ISSUE 1.8

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Pry My Job From My Cold, Dead Hands

Great artwork, robotic politics, robots taking our jobs (yeah yeah), a meme stock market, crazy science, and more!

[timewheel.net]

Vibrant And Uncanny Worlds Created By Artist Uğur Engin Deniz

Uğur Engin Deniz is easily one of my favorite artists. This is a great survey of many of his pieces and stages of his artwork. Click through if you love your eyes.

[wired.com]

What Happens When Algorithms Design a Concert Hall? The Stunning Elbphilharmonie

Some great photos of the construction within, as well as how humans interacted with an algorithm to develop a stunning, organic-looking concert hall. I love it!

[theguardian.com]

Is our world a simulation? Why some scientists say it's more likely than not

Remember that Superintelligence (and virtual reality) is the idea that eats smart people, but here's a bunch of scientists who think that our world is simulated. Essentially, it's wild extrapolation from the idea that we can reproduce our own intelligence with computers (bet you can't guess what side of this debate I'm on), but it's an entertaining read regardless.

[theverge.com]

How a group of Redditors is creating a fake stock market to figure out the value of memes

I recently learned about the value of LEGO increasing crazily over time, so why not memes? Also, that picture is fantastic. Good job, Verge.

Robert Ek

Click through for a much higher quality GIF on Instagram.

[thecreatorsproject.vice.com]

This Sculpture Simulates Politics with Angry, Indecipherable Beeping

Video within. Fairly cool description of the plastic mannequins' Arduino-driven "conversation" program that cause them to talk back depending on how long they've been "listening" to each other, even with parameters for ignoring one another. "The act never reaches a conclusion and it is performed in a non-deterministic way," Cherouvim told The Creators Project. "Their language is incomprehensible, causing the viewer to lose interest in the conversation and politics all together." Sounds like modern politics to me!

[digitaltrends.com]

Scientists Genetically Modified Salmonella to Eat Cancerous Tumors

OK, this is pretty crazy. They genetically modified food poisoning to only seek out "low oxygen tension" cells, which are a signifying characteristic of tumors, causing them only to attack cancerous tumors. Apparently this has a 20% success rate - over basically nothing. Fucking science!

[bloomberg.com]

The Robot Rampage

ROBOTS! China installing more robots than anyone else - tons of jobs becoming eliminated - graphs! quotes! A little data on the incoming robot swarm that's going to take all my jobs.