Adrian Miles has posted A Manifesto For Responsible Creative Computing v.0.3 which should be read by all students who think that what they are going to get is tips for Photoshop.
I would extend it with:
In a paper I gave in Georgia I picked up on a comment by Negroponte in Being Digital to the effect that error correction is one of the fundamental advantages of digital (vs analog) data. Automatic error correction makes lossless copying and transmission possible. Digital Revolution (III) – Error Correction Codes is the third in a set of Feature Column essays on the “Digital Revolution.” (The other two are on Barcodes and Compression Codes and Technologies.)
To exaggerate, we can say that error correction makes computing possible. Without error correction we could not automate computing reliably enough to use it outside the lab. Something as simple as moving data off a hard-drive across the bus to the CPU can only happen at high speeds and repeatedly if we can build systems that guarantee what-was-sent-is-what-was-got.
There are exceptions, and here is where it can get interesting. Certain types of data can still be useful when corrupted, for example images, audio, video and text – namely media data – while others if corrupted become useless. Data that is meant for output to a human for interpretation needs less error correction (and can be compressed using lossy compression) while still remaining usable. Could such media have a surplus of information from which we can correct for loss that is the analog equivalent to symbolic error correction?
Another way to put this is that there is always noise. Data is susceptible to noise when transmitted, when stored, and when copied.
Continue reading Error Correction
The Computer as Tool: From Interaction To Augmentation is an excellent paper that nicely maps the tensions between interaction and augmentation paradigms of the computer. Chris Dent, who drew my attention to his paper in a comment on a previous entry on Tool and Technology, makes a comparison that I hadn’t thought of between interactivity and the augmentation/tool model of a computer. I guess I think (thought) of interactivity as part of the augmentation tradition while Dent quotes Suchman (Plans and Situated Actions) to the effect that computers when considered interactive are being treated as social objects like servants.
Characterizing the computer as an intentional interactive artifact lays the groundwork for several problems with computer use: it grants inappropriate power to the computer in the relationship between user and computer; it creates inappropriate expectations of the computer while at the same time lowering expectations of computer use; it lowers productivity.
One can see the problem with interactivity through Suchman’s characterization of interactive systems as reactive, linguistic and internally opaque. See my paper on interactivity, Turing’s Reaction where I explore interactivity and dialogue, but don’t take the next step and contrast it with augmentation.
Continue reading Interactivity and Augmentation
The Globe and Mail has a more nuanced review of The Confusion by Neal Stephenson than my earlier rumble. “Money makes Stephenson’s world go ’round” (May 1, 2004, D8), as the review is titled, points out how Stephenson is weaving a history of currency and science. He is setting up a battle between Whig and Tory, Science and Alchemy, England and France, or the Royal Society and the Inquisition. It also draws a comparison to The Lord of the Rings – The Confusion is “slow and lyrical” like The Two Towers – alternating between two plot lines that will be brought together (I hope) in the last movement. John Burns is too kind when it comes to the slow lecturing tour of the world we get in the middle of The Confusions. Burns isn’t really reviewing the book – that will have to wait for the last of the trilogy – he is summarizing the ideas for those, like myself, who lose sight of them in the wandering plot.
So what are some of the ideas?
Continue reading Again
At the Centre for Literary and Linguistic Computing (sounds like the title of a journal 🙂 they have mounted a web accessible apparatus to do computational-stylistics exploration. See PCA Online Introduction | CLLC where you can launch an applet that will work with Shakespeare texts.
This is a good example of sophisticated tools available online. What they need is a model that allows us to use with our own texts. I am also not sure about the step by step interface where you go march through pages of decisions. (There is probably no easy way to make it direct manipulation.)
In the TAPoR project we are trying to figure out how to have virtual meetings on a regular basis (following the Extreme Programming model). James Chartrand has been using MSN and voice over IP to work with programmers at Ottawa. We are going to try The Virtual Lightbox that Matt Kirschenbaum and colleagues at MITH have developed. This should give us a visual space for back of a napkin drawings.
Does anyone else have experience in what works?
In City of Bits William Mitchell writes about different types of virtual spaces and how they draw on real spaces. But what models do we have for hybrid spaces – institutions that are designed to have both physical and virtual extension? How do we think through what we can make if we were to design a new research learning space both for information technology and through it?
In chapter 4.6. Schoolhouses / Virtual Campuses Mitchell draws on Jefferson’s design for the University of Virginia. Jefferson’s “academical village” was designed to bring students and faculty together in a place of residence and learning. What do we want to bring together in a new media village?
Continue reading Academical Village
Reading Deleuze The Fold on the baroque and Leibniz, I was struck by how the word “fold” is also being used in web design for the break in a web page between what is seen on a typical screen when you load a page and what you have to scroll for. See Designing “Above the Fold” (Web Design in a Nutshell, 2nd Edition). (Thanks Carolyn Guertin for drawing my attention to this.)
How is the fold related to the interruption? Does the computer interrupt the flow by folding it into discrete objects or does the flow present itself folded?
In the February 2004 issue of the Harvard Business Review there is a short article on “The MFA Is the New MBA” by Daniel H. Pink. (Pages 21-22). He argues that it is harder to get into good art schools and that businesses are hiring MFAs to get creative talent.
An arts degree is now perhaps the hottest credential in the worlds of business. Corporate recruiters have begun visiting the top arts grad schools … in search of talent. … McKinsey says other disciplines are just as valuable in helping new hires perform well at the firm. With other arts grads occupying key corporate positions, the master of fine arts is becoming the new business degree. (p. 21)
Why is this?
Continue reading MFA as the new MBA
The RIAA campaign against music downloaders has apparently had an effect according to news sources like, Slyck News – The State of Music Downloading. Something like a third of the people who used to download have stopped or lessened because of the suits launched by the RIAA and the associated publicity.
What does this mean for the Internet and P2P sharing?
Continue reading File-sharing behavior