Category:Background
9. Background, RDE, 20/X/07
Weiss, Rick. "Dragonflies or Little Spies? / Scientists work on robot bugs that could gather intelligence." The Washington Post Weekly Edition 15-21 October 2007: 34.
Notes early on that dragonflies are "an ancient order of insects that even biologists concede look about as robotic as a living creature can look," and moves from there to real-world developments toward, if they have not already achieved, remote-controlled flying craft the size and general construction of insects. DARPA (the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) and other "U.S. government and private entities acknowledge that they are trying" to deploy "insect-size spy drones"; approaches include "inserting computer chips into moth pupae […] and hatching them into healthy 'cyborg moths'"; the goal of this "Hybrid Insect Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems project" is "to create […] camera-toting insects whose nerves have grown into their internal silicon chip so that wranglers can control their activities." Cf. blurring of organic/mechanical distinction in a general human view of insects and related genera—with dragonflies as just a particularly strong example—and very particularly in SF from H. R. Giger's Alien in Ridley Scott's ALIEN to the crab-like robots in RUNAWAY (q.v. under Drama in Clockworks [1]) to the evil-spirit-powered spybugs in Philip Pulman's SF-inflected fantasy, The Golden Compass (1995; film version, 2007).
Articles in category "Background"
The following 200 pages are in this category, out of 685 total.
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- I Take Pictures of Electronic Parts
- Idealism (Britannica article)
- The Illusion of Conscious Will
- THE IMITATION GAME (film 2014)
- Imitation Gaming: Wargaming and Artificial Life
- Immersion and Fictionality in Westworld
- In Defense of Robots
- In Pursuit of Hal
- In Pursuit of Infinity
- The Incredible Scream Machine: A History of the Roller Coaster
- The Industrial Photographs of Lewis Wickes Hine and Margaret Bourke-White
- An industrial robot putting Jesuses on crosses
- Insect Spy Drone (Internet Rumor)
- Intelligence Unbound: The Future of Uploaded and Machine Minds
- Intelligent Machinery: A Heretical Theory
- Introduction to ... Mortal Engines
- Introduction to Artificial Intelligence
- Is Pregnancy Necessary? Feminist Concerns About Ectogenesis
- Isaac Asimov's Ultimate Robot (CD-ROM)
- It's Only a Movie
J
- Jacked In: Fordism, Cyberpunk, Marxism
- Jameson, Frederic, Postmodernism, or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism
- Japan's real-life Truman
- The Japanese Roboticist Masahiro Mori’s Buddhist Inspired Concept of The Uncanny Valley
- The Jobless Future: Sci-Tech and the Dogma of Work
- Joey: 'A Mechanical Boy.'
- John Deere's Self-Driving Tractor
- John Henry (folklore)
- JOHN WICK: CHAPTER 3 — PARABELLUM
K
L
- Labor and Monopoly Capital: the Degradation of Work in the Twentieth Century
- Landscapes of Change: Science, Science Fiction, and Advances in Biology
- Lapham's Quarterly: Time
- Laser jolts microscopic electronic robots into motion
- Laughter (essay)
- Le Corbusier (pseud. of Charles-Édouard Jeanneret-Gris)
- Learning from the Little Engines That Couldn't: Transported by Gernsback, Wells, and Latour
- A Legal Theory for Autonomous Artificial Agents
- Legends of the Land Series
- Leviathan (Thomas Hobbes)
- Life (Britannica article)
- Life in a Technocracy; What It Might Be Like
- Limiting Democracy: Technocrats and the Liberal State
- The Loneliness of Cyborgs
- Loom by Basile Bouchon
- The Lost World of Thomas Jefferson
- Love in a Machine Age
- The Lying Brain: Lie Detection in Science and Science Fiction
M
- Machina Mundi: How Medieval Thinkers Foreshadowed Modern Physics
- Machina Mundi: Machine of the World
- Machine Dreams," Review of The Rape of the Rose
- The Machine in the Garden
- Machine Vision Algorithm
- The Machineries of Joy
- Machinery and Large-Scale Industry (chapter of DAS KAPITAL)
- Machinery of Dominance: Women, Men, and Technical Know-How
- Machines and the Future
- The Making of a Counter Culture: Reflections on the Technocratic Society and Its Youthful Opposition
- Man a Machine
- Man Alone: Alienation in Modern Society
- Man and Technics
- MAN Diesel Engines
- The Man of the Year Million
- The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Other Clinical Tales
- The Managerial Revolution: What Is Happening in the World
- A Manifesto for Cyborgs
- Manuel Castells's Technoculture Epoch in The Information Age
- Marcus, Steven
- Marx
- The Marxist Theory of Alienation
- Mass Effect
- The Mass Ornament
- Mass Society (Britannica article)
- Master Mechanics and Wicked Wizards
- Materialism (Britannica article)
- A Materialist Theory of Mind
- Matter, Mind, and Models
- A Maze of Twisty Little Passages, All Alike: Aesthetics and Teleology in Interactive Computer Fictional Environments
- The Measure of Man
- Mecha Minotaur
- Mechanical Metamorphosis: Technical Change in Revolutionary America
- The Mechanical Routine
- Mechanism, "Mechanical Materialism," Physicalist Materialism, "Materialism"
- Mechanism, Vitalism
- Mechanization of the Mind
- Mechanization Takes Command
- Meet Nightshade, the new tool allowing artists to ‘poison’ AI models with corrupted training data
- Mentality and Machine
- Metrorail Crash, Automation
- Mettrie
- Michel Foucault on Attica
- Microcosmos: The Quantum Revolution in Economics and Technology
- Microman: Computers and the Evolution of Consciousness
- Microsoft deletes 'teen girl' AI
- The Microsoft-Google AI War
- Military learned lesson using robots in Afghanistan
- Mind Children: The Future of Robot and Human Intelligence
- The Mind's I: Fantasies and Reflections on Self and Soul
- Mindless: Why Smarter Machines Are Making Dumber Humans
- Minds and Machines
- Minds, Brains, and Programs
- Minds, Machines and Evolution
- Minds, Machines, and Gödel
- Misidentification’s Promise: the Turing Test in Weizenbaum, Powers, and Short
- Moby-Dick
- The Modeling of Mind: Computers and Intelligence
- Mondo 2000: A User's Guide to the New Edge—Cyberpunk, Virtual Reality, Wetware ...
- Mondo Nano: Fun and Games in the World of Digital Matter
- More (than) Human: The Debate on Post-humanity
- Move over Descartes: Neuroscientists have joined philosophers in searching for the origin of consciousness
- MR. NOBODY
- Mr. Robot
- Mui, Yian Q.
- Mundane SF 101
- Murray, Frank J., "NASA plans to read terrorist's minds at airports"
- Music: Humans/Machines Interfaced
- My Mother Was a Computer: Digital Subjects and Literary Texts
- Mysterium Cosmographicum
- Myth of the Eternal Return, The (Eliade)
- The Myth of the Machine
N
- Narration in the Psychoanalytic Dialogue
- Narrative, Archive, Database
- Nathaniel Hawthorne Gets on the Train
- Nature, Philosophy of (Britannica article)
- Neely, Tucker
- NERVE
- Neural Nets Are Sparking Heated Debates Among Their Enthusiasts
- A New Breed of Thinking Computer? (news story)
- The New Class War
- The New Fire: War, Peace, and Democracy in the Age of AI
- The New Industrial State
- New Priesthood, The: The Scientific Elite and the Uses of Power
- New Sciences: Cyborg Feminism and the Methodology of the Oppressed
- New Toys for Robocop Soldiers
- Newton, Sir Isaac (encyclopedia article)
- No 'There' There: Why cyberspace isn't anyplace
- No Future! Cyberpunk, Industrial Music, and the Aesthetics of Postmodern Disintegration
- No Mistake (journalism: mechanized medicine)
- Noble, David F., The Religion of Technology
- Nowhere to Hide (magazine article)
- Nuts and Bolts: Seven Small Inventions that Changed the World
O
- Obedience to Authority (Stanley Milgram)
- Of Great God Cybernetics And His Fair-Haired Child
- Offices of the Future
- Old Farm Equipment Into Incredible Animal Sculptures
- Old Friends. New Fun.
- On Autopilot
- On Violence
- Organisation and Bureaucracy: An Analysis of Modern Theories
- The Organization Man
- The Origins of Totalitarianism
- Origins of the Species
- ORLAN
- Orrery (mechanism)
- Our Own Worst Enemy
- Ouroboros; the Mechanical Extension of Man
- Out of This World
- Outside Context Problems: Liberalism and the Other in the Works of Ian M. Banks
P
- Parenti, Christian, "Big Brother's Corporate Cousin"
- Passages, Margins, and Poverty: Religious Symbols of Communitas
- The Passing of Post-Modernism: Cultural Influences in Design
- Pause Giant AI Experiments: An Open Letter
- Peddling Big Brother
- The Perfect War: Technowar in Vietnam
- The Ph.D. Octopus (essay by William James)
- A Phenomonology of Man-Machine Relations
- Philosophical Quest for Truth (in 17th-c. European philosophy)
- Pinker, Steven, The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature
- Political Parties: A Sociological Study of the Oligarchic Tendencies of Modern Bureaucracy
- Positivism
- Positivism and Logical Empiricism (Britannica article)
- Posthuman Folklore
- The Posthuman Future of Man
- Postman, Neil, Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology
- Postmodernism, or The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism (essay by Frederic Jameson)
- The Power Elite
- Poème électronique
- Prefiguring Cyberculture: An Intellectual History
- The Principles of Scientific Management
- Provenzo, Eugene F. Video Kids: Making Sense of Nintendo
- Psychology as the Behaviorist Views It
- Pulu, Tibi. Insect with "Mechanical Gears."
- Putnam, Robert, Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community
- Pynchon, Thomas, "Is It O.K. To Be a Luddite?"
R
- Race in Cyberspace
- The Race to Bomb (review of A History of Bombing)
- Race, Robots, and the Law
- Radical Technologies
- Radix vs. MIT (news story).
- Rajagopalan, Sumitra, "It's a Bird, It's a Plane … (It's an ornithopter, and it holds great potential for space an military missions)"
- Reading Cyborgs Writing Feminism
- Rebellion of the Machines
- Rebels Against the Future: The Luddites and Their War on the Industrial Revolution
- The Red Queen's Race
- Regan, Michael P., "Soldier of the future will be plugged into a massive network"