Index
Locators in bold italic represent images/pictures
A
AAIB (Air Accidents Investigations Branch), 188–9
ABC Trial, 189
Aberdeen Proving Ground, 28–9
acceleration, 132
AdSense, 218
Advanced Chess, 159–60
Aeroflot, 65
Aero Lease UK, 190–1
AI (artificial intelligence), 139
Air Accidents Investigations Branch (AAIB), 188–9
Airbnb, 127
Air France, 71
Aldrich, Richard, 189–90
algorithms
reaction speed of, 123
Al-Qaeda, 212
‘Alterman Wall,’ 158
Amash-Conyers Amendment, 178
American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, 64
American Meteorological Society, 26
‘A National Infrastructure for the 21st century’ report, 59
Anderson, Chris
anthropocene, 203
antiquisation programme, 234
approximation, conflating with simulation, 34–5
Arimaa, 158–9
Arkin, Alan, 188
‘the ark,’ 52–3
Army Balloon Factory, 188–9
artificial intelligence (AI), 139
AshleyMadison.com (website), 237–8
Asimov, Isaac
Three Laws of Robotics, 157
‘Conspiracy as Governance,’ 183
Assistant software, 152
Associated Press, 124
‘As We May Think’ (Bush), 23–4
Aubrey, Crispin, 189
Aurora (Robinson), 128
AutoAwesome software, 152
Automated Insights, 123–4
automated journalism, 123–4
automated trading programs, 124
aviation, 35–6
B
BABYFUN TV, 225
Ballistic Research Laboratory, 28–9
Bank of England, 123
Banks, Iain M., 149–50
Barclays, 109
basic research/brute force bias, 95
Bel Geddes, Norman, 30–1
Bell, Alexander Graham, 19–20
The Task of the Translator, 147, 155–6
Berners-Lee, Conway, 78
Berry, John, 189
‘better than the Beatles’ problem, 94
Bevan Aneurin, 111
In Place of Fear, 110
big bang, 106
big data, 84
Bilderberg Group, 241
Binney, William, 176, 180, 181
Birther movement, 206
Bitcoin, 63
‘Black Chamber,’ 249
blast furnace, 77–8
BND, 174
Borges, Jorge Luis, 79–80
Bounce Patrol, 223
branded content, 220
Brin, Sergey, 139
Broomberg, Adam, 143
Bush, George W., 176
Bush, Vannevar
‘As We May Think,’ 23–4
Bush Differential Analyser, 27
on hypertext, 79
Bush Differential Analyser, 27
Byron
“Darkness,” 201–2
C
Cadwalladr, Carole, 236
calculating machines, 27
calculation
p-hacking, 89–91
raw computing, 82–3
replicability, 88–9
translation algorithms, 84
Cambridge Analytica, 236
Campbell, Duncan, 189
‘Can We Survive Technology?’ (von Neumann), 28
Capital in the Twenty-First Century (Piketty), 112
carbon dioxide, 75
Catch-22 (Heller), 187–8
‘cautious regulator’ theory, 94–5
CCTV, 181–2
centaur chess, 159
Chanarin, Oliver, 143
chaotic storage, 115–6
Chargaff, Erwin, 96–7
Charlie Hebdo attacks, 212
children’s television, 216–7
Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), 161–2
clear-air turbulence, 68
climate
carbon dioxide, 75
seed banks, 52–6
turbulence, 65–9
climate change
patterns disrupted by, 72–3
resilience against, 59
climate crisis, 56
Clinton, Bill, 243
cloning, 86–8
closed-circuit television, 181–2
‘The Cloud Begins with Coal-Big Data, Big Networks, Big Infrastructure, and Big Power’ report, 64
‘The Cloud of Unknowing,’ 9
cloudy thinking, 9
coal deposits, discovery of, 52
coastal installations, 62
Cocks, Clifford, 167
code/spaces, 37–9
code words, 175
cognition
about, 135–6
artificial intelligence (AI), 139
facial recognition, 141
image recognition, 139–40
machine translation, 147
‘predictive policing’ systems, 144–6
collectivism, totalitarianism vs., 139
Commission on Government Secrecy, 169
complex systems
about, 2–3
aggregation of, 40
high-frequency trading, 14, 106–7, 108, 122, 124
complicity
computational logic, 184–5
Freedom of Information, 161–2, 165, 192
global mass surveillance, 179–80
public key cryptography, 167–8
computation
calculating machines, 27
Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer (ENIAC), 27, 27–30, 33
IBM Selective Sequence Electronic Calculator (SSEC), 30, 30–2, 31, 146
opaqueness of, 40
computational logic, 184–5
computational thinking
about, 4
evolution of, 248
importance of, 44–5
conspiracy
conspiracy theories, 195, 198–9, 205
9/11 terrorist attacks, 203–4, 206
‘Conspiracy as Governance’ (Assange), 183
Copenhagen Climate Change Conference (COP15), 199
Cowen, Deborah, 132
Credit Suisse, 109
cryptocurrency, 63
Cumulus homogenitus, 195–6
cyborg chess, 159
D
Dabiq (online magazine), 212
Dallaire, Roméo, 243
darkness, 11–2
“Darkness” (poem), 201–2
dark pools, 108–9
DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency), 33
Darwin, Charles, 78
data
big, 84
importance of, 245–6
realistic accounting of, 247
thirst for, 246
data dredging, 90–1
Debord, Guy, 103
DEC (Digital Equipment Corporation), 33
Decyben SAS, 110
DeepFace software, 140
defeat devices, 120
Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), 33
de Solla Price, Derek, 91–2, 93
Diffie-Hellman key exchange, 167
digital culture, 64–5
Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC), 33
digital networks, mapping, 104
digitisation, 108
‘Discussion of the Possibility of Weather Control’ lecture, 26
diurnal temperature range (DTR), 204
DNA sequencing, 93
D-Notices, 179
domain name system, 79
doomsday vault, 52–3
Dow Jones Industrial Average, 121–2
drones, 161–2
drug discovery/research, 94–5
DTR (diurnal temperature range), 204
Duffy, Carol Ann, 201
Dunne, Carey, 194–5
E
Elberling, Bo, 57
electromagnetic networks, 104
Electronic Computer Project, 27
Electronic Frontier Foundation, 177
Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer (ENIAC), 27, 27–30, 33
Elements of Chemistry (Lavoisier), 208–9
Elkins, Caroline, 183–4
Ellis, James, 167
encoded biases, 142
‘End of Theory’ (Anderson), 83–4, 146
Engelbart, Douglas, 79
ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer), 27, 27–30, 33
Enlightenment, 10
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), 119–20
EPA (Environmental Protection Agency), 119–20
Epagogix, 130
epidemic type aftershock sequence (ETAS) model, 145–6
Epimetheus, 132–4
Equinix LD4, 104
ETAS (epidemic type aftershock sequence) model, 145–6
Euronext Data Center, 104, 105, 106
Evangelismos Hospital, 130–1
evolution, theory of, 78
exploitation, 229–30
Eyjafjallajökull, eruption of, 200–1, 202
F
facial recognition, 141
Fairchild Semiconductor, 80
Farage, Nigel, 194
Fat Man bomb, 25
Fermi, Enrico, 250
Ferranti Mark I, 78
fiat anima, 19–20
fiat lux, 19–20
Finger Family, 221–2, 224, 227
‘Five Eyes,’ 174
Flash Boys (Lewis), 111–2
‘Fourteen Eyes,’ 174
Fowler, R.H., 45
Frankenstein (Shelley), 201
Freedom of Information, 161–2, 165, 192
Friends’ Ambulance Unit, 20
Fuller, Buckminster, 71
Futurama exhibit, 30–1
‘Future Uses of High Speed Computing in Meteorology’ lecture, 26
G
Gail, William B., 72–3
Galton, Francis, 140
game developers, 130
Gates’s law, 83
GCHQ (Government Communications Headquarters), 167, 174, 176–9, 189
genocide, 243
ghost cars (Uber), 118–9
G-INFO, 190
global mass surveillance, 179–80
Global Positioning System (GPS), 36–7, 42–3
Global Seed Vault, 54
Godard, Jean-Luc, 143
Google Alerts, 190
Google Brain project, 139, 148, 149, 156
Google Earth, 35–6
Google Home, 128–9
Google Maps, 177
Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), 167, 174, 176–9, 189
GPS (Global Positioning System), 36–7, 42–3
Graves, Robert, 159
Gravity’s Rainbow (Pynchon), 128
gray zone, 212–4
Great Nōbi Earthquake, 145
Greenland, 57–8
Green Revolution, 53
guardianship, 251–2
H
Hankins, Thomas, 102
Haraway, Donna, 12
Harvard Mark I machine, 30
Hayek, Friedrich, 156–7
The Road to Serfdom, 139
The Sensory Order: An Inquiry into the Foundations of Theoretical Psychology, 138–9
HealthyFoodHouse.com (website), 231–2
Heller, Joseph
Catch-22, 187–8
Hermes, 134
Hersh, Seymour, 164
Hewlett-Packard, 143
hidden technological processes, 120
high-frequency trading, 14, 106–7, 108, 122, 124
high-throughput screening (HTS), 95–6
Hillingdon Hospital, 110–1, 111
Hippo programme, 32
Hofstadter, Richard, 205–6
Hola Massacre, 170
How-Old.net facial recognition programme, 141
‘How the World Wide Web Just Happened’ lecture, 78
HTS (high-throughput screening), 95–6
Hughes, Howard, 163
Hughes Glomar Explorer, 163–5
human genome project, 93
Human Interference Task Force, 251
human violence, 202
Hwang Woo-suk, 86–8
hypertext, 79
I
IBM Selective Sequence Electronic Calculator (SSEC), 30, 30–2, 31, 146
ICAO (International Civil Aviation Organisation), 68
ICARDA (International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas), 53–4, 55
ICT, 60–2
image recognition, 139–40
Infinite Fun Space, 149–50, 156
information networks, 62
information superhighway, 10
Infowars (Jones), 207
In Place of Fear (Bevan), 110
Institute of the Aeronautical Sciences, 26
Intel, 80
International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA), 53–4, 55
International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO), 68
International Cloud Atlas, 195
Internet Research Agency, 235, 237
Inuit Knowledge and Climate Change, 199
The Invisibles (Morrison), 196–7
Isaksen, Ketil, 54
ISIL, 212–3
J
Jameson, Fredric, 205
Jelinek, Frederick, 146–7
Jones, Alex
Infowars, 207
Joshi, Manoj, 68–9
journalism, automated, 123–4
just-in-time manufacturing, 117
K
K-129, 162–3
Karma Police operation, 175
Kennedy, John F., 169–70
Kinder Eggs, 215–6
Kiva robots, 114
Klein, Mark, 176–7
Kodak, 143
Krakatoa, eruption of, 202
Kuznets curve, 113
L
Large Hadron Collider, 93
Lavoisier, Antoine, 78
Elements of Chemistry, 208–9
Lawson, Robert, 175–6
Leave Campaign, 194
Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm, 78
Lewis, Michael
Flash Boys, 111–2
LifeSphere, 125
literacy in systems, 3–4
Lockheed Ocean Systems, 163
Logan, Walt (pseudonym), 165
Lombroso, Cesare, 140
London Stock Exchange, 110–1
‘low-hanging fruit,’ 93–4
M
Macedonia, 233–4
machine learning algorithms, 222
machine thought, 146
machine translation, 147
magnetism, 77
Malaysian Airlines, 66
manganese noodles, 163–4
Mara, Jane Muthoni, 170
Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, 128–9
Matthews, James Tilly, 208–10, 209
Mauro, Ian, 199
McCarthy, Joe, 205
McGovern, Thomas, 57–8
memex, 24
Mercer, Robert, 236
Merkel, Angela, 174
middens, 56
migrated archive, 170–1
Minds, 150
miniaturisation principle, 81
Mirai, 129
mobile phones, 126
The Modern Prometheus (Shelley), 201
monoculture, 55–6
Mordvintsev, Alexander, 154
Morrison, Grant
The Invisibles, 196–7
Mount Tambora, eruption of, 201
Moynihan, Daniel Patrick, 169
Munch, Edvard
The Scream, 202
Mutua, Ndiku, 170
N
NarusInsight, 177
NASA Ames Advanced Concepts Flight Simulator, 42
Natanz Nuclear Facility, 129
National Centre for Atmospheric Science, 68–9
National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, 243
National Health Service (NHS), 110
National Mining Association, 64
National Reconnaissance Office, 168, 243
National Security Agency (NSA), 167, 174, 177–8, 183, 242–3, 249–50
National Security Strategy, 59
natural gas, 48
neoliberalism, 138–9
networks, 249
Newton, Isaac, 78
New York World’s Fair, 30–1
NHS (National Health Service), 110
9/11 terrorist attacks, 203–4, 206
‘Nine Eyes,’ 174
1984 (Orwell), 242
NORAD (North American Air Defense Command), 33
North American Air Defense Command (NORAD), 33
‘The Nor’ project, 104
Not Aviation, 190–1
NSA (National Security Agency), 167, 174, 177–8, 183, 242–3, 249–50
nuclear warfare, 28
Numerical Prediction (Richardson), 45
Nyingi, Wambugu Wa, 170
Nzili, Paulo Muoka, 170
O
Official Secrets Act, 189
Omori, Fusakichi, 145
Omori’s Law, 145
Operation Castle, 97
Operation Legacy, 171–2
Optic Nerve programme, 174
Optometrist Algorithm, 99–101, 160
O’Reilly, James, 185–6
Orwell, George
1984, 242
‘Outline of Weather Proposal’ (Zworykin), 25–6
P
Paglen, Trevor, 144
‘paranoid style,’ 205–6
Patriot Act, 178
Penrose, Roger, 20
p-hacking, 89–91
Phillippi, Harriet Ann, 165
photophone, 19–20
Pichai, Sundar, 139
Piketty, Thomas
Capital in the Twenty-First Century, 112
Pincher, Chapman, 175–6
Pitt, William, 208
Poitras, Laura, 175
Polaroid, 143
‘predictive policing’ systems, 144–6
Priestley, Joseph, 78, 208, 209
PRISM operation, 173
product spam, 125–6
Project Echelon, 190
psychogeography, 103
public key cryptography, 167–8
pure language, 156
Putin, Vladimir, 235
Pynchon, Thomas
Gravity’s Rainbow, 128
Q
quality control
failure of, 92–3
in science, 91
Quidsi, 113–4
R
racial profiling, 143–4
racism, 143–4
‘radiation cats,’ 251
raw computing, 82–3
Reagan, Ronald, 36–7
Reed, Harry, 29
refractive index of the atmosphere, 62
Regin malware, 175
replicability, 88–9
Reproducibility Project, 89
resistance, modes of, 120
Reuter, Paul, 107
Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technologies, 181
Richardson, Lewis Fry, 20–1, 29, 68
Numerical Prediction, 45
Weather Prediction by Numerical Process, 21–3
Richardson number, 68
The Road to Serfdom (Hayek), 139
Robinson, Kim Stanley
Aurora, 128
robots, workers vs., 116
‘Rogeting,’ 88
Romney, Mitt, 206–7
Rosenblatt, Frank, 137
Roy, Arundhati, 250
Royal Aircraft Establishment, 188–9
S
Sabetta, 48
SABRE (Semi-Automated Business Research Environment), 35, 38
SAGE (Semi-Automatic Ground Environment), 33, 34, 35
Samsung, 127
Scheele, Carl Wilhelm, 78
Schmidt, Eric, 241–5
The Scream (Munch), 202
seed banks, 52–6
Seed Vault, 55
seismic sensors, 48
self-excitation, 145
‘semantic analyser,’ 177
Semi-Automated Business Research Environment (SABRE), 35, 38
Semi-Automatic Ground Environment (SAGE), 33, 34, 35
semiconductors, 82
The Sensory Order: An Inquiry into the Foundations of Theoretical Psychology (Hayek), 138–9
Shelley, Mary
Frankenstein, 201
The Modern Prometheus, 201
SIGINT Seniors Europe, 174
simulation, conflating approximation with, 34–5
Singapore Exchange, 122–3
Smith, Robert Elliott, 152
software
about, 82–3
Assistant, 152
AutoAwesome, 152
DeepFace, 140
Hippo programme, 32
How-Old.net facial recognition programme, 141
Optic Nerve programme, 174
Translate, 146
Solnit, Rebecca, 11–2
solutionism, 4
space telescopes, 168–9
speed of light, 107
Spread Networks, 107
SSEC (IBM Selective Sequence Electronic Calculator), 30, 30–2, 31, 146
Stapel, Diederik, 87–8
Stapledon, Olaf, 20
steam engines, 77
Stellar Wind, 176
Stewart, Elizabeth ‘Betsy,’ 30–1, 31
Steyerl, Hito, 126
stock exchanges, 108
‘The Storm-Cloud of the Nineteenth Century’ lecture series, 17–9
Stratus homogenitus, 195–6
studios, 130
Stuxnet, 129–30
surveillance
about, 243–4
complicity in, 185
computational excesses of, 180–1
devices for, 104
Svalbard archipelago, 51–2, 54
Svalbard Global Seed Vault, 52–3
Svalbard Treaty (1920), 52
Swiss National Bank, 123
Syed, Omar, 158–9
systemic literacy, 5–6
T
Taimyr Peninsula, 47–8
Targeted Individuals, 210–1
The Task of the Translator (Benjamin), 147, 155–6
TCP (Transmission Control Protocol), 79
technology
acceleration of, 2
complex, 2–3
opacity of, 119
Teletubbies, 217
television, children’s, 216–7
Tesco Clubcard, 245
thalidomide, 95
Thatcher, Margaret, 177
theory of evolution, 78
thermal power plants, 196
Three Guineas (Woolf), 12
Three Laws of Robotics (Asimov), 157
Tillmans, Wolfgang, 71
tools, 13–4
To Photograph the Details of a Dark Horse in Low Light exhibition, 143
totalitarianism, collectivism vs., 139
Toy Freaks, 225–6
Translate software, 146
translation algorithms, 84
Transmission Control Protocol (TCP), 79
Tri Alpha Energy, 98–101
Trinity test, 25
trolling, 231
Trump, Donald, 169–70, 194–5, 206, 207, 236
trust, science and, 91
trusted source, 220
Tuktoyaktuk Peninsula, 49
turbulence, 65–9
tyranny of techne, 132
U
UberEats app, 120–1
United Airlines, 66–7
Uniting and Strengthening America by Fulfilling Rights and Ending Eavesdropping, Dragnet-collection and Online Monitoring Act (USA FREEDOM Act), 178
USA FREEDOM Act (2015), 178
US Drug Efficacy Amendment (1962), 95
V
van Helden, Albert, 102
Veles, objectification of, 235
Verizon, 173
VHF omnidirectional radio range (VOR) installations, 104
Vigilant Telecom, 110–1
Volkswagen, 119–20
von Neumann, John
about, 25
‘Can We Survive Technology?,’ 28
Harvard Mark I machine, 30
Hippo programme, 32
as inventor of calculating machines, 27
on nuclear warfare and weather control, 28
writing to Zworykin, 26–7
von Neumann, Klára Dán, 28–9
VOR (VHF omnidirectional radio range) installations, 104
Wallace, Alfred Russel, 78
Wang, Joz, 142–3
warehouse tracking systems, 118
Watson, Thomas J., 30
wealth, disparities in, 112–3
weather
about, 50
control of, 28
modifications to, 193
‘Weather as a Force Multiplier: Owning the Weather in 2025’ report, 193, 207
Weather Prediction by Numerical Process (Richardson), 21–3
Whirlwind I, 32–3
Wi-Fi, 62–3
Wiggles, 223
Wikileaks, 183
Williams, Paul, 68–9
Williamson, Malcolm, 167
Willis, Bob, 175
winglets, 71
wiretapping, 234
Woods, Mary Lee, 78
Woolf, Virginia, 11–2
Three Guineas, 12
workers, robots vs., 116
World Meterological Organization, 195
X
Xiaolin Wu, 140–1
Xi Zhang, 140–1
XKeyscore, 173–4
Y
Yahoo Messenger, 174
Yamal Peninsula, 48
Z
Zazzle, 125
Zeitgeist conference, 241–2
‘zero-shot’ translation, 156
Zworykin, Vladimir
‘Outline of Weather Proposal,’ 25–6
von Neumann writing to, 26–7
This eBook is licensed to martin glick, martinglick@gmail.com on 07/27/2019