posted
  • place: Cedaredge, Colorado

neoscenes.net at +31 years

A few comments on where the site is in the moment:

A year ago my old friend, Howard Rheingold—the Silicon Valley journalist, who, among other activities was part of the WELL and who coined the term “virtual communities”—connected me with a start-up hosting company, ReClaim, that caters to the educational community. I’ve been part of the global educational community for more than thirty years: if the shoe fits! That and I’ve been increasingly annoyed/disgusted with GoDaddy—fifteen years the site host—for re-defining their “unlimited” hosting offers. In 2021 they threatened to kill the neoscenes.net site unless I deleted 30 of the 40 gigs of content. Faugh, enough of that: I signed on with ReClaim immediately. Rescued! This was the sixth major platform rollover for the site since 1993, and it’s only recently that I was able to take the time to revive those 30 gigs of the archival content.

There are still some format/embed and sizing problems with images that accompanying postings before 2009, brought on by fundamental changes in WordPress. It’s an endless process to keep the beast up to even a minimal contemporary standard. Currently there are ~8100 entries, several thousand images, a few hundred videos and maybe 2,000 audio pieces. I’ve decided if I can hit 10,000 substantive entries I will either stop posting, and/or be declared a daisy-pusher.

Screenshot of site in 1995, when hosted on the ISMENNT server in Reykjavík.
Screenshot of site in 1995, when hosted on the ISMENNT server in Reykjavík.

In the meantime, compiling the wretched news on Social Security and Medicare, monthly income will be, well, grim, in this, the richest … country … in … the … world (sorry, gagging on the phrase). Okay, okay, I am a privileged white male who tried to follow his own idiosyncratic path internationally. And, honestly, it feels like the ‘system’ it meting out its interpretation of just punishment for my ludicrous belief that what I did along that path had some socially-redeemable value in cash: it didn’t.

Staring out the window on the unseasonably warm and very dry environs, waiting for the arrival of a colleague to gather the remaining office gear: two MacBook Pros; an iMac; iPad; a couple Dell monitors; 2000 slides in archival boxes; a set of data DVDs; some of the org swag accumulated over the years; university credit card; Mines BlasterCard ID; various cables; and my internal identity as an employee of the Colorado Geological Survey and the Colorado School of Mines. It was a job I took out of desperation to lock in some minimal fiscal security before boredom, age, and ageism made it impossible. Indeed, it filled that role, somewhat, but I’m still in a relatively precarious state. Will soon liquidate the Cedaredge property if a reasonable renter can’t be found, though I hate to give up the Covid-era 2.25% mortgage!

posted
  • place: Prescott, Arizona

workflow, capital, and creative action

Then there is the concept of “workflow” in digital production: it refers to the establishment of an input-processing-output sequence that navigates the many competing and conflicting variables introduced by the various hardwares/softwares involved. Some variables may be constrained with capital, others only with repetitive experience and feedback loops. Most variables are the effect of widely imposed standards introduced by corporate entities. more “workflow, capital, and creative action”

posted
  • place: Boulder, Colorado

Full dissertation text: The Regime of Amplification

Well, I guess it’s about time to put the PhD dissertation text out there in .pdf form, so, here it is (PDF download):

The Regime of Amplification

Have at it, be polite, no grabbing, pushing, or shoving. Do not fold, spindle, or mutilate. If you can prove that you’ve read it back to front, I’ll buy you a bottle of Herradura Añejo Tequila*, as long as we can split it!

*this is my hard liquor drink of choice since 1980 when it was hard to find even in the US southwest — cherished bottles imported into Iceland (bought in NYC at NY Liquors on Canal Street, the only place in NYC that carried it!) would last up to six months, like a fine Scottish whiskey, small glasses for sipping — none of that brutish slugging down shots or making margaritas with this fine distillate.

posted
  • place: Millers Point, NSW, Australia

die Mauer

Gah, it was twenty-five years ago (today) … seems I was busy, very busy in 1989. In August, Stefan, Debra, Magga and I headed for Kassel from Köln and then on to Berlin. Through the huge Charlottenburg checkpoint, past the Soviet tanks, after the surreal drive on the lousy autobahn where, if you stopped the car, you could be shot. We had a nice flat somewhere in the West, don’t recall where in the Western Sector, a friend-of-a-friends. We entered the East through Checkpoint Charlie for a long day which started out at the Soviet Culture Center, went on to a impromptu visit with a photographer, Micha Brendel, (who I learned of from my gallerist in Lyon, France, Raymond Viallon — and whose work resonates with the presence of the Stasi State) and finally ended up at a youth music festival somewhere up the Spree on an island. The high-point was trying to find food to eat and only locating one restaurant where, of the handful of items on the menu, they had only one. Much more could be said, but I just want to the get the images up (a couple days too late, but).

Earlier that summer I had noticed several things—the first was the not-insignificant fact that the super-sonic overflights by the US military along the Eifel region (and Köln) had ceased since the previous summer when one would hear them on a regular basis. Germany had reclaimed its airspace from the occupying power. And secondly—easily as profound as Reagan’s tear down this wall Mr. Gorbachev! stunt—I saw, but regretfully did not document, posters in the Vienna underground featuring Mr. Gorbachev in his fedora and heavy winter coat with a hand raised, palm facing outwards, and the simple text Lay Down Your Arms!. As far as I noticed, there was no other text or attribution, and I did not remark about it to my friends who I was visiting. I thought to myself—this is profound, and more profound things are on the way. My German friends would not accept the idea that a major paradigm shift was on the way. I was not surprised in November 1989 when it happened!

posted
  • place: Prescott, Arizona

… if you notice anything suspicious …

The maxim of the Surveillance State is emitted by what is not, unfortunately, a Braindead Megaphone. The Megaphone has a brain that consists of the neural networks of all who pay attention to it, along with the processing power of the Information Society that those folks are tapped into. However, expansive State intelligence is tempered by complexity. A system that is self-monitoring creates a more-or-less dense feedback system. Any feedback sub-system affects the energy flows necessary to support the wider system it services. Within human social systems there seems to be certain degree of inherent paranoia (fear-of-death) that eventually provokes an evolution of these feedback systems, some of them more comprehensive than others (the Stasi and PRK come to mind as extreme examples, but then again, so do Google and Facebook).

Through their energy consumption extreme feedback systems overtake all but the most primitive functions of reproduction optimization (think: the weapon of rape as an expression of power and control and of the re-creation of ‘ones own’; or, state-sanctioned eugenics). The wholesale re-direction of State attention to surveillance signals the eventual end of a sustainable social system.

The maxim of the Surveillance State is an overt expression of the brutality (brutishness) of the norm, it hints at the precise locus of control (that is, within the Self … or not!).

Any expression falling outside this collectively sanctioned norm becomes an excuse, a rationale, a reason for the State to control the source of the expression.

And, by the way, the State is no single government — this is far too naive an image, one promulgated by those ignorantly focused on fearing a ‘takeover’ by the gub’ment — the State is the cumulative structure (path of flows) formed in the process of social evolution, the totality of wide-scale networks that act as binders of the social system as a whole — it is the full fabric of the social system that swaddles us and that we acquiesce to. It includes all the tools that are available to any, to all, for some to use.

posted
  • place: Arizona

Retooling: the Meta-Labor of design

Welcome to the tech-no-mad blog / neoscenes travelog. We are undergoing a significant facelift in the next weeks so bear with us … Although there has never been a “done” or “finished” mode since the initiation of the neoscenes web presence more than 20 years ago, we hope that when this latest phase change is implemented you will further enjoy the prodigious amount of visual-sonic-textual material provided here: well away from pseudo-sociality of Facebook, Google+, and the other leviathans of social media ‘content’.

The question of how to move through a data space is the core, and my conservative solutions are clunky answers at best. But I pride myself on the fact that I have always done 100% of the design, implementation, and maintenance of my online presence. Maybe I shouldn’t. Against the flood of professionally produced data-experiences, what can an individual do? Should I give up? Hardly any traffic (although not bad for such a site). Ai. Twenty years of this project. And all’s I’m doing now is reliving the past. sheesh.

posted
  • place: Belfast, Maine

Bern Porter’s Sciart Manifesto

Finite worlds of infinite reality and beauty revealed by the tools and discoveries of Science are ripe for aesthetic development.

1. Of light, besides the commonly employed natural and artificial, there is the polarized, the radiating chemical, mineral, and radioactive types along with x-ray, cosmic, and nuclear-particle beams with all related electro-optical phenomena.

2. Of other vibrations, there are the natural, the mechanical oscillatory, resonant, and supersonic sound, the entire frequency range of electrical and thermal waves.
more “Bern Porter’s Sciart Manifesto”

posted
  • place: Lincoln Laboratory, Lexington and South Acton, Massachusetts

Tuesday, 12 November, 1963

Worked up draft of chart for decoy tabulation.

46˚F – Overcast 100%

Too tired to sleep last night.

Left office about 3:30 PM and went home. Apparently I can’t breathe the vapors from the spray gun. I had a bad headache across my eyes that must have come from these vapors.

Read in the Maksutov Club notes some more; the whole activity is beginning to make sense. I hope I can afford some kind of a good lathe or multipurpose tool. Mr. Packard of the Pkd Machinery Co. at Kendall has a few used 9″ South Bend lathes — one at $350 for a 3-1/2′ bed, $450 for one with new head-and tail-stocks & a 4-1/2′ bed. The British multipurpose tool is perhaps more useful for telescope-making.

LCH talked to Miss Proctor, DCH’s guidance counselor for about 45 minutes. She thinks that he should stay after school two days/wk and study French w/ the teacher. She also does not think he should have to stop his PO job or others to study.

posted
  • place: South Acton and Boston, Massachusetts

Saturday, 02 November, 1963

Rain

Arrived at PSC at 0910 to find Geo Costello already there. We put the Line Amp & Power Supply on the left rack, and tried to put the tone control in , but it didn’t work. After considerable work, we put in the 980∿ filter and seemed to gain about 6 db. As a signal source I took my GE radio in with the Pilotuner, and put a microphone in front of it in the SS Room, plugging the microphone in at the Pulpit.

Obtained an audio test film from Ideal / Mr. Ladd.

Got home about 5 PM, and went to bed early. Read in the Maksutov Club Notes for a while. They contain a great wealth of information on telescope design and construction. I found a reference to a British multipurpose machine tool that looks good. The Zeiss lens grinder seems to be excellent and not to hard to make either.

DCH sang(?) and played his pan at a Folk Song Sing at Wayland High School. He got home at 1:20 AM Sunday morning.

Ed Poore wanted to know about the TV for the CE Conference so while he was around I made arrangements with Fred Lake at home — VI3-3131 — to rent us the TRW camera that he demonstrated a few weeks ago. It will be in place starting 07 November thru 10 November.

posted
  • place: Glade Park, Colorado

the dorsal turn

As readily as one accepts the status of artistic creation, as a paradigm for human production, in terms of a terrestrial afterlife — the desire to leave something behind — so might we insist that the artifact functions as archive and memory bank. And the same might be said of technological invention in general, for, as has often been pointed out, the word tekhne was used in Greek as much for what was produced as art as what was manufactured; it stands for the artisanal all the way from art to industry. Although the relation to memory and to archivation might not be immediately apparent in the case of a rudimentary tool, it can be understood that whatever is produced as nonorganic or “nonbiodegradable” remainder will necessarily constitute some form of memorial trace. And it is an obvious fact that artifactual technologies such as language, especially via writing, consist precisely in what Bernard Stiegler refers to as the exteriorization of memory, and that the contemporary technologies of information amount to a veritable “industrialization of memory.” If technology is a matter of exteriorization, of the human reaching outside itself (but, as was argued regarding corticalization and the upright stance, in a way that calls into question the integrity of any interiority), then it is also a matter of archivation: what is created outside the human remains as a matter of record and increasingly becomes the very record or archive, the artificial or exterior memory itself. The production of an artifact is the production of an archive; it means depositing in the present- in some “present” — an object, which, as it inserts and catalogs itself in the past, will become available for a future retrieval.

In reaching outside itself, the human therefore reaches both forward and back; in seeming to turn away from the past, it leaves the artificial that will have it forever referring back to that constructed past as the trace of its memory, as promise of artificial memory and promise or threat, eventually, of artificial intelligence. Memory might be called, after all, the first artificial intelligence, and it comes to be recognized explicitly as such once Freud discovers the unconscious like some self-produced biochip that controls (and derails), as if from behind, the conscious. The life of memory, its status as alive or dead, internal or external, real or artificial, draws the fault line along which the question of technology is still debated, from the desirability of “replacing” mental functions by machines (oral histories by writing, arithmetic by calculators, spelling by word processors, to begin with) all the way to nanoscientific cerebral implants and the manipulation of genetic memory systems.

Wills, D., 2008. Dorsality: thinking back through technology and politics, Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.

posted
  • place: Glade Park, Colorado

expectations and deliverables

It is strange that we expect students to learn, yet seldom teach them anything about learning. We expect students to solve problems, yet seldom teach them about problem solving. And, similarly, we sometimes require students to remember a considerable body of material, yet seldom teach them the art of memory. It is time we made up for this lack…

Norman, D., 1980. Cognitive engineering and education. In D. T. Tuma & F. Reif, eds. Problem solving and education: issues in teaching and research. Hillsdale, N.J: L. Erlbaum Associates.

Ain’t this the truth! The necessary tools and ways of going are hardly addressed in the big schema of mo-dern education. period.

posted
  • place: Lincoln Laboratory, Lexington and South Acton, Massachusetts

Wednesday, 01 May, 1963

Worked on photo specs: still in a quandary about how to organize the material.

In the PM I went to the latest IEEE PGEM Spring Lecture by Assoc. Prof. Rosenbloom of HBS who talked about “Performance Evaluation.” He thinks that “management by exception” is no longer universally applicable. He would use the same tool of evaluation, i.e., budgets, skeds, task definition, work planning sessions, but not regard the initial plan as infallible, using these tools to generate learning and the basis for new plans. I suppose to an experienced manager, this may sound like what he does; possibly so in the long run. The managerial dilemma or problem is how to keep happy those who want to work in a particular field and still channel off sufficient effort or results to operate the business at a profit.

Overcast

Talked to Prof. Tucker at MIT re: a phone system for PSC for monitoring purposes. Went in to see him arriving about 1:40 PM. He was most cordial, and gave me several good suggestions: Use WECO 415H subscriber magneto sets at each remote station w/ a 211A handset that could be plugged in to the 415H; a Signal Corps switchboard on the radio room; in place of the SC units a party line could be used, with ongoing codes. I listed the fx stations: 1) Radio Room, 2) TV Camera, 3) SS Room/TV Monitor, 4) Hawey Room, 5) Under Pulpit, 6) Attic 1, 7) Attic 2, 8) Attic 3, 9) Balcony Center, 10) Pulpit

Went in to PSC arriving about 6 PM; tried to remove the AC 110 volt ground on the base of the B&H 35mm slide projector. Wayne Cobb was on deck to operate the 16mm projector for the 6:30 service & the 35mm for the 9:30 PM service. Left at 7:40 and went out to the Babson Institute for the last IEEE Spring lectures on Management — this one was on “Performance Evaluation”, by Dr. Rosenbloom of HBS; he thinks “management by exception” is passé; he would use the same tools, but assumes that the initial plan is not infallible and that deviations therefrom are evidence of 1) inability to foretell the future, and 2) the need to evaluate for learning.

Talked to Geo Pickering; he wanted some of the small boxes put out for 35mm slides, and said the noon speaker with the 35mm slides looked away from the microphone & her voice was lost. While at PSC I tried to get Lake, but he wasn’t home (VI3-3131 Braintree). He called before I returned home at 10:20 PM; called him back & made arrangements to have him deliver a lavalier mike to Ed Poore in the morning.

posted

Deep Resonant Networking panel

How do you know when something or someone is affecting you?

There are many ways of describing or modeling the dynamics of human encounter and collaborative relationship. The concept of resonance is a powerful tool for understanding the qualities that relate us to each other and to the world. Resonance is an intuitive (pre-)cognition where something, “when stimulated, spontaneously responds according to the natural guidelines on the particular phases of vital energy engendered in itself and active in the situation.”[1] Resonance is a ‘natural’ extension of a creative praxis: “Resonance allows the universe (or any of its parts) to influence a human being”.[2] One intention in creative collaboration, given that “[t]hings ‘energize’ each other,” is to propagate a resonance between the Self and the Other. While this is a very uncertain undertaking, it is one that in any instance has almost unlimited potentials.

This panel seeks to open a space for sharing and exploring experiences of resonance while helping define what it might mean to rely on such an intuitive feeling. In the context of the Bricolabs network, differences — location, culture, language, social background, and others — that are the realities of distributed creative action, often seen otherwise as divisive challenges, are overcome through ways of relating that transcend surface materialism. This transcendence might be framed as a deep resonant networking where energized participants establish trusting relationships based on a more ethereal vibe: maybe it’s about mojo! Join the conversation and let’s see if we find some resonant frequencies on which to groove.

[1] Roth, H.D., 1991. Psychology and Self-Cultivation in Early Taoistic Thought. Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, 51(2), pp.599-650.
[2] Kaptchuk, T.J., 2000. The Web That Has No Weaver: Understanding Chinese Medicine, New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.
posted
  • place: Boulder, Colorado

back to connecting the dots

Mulling over the way to go — how to carve a trajectory through the knowledge space? — perennial (no, daily!) question. Confronting the students with a more random array of inputs (texts, discussion-lectures, other material) forces a certain kind of sense-making. Or does it merely confuse? In conversation with one colleague who is involved in teaching rhetorics, a friend of EJ’s who is now a voting member of the AAUP’s Committee A* (!), it seemed clear that the tools necessary for sense-making are gradually slipping out of vogue. They are perhaps simply too hard to acquire within the framework of the corporate education schema. This leaves learners without some crucial tools for dealing with (questioning) the nature of reality. The “critical thinking” rubric seems hollowed-out as a singular approach without more basic sensory (‘sensual’ as David Abrams puts it) awareness. This goes back to Howard Rheingold’s “Net Smarts” book which explores mindfulness as one profound and crucial way to approach aspects of reality and, specifically, the aristocracy of technology that we now abide within. A holistic approach that considers our embodied be-ing and it’s relation to the rest of reality as completely connected at all levels seems to provide such an entry point. Assuming connectedness and sussing out how — rather than invoking certain aspects of the scientific method that often assumes disconnectedness with the need to prove any co-relation — instead sussing out the nature of connected relation.

* elsewhere I’ll have to get into the contentious issues surrounding Committee A (sounds like something out of Pravda): tenure being a primary one!

posted
  • place: Hasselt, Belgium

The Hybrid: This and/or That

1 The Hybrid: This and/or That

2 Abstract: This text is a meditation on the concept of hybridity and hybridization as a construct of our techno-social system that attempts to safely frame (chaotic change) at the same time as to be a creative source.

3 Keywords: bifurcation, schizophrenia, catalysis, difference, gradient, edge, reaction, culture, change, innovation, control, systems

4 Introduction:

4.1 What happens when two things come together? What happens when two energies come together?  In certain situations there can be a catalytic response which allows the two disparate systems or impulses to encounter and change each other with gusto. In other situations the two systems retain their essential character and apparently do not mix, merely coming into separate relation or juxtaposition with one another. Why do humans bring things together? Why is life combinatorial and synergistic? Recognizing the expanse of territory posed by these questions, as well as the main thematic question proposed at the Hybrid Space workshop “How does art create, visualize and network hybrid spaces,” this essay will not attempt to provide answers, but rather will plot a simple course through some ideas and reflections on what may be the foundations that the questions rest upon.
more “The Hybrid: This and/or That”

posted
  • place: Boulder, Colorado

First Day of Class

blurr. faces, voices, situations; I seem to have a penchant of being boring when introducing an open framework. At least to the jaded percentage. This comes as an effect of talking about things rather than doing things — I tend to like to talk a situation out, establishing a framework, then going for the open-system madness. Then there is the physical situation — window-less rooms, bunkers for indoctrination: smart classrooms. hints at the problem with smart phones. Why do we need smart devices to live by/for/with? Is not innate intelligence enough to survive on? Doesn’t evolutionary thriving of the species suggest that our intelligence is enough, or are our tools necessary?

Why can’t learning be undertaken in a completely positive way? Getting on with things. Getting on with the things that matter, that resonate, that are absolutely relevant to the undertones of wide-scaled life (specifically not relevant to the transitory fluff of the hyper-mediadrome that speaks only to itself and in only the case of self-aggrandizement).

posted
  • place: Boulder, Colorado

screening: Jeanne Liotta

Make a pilgrimage to Longmont to the Firehouse Arts Center to catch an evening screening of work by a CU Film Studies faculty-member Jeanne Liotta. I had met her the evening before at another university-sponsored cultural event. Alex had mentioned there was a reception/opening in the Rare Books Room of the Library, and, as a professional nomadic cultural participant (and observer), I thought I’d check it out. Turns out it was the effort of a Humanities class that had curated a small show of works from the collection of artist’s books that Lucy Lippard had given to the University. Strangely enough two of the pieces in the exhibition are from old friend/networker node, Paul Rutkovsky (aka. floridada). I talked to some of the student curators about Paul, Lucy, and about networking. I was lucky to have been doing my MFA at CU-Boulder when Lucy was in residence and received some of her teachings. Age brings the role of information carrier, holder of historical perspective and knowing, story-teller. No corner on wisdom, but at least some stories are related. I query the kids about what their thinking is about the use of photocopy machines as art tools. This is a very novel idea for them (given they only know the digital type of photocopy machines at most, not the old analog devices). Paper output is novel in itself. I don’t have much documentation online of some of the prior (ancien-régime!) photocopy-based projects I’ve run: just The Xerox Book that included mp3 files of the accompanying collaborative audio cassette mix, unfortunately there are no scans of the 300 actual pages … some day I’ll get to that corner of the archive & revive it in the digital zone.

At any rate, Jeanne’s work dances around cosmology, astronomy, and very much the syntax of the various filmic media she plays with — from Second Life pieces to found footage, analog and digital to Ray-o-gram-printed 35mm film stock. The sonic accompaniments well synergize with the visuals. I missed not seeing some of the analog film pieces in their original form (vs digital reproductions), as most of the pieces are (at least in part) deeply about what mediation they are conveyed upon. (Not that that aspect is meant to completely frame them materialistically: it’s only one order of correlation.) There are plenty of other resonant aspects and sources: the eclipse, the sky, the procession of stellar energies, the transposition of Light from various enigmatic sources onto halating film substrates: she always maintains an alchemical and, consequently, an experimental edge through her attention to immediate and spontaneous situation. This sensitivity is combined with an aware curiosity of phenomenon: yielding Light works that are simultaneously playful and yet connected to/suffused with an insistent and sometimes overwhelming gravity. Escaping the gravitational field of be-ing requires an empathy for the intense sadness that pervades our current times: this potential is achieved on occasion and reminded me of the intent of Bruce Elder’s magnum opus “The Book of All the Dead” and the constant struggle against the gravity of it all, in search of Light. It goes ever back to Simone Weil’s “Two forces rule the universe: light and gravity.”

posted
  • place: San Bernadino, California

Thursday, 08 November, 1962

Checked in at BSD/L2 Office about 8 AM.

Looked at a typical warehouse with 82,000 ft2 — wood 6″ x 6″ columns on 20″ centers and a 16′ ceiling with sprinklers. Rehab of this structure would cost around $12/sq. ft.

After lunch we met with the BSD Space Panel for 2 hours. They were of the opinion that we should base the project on Bldgs. 535 & 536 which are now occupied by SBAMA, a total of about 80,000 sq. ft. We discussed the matter for awhile & I suggested to Maj. Tooley of BSLR that he form a list of items & steps needed to obtain a package plan for prompt submission to the BSD Cdr., Gen. Davis; he did this thru Mr. Austin of BSLR who listed the ff:

1) Justification for Target Data
2) Milestone charts
3) Layout of DPC based on use of Bldg. 535 & 536
4) Equipment list
5) Money estimates – be sure to ask for enough
6) Personnel needed

We also made a construction schedule later with Major Penn & Lt. Col. Kaufman, the BSD CE. This showed that it is essential that funds be made available soon from DOD or where ever at once in order to make the 15 June date.

Clear

JLV took us to the Perris Hill Pistol Range, at noon. It is operated by the San Berdoo County Sheriff’s Office, and has a tunnel over to the target positions so that the targets can be changed w/o shutting down all firing.

JLV had us to dinner at his home in Redlands in the evening — they have a pool; house is located on the east end of Smiley Heights. After a fine dinner, Christy drove us around town and thru the University of Redlands Campus; it was quite pleasant.

posted
  • place: University of Colorado-Boulder, Colorado

M of IT – Day 7 – 19 September

week 4:

19 september – day 7 – Arrival in the Present
link to collective notes

assignment: readings to be FINISHED for today:

Rheingold, H., 2000. Tools for Thought: the history and future of mind-expanding technology, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Chapters 4, 5, & 6

Hacker, B.C., 1993. Engineering a New Order: Military Institutions, Technical Education, and the Rise of the Industrial State. Technology and Culture, 34(1).

O’Regan, G., Chapter 6 – The Internet Revolution. In A Brief History of Computing.

assignment: on your blog platform, generate at least 3 questions for EACH of the three readings.

assignment: paired off with designated partner, answer 3 of the questions they (your partner) have posed on their blog so far (groupwork – dedicate 2 hours for engagement); post both questions and answers to your blog – include the name of your partner, the questions, and the answers in your blog entry (due Wednesday, 26 September).

asides (extra credit – 3-400 word blog entry on one of these):
Are You A Psychopath If You Don’t Have A Facebook Account? We Don’t Think So
What is Peer-to-Peer?
The Information Palace
Twitter Use 2012 (Pew Internet – Social Networking)
Latest AlphaDog Robot Prototypes Get Less Noisy, More Brainy
The Cure is Open Source
Welcome to the first digital presidential election
State of Broadband 2012 (pdf)

posted
  • place: University of Colorado-Boulder, Colorado

M of IT – Day 2 – 29 August

Back in the saddle. Large class, 40+ students, still not in the system yet, so, completely hobbled by lack of login, office, at the same time as struggling mightily to conceptualize a trajectory for the class. Studying other syllabi, course requirements, PowerPoints, texts, and beginning to wrap head around what needs to transgress, what should transgress, and what cannot transgress.

I did decide to approach the ubiquitous open-laptop issue by assigning three note-takers per session — using a shared Google doc, they will create a collaborative document that is shared with the whole class (later), so that the rest of the class can be more present (and take only paper notes).

week 1:

29 august – day 2 – Looking backwards / forwards: potentials
link to notes
link to note-taker suggestions

readings to be FINISHED for today:

Bush, V., 1945. As We May Think. The Atlantic, (July).
Rheingold, H., 2000. Tools for Thought: the history and future of mind-expanding technology, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Chapters 1 & 2

assignment: establish/activate blog platform (on d2l, google(blogger) or elsewhere — email me the address); generate at least 3 questions from each of the two readings (post questions to blog before class); the 3 assigned note-takers need to show up with note-taking devices, we will use google docs initially for this daily process. also, look over the keyword list at the top of the syllabus page and begin to get a sense of what you are familiar with and what you are not.

asides: The Republican and Democratic Conventions are taking place this week and next. and of course, the whole election process, so we will definitely keep one eye on the effects of IT on politics, governance, civil society, and the flows of power during this election cycle. This, among other contingencies will require that the syllabus represent only one possible trajectory through the territory that we need to cover: it may become a map of where we have been rather than where we are going.

posted

back to teaching:

brainstorming for the upcoming class:

THE MEANING OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY / ATLS2000

Course Description: This lecture-based course introduces a range of topics in information technology and new media. The goal of this course is to equip students with the tools to think critically about the implications of new information technologies. By the end of this course, students will have acquired an awareness of the rapid expansion of new technology and how it influences our everyday lives.

This course is programmatically unique in that it teaches the WHY of technology before the HOW. The fundamental goal of this course is to teach students how to think critically about the technologies that are shaping our world, and to begin to move them from passive users of technology, to active producers of technology.

Although projects are encouraged, this course requires no prior technical knowledge.

Most instructors give a series of exams (midterm and final) as well as a series of critical writing assignments.

Forty students: it’s the gateway class for the TAM certificate program. It’s also the largest class I’ve ever taught — in the last 26 years of teaching. That makes the critique of process more complicated, and the facilitation of relevant knowledge creation all the more difficult to attain. Yes, of course I’m spoiled, having been picky when and where I was teaching, and who my students were. And definitely how many students I would engage at a time. I’ve had workshops with two or three, 5, 8, 10, 15, sometimes 20, and of course, a sprinkling of public lectures with audiences into the low hundreds, but a class with 50 stretches my willingness to compromise in the service of corporate education.

posted
  • place: South Acton and Lincoln Laboratory, Lexington, Massachusetts

Monday, 11 June, 1962

Read JHH paper. It is based on the General Purpose System Simulator proposed by Geoffrey Gordon of IBM. Joe H. has made a good start; his paper as it is needs to have some applications to the specific military situation.

Carefully inspected again the tables on pp. 5 & 11 of PA-934

Overcast – High humidity

Vacation for NJH & JAH starts today.

Read the article “National Balance Sheets and the Effects of Inflation,” pp 849-858 of Science for 08 June 1962. It cites a new tool and shows how inflation affects different groups of people. Apparently I’m in a category that can benefit slightly from Inflation; although this is questionable.

Raked over & planted a part of the lawn near the back fence. It started to rain later in the evening.

Worked up some mtl. to discuss with Woody Strodel tomorrow.

posted

Newshour interview with George Dyson

Another child of the military-industrial machine, Dyson was as the son of Freeman Dyson, around the Institute for Advanced Study when he was very young. He recounts some of the developments related to the development of The (Hydrogen) Bomb. He mentions radar development as an example of the essential collaborative work done during WWII and the Cold War.

It’s obvious that the computer arose from the need to fabricate the complex energy-intensive devices of defensive and offensive warfare. It was a necessary tool to predict the future performance of these cumulative machinic systems. The innate instability of complex systems had to be mitigated or, within the limits of control, eliminated. The question of what will happen when a certain assemblage of energized matter was brought together as an ordered system was so paramount that the concept of simulation seems a ‘natural’ product.

But what is simulation if not oracle: wisdom, sagacity, veracity, foresight, foreknowledge, expectation, prediction, foretelling; looking forward, understanding, (authority, control, guidance, that which guides). Completing the circle: cybernetics (ancient Greek κυβερνήτης steersman) — the process of directing events towards the actualization of simulation or prognostication.

The development of cybernation and automation and their promise to us of an effortless and affluent future in which machines serve us as incredible and uncomplaining slaves. (D. A. Fox, Buddhism, Christianity, & Future of Man, 1972)

posted
  • place: Lincoln Laboratory, Lexington and South Acton, Massachusetts

Wednesday, 18 April, 1962

The 4 runs showed a slowdown to 506 Ft/sec at 38 K! This is too slow.

Reran at 20˚ & 25˚ with δ+ = 1.0 sec rather than 0.1 sec and 250 sec total time.

Put a data deck in the 5 PM run with 20˚, 01. sec, β = 400 and δ = 20˚, 0.1 sec, β = 400 and thrust to 5500 from 700; V at 300 K, 36,281; high.

Drove the Willys.

Went in to Tuner’s Supply for some more tools & a pound of Nr. 18-1/2 wire.

Passed a boy (Roger?) on most of his First Class tests except the signalling. We meet at 0545 tomorrow at the Capt. Isaac home to start the march to Concord to commemorate the Battle of Concord April 19, 1775.

posted
  • place: South Acton and Boston, Massachusetts

Sunday, 08 April, 1962

Overcast

Took family to SS & church; Harold Brown spoke on the definition of the “Universal Church,” a fine sermon.

We then went to Wollaston to the Vetterlein’s for dinner & a most pleasant afternoon. They have a 70-year-old home that they are gradually working over — 3 floors & basement. They also had a good HO-gauge train layout — JCH fell off a stool while watching it, hurting his forehead.

Took the drive shaft out of the Willys; it still vibrates.

posted
  • place: Lincoln Laboratory, Lexington and South Acton, Massachusetts

Monday, 02 April, 1962

Discussed the STV situation with Lou Kraff, who is going to WSMR tomorrow. He had made a diagram showing the various equipment at WSMR. The program now needs a reliable flow diagram based on the data requirements of the test program and the equipment at WSMR with the ones programmed for this program.

Clear – windy

Drove the Willys, leaving the flat snow tire for exchange, putting one of the good tires on. The snow tire had a break in it, so I discarded it.

Got one new door handle at Boyer’s for $4.00; bought a convex mirror at Auto Engineering for $3.50. Picked up the piano keys at Newton, 97 Austin Street, Russ Grethe. Went to Tuners Supply for a few tools and to return some parts.

The Willys has an unbalanced universal joint, as removal of the snow tires did not remove the vibration.

Started to put the piano keys on.

posted
  • place: Ukiah, California

Saturday, 17 March, 1962

A few clouds – 56°F

Put in about 2 hours at the Ukiah Van & Storage warehouse going over the items in storage. As I forgot the lists of box contents, so about all I could do was to look at the boxes. I did open the long narrow toolbox and take the steel square out so it could be shipped w/o breaking the box. Took the clock out and will take it with me. I couldn’t find the box of old clarinets.

Went up to see Belle Cleveland and then over to the Brown’s for a fine visit & lunch. Warren went after Lina at 1:30 and then took us over to Lillian & Bill William’s for a while. Bill later dropped me at the hotel & took Lina on home after a good visit.

I then walked out to the cemetery. My, I’d like to live here again.

posted
  • place: South Acton, Massachusetts

Tuesday, 13 March, 1962

Worked up a list of topics to discuss at BSD on 15/16. WLZ reviewed these & said that if I got 10% of it I would be doing well. I’ll admit the list calls for a good deal.

Listened to the Associate Director of NASA (Dr. Seamans) tell of its program; it is really an all-encompassing one.

Tried to get Eaton on the phone at the LLL Office at BSD/LA, but no one answers

Some clouds – warmer

The rain melted much snow, but there is as much or more left.

Mailed letters to Ukiah Van & Storage, Cornwell Tool (returning the extra 7/16″x3/8″ square-drive socket).

Decided to change my Occidental policy ($5000 + $100/mo) to $8000 OL to age 70. It will cost $215/year; I now pay $180/yr.

Took car to AMS in AM so the carburetor could be cleaned out. It seemed to run a lot better during the drive home.

posted

the transparency grenade

the transparency grenade, Julian Oliver, Berlin, Germany, March 2012

Kiwi artist, Julian Oliver, presently based in Berlin, produced this provocative project to take note of. Elegant, well-designed, and with an explicit message for the misanthropic agglomerations of hierarchic power that are in extreme need of … detonation!

The lack of Corporate and Governmental transparency has been a topic of much controversy in recent years, yet our only tool for encouraging greater openness is the slow, tedious process of policy reform.

Presented in the form of a Soviet F1 Hand Grenade, the Transparency Grenade is an iconic cure for these frustrations, making the process of leaking information from closed meetings as easy as pulling a pin.

Equipped with a tiny computer, microphone and powerful wireless antenna, the Transparency Grenade captures network traffic and audio at the site and securely and anonymously streams it to a dedicated server where it is mined for information. Email fragments, HTML pages, images and voice extracted from this data are then presented on an online, public map, shown at the location of the detonation.

Whether trusted employee, civil servant or concerned citizen, greater openness was never so close at hand…

posted
  • place: Lincoln Laboratory, Lexington and South Acton, Massachusetts

Thursday, 08 March, 1962

WLZ & I met with John Rheinstein for an hour to discuss the Bendix & Chrysler Conduction contracts.

Dr. Pike did not think that Convair w/ Boeing has anything to do with the STV program.

Clear – cool

Picked up Cornwell & Sears tools. Both are good. Saw a ’57 Ford with a windshield washer, so hooked it on and it worked ok. Stopped at AMS to get the spark gap on the Willys; it is .020″.

Ordered some parts to finish the piano action regulating job.

posted
  • place: South Acton, Massachusetts

Tuesday, 06 March, 1962

Finally had discussion with WLZ re: future work. It appears that VAN wants to start on the Special Test Vehicle (STV) program. I’m to begin collecting the semi-technical & management info & work with Bino Nanni on the trajectory analysis. A DOD order has put this program at WSNMR, and there is a good likelihood that the missiles will impact outside of it.

WLZ scheduled a meeting for tomorrow at 10 AM in Walter Well’s office.

Overcast

A hard storm from the NE is expected this afternoon.

Stopped at AMS in Maynard to see if they could work out a Sears adjustable regulator; since the Willys has a neg. ground, this wasn’t possible. I’ll write to the factory on it.

Deposited the CU check for $240 in the bank & transferred $75 from savings to checking.

Mailed the TIAA application with a check for $237.24. Mailed $8.50 to Mark Cross for LCH handbag repair, and gave Mr. Henshaw a check for $35.44 for the Cornwell tools.

Had a physical exam for TIAA.

posted
  • place: South Acton and Lincoln Laboratory, Lexington, Massachusetts

Monday, 05 March, 1962

Decided to run thru a new program with cards numbered 3, 7, & 8. Made up the coding sheet for the new program.

The heat lamp treatment on my jaw is quite beneficial.

Snow – rain

Placed order for tools with Mr. Henshaw in Purchasing Dept.; it totals $35.44, 75% of list prices.

Went into MIT on 10 AM shuttle to get a check for $240 from the Credit Union. This leaves a balance of $125.93 without the $100 from the 01 March deposit. Interest was $2.31 on 1/1, $2.22 on 2/1; loan balance was $369.67 on 1/1, $353.89 on 2/1.

Picked up a ream of Corrasable Bond at the Coop.

Filled in application for a TIAA Mortgage Protection – $18,000/15 years/$237.24.

posted
  • place: Lincoln Laboratory, Lexington and South Acton, Massachusetts

Friday, 02 March, 1962

Discussed my 09 program of several years ago with Joe O’Brien. He was not able to suggest exactly why it did not add correctly. He thot it ok to change the format statements on Cards 3, 7 & 8.

Cold – clear

Picked up the center punch from Mr. Henshaw; also borrowed a Cornwell tool catalog from him.

posted
  • place: Lincoln Laboratory, Lexington and South Acton, Massachusetts

Thursday, 01 March, 1962

Drove today.

Clear – cold

Drove today.

Saw Mr. Henshaw in Purchasing re: a spring-loaded center punch; ordered the Starrett 5″ @ $4.40. He said he thought he could arrange for a personal check to be sent to Cornwell for a set of 3/8″ basic tools, TS-212 w/o box @ $21.65.

posted

barehand work

A technique of performing live maintenance on energized wires and equipment whereby one or more line workers work directly on an energized part after having been raised and bonded to the same potential as the energized wire or equipment. These line workers are normally supported by an insulating ladder, non-conductive rope, insulating aerial device, helicopter, or the energized wires or equipment being worked on. It usually includes the use of insulating tools.

posted
  • place: South Acton, Massachusetts

Monday, 20 November, 1961

Overcast, cool

Left wheel puller, rear Jeep drums & brake shoes at AMS at 0800; will pick up new shoes & oil seals on Wednesday.

Phoned the Kirby Company re: a demonstration of their rug cleaner. They sent a Mr. Lindstrom out, and we bought it for $208. It has a floor polisher & buffer as well as a conventional duster. The power tool attachment for $40 looks good, but I’d rather have the Sears wrenches.

Four inches of wet snow fell, breaking down some trees. It stopped about 10 PM.

posted
  • place: South Acton, Massachusetts

Thursday, 16 November, 1961

Overcast

Went over to the Waltham Nature Food Store after some ground kelp. HS got 5 lbs. of buckwheat honey; he gave me a little to try on the children. I put it in the honey squeeze bottle.

LCH painted the new pegboard, and I put up a number of tools; this took a good quantity off my workbench.

Rec’d letter from Mr. Anderson saying I did not give them the Jeep registration number. I did not get one on the Bill of Sale from Lincoln Auto Service.

Gave $5 to a policeman who was selling tickets to their annual Ball.

posted
  • place: Arvada, Colorado

changing the course of nature

Changing the course of nature, a series of actions, grew out of a fundamental principle that the embodied and living Self (as organism) alters the existing flows of the ambient natural system — the system which the Self is (merely) the energized extension of. If one envisions life itself as being a negentropic phenomena occurring as part of a field of energy without known limit, then it makes some recursive sense that a life-form would seek to extend the alteration of the flows that are moving around it, through it. Predation is a form of this, eating, consuming; sensing even could be construed to be an alteration (as Quantum) confirms — that the observer changes that which is observed. Alteration, fluctuation, change occurs at all scales.

One easily accessible phenomena that presents the idea of energy flow with a certain universal precision and intuitive simplicity is water. Fluid flow surrounds the body in water vapors, airs, sprays, and floods, while we also consume this flow directly, finding necessary sustenance for the body-system. Although the internal system is, topologically, simply an extension of the surface area of the external skin — both skin and gut are sensitive interfaces with submerging energized flows — with liquid energy flows everywhere.

Life speeding up entropy …
more “changing the course of nature”

posted
  • place: Lincoln Laboratory, Lexington and South Acton, Massachusetts

Friday, 30 June, 1961

Worked on outline for report on radars.

Hot – Humid
Thunder storm in PM – hail

The boys started to make loud noises at 0445, so I got DCH into the house at 0545.

Went to the bank at Concord, picked up the cardboard front compartment liners for the car, got a door corner at Waltham and obtained the fixtures for putting up the outside Lights, and then to Framingham via Mr. Anderson’s at Wayland to get the trailer plate. Stopped to get a bill from Dr. Sleeper, but he decided not to render one. Took LCH to Maynard shopping at the Coop.

The piano tuning tools came.

posted
  • place: Princeton, New Jersey

Saturday, 24 June, 1961

Rain in AM

Visited with Howard & Winifred all day, having a wonderful time. Loaded the lounge into the car. Mailed the hose spraying attachment to Mr. MacNamara at 5711 Wrightson Drive, McLean.

Mailed order for tools for piano work to Trefz Co.; $27.26.

posted
  • place: Preston, VIC, Australia

perturbation

I sit in a room in a one hundred year old storefront property on High Street. I am 12,422 kilometers south-south-west of the point where I entered the world. That’s less than a third of the way around the globe. It’s the furthest as I’ve been, I think, unless North Africa, the Mauritanian coast is further, or perhaps Hong Kong, but I don’t think so. I have the tools to calculate whether it is or not, but I don’t have the time. Too busy trying to write or to work up the courage to continue writing. Or to decide upon the language to use whilst writing. Or to read instead, or to just stare at the wall, or sky.
more “perturbation”

posted
  • place: Lincoln Laboratory, Lexington, Massachusetts

Tuesday, 18 April, 1961

Discussion with JH on his problem of a house; he likes Fred Plotner’s houses, as I do, but Fred is too far away from us. He will write to Fred.

Disc. with JH on how to use the Dynamo II Compiler on the Army context: what problems can be worked on with this tool? It is clear to me what can be done with a laboratory man-machine simulation, but not what can be done with Dynamo.

Phoned Dr. Kent at OEG in Washington re: his letter of 13 April; will meet him here on 10 May in the afternoon. Referred him to WSEG SS16 & the April 1961 issue of Proc. IRE.

posted
  • place: Lincoln Laboratory, Lexington and South Acton, Massachusetts

Monday, 03 April, 1961

Assisted Col. Bavaro in writing the operational part of the answer to Friday’s msg from CONARC. Found that he had copied part of my 22L-0083!

Received FM 101-31 Chg 1 forwarded from CONARC, and started to go over it.

Went to PTA at H.S. A Dr. Gordon Thayer spoke on “60 Days in Russia.” He is an educator and made two thought-provoking points: 1) Education is a political tool in Russia, and 2) Communism will be with us for a long time.

Took vacuum cleaner motor to Electrolux Office in 25 Belmont Street in Cambridge; technician put in two new brushes and cleaned the commutator with paint thinner. This removed much of the arcing. I smoothed the turning commutator with a curved oak block, and it further reduced the arcing.

posted
  • place: Prescott, Arizona

more on control and autonomy

A techno-social system is predicated and constructed on a system of control exerted on the flows of energy that are antithetical to its ordered existence or that simply exist ‘out there.’ Within a techno-social system, at all scales, levels, and between all actors, there exists a constant, dynamic re-balancing of these energies (energy flows). With an input of external energy as the source, the overall techno-social system will exert varying levels of control over different spatio-temporal regions. Control is essentially the existence of prescribed pathways of flow which insure the desired persistence of stasis in a sea of chaotic flows. The degree that a techno-social system can proscribe un-controlled pathways is the degree of coherence that techno-social system will have. more “more on control and autonomy”

posted
  • place: KCL Campground, Carrizo Plains National Monument, California

change

view south from KCL Campground, Carrizo Plains National Monument, California, December 2010

The argument may be made that a fence, a window, an article of clothing, a wall are — one-and-the-same — deflectors of the extant natural flow of energies out there. They represent a set of energy deflectors imposed by humans on their environs.

The other issue, tied to this is the production of waste (unusable) heat energy which impinges on a locality after the use of high energy sources which are subsequently rendered into usable and unusable forms of energy with varying efficiency. The primary source of this unusable energy is in the actual production and maintenance of the energy deflector systems: making and installing a fence, fabricating a window (glass being an extremely energy-intensive manufacturing process), building a wall, a building, a dam. more “change”

posted
  • place: Whanganui, New Zealand

Energy, Creative Action, and Sustainable Systems Workshop – Day 8 – eNZed

The official blurb for the workshop:

This workshop will draw on Hopkins’ international experience in facilitating creative encounters in the context of the Temporary Autonomous Zone. With an open structure for engaged and focused dialogue, the workshop will explore a powerful energy-based worldview that can open up new awareness of social, cultural, and natural systems. The dynamics of collaborative human relations confined within an attentive space is guaranteed** to generate provocative and inspiring outcomes. Creativity is, by definition, about the formative flow of energy between living organisms. We will move through a variety of environments (including on the river by waka) as we share life-time in the workshop. The workshop will augment the processes of any creative practitioner with a profound, situated, and practice-oriented conceptual toolbox that address the following areas and more:

(Keywords in no particular order): energy, creativity, thermodynamics, technology and techno-social systems, art, attention, entropy, learning, media, networks, participation, process, virtuality, creative action, human presence, Light, human encounter, mediation, concentration, optimization, pathways, meals, sustainability, simplicity, synchronicity, auspiciousness, and serendipity.

**on the condition that you bring along your entire Self, not merely your body, mind, and spirit

posted
  • place: Circular Quay, Sydney, NSW, Australia

the Quay

The partiality of which; the lack of fullness; the crossed multiplicity of intent; the absence of oxygen; crossing the road (chickens and pedestrians). fully engaged with no formative agnosia. Top of a Sunday afternoon, a flow of tourism around the Quay framed by the regular thrum of Koori didge players and the random fall of jacaranda blossoms. A stiff breeze keeps the municipal commissioned flags nervously fluttering. They advertise “The Rocks – Markets by Moonlight.” A tool in the portfolio of State to promote expansion of markets, consumption. Is it truly such that the State withers without ‘development’ and ‘expansion’ of markets? And what of the grand-scaled discourse — Rousseau, Mills, Veblen, Arendt, and all the others — are these merely reflective of historical knowing, but not of accurate prognostication of individual trajectory?

posted
  • author: Eric Kluitenberg
  • place: Amsterdam, Netherlands

Distance versus Desire :: Clearing the ElectroSmog

The desire to transcend distance and separation has accompanied the history of media technology for many centuries. Various attempts to realize the demand for a presence from a distance have produced beautiful imaginaries such as those of tele-presence and ubiquity, the electronic cottage and the re-invigoration of the oikos, and certainly not least among them the reduction of physical mobility in favor of an ecologically more sustainable connected life style. As current systems of hyper-mobility are confronted with an unfolding energy crisis and collide with severe ecological limits – most prominently in the intense debate on global warming – citizens and organizations in advanced and emerging economies alike are forced to reconsider one of the most daring projects of the information age: that a radical reduction of physical mobility is possible through the use of advanced tele-presence technologies.

ElectroSmog and the quest for a sustainable immobility

The ElectroSmog festival for sustainable immobility, staged in March 2010 [1], was both an exploration of this grand promise of tele-presence and a radical attempt to create a new form of public meeting across the globe in real-time. ElectroSmog tried to break with traditional conventions of staging international public festivals and conferences through a set of simple rules: No presenter was allowed to travel across their own regional boundaries to join in any of the public events of the festival, while each event should always be organized in two or more locations at the same time. To enable the traditional functions of a public festival, conversation, encounter, and performance, physical meetings across geographical divides therefore had to be replaced by mediated encounters.

The festival was organized at a moment when internet-based techniques of tele-connection, video-telephony, visual multi-user on-line environments, live streams, and various forms of real-time text interfaces had become available for the general public, virtually around the globe. No longer an object of futurology ElectroSmog tried to establish the new critical uses that could be developed with these every day life technologies, especially the new breeds of real-time technologies. The main question here was if a new form of public assembly could emerge from the new distributed space-time configurations that had been the object of heated debates already for so many years?
more “Distance versus Desire :: Clearing the ElectroSmog”

posted
  • place: Millers Point, NSW, Australia

playing with the words

An engineer who has given us the entire…

Un-named engineers …

Engineer as a causative agent…

From Middle English engin < Old French engin (“skill”, “cleverness”, “war machine’”) < Latin ingenium (“innate or natural quality, nature, genius, a genius, an invention, in LL. a war-engine, battering-ram”) < ingenitum, past participle of ingignere (“to instil by birth, implant, produce in”); see ingenious. Engine originally meant ‘ingenuity, cunning’ which eventually developed into meaning ‘the product of ingenuity, a plot or snare’ and ‘tool, weapon’.