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How Philip K. Dick redefined what it means to be (in)human

by James Burton

Fifty years ago, Philip K. Dick’s novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? questioned what it means to be human in ways that have an immense lasting influence.

The action of the novel – and the Blade Runner films based on it – largely revolves around the central tension and struggle between biological humans and artificially constructed androids. Arguably, however, the story’s greatest continuing relevance is in the way it challenges a particular image of the human that has come to dominate in modern Western culture. This image portrays certain qualities – whiteness, masculinity, heterosexuality, rationalism, professional success and physical prowess – as the ideal symbols of humanity’s success.

The novel revolves around the efforts of bounty hunter Rick Deckard, in his quest to identify, track, and destroy androids posing as biological humans. Unsurprisingly, he repeatedly meets violent resistance. Both his livelihood and his life depend on his ability to tell the difference between humans and androids. Ultimately, however, Deckard is forced to face the possibility that there may not be any fundamental difference. This causes him to undergo a deep existential crisis, finding both his sense of identity, and his literal survival, severely threatened.

Deckard’s primary means of distinguishing between humans and androids is the Voight-Kampff test. Combining psychological analysis with a measurement of physiological reactions, the test seeks to determine whether a subject is capable of empathy. If the subject adequately demonstrates concern for the lives of others, they are deemed human, and allowed to live. If not, they are deemed non-human, and must be destroyed. Deckard’s transformation begins when he realises that some newer androids are capable of passing the test, and so passing for human.

Keep reading

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Music and our brains. Posted by Vsauce2, on Youtube. (duration: 13:40) Interesting facts from the video: Music predated language Music is a social and cultural construct, while musicality is not. Concerts are a celebration of collective cultural unity.

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This video is somewhat a biography of the device you are using to watch it with :) (11minutes)

Some facts from video: -3 or 4$ per hour for a laborer in China, as opposed to 10-15$ in the US. -Samsung, Microsoft, Apple, Sony and Canon all manufacture products in the city of Shenzhen. - China doesn’t charge taxes on exports, and US doesn’t charge taxes on imports.

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Why does fashion matter? Its true that ideally we would not judge people based on their appearance, but most people in social situations will want to know you better, they will look for the most obvious clues - your clothes. P.S.: this youtube channel, ‘The School of Life’, is excellent, follow them!

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Big and Small Cats Guides by Joumana Medlej

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This is about the perception of rhythm, the human limit. It’s not about fastest playable drums (as mentioned in the video, this is instead an ‘athletic’ feat, because someone can play fast rhythms but not keep up with the rhythm mentally)

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If you are lost and you know it (as we all should be, at some point) give this a read :)

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Overcoming the perfectionist mindset and creative block. We have more time than we think, it’s a matter of balancing productivity and expectation. High expectations coupled with low productivity is frustrating, low expectations with high productivity is exploration - try more of that to start with (musicians call it jamming, visual artists call it doodling)

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Photography 101

3 variables (they are measured separately, but their effect on the image depends on combining them in specific ways - will be explained later):

ISO (stands for  International Standards Organization):

a measure of the sensitivity of the digital sensor to light (or in older chemical cameras, the sensitivity of the film to light). In darker settings - when there is not much light around - one will need his camera to be sensitive to light, whereas a bright setting (a picnic in the park with bright sunlight hitting everything) requires less sensitivity. A small ISO value (such as 100) is least sensitive to light, large ISO values are more sensitive to light (6400).

Aperture (Lens aperture):

a measure of how open the lens of the camera is, the effect that exclusively the aperture has on a photograph will affect the ‘depth of field’ - affects the blurriness of the background while keeping the subject in focus.

notice in the image below how a smaller F number (click her to learn more about the F number and apertures) corresponds to more background blurring or in other words a shallower depth of field

Shutter Speed:

The duration of time the digital light sensor is exposed to light for. If the camera is held steady, and the subject is static (not moving) shutter speed is somewhat irrelevant. If however the subject is moving (moving car, running man) or it is not possible to hold the camera steady, the shutter speed will affect the blurriness. Motion blur is sometimes desirable for artistic effects (images below for examples of blurry movement). 'shutter speed photography', from Mia's photography blog

HOW ARE THEY INTERDEPENDANT?

It helps a lot to understand how the camera physically works. Think of the digital camera as a dark box that has one opening, and a light sensor. think of the light sensor as a painter sitting in the dark box waiting for the opening to open so he could paint what he sees outside. In reality the light sensor is an array/matrix/arrangement ofphotodiodes (link to 'what is a photodiode') (a circuit element that will emit an electron/generate a current when light hits it). You click the camera to take the picture, the shutter will open (the room is not dark anymore), light will flow in for a set amount of time (shutter speed), the painter will start capturing what he sees simultaneously - not all of the light he sees though, only a fraction of it (ISO) - not to forget that the size of the opening (aperture) will affect how much light will come in overall, and the angles the rays of lights are allowed to come in at (a small aperture value (meaning the lens is wide open) will blur the background because the painter sees the light rays of the background as coming from a very large opening in the dark room, he paints the background from every possible angle, simultaneously, which is how the blur is created).

sensor array with 30x40 photodiodes (digital cameras have waaaay more (click here for source 'txchnologist.com' who wrote an article on Columbia Vision Lab's project of 'A camera that can function as an untethered device forever—without any external power supply' as said by Shree Nayar, head of the project)

MY SOURCES ARE BELOW (and image sources under the images), THIS IS ONLY A BRIEF INTRO, SURF THE WEB AND LEARN MORE :D!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_B8pVoANyY

http://www.brighthub.com/multimedia/photography/articles/72927.aspx

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Manufacturing gifs, fun to watch and informative!

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Mostly about computers, phones, google stuff, apps and technology (not as much sciencey stuff as one would expect)

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Storing (from food to body) vs ‘burning’ fats

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Presence of the Dark Lord Lord of the Rings fan art. Hope you like it :)

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Two edits of my favourite Dimebag picture. This is just a tribute.