African Fractals, in buildings and braids

[odditycollector]

This is a brief introduction to an aspect of history I've never been made aware of, concepts I've only seen as science fiction. Things like social fractals, and ancient pseudo-random number generators, and computers made of sand.

"Every digital circuit in the world started in Africa. I know Brian Eno says there's not enough Africa in computers, but I don't think there's enough African history in Brian Eno."

(It's especially blowing my mind at the moment because I've been pondering on and off an alien society based pretty strongly in something like fractals. I thought I was starting from scratch.)

Comments

[brownbetty]

Without watching it, I'm pretty sure that's the one I watched, which is generally cool, except for the bit where he's like, “And I had to be inducted into their secret society and swear never to reveal their secrets to anyone, and now I'm going to put them on streaming download ho ho silly superstitions.”

Geezus. If he was an anthropologist instead of a mathemetician he'd be crucified.

[odditycollector.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I remember a couple places where I was like "...Really, dude?" (I mean, he sounded almost embarrassed about the inducted-into-the-secret-society rituals, although I don't think it pinged he shouldn't have been talking about them at all.) But goddam where is the steampunk AU tech-punk based from Africa. MAYBE IT EXISTS.

[mark356.livejournal.com]

That is so cool!

[odditycollector.livejournal.com]

I know! The world is amazing sometimes!

[estara.livejournal.com]

Now that was utterly fascinating like many of those TED talks. Thanks for finding that.

[odditycollector.livejournal.com]

I'm very glad I did. I almost didn't watch it, being unsure what it was about from the title.