November 10, 2011
The mobile fab lab is a computer-controlled design and machining shop housed in a trailer. The first was built in 2007 by the Center for Bits and Atoms at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The mobile lab includes the same computer controlled fabrication machines found in fab labs world-wide. The fab lab trailer is 32′ long, 8′ wide, and 7′ high. The tailgate opens to add a 6′ deck at the back of the trailer. To run all the equipment in the lab at once (including AC and overhead lights) is about 20 kW.
This lab contains custom cabinetry which is example of a lab producing a part of another lab. The cabinetry was CAD-designed and fabricated on a CNC wood router similar to the wood router in the trailer. The router in the trailer is capable of making another set of cabinets. Two graffiti artists from the South Bronx were invited to design and paint the sides and top of the trailer in two weekends. It is now loaned to organizations for months or longer, typically to help create a permanent lab in that location.
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November 10, 2011
A Fab Lab (fabrication laboratory) is a small-scale workshop offering (personal) digital fabrication generally equipped with an array of flexible computer controlled tools that cover several different length scales and various materials, with the aim to make ‘almost anything.’ This includes technology-enabled products generally perceived as limited to mass production. While Fab Labs have yet to compete with mass production and its associated economies of scale in fabricating widely distributed products, they have already shown the potential to empower individuals to create smart devices for themselves. These devices can be tailored to local or personal needs in ways that are not practical or economical using mass production.
The fab lab program was started in the Media Lab at MIT, a collaboration between the Grassroots Invention Group and the Center for Bits and Atoms (CBA) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, broadly exploring how the content of information relates to its physical representation, and how a community can be powered by technology at the grassroots level. While the Grassroots Invention Group is no longer in the Media Lab, The Center for Bits and Atoms consortium is still actively involved in continuing research in areas related to description and fabrication but does not operate or maintain any of the labs worldwide (with the exception of the mobile fab lab). The fab lab concept also grew out of a popular class at MIT named ‘How To Make (Almost) Anything.’
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November 10, 2011
Artificial scarcity describes the scarcity of items even though the technology and production capacity exists to create an abundance. The term is aptly applied to non-rival resources, i.e. those that do not diminish due to one person’s use, although there are other resources which could be categorized as artificially scarce. The most common causes are monopoly pricing structures, such as those enabled by intellectual property rights or by high fixed costs in a particular marketplace. The inefficiency associated with artificial scarcity is formally known as a deadweight loss.
An example of artificial scarcity is often used when describing proprietary, or closed-source, computer software. Any software application can be easily duplicated billions of times over for a relatively cheap production price (an initial investment in a computer, an internet connection, and any power consumption costs; and these are already fixed costs in most environments). On the margin, the price of copying software is next to nothing, costing only a small amount of power and a fraction of a second. Things like serial numbers, license agreements, and intellectual property create artificial scarcity, and give monetary value to otherwise free copies. Technocrats argue that if the price system were removed, there would be no personal incentive to artificially create scarcity in products, and thus something similar to the open source model of distribution would dominate.
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November 10, 2011
Post scarcity is a hypothetical form of economy or society, in which things such as goods, services and information are free, or practically free. This would be due to an abundance of fundamental resources (matter, energy and intelligence), in conjunction with sophisticated automated systems capable of converting raw materials into finished goods, allowing manufacturing to be as easy as duplicating software.
Scarcity is the fundamental economic problem of having seemingly unlimited human needs and wants, in a world of limited resources. It states that society has insufficient productive resources to fulfill all human wants and needs. Alternatively, scarcity implies that not all of society’s goals can be pursued at the same time; trade-offs are made of one good against others. As such, the term post-scarcity economics may be somewhat paradoxical. To quote a 1932 essay by Lionel Robbins, economics is ‘the science which studies human behavior as a relationship between ends and scarce means which have alternative uses.’
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November 10, 2011
A vanity label (related to the term ‘vanity press’) is an informal name given to a record label founded as a wholly or partially owned subsidiary of another, larger and better established (at least at the time of the vanity label’s founding) record label, where the subsidiary label is (at least nominally) controlled by a successful recording artist, designed to allow this artist to release music by other artists he or she admires. The parent label handles the production and distribution and funding of the vanity label, but the album is usually released with the vanity label brand name prominent. Usually, the artist/head of the vanity label is signed to the parent label, and this artist’s own recordings will be released under the vanity label’s brand name.
Creating a vanity label can be an attractive idea for the parent label primarily as a ‘perk’ to keep a successful artist on the label’s roster happy, providing an ego boost and a venue to bring fellow artists to the public’s attention. The parent label also hopes that the vanity label’s association with the famous artist will entice that artist’s audience to purchase other records on the vanity label, although only a relatively small number of new artists introduced by vanity labels have gone on to become major successes in their own right.
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November 10, 2011
Restless legs syndrome (RLS) or Willis-Ekbom disease is a neurological disorder characterized by an irresistible urge to move one’s body to stop uncomfortable or odd sensations. It most commonly affects the legs, but can affect the arms, torso, and even phantom limbs. Moving the affected body part modulates the sensations, providing temporary relief. RLS sensations can most closely be compared to an itching or tickling in the muscles, like ‘an itch you can’t scratch’ or an unpleasant ‘tickle that won’t stop.’ The sensations typically begin or intensify during quiet wakefulness, such as when relaxing, reading, studying, or trying to sleep.
As with many diseases with diffuse symptoms, there is controversy among physicians as to whether RLS is a distinct syndrome. The U.S. National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke publishes an information sheet characterizing the syndrome but acknowledging it as a difficult diagnosis. Physicians generally consider it a real entity that has specific diagnostic criteria., but many doctors express the view that the incidence of restless leg syndrome is exaggerated by manufacturers of drugs used to treat it. Others believe it is an underrecognized and undertreated disorder.
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November 10, 2011
In popular usage, eccentricity [ek-suhn-tris-i-tee] (also called quirkiness or kookiness) refers to unusual or odd behavior on the part of an individual. This behavior would typically be perceived as unusual or unnecessary, without being demonstrably maladaptive. Eccentricity is contrasted with ‘normal’ behavior, the nearly universal means by which individuals in society solve given problems and pursue certain priorities in everyday life. People who consistently display benignly eccentric behavior are labeled as ‘eccentrics.’
Derived from Greek ekkentros, ‘out of the center,’ the word ‘eccentric’ first appeared in English in 1551 as an astronomical term meaning ‘a circle in which the earth, sun, etc. deviates from its center.’ Five years later, in 1556, an adjective form of the word was added. 129 years later, in 1685, the definition evolved from the literal to the figurative, and eccentric began being used to describe unconventional or odd behavior. A noun form of the word – a person who possesses and exhibits these unconventional or odd qualities/behaviors – didn’t appear until 1832.
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November 10, 2011
Impulse control disorder is a set of psychiatric disorders including intermittent explosive disorder, kleptomania, pathological gambling, pyromania (fire-starting), and three body-focused repetitive or compulsive behaviors (trichotillomania, a compulsion to pull one’s hair out; onychophagia, compulsive nail biting; and dermatillomania, compulsive skin picking). The onset of these disorders usually occurs between the ages of 7 and 15. Impulsivity, the key feature of these disorders, can be thought of as seeking a small, short term gain at the expense of a large, long term loss. Those with the disorder repeatedly demonstrate failure to resist their behavioral impetuosity.
Considered to be part of the obsessive-compulsive disorder spectrum, impulse control disorders are often associated with substance use disorders because ‘it has been speculated that these disorders are mediated by alterations of partially overlapping neural circuits.’ Impulse control disorders have two treatment options: psychosocial and pharmacological. Treatment methodology is informed by the presence of comorbid conditions.
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November 10, 2011
Compulsive hoarding (or disposophobia) is the acquisition of possessions (and failure to use or discard them) in excess of socially normative amounts, even if the items are worthless, hazardous, or unsanitary. Compulsive hoarding may impair mobility and interfere with basic activities, including cooking, cleaning, hygiene, sanitation, bathroom use and sleeping. It is not clear whether compulsive hoarding is an isolated disorder, or rather a symptom of another condition, such as obsessive-compulsive disorder.
While there is no clear definition of compulsive hoarding in accepted diagnostic criteria (such as the current DSM), there are several defining features: the acquisition of, and failure to discard, a large number of possessions that appear to be useless or of limited value; living spaces sufficiently cluttered so as to preclude activities for which those spaces were designed; significant distress or impairment in functioning caused by the hoarding; and reluctance or inability to return borrowed items; as boundaries blur, impulsive acquisitiveness could sometimes lead to stealing or kleptomania.
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November 9, 2011
The Mozart effect can refer to: A set of research results that indicate that listening to Mozart’s music may induce a short-term improvement on the performance of certain kinds of mental tasks known as spatial-temporal reasoning; popularized versions of the theory, which suggest that ‘listening to Mozart makes you smarter, or that early childhood exposure to classical music has a beneficial effect on mental development. The term was first coined by Alfred A. Tomatis who used Mozart’s music as the listening stimulus in his work attempting to cure a variety of disorders.
The approach has been popularized in a book by Don Campbell, and is based on an experiment published in ‘Nature’ suggesting that listening to Mozart temporarily boosted scores on one portion of the IQ test. As a result, the Governor of Georgia, Zell Miller, proposed a budget to provide every child born in Georgia with a CD of classical music. Subsequent studies have had limited success duplicating the Mozart effect, and its validity is debated.
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November 9, 2011
Sleep-learning (also known as hypnopædia [hip-noh-pee-dee-uh]) attempts to convey information to a sleeping person, typically by playing a sound recording to them while they sleep. This now-discredited technique was supposed to be moderately effective at making people remember direct passages or facts, word for word. Since the electroencephalography studies by Charles W. Simon and William H. Emmons in 1956, learning by sleep has not been taken seriously. The researchers concluded that learning during sleep was ‘impractical and probably impossible.’ They reported that stimulus material presented during sleep was not recalled later when the subject awoke unless alpha wave activity occurred at the same time the stimulus material was given. Since alpha activity during sleep indicates the subject is about to awake, the researchers felt that any learning occurred in a waking state.
In Aldous Huxley’s 1932 novel ‘Brave New World,’ hypnopaedia is used for the conditioning of children by future culture. In the novel, sleep-learning was discovered by accident when a Polish boy named Reuben Rabinovitch was able to recite an entire radio broadcast in English after a radio receiver was left on in his sleep. The boy was unable to comprehend what he had heard via hypnopædia, but it was soon realized that it could be used to effectively make suggestions about morality.
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November 9, 2011
The development of the airliner has had a big effect on the wine business. It has made it easier for individuals to directly supervise viticulture and winemaking in different countries across the globe, rather than exchanging ideas by mail as they have for centuries. This means closer control of the wine, and has seen new technologies such as Drip irrigation, trellis systems, and other developments spread rapidly. This all leads to a homogenous product, influenced more by the winemaker’s background than the local terroir and history.
On the other hand, that ‘history’ often included overoaking and dirty facilities that partly oxidized the wines, which are rapidly fixed by flying winemakers. Many of the early flying winemakers were Australians who had been educated in modern techniques, and used the fact that their autumn was six months ahead of the Northern Hemisphere to ‘moonlight’ when things were quiet at home. They have had some dramatic success in improving the quality of Old World wines, particularly in the South of France and in the former Communist countries. Continue reading →
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