ZONA is a book about a man sitting in a room watching a film about a man going to sit in a Room.  The film is STALKER, Tarkovsky’s masterpiece, based upon the sf novel ROADSIDE PICNIC by the brothers Strugatsky.  (I like STALKER.) The man is Geoff Dyer, a man who has watched STALKER so often that he is compelled to write a book about it.  A book about the film STALKER, and a book about the act of watching STALKER, and a book about him watching STALKER and all the times he’s watched STALKER.  Which probably sounds appalling.  But, even as the story of STALKER unfolds as a journey into the deepest core of the characters, ZONA becomes a ride into the depths of the film, and of the nature of cinema, and, often quite affectingly, into Dyer’s own life.  I must’ve watched STALKER half a dozen times, but Dyer teased new angles out of the film for me, with clear sight and cranky humour, and I’d recommend it just for that – but there is a lot more to like in ZONA.

on Amazon.co.uk | on Amazon.com

• Remote Sensing Tutorial Table of Contents
  " Remote Sensing is a technology for sampling electromagnetic radiation comprising a signal emanating from its source target that is used to acquire and interpret non-contiguous geospatial data from which to extract information about features, objects, and classes on the Earth's land surface, oceans, and atmosphere (and, where applicable, on the exteriors of other bodies in the Solar System, or, in the broadest framework, celestial bodies such as stars and galaxies)."
  (tags:tech sci drones surveillance space )
• Guernica – Inside & Out: A Talk at Fordham University-Lincoln Center
  “I note what you say about your aspiration to edit a magazine. I am sending you by this mail a six-chambered revolver. Load it and fire every one into your head. You will thank me after you get to hell and learn from other editors there how dreadful their job was on earth.”
  (tags:magazines )
• Hidden Communal Guns Are More Common – NYTimes.com
  "Somebody said, ‘Get the Waka Flocka.’ Two men broke off, crossed East 161st Street, entered the lobby of an apartment building, approached the bank of 207 mailboxes and opened one. Waka Flocka is the name of a rapper. But to these men, the phrase described something else. The community gun."
  (tags:crime social )
• Unknown Fields Division
  Living Jelly, from UNKNOWN FIELDS DIVISION http://www.unknownfieldsdivision.com
  (tags:ifttt googlereader UNKNOWN FIELDS DIVISION )
• NASA Unveils Future Aircraft Designs: Stunning Models (PHOTOS)
  "The stunningly innovative designs, which NASA calls "greener flying machines for the year 2025", are being developed by three firms under contract to the NASA Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate's Environmentally Responsible Aviation (ERA) Project."
  (tags:tech design+fiction )
• [Video] Artist’s Time-Lapse Map of the World’s 2053 Nuclear Explosions
  "The video was created in 2003 as a series expressing Hashimoto's view of, "the fear and the folly of nuclear weapons." The video represents nuclear tests with a colored dot and a beep on a map. It starts slow in 1945, showing a world view of a couple flashes in the southwestern United States before zooming in on the two bombs dropped in Japan. The video then pans out and continues for the duration from a birds-eye view of the world. The climax comes between 1955 and 1970 as the Soviet Union joined the U.S. as a nuclear power and England, France, India and Pakistan eventually joined the arms race."
  (tags:war )

• Russia sounds alarm over spiralling teenage suicides
  "The number of 15 to 19-year-olds taking their own lives is almost three times higher than the world average at 19 to 20 per 100,000, the health ministry's chief psychiatrist Zurab Kekelidze told a round table in Moscow."
  (tags:social )
• Mystery of Britain’s Largest Meteorite Solved. Found at Druids burial site near Stonehenge « Stonehenge News and Information
  "With a weight that rivals a baby elephant, a meteorite that fell from space some 30,000 years ago is likely Britain’s largest space rock. And after much sleuthing, researchers think they know where it came from and how it survived so long without weathering away."
  (tags:space geo )

My lovely fashion photographer friend Ellen Rogers (her credits include i-D, Vice and Dazed), incredibly kindly did me some new head shots for the forthcoming publication of GUN MACHINE.

You can see a wider selection at her Facebook page here, which you should Like if you can because she’s always adding wonderful new work to it. But this is the one we’ve settled on for immediate use.

Again, Ellen, thank you, so much.

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• Humans, Version 3.0 § SEEDMAGAZINE.COM
  "This mystery mechanism of human transformation is neuronal recycling, coined by neuroscientist Stanislas Dehaene, wherein the brain’s innate capabilities are harnessed for altogether novel functions."
  (tags:bodymod future bio neuro )
• Sentient Developments: PETA names plaintiffs in their suit against SeaWorld: Five orca whales
  "This is the first time a U.S. court will hear legal arguments over whether animals should enjoy the same constitutional protections as humans. The lawsuit invokes the 13th Amendment to the U.S. constitution, which abolished "slavery or involuntary servitude" in that country."
  (tags:law )
• Guernica / Russ Baker: Is Israel Really Iran’s Main Adversary? The West Doth Protest Too Much
  "The battle between the Prime Minister and the former spymasters got so intense that Netanyahu ordered an investigation into leaks about an impending Israeli attack on Iran, which he believed had been perpetrated by the retired spooks. How do we know about this secret leak investigation? The Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz picked up a report from a Kuwaiti newspaper which cited an unnamed Israeli source. Such arcane telegraphs reek of covert struggle. The public is the last to know what’s really going on, or why."
  (tags:pol war )
• Guernica / White on Noir
  "…the town is a post-apocalyptic industrial hellhole. When you first get there you think, “This is the ugliest place I’ve ever seen. There’s nothing attractive about it, there’s nothing inviting, let’s just leave.” After two hours, you realize that every place you’re going is numbered, as if you’re inside the guts of a circuit board or you’re living in a combination lock. The two people I was traveling with would send me a text, “Oh we’re in Region 8” or “Come meet us at 8174.” After the first three or four hours we started looking around and saying “Oh my god, we’re in an Alphaville set…”"
  (tags:cities energy war )

When I am England football manager, there will be no more talk of 4-4-2 or 4-3-3 formations. There will only be THE DEATH ARROW FORMATION.

• Legacy of nuclear drilling site in Colorado still lingers | MNN – Mother Nature Network
  "In 1969, the US government detonated a subterranean nuclear bomb to break loose natural gas deposits from tight sandstone formations more than 8,000 feet below ground on a Colorado mountain. The bomb was twice as powerful as the one that destroyed Hiroshima, Japan, in 1945."
  (tags:eco energy )
• an atlas of iphone landscapes – mammoth // building nothing out of something

  (tags:eco comms )

There is something faintly disturbing about this device.

To help alleviate physical weight on troops, DARPA is developing a highly mobile, semi-autonomous legged robot, the Legged Squad Support System (LS3), to integrate with a squad of Marines or Soldiers.

• North Korea Developing UAV Based on U.S. Drone | sUAS News
  "The North Korea drones are based on Raytheon’s MQM-107D Streaker target drones, which are used by the U.S. Army, and imported from a Middle East nation believed to be Syria, Yonhap news agency reported."
  (tags:drones war pol )
• Entire genome of extinct human decoded from fossil
  "The genome represents the first high-coverage, complete genome sequence of an archaic human group – a leap in the study of extinct forms of humans. “We hope that biologists will be able to use this genome to discover genetic changes that were important for the development of modern human culture and technology, and enabled modern humans to leave Africa and rapidly spread around the world, starting around 100,000 years ago” says Pääbo."
  (tags:history sci )

My old mate Garth Ennis is Kickstartering a children’s book, to be illustrated by Rob Steen:

ERF is the story of four friends at the dawn of time; Figwillop, KWAAAH!, the Booper, and Erf himself, and their adventures in the primordial world of long ago. The four take their first nervous steps out of the ocean and onto the shore, and are soon exploring the exciting new lands beyond. But danger lurks in the prehistoric jungle, and soon our heroes come face to face with the mighty and terrifying Colossux . . . An evolutionary tale of love and loyalty for children aged four and up.

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SPEKTRMODULE 06 The Chamber 50 minutes and 59 seconds

Direct mp3 link.  Press Play on the player then find the menu button in the bottom left for other functions.  iTunes link.

@warrenellis / warrenellis@gmail.com

1. logotone

2.  “Initiation – Invocation”  – Paul Horn   (album: “Inside the Great Pyramid”)

3.  Hello.

4.  “Sacred Works Of Liberation” -  Lama Gyurme    (album: Rain Of Blessings: Vajra Chants)       

5.  “Celiesi, Brãliti (Mid-Summers Eve Latvian Pagan Celebration)” -  Skandinieki    (album: Global Celebration: Dancing With the Gods (Religious Celebrations) )

6  “(Summoning)” -  Mount Eerie   (album: White Stag)

7.  Me again.  I record all these on my phone, because I like the lo-fi, conversational sound.

8.  “The Invocation” – The Flowers Of Hell   (album: Come Hell Or High Water)

9.  “hot saints” -  Baloo    (album: Avid Equestrian)     

10.  “4” -   Reedbeds   (album:  G’morning gomorrah)       

11.  Me again.

12.  “Interlude” -  Julia Holter     (album: Tragedy)

13.  “New Beginning (Tidal Darkness)” -  Deaf Center    (album: Owl Splinters)

14.  “Russian Waterfall” -  Sarin Smoke        (album: Smokescreen)          

15.  “Theme Number Eight” -    Pye Corner Audio     (album: Black Mill Tapes Vol.3)

16.  “Swamp Magic” – Timber Timbre   (album: Creep On Creepin On)

17.  Me again. 

18.  “Parting Chant” – The Haxan Cloak  (album: The Haxan Cloak)

19.  “Want You” -  Afrirampo    (album: Kore Ga Mayaku Da)

20.  logotone

PREVIOUSLY: 1 – Fire Axes In Space | 2 – The Lane | 3 – Comfort And Joy | 4 – Long Count | 5 – Underfoot

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• Can Bees Make Tupperware?: Scientific American
  "…it’s emblematic of the fact that there’s an enormous amount we don’t know about the world around us. It makes me wonder how many other things there are like this."
  (tags:eco materials sci )
• BBC News – ExoMars cooperation between Nasa and Esa near collapse
  The American space agency looks set to pull the plug on its joint missions to Mars with the European Space Agency… budget woes…"
  (tags:space )
• Doyle McManus: U.S. targeted killing program needs discussion – latimes.com
  "We needed a court order to eavesdrop on him," Hayden notes, "but we didn't need a court order to kill him. Isn't that something?"
  (tags:drones war pol crime )
• High planetary tilt lowers odds for life?
  "Highly-tilted worlds would have extreme seasons, subjecting life to alternating periods of scorching and subzero temperatures. This could make the development of all but hardiest, simplest creatures a long shot."
  (tags:space )
• Cult Den interview answers – Jeff Noon, Feb 2012. –      MOVIES.SHOWS.COMICS.BOOKS.GAMES.MORE
  "Science Fiction is a massive, ever-expanding experiment with content, and I love it for that, I really do. Nothing else comes close. But I’m always surprised by the way the genre tends (apart from some notable examples) to ignore the experimentation of form. Form is the Host, Content is the Virus." 
  (tags:sf writing )
• BLDGBLOG: Object Cancers
  "…object cancers: bulbous, oddly textured, and other dramatically misshapen errors that only appear in 3D-reprinted objects. Chairs with tumors, mutant silverware, misbegotten watches—as if the offspring of industrial reproducibility is a molten world of Dalí-like surrealism."
  (tags:fabbing printing physibles art )

• On This Whole “Web Is Dead” Meme | John Battelle’s Search Blog
  "No one site on the web is any more or less accessible than any other site. If it’s on the web, you can find it and visit it. This is a corollary of “no gatekeepers,” but again, it bears elucidation. In current versions of AppWorld, finding anything is a challenge, and the winners are almost always those who get special treatment in a gatekeeper’s storefront."
  (tags:web )

A new short film by Timo Arnall, tying into a piece by his BERG comrade Mr Jones of Wales:

How do robots see the world? How do they extract meaning from our streets, cities, media and from us?  This is an experiment in found machine-vision footage, exploring the aesthetics of the robot eye.

It’s like watching a child learn.  Imagine it as, perhaps, the infant days of a young machine intelligence.  This is what it could look like.  This is how it might see.

(I’m not big on Singularitarianism and the future of strong artificial intelligence.  But this does make you think, and wonder.)

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Libby Bulloff

Recorded at a cafe in Hackney for London Fields Radio a few weeks back, me and Laurie basically jabbering away for several hour while the estimable Joe Stannard tries to get a word in edgeways:

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