Local energy production will become a very vital issue in the next decade, both to reduce energy costs as well as transition toward a non-polluting energy source. Here are a few examples of new designs in personal small wind turbines. These can be installed on homes in urban or suburban areas, and as the technology advances these turbines will be more effective in generating more power at slower wind speeds.

 
After Christmas, it will soon be the Oscar season in the new year. Here is a great animated short film that has a very good chance of being nominated in that category for an Academy Award. Soon there will be an extended prediction for the Oscar nominations, and soon after that there will be predictions for Oscar winners before the actual ceremony.

 
Here is a wonderful presentation on the negative aspects of corporate personhood. It explains how the corporation gained the rights usually reserved for humans through various court interpretations of constitutional amendments that were created to expand citizen's rights. Where the expansion of human rights involves inclusion, the expansion of corporate rights involves exclusion. Corporate personhood has been one of the most effective ways for entrenched power to maintain itself in a democracy that would usually challenge such power.

 
Here is a selection of posters made by various artists. Each one depicts interesting moments from the television series Lost. Now that Lost will be entering into its final season in February, one can appreciate the impact it has had on culture in general and science fiction in particular.

 
Here is an interesting example of detournement in the style of the Situationists. A detournement is the use of one type of media form that has a propaganda content that is diametrically opposed to the form it takes. This example has the form of an illustrated evangelical religious tract that actually talks about the dilution of the rave scene. The point of this tract is to show how participants at raves have become like an audience at rock concerts rather than full participants who define the rave.

 
With the rise of the Internet, and its increased capabilities, there has been a fear that there will be a decrease in literacy and the ability to write. This fear is especially prevalent for young people who have grown up with the Internet. But, even though there is a rise of video and picture content, there are still many ways that people need to read information and to communicate through writing. In many cases, users of the Internet find that they have to change and learn writing styles depending upon the audience.

 
Robert Kramer is an example of a director that creates films that are more than just entertainment. The film-essays he has constructed are an attempt to capture the moments of life without resorting to traditional movie structures. There is usually no narrative, but the juxtaposition of images develop a story of it own.

 
Here is an example of the use of the Internet for the comic book format. Webcomics not only save space that a physical comic book would occupy, but in most cases these webcomics are free with an Internet access. In any case, webcomics allow the expansion of the comic book as art and literature.

 
Here is a great commercial for the Green Party in Britain that is very good at conveying what the Greens stand for while using artful animation. These issues and ideas are universally advocated by all Green parties and demonstrate that this is a political party that has both a local and a global focus.

 
Here is a series of art photos of growing operations that supply for medical marijuana dispensaries. Not only do these photos depict the everyday nature of growing pot, comparable to any other agricultural enterprise, but they are wonderful uses of light and shadow that is beautiful in itself.

 
Here is an interesting way to illustrate various timelines and how they intersect within the genre of science fiction. This also demonstrates how the various visual demonstrations of science fiction requires real research in order to include everything.

 
Here is a wonderful remix of William Shatner that not only illustrates the pop cultural influence of Captain Kirk, but the idiosyncratic rhythm of the actor himself. The Internet is famous, or infamous, for these types of videos.

 
There is a contradiction within Kant's thought where he stated that revolution is never justified, yet he did express support of the actual French Revolution that occurred during his lifetime. Revolution is a disruption of a specific political order and an introduction of an external reality. However, Kant proposed that when the law is made to be universal then a revolution can not be a higher authority than the law. Revolution places the entire idea of a universal law into jeopardy in all cases. But the law always arises from specific individual ethics, so instead of a revolution there must be a reconnection between the universal and the particular.

 
Here is a great example of science conducted in a do-it-yourself fashion. A man attached a camera to a weather balloon, and as it went higher it took pictures of leaving the atmosphere before it finally crashed to the ground. The photos were able to be recovered, and were able to capture fleeting scenes of outer space.

 
The zombie genre has always had political significations, ever since George Romero's "Night Of The Living Dead" in 1968. A world ravaged by an invasion of the undead can symbolize many social problems pushed to an extreme context. The distance of this extreme context in a zombie story can offer a critical perspective.

 
The beginning of writing in Sumeria in Babylon was also the creation of currency. Just as writing mediated preexisting oral traditions, money controlled by a central state mediated multiple values under one value. Rather than a simple process where force is used to take what is needed for the ruler, the mediation through central currency makes subjects more dependent on the ruler through a formation of public debt.

 
The bailout of large corporations and banks in response to the economic crisis was an attempt to save capitalism that also illustrates how the system grows. Capitalism expands by adapting to crises that seem to show the limit of growth, so if the bailout was a complete success then it would mean a more negative turn that would increase damage to worker's and consumer's rights as well as the environment. But the current crisis does not necessarily mean the absolute end of capitalism, but rather a transitional period where it can possibly evolve and survive. During that time it is vital for people to see the real underlying mechanism of capitalism in order to create alternatives that challenge the status quo.

 
Here are two videos that attempt to describe the creation of time and space as well as the abundance of 10 dimensions. These small videos aspire to explain complex ideas in a way that is easily digested, and hopefully improve public understanding of these ideas. In many ways, this is what the Internet was built for.

 
Peter Lamborn Wilson has written extensively about the emergence of the social as a revolutionary act. Structures of power strive to alienate people by breaking social interaction. But various attempts to create community, such as pirates and communes, have resisted the existing hierarchy throughout history.

 
In most cases, sculpture depicting the human face will limit itself to a calm expression. These are examples of the work of a little-known artist from the 1700's who wanted to explore the various ways humans can show emotion through their faces. The busts exhibit the very elastic and curvilinear ways the face can compose itself.

 
The relationship between power and meaning is very clearly seen in bureaucracy. A relationship of hierarchy where there is political inequality will create a situation of inequality in communication. Those in power will not care to know about those they have power over. A system of meaning will then oversimplify reality and lead to structural violence to enforce this simplification. The perpetuation of stupidity that is caused by an ornate bureaucracy serves the existing hierarchy.

 
Here is a great example of the graphic style of the 1960's employed in comic book form. It comes from a great website that showcases this type of art.

 
Personal fabrication is perhaps the closest thing to a science fiction replicator that could occur today. It can also be a new form of production that does not need the centralized structures of factories. The ability to create things locally to fulfill local needs can empower communities in an economically just way.

 
Current neoliberal capitalism emphasizes individuals over social relations, while sociology emphasizes relations over individuals. Any attempt to create a common identity among individuals creates a general existence. This general existence can only be expressed through particular individuals, but these individuals can not be understood unless there is a general background of interaction. By limiting the emphasis on individual action, one can have a proliferation of social relationships which is the heart of any economic activity.

 
Here is an illustrated review of the new book by Douglas Rushkoff. It details the growth of the power of corporations and how that expansion has infiltrated social relationships. The corporate model , and the commodification of daily life that follows, has been so complete that it becomes difficult for communities to imagine other alternatives.

 
Graham Harman is a philosopher of speculative realism who has created a new interpretation of Heidegger. Beginning with the fact that objects as tools are embedded within a ubiquitous system, he has stated that even when these tools become apparent there are some aspects that exist outside of human experience. This emphasizes the autonomy of reality beyond human experience or intervention.

 
This upcoming Saturday will mark the 40th anniversary of the Woodstock festival which became a high point of both the 1960's and the counterculture. It demonstrated that an alternative society was at least possible, and was the test run for other intentional communities that came later. But 1969 was also a very important year in that it marked a very clear dividing line between the American culture before it and the American culture after it. After 1969, there could never be a return to how things were before.

 
When computer technology began to advance, achievements in virtual reality were also possible. But the history of virtual reality has resulted in many techniques and devices that never went anywhere. Virtual reality therefore advanced through computers in ways that could never be predicted by these particular attempts.

 
This speaks for itself.

 
Even though libertarians are known for their advocacy of freedom, it could be argued that their position requires the existence of equality as well. This equality is not the equality before the law or equality of opportunity that can be considered as an equality of freedom. The libertarian style of freedom requires equality of power, where no individual is subordinated by another individual. This interpretation of equality can allow the gap between libertarians and progressives to be bridged since a critique of power could be common ground.

 
Here is an intriguing short story that is an offshoot from the novel "The Dispossessed" written by Ursula K. LeGuin. It gives a demonstration of how the founder of a political movement may feel slightly estranged from the movement itself, especially if the founder becomes old rather than a martyr to the cause. There is also the unraveling of any possible myth that would emerge from that martyrdom.

 
One of the advantages of being a fan of science fiction is the various ways this devotion can be expressed in other ways. Here is an imaginative use of the peripheral and supporting characters from Star Wars in an alphabet presentation. The artwork is well done and the framework of the alphabet allows for an exploration of the many characters that make up the Star Wars reality.

 
Here is a great interview of William Shatner on the new Tonight Show hosted by Conan O'Brien. Even forty years after the end of the original series of Star Trek, Shatner has the ability to attract a huge fanbase. He is also very funny and charming in his various appearances.

 
The struggle for democracy in Iran is one facet of a larger picture where people are absolutely dissatisfied with the status quo across the globe. In December of last year, after a 15 year old boy was shot and killed by police, there were riots in Greece. Many who wanted change in the United States voted for Barack Obama in November, and some who were disappointed in his subsequent action to bailout the banks attended "tea parties" on tax day in April. What all of these struggles and movements have in common is people wanting to create structures that empower them rather than top-down hierarchies that exploit and alienate. In fact this is the original impetus of the American experiment as it revolted against the corporation of the British East India Company.

 
Alain Badiou's analysis of the election and presidency of Sarkozy in France reveals a new political approach. Instead of a limited battle between the right's rejection and the left's nostalgia for the 1960's, Badiou proposes making impossible demands within the status quo as a stimulation of real change by those ignored by the mainstream political parties. This change would occur in the same world occupied by the status quo instead of a utopian recreation of the world.

 
John Hodgman's speech at the Broadcast Correspondent's Dinner was not only very funny, but a clear enunciation of what it means to be a nerd. In competition with the president's own speech, this speech gave a concise and accurate definition of what is a nerd in today's society as well as demonstrating why nerds are important to the culture and for the future.

 
Here is a collection of covers from the various underground newspapers of the 1960's. The underground media arose as the way for the different nodes of the counterculture in the United States to communicate with each other and the general public. As the establishment would usually disparage or stereotype the new cultural movements of that time, these underground newspapers served the purpose of telling the real first-person history of the 1960's.

 
The relationship between theory and practice can be seen in the relationship between a political movement and revolution itself. This relationship is a gap between theory and practice that can be hard to reconcile. Theory acts as a general background for practice as its particular expression. For a movement, the theory is the shaping of a question and the practice is its answer. For a revolution, theory will act as the form of the goal and practice will be the content of the process.

 
The idea of natural rights implies that there is a transcendent truth that must be obeyed by members of a society. Using the thought of Gilles Deleuze, one can see rights not as a static and universal entity outside of society but a virtual field of possibilities that are actualized in a government and its laws. This virtual field of rights is what a person has the power to do as their human capacity. Rights viewed in this way allows for constant protection from the imposition of government or other social actors, but avoids a universality that can be open to interpretation and abuse.

 
Here is an interesting design for a compact living space. It incorporates all the aspects of a home such as a workspace, bath, toilet, kitchen, and bed. This design could be a new form of sustainable habitat considering the burden of the human population on the planet.

 
Here is a wonderful exploration of the art and design of currency, especially the design of the fictional currency of a colony in Antarctica. These designs reflect not only culture and history, but the imagery of what a country has for the future.

 
Evolution can easily be misinterpreted in terms of Social Darwinism and the survival of the fittest. But evolution is more like the survival of the most varied, where various organisms are actualized from a virtual field of potentials. Each creature is driven by difference rather than equivalence as it expresses itself in the world. Species do not determine individual organisms, demanding conformity, but rather these organisms give shape to a species as a working category. The emphasis on difference is a denial of the ideas of one species or group inherently superior to another.

 
Alain Badiou has made a direct connection between freedom and truth. True freedom is incompatible with the situation that predetermines individuals, and that will always redefine freedom for its own perpetuation. Rather, freedom requires an initial break with the existing structures that must then lead to a new exploration of truth. This exploration of truth is a committment to the creation of something new. Therefore, freedom is both a resistance to what exists and a creation of what could be.

 
The populist movement of the later part of the 1800's, that reached a peak with the Populist Party, is still relevant to the issues of today. Most specifically, it is a challenge to the rise of corporate power and its inherently undemocratic nature. The populists of many decades ago, like the Green Party of today, sought deep structural change that harkened back to the vision Jefferson had for the country's economy as made up of self-employed artisans and small farmers.

 
This Indian celebration involves showering people with colored powder, which results in people who look like they were tye-dyed. The effect is very striking and beautiful.

 
Here is a wonderful art installation based on science. It is the footage of a star cluster in outer space projected on to the interior surface of a room. The website for this installation allows one to have a panoramic view of the room.

 
The term "psychedelic music" has some similarity to psychedelic art, but there have been changes in its form recently. Psychedelic music used extended improvisation along with audio effects such as looping and electronic distortion. The more recent psychedelic music has started to use the drone as a replacement of previous expansive freeform performance. This transition in technique can be seen as a transition from a more transcendent approach to a more immanent approach.

 
Here is a great example of an inventive way to depict a science fiction scene in art. Using the style of older travel posters, an imaginary depiction of vacations on other planets is displayed. There is both a retro look and a futuristic look combined in the same artwork.

 
In the wake of bank failures, it has become clear that the abstract practices of the current banking system within the Federal Reserve has no connection to real credit and community investment. In contrast, ideas from the 1800's supported a system of public local banks accredited by the Treasury Department that would give loans with a minimal interest. These loans would go toward local businesses, and the banks themselves would be the main way to directly disseminate the national currency printed by the Treasury Department. This system would do away with hight interest rates needed to continue fractional reserve lending, while redirecting the banks toward community economics.

 
The formation of the hipster appears to be a cultural development of people who exist outside of a commodified society as a new type of counterculture. But the inherent problem is that the hipster itself can be commodifed and not offer anything new to the culture. The hipster style of appropriating past cultural symbols can lead to a dead end.

 
Here is a very beautiful wooden clock done in the Art Nouveau style. Wooden clocks, using gears and levers with no electronic parts, can be homemade and a sign of craftsmanship. This clock has a very distinct sculpted look to it.

 
The development of fabrication machines, relatively small devices that can construct things based on designs that can be downloaded from the Internet, can be a new era in local production. This fabber is unique in that it has the ability to replicate itself. In other words it can build small things from plastic as well as build another fabber that is fully functional.

 
Here is the Cafepress store for the Darin Robbins for 7th ward Alderman campaign in Corning, New York. One can buy shirts or buttons where the money spent will go toward the campaign for a Green candidate that is offering new ideas for the city of Corning. The campaign website is here.

 
The relationship between the concept of number and various numbers is similar to the relationship between the general and the particular. Numbers can be physical manifestations, but number itself can only be thought and never presentable. This also reflects the existence of a reality independent and outside of experience that can be conceptualized after the fact.

 
The creation of currency to mediate exchange has also historically shifted value from use value to exchange value. This shift has allowed collective debt to be formed which made individuals dependent upon the state. Various relationships of private reciprocity were universalized and given the appearance of an eternal debt that individuals could never fulfill.

 
Here is a very interesting visualization of the impact of a trillion dollars used in the current bailout. Based on a unit of a one hundred dollar bill, a trillion dollars can be a very wide field of stacks that are the same height as a human being.

 
The family that Ludwig Wittgenstein came from was full of creative and intelligent people. But there was also tragedy and eccentricities within this family in Vienna that may give insight into how such a well known philosopher was shaped.

 
Many shows or short films that are unable to get on television will have a chance to be online where there can be a large audience for them. Here is an example of such a film broken up into episodes. This type of format can be the future of broadcasting outside of corporate influence.

 
Much has been said of the 1960's, especially 1968, but there was a lot of cultural potential in 1958. Both the Beat Generation and the academic intellectual climate was growing. Even though intellectuals would criticize the work of the Beats, they both offered an alternative to the social conformity of the decade as the middle class arose and the Cold War continued. They set the stage for the more open rebellion of the 1960's.

 
The ability to experience a wide variety of information steadily increases on the Internet over time. Here are two examples of short stories by classic science fiction authors that are free for everyone to read. The Internet fully demonstrates the advantages of the cultural and artistic commons.

 
Populism, before it became a concrete political movement in the 1890's, was a strong sentiment in the United States. It involved a direct democratic process and the public control of the monetary system as a way to empower citizens in the political and the economic sphere. The best example early on in America was the political structure of Vermont which developed as a separate republic rather than a colony. However, over time, industrialism and the centralization of banking had eroded populism to a passive participation through voting and only a small minority owning the means of production.

 
The issue of revolution can move forward in two directions. It can be a universal process of hegemony that can easily recycle the structures of the old order. It can also be multiple and unique processes of affinity where a new order is created in the shell of the old. Hegemony requires a complete destruction of the old order, but this can mean that the problems of the old order are not fully examined. Affinity, on the other hand, would mean that alternatives are constructed as a reaction to the overall system and as a solution to the oppressive drawbacks of the old order.

 
The production of forms within reality appear to occur only within human experience, but this process can be independent of human interaction with reality. This production comes about through the establishment of partial differences and partial equivalences that actualizes a direct relationship between form and content. These forms are made up of parts of reality, which in turn are wholes that are constituted by other parts. Just as there are vertical levels of parts and wholes, there is a horizontal relationship where a part from one form can be applied to another form on the same level. This configuration has the ability to sustain itself as a purely material process.

 
The following are my predictions on who will win the Oscars for 2009. Though the nominated movies are the types of films that the Academy normally would select, this does not mean that they are of less quality. Some directors that are nominated or have nominated movies began their work in independent films, and it is good to see their talent recognized.

BEST PICTURE: The Reader

BEST DIRECTOR: Gus Van Sant, “Milk”

BEST ACTOR: Mickey Rourke, “The Wrestler”

BEST ACTRESS: Kate Winslet, “The Reader”

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR: Heath Ledger “The Dark Knight”

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Amy Adams, “Doubt”

BEST FOREIGN FILM: Baader Meinhof Complex

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY: Frozen River

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY: Frost/Nixon

BEST SONG: O Saya, “Slumdog Millionare”

BEST MUSIC: The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY: The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button

BEST DOCUMENTARY: Man On Wire

BEST ANIMATED FILM: Wall-E

BEST SPECIAL EFFECTS: The Dark Knight

BEST COSTUME DESIGN: The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button

BEST SOUND: Wanted

BEST SOUND EDITING: Wanted

BEST FILM EDITING: Milk

BEST ART DIRECTION: The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button

BEST MAKEUP: Hellboy II: The Golden Army

BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT: The Witness – From The Balcony Of Room 306

BEST SHORT FILM: The Pig

 
The transformation of objects into ideas in philosophy follows the same process as that of the development of exchange value from use value in economics. In each case there is the formation of an overall system of meaning that contains these various parts and connects them together. These parts are no longer absolutely unique but are articulated in such a way as to convey a communication of meaning. Therefore, the system of meaning must precede the parts of reality that are communicated.

 
Here is a unique interpretation of Internet culture through the genre of steampunk. The interesting aspect is that the various viral videos that circulate on the Internet today can be looked at through the lens of a style of science fiction set in a Victorian era where technology is advanced but is not digital.

 
With a new presidential administration, there may or may not be changes to the country. One change that would be very welcome would be the legalization of marijuana. This would not only stop the persecution of people who pose no danger to society or themselves, but could also expand the medical use of marijuana. The state of California is an example of how medical marijuana can be sucessfully implemented, provided that the state was not superceded by the federal government.

 
This is a great example of how a science fiction film does not really need a lot of special effects or non-stop action in order to tell an engaging story. This is the type of short film that should be considered for an Oscar nomination in that respective category.

 
The social and human interaction with reality creates structures by internalizing parts of reality into preexisting structures and externalizing actions, ideas, and objects. In other words, structures create more structures and there is a reciprocity between the social and technology. Both structures of power and meaning have a form and substance that organizes the world, such as political systems and languages.

 
There is no plans for a movie adaptation of The Thundercats, but here is an interesting homemade attempt to make an imaginary trailer based on computer manipulation of footage from other sources. It has an eerie ability to look like a real trailer.

 
The internalization of parts through structures is the formation of an internal continuity of the law from the external discontinuity of the decision on the exception. Since the internal continuity is constituted power and the external discontinuity is constituent power, then this internalization is a subsumption of constituent power by constituted power. The law appears as transcendent and it obscures the decision on the exception which is immanent. On the other hand, the externalization of parts through free agency allows for a recognition of the immanent relationship between reality in itself and the formation of structures such as the law. The process where the law is created from the decision on the exception is in fact one external discontinuity of parts and a difference between many internal continuities of relationships.

 
Throughout his work, Gilles Deleuze attempted to articulate a philosophy of immanence. As the virtual of duration is actualized as time and the virtual of reality is actualized as ethics, the creation of structures is in an immanent relationship to an absolute deterritorialization as a background.