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What happens if the robots can dance faster than human eye can see and can see your eyes in detail? Invisible robots - exploiting saccades to move around unnoticed.

See also: Blindsight, by Peter Watts.

The Oulipo movement stands to me as a fascinating study of creative processes with differing goals and results. It can be great short circuit around a creative blocks that stem from expectations and unlimited possibility.

I am a fan of utilizing ‘soft Oulipo’ where the rules are more of an influential and motivational underpinning vs absolute rules to be strictly adhered to. As alluded to in the article, this was/is a controversial position.

I’ve tried and failed to get into Perec, who apparently has numerous and inscrutable rules in his works.

On the other hand, I love Italo Calvino and the assembly that resulted in Invisible Cities.

I’ve never heard it described as an example of Oulipo before this article, but Alice Oswald’s Memorial is amazing and sparse and heartbreaking, especially if you managed to make it through a more traditional translation of the Iliad.

You might like Invisible Inc. It's a turn-based sneaking/spy game and one of the few recent games that I played straight through with no 'guilt' afterwards.

Agree w/ andersthue's suggestions. Here are a few others I listen to frequently.

I like all of the Gimlet media podcasts. https://gimletmedia.com/ Specifically Startup, Mystery Show, and ReplyAll

Hardcore History and Common Sense are favorites of mine: http://dancarlin.com

99% Invisible by Roman Mars http://99percentinvisible.org/

Startup School Radio from ycombinator is pretty good https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/startup-school-radio/id9...

What's the Point is a podcast from fivethirtyeight about data
http://fivethirtyeight.com/tag/whats-the-point/

Traction by Jay Acunzo at Nextview Ventures is another great one http://nextviewventures.com/blog/category/traction-podcast/

Also, Ellison was a great writer, but bringing attention to his work doesn't really advance the Cause.

The whole point of Invisible Man is that Ellison doesn't want to be reduced to a dehumanized representative of some collective. He is a person in his own right.

If you're an activist, the kind of thinking represented by Ellison is actively counterproductive. It's old-school Liberal stuff -- "outdated". It interferes with building the proper Consciousness.

Hence the objection to someone, and in particular a "white" person, working to advance Ellison without enough criticism. Instead you need someone who can "properly contextualize" Ellison, which is to say, to treat him with a little surface respect, but ultimately to make clear to readers that his work is somehow misguided. Nobody will go so far as to say "Uncle Tom" or "counter-revolutionary", but that's the subtext.

I wouldn't call this "talking like children", because the people are highly-educated adults and they understand exactly what they are doing.

it's been a while since I read it, and it wasn't my favourite, but I believe Palomar[0] was much less visual than Invisible Cities.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr._Palomar

> he was right.

The exact quote is "Perhaps one day, this century will be known as Deleuzian." Amusingly enough, Deleuze responded that it was "a joke meant to make people who like us laugh, and make everyone else livid."

It mostly makes me smile. :)

> Tiqqun's "the cybernetic hypothesis" ... Invisible Committee

I haven't actually read it, but this is a good reminder to toss it on the list. To be honest, I've been taking a bit of a break from philosophy stuff, in order to focus on shipping Rust. So I'm a bit out of the loop. Can't wait to return, though, I'd like to eventually publish a paper...

It's a fact that people have feelings.

Journalism reports on feelings all the time.

A DDG search for "classic journalism feelings" easily found https://www.cjr.org/analysis/journalism_and_the_power_of_emo... - "Journalism and the power of emotions"

> “Invisible Child” is an example of the power of storytelling. It’s also an example of what motivates many journalists, what we believe is possible through our narratives: to extend empathy for the individual to the group, to correct injustice and inspire change, or at least awareness. ...

> From stories about living conditions in New York’s slum tenements of the 1880s to the plight of children in contemporary homeless shelters, empathy is an integral part of journalism.

Human Revolution was my favourite, after the original. In terms of replayability, I come back to it more often. The atmosphere, particularly in Hengsha, were quite immersive. I would generally recommend it.

Invisible War - some say nowadays it got more flack than it quite deserves, but I absolutely cannot make myself go back to it :<

Mankind Divided - I'm halfway through, and quite enjoy it. I do understand that most people find it unfinished and short though. It does have a different vibe to original.

Tech: Code by Charles Petzold

Novel: Invisible by Paul Auster

Essay: Après la démocratie (French) by Emmanuel Todd

Art Vanden Berg launched an autonomous glider up to where the sky is black in the daytime, six [edit: five] times, back in 2002: http://members.shaw.ca/sonde/

He wrote all the software (avionics, telemetry, and ground support) himself. It maintained a telemetry link during most of each flight, and landed successfully five [edit: four] times, I think most of them on autopilot.

Around that time, Jef Raskin wrote a thought-provoking piece on the security implications of UAVs such as Laima. I can't find it on Raskin's site anymore, but here's a mirror: http://allnurses-central.com/world-news-current/next-time-ca...

There's a site about building amateur autonomous UAVs run by a Wired editor, which nevertheless seems to have relatively reliable information. Disturbingly, it has a diagram of a Predator on the front page: http://diydrones.com/

These guys are doing a bunch of stuff with kites and balloons as well, specifically to make maps available. Although some jurisdictions (like China) place restrictions on such activities, they seem to be doing a lot of good, and so far nobody's ended up in jail: http://grassrootsmapping.org/

In 2008, someone used a small flying dildo helicopter to make a political statement against Garry Kasparov (warning, includes photos of a flying dildo): http://hackaday.com/2008/05/19/flying-rc-penis-violates-ches...

The first writing I recall reading about this issue was "Danny Dunn, Invisible Boy", published in 1974; it mostly discussed the use of teleoperated UAVs for spying, not violence: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danny_Dunn,_Invisible_Boy

I think the concerns about terrorism are overblown. The world will never be perfectly safe, and people will keep on using violence against each other for quite a while yet, but fragile UAVs don't seem like they'll be a particularly big force multiplier as weapons. The concerns about privacy are probably much more significant.

Invisible - Paul Auster. Definitely my favourite book of the year, and also my favourite book by Paul Auster, whose books I've been reading throughout the summer. The story itself is captivating, but the style of the book is one of the best things about it. It tells a continuous story, but is told from the point of view of several authors, and with different styles (changes from first to second to third person, for instance). On top of that, the authors occur in the main story itself, interact with other people in the main story while retelling it, and even deliberately change and obscure information.

Although this may sound very complex, the book is actually not that hard to follow. Highly recommended!