Comments for Theoreti.ca

Comment on War and Peace gets Nookd by Shannon

Shannon — Sat, 02 Jun 2012 15:37:46 +0000

How bizarre! I can see this making a great interactive art project as well – DIY censorship or Dada-esque randomized editing.

Comment on ‘The Demise of Guys’: How video games and porn are ruining a generation by jhpace1

jhpace1 — Sun, 27 May 2012 22:11:22 +0000

Fairly ridiculous. Rather than look at young boys, look at the male American middle class for the last 20 years. Quotas in the workplace mean white males cannot get hired because of minority requirements. Only the best and brightest are hired – and only if they are as cheap as their worldwide counterparts in other countries. As a result, middle-class American male workers had little choice but to either strive to win another year in an increasingly competitive marketplace or reinvent their careers every 5-7 years. As corporations fly from tax zone to tax zone the average family has little choice to tag along, selling a 30-year mortgage only 3-7 years into equity because their main breadwinner’s job has left the state they are in. Telecommuting went global, and outsourced many male jobs. But female spouses and unmarried women are getting hired, leading to gender reversal and dissatisfaction.

Meanwhile, the American justice system has bent over backwards in favor of breaking up the family and putting all the financial responsibility on the traditional husband. American women have learned that in divorce, they can still have the same lifestyle or even a much better one with alimony and child support. Where does that money come from? The divorced husband, who is now shackled to a debt he can not finalize for 18 years or more. Lifelong welfare also nullifies the need for a husband in the family. This means no strong male father figure for the children.

Computer games are distraction, not causation of these problems. The real reasons are the hostile workplace and disadvantaged judicial system. Google “Men Going Their Own Way” for more. Men are isolating themselves out of defense, not because they can’t talk to girls.

Comment on Sperberg-McQueen: Making a Synthesizer Sound like an Oboe by cmsmcq

cmsmcq — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 00:43:52 +0000

You write “I can’t help asking if text really does have structure or if it is in the eye of the reader.” How do we tell the difference between those two possibilities?

Comment on New Realities in Higher Education by Geoffrey

Geoffrey — Wed, 13 May 2009 08:15:39 +0000

My sense is that in North America people are being discouraged from getting PhDs as the perception is that there are no jobs.

Comment on New Realities in Higher Education by lvs004

lvs004 — Wed, 13 May 2009 03:47:41 +0000

Well in India the recession is having the positive effect of pushing bright youngsters towards a career in teaching. Univs are getting more faculty applicants and potential phd applicants than ever before.

Comment on IBM Watson: Question Answering for Jeopardy by lvs004

lvs004 — Wed, 13 May 2009 03:44:41 +0000

The test for intelligence proposed by Turing comprises an open domain question answering system that can fool a human into thinking that the system is human. Now Turing thought we would have such systems by 2000. If you look at Watson or Wolfram Alpha, you will see we are still far from that goal. But I think we will get there and these are the first steps.

you may find my blog of interest:
http://indradhanush-laal.blogspot.com

Comment on Hacking as a Way of Knowing – Digital History by mightywombat

mightywombat — Fri, 08 May 2009 01:23:04 +0000

Thanks for this interesting post! I have wondered, aside from my impending EE degree, what the attraction is to electronic devices and whatnot I see sitting on the side of the road. It also explains why I’ve got a pile of “trash” printers waiting to be disassembled and made into who-knows-what… Robots, CNC machines, or a full parts bin, it all appeals to me as something that ought not be thrown away. Hopefully I can help it live up to its potential! I’ll be reading!

Comment on Hacking as a Way of Knowing – Digital History by matt.ratto

matt.ratto — Wed, 06 May 2009 17:26:27 +0000

Hi Geoffrey – thanks for the link to the critical making lab site. I really like your last point here, about new technologies opening up space for personal fabrication. I think things like the arduino and other open hardware tech and their related communities make it possible for people from a variety of perspectives, skill sets, and backgrounds to engage with technologies in novel ways and to take a more active role in forming our material environment. In my lab, for instance, we’re using the arduino (and hopefully, soon things like the reprap,) to explore the relationship between society and information technology and to do so in a way that links up material production with critical reflection. Hope to talk to you more about this soon!

Comment on MK12: Quantum of Solace Interface by Peter Organisciak

Peter Organisciak — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 14:23:34 +0000

I’m reminded of Microsoft’s imaginary vision of interfaces in 2019 (http://flowingdata.com/2009/03/02/microsofts-vision-for-2019-is-data-visualization/). Really cool.

Comment on PressThink: Rosen’s Flying Seminar In The Future of News by Peter Organisciak

Peter Organisciak — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 16:01:40 +0000

Though public radio in the States is often part-private in its funding, I would say it is of a very high quality. The content is as respected as fully publicly-funded radio (NPR has the second and third most listened to programs in the country) and I would be careful in suggesting that no one in the country understands the potential of publicly-funded broadcasting.