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New Site: New Changes

We’ve upgraded the site. Hopefully it will be a bit neater and more organized for you to find what you need here.

Greylodge Occult Review (GLOR) Archives

Back online, the archives of the legendary Greylodge Occult Review

The Alterati Archives

The gigantic podcast archives of Alterati. The Inside Scoop on the Outside Culture.

David Rothenberg: Bug Music: How Insects Gave Us Rhythm and Noise (2013)

In the spring of 2013 the cicadas in the Northeastern United States will yet again emerge from their seventeen-year cycle—the longest gestation period of any animal. Those who experience this great sonic invasion compare their sense of wonder to the arrival of a comet or a solar eclipse. This unending rhythmic cycle is just one [...]

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Stockholm hit by third day of rioting – Telegraph

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Rioting spread across Stockholm’s suburbs on Wednesday in the third day of unrest to hit the Swedish capital, as Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt blamed the violence on “hooliganism” and appealed for calm. Stockholm police began rounding up suspected ringleaders behind the riots, leaving cars and buildings ablaze. The unrest is believed to have been sparked [...]

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An increasingly unchecked surveillance state – Al Jazeera English

The US government extensively monitors its citizens’ internet activities, with dangerous effects on personal liberties. The most egregious rights violations tend to happen against the voiceless; those who have neither the platform nor resources to articulate their grievances to the broader world. Last week, however, the US Department of Justice was caught in a very [...]

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Hackers Who Breached Google in 2010 Accessed Company’s Surveillance Database | Threat Level | Wired.com

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Hackers who breached Google’s network in 2010 obtained access to the company’s system for tracking surveillance requests from law enforcement, according to a news report. http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/05/google-surveillance-database/

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Nicola Anne Candlish: The Development of Resources for Electronic Music in the UK, with Particular Reference to the bids to establish a National Studio (2012)

This thesis traces the history and development of the facilities for electronic music in the UK. It covers the early attempts to experiment with electronic music and create studios in less than ideal circumstances and the subsequent bids to create a national centre. It also covers some elements of worldwide development of electronic music and [...]

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Hacking Politics: How Geeks, Progressives, The Tea Party, Gamers, Anarchists and Suits Teamed Up to Defeat SOPA and Save the Internet (2013)

Hacking Politics is a firsthand account of how a ragtag band of activists and technologists overcame a $90 million lobbying machine to defeat the most serious threat to Internet freedom in memory. The book is a revealing look at how Washington works today – and how citizens successfully fought back. Written by the core Internet [...]

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U.N. Urges Eating Insects; 8 Popular Bugs to Try

Ants are sweet, nutty little insects, aren’t they? I’m not talking about their personalities, but how they taste. Stinkbugs have an apple flavor, and red agave worms are spicy. A bite of tree worm apparently brings pork rinds to mind. This information will come in handy for those of us following the latest recommendation from [...]

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Privacy, public health and the moral hazard of surveillance | Cory Doctorow

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If online oversharing is a public health problem, then the state’s decision to harness it for its own purposes means that huge, powerful forces within government will come to depend on it http://m.guardiannews.com/technology/2013/may/21/privacy-public-health-surveillance

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Empowering Our Digital Sixth Sense with Google Glass, Augmented Reality and Wearable Health Gadgets | TIME.com

We all know about our five senses: sight, smell, taste, touch and hearing. Many people believe we also have a kinesthetic sense, which is what some folks believe is a sort of spiritual sense — for instance, when they perceive another person is in a room with them even though the other person is behind [...]

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Wang Hui: The End of the Revolution: China and the Limits of Modernity (2009)

A compelling examination of the future of Chinese modernity by the leading member of China’s “New Left.” Challenging both the bureaucratic one-party regime and the Western neoliberal paradigm, China’s leading critic shatters the myth of progress and reflects upon the inheritance of a revolutionary past. In this original and wide-ranging study, Wang Hui examines the [...]

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Richard Sennett: The Craftsman (2008)

Craftsmanship, says Richard Sennett, names the basic human impulse to do a job well for its own sake, and good craftsmanship involves developing skills and focusing on the work rather than ourselves. The computer programmer, the doctor, the artist, and even the parent and citizen all engage in a craftsman’s work. In this thought-provoking book, [...]

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Thomas Bey William Bailey: Micro Bionic: Radical Electronic Music & Sound Art in the 21st Century, 2nd ed (2009/2012)

Starting with the guerrilla media tactics of Industrial music in the late 1970s, the author charts an ongoing trend in electronic music: an increasing amount of sonic quality, recorded output and international contact, accomplished with a decreasing amount of tools, personnel, and capital investment. From the use of laptop computers to create massive avalanches of [...]

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The Oatmeal’s Latest Fundraiser To Save The Tesla Tower – Forbes

Matthew Inman (perhaps better known as web comic creator The Oatmeal) has an ambitious fund-raising project up his sleeve—to save Tesla’s Wardenclyffe Tower. Wardenclyffe Tower is rich in history, a symbolic landmark of Nikola Tesla’s last great piece of scientific research that was in Tesla’s mind, destined to change the world. I sat down with [...]

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The Science of Why Comment Trolls Suck | Mother Jones

The online peanut gallery can get you so riled up that your ability to reason goes out the window, a new study finds. http://m.motherjones.com/environment/2013/01/you-idiot-course-trolls-comments-make-you-believe-science-less

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Google Glass Is Watching—Now What?

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As Congress frets about the privacy implications of Google Glass, one thing is clear: The technology that can redefine what is “public” and link the digital and physical worlds is here. Now the question is what will anyone do about it? Owners of wearable Internet-connected devices already face choices about where or when it is [...]

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Why everything you know about wolf packs is wrong

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The alpha wolf is a figure that looms large in our imagination. The notion of a supreme pack leader who fought his way to dominance and reigns superior to the other wolves in his pack informs both our fiction and is how many people understand wolf behavior. But the alpha wolf doesn’t exist—at least not [...]

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“Hollywood and CIA” – Panel at Left Forum 2013, NYC

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Date/Time Date(s) – 06/09/13 3:00 pm – 4:45 pm Location Pace University Category(ies) No Categories Join author Nicholas Levis (of Occupy Astoria LIC) and philosopher Bryan Sacks for a two-hour presentation on “Hollywood and CIA,” with Rutgers Media Studies Professor Deepa Kumar as discussant, at the Left Forum 2013 in New York City. All those [...]

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Is This Virtual Worm the First Sign of the Singularity?

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For all the talk of artificial intelligence and all the games of SimCity that have been played, no one in the world can actually simulate living things. Biology is so complex that nowhere on Earth is there a comprehensive model of even a single simple bacterial cell.  And yet, these are exciting times for “executable [...]

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