Monthly Archives: July 2010

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Fabricating fabrics: 3D printing meets (sustainable?) fashion

Man, things are moving fast. I’ve been blogging about 3D printing on and off for a few years now, but I wasn’t aware that some designers are already using fabbing techniques to print off some very cyberpunkish custom-tailored clothes and accessories [via BoingBoing]. I expect the novelty of the technology and process means that bespoke fabbed fashion will be pretty pricey, and remain exclusively so for a few years… but then again, I wouldn’t want to bet on it.

And as commentators on the BoingBoing post point out, Ecouterre‘s greenwashing of a process that is neither energy efficient nor free of industrial solvents and chemicals makes the use of the word “sustainable” a bit of a stretch, at least at the moment.

Bonus: want to get into 3d printing yourself, but don’t have mad stacks of cash? Find and hack an old inkjet printer for bargain bootstrap access to a highly disruptive technology!

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What makes humans different to other animals?

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You probably know the classic three answers to that one: humans are unique among animals because of tool use, symbolic behavious (e.g. language), and the domestication of other living things. Now, however, we may be able to add a fourth… although it might be better understood as the one that underlies and informs the other three, namely our long history of learning about and understanding the behaviour of other animals. Take it away, Ars Technica:

Shipman asserts that humans’ invention and use of stone tools about 2.6 million years ago helped them successfully hunt and quickly dispatch large carcasses, allowing them to become major players in the predatory guild. As a result, humans became much more in tune with animals for two reasons: the better they understood their prey, the more efficient hunters they would be, and the better they could evade and outcompete other carnivores. Thus, the animal connection began; because it enhanced survival, learning about animals’ anatomy and behavior became a very advantageous pursuit.

The animal connection is strongly evident in another trait that is considered unique to humans: symbolic behavior, specifically art. Animals were the main subject of prehistoric art. Incredibly specific details can be recognized from early cave drawings, including animals’ colors, particular behaviors, and dimorphism between the sexes.

[…]

Finally, Shipman claims that by domesticating animals, humans used them as “living tools.” Evidence shows that dogs were the first animals to be domesticated, suggesting that the first domesticates were not used as food sources. In early societies, animals served many purposes, such as carrying heavy loads, providing raw materials such as wool, producing fertilizer, protecting people, hunting game, and transporting goods. By using their accumulated knowledge and understanding of animals, humans were able to transform other species into “living tools” that enhanced their own fitness.

I think we may just have retrospectively uncovered the artistic statement embedded in the Tardigotchi…

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Tardigotchi: hybrid real/virtual pet

Readers of a certain age will remember the tamagotchi virtual pet craze of the late nineties, though they (like me) may be surprised to know they’re still selling strongly. Furthermore, readers who follow Futurismic closely (which is all of you, AMIRITES?) may remember me mentioning tardigrades, the microscopic critters better known as “water bears”, which bear (arf!) the odd distinction of being the only animal known to be able to survive the hard vacuum of space. What’s the connection?

The connection is the Tardigotchi, a sort of po-mo mixed-media art-project-gadget-statement-commentary item that combines a real living water bear with an artificial electronic lifeform to create a hybrid cyborg pet that can (and must!) be interacted with in a variety of ways to ensure its survival. Observe:

What does it mean? I guess that’s open to interpretation… an expression of the blurring of the line between natural and artificial lifeforms, and our relationship to them? A recognition of our increasingly emotional relationship with (and dependence on) electronic devices? Or just a wacky 3am brainstorm idea that made it into production?

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Six reasons why mind uploading (probably) ain’t gonna happen

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Via R U Sirius at the recently-resuscitated H+ Magazine, SyFy*’s Dvice blog lists six reasons that the uploading of human minds in the classic sf-nal civilisational Singularity scenario is extremely unlikely to become a reality.

The sixth is the one most likely to make a good story in its own right, because it’s the one that deals with human nature more than biological or technological restraints:

6. Who Gets Uploaded?

And you thought the lines for iPhone 4 were bad… even if all the above problems were magically solved, there’s still human nature to contend with. War and conflict may not technically be hardwired into our species, but the past 10,000 years of human history are hard to argue with. Unless there’s a way to instantly “teleport” the entirety of humanity into the cloud simultaneously, you can bet your digitized ass that there’ll be fighting over who goes first (or doesn’t, or shouldn’t), how long it takes, what it costs, who pays, how long they get to stay there… you know, all the standard crap that humans have been busting each other’s chops about ever since we could stand upright. I’ll opt out, thanks.

Remember that store worker who was fatally squashed in a Black Friday sales scrum at WalMart back in 2008? Like that, only featuring the whole species. I consider myself something of a transhumanist fellow-traveller, but it’s this end of the problem spectrum (much more so than the technological hurdles) that nudges me ever closer to skepticism.

[ * Every time I read that “revamped” name, it looks more stupid than it did before. ]

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SocNets and nation-states: a comparison

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Via Bruce Sterling, a piece at The Economist compares Facebook’s population and social character to that of a nation-state:

In some ways, it might seem absurd to call Facebook a state and Mr Zuckerberg its governor. It has no land to defend; no police to enforce law and order; it does not have subjects, bound by a clear cluster of rights, obligations and cultural signals. Compared with citizenship of a country, membership is easy to acquire and renounce. Nor do Facebook’s boss and his executives depend directly on the assent of an “electorate” that can unseat them. Technically, the only people they report to are the shareholders.

But many web-watchers do detect country-like features in Facebook. “[It] is a device that allows people to get together and control their own destiny, much like a nation-state,” says David Post, a law professor at Temple University. If that sounds like a flattering description of Facebook’s “groups” (often rallying people with whimsical fads and aversions), then it is worth recalling a classic definition of the modern nation-state. As Benedict Anderson, a political scientist, put it, such polities are “imagined communities” in which each person feels a bond with millions of anonymous fellow-citizens. In centuries past, people looked up to kings or bishops; but in an age of mass literacy and printing in vernacular languages, so Mr Anderson argued, horizontal ties matter more.

Sterling himself describes it as “handwavey and misleading”, but there’s a core of pertinence: huge horizontal networks of people, disconnected from geographical restraints, with the potential for a self-sustaining internal economy. Facebook couldn’t play on the world stage just yet, but it’s early in the day for the network-as-collective-entity… and late in the evening for the nation-state.