MAN-MACHINE BLOG

2011-11-28T07:27:00.000-08:00

What fires, torments, cares, jealousies, suspicions, fears, griefs, anxieties, accompany such as are in love, I have sufficiently said : the next question is, what will be the event of such miseries, what they foretel. Some are of opinion that this love cannot be cured, Nullis amor est medicabilis herbis, it accompanies them to the last, Idem amor exilio est pecori pecorisque viagistro.

Burton's tome on human sadness can be downloaded here. http://ia600406.us.archive.org/34/items/anatomyofmelanch00burt/anatomyofmelanch00burt.pdf

2011-11-18T22:59:00.000-08:00

http://martinhekker.tumblr.com/

2011-07-14T08:19:00.001-07:00

Samuel Butler's Erewhon can be read here. Have finally started reading it today and am finding it amazing, startling, and still very familiar. http://www.zainbooks.com/display.php?id=jh6fc127mt7gj8s176k5ha22in4nl3

2011-03-21T11:01:00.000-07:00

Aint It Cool News Blogs on Man-Machine Thanks Aint it Cool News for the brief on Man-machine. . . "a pretty sweet sci fi epic with tons of robots and some pretty fantastic art". We'll take it! http://www.aintitcool.com/

2011-02-05T18:36:00.000-08:00

Inventory of robot body parts on www.robots.net. Very interesting website by Roger Arrick (of synthesizers.com fame) where makers of robots can upload descriptions of their robot creations. I find the descriptions of the robots to be very interesting from an anthropological view. Many of the robot descriptions emphasize emotional states of their creators, or their desires. Here is a link to a nice series of robot prototypes: http://www.robots.net/robomenu/989518184.html

2011-01-26T21:44:00.000-08:00

A SHORT INTERVIEW WITH MYSTIFIED Mystified has released a new CD of material on Magnatune, A Pale but Lasting Hope. It is pretty amazing; the CD can previewed and purchased here. Thomas Park is no stranger to the Man-Machine comic. So it is a pleasure to be able share a short email interview with the prolific ambient composer below. Thomas is one of the most laconic people I've ever known, which i think comes through in his music. His approach to music can be quite minimalistic. Sometimes the sounds seem to reflect just the right number of gestures and yet have a lot of craft to them. Mystified never goes for low hanging fruit. Although the music is ambient, it is not lounge music and is too jarring at times to qualify as space music.

WHAT ARE YOUR FAVORITE THINGS TO LISTEN TO THESE DAYS?

I have been enjoying some Fosel, C. Reider, some select tracks from Eno's new one, a little PBK, and a nice radiostream called "Leftob".

IN YOUR COLLEGE DAYS, YOU WERE A LATE NIGHT DJ ON WNUR'S FREEFORM SHOW. CAN YOU SAY SOMETHING ABOUT YOUR RADIO SHOW ON WNUR? DID YOU EVER INTERACT WITH YOUR LISTENERS?

The show was a lot of fun. I believe I went on 4-6 am. I came on after this total DJ guru-type and played lots of freeform madness. Best results seemed to be blending spoken word and other sounds with music. Yes, I did interact a bit, sometimes taking calls. But the 8 Swedish schoolgirls who called one morning I believe were just my college buddies. (THOMAS IS BEING TYPICALLY MODEST HERE. . . HIS SHOW WAS PRETTY WIERD AND WONDERFUL AND HE WOULD GET SOME PRETTY ODD CALLERS IN WEE HOURS OF THE MORNING).

HOW DO YOU KNOW WHEN SOMETHING IS DONE?

That's a tough one, especially given how minimal I can be. I suppose the answer would be-- when I run out of ideas for it?

DO YOU EVER GO BACK TO A TRACK AND REVISE IT?

I have before, yes. Just recently I touched-up and re-rendered one of my 2010 releases, for example. I generally tend to move ahead, but if something seems to need work, and it is still possible, I will do it, yes.

YOU HAVE A GOOD TRACK RECORD OF COLLABORATION WITH OTHER MUSICIANS. CAN YOU SAY SOMETHING ABOUT HOW YOU ARE ABLE TO WORK WITH SO MANY DIFFERENT PEOPLE?

Well, it has a lot to do with my philosophy about art. I believe art is a creative activity. Therefore, pretty much all art is good. Almost all of it. So if you work with me, you are already doing something I like. I also think a skill of mine is to integrate different styles and sounds easily-- or maybe it's just that my software makes that so simple.

WHAT WERE YOUR FAVORITE RECORDS GROWING UP. DO ANY OF THEM STILL INFLUENCE YOU TODAY?

Joy Division, New Order, Meat Beat Manifesto, 808 State, KMFDM, the KLF, stuff like that. All of that early industrial music definitely is a powerful influence. If you don't like industrial music, much of my catalog becomes inaccessible.

IS THERE ANY KIND OF SOUND THAT YOU REALLY DON'T LIKE?

Well, I like little kids, but the sound of a baby crying really gets to me. But I think it's supposed to-- yes? Nature made it that way?

HAVE YOU EVER SEEN A UFO?

Dozens.

2011-01-18T08:55:00.001-08:00

Nice interview with David Moufang (Move D) From the archives of Generator magazine (http://www.generatormagazine.com/) I found this nice interview with David Moufang from the 90's. Some of David Moufang's more recent work is part of the streaming soundtrack for Book 2. The interview covers analog gear, being totally broke while making interesting records, and the value of not fitting into narrow genre conventions. http://www.plexusinstruments.com/movedinterview.pdf

2010-12-19T20:11:00.000-08:00

Soundtrack Music for Comics?

Well not really. But maybe to extend the comic experience in other contexts, like driving in rush-hour traffic? To make this work well, the comic would need activate the soundtrack quickly.
Another purpose of the soundtrack work is to discover a new territory of associations.
Music was an important part of Man-machine's beginnings. The comic was conceived of in Evanston, Illinois, in a two-flat apartment building, known as the Zoom house. The first Man-machine drawings occured while listening to Front 242 remixes of fairly brutal, simplistic music. In my head, Front 242's early exploration of tribal rhythms and automatic bass lines combined with the politics of the times: Desert Storm was on the news constantly. I was reading translations of Homer and Virgil and seeing the reflection of our world in antiquity. The recognition had an uncanny quality.
Fast forward a half decade. In the mid 90s I was struck by the work of the electronic group RAC. When I first heard them in small record store in Montreal I simply did not know what to think. It wasn't mood music, because it was too jagged to be mesmerizing. But it seemed portentious and had incredible album art.
Flashforward to 2010, and it seems that some of the themes played around with by Front 242 and RAC remain relevant aesthetically.
The Man-machine aesthetic seems slightly different. A bit grittier, prone to wierdness and mind-out-of-control.
For the soundtrack to Praepositio:
Mystified has provided a very persuasive form of soundtrack music in the form of vast, evolving, breathing soundscapes. These has matched some of the spiritual themes quite closely.
Plexus Instruments has been mostly focused on creating a set of tone poems evoking the desert in the future: a place of long light and bleak hope.
Voyager One's Tokyoidaho does not stream online, but really fits and enhances the mood of much of the first book. I am glad to see that the new version of the band takes its name from the wonderfully mystical song.
National Wrecking Company, Frank Hillis, has provided leftfield sample manipulations from a fellow Chicagoan.
Deer has provided a rambling digital dub that once awoke me from a nap like a ghost.
Mircronaut provided a moody tone poem.
Utofbu provided a remarkable, fractured vision of an ancient code.
Soundhacker contributed a really interesting kind of beat/movement.
The soundtrack for Book 2 has mostly been compiled, and shifts focus to the texture of a future Mexico City that is both the inlet and outlet for the vast garage/technology machinery of the Cartel. Very nice tracks by mystified, Move D, Ed Matus, Micronaut and others.
The soundtrack for Book 3 is still being assembled. So far with tracks by mystified, Toner Low, and others.

2010-12-19T19:41:00.000-08:00

Digital/Analogue Hybrid Synthesizer Plexus tactical update regarding a polyphonic digital sampler/fm/vco into analogue filter and vca approach to making new sounds. Although a modular approach is possible, the cost and size become significant. A less costly approach uses an existing semi-modular polyphonic analogue synthesizer from Studio Electronics, the Omega Code. This four voice synthesizer has channel inputs and outputs for each voice. FM oscillators can be used from a Yamaha TX802, which has a round-robin system to send four voices out separate outputs. Likewise, the Yamaha Tx16w can be set up to do the same. This is sufficient to trigger the envelopes on the Omega. The range of sounds is at once quite large but then with a consistent color that can become overbearing. Activation of per channel overdrive allows for the creation of electric guitar style feedback synthesis. Some opportunities for modular like interaction exist. One of the more interesting is allowing for a muted analogue oscillator to provide frequency modulation of the filter cutoff in the musical frequency range. This allows for surprising but fuzzy feeling special effects. The TX16w uses the mighty Typhoon alternative operating system, which is downloadable on the web. It is still a bit painful to click through menus. A vp9000 feeds into a peavey spectrum filter. . . this allows for an alternate form of digital-analogue cooperation. Here the "time" knob allows for the musician to alter the flow of time in the sample arbitrarily. It all comes with a heavy dose of digital hash that needs dealing with, but can still be interesting. I'd say that these explorations have been somewhat more rewarding than my modular explorations, mostly because of the musical relevance of polyphony. But allowing for the interaction of the two signal paths produces a certain color (to me like a Fender Bassman). Here is a short soundtrack bit layering this with processed voice and Jupiter 8, named after the street in Chicago. http://soundcloud.com/plexus-instruments/waveland

2010-11-21T17:03:00.000-08:00

Bodie Chewning is really good. More pictures from his portfolio here.

2010-11-21T16:17:00.000-08:00

Cursed Pirate Girl by Jeremy Bastian Yesterday my wife and I went to Challengers Comics in Chicago for a Jeremy Bastian signing session, and picked up a copy of the Challengers Collected Edition. It was nice to get a signed copy and to view the original ink panels. For those who haven't yet had the chance, rush out, purchase, and read Cursed Pirate Girl. It is really quite astounding. The art resembles etching, but is hand drawn with a razor sharp pen. Viewing the original art makes one realize that the artist can not only draw. . . he doesn't make mistakes. The writing and mise en scene is also outstanding. He innovates with time, space and scale. With time, he seems to avoid clumsy play by play panels and instead go for images that contain many different bits of time. The end result is that the action remains in the head of the reader. With space, he uses the pirate and oceans metaphor to surprising effect. Rather than describe voyages across the sea, many scenes do something that I can only call "going inward". Spaces that one did not know could exist in our world open up in surprising detail. Examples of this include the voyage to the bottom of the sea, the secret shack of the cursed pirate girl, and the innards of a shark. The effect is usually not surreal but causes a sense of recognition, as in a dream. With scale, one never knows if the world is small or huge. Everything is always off kilter: faces can be huge and float like a Mardi Gras giant head mask. And while of course I don't know what Mr. Bastian was thinking of while writing, my thoughts must go to the Lacanian Mirror. In this case the tension between aristocrats and pirates makes for a funhouse mirror in which the child struggles to recognize herself. In this way, although the tale is about pirates, the themes as they relate to what it is to be child in the 21st century remain relevant. It is a good feeling to be amazed! Olympian Publishing link to the comic here. https://www.olympianpublishing.com/store/product_info.php?cPath=15_2&products_id=409 Challengers Comic book store is also impressive. I saw so many titles that pulled my heartstrings I knew I had to run out of there so as not to spend too much money. http://www.challengerscomics.com/

2010-08-30T05:40:00.000-07:00

2010-08-29T17:39:00.000-07:00

Logo for Epic Dawn

2010-08-16T08:56:00.000-07:00

Sniper at the Gates of Dawn Is actually a song by the Black Angels that I enjoy listening too while working on Book 3. Alas I will not catch them in NYC this fall, despite the fact they will be playing by the shopping mall by my parents. Book 3 brought some new challenges in terms of storyboarding and art approach.

2010-08-15T07:48:00.000-07:00

Death-Day by Sam Hiti Death-Day is a free online comic by the prolific artist Sam Hiti. It is as big a dose of amazing as it comes with online, digital comics. I've been meaning to blog about the hypnotic rhythm of its solid ink brushstrokes for awhile now. http://www.samhiti.com/wordpress/?page_id=103

2010-08-15T06:53:00.000-07:00

War, an online comic. What if you woke up into a dream of Jean Baudrillard drawn by a cyborg mashup of Geoff Darrow and a vector printer? War imagines a scenario where two online communities fight to the death in an urban mental-scape. It is pure comedy that induces light headedness as it discusses social media: that way of jacking the web straight into the reptile core of our now networked brains. Fantastic, farcical, anonymous, vectorific, digitized. http://ncomment.com/blog/

2010-08-14T21:45:00.000-07:00

Cover art for Book 3 of Manmachine. Photograph by Rand Hendriksen. There is no doubt an interesting story behind this photograph of the total eclipse. Magical processes continue in the lab. The penciller was shot at yesterday while picking up a pizza, causing him to take the week off.

2010-08-13T07:26:00.001-07:00

Hurricane Wilma, by Omar Angulo. This is a surreal but all-too-real comic book account of a hurricane. Sort of like Katrina, The Road, and Long Day's Journey into Night combined. And he's just giving it to the web. http://www.omarangulo.net/wilma1.html

2010-08-13T06:56:00.000-07:00

"Outer Gates" is a metaphysical journey using elements of sound collage. Mystified's approach transforms over the years. It is fitting that "Outer Gates" is concerned with life after death and transformation. Slowly oscillating, granular drones have given way to chunks of music that seem to float by. It is a really fun experience to have it playing. Mystfied manages to remove primitive robotics and focus on pure music. Jump to Mystified's blog entry on "Outer Gates" http://mystifiedmusic.com/2010/07/28/mystified-cd-outer-gates/

2010-06-21T07:48:00.000-07:00

Echo Descends to Mother: Color Panel from Book 3 of Manmachine, The Wages of Sin.

2010-06-12T13:22:00.000-07:00

ink from book3 manmachine

2010-05-24T08:00:00.000-07:00

Delphi 9 Sequence: Colored panel. I've redesigned the paneling on the Delphi 9 probe, which will require some revision.

2010-05-20T07:25:00.000-07:00

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/national/excerptfrom2003report.pdf National Academy of Sciences Report: Deep water oil spill causes plumes of oil below the ocean surface. While working on the Delphi sequence in Book 3, I've been captivated by the scientific battle behind the scenes regarding the "truth" of the deep water oil spill. It is a defining moment of our era. In it we see ourselves and how we can manage to bungle our relationship to the world and nature.

2010-05-16T13:29:00.000-07:00

ink for first page of Delphi sequence, from Book3.

2010-04-30T22:26:00.000-07:00

2010-04-29T08:37:00.001-07:00

We couldn't make this shit up if we tried: Halliburton page on the Deepwater rig: http://www.halliburton.com/ps/default.aspx?navid=1336&pageid=2721

2010-04-28T07:13:00.000-07:00

Echo gets a new machine. Ink from Book3 of Manmachine.

2010-04-28T07:09:00.000-07:00

Large panel from Manmachine Book 3.

2010-04-28T06:58:00.000-07:00

While getting a refresh on progress with the lowly (but amazing) memristor, I was stumbled to the blog Neurdon: Putting the Sci in Sci-fi which was just too good to pass up. While the entries do not take you very far, they lead to the definitive links (DARPA, blue-brain, etc.) http://www.neurdon.com/

2010-04-27T07:31:00.000-07:00

Doing a bit more research on Halliburton and its mixture of energy and defense contracting brought me to the story of Jamie Leigh Jones:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamie_Leigh_Jones

2010-04-20T22:24:00.000-07:00

Manmachine flies low over the Pacific en route to Tokyo in Book 4.

2010-04-19T07:29:00.000-07:00

My son and I have been working on the Hasegawa 1/32 scale Spitfire kit for the last week. It is to be used as a photoreference for Book 4. I think that it will remain white or light grey. We sort of went crazy with the decals, mixing and matching from the various options that come with the kit. It's a nice kit overall, despite some well known shortcomings in terms of faithfulness to the original.

2010-03-22T21:08:00.000-07:00

Color Panel from Book 3: The Wages of Sin

2010-03-17T21:44:00.000-07:00

FROM BOOK 3: THE WAGES OF SIN The Death's Head regiment from Virginia revolts at the end of Book 3, refusing to charge with the rest of the Janissary. A schism is created while Manmachine is away.

2010-03-07T15:02:00.001-08:00

Remote controlled bugs are pretty interesting.

2010-02-27T22:29:00.001-08:00

South Park was one of the best things on tv for a long time. In fact, it was the antidote to bad tv. The context is important, i guess. If there were a time capsule, and you wanted a mass media bit of information, that show would capture a pretty wide picture. Now there are Netbeings. What are those? Today I listened to the sermons of MLK on a cd from the public library. Very interesting stuff. Above is from Book 4, Cordyceps Love.

2010-02-26T10:02:00.000-08:00

Manmachine, version 0.1 The "Logic Piano," by William Stanley Jevons, was the 19th century predecessor to the modern computer, relying on careful consideration and modification of Boolean logic applied to mechanical operators. It was possibly inspired by an anecdote from the Stoic philosopher Chrysippus, regarding a dog that could, in effect, make associations and learn, and then generalize its learning to new stimuli. While overshadowed in contemporary lore by Babbage's difference engine, the Logic Piano is arguably more relevant due to its lasting innovations in Boolean logic, which help lay a more solid foundation to Claude Shannon's later work. What is most fascinating to me, however, is the route that the scholar made towards this train of thought. He began in the area of moral philosophy, and then approached the problem of recent shortages of coal as well as economic cycles. He also approached complex problems such as energy economics, coming up with what is known as Jevon's Paradox: that energy shortage may inspire increased efficiency, which may in turn lower energy costs and cause increased energy utilization. So in this sense, his entire body of work can be considered humanistic, in that it is entirely inspired by problems in his everyday surroundings. http://www.gap-system.org/~history/Biographies/Jevons.html Link to one of many useful Google hits. One of the purposes of this post is to provide some context for the post below, regarding the deplorable uselessness of nihilistic humor a la South Park, when compared to actual intellectual activity, or thought. I've enjoyed individual episodes of the program with friends, but have always remained suspicious of the consequences and inspiration of its brand of humor. Toxic in large doses.

2010-02-25T14:05:00.000-08:00

Southpark sucks.

2010-02-07T07:58:00.000-08:00

Thank you comicbook jesus for the exposure and kind words. Love the title image and broad overview of the pop comics scene. Daily updates give a rolling snapshot of the hive mind that is comics. http://comicbookjesus.com/2010/02/03/man-machine/

2010-01-31T19:58:00.000-08:00

We did not win the nose art contest. The winner was a wonderful leia slave. Superpunch gave us a a nice break. Cool hipness is the treatment for an overextended nervous system. If your neurons have been beaten back by economics, politics, or social life, sip this imagistic antidote. The blog is here: http://superpunch.blogspot.com/

2010-01-31T19:49:00.000-08:00

Working on a significant revision of wikimanmachine. The goal would be to make it a comic wiki. Am not very close to that goal but have gotten underway. Hopefully getting some help too. This is a minicomic for Agon.

2010-01-31T09:54:00.000-08:00

Thank you Superrobotmayhem, a website dedicated to all things robotpop. The robot theme in culture seems ubiquitous these days. And rightfully so . . . it is a classic. The Minotaur, Golem, Frankenstien, Pinnochio. The practical promise of AI gives it all a new slant and displaces the magic into science. http://www.superrobotmayhem.com/

2010-01-31T09:47:00.000-08:00

Thank you Artpatient. The world of comics is huge. This seems especially true if you spend too much time drawing in a small dark room. There is a swelling sea of independent work in the ethernet. Birds eye view here.: http://www.artpatient.com/

2010-01-31T09:40:00.000-08:00

Thank you Omnicomic for a holiday gift! Omnicomic is a great place to get a refresh on the world of comics. Indies and majors are on a level playing field in this blog. Blurb: http://www.omnicomic.com/2009/12/first-look-manmachine.html Home page.

2009-12-27T22:14:00.000-08:00

Let the New Year Come! Ink from Book 3 of Manmachine

2009-12-09T02:51:00.000-08:00

Science so big you can drive a spaceship through it. In Book 2, the theme of the genetic divergence of the "Business Class" from Homo Sapiens in introduced. This is meant as pure comedy, of course, but is part of the overall approach of using trans and post humanism to comment on intra-race (and species) relations.

from:

2009-11-26T20:27:00.000-08:00

Man-Machine: The Name of the Father is finally online and available for viewing:

http://www.fightevilwithevil.com/comic.php?ep=2

Mike Angstadt was making things work and probably achieving minor miracles. We tried to maintain a non-Flash interface to make the comic translate well across platforms (and borders). There is a flash music player, which is filled with songs by Mystified, National Wrecking Company, and Move D (David Moufang). The best part of this process is being able to talk to my friends and favorite electronic musicians. Also thanks to much good advice from family and friends (Dominika, TJ, Robin, Mike, Turgut, and Matthiew) and Ambient Design (Artrage).

Book 3 will not be as long coming. This book was delayed due to. . . writing. It required a bit too much re-thinking, as it was based on reactions to the world. The problem (and saving grace) of the world is that it keeps changing!

Happy Thanksgiving (take the Indians' food and give them guns and disease) Day!

2009-11-24T07:34:00.000-08:00

Another pencil from Book 3 of Manmachine. Atom Abasi wanders outside of Blechtel HQ the morning after. . . and finds Mexico City after the battle.

2009-11-24T07:32:00.000-08:00

In the drawing stage for Books 3 and 4. Pencil from Book 3 of Manmachine. Echo is apprehended by Mother's security forces.

2009-10-31T22:38:00.001-07:00

Madison Craigslist. Very exciting. Who is Don?

2009-10-31T22:31:00.000-07:00

From Madison, Music Instruments section.

I suppose it is plausible they could make some kind of racket.

2009-10-26T20:59:00.000-07:00

And so here is the first of many interesting craigslist musical instrument's to be posted on the manmachine blog. Why on this blog? One of the minor themes in Manmachine is musical instruments as fighting against but succumbing to entropy.

From Oklahoma City Craigslist. This one caught my attention because there are two interesting stories. The first is L. Bilan's story, and why a Bohemian luthier wound up in Oklahoma City at the beginning of the twentieth century. The second is the curious story of a violin hunter looking for Bilan's violins. In general, I find the Oklahoma City craigslist very interesting. Lots of old instruments and trading musicians in a place that I spent my childhood. Rattlesnakes, ghosts, racism, dust, and some good memories.

2009-10-01T20:17:00.000-07:00

Interesting. U.S. contractors involved in Bosnian sex slave trade. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eootfzAhAoU&feature=player_embedded#

2009-09-09T09:09:00.000-07:00

The Program of Man: Did We Eat our Competition?

Abstract from Genetic Analysis of Lice Supports Direct Contact between Modern and Archaic Humans. David L Reed, Vincent S. Smith, Shaless L. Hammond, Alan R. Rogers, Dale H. Clayton. PLoS Biol (11_: e340

Parasites can be used as unique markers to investigate host evolutionary history, independent of host data. Here we show that modern human head lice, Pediculus humanus, are composed of two ancient lineages, whose origin predates modern Homo sapiens by an order of magnitude (ca. 1.18 million years). One of the two louse lineages has a worldwide distribution and appears to have undergone a population bottleneck ca. 100,000 years ago along with its modern H. sapiens host. Phylogenetic and population genetic data suggest that the other lineage, found only in the New World, has remained isolated from the worldwide lineage for the last 1.18 million years. The ancient divergence between these two lice is contemporaneous with splits among early species of Homo, and cospeciation analyses suggest that the two louse lineages codiverged with a now extinct species of Homo and the lineage leading to modern H. sapiens. If these lice indeed codiverged with their hosts ca. 1.18 million years ago, then a recent host switch from an archaic species of Homo to modern H. sapiens is required to explain the occurrence of both lineages on modern H. sapiens. Such a host switch would require direct physical contact between modern and archaic forms of Homo.

2009-09-09T08:35:00.000-07:00

The Name of the Father. . . what is our Program, given that it was written by "Evolution". I've been pondering this during writing of Book 2, just as Manmachine begins to wonder about his own program. The Toba Hypothesis is that there was a catastrophe that decimated the human race to a (relatively) tiny collection of breeding pairs. This constricted the genetic diversity of the species, accounting for an observed "bottleneck" in genetic diversity. It seems likely that there were humanoids that we could not, or would not, have sex with for the purposes of producing viable progeny. What are the chances that we coexisted peacefully with these "other tribes"? It seems more likely that there was bad blood.

Journal of Human Evolution Volume 34, Issue 6, June 1998, Pages 623-651
Stanley H. Ambrose; Department of Anthropology, University of Illinois

Abstract

The “Weak Garden of Eden” model for the origin and dispersal of modern humans (Harpendinget al., 1993) posits that modern humans spread into separate regions from a restricted source, around 100 ka (thousand years ago), then passed through population bottlenecks. Around 50 ka, dramatic growth occurred within dispersed populations that were genetically isolated from each other. Population growth began earliest in Africa and later in Eurasia and is hypothesized to have been caused by the invention and spread of a more efficient Later Stone Age/Upper Paleolithic technology, which developed in equatorial Africa.

Climatic and geological evidence suggest an alternative hypothesis for Late Pleistocene population bottlenecks and releases. The last glacial period was preceded by one thousand years of the coldest temperatures of the Later Pleistocene (71–70 ka), apparently caused by the eruption of Toba, Sumatra. Toba was the largest known explosive eruption of the Quaternary. Toba's volcanic winter could have decimated most modern human populations, especially outside of isolated tropical refugia. Release from the bottleneck could have occurred either at the end of this hypercold phase, or 10,000 years later, at the transition from cold oxygen isotope stage 4 to warmer stage 3. The largest populations surviving through the bottleneck should have been found in the largest tropical refugia, and thus in equatorial Africa. High genetic diversity in modern Africans may thus reflect a less severe bottleneck rather than earlier population growth.

Volcanic winter may have reduced populations to levels low enough for founder effects, genetic drift and local adaptations to produce rapid population differentiation. If Toba caused the bottlenecks, then modern human races may have differentiated abruptly, only 70 thousand years ago.

2009-08-27T08:22:00.000-07:00

Coherent summary of the critical ethical failure of the American Psychological Association leadership here.

2009-08-21T09:18:00.001-07:00

Science 17 July 2009: Vol. 325. no. 5938, pp. 325 - 327 DOI: 10.1126/science.1174096

Tiger Moth Jams Bat Sonar

Aaron J. Corcoran,¹^,* Jesse R. Barber,² William E. Conner¹^,*

In response to sonar-guided attacking bats, some tiger mothsmake ultrasonic clicks of their own. The lepidopteran soundshave previously been shown to alert bats to some moths’toxic chemistry and also to startle bats unaccustomed to sonicprey. The moth sounds could also interfere with, or "jam," batsonar, but evidence for such jamming has been inconclusive.Using ultrasonic recording and high-speed infrared videographyof bat-moth interactions, we show that the palatable tiger mothBertholdia trigona defends against attacking big brown bats(Eptesicus fuscus) using ultrasonic clicks that jam bat sonar.Sonar jamming extends the defensive repertoire available toprey in the long-standing evolutionary arms race between batsand insects.

2009-08-17T17:43:00.000-07:00

Manmachine and The Watchmen Some thoughts on the movie, which I am halfway through. The Watchmen resonates with its context. Does that make it a great film? Perhaps, Blade Runner shares this characteristic, as do another few SF films. And therein lies the question. Is this SF or superhero? I'm not sure it is great as a conventional comic. I wouldn't know. However, as SF concerned with the superhero metaphor, it is fun stuff. Opinions seem to vary on this film. My wife does not like it, but acknowledges the art design. I do have a problem with the fact that Alan Greenspan "learned to fly" as mentee of Ayn Rand. Because of this, bits of the comic and the movie have a pleasant zing that biases me toward them. Plus points for exploring the notion of tableau. On digital media, this is pretty hip, right? When a comic makes your heart stop beating between the frames, that is when you know that you are alive. And this is a digital thing, via Matrix and cool camera technology. Many reviewers focus on the issue of excitement, and its absence here. Is that a problem? Bladerunner and Tron caused similar reactions. And those were great films, right? Actually probably not. I say that because I know that SF to work has to be symptomatic. Comics are symptomatic, but in a different way. It seems possible that the superhero idiom translates a bit better to film. It lends itself to excitement and treats time continuously. The SF universe would seem to be more like Borges, or time as experienced by Dr. Manhattan. martinhekker

Echo returns, in The Name of the Father

2009-08-15T14:22:00.001-07:00

Echo returns, in The Name of the Father, originally uploaded by rrooyyccee.

JIM DONE NOW

2009-08-15T14:08:00.001-07:00

JIM DONE NOW, originally uploaded by rrooyyccee.

Frames from Episode 2: Animal Communication

The Favorite is Dying

2009-08-15T13:22:00.001-07:00

The Favorite is Dying, originally uploaded by rrooyyccee.

Snippet from Episode 2

2009-07-10T11:12:00.000-07:00

The role of psychologists in torture is the major ethical conundrum of our time, overshadowing abortion and the death penalty not in complexity but in relevance to the future of every sentient being. At issue is how technology is allowed to intersect with the most sanctified of all places, the mind. The American Psychological Association is not a monolithic organization, and kudos must go to those who attempted to fight inertia and incompetence from the inside. However, it is prudent to shine a light on how poorly the organization has handed the problem of psychologists playing a major role in the planning and implementation of torture on human beings. From the blog http://psychoanalystsopposewar.org/; here.

2009-07-04T09:13:00.000-07:00

Nice review of Manmachine in an interesting podcast on science fiction, Beam Me Up, a blog and podcast that gathers up "independent" science fiction threads here.

2009-07-04T09:04:00.000-07:00

Manmachine blogged by the venerable Scott McCloud! here.

2009-07-04T08:57:00.000-07:00

Manmachine in Israel! here.

2009-06-29T10:05:00.001-07:00

2009-06-22T08:29:00.000-07:00

Washington Times article on Nokia and Siemen's efforts to supply the Iranian government with sophisticated electronic surveillance. Good job, idiots. http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/apr/13/europe39s-telecoms-aid-with-spy-tech/

2009-06-10T10:14:00.000-07:00

Interesting visual representation of changes in earnings in the US economy over the course of the first world war. The article, The Role of Finance, can be found in Fiscal Planning for total War. Downloadable here.

2009-05-31T20:24:00.000-07:00

Monday Noodle on flickr.com has an astounding science-fiction themed lego world: here

2009-05-31T17:58:00.001-07:00

A Magnetic Shield

could be used to protect spacecraft from harmful radiation.

2009-05-29T07:41:00.000-07:00

An interesting read about Corporate Military forces here. Photo of a Blackwater guard flying above Baghdad.

2009-05-28T11:25:00.000-07:00

Robot vs. Man toyset from Japan.

2009-05-28T08:01:00.000-07:00

White phosphorous bomb hitting a UN school in Gaza. I guess now we know what it looks like from the ground.

2009-05-27T17:31:00.000-07:00

Manmachine readers around the world in the last 7 days . . . lots of holes in the map still need to be filled!

2009-05-22T21:45:00.000-07:00

Open Source Theology: Wifi Prayer Protocol Revealed

2009-05-22T18:58:00.000-07:00

Well not quite that. But there is interesting reading here vis a vis the Future of God.

http://www.opensourcetheology.net/

What is Second Life?

2009-05-21T23:13:00.000-07:00

We can't pretend to know what it means. Is it Perky Pat?

A Party in Cyberspace.

2009-05-20T08:47:00.000-07:00

Nicely done Exquisite Corpse comic: here We really like the ink. Zak Smith, Shawn Cheng, and Nicholas Di Genova take turns drawing monsters fighting each other... So this is how it works: Zak draws something. Shawn draws something that will fight it. Zak draws his thing fighting back. Shawn draws his thing fighting back and maybe tripping over a statue. Then maybe Zak's thing kills Shawn's with the statue's head. Then Shawn draws a new thing. Zak's surviving thing attacks it. And so on. Zak and Shawn got things started, and now Nick has joined the fray. Though not exactly an exquisite corpse, it will be exquisite, and there will be many corpses.

Unbelievably Free

2009-05-17T20:42:00.000-07:00

Therefore Repent, available as a digital download. Reading a comic as wonderful as this is a really nice way to spend some time.

Wonderful online comic about Babbage, The Crash, the Difference Engine

2009-05-17T18:30:00.000-07:00

By Sydney Padua. . . Lovelace and Babbage. The first computer, great comic writing.

Manmachine linked in sfsignal.com

2009-05-15T09:31:00.000-07:00

Thanks for the link,sfsignal.com! We like sfsignal because it is a relatively unbiased sf media blog. It really covers a wide range of product, unlike some sf blogs that seem to merely cater to blockbuster movies or mainstream sf.

Obama as Spock

2009-05-11T20:15:00.000-07:00

http://politicalirony.com/2009/05/10/the-politics-of-star-trek/

Star Trek was a relief. Science fiction does not have to suck.

Also, politics and human competitiveness can be funny.

The Importance of Parents

2009-05-11T11:34:00.000-07:00

Neurocomputing Volume 70, Issues 13-15, August 2007, Pages 2166-2180

To each his own: The caregiver's role in a computational model of gaze following

Christof Teuscher ^a^,and Jochen Triesch

We investigate a computational model of the emergence of gaze following that is based on a generic basic set of mechanisms. Whereas much attention has been focused so far on the study of the infant's behavior, we systematically analyze the caregiver and show that he plays a crucial role in the development of gaze following in our model, especially for infant models with simulated developmental disorders such as autism and Williams syndrome. We first create two reference infant parameter sets and test their behavior with a simple standard caregiver. Based on these findings we then propose new caregiver models and evaluate them on normally developing infants and on infants with simulated developmental disorders. Further, we investigate if and how a pair of infants (with and without simulated developmental disorders) might learn gaze following from scratch, without a mature caregiver. The findings of this paper suggest the pivotal role the caregiver plays for the infant in developing gaze following, that his predictability is the most important criterion, and that different infant models require particular caregivers for gaze following to emerge optimally. Our simulations are consistent with Leekam's finding, that autistics can learn to follow gaze through a contingent presentation of rewarding visual stimuli, but that a lack of motivation may impede learning.

Scene from Book 2

2009-05-08T17:29:00.000-07:00

Virtual Fly Brain, Pubmed entry

2009-05-08T08:42:00.001-07:00

Philos Transact A Math Phys Eng Sci. 2009 Jun 13;367(1896):2387-97.

Towards a virtual fly brain.

Armstrong JD, van Hemert JI.

Institute for Adaptive and Neural Computation, School of Informatics, University of Edinburgh, 10 Crichton Street, Edinburgh EH8 9AB, UK.

Models of the brain that simulate sensory input, behavioural output and information processing in a biologically plausible manner pose significant challenges to both computer science and biology. Here we investigated strategies that could be used to create a model of the insect brain, specifically that of Drosophila melanogaster that is very widely used in laboratory research. The scale of the problem is an order of magnitude above the most complex of the current simulation projects, and it is further constrained by the relative sparsity of available electrophysiological recordings from the fly nervous system. However, fly brain research at the anatomical and behavioural levels offers some interesting opportunities that could be exploited to create a functional simulation. We propose to exploit these strengths of Drosophila central nervous system research to focus on a functional model that maps biologically plausible network architecture onto phenotypic data from neuronal inhibition and stimulation studies, leaving aside biophysical modelling of individual neuronal activity for future models until more data are available.

Machinemen

2009-05-07T06:42:00.000-07:00

English antiwar activists destroy military equipment, then surrender themselves to the police.

Neo Nazi Defense Contractor

2009-05-07T06:23:00.000-07:00

Nicole Hanley was working for Thales, a defense contractor in Australia. Thales was involved with electronic warfare, munitions and protected mobility vehicles. Hanley, while working for Thales, had a curious habit/hobby of participating in Neo-Nazi activities. from wikileaks.

Extreme talent

2009-05-06T11:29:00.001-07:00

Occasionally we stumble across somebody of such extreme talent that one has to simply try to spread around a good word . . .

There seems to be an effort to elevate comics to something like an art form. Most of this effort seems to be wasted, in that even really great comics still remain stuck in cliches developed in the first half of the twentieth century, or wind up recycling ideas from more recent cinema. But check out this artist's work:

http://www.salgoodsam.com/

Biosurveillance

2009-05-06T09:03:00.000-07:00

http://biosurveillance.typepad.com/biosurveillance/2009/04/swine-flu-in-mexico-timeline-of-events.html

Meditative Music from Mystified

2009-05-02T18:29:00.000-07:00

Some very nice meditative music from St. Louis with lots of high frequency content.

Good for clearing out those dusty synapses.

mystified's sphereslowchime on archiv.org

Anomaly at the Dawn of Time

2009-05-01T07:13:00.001-07:00

A large object was found in space, dating from near the dawn of time. It is extremely large: at 55 light years across, it is close to the size of the milky way galaxy.

In the future, who will protect the dignity of the mind?

2009-04-27T08:11:00.001-07:00

Knowledge of the mind can be used for good or evil. The ethical imperative is outlined by the American Psychological Association and American Psychiatric Association. But the jurisdiction of these associations is limited, as is their willingness/ability to protest:

A model for the future: grossly negligent ethics by psychologists and psychiatrists

In case you missed Google's 2009 April Fool's Day Joke:

2009-04-26T12:29:00.000-07:00

In Manmachine, the cephalopods are able to affect an individual's mind by means of a massive EMF grid, beamformed to an individual's thoughts. Mindcontrol was not possible, as the individual easily perceived the alien presence. The following link takes you to Google's April Fool's page:

Google's Idea of an April Fool's Joke:

Is it funny? You decide. We can't. Although the company motto really kick's butt, there is alot of power concentrated in one place.

The following link is to an intelligent discussion:

http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/dyson05/dyson05_index.html

Why Do Brain Networks Show Synchronized Bursting?

2009-04-25T21:55:00.000-07:00

A South Korean study finds evidence for feedback loops in brain circuits as a cause of synchronized cortical bursting. Abstract here.

2009-04-25T19:26:00.000-07:00

Above is an early version of Echo. It definitely had a cyberpunk look. It will be re-used for a scene in espace, or endocannabinoid space. A virtual world with a hefty social hegemony. Which brings us to the fun link of a review of Existenz on cyberpunkreview.com: link . The review catches the reference to Perky Pat Layouts (from PKD's Three Stigmata). A wonderful movie and a favorite around here.

A Java Demonstration of Forced Oscillations

2009-04-24T19:54:00.000-07:00

This is an image from Episode 2. The linkage to forced oscillations is tenuous. The scene is a nightmare through which a remote communication is received. . . via EMF into the brain. The following link is to a Java applet illustrating a forced oscillator, at walterfendt.de.

Nice Java Filter Demonstrations: Nerd Fun

2009-04-23T20:48:00.000-07:00

http://www.falstad.com/dfilter/

Play with all kinds of digital filters. Explore other Java applets that are quite mesmerizing.

Review of Manmachine by evilgeniuscomics.com.

2009-04-23T20:36:00.000-07:00

review here.

Friendly review of Manmachine from St. Louis

2009-04-23T20:32:00.001-07:00

http://www.playbackstl.com/content/view/8450/167/

Link to a review of Episode 1 at playbackstl.com by the venerable Byron Kerman.

A Turning Point in the Small Story of Analogue Synthesizer Sequencing

2009-04-23T20:13:00.001-07:00

motu volta

a big deal really. audio-rate manipulation of control voltage signals for the control of analogue synthesizers from within a software DAW offers graceful solutions to MIDI's worst shortcomings.