ordinary biodiversity the case of food

The green revolution, the biotech revolution, and other major changes in food production, distribution, and consumption have deeply subverted the relationship between humans and food. Such a drastic rupture is forcing a rethinking of that relationship and a careful consideration of which items we shall preserve and why. This essay aims at introducing a philosophical frame for assessing the biodiversity of that portion of the living realm that I call the edible environment. With such expression I intend not simply those plants and animals (including in this category, henceforth, also fish and insects) that were domesticated for human consumption, but also the thousands of species that are regularly consumed by some human population and that are regarded to some degree as wild. The visceral, existential, and identity-related relationship that link humans with the edible environment can be regarded as sui generis and can constitute a ground for explaining why it should receive a preferential treatment when it comes to preservation, propagation, and development. First of all, I discuss whether we should draw a sharp divide, when it comes to preservation efforts, between wild and domesticated species (§1); secondly, I assess whether to draw a sharp divide between natural and unnatural entities, when it comes to measurements and interventions regarding the edible environment (§2); finally, I ask what is the value of biodiversity as far as food is concerned, and how best to preserve and foster it (§3 and §4). The closing section draws some suggestions for future investigations and interventions

Data Network Simulator with Classical Ballet

[data]storm, from readysaltedcode CIC, a data driven dance performance. The development of a social network simulator to demonstrate network growth and message propagation. The underpinning theory of piece stems from social network theory (SNT), graph theory, computer mediated communication (CMC) through to social information processing (SIP) and Computational Thinking (CT). The data visualisation is linked to the physical ballet movements of the dancers, they are a manifestation of the data. The data visualisations on screen link to the live dancers performance patterns and modify to create the visuals and movements of data transmission across a network. Network growth. The first of the simulations shows network growth. Each node in the network represents a user who has the following characteristics: • friendliness (how often they're likely to make friends with another user) • chattiness (how often they send out messages) • category (the subject area they're most interested in) At random time intervals things occur: New users are added to the network depending on the above characteristics, users become friends with each other. All the rules stay the same throughout the simulation. At the same time the dance (ballet) movements and wearables (LEDS) were choreographed/coded to accompany the data visualisation using network mapping techniques. The choreography and wearables elements link to the friendliness and chattiness of each of the nodes in the simulated network. This network simulation is further utilised in the Virus section of the performance using the same rules to simulate how a virus can spread through a network. Further work on this simulation will look at two things 1. Message propagation and viral messaging within a social network like Twitter. 2. Pain signals within the body and how they compare to data transfer within a social network

A Novel Approach for Pseudo-Haptic Textures Based on Curvature Information

International audiencePseudo-haptic textures allow to optically-induce relief in textures without a haptic device by adjusting the speed of the mouse pointer according to the depth information encoded in the texture. In this work, we present a novel approach for using curvature information instead of relying on depth information. The curvature of the texture is encoded in a normal map which allows the computation of the curvature and local changes of orientation, according to the mouse position and direction. A user evaluation was conducted to compare the optically-induced haptic feedback of the curvature-based approach versus the original depth-based approach based on depth maps. Results showed that users, in addition to being able to efficiently recognize simulated bumps and holes with the curvature-based approach, were also able to discriminate shapes with lower frequency and amplitude

NANO supermarket : using speculative design to catalyze a technology debate

The NANO Supermarket is a mobile exhibition, which presents specula-tive, debate-provoking nanotechnology products that might arrive on the market within the next decades. The products function as scenarios for potential techno-logical futures that invite a broad audience to discuss the impact of emerging nanotechnologies on our everyday lives. In addition to the traveling exhibition, we have created a website, www.nanosupermarket.org, which allows people to gener-ate a personalized technology profile based on choices for products they would or would not buy. This online personality test, based on product preferences, is made with the goal to create awareness and invite people to reflect on their personal atti-tude towards emerging technologies. Although the technology profiler, based on product preferences, must be positioned somewhere in between unsubstantiated horoscopes and thoroughly researched psychology tests, we aim to validate the model in this study. We found that 54% of the participants agreed with the tech-nology profile generated by the test model