Read moreArtist’s logarithmic scale conception of the observable universe with the Solar System at the center, inner and outer planets, Kuiper belt, Oort cloud, Alpha Centauri, Perseus Arm, Milky Way galaxy, Andromeda galaxy, nearby galaxies, Cosmic Web, Cosmic microwave radiation and Big Bang’s invisible plasma on the edge. [Huge Version]
Read morePalantir Technologies, where they put the Bro in Big Brother.
Palantir is a big data start-up co-founded by Peter Thiel and backed by the CIA that just raised $58 million at a $9 billion pre-money valuation to help them scale up their massive surveillance tools.
They still let you wear flip flops to work, so it’s cool.
The hedgehog in the conference room symbolizes the convenient, ethically liberating truism that American management teaches the corporate rank and file: focus on your hyper-specialized task, and don’t worry about other stuff. It will make you a more productive worker—and keep you from looking at the big picture.
The fusion of the pseudo-liberation of 90s start-up culture with big data mass surveillance on behalf of monolithic government agencies devoted to post-GWOT order and control is sinister and hilarious all at the same time.
You are being watched over by twentysomething computer handlers who can be bought with foosball, free sodas and easily approved car loans.
Read moreThis is a surveillance photo from Second Life, included in the NSA/GCHQ manual regarding techniques for spying inside virtual worlds.
Just when you thought the Snowden revelations couldn’t get any weirdly self-parodic, you learn that American and British spies have created avatars to conduct surveillance of suspicious activity inside World of Warcraft and Second Life.
Apparently a CTO of Second Life (now developing mobile applications at Facebook) is a former Navy officer and NSA employee who helped them get their start. Not long after his brown bag at NSA in 2007, the UK’s GCHQ has conducted its “first operational deployment into Second Life.”
Can virtual marketplaces for magical D&D weapons really be used for laundering real-world cash from criminal enterprises?
What avatar would J. Edgar Hoover create?
What are the in-game consequences when your elven fellow traveler gets outed as a narc?
Read moreDNA-pparel, submitted by fiatluxemburg
Each shirt contains information representing base pairs from up to one million SNP locations. These are pieces of the human genome that vary between individuals and contribute to the uniqueness of your personal DNA.
Read moreTheatre.
Everything.
“I’ve come to the conclusion that my comfort zone is outside of my comfort zone.” -Me
Space pollution: Every Known Piece of Space Debris Orbiting Earth
The image above was created by German photographer Michael Najjar, a “certified civilian astronauts” who has a ticket to go to space on board Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic SpaceShipTwo in 2014. He titled the piece “Space Debris I”.
Rubbish
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The Committee to Nuke Elysium 