geratura

all watched over by [bugs] of loving grace

Eventually fermentation processes halt. In the case of mead, this may occur after a month; with neural nets, a process called simulated annealing intentionally decreases the learning rate every iteration; so the system begins by exploring large features then focuses on details. Eventually the learning rate diminishes to zero. Learning (fermentation) stops.

(...) To be specific, Errazuriz didn’t hack Snapchat and tag its model of the sculpture but created his own, identical version with his studio, CrossLab, and dropped it at the same GPS coordinates as Snapchat’s. He then created his own free app, ARNYC, through which you can access the graffitied Koons if you’re within 300 meters of it in Central Park. The vandalism here is more symbolic, but it still raises necessary questions about control and privatization of digital real estate, and how massive corporations can co-opt this endless canvas of pixelated pseudo-reality. (...)

Copper engraving. 379 mm x 277 mm 

What’s illuminating is not the triviality of Pichai’s scenario — that billions of dollars might be invested in developing a system that senses when your kids get in your car and then seamlessly cues up “Baby Beluga” — but what the urge to automate small, human interactions reveals about Pichai and his colleagues.

“My name is Simone Giertz, I am the ceo and director of a company called Artificial Stupidity”

Housed in a rectangular acrylic tube with crank mechanisms (plus seats) at each end, the ‘off the grid’ device latches onto any curious visitor who sits down and reaches in: grab one of the mechanism’s leavers and a pair of cuffs that double as electrodes will ‘trap’ your arm in place and stimulate your wrist muscles with small electrical jolts. As the muscles contract, you involuntarily crank the mechanism’s leaver, generating kinetic energy the machine (or rather its battery) feeds on. Keep cranking and the machine will pause the stimulation, let go and the tingling shocks return. This ‘ad infinitum’ energy cycle is only broken – and the visitor freed – when another visitor reaches for the opposite leaver, thereby becoming the new host. (...)

open-sourced or out-sourced?