This putters through my Inbox:

The Critical Engineer considers Engineering to be the most transformative language of our time, shaping the way we move, communicate and think. It is the work of the Critical Engineer to study and exploit this language, exposing its influence.

The Critical Engineer considers any technology depended upon to be both a challenge and a threat. The greater the dependence on a technology the greater the need to study and expose its inner workings, regardless of ownership or legal provision.
…

more at http://criticalengineering.org/

Yes, engineering is a package of protocols which guide much of the social energies of the present and recent (long!) past. Raising the topic is quite important as a precursor to altering the influence that it imposes (or that we submit to). The nature of the threat includes death as an outcome, the nature of the seduction is life. The challenge is first to bring such ideas as this to the surface for dialogue, and then comes the task of mapping the connections between ‘everyday life’ and the dependencies on (the) engineering (mentality).

“If the profession of an engineer were not based upon exact science,” he said, “I might tremble for the result, in view of the immensely of the interests dependent on my success. But every atom that moves onward in the river, from the moment it leaves its home among the crystal springs or mountain snows, throughout the fifteen hundred leagues of its devious pathway, until it is finally lost in the vast waters of the Gulf, is controlled by laws as fixed and certain as those which direct the majestic march of the heavenly spheres. Every phenomenon and apparent eccentricity of the river — its scouring and depositing action, its caving banks, the formation of the bars at its mouth, the effect of the waves and tides of the sea upon its currents and deposits — is controlled by law as immutable as the Creator, and the engineer need only to be insured that he does not ignore the existence of any of these laws, to feel positively certain of the results he aims at.” James B. Eads, engineer, quoted in “Atchafalaya” by John McPhee

versus

“One who knows the Mississippi will promptly aver — not aloud but to himself — that ten thousand River Commissions, with the mines of the world at their back, cannot tame that lawless stream, cannot curb it or confine it, cannot say to it, ‘Go here,’ or ‘Go there,’ and make it obey; cannot save a shore which it has sentenced; cannot bar its path with an obstruction which it will not tear down, dance over, and laugh at. But a discreet man will not put these things into spoken words; for the West Point engineers have not their superiors anywhere; they know all that can be known of their abstruse science; and so, since they conceive that they can fetter and handcuff that river and boss him, it is but wisdom for the unscientific man to keep still, lie low, and wait till they do it. Captain Eads, with his jetties, has done a work at the mouth of the Mississippi which seemed clearly impossible; so we do not feel full confidence now to prophesy against like impossibilities. Otherwise one would pipe out and say the Commission might as well bully the comets in their courses and undertake to make them behave, as try to bully the Mississippi into right and reasonable conduct.” — Mark Twain in “Life on the Mississippi” quoted in “Atchafalaya” by John McPhee

from The Control of Nature: Atchafalaya — John McPhee, 23 February 1987 in The New Yorker.

and this from Bill Gammage in a precursor of his recent book “The Biggest Estate on Earth: How Aborigines Made Australia” (Allen & Unwin, 2011)

I suggest that people turned to crops, herds and stores to protect them from other people. The reason farmers stepped onto the road to civilisation was military.

Aborigines ensured that usually they had plenty of food by controlling their population and by maximizing their resources. But their truly great achievement lay in how they protected their resources — not by military force, but by religious sanction. Even under extreme duress Aborigines rarely took food that was not theirs. That may have been so in early Europe and elsewhere too — most societies attempt to sanctify property. If so, it broke down. Farmers were led to protect their food, thus lost the predictability and security that widely dispersed resources gave hunter-gatherers, and thus had to work hard and make hard work a virtue. Work, sedentism and storing generate individual and collective strivings for surplus, for wealth. That is the road Europeans took, and Aborigines avoided. In August 1770 James Cook could not have known whether Aborigines were ‘far more happier’ than Europeans, but he was right to see that they were content in ‘all the necessarys of Life’, which we Europeans, ever restless for more, can never be. — Bill Gammage, 2005

portrait, Bruce Springsteen, McNichols Arena, Denver, 1980

digging deep into the 35mm archive, from 30 years ago now. 18,000 images. back from the time I covered around 150 concerts in two years, as well as being the photo editor for the yearbook, special editor for the newspaper, and doing some advertising photography — at the same time as slogging through one of the toughest engineering schools in the country, argh. hard days … but much fun: our motto was work hard, play hard. doing all that with good friends, what more can one ask?

this archive will surface in some form in this thesis project, possibly, and if not within that framework, it will simply surface as possible. the (life)-time required to do this is significant. and perhaps that time is short.

Up at 0630. The Charge of Qtrs. took us over to the Snack Bar near the Theater for bkfst. We met with Col. Halper at 0815. He & most of his staff were late due to the snow which fell all night — 3″. He gave us an hour’s briefing wherein he defined the mission of the TAG Brd. to be the delineation of Personnel Management, directly and indirectly for the Field Army. JH & I then gave our talks, mine consisting of a description of the system, with Joe covering the four areas of FS, Int., Admin Supt & Tactical Operations as well as the Engineering Design problems.

In the afternoon we answered questions; they wanted RJB’s Theory of Command. Mr. Springer gave us a sketch of their effort; they think it will be about finished in 1-1/2 or so years. They have followed what might be called the “Single Thread” approach in that they, of course, find that this had led them to the point of view that system integration is essential.

Snow; cold.

At Ft. Ben Harrison.

The erection of class/caste protocols (another harsh historical judgment in the midst of the industrial age):

Entrance into the leisure class lies through the pecuniary employments, and these employments, by selection and adaptation, act to admit to the upper levels only those lines of descent that are pecuniarily fit to survive under the predatory test. And so soon as a case of reversion to non-predatory human nature shows itself on these upper levels, it is commonly weeded out and thrown back to the lower pecuniary levels. In order to hold its place in the class, a stock must have the pecuniary temperament; otherwise its fortune would be dissipated and it would presently lose caste. Instances of this kind are sufficiently frequent. The constituency of the leisure class is kept up by a continual selective process, whereby the individuals and lines of descent that are eminently fitted for an aggressive pecuniary competition are withdraw from the lower classes. In order to reach the upper levels the aspirant must have, not only a fair average complement of the pecuniary aptitudes, but he must have these gifts in such an eminent degree as to overcome very material difficulties that stand in the way of his ascent. Barring accidents, the nouveaux arrivés are a picked body.

This process of selective admission has, of course, always been going on; ever since the fashion of pecuniary emulation set in–which is much the same as saying, ever since the institution of a leisure class was first installed. But the precise ground of selection has not always been the same, and the selective process has therefore not always given the same results. In the early barbarian, or predatory stage proper, the test of fitness was prowess, in the naive sense of the word. To gain entrance to the class, the candidate had to be gifted with clannishness, massiveness, ferocity, unscrupulousness, and tenacity of purpose. These were the qualities that counted toward the accumulation and continued tenure of wealth. The economic basis of the leisure class, then as later, was the possession of wealth; but the methods of accumulating wealth, and the gifts required for holding it, have changed in some degree since the early days of the predatory culture. In consequence of the selective process the dominant traits of the early barbarian leisure class were bold aggression, an alert sense of status, and a free resort to fraud. The members of the class held their place by tenure of prowess. In the later barbarian culture society attained settled methods of acquisition and possession under the quasi-peaceable regime of status. Simple aggression and unrestrained violence in great measure gave place to shrewd practice and chicanery, as the best approved method of accumulating wealth. A different range of aptitudes and propensities would then be conserved in the leisure class. Masterful aggression, and the correlative massiveness, together with a ruthlessly consistent sense of status, would still count among the most splendid traits of the class. These have remained in our traditions as the typical “aristocratic virtues.” But with these were associated an increasing complement of the less obtrusive pecuniary virtues; such as providence, prudence, and chicanery. As time has gone on, and the modern peaceable stage of pecuniary culture has been approached, the last-named range of aptitudes and habits has gained in relative effectiveness for pecuniary ends, and they have counted for relatively more in the selective process under which admission is gained and place is held in the leisure class. — Thorstein Veblen (2008, online)

When the body was the primary technology, physical fitness and strength-of-arms guided entry into the über class. This persisted until industrial times where the ability to collect social power rested on ones social engineering skills — how to forcefully facilitate the construction of widely distributed social structures with many participants — which took not physical aptitude but the ability to raise capital which consequently attracted the necessary participants.

An engineer who has given us the entire…

Un-named engineers …

Engineer as a causative agent…

From Middle English engin < Old French engin (“skill”, “cleverness”, “war machine’”) < Latin ingenium (“innate or natural quality, nature, genius, a genius, an invention, in LL. a war-engine, battering-ram”) < ingenitum, past participle of ingignere (“to instil by birth, implant, produce in”); see ingenious. Engine originally meant ‘ingenuity, cunning’ which eventually developed into meaning ‘the product of ingenuity, a plot or snare’ and ‘tool, weapon’.

[editor: this document was used for a mid-way doctoral assessment at the University of Technology Sydney and no longer reflects the final content of the PhD dissertation as of the April 2012 submission at La Trobe University in Melbourne. the presentation was accompanied by the video that is posted at the end.]

Abstract

The DCA project “The Road” is a psycho-geographic perambulation through a web of personal, social, and universal trajectories which form a new knowledge-base on the cosmos as an entropic system of energy flows. Within this worldview the project explores human presence, encounter, and interaction including a close look at the effects of techno-socially prescribed protocols on those indeterminate flows of energy. As a multi-modal online data-space, the project offers a variety of navigational strategies connecting a rich variety of audio, video, text, and image sources from the candidate’s extensive personal archive of creative material.

Introduction

The armature for this DCA as originally proposed was the concept of the amplifier. An amplifier is essentially a device that takes an incoming flow of energy (signal), and through an influx of power, generates a defined outflow of energy with a greater (directed) intensity. The amplification process needs an independent energy source to increase the signal strength. It also requires a set of protocols that guide the flow of energy from input through output: a coherent signal is a controlled energy flow as defined by applied protocols.

The road, as an expression of a techno-social system (TSS), exemplifies, or, more precisely, is one of these protocol-defined pathways. It was this realization during the last year of research which shifted my focus from the amplifier to the road as both a real and metaphoric concept that opens a rich space for inquiry. The road allows the TSS to express amplified energy flows along its protocol-defined pathway. It is not difficult to conceptually extend the idea of the road as any pathway for the directed and concentrated expression of energy of a TSS. (more …)

Up early on a gorgeous late spring day to finish preparations on the yurt platform which overlooks a beautiful slice of one of the two canyons on the east and west sides of their lot. The actual raising of the yurt won’t be until next month (stay tuned!), but Collin and Marisa will be away on one of their guided flights to Alaska in the interim. Friends, including their neighbor, Bob, lend a hand for the long, hard day of work, but it’s all relaxed and with lots of good humor. PBR’s temper the late afternoon heat. Work continues until after dark with a quick polyurethaning of the all the lower bender boards while Bob and his wife make a hearty hamburger dinner. Good times!

Some final words on the residency period:

Energy of Situation

Rather than the production of new configurations of the energized world as a tool for individual continuance and relevance to the wider social system, I chose to concentrate on a fundamental closer to the bone, as it were, the production of new configurations of the energized world as a tool for individual continuance and relevance to the wider social system. What we do changes the cosmos, always, everywhere, (because everywhere’s are not separated nor distinct).
(more …)

Flat Light. Cycling perhaps ten, twelve miles out. Parallel with the huge trenches of the salt/potash mining, eventually towards Blue Lake. A bit nervous about unexploded ordnance, but there are plenty of old vehicle tracks in the playa to follow. The berms, canals, and drainage engineering has completely off-balanced the system here. In its original condition, as it still the case north of I-80, there is a thick layer of very hard and relatively pure salt overlying the extremely fine-grained mud that accumulates as the ranges surrounding the playa slowly erode. It’s this same very fine-grained sediment that comprises the nasty dust in the frequent and rather violent wind storms kicks up high into the atmosphere. When wet it becomes a gooey mess that is at the same time, slick and very dense. The very reason that it costs USD 600 if you get your vehicle stuck somewhere in the local playa — usually when the salt ‘ice’ breaks through — it takes a snow-cat to tow it out. And, as the basins between the ranges are being formed as a result of wide-scale extensional tectonics, that stuff is deep, thousands of feet deep! Nothing like the feeling of being out in the back country here with a vehicle that is stuck or has broken down. Cell phones usually don’t work, and it’s a long walk anywhere. I carry plenty of water (10 gallons), a shovel, tow cable, full tool kit, flash-Lights, some food, sleeping gear, signaling mirror, and other bits of paraphernalia to at least make it a comfortable wait. And most of the time, I have my mountain bike which would make a 50-mile exit a possibility.

A long cycle ride south from South Base, the (doh!) southern part of the airbase. Into the region down-range of the heavy machine-gun target range and where fragments of mock-up Little Boy bombs (prepped with high explosives, not nukes) may be found along with tens of thousands of rounds of oxidized-green-sheathed bullets scattered everywhere on the surface of the playa. The cycling is a bit surreal when surrounded by mountains floating on silver lakes. Lots of effort into the wind, but otherwise, it’s a flat out ride. Slight differences in the surface texture, and then the human altered areas — the dikes and drainage berms of the saline concentrating solar evaporation ponds.

Then there are the bunkers and V-1 test area. Matt said the casinos use a couple bunkers for records storage, as does the city of Wendover. The Simparch-designed CLUI South Base Clean Livin’ center is a cool space — completely self-contained with a PV electricity system, gray water recycling system, and a composting toilet. Along with the refurbished Quonset hut it makes for a homey post-nuclear space for quiet meditation.

Are not engineers merely ingenious engines of war? all roads lead to Rome.

Latour’s network(s) of relations (in ANT) are complexifying descriptors for a multiplicity of flows where each actor in the network are the origin and recipient of various flows. Or, they are merely the nodal locales of concentrated flow (as conscripted by the social structures). Again, back to the observation that the structure of the social is the prescription that forces flows into rarefied and concentrated zones or pathways. Each attenuation (measured in relief to a ‘natural’ background flow) becomes an actor in full, constant, and distributed relation to at least some other points in the field. The theory, the image of a multiplicity of flows, taken to a near-infinite limit, a beyond-multiplicity, an infinity of nodes would then approximate “reality.” If the network is functioning properly — that is, constructing a plausible account of real social systems — the network will be “an expression to check how much energy, movement and specificity our own reports are able to capture.” (Latour) Those reports, though, are always reductive and incomplete. A map locating the nodes and noting the flows across each one is not the lived territory in time, nor does it accurately express the character of the flows, which in the end are more important than the nodal points.

Is this blog a report? If so, the question becomes how it might more accurately invoke the territory of inquiry. [indeterminacy, trans-disciplinary (discipline being "mortification by scourging oneself", yikes!), without genesis or terminus, and sampling as many strands of lived-impression (not just screen-mediated living) as possible.]

If network is an accurate description of a situation then a consideration of the order that the network imposes on the situation is called for. Network and order, (including Latour’s actor-network) is about the application of a decodable order applied to a diversity of actors within the object of study. It implies reduction, though hints at an ever-expanding point-of-view. It is couched in language (report, correspondance, academic paper, speech, communications) which is problematic, but this limit is applied to practically anything social. Order is rooted in the negentropic tendencies of life in opposition to the entropic character of all non-life. (Depends — is an accretionary disk of stellar matter, through gravity, rising as anisotropic presence of order as the star forms negentropic, or not — is there any fundamental (ordered) difference between varying (relative and Cartesian) densities of energized matter?) The biggest problem with most current usages of network is that very often the nodes are well-defined (to a fault), as are the geometries of connection, but not so much the qualities of the flows between. I’ll have to pay attention to that lack as I troll the literature. There is the (network) engineering efficiency approach which examines the issues around signal transmission and reception including power usage and signal/noise ratios — which are inextricably linked to amplification issues.. But the efficiency is determined after the fact of the signal being strictly defined by existing protocols.

ack! my usage plunges into a cesspool. the Jekyll and Hyde of free-style and efficient. faggeddabouddit!

Excellent resource which will allow me to trace both forwards and backwards in time on this particular worldview which, although the definition of energy is strictly based on contemporary physics and thermodynamics (of that time), it provides a valid and detailed approach to the issue.

(Not to mention that the copy I got from Newcastle University was “donated by the Newcastle District Committee of the Amalgamated Engineering Union.” Would for the survival of humanity that engineers take in the consequences of thermodynamics at all scales!)

Cottrell maps out in some detail the inter-relationships of technological (energy-usage) and the consequent/subsequent social change/evolution that occurs.

He does perhaps miss a point where he attaches the energy advantage of a rising mercantile-class in Europe in the 16-1700′s to the energy of sail. I would suggest that it was not the energy of sail, but the potential energy brought about by the technologies necessary to take advantage of this naturally-available store of energy (flows). That is, the social structure (organization of individuals) necessary to construct boats, the availability of the resources necessary for their proper construction — tall trees, steel tools (not merely iron) for working the wood, enough to build numerous boats to maintain a sufficient flow of trade (read: energy). And finally, of course, the existence of suitable natural resource reservoir, ultimately driven by the sun, wind.

He introduces the term high-energy technology which is essentially a set of technologies that have a high rate-of-return relative to the input (read: hydrocarbons, nuclear, large-scale hydro). In contrast with low-energy converters which would include plants and animals (as a food/energy converter for human consumption).

spend the afternoon at a meeting with a group of about 15 enthusiastic Mizzou students who are interested in fundamental issues around sustainability and social activism. the meeting (01:20 audio) was organized by the Open Sustainability Network Mid-Missouri, under the title Tools to Thrive. hosted by Richard Schulte, one of the founders of the Mid-Missouri group (which is connected to the umbrella Open Sustainability Network). OSN-MM is also the initiator of the Columbia Missouri Exchange Circle. Lonny Grafman, the featured presenter, is a lecturer at Humboldt State University and is the founder of Appropedia Foundation, the self-proclaimed sustainability wiki which provides a public platform for information on sustainable community practices along with pertinent knowledge-sets for implementation. Lonny is also the Executive Editor of International Journal for Service Learning in Engineering (IJSLE). He introduced some of his work in the form of a presentation Democracy Unlimited Humboldt County Rainwater: A Case Study in Open Source Community Action for Sustainability which explored community activism in deployment of sustainable (in this case, domestic rainwater gathering) systems. words: creation of human networks … the search for a deliverable … starts with a sonic ambient exploration a rainstorm … examples of rainwater sequestering … Bechtel in Bolivia … anthropocentric impurities … a lesson in rainwater catchments: free … local infrastructures generate independence / autonomy. Too many details at first. without the principles of appropriate technology use — public perception, policy situation, know-how, resources, initiative, currency in Humboldt … hemp paper, soy inks … Temporary Autonomous Zone break-out groups: creation and organization of more and better public art; bike-powered something; CSPAN (Columbia Sustainability Policy Action Network); local economy (in general); moving from thought to action; facilitating dialogue; sustainable creative activism; expanding the sustainability community; empathy and interconnectedness; rooftop gardens where possible on campus; community networking club celebrations, gardening; organizing / participating in one implementation workshop for a physically appropriate technology setup; less plastic use, healthy local food, teaching sustainability to children … sorry no more detailed notes, I had to leave right after the break-out sessions to meet Nick and Deb to look at houses. I cycle across downtown from campus to the Walgreens where I lock the bike and go in to buy a snack. when I come out I wander across the parking lot looking for Deb’s car. an chubby white woman gets out of a sedan and asks me if I need a ride. she says she normally doesn’t do that, but I looked like I wasn’t a killer and that she’d be happy to help me out. I say no, no thanks, I’m just waiting for friends to pick me up. mid-western courtesy? I’m wearing a black leather biker’s jacket, black jeans, black half-gloves and a baseball cap from Germany, and dark brown sunglasses. who’s she kidding? she must have been one of those mild-mannered mid-western serial killers. just then Deb pulls up. saved! Nick stayed with the kids, so we drive into the countryside to some small towns looking at houses. the area is really depressed, many empty storefronts on Main Street. and this area is relatively affluent compared to much of the rest of the state. it would be very interesting to travel through these areas and document what is happening. sustainability? indeed. things are not sustained here. help is needed.

John passes this one along, charting yet another step in the march of the Military-Industrial machine that began during WWII. and with the Christian Right quite comfortable with the prognostications of their arm-chair prophets about the impending Armageddon in the Middle East, no problem, Amurika will get the job DONE! along with lots of warm and fuzzies…

Martin MGM-1 Matador :: General Dynamics (Convair) RIM-2 Terrier :: Western Electric MIM-3 Nike Ajax :: Hughes AIM-4 Falcon :: JPL/Firestone MGM-5 Corporal :: Vought RGM-6 Regulus :: Raytheon AIM/RIM-7 Sparrow :: Bendix RIM-8 Talos :: Raytheon (Philco/G.E.) AIM-9 Sidewinder :: Boeing CIM-10 Bomarc :: Chrysler PGM-11 Redstone :: Martin AGM-12 Bullpup :: Martin MGM/CGM-13 Mace :: Western Electric MIM-14 Nike Hercules :: Vought RGM-15 Regulus II :: General Dynamics (Convair) CGM/HGM-16 Atlas :: Douglas PGM-17 Thor :: Martin MGM-18 Lacrosse :: Chrysler PGM-19 Jupiter :: McDonnell ADM-20 Quail :: Nord MGM-21 :: Aérospatiale (Nord) AGM-22 :: Raytheon MIM-23 Hawk :: General Dynamics (Convair) RIM-24 Tartar :: Martin HGM/LGM-25 Titan :: Hughes AIM-26 Falcon :: Lockheed UGM-27 Polaris :: North American AGM-28 Hound Dog :: JPL/Sperry MGM-29 Sergeant :: Boeing LGM-30 Minuteman :: Martin Marietta MGM-31 Pershing :: Aérospatiale (Nord) MGM-32 Entac :: Northrop (Radioplane) MQM-33 :: Teledyne Ryan AQM/BQM/MQM/BGM-34 Firebee :: Northrop (Radioplane) AQM-35 :: Northrop (Radioplane) MQM-36 Shelduck :: Beech AQM-37 :: Northrop (Radioplane) AQM-38 :: Beech MQM-39 :: Globe MQM-40 Firefly :: Fairchild AQM-41 Petrel :: North American MQM-42 Redhead/Roadrunner :: General Dynamics FIM-43 Redeye :: Goodyear UUM-44 Subroc :: Texas Instruments AGM-45 Shrike :: General Dynamics MIM-46 Mauler :: Hughes AIM-47 Falcon :: Douglas AGM-48 Skybolt :: Western Electric/McDonnell Douglas LIM-49 Nike Zeus/Spartan :: Bendix RIM-50 Typhon LR :: Ford MGM-51 Shillelagh :: LTV MGM-52 Lance :: Rockwell AGM-53 Condor :: Raytheon (Hughes) AIM-54 Phoenix :: Bendix RIM-55 Typhon MR :: Nord/Bell PQM-56 :: Northrop (Radioplane) MQM-57 Falconer :: Aerojet General MQM-58 Overseer :: APL RGM-59 Taurus :: Lockheed AQM-60 Kingfisher :: Beech MQM-61 Cardinal :: Martin Marietta AGM-62 Walleye :: AGM-63 :: Rockwell (North American) AGM-64 Hornet :: Raytheon (Hughes) AGM-65 Maverick :: Raytheon (General Dynamics) RIM-66 Standard MR :: Raytheon (General Dynamics) RIM-67 Standard ER :: Air Force Weapons Lab AIM-68 Big Q :: Boeing AGM-69 SRAM :: Boeing LEM-70 Minuteman ERCS :: Raytheon (Hughes) BGM-71 TOW :: Ford MIM-72 Chaparral :: Lockheed UGM-73 Poseidon :: Northrop MQM/BQM-74 Chukar :: BGM-75 AICBM :: Hughes AGM-76 Falcon :: McDonnell Douglas FGM-77 Dragon :: General Dynamics AGM-78 Standard ARM :: Martin Marietta AGM-79 Blue Eye :: Chrysler AGM-80 Viper :: Teledyne Ryan AQM-81 Firebolt :: AIM-82 :: Texas Instruments AGM-83 Bulldog :: Boeing (McDonnell Douglas) AGM/RGM/UGM-84 Harpoon :: RIM-85 :: Boeing AGM-86 ALCM :: General Electric AGM-87 Focus :: Raytheon (Texas Instruments) AGM-88 HARM :: UGM-89 Perseus / STAM :: BQM-90 :: Teledyne Ryan AQM-91 Firefly :: Raytheon (General Dynamics) FIM-92 Stinger :: E-Systems GQM-93 :: Boeing GQM-94 B-Gull :: Hughes AIM-95 Agile :: Lockheed UGM-96 Trident I :: General Dynamics AIM-97 Seekbat :: Teledyne Ryan GQM-98 R-Tern :: LIM-99 :: LIM-100 :: RIM-101 :: General Dynamics/Sperry PQM-102 Delta Dagger :: Teledyne Ryan AQM-103 :: Raytheon MIM-104 Patriot :: Lockheed MQM-105 Aquila :: USAF FDL BQM-106 Teleplane :: Raytheon (Beech) MQM-107 Streaker :: NWC BQM-108 :: Raytheon (General Dynamics) BGM/RGM/UGM-109 Tomahawk :: LTV BGM-110 :: Teledyne Ryan BQM-111 Firebrand :: Rockwell AGM-112 :: RIM-113 :: Boeing/Lockheed Martin (Rockwell/Martin Marietta) AGM-114 Hellfire :: Euromissile/Hughes/Boeing MIM-115 Roland :: Raytheon (General Dynamics) RIM-116 RAM :: RS Systems FQM-117 RCMAT :: Martin Marietta LGM-118 Peacekeeper :: Kongsberg AGM-119 Penguin :: Raytheon (Hughes) AIM-120 AMRAAM :: Boeing CQM/CGM-121 Pave Tiger/Seek Spinner :: Motorola AGM-122 Sidearm :: Emerson Electric AGM-123 Skipper II :: Hughes AGM-124 Wasp :: Boeing RUM/UUM-125 Sea Lance :: Beech BQM-126 :: Martin Marietta AQM-127 SLAT :: AQM-128 :: Raytheon (General Dynamics) AGM-129 ACM :: Boeing (Rockwell) AGM-130 :: Boeing AGM-131 SRAM II :: MBDA (BAe Dynamics/Matra) AIM-132 ASRAAM :: Lockheed Martin UGM-133 Trident II :: Martin Marietta MGM-134 Midgetman :: Vought ASM-135 ASAT :: Northrop AGM/BGM-136 Tacit Rainbow :: Northrop AGM/MGM-137 TSSAM :: Boeing CEM-138 Pave Cricket :: Lockheed Martin (Loral) RUM-139 VL-Asroc :: Lockheed Martin (LTV) MGM-140 ATACMS :: IMI (Brunswick) ADM-141 TALD :: Rafael/Lockheed Martin AGM-142 Have Nap :: Continental RPVs MQM-143 RPVT :: ADM-144 :: Teledyne Ryan BQM-145 Peregrine :: Oerlikon/Lockheed Martin MIM-146 ADATS :: BAI Aerosystems BQM-147 Exdrone :: Raytheon/Lockheed Martin FGM-148 Javelin :: PQM-149 UAV-SR / McDonnell Douglas Sky Owl :: PQM-150 UAV-SR :: AeroVironment FQM-151 Pointer :: AIM-152 AAAM :: AGM-153 :: Raytheon (Texas Instruments) AGM-154 JSOW :: Northrop Grumman (TRW/IAI) BQM-155 Hunter :: Raytheon RIM-156 Standard SM-2ER Block IV :: Raytheon MGM-157 EFOGM :: Lockheed Martin AGM-158 JASSM :: Boeing (McDonnell Douglas) AGM-159 JASSM :: Northrop Grumman (Teledyne Ryan) ADM-160 MALD :: Raytheon RIM-161 Standard SM-3 :: Raytheon RIM-162 ESSM :: Orbital Sciences GQM-163 Coyote :: Lockheed Martin MGM-164 ATACMS II :: Raytheon RGM-165 LASM :: Lockheed Martin MGM-166 LOSAT/KEM :: Composite Engineering BQM-167 Skeeter :: Lockheed Martin MGM-168 ATACMS Block IVA :: Lockheed Martin AGM-169 JCM :: Griffon Aerospace MQM-170 Outlaw :: Griffon Aerospace MQM-171 Broadsword :: Lockheed Martin FGM-172 SRAW :: Alliant Techsystems GQM-173 MSST :: Raytheon RIM-174 ERAM (SM-6) :: :: Douglas MGR-1 Honest John :: Douglas AIR-2 Genie :: Emerson Electric MGR-3 Little John :: NOTS RUR-4 Weapon Alpha :: Honeywell RUR-5 Asroc :: Ford MER-6 Blue Scout ERCS :: Raytheon ADR-7 :: Revere (Tracor) ADR-8 :: Tracor ADR-9 :: Raytheon ADR-10 :: ADR-11 :: ADR-12 :: USAMICOM MQR-13 BMTS :: Martin Marietta AGR-14 ZAP :: USAMICOM MTR-15 BATS :: Atlantic Research MQR-16 Gunrunner :: General Dynamics FGR-17 Viper :: NWC GTR-18 Smokey Sam :: :: JPL PWN-1 Loki-Dart :: Aerojet General PWN-2 Aerobee-Hi :: University of Michigan/NACA PWN-3 Nike-Cajun :: University of Michigan PWN-4 Exos :: Cooper Development PWN-5 Rocksonde 200 :: Atlantic Research PWN-6 Kitty :: Atlantic Research PWN-7 Rooster :: Space Data PWN-8 Loki Datasonde :: Aerojet/UTC PWN-9 Kangaroo :: Space Data PWN-10 Super Loki Datasonde :: Space Data PWN-11 Super Loki Datasonde :: Space Data PWN-12 Super Loki ROBIN

The Army Corps of Engineers with its national system of dams and levees has shown us what happens when the military-industrial approach in which Man dominates nature is put to work in eliminating wet lands where wild birds gather and sedimentary islands build up to break ocean surges. This form of engineering is the same kind of military-industrial thinking that salinates the soil with center-pivot agriculture and drains the Ogalala aquifer to replace biodiversity with monocrops held in place with the chemical warfare of pesticides. And the animal prisoners taken in this war are held in place in the concentration camps of feedlots and drugged with antibiotics and growth hormones to prepare them for mass slaughter. Their carcasses are then processed in fast food fuel stations along highway strips that are the same ugly clutter of signs and stops from Anchorage to Miami. Our President [Bush] is comfortable with this mentality because for him nature is basically a golf course or a ranch — or a national park turned into a country club where folks can burn off stress by speeding over the snow while polluting the air of Yellowstone with gas-guzzling skidoos. — William Irwin Thompson, essays

Background for Research

While individual human presence in this world has fundamental repercussions on be-ing, it is the ever-present and synergistic exchange between humans — forming what I call a “continuum of relation” — that governs much of life. This energetic field of human relation is sometimes fraught with difficulties and complications in spite of the rich and necessary dynamic it brings to life. Technology, as a ubiquitous factor in mediating human relation, often dominates while presented as providing the only opportunity for mediated connection and interaction between humans.

Presence, as apprehended by the Other, circumscribes a range of sensory inputs that require energy (from the Self) to stimulate and drive. The efficacy and sustainability of human connection builds on the very real and tangible transmissions and receptions of energy between the Self and the Other. An interconnected plurality of dialectic human relation may be described as a network. These networks, made up of a web of Self-Other connections form the base fabric of the continuum of relation. Technology appears in these networks as the mediating pathway that is the carrier of energy from node to node, person to person. Technological systems also appear to apply absolute restraints on and attenuation of the idiosyncratic flows inherent in that continuum of relation. The discrete objects that populate the (technological) landscape of the continuum of relation and that modulate the character of communications are literally artifacts of a materialist point of view. A primary assumption in my research is that a materialist or mechanistic view of the world no longer suffices to adequately circumscribe the phenomena occurring within the continuum of relation. (more …)

Concerning Particular Methodologies

Dialogues, Networks, and Collaboration — Much of my creative practice, research, and indeed, presence is built on the activation of robust and sustained dialogues with a wide range of Others both remote and local. These dialogues form a network. The most powerful situation I can imagine for creative research and production is an open human network. I am keen to engage on the ground with the Australian, Sydney-based, and UTS creative community. I am familiar with the milieu, having been in Sydney for six weeks in 2006 as a visiting artist at COFA, and I very much look forward to being there again. I have an extensive personal/professional network of Antipodal creatives which dates back to the early 1990s that I will be pleased to activate on a more face-to-face basis.

Distributed Performance — My own applied international research in distributed performance and tactical media over the last fifteen years is centered around synchronous live network-based social activities. Engaging a wide range of technical solutions, my work is a direct utilization of amplified digital networks as the locus for creative action. These areas of research experience include a variety of performance-based activities in theater, dance, sonic, and other expressive arts occurring in or augmented by collaborative networked situations. As a self-proclaimed networker, an area of core awareness in my research is the concept of presence — and how that human presence is directly and indirectly affected by any/all technologies that filter and attenuate that presence: how human expression across a network system is precisely formed and informed by the impression of the technologies used.
(more …)

starting with the UdK-Berlin block seminar tomorrow. 36 hours over two weekends. usually these are challenging and dynamic. good!

back to the brico list discussions:

John von Seggern (on empyre wireless sustainability):

I agree with you, however we shouldn’t confuse the Internet/digital networks in general with the larger techno-social system within which they exist. In point of fact, digital networks perform many tasks much more energy-efficiently than we could do without them (telecommuting vs. actual jet travel for example), so I would expect them to continue to thrive in an energy-constrained future even if many other facets of our society are radically reconfigured.

sotto voce: But in the end, that’s a little like saying how much money I will save by buying a pair of pants at 50% off the regular price. I don’t save anything, I spend money buying the pants.

The Internet as an infrastructure cannot (except theoretically) be excised from the techno-social system that it is embedded within. Energy consumption of that system rises, is rising. Web 2.0 sites brought online huge numbers of energy-consuming server farms which never existed when users did not store social networking data, for example. And the energy usage stats can’t be limited to nation-states, because it’s a global boat we are (apparently) floating in. It’s like saying the US uses far less energy making steel now than it did 50 years ago. What about how much it consumes? And where was the other steel made? The same argument was also used with digital creating “paperless” offices — track paper usage!

Internet helps Americans save more energy every year

sotto voce: Of course, in the process of the engineered evolution of any particular device there will be optimization — that is the goal of engineering. If that wasn’t the case, our system would have never been marginally sustainable from the beginning. Extracting stats on theoretically isolated elements is not valid except for more back-slapping “we’ve done it, we’ve found a way to have and eat our cake” — and it represents no real solution. It is exactly this localized isolation of elements which allows this mentality to persist. Just as with many previous industrial advances where a resource was abundant, any negative affects of the use of that resource was able to be overlooked by the end user who was somehow isolated (usually geographically) from them. That geographic isolation is no longer possible when the effects are global. Think, on a globe there are no isolated corners to sit in anymore.

This is exactly the point that I am making — that unless people realize radical shifts in our relationship with the deep and broad techno-social infrastructure, we are not making real reductions in the overall footprint, and it is the size of the cumulative footprint that will spell the difference between sustainability or the alternative which is only dimly making itself known through the fog of naivety. (and believe me, I don’t place myself above the fray, but energy consumption and the reliance on the largely invisible functioning of that globe-spanning infrastructure is a seriously addictive way to go).

not sure where the link to Michael Shanks site comes up, but the syllabus for his course Ten Things is deLightful and incisive. he’s got some really interesting thoughts on the life of objects, the presence of humans, and the history of both.

If we look at processes as well as discrete objects, we can be led into a myriad of connections and trajectories. In the heterogeneous networking that is the engineering of a thing, there is no end to ramification. An artifact disperses through its scenarios, networks and genealogies of origination, manufacture, distribution, use and discard.

Interpretation, as re-articulation, can track certain affiliations or lines of connection, as I sketched with the aryballos. There is always more that remains unsaid, unacknowledged, unseen, because interpretation may not go down a particular track. This is so evident in archaeological fieldwork, or indeed in any scientific research, where there is always a choice to be made of what matters to the research interest. What is left behind, ignored or discarded is the background noise of history and experience. This is far from inconsequential. First, because something important may have been overlooked. Science constantly takes a second look at things and finds something that was missed. Second, because things stand out as significant against this background; without it there could be no story, no message, no understanding. Third, because this is the noise of the ambient everyday work that makes society what it is; it is the noise of the life of things constantly reweaving our social fabric. — Michael Shanks

I recently tracked down Andreas Voigt, a documentary film-maker that I met back in the early 1990′s at a film festival in Reykjavík. He was present for the screening of his deeply moving black-and-white features made in and around Leipzig in the late 80′s and early 90′s during the early post-Cold Wars days (Letztes Jahr – Titanic and Leipzig im Herbst). He emails me that his most recent documentary, Mit Rentiernomaden über den Ural is on tonight. Christian and I watch while Steffi is out at choir practice. very fine work.

a few more entries. done with the 2007 travelog except for some more sonic remix additions when I get the chance. and some image additions. retrospective work should continue, but what does it mean when the ROI is null.

The fundamental problem of communication is that of reproducing at one point either exactly or approximately a message selected at another point. Frequently the messages have meaning; that is they refer to or are correlated according to some system with certain physical or conceptual entities. These semantic aspects of communication are irrelevant to the engineering problem. — Claude Shannon

no problems here. except for three dead chickens, four by the end of the day. a raccoon open the sliding trap door to the chicken coop and spends the night killing chickens for sport and biting the wood frame trying to get back out. I come in in the morning and the first thing I see is one chicken come walking out with the comb of another in its beak, faugh! I walk in, open the outside door, shoo the chickens out and fail to see the raccoon until I notice a large ball of fur in a dark roost. I immediately retreat and grab a hoe, not knowing what’s up. I prod and poke until the big fat guy moves, but as there is only one way out, he ends up climbing up to the eves of the coop and stays. I close things up and again retreat to figure out what to do. bag one corpse, and then there is a third chicken with half it’s neck eaten through. the other birds are pecking at it in the run, so I isolate it, and shoo the rest out into the yard. long story cut short, the raccoon finally leaves before the ‘wildlife specialist,’ Bill, arrives. no charge, and plenty of advice (like — raccoons can pretty much open any normal latches and doors!). later in the afternoon, Juniper, one of the dachshunds, who in the morning got a bit of chicken blood taste, apparently kills yet another bird, a rooster no less. sheesh! house-sitting carnage.

We Have Never Been Modular…

Thanks to everybody who commented on my text “Remix and Remixability” (November 16, 2005). It was provoked by reading about web 2.0 and all the excitement and hype (as always) around it, so indeed I am “following the mainstream view” in certain ways. But I would like to make it clear that ultimately we are talking about something which does not just apply to RSS, social bookmarking, or Web Services. We are talking about the logic of modularity which extends beyond the Web and digital culture…

Modularity has been the key principle of modern mass production. Mass production is possible because of the standarisation of parts and how they fit with each other – i.e. modularity. Although there are historical precedents for…

Maintaining consistency in this huge, constantly changing network is the work of standards. Standards are socially constructed tools: They embody the outcomes of negotiations that are simultaneously technical, social, and political in character. Like algorithms, they serve to specify exactly how something will be done. Ideally, standardized processes and devices always work in the same way, no matter where, what, or who applies them. Consequently, some elements of standards can be embedded in machines or systems. When they work, standards lubricate the construction of technological systems and make possible widely shared knowledge. — Paul N. Edwards

Edwards, P.N., 2004. A Vast Machine: Standards as Social Technology. Science, 304(7 May 2004), pp.827-828.

Measurement is a comparison process in which the value of a quantity is expressed as the product of a value and a unit; that is, Quantity = {a numerical value} x {unit} where the unit is an agreed-upon value of a quantity of the same type. The concept of a quantity such as length is independent of the associated unit; the length is the same whether it is measured in feet or meters. A standard is a physical realization of the definition, with an agreed-upon value to be used as a reference. — Jeff Flowers

Flowers, J., 2004. The Route to Atomic and Quantum Standards. Science, 306(19 November 2004), pp.1324-1330.

reflecting on parallel universes, light musings surround the controversy that today ceased rumbling around CNOOC (Chinese National Offshore Oil Company) and Unocal (Union Oil of California). back when I worked for Unocal in the early 1980′s, it is hard to imagine any other response than hearty guffaws to the suggestion that, in 20 years the US oil concern would be up for auction with Chinese buyers out-bidding Chevron. no longer in contact with any of my colleagues from those days, I would be curious to hear their situations, if, indeed, they still are employed by the firm. times change the conditions of the market. Unocal has been an acquisition target since the early 80′s when I was there — when the infamous Texas oilman T. Boone Pickens was in hot pursuit of the company, such that the board tried to sink the company into multi-billion debt to make it less attractive. it is a different time indeed when a Chinese company, 70%-owned by the Chinese government, makes an aggressive bid to acquire a legacy US corporation. and on top of that, a company dealing with THE major strategic resource of the developed world of the 21st century. no wonder Washington hawks are screaming! after watching the entire Cspan-aired Senate hearings on this precise merger, I was astonished at the lack of intelligence in the expressions of the ‘experts’ called in by the Senate. so little understanding of the movement and evolution and change of power in a dynamic world. fighting or resisting inevitable power shifts is for the naive who cling to temporal power under highly conventional paradigms. it is clear that China is rising, and the US perhaps falling — in the broad sense. the empty cup tends to fullness, the full cup tends to emptiness. rather than deal with the realities of socio-political evolution, the Washington power-brokers cling to an out-dated and very static worldview. few seems to get Sun Tzu.

but how is it, these men and women who populate a corporate landscape, how do they live? remembering back to the instance of going on a executive retreat to an exclusive resort in Ojai, north of LA, for a 4-day review of Unocal’s status in the oil business. my task was to present at an informal seminar an overview of state-of-the-art technology and applications for gravity and magnetic in petroleum exploration. golf was on the schedule for a majority of the older execs, their bonding exercise. open bar helped with that. I got the feeling that everything simply went along a certain and safe pathway to the intended goal of regular paychecks which were fed into mortgages, car payments, and very short vacation splurges (only 10 days of holiday per year for the first 5 years). like a corral to tame the wild engineering student broncos. at the end of my briefing on the Colombia Llanos project, I showed a series of slides including portraits of the local peasants, the landscape, and the on-the-ground operation. It was very quiet when I was showing images of the people.

I have always maintained that my departure from the Big Oil scene was in no way an altruistic choice. this despite an early radicalization which included studying “The Communist Manifesto” in 7th grade — a fact that classmate Russ Werner picked up. he was the funniest kid in the junior high school, and the best cartoonist as well. he left a note in my yearbook addressed to the Pinko Commie Rat. no, that predilection did not factor in, though I can point to Roger Steffens program on KCRW, where I was a volunteer-member, The Reggae Beat brought the vibes of the Rastafarian belief system into high relief with guests the likes of Bob Marley, Alton Ellis, and Peter Tosh. If music can radicalize, it did. Bob Marley speaks as powerfully as any German philosopher! Jah Rastafari Makonnen! not to mention programs like “Alma del Barrrio” on KXLU “schizo-radio on the Left.”

I also recall, when living off of Lincoln and Ocean, taking a long slow look at a Roland Jupiter 8 keyboard, running around $1200 at the time, now I really wonder what would have happened if I had bought that rather than a Nakamichi tape deck, a used 6’2″ twin-fin swallowtail surfboard, and a Fiat Spyder.

no, leaping from the Big Oil gravy train was merely the next step. on the eve of departure, the actual handing in a letter of resignation to Dennis Mett, the director of International Exploration, there was the huge Mombasa project that came up. For six months after I left, I would get occasional phone calls from Bill Sax, the VP of the International Division, asking if I wanted to continue working for Unocal and go to Africa for 6 weeks to oversee a mag survey from offshore up into the Great Rift Valley. by that time I was on another trajectory completely.

Chief executives, who themselves own few shares of their companies, have no more feeling for the average stockholder than they do for baboons in Africa. — T. Boone Pickens