interview between paddy johnson (art fag city) and internet art personality, critic and artist tom moody about the movie 8-bit. -sd

A nice post on Subtopia - mapping projects are nothing new in design/ new media, but these are great and certainly move beyond pleasure of seeing data. You should check out the original post on blogger for the pictures. -sd

In case you have a little map fetish, well then, I have a few here you might want to peep. Yeah, we got maps. Maps of the global arms trade, maps of destruction brought upon Lebanon by Israel's recent bombing campaign, we've got a map of the business locations of the war profiteers of New York City. Maps that even trace the imperialist war torn history of the Middle East; interpretations of the spatial striation of incarceration in NYC; the densities of world poverty; maps that guage changing environments, flood levels even, as well as alert you to the planet's ongoing disasters. Hell, we've got a map that tracks the routes of the CIA's secret torture flights, the patterns of extraordinary rendition posted on a billboard for all to see.

FBI refusing to disclose how they use new technologies for surveillance (or how they spy on people who are communicating through new technologies). interesting that the obviously malicious Carnivore was renamed something a little more abstract (and maybe cute, like a robot) DCS-3000. -sd

FBI Withholds Records on Tools to Intercept Personal Communications

Washington, D.C. - The FLAG Project at the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) filed its first lawsuit against the Department of Justice Tuesday after the FBI failed to respond to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for records concerning DCS-3000 and Red Hook -- tools the FBI has spent millions of dollars developing for electronic surveillance.

a little long and confessional, but some interesting thoughts along the way about the why of object-making. also, see the latour link at the very beginning (there are so many fascinating essays on latour's website). -sd

I've read Latour's awesome Socratic explanation of ANT many times, but today Jean focussed on something that I still need to get a better handle on in my writing:

Professor — I would leave aside all ‘underlying frameworks’, if I were you.

some Arduino PR - neither the project shown here nor the info are all that useful, but its a placeholder until i get some better howtos up -sd

Download this article to get all the details and instructions from Make: 04.

[Read this article] [Comment on this article]

Linked below is a pleasant, yet nostalgic, article and slideshow that features Oakland, CA based craftsperson Eric Clausen, who is producing exceptional work in the decorative/functional (and traditional) genre of blacksmithing.

Surprisingly, what strikes me about this piece is not at all what one would initially anticipate from a guy like me that regularly writes about craft issues (but maybe not so out of the ordinary for a self-proclaimed provocateur). After viewing the slideshow that is associated with this article, I am compelled to comment.

The Smithsonian has a great collection of industrial drawings, doodles and sketches, like this Electro-mechanical fly catcher from Everett Huckel Bickley (1943) - "Drawing is a key element in the process of working out ideas. Drawing moves an idea from the "mind's eye" to paper, the first step along the path from thought to three-dimensional reality. Inventors sketch as they think, developing their ideas on paper more quickly and more easily than they might in model form.