


  • (via)

  • Related link
    Rosalind Franklin

  • George Carlin – May 12 – birthday.. (Wake Up the Hamster – previous post)

  • Google Honors Rosalind Franklin, Letter to Snowden by Rebecca Sonlit

    Thursday, July 25th, 2013

    Books: She Was Robbed; … but Rosalind Franklin Bore No Grudges and Moved on. Gail Vines Salutes a Heroine of

    Google honors Rosalind Franklin –

    Rodalind Franklin -wiki


  • Prometheus Among the Cannibals ~
    A Letter to Edward Snowden
    By Rebecca Solnit

    I fear for you; I think of you with a heavy heart. I imagine hiding you like Anne Frank. I imagine Hollywood movie magic in which a young lookalike would swap places with you and let you flee to safety — if there is any safety in this world of extreme rendition and extrajudicial execution by the government that you and I were born under and that you, until recently, served.

  • Emmett Louis Till July 25 birthday

  • Ada Lovelace Day 2010

    Wednesday, March 24th, 2010

    Ada Lovelace ada_lovelace

    What is Ada Lovelace day? Who was she?

    Furtherfield Ada Lovelace Project.

    Finding Ada -(Bringing women in technology to the fore)

    OpenSecrets org.

    Ada Lovelace Inspires Work that Makes Government More Transparent

    adalovelacelego

    Lego Ada (via)

    Update: Ada Lovelace voted the most popular technology heroine