"A beautiful blog entry is an art form, and it takes time. So, micro-blogging fits into your life where you take a minute or two to see what's going on and go back to work."

Micro-bloggers get mobilised

The name René Descartes will forever be entwined with our hopes and fears about the technological project. While it was Francis Bacon who originated the idea of conquering nature for the sake of relieving man’s estate, it was Descartes who told us we might truly become “like masters and possessors of nature”; Descartes who gave us the mathematical physics that has proven to be the indispensable instrument of modern science; and Descartes who foresaw that the ultimate instrument of the Baconian project would have to be medicine, since health is the primary good of life and the foundation of all other goods. The technological project was from the start biotechnological—in intent if not in realized practice—and it is hard not to think of today’s “transhumanists” when we read Descartes’ quasi-promise that technology might spare us even the “enfeeblement of old age.”

But the mastery and possession of nature is not the only, perhaps not even the deepest, theme of Descartes’ thought. We find in Descartes, and especially in his epoch-making Discourse on Method, a reflectiveness about what it means to be human and about the political conditions of his own activity that far outstrips the reflections we find in the contemporary heirs of his rhetoric, or indeed even what Descartes claims to learn from his own science. No mere scientist could have written the Discourse on Method or could help us understand the full depth of its complex message—and particularly its political and social message.

Masters and Possessors of Nature

iodine lets you tunnel IPv4 data through a DNS server. This can be usable in different situations where internet access is firewalled, but DNS queries are allowed.

It runs on Linux, Mac OS X, FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD and needs a TUN/TAP device. The bandwidth is assymetrical with limited upstream and up to 1 Mbit/s downstream.

iodine

Examining the 50 coolest, most stylish, and most popular futuristic inventions, this handbook peers through the lens of today’s science, looking at which ones have become reality and how they work, and which are still in the imagined future—will we ever get to ride our jetpacks? From prototype to realization, the technological evolution of each invention—such as the Star Trek communicator, which has become today’s cell phone; the robot pets of Dr. Who; Vanilla Sky's cryonics; and even Sleeper’s orgasmatron—is charted in this veritable history of the future.

You Call This the Future?

Instant Messaging. digsby is a multiprotocol IM client that lets you chat with all your friends on AIM, MSN, Yahoo, ICQ, Google Talk, and Jabber with one simple to manage buddy list.

Email Notifications. digsby is an email notification tool that alerts you of new email and lets you perform actions such as 'Delete' or 'Report Spam' with just one click.

Social Networking. digsby is a social networking tool that alerts you of events like new messages and gives you a live Newsfeed of what your friends are up to.

Digsby

"The week before, when I'd arrived in Shanghai, my first impression of China had been that it was one of the most advanced places I'd ever seen. The scale of Shanghai, which from the sky had presented a dead-flat vista of tens of thousands of neatly arrayed oblong houses—each of which, a closer look revealed, was in fact a large apartment block—and then, on the ground, the brutally new skyscrapers and the pedestrian-hostile streets and the artificial dusk of the smoke-filled winter sky: it was all thrilling. It was as if the gods of world history had asked, 'Does somebody want to get into some really unprecedentedly deep shit?' and this place had raised its hands and said 'Yeah!'"

Jonathan Franzen on today's Shanghai

Six Authors. Six Stories. Six Weeks.

We Tell Stories

In this fast paced, modern world there is a lot to keep up with, I can help you.

Personal Digital Shopper Available

On a recent visit to an old friend's childhood home, Amie discovered a piece of board-gaming history, and I'm compelled to share it. Its mere existence fascinates the hell out of me...

It's called "What Shall I Be?", and I imagine that when the Bay Shore, NY-based Selchow & Righter Company sent it to toy store shelves in 1966 that they saw it as a progressive step. "Let's get our little American girls ready for the wide-open working world!".

What Shall I Be? The Exciting Game of Career Girls

Princeton Architectural Press is excited to announce the launch of the next ten volumes in the Materials Monthly series. This revolutionary new service is a subscription-based publication providing hands-on access to state-of-the-art materials and allowing designers to easily build a library that expands and supports their work. Designed as a system for shelving and cataloging, Materials Monthly regularly brings you a sampling of new and innovative materials, ten times per year.

City of Sound has a look inside Materials Monthly.

Welcome to Materials Monthly