The art of faces staring at computer screens

"How do our computers see us?"

"Maybe if we could see what our computer sees, we would stare differently."

Here's a fascinating article by Kyle McDonald at Wired: "When Art, Apple and the Secret Service Collide: ‘People Staring at Computers.'" McDonald secretly loaded up his custom-made app onto numerous computers displayed at a Manhattan Apple store in order to create an art project. He was fascinated with the expressionless faces displayed while people use computers. McDonald is a programmer, and using his automated app, he gathered faces of Apple customers (check out the video he created based on people staring at their computers). Eventually, Apple figured out what McDonald had done. Next came the knock on McDonald's door by the U.S. Electronic Crimes Task Force, and a lot of inconvenience. What started out as an art project expanded to include a discussion of privacy and snooping, including corporate and government snooping. What did people think of his project? Here are a few of the hundreds of comments he received:

Interesting how he as able to capture a truly expressionless face. It made me think about how too much computer time may make us retract from social interactions. Weird .

Facial expressions are partially reflexive but partially social. It’s not a surprise that expressions get bland when there is no one around to non-verbally communicate with.

We ARE social animals and we can only guess at the long term effect of computers on our species.

I like the idea of “how does a computer sees you” any Asimov reader would daydream after such sentence.

McDonald has written a long article, but it's extremely thoroughly engaging throughout. Also consider McDonald's work on Blind Self-Portraits. And here's a somewhat startling piece called "Face Substitution." Here is McDonald's website.

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Chris Hedges: All forms of nationalism are stories consisting of lies

Chris Hedges has become one of my favorite writers over the past couple of years. In a recent article at Truthdig, he takes a look at Nationalism:

Human societies see what they want to see. They create national myths of identity out of a composite of historical events and fantasy. They ignore unpleasant facts that intrude on self-glorification. They trust naively in the notion of linear progress and in assured national dominance. This is what nationalism is about—lies. And if a culture loses its ability for thought and expression, if it effectively silences dissident voices, if it retreats into what Sigmund Freud called “screen memories,” those reassuring mixtures of fact and fiction, it dies. It surrenders its internal mechanism for puncturing self-delusion. It makes war on beauty and truth. It abolishes the sacred. It turns education into vocational training. It leaves us blind. And this is what has occurred. We are lost at sea in a great tempest. We do not know where we are. We do not know where we are going. And we do not know what is about to happen to us.

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White blood cell chasing down a bacterium

Take a look at this video of a white blood cell tracking down a staphylococcus bacterium. In more detail, here is what you are seeing in this video.

It depicts a human polymorphonuclear leukocyte (neutrophil) on a blood film, crawling among red blood cells, notable for their dark color and principally spherical shape. The neutrophil is "chasing" Staphylococcus aureus microorganisms, added to the film.

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The gods swat back the corporations who think they own the Fourth of July

Last year I expressed great frustration with corporations who have no compunctions hoisting their own profit-tool logos on the same flag poles as American Flags. And they choose to do this on America's most holy of civic holidays. I first noticed this crass display last year at the biggest Fourth of July celebration in Fair St. Louis. What's the problem with allowing corporate logos to flap in the wind right next to Old Glory? I can't think of a bigger insult to the People of the United States at a time when big money, mostly corporate money, has essentially purchased Congress, divesting ordinary people of the ability to run their own country. If there is anything that the Fourth of July is supposed to represent it is the notion that the governed should be self-governed (but do also check out this excellent recent article by Mark Tiedemann, who considers what it really means to be patriotic).

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Will you go to this extent to bring big shots to your parties?

Fascinating story about parties crowded with somebodies thrown by an utterly dysfunctional couple, Albrecht Muth and Viola Drath. You'll love this in the New York Times story if you are a forensic psychologist.

Muth, in other words, perfected the methodology for his social Ponzi scheme. For parties, he would start with bait. He theorized that Drath’s ties to Nebraska’s representatives in Washington — Senator Chuck Hagel, in particular — would bring in other politicians. Muth would also approach military officials attached to the embassies, who he knew were often lonely figures in town; he understood that their attendance would help him attract foreign-policy columnists. “The whole Western alliance was represented,” according to Roland Flamini, a former Time correspondent. In a 2010 e-mail to Drath, Muth explicitly detailed his approach: “You meet someone of import, check him out, determine [if] he can be of use, you make him yours. At some point you must decide whether to run him as a useful idiot, he not catching on as to who you are and what you do.”

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