Concepts

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Concept: From Latin conceptus ("a thought, purpose"), from concipio ("to take in, conceive");

Abstract and general idea; an abstraction; understanding retained in the mind, from experience, reasoning and/or imagination; (Source: Wiktionary)


Epistemic Conflict Representation & Immanence	An epistemic conflict arises when certainty relies on both consciousness [which is generated from worldly materials] and the materiality of the body [which could be an 'account of the mind']. And hearing yourself think, or mentally unfolding a cube into a cross, or writing something on a piece of paper probably involves the same epistemic certainties. If it were possible to develop a Brain Computer Interface (BCI) able to render [bioelectric] facsimiles of mental objects, some mind-brain would have to stay in the loop to acknowledge the fact ... One might ask what precedes a concept other than the certainty of thoughts, but then the act of thinking would be deduced from being ... There needs to be something beyond names or representation, something 'other than consciousness' to presuppose "an image of thought." Deleuze and Guattari call this organising force 'the plane of immanence' - where immanence cannot be immanent to something that is actually a concept.


World Discovery & World Making	In world discovery, the agentive figure of the taxonomist/-philosopher determines the nature of things by means of representational- and ontological integration - that is, through the description of the actual based on perception and internal modeling, as well as through the construction of meaning based on external media objects, including speech-sounds and text. In world-making the agentive figure of the meditator/-artificer generates immanent- and changeable objects - machinic, biomachinic, electric and so forth. This requires the contemplation of intelligible forms and an image in the mind's eye that will be expressed by illuminating sensible matter. The dual role of contemplating higher intellect, while actualising thoughts beyond the material interface, is maintained through difference, division, and repetition, leaving one part unaffected and connected with its source. The meditator/-artificer would sooner forget its divine origin than mistake itself for the cause of this world.

➔ Melting the Crystal
Operating Systems	Operating systems (OS) provide (1) An interface between the user, software applications, and computer hardware; (2) Environments to manage computer resources and to control the execution of programs. An operating system is subject to hardware limitations and considers the usability concerns of the following stakeholders: Users who want a reliable, quick and easy OS; Programmers who create new software applications; The designers of the system who need a flexible, easily modified OS. The operating system can interact with hardware at billionths of a second or with human users at their pace. Any process will advance sequentially (one instruction at a time) while changing state from new, running, waiting, ready, to terminated. In a uniprocessor system, the OS aims to maximize CPU utilization by switching amongst different processes. This includes queueing its own processes so as to free the CPU for the computational requirements of an active user application. To permit user-friendly manipulation of computer data, the operating system maps a logical file system onto the physical blocks of a storage device. The resulting unit (organised into directories) may be a text- or executable file, have attributes [name, type, location, size] and support operations [create, write, read, move, delete]. Faster hardware, better applications and new user expectations will drive the development of operating systems over time. To evolve more efficiently, complex software designs are partitioned into components, broken down into layers* to form a hierarchy through functional decomposition. Each layer uses the functions of lower-level layers and in turn provides functionality to the next higher layer, with subtasks assigned to the nearest subordinate. Modularisation moreover allows design changes to be made to parts of the system without compromising structural integrity. * Instruction sets, procedures, interrupts, primitive processes, local storage, virtual memory, communications, the file system, devices, directories, user processes, shell programming.

Design Journal (Doc. ref.)
Trick the Machine	1) The advantage of a Honeypot* [over CAPTCHA] is that users can submit their completed web form without performing extra tasks. The implementation requires one more input field [CSS display:none;] which the browser will not show. Unlike humans, a SPAM-Bot only reads the code. Whether the invisible field thus contains a value can be tested with a script. If YES, the submission of the form is blocked. If NO, the data entered by the user is sent to the server. In computing, the term Honeypot* has a range of meanings, see also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honeypot_(computing) 2) To avoid unnecessary SPAM, email addresses and mailto-links can be encrypted using a JavaScript Encrypter. The HTML snippet generated by the Encrypter is pasted into the designated text and the associated decryption script referenced in the head section of the document or CMS template. 3) Remapping Function Problem space: A text input field with autocomplete was implemented for a multilingual web form. When the user started typing, up to three country names would be selected from a JavaScript array, displayed in a dropdown as well as the text field, and finally submitted to a CRM. It was found, however, that the CRM system ignored non-English country names. Solution space: A remapping function was prototyped with JavaScript, whereby the selected non-English country name [shown in the text field] would be extracted from the browser cache and swapped [onsubmit] with its English counterpart. The resulting customer record thus contained a country name in English rather than a blank. `/* REMAP non-english country names / var current_user_input = document.getElementById("input_7").value; / Single-string test version */ var converter = current_user_input.replace("Deutschland", "Germany"); document.getElementById("input_7").value = converter;`


Case Study: Prague Astronomical Clock	A collaboration between the mathematician Jan Sindel and the clockmaker Mikulas of Kadan, the construction of the Prague Astronomical Clock began in 1410. A calendar disk was added in 1490 and the first puppet show in the 17th century. [...] In one solar day the sun-wheel [366 teeth] rotates once, while the zodiac-wheel [365 teeth] advances by one tooth, or 4 minutes, and the moon-wheel [379] falls back by about 50 minutes. Mounted on two hollow co-axial shafts in the centre of the dial (marked with a horizon boundary, twilight arc, and night circle) are the zodiac-ring of the rete and three pointers to indicate siderial time and the movements of the sun and the moon. The golden hand of the solar pointer moves over the outer ring marked with Bohemian hours - itself rotating around the fixed 3m-diameter dial to indicate the time of sunset. The pointer also carries a sun-emblem that moves radially in order to synchronize with the revolving rete. The moon-icon, half-silvered and half-black, rotates once in a synodic month.

➔ Planetarium
Case Study: The Bell X-1	The design and flight testing of research aircraft for the purpose of exploring transonic aerodynamics emerged in the 1940s. While the National Advisory Committee on Aeronautics (NACA) proposed the construction of a jet-powered research plane the Air Force encouraged the development of a rocket engine, resulting in the first generation X-1 by contractors Bell Aircraft and Reaction Motors. With structural design determined mainly by estimates, the X-1 would be 31 ft [9,7 m] in length, have a wingspan of 28 ft [8,5 m], and weigh some 13'550 pounds [6150 kg]. It had thin straight wings made from solid aluminium plate, and a liquid oxygen rocket with four chambers producing 6000 pounds [26,69 kN] of thrust. The shape of the Fuselage was influenced by existing ballistics data. The cockpit contained a wheel, rather than a stick, and controls for a thrust selector, stabiliser, and emergency shutoff. Onboard instrumentation included propellant gauges, the altimeter, and a Machometer. Since engine running time only amounted to a few minutes, the X-1 had to be air-launched from a converted B-29 at an altitude of 25'000 ft [7620 m], with powered test flights commencing over a remote California airbase by late 1946. Each flight was carefully planned: the craft was fuelled at night and test instruments checked in the morning; the pilot would enter the X-1 (stowed in the bay of the B-29) at about 5'000 ft [1500 m], then conduct the required experiments during the test flight before gliding back to earth. The sound barrier itself was officially broken in October 1947 at 42'000 ft [12'800 m] altitude.

➔ Supersonic Airplanes
Transcendence	Techno-utopianism, cyberspace, and virtuality seduce their beholder with a vivid electronic realm, the promise of ideal communities, the transcendence of the human body, and immortality in the digital domain (Pearly Gates of Cyberspace, 1999). For Baudrillard, existence, being, and the real are mutually exclusive, ultimately requiring the vantage point of a disincarnation to be verifed. We only conceive a 'recorded version' of the world, déja vu, that is subject to numerous timescales and repetitions ... where memory is a parallel entity (transforming the present while reducing transcendence) and where the negation of the real leaves traces of the act or a point of return. On the art of disappearance, Baudrillard writes that technology aims "not so much to transform the world as to create an autonomous world, a fully achieved world, from which we could at last withdraw" (Perfect Crime, 1996). Our task as imperfect beings, then, would be to generate the critical mass of an ancient future (or inhuman hyperreality) where our existence becomes so enamoured of its artefacts, so mediated, that we can simply "step out of it" to mingle with the angels and intelligences of the 'crystal spheres' [musica universalis]. This kind of immortality might permit us to walk unrecognised among physical multitudes, to contemplate divinity and the world from "a higher plane of existence," or to actuate interventions of our design.

Simulation, Hyperreality, and Virtual Tech (Doc. ref.)