Category Archives: Futurism

Uh, what's going on, Mark?Meta-Terse

During a pivotal post-stock selloff meeting, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg gave a very bizarre reason for looking like he was,well, about to cry on camera.

AsBloombergreports, a red-eyed Zuckerberg told employees on a company-wide video meeting responding to the companys huge stock drop that if he began crying, it was because hed scratched his cornea.

The strange claim, which may or may not have been an attempt at humor, came amid a historic drop in the companys stock value, which lost a quarter of its value this week due to both a shrinking userbase and a giant projected loss of revenue, prompting investors to sell off their holdings en mass.

Indeed, the current situation at the company formerly known as Facebook seems quite grim with the Meta stock dropping more than $250 billion or 26.4 percent in market value, which is the greatest loss the company has ever seen and the greatest single-day dive in the history of the stock market to boot.

In the face of it all, Zuckerberg implored his employees during the meeting to focus more energy on Instagram Reels to try to respond to the unprecedented level of competition posed by TikTok,Bloomberg reports per an anonymous source.

Facebook has, of course, tried and spectacularly failed to pivot to video before, and its tempting to analyze this advice from Zuckerberg as an attempt to lay blame not on the CEOs poor business decisions but instead on the people who work for him.

Those same employees are often compensated with stock options, so the quarter drop in Metas stock and the massive sell-off could lead to valuable employees leaving the company, another anonymous source toldBloomberg.

Zuckerberg himself also experienced a net worth loss of an eye-reddening $31 billion, theBBC reports though given that hes still one of the worlds richest men and worth a cool $90 billion after the drop, the situation is a lot more dire for his employees than for him personally.

We wont know exactly how bad this is for Facebook or its nascent Metaverse is until the dust settles, but given how much energy and money Zuckerbergs put into this moonshot, lets just say the optics arent great.

READ MORE: Zuckerberg Tells Staff to Focus on Video Products as Metas Stock Plunges [Bloomberg]

More on Meta:Facebooks Top VR Expert Seems Pretty Annoyed by Metaverse Push

Care about supporting clean energy adoption? Find out how much money (and planet!) you could save by switching to solar power at UnderstandSolar.com. By signing up through this link, Futurism.com may receive a small commission.

The rest is here:
Mark Zuckerberg Reportedly Had Red Eyes and a Weird Excuse at Company-Wide Meeting - Futurism

No matter how great a new Nintendo console is, the first iteration can almost always be considered a beta. Upon its first release, the Game Boy Advance still ran on batteries and didnt even have a backlight. The bulky original Nintendo DS looks practically primitive when compared to the far sleeker Nintendo DS Lite. Early adopters help Nintendo in working out the kinks before a shinier option makes this years model obsolete. This brings us to the Nintendo Switch OLED model.

The third iteration of Nintendos immensely popular home console is the latest upgrade offered after the basic models release in 2017, followed by the Nintendo Switch Mini in 2019. There are a few technical enhancements but the obvious one is its big, bright OLED screen. Is this new display worth shelling out the extra gold coins for, or should gamers hold out until the next revamp? It depends on how you get your game on, of course.

Specifications: Released: October 8, 2021 Dimensions: 4 inches H x 9.5 inches L x 0.55 inches D, with Joy-Cons attached Weight: 14.88 ounces, with Joy-Cons attached Screen: 7-inch Multi-touch capacitive OLED GPU: Nvidia Custom Tegra processor Storage: 6GB, upgradeable up to 2TB with microSD cards, sold separately Wireless: WiFi (IEEE 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac compliant)/Bluetooth 4.1 Video Output: Up to 1080p via HDMI in TV mode, Up to 720p via the built-in screen in tabletop and handheld modes Audio Output: Compatible with 5.1ch Linear PCM output, Output via HDMI connector in TV mode. Stereo speakers, 3.5mm 4-pole stereo headphone jack Sensor: Accelerometer, gyroscope, and brightness sensors Battery: Lithium-ion battery / 4310mAh Inputs: 2 USB 2.0, Wired LAN Battery Life: Runs from 4.5-9 hours, depending on settings and game Charging Time: 3 hours

The original Nintendo Switch was released in March of 2017, and since then, rumors swirled of a Nintendo Switch Pro. In July of 2021, Nintendo unveiled the third version of its hybrid portable/home console with Nintendo Switch OLED. It wasnt the technical powerhouse fans expected, but it did sport a handful of upgrades. The obvious one is the big and very bright 7-inch OLED screen. Comparably, the original Nintendo Switch screen is a simpler 6.2-inch IPS (a simpler, less-bright LED style) display.

Nintendo Switch OLEDs new stand spans the length of the back of the console and is a little sturdier when playing in tabletop mode. Its also adjustable, so you can view the console from a handful of different angles. Nintendo Switch OLEDs dock comes with a built-in Ethernet port for more secure wired connections, but it did so at the cost of one of the USB 2.0 ports. Strangely enough, both the original Nintendo Switch and the OLED upgrade work with this new dock.

Aside from the obvious screen which gives this new model its name, there are a few new changes to the console. For one, Nintendo Switch OLED comes with a whopping 64 GB of memory, which doubles the space available on the original Nintendo Switch. Its a welcome addition to anyone whos determined to go digital this generation. The consoles memory is upgradable up to 2TB via a microSD card, which slides into the console just under its stand.

Related: Best Nintendo Switch Controllers

Anytime a new version of a console is released, a dedicated user must ask themselves a question: Do I need to drop the cash on this new version? After all, the previous new Nintendo Switch offering was rather easy to pass on. Nintendo Switch Lite is built strictly for portability, is a good bit smaller, and doesnt even come with a dock to connect it to a television. But is it worth upgrading to the OLED model? Heres a peek at my first four months with the Nintendo Switch OLED.

Nintendo Switch OLED was released on October 8, 2021, alongside the celebrated and long-awaited Metroid: Dread. Samus latest romp was a perfect pairing with this new console. The game includes some spooky stealth areas where blood-thirsty AI robots chase you down narrow passages. If they get their metal mitts on you, they run a spike through your neck causing an instant Game Over that fills the player with visceral dread, hence the name. To amplify this heart-pumping action, I played Dread with all the lights off in the house, save for the light coming from the screen, which admittedly was abundant. After about an hour of play, it was clear that there was no going back to playing in handheld mode on a lesser Switch console.

For a console that doubles as a portable, giving the device an OLED screen was an easy way to bolster the visual output of the Switch OLED, which lags behind the Xbox Series X and the PS5. Both the Microsoft and Sony consoles output in 4-8K, and even have processing powers that can go toe to toe with modern gaming PCs. OLED stands for Organic Light Emitting Diode, and these screens are put in everything from smartphones to cameras. The technology provides brighter screens, better contrast, wider color ranges, and even faster refresh rates, which makes them perfect for gaming applications. Its no surprise that my experience with Metroid: Dread felt all the more terrifying considering that everything including the wall-crawling death robots looked crisper than ever before. Releasing Metroid: Dread along with the new console was a seriously smart way to show off the Nintendo Switch OLEDs capabilities.

A new screen gives gamers a good excuse to dip back into games that were released ages ago, including visual masterpieces like The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Super Mario Odyssey. While big-screen experiences are engrossing, unless your television is also an OLED TV, playing in handheld mode is almost always preferable. Light is such a game-changer when it comes to portable gaming. Even playing legacy titles via Nintendo Switch Online feels new and more immersive than before. Even in 16-bit titles, colors come in more vibrant than before. Kirby pinks, Pikachu yellows, and of course, Mario reds practically pop off the screen.

While the screen is the Nintendo Switch OLEDs main improvement, there are a few more QoL upgrades. The new Nintendo Switch OLED stand spans the length of the back of the screen and offers far more angles than the original ever did. I can say with confidence that Ive never played in tabletop mode. However, a handful of multiplayer titles could take advantage of this, including Nintendo Switch versions of popular board games like Monopoly Madness and Catan.

The Nintendo Switch OLED dock also comes with a wired LAN port. I wish I could report that this vastly improves the lackluster Nintendo Switch Online multiplayer experience. Sadly, it does not. While the dock traded one of its USB 2.0 ports for it, this sacrifice isnt one that stung too much. The inside of the dock is a little crowded, so most USB accessories had a hard time maneuvering back there anyway. And thats all she wrote, upgrades-wise. Nintendo touts better speakers in tabletop and handheld modes, but the difference between the Nintendo Switch OLED and the original model is negligible. The battery life, video output, and GPU remain unchanged. That fabled Nintendo Switch Pro with all the technical upgrades is nothing but a dreamfor now.

Q: Where can I buy Nintendo Switch OLED?You can buy the Nintendo Switch OLED in most stores where video games are sold.

Q: When will Nintendo Switch OLED be back in stock?When will the Nintendo Switch OLED be back in stock? Nintendo Switch OLED stock always moves fast, but its available on Walmart.com.

Q: Does the Nintendo Switch have an OLED screen?The newest Nintendo Switch OLED contains an OLED screen. The original Nintendo Switch and Nintendo Switch Lite contain LCD screens.

For gamers looking for a console powerhouse with 4K output and faster processing speeds, the Nintendo Switch OLED feels like a smack in the face. Granted, lagging behind the competition is what Nintendo does best, and its a gamble that often pays off, especially in the current console generation. The Switch OLED packs a beautiful screen that makes experiences in new games more memorable and immersive than ever before when playing in handheld and tabletop mode. If your Switch never hardly ever leaves your dock, theres no sense in upgrading just yet. However, if youre the kind who games on the couch, in bed, in the car, and yes, even in the bathroom, the Nintendo Switch OLED may be a worthy investment for your gaming habit. This goes double for the few who have yet to dive into the Nintendo Switch craze. Theres no better place to start than with the Nintendo Switch OLED.

This post was created by a non-news editorial team at Recurrent Media, Futurisms owner. Futurism may receive a portion of sales on products linked within this post.

Care about supporting clean energy adoption? Find out how much money (and planet!) you could save by switching to solar power at UnderstandSolar.com. By signing up through this link, Futurism.com may receive a small commission.

Read this article:
Nintendo Switch OLED Review: A Must-Have for Gamers on the Go - Futurism

"We were frankly surprised and disappointed at the overall integrity of the companies claims."Damning Report

In an incredibly predictable turn of events, a new study found that large corporations that promised to fight climate change are doing a laughably bad job at it.

The NewClimate Institute, an environmental advocacy group, released a report that looked at the climate plans of 25 corporations that promised to cut their emissions down to net zero. It found that the companies plans to reach that target would reduce emissions by roughly 40 percent on average by 2030 falling far short of net zero.

We set out to uncover as many replicable good practices as possible, but we were frankly surprised and disappointed at the overall integrity of the companies claims, Thomas Day, climate policy analyst at NewClimate Institute lead author of the study, said in a press release.

The report also analyzed each company by integrity, comparing what each said it would do and what its actually doing in terms of fighting climate change.

None of the companies with net zero pledges scored the top high integrity ranking. Just one company shipping company Maersk had its second-tier reasonable integrity ranking. Many other large corporations such as Amazon, Google, and Walmart had low integrity.

As pressure on companies to act on climate change rises, their ambitious-sounding headline claims all too often lack real substance, which can mislead both consumers and the regulators that are core to guiding their strategic direction, Day said. Even companies that are doing relatively well exaggerate their actions.

The report just underscores the need for the worlds largest corporations and the biggest contributors to anthropogenic climate change to do more to reduce carbon emissions. Virtue signaling simply isnt enough. Real action needs to occur.

READ MORE: Major companies largely fail net zero climate pledge test [NewClimate Institute]

More on climate change: Climate Change Air Conditioning Spike Will Cause Widespread Blackouts, Scientists Warn

Care about supporting clean energy adoption? Find out how much money (and planet!) you could save by switching to solar power at UnderstandSolar.com. By signing up through this link, Futurism.com may receive a small commission.

Here is the original post:
Surprise! Companies That Promised to Hit Net-Zero Emissions Are Failing Miserably - Futurism

Jakarta, Indonesias biggest city, has been free of Dutch rule for about 70 years but the lasting effects of colonialism are far from over.

Case in point, the city is sinking into the surrounding Java Sea because many of the citys 10 million people have noaccess to piped water and must rely on wells to suck up drinkable groundwater.

The flooding, pollution, sinking earth and congestion have gotten so catastrophic,in fact, that the country is switching capital cities altogether. Yes, seriously: the government is packing up and moving the countrys capital to the island of Borneo, according to the Associated Press.

But the move is unlikely to help poor residents who are still suffering from the chaos of environmental disaster, financial ruin, and the side effects of colonization ever since the Netherlands built a purposefully segregated city in the 1600s.

The construction of the new capital city is not merely a physical move of government offices, President Joko Widodo told AP. The main goal is to build a smart new city, a new city that is competitive at the global level, to build a new locomotive for the transformation toward an Indonesia based on innovation and technology based on a green economy.

It sounds great in theory, but according to the AP, current plans are for about 8,000 civil servants to have moved to the new capital by 2024. The whole relocation process is scheduled to be completed by 2045, but thats only five years ahead of 2050, when an entire third of Jakarta could be submerged, and its not really clear how everyday residents who arent civil servants are expected to make the move or what will happen to people who cant relocate.

In addition, the new location in Borneo isnt ideal considering the wide variety of flora and fauna nearby. APreports that Borneos East Kalimantan province is home to orangutans, leopards and a wide array of other wildlife.

The new capital citys strategic environmental study shows that there are at least three basic problems, Dwi Sawung, an official with the Indonesian Forum for Environment, or WALHI, told the wire service. There are threats to water systems and risks of climate change, threats to flora and fauna, and threats of pollution and environmental damage.

Stuck between a rock and a hard place aka staying in a doomed city or moving to an imperfect new one Indonesia once again reminds us that just because a country has independence doesnt mean its free of a grim history.

More on climate change: The Doomsday Glacier is Irreversibly Melting, Researchers Say

Care about supporting clean energy adoption? Find out how much money (and planet!) you could save by switching to solar power at UnderstandSolar.com. By signing up through this link, Futurism.com may receive a small commission.

Read more:
Indonesia Is Switching Capital Cities Because the Old One Is Sinking Into the Ocean - Futurism

Apples CEO has taken out a restraining order against a stalker who he says keeps emailing him photos of loaded guns and creeping around outsidehis house.

AsThe Mercury News reports, a Virginia woman has spent the past year menacing Apple CEO Tim Cook, escalating from sending him photos of a loaded gun and bizarre roommate applications to driving cross-country in a Porsche to stalk his Palo Alto home all of which led a judge to grant him a wide-ranging restraining order against the woman, which bars her from owning firearms, entering Apple premises, speaking to Apple employees, or going to Cooks house.

It gets weirder: according to the report, the woman believes she is the CEOs wife and mother to his children, and uses the last name Cook on Twitter. Cook, it bears mentioning, is gay and has been out about that since 2014.

The womans obsessive behavior towards the Apple CEO appears to have begun in the fall of 2020, the report noted, when Cook noticed her tagging him on Twitter. On Halloween of that year, she tweeted continuously about the relationships she claims they had, and thereafter began escalating and becoming threatening and highly disturbing, Cooks application for a restraining orderreads.

In one of her more than 200 emails, the woman reportedly said that she was almost done waiting to have a sexual relationship with Cook, Mercury News added.

Alongside Cook, the 45-year-old womans Twitter which Futurism has reviewed but will not link to protect the woman, who may well be struggling with mental health issues also mentions Google CEO Sundar Pichai and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella in a threatening manner.

In her applications to be Cooks roommate, according to Mercury News report, the woman listed corporations shes registered in Virginia, California, and New York that all have highly offensive names and boast Cook as an executive. After sending the roommate applications, she then reportedly drove cross-country in a Porsche Macan SUV in October 2021 and tried to enter his building, only to wait around for him outside after being rebuffed by security. Thereafter, she fled but was found by police and arrested, and allegedly told officers that she could get violent when she was in custody.

After her Palo Alto arrest, the woman continued to escalate further, the report noted, demanding hundreds of millions of dollars from Cook, tweeting violent things about him, and demanding him to move. According to the CEOs since-granted restraining order application, the womans continued presence in the South Bay makes her more dangerous.

Though this isnt Cooks first stalker or even the first to show up at his house, this series of behavior is uniquely bizarre and freaky, even by the standards of Apple obsessives.

When tech CEOs become celebrities, they seem to get all the same treatment granted to movie stars right down to the stalkers.

READ MORE:Apple CEO Tim Cook targeted by possibly armed stalker who came to his home and is still in the area, company alleges [The Mercury News]

More on stalkers:Elon Musk Says People Stalking His Location Has Become a Security Issue

Care about supporting clean energy adoption? Find out how much money (and planet!) you could save by switching to solar power at UnderstandSolar.com. By signing up through this link, Futurism.com may receive a small commission.

See the original post:
Apple CEO Menaced by Armed Stalker Who Thinks She's His Wife - Futurism

Image by Getty Images/Futurism

The USDA is looking into why the three crab-eating macaques who escaped after a traffic accident in Pennsylvania were shot by state police.

Theres still a lot that we dont know about the saga. The monkeys had just arrived in the US from the African island of Mauritius and were destined for a secured facility to await their routine 30-day quarantine.

Over the weekend, the beloved trio of outlaws escaped in Danville, Pennsylvania after a trailer carrying them and 97 of their comrades who are all thankfully still alive and accounted for crashed into another vehicle on the I-80.

After the story went viral, news broke that they had been recaptured and euthanized though initially, it wasnt clear that they had been shot.

Then PETA lodged a complaint, which PennLive acquired, against the state police who seemingly shot the monkeys either during or after their recapture. In the complaint, Alka Chandna, PETAs vice president of laboratory investigations cases, alleged that the shooting may constitute a violation of the Animal Welfare Act (AWA) or other regulations meant to protect animals.

According to the USDAs website, the agency generally enforces AWA violations against facilities that have had repeat complaints, but this case may qualify as high-priority since it involves animal suffering (death or severe injury) and potential public or animal safety or health concerns.

The drama surrounding the case thickened when tabloids claimed that awoman who came in contact with one of the escaped macaques had become sick.

But then the woman admitted that she wasnt actually sick, telling Danvilles The Daily Item newspaper that she is doing just fine, and was given antibiotics and rabies shots as precautionary measures.

That hasnt stopped the rumor mill from churning, however,with conspiracy theorists claiming the monkeys were being quarantined after deliberately being infected with viruses.

Everything about this story from the not-so-gentle euthanizing of the macaques to it being used as conspiracy fodder is a tragedy, and reveals just how easy it is for facts to get misconstrued in an information vacuum.

READ MORE:USDA to look into treatment of lab monkeys at Pa. crash site [PennLive]

And some fun animal news:Scientist Who Trained Rats to Play Doom II Says He May Start Twitch Channel

Care about supporting clean energy adoption? Find out how much money (and planet!) you could save by switching to solar power at UnderstandSolar.com. By signing up through this link, Futurism.com may receive a small commission.

Link:
Feds Investigating Why Escaped Lab Monkeys Were Shot to Death - Futurism

You've never seen the ISS like this before. Awesome Angle

Despite having been launched over two decades ago, the International Space Station (ISS) still has plenty of surprises in store for us.

For instance, check out this stunning new photo showcasing a unique angle of the ISS, taken from the stations newest module.

The image was shared by NASA astronaut and current ISS crew member Thomas Marshburn on Twitter on Sunday.

Thats me in the Cupola, taking in the sights of our spectacular planet, he wrote in the caption.

While Marshburn didnt specify which Russian module he meant, hes likely referring to the Prichal module, which docked with the ISS in November 2021. The module is connected to the Nauka module and will soon allow more spacecraft to dock to the stations Russian segment.

The Nauka module made headlines last year after a series of near-disastrous mishaps resulted in the ISS spinning out of control on more than one occasion. Russia denied astronauts were ever in any serious danger, despite evidence to the contrary.

The country is hoping to establish its own space station in the near future, with Nauka and Prichal rumored to act as the foundational pieces. So until then, lets take in the stunning views while we still can.

More on ISS: Will Archeologists Learn Anything Useful In New Space Station Dig?

Care about supporting clean energy adoption? Find out how much money (and planet!) you could save by switching to solar power at UnderstandSolar.com. By signing up through this link, Futurism.com may receive a small commission.

Continued here:
New Window on ISS Offers Incredible View of Space Station Exterior - Futurism

when it was first published 100 years ago, it seemed obscure and anomalous. Catherine Flynnexplores the EUROPEAN origins of the 20th centurys most important novel

In writing Ulysses, Joyce took great care to represent as accurately as possible the Dublin of June 16th, 1904, consulting maps and street directories, timing routes, and writing letters to friends and family to check minute local details. Why then is the novel so strange? Why does it present its world in so challenging a manner? Seen among the English-language novels of its day, Ulysses looks obscure and anomalous. Yet read in the context of contemporaneous European artistic experimentation, it comes into focus.

This monster novel, as Joyce himself called it, responds to the Italian, Swiss, and French avant-garde movements that he encountered while writing Ulysses in three cities whose importance he signals in the final words of Ulysses: 1914-1921 Trieste-Zurich-Paris. In those cities, Futurist, Dada, and Surrealist artists used iconoclastic practices to rebel against aesthetic, social and political norms.

These artists manifested a joyful independence lacking in one of Joyces main characters, the young would-be artist Stephen Dedalus, who bemoans his servitude to the imperial British state and the holy Roman catholic and apostolic church, and a third, unspecified master, who wants me for odd jobs, which we might understand as the cause of Irish identity and independence.

Early 20th-century European avant-garde artists invented new means to resist the pressures of empire and of national identity, to counter the weight of the historical past and the violence of war, and to give voice to the transformative energies of their moment. Their non-conformity, irreverence, and experimentalism helped Joyce to conceive of a novel that was free.

Joyce left Dublin with Nora Barnacle in 1904 and, following a position for Joyce as an English teacher, the couple settled in Trieste. A major harbour of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Trieste was a cosmopolitan city, whose blending of races and ethnicities, including Italians, Slavs and Germans, with a strong Jewish contingent, formed a lasting influence on Joyce. Our Beautiful Tinderbox Filippo Tommaso Marinetti called the city, although its multiculturalism was in stark contrast to the imperialist nationalism he promoted through the Futurist movement he launched in 1909.

Marinetti declared Trieste one of the three capitals of Futurism, along with Milan and Paris. He staged a highly controversial event in a theatre there in 1910, at which he read a manifesto celebrating youth, patriotism, and violent gestures, calling for the incineration of libraries and the demolition of museums. This characteristic Futurist aggression towards the past was met with protests from the audience. Joyce may even have been present at the event but, in any case, he certainly knew about it: several of his friends were in the audience, the newspapers covered it widely, and the city was blanketed in advance with promotional material.

One of Futurisms most influential gestures was the subversive orthography of its publications: Marinettis strategy of parole in libert, words in freedom, abandoned punctuation and released words from linear sequence, mixing font types and sizes. What might seem normal to hipster menus today was at the turn of the 20th century a means of vividly evoking the simultaneous and discordant stimuli of the modern city, the dynamism of modern technologies of transport, communication and warfare. We can link to Futurist orthography the graphic liberties Joyce takes in Ulysses, such as the cheeky headlines of Aeolus, the intrusive musical notation of Sirens, and the excessively large full stop of Ithaca.

We know that Joyce engaged with the principles of Futurism in Ulysses. He asked his brother Stanislaus if he found the Cyclops episode Futurist, suggesting that its belligerent hyper-nationalist character, the citizen, is an embodiment of Marinettis political ethos. In contrast to the Futurists masculinism, Ulysses features a sensitive male central character. The episode opposes Leopold Blooms gentle insistence on tolerance and compassion to the citizens aggression towards any non-Irish ethnicity.

Joyce responds in the episode to the Futurist cultural ethos of tabula rasa by showcasing the culture of the past even while subverting it. The escalating encounter between Bloom and the citizen is interspersed with comic passages that parody Irish antiquarianism and mythology, suggesting that freedom from the past can be achieved without its obliteration.

The Futurist call for destruction was a creative artistic principle, a dynamising gesture that injected vigour and novelty into the international artistic scene. It established an avant-garde discourse that centred on radical disruption of the status quo and on dismantling artistic culture that was separate from everyday life.

This attitude took on increased relevance with the outbreak of the first World War, when an international group of artists sheltering from the war in neutral Zurich held a series of cacophonous soires. Hugo Ball, the instigator of the soires, wrote: The activity and interests of those involved in the cabaret clearly show that it is aimed at the few independent thinkers whose ideals extend beyond the war and their native lands.

The Dadaists attacked not only national identity but also sense itself. Understanding rational discourse as complicit in the slaughter of the war, they practised a mode of live performance that assaulted their audiences with multiple genres, languages and voices. In contrast to Futurisms clear principles, Dada refused any guiding idea. Dada, yes yes in Romanian and hobby horse in French, meant nothing, Ball asserted.

Joyce, a British subject on enemy territory when the war broke out, moved with his family to Zurich in 1914. They lived close to theatre at Speigelgasse 1 where the Cabaret Voltaire began in 1916 but the Dada movement, like Futurism, was impossible to ignore. As Dada artists used found materials in performances and collages, Joyce recast in Ulysses the physical details and ephemera of June 16th, 1904. Whereas Dadas emphasis on spontaneity and chance differs fundamentally from his painstaking writing and rewriting, the intended effect of Dadas barrage of words resembles the effect of the Ulyssean multiplicity of references.

In contrast to the transmission of received sense, Dada aimed to foster independent and creative audience members. Tristan Tzara understood the movements poetry as: letting each listener make links with appropriate associations. He retains the elements characteristic of his personality, mixes them, the fragments etc., remaining at the same time in the direction the author has channelled.

While every sentence of Ulysses calls for readers to make associations, at the larger scale, the novels changing form makes even more insistent demands. We can see this unprecedented narrative shape-shifting as licensed by the wild juxtapositions of the Dada little magazines which combine manifestos, poems, visual and verbal experiments, theoretical statements, collages, reproductions of artworks, slogans, automatic writing and popular art. These rebellious liberties taken during the turmoil of the first World War lent energy to Joyces reconception in Ulysses of Homers Odyssey, the story of Odysseuss homeward wanderings after the Trojan War.

His monster novel combines an astonishing array of narrative techniques: a new initial style that combines interior monologue and third-person narrative; interruptive headlines; musical notation; disjointed impersonal narratives; musical prose; parodies of literary English; a hallucinatory playscript; a wandering assemblage of misnomers, malapropisms and cliches; a scientific catechism; and an unpunctuated transcription of night-time thoughts.

After the war ended, Trieste was no longer affordable for the Joyces and Pariss favourable exchange rate attracted them as it had scores of artists. The city was not new to Joyce; he had moved there in 1902, ostensibly to study medicine but drawn by the works of 19th century avant-garde writers such as Charles Baudelaire, Grard de Nerval, and Arthur Rimbaud. Returning to Paris almost 20 years later, he moved into a new phase. Throughout the composition of Ulysses, Joyce melded multiple influences with a massive range of literary and historical references but, writing the Circe episode in Paris in 1920, he restages all of the preceding characters and events of the book.

On arriving in the capitol, he wrote with great interest of another Homeric adaptation, Guillaume Apollinaires The Breasts of Tiresias, the first Surrealist play. Apollinaire indeed coined the term surrealism, inventing it to characterize a ballet produced by Diaghilev, Picasso, Satie and Cocteau: a sort of sur-realism in which I see the point of departure for a series of manifestations of that New Spirit which promises to modify the arts and the conduct of life from top to bottom in universal joyousness. Joyce follows Apollinaires feverish production with a playscript that interrupts Blooms visit to the red-light area of Dublin with a series of waking dreams.

There are striking simularities between the two pieces; O, I do so want to be a mother Bloom declares, before giving birth to octuplets, recalling the unnamed husbands announcement in The Breasts of Tiresias: Ah! The mad joys of paternity! 40049 children in a single day! My happiness is complete. Male reproduction on an industrial scale has nationalist and colonial consequence in Apollinaires play; in Ulysses, it speaks to the promises and limits of capitalism.

Surrealists like Apollinaire were indebted to the 19th-century French writers who had inspired Joyce as they coined a new artistic language to give voice to the desires awoken and repressed in the modern capitalist city. The avant-garde movements of the 20th century were also related to one another: Apollinaires calligrammes, or word-image poetry, along with Marinettis parole in libert poems, were celebrated by the Dadaists.

These artists considered themselves the vanguard of a new society. Ulysses, considered in these contexts, can be understood to reconceive of the nature and role of avant-garde art. Neither the artistic equivalent of an advance battalion nor the dismantling of the institution of art tout court, Joyces iconoclastic work recasts literary and artistic culture to open up the possibilities of the everyday world.

The Cambridge Centenary Ulysses, edited by Catherine Flynn, will be published in June by Cambridge University Press

Originally posted here:
Ulysses and the international avant-garde of Trieste, Zurich, Paris - The Irish Times

In space, Russia, Ukraine, and the US are nothing but distant regions on the globe below just ask the astronauts and cosmonauts up there, who are literally drinking each others recycled piss.

In a new interview with CNN, NASA astronaut Steve Swanson responded to the mounting military tensions between Russia and Ukraine by noting that when he was aboard the International Space Station in 2014, when Russia was occupying Crimea, everything was gravy.

Nobody talked about it. It was completely like its not happening, Swanson said of that ISS trip. We were just going about our normal business and not worrying about it.

While his fellow US astronaut Rick Mastracchio admitted that the Crimea annexation did come up when they were interacting with Russian cosmonauts, the complex interdependence and mutual reliance the ISS requires of its international crew deterred political drama. Specifically, both Mastracchio and Swanson noted that they literally have to recycle each others urine on the ISS for hydration, symbolizing a rich orbital interdependence.

That was always troublesome, Mastracchio toldCNN, to go ask somebody if you could borrow a tank of their urine.

Swanson, however, had a slightly different take.

We actually recycle the cosmonauts urine to get more water for our side to drink, he said. Now thats transcending politics. Its survival.

Former NASA astronaut Garrett Reisman also highlighted how important each side is to the other.

The Russian segment cant function without the electricity on the American side, and the American side cant function without the propulsion systems that are on the Russian side, Reisman told CNN. So you cant do an amicable divorce. You cant do a conscious uncoupling.

Amid concerns that Russias increasingly militant posturing against Ukraine will lead to NATO allies having to defend Ukraine against the former Soviet Union, however, is the lesser worry that it might harm the US-Russia space alliance that has gone smoothly since 1975.

While NASA Administrator Bill NelsontoldCNN hes optimistic that our politics on terra firmawont harm the ISS or the US-Russia space alliance itself, former Reisman is less sure.

It scares me that if this becomes a shooting war, I think it would be hard for the ISS to survive, he said.Unfortunately, I do think its destined to end.

It may seem like relying on the pee of another nation would create an unbreakable bond, but after all, all is fair in love and war.

READ MORE:Tensions with Russia worry former US astronauts about the partnership in space [CNN]

More pee:Anti-Vaxxers are Drinking Human Urine for Some Disgusting Reason

Care about supporting clean energy adoption? Find out how much money (and planet!) you could save by switching to solar power at UnderstandSolar.com. By signing up through this link, Futurism.com may receive a small commission.

Originally posted here:
NASA Astronaut Touts the Benefits of Drinking Russian Pee - Futurism

Over the last 35 years, Northwestern University astronomy professor Farhad Yusef-Zadeh has been studying mysterious strands made up of cosmic ray electrons stretching up to 150 light years across the center of the Milky Way.

And now, with he help of his team, Yusef-Zadeh was able to find ten times more strands than previously discovered which is striking, since we still have no idea what they are made of, nevermind where they came from.

Using the South African Radio Astronomy Observatory MeerKAT telescope, the team was able to get a panoramic view of almost 1,000 of these mysterious filaments, as detailed in a new study accepted into The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

We have studied individual filaments for a long time with a myopic view, Yusef-Zadeh said in a statement. Now, we finally see the big picture a panoramic view filled with an abundance of filaments.

Needless to say, its a significant moment in his career-long investigation.

Just examining a few filaments makes it difficult to draw any real conclusion about what they are and where they came from, he added. This is a watershed in furthering our understanding of these structures.

To create the panorama, the team stitched together 20 separate observations made over 200 hours by the MeerKAT observatory. The resulting image is awe-inspiring, and like modern art, according to Yusef-Zadeh.

Despite the advancements and an abundance of questions left to answer, the team is willing to make some educated guesses.

The variation in the radiation emitted by the filaments for instance suggest they arent the leftovers of supernovae, but rather the result of past activity of the supermassive black hole suspected to be at the center of our galaxy.

This is the first time we have been able to study statistical characteristics of the filaments, Yusef-Zadeh said in the statement. For instance, the team discovered that magnetic fields are being amplified along the strands.

They are also spaced apart from each other at exactly the same distances.

We still dont know why they come in clusters or understand how they separate, and we dont know how these regular spacings happen, Yusef-Zadeh said.

But getting a full understanding will require more observations and theoretical analyses, he said, a process that takes time.

Every time we answer one question, multiple other questions arise, he added.

READ MORE: Nearly 1,000 mysterious strands revealed in Milky Ways center [Northwestern University]

More on the Milky Way: Scientists Surprised by Mysterious Barrier at the Core of our Galaxy

Care about supporting clean energy adoption? Find out how much money (and planet!) you could save by switching to solar power at UnderstandSolar.com. By signing up through this link, Futurism.com may receive a small commission.

Continued here:
Scientists Puzzled by Weird "Strands" at the Center of Our Galaxy - Futurism