The watch, capitalisms, underwater sand miners, cyberfeminism, brain scans

1. Apple admits in Wired that phones are “ruining your life.” Ergo, a watch!

“[T]he Apple team landed upon the Watch’s raison d’être. It came down to this: Your phone is ruining your life. Like the rest of us, Ive, Lynch, Dye, and everyone at Apple are subject to the tyranny of the buzz—the constant checking, the long list of nagging notifications. ‘We’re so connected, kind of ever-presently, with technology now,’ Lynch says. ‘People are carrying their phones with them and looking at the screen so much.’ They’ve glared down their noses at those who bury themselves in their phones at the dinner table and then absentmindedly thrust hands into their own pockets at every ding or buzz. ‘People want that level of engagement,’ Lynch says. ‘But how do we provide it in a way that’s a little more human, a little more in the moment when you’re with somebody?'”

2. A noble attempt to come up with a new way of analyzing capitalism(s).

“We are not invested in a singular origin point from which an overarching logic of capitalism is scaled up (or extended down), nor do we assume that everyone holds or operates in accordance with the same core economic principles. Instead, we are concerned with the unstable, contingent networks of capitalism that surround us. These are more fragile and more intimate than accounts of inevitable core contradictions or determining economic logics would have us presume. They are generated from heterogeneity and difference, and from our varied pursuits of being and becoming particular kinds of people, families, or communities”

3. The underwater sand miners of the Lagos Lagoon.

“Most of the sand for the concrete used in expanding Lagos comes from the bottom of Lagos Lagoon. Those rough sailors on those rickety boats are actually miners. The sand diggers, as they’re known, are like many of the miners I’ve seen around the continent—physically impressive, doing exhausting, dangerous work for a pittance. The only difference is that instead of mining underground, these men mine under water.”

4. A cyberfeminist anthology from 2002.

“An early response to these conditions has been the emergence of the eclectic formation of cyberfeminism. In the last ten years, cyberfeminism has become a significant field in contemporary cultural practice. Cyberfeminist web sites and electronic publications have increased from a handful in the early nineties to nearly two thousand in 2002. Yet at present, cyberfeminism functions more as a label to grant currency to a panoply of positions than as a political movement. The importunate question of feminism in cyberfeminism still haunts virtually every discussion of cyberfeminism.”

5. This is still one of the best experiments to explain why brain-scan studies are not perfect.

“In 2009, researchers at the University of California, Santa Barbara performed a curious experiment. In many ways, it was routine — they placed a subject in the brain scanner, displayed some images, and monitored how the subject’s brain responded. The measured brain activity showed up on the scans as red hot spots, like many other neuroimaging studies. Except that this time, the subject was an Atlantic salmon, and it was dead. Dead fish do not normally exhibit any kind of brain activity, of course. The study was a tongue-in-cheek reminder of the problems with brain scanning studies.”

On Fusion: This boot-like robotic exoskeleton works a bit like a catapult to make walking easier.

Today’s 1957 American English Usage Tip:

Domesday, dooms-. Domesday Book is so spelled but pronounced doomz-; elsewhere the spelling is doomsday. Never the Domesday Book; RIGHT: It is as indelible as Domesday Book. (The record of the Great Inquisition, made by order of William the Conqueror in 1086.)

The Credits

1. wired.com 2. culanth.org | @justinpickard 3. proof.nationalgeographic.com 4. home.refugia.net | @mayameme 5. braindecoder.com | @vaughanbell