transitlab » Event http://transitlab.org thinking about technology, art and science Mon, 02 Jan 2012 16:31:14 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3 Open Source Cars http://transitlab.org/2009/open-source-cars http://transitlab.org/2009/open-source-cars#comments Fri, 04 Dec 2009 12:36:15 +0000 Brian http://transitlab.org/2009/open-source-cars A very interesting panel on opensource hydrogen cars at #openhw.
Start with a blank page, get rid of the gearchain, use 4 seperate motors, get regenerative braking from all of them.
Car is small and lighter without gear chain.
Interesting, they riversimple has IP and thats ok, but it also can use out of patent hydrogen cell technology.
Keeping the car on the road, and on the books of the factory, only leasing it, means its in the best interest to make it good, make it ecological, make it light in resources.

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]]> http://transitlab.org/2009/open-source-cars/feed 2 Bad Science, Good Art and wellbeing http://transitlab.org/2009/bad-science-good-art http://transitlab.org/2009/bad-science-good-art#comments Sat, 21 Nov 2009 13:08:45 +0000 Brian http://transitlab.org/?p=418 There have been three unconnected but referential events in Newcastle around health, science and art.

  • Artists Zoë Walker & Neil Bromwich, Michael Pinsky and puppet doctor Professor Hilary presented The Panacea Casebook at the Baltic.

What is the connection?  Panacea Casebook uses many of the methods of clinical trials, for treating a number of modern maladies. For  the sci fi hottub trial that therewas a small but significant changein peoples wellbeing after the hottub experience. Of course for there to be any prof that art was the cause of this, there would have to be an exact copy of the hottub (see left) that wasnt touched with the idea of being art.

Only by comparing in a double blind trial these two treatments, the art and the art placebo, could the hypothesis that “art has a beniicial effect” be tested.

Ben Goldacre talks about how clinical trials can be misused, using the Durham Fish Oil ‘trials’ as an example of  the effect of placebo, and  the problems of expectation on performance. They havent met, but it would have been interesting.  The Panacea Casebook and the Emotion Lights have connections around the way ‘art’ might be good, and engagement with new media art might be benificial to cure a social ill.

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]]> http://transitlab.org/2009/bad-science-good-art/feed 0 Datarama 6 http://transitlab.org/2009/datarama-6 http://transitlab.org/2009/datarama-6#comments Fri, 09 Oct 2009 19:48:32 +0000 Brian http://transitlab.org/?p=400 People and Projects shown
  • Alistair (http://agm.me.uk) :  A PhP flight simulator (as shown at Hackday 2008)
  • Richard(http://www.myspace.com/roadtorimini): An excerpt from music he is composing influenced by We by Yevgeny Zamyatin
  • Pete(http://pete.hindle.com : The art of Subtitling Hacking, with example. Subtexts and subtitles
  • Derrick Welsh(http://www.handheldlearning2009.com/handheld-learning-conference-and-exhibition/confirmed-speakers/908-confirmed-speakers/238-derrick-welsh-artist) : Pictures by children from Derricks picture drawing sessions. Kids are keen to play with devices(such as touch screen phones. The sessions are run in the Library, and the children can book them out.
  • Dave Hughs(from http://infectionmusic.com : demoed his Bach hybrid digitla/analogue music synth tonight (he has talked about the ZEIT Step Synth at Datarama #4), influenced by Sequential Circuits Pro One and Moog. The nice thing is that they are nice, marketable, individual. A nice description of the design, and a version of the protoype/implementation. Barge Board is great. Cheap cost,  not pretty yet but it works. (very Heath Robinson). Its going to be very nice AVR based keyboard when it is finished.

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]]> http://transitlab.org/2009/datarama-6/feed 0 Robot and Young Peoples http://transitlab.org/2009/robot-and-young-peoples http://transitlab.org/2009/robot-and-young-peoples#comments Fri, 09 Oct 2009 15:45:52 +0000 Brian http://transitlab.org/?p=397 The Wednesday just past I was invited to see the output from Robot Visions at the Centre for Life. All day 6th form students had been considering the societal impacts of more robots in our midst and what direction robot research should go. In this they were assisted and challenged by robotics and AI researcher Noel Sharkey(http://www.dcs.shef.ac.uk/~noel/).
Recommendations coming out of this will inform the EPSRC and RAE in the policies and funding.
Over an hour we had a chance to talk to the students about what they thought was problematic about robot research. For instance one group was looking at robots being used in war situations, and whether there was a justification for them being autonomous, or under human control all the time.
In this and other proposals, there was a desire that the robots not become too smart, and a disbelief that robots could become complex enough to show emotions and exhibit decision making ability.
It was an hour of lively discussions, and I was lucky to have attended it, having been invited because I was at the inaugural Newcastle dorkbot a few days earlier.

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