Blogging and Janice’s blog

What is a blog, really?

Janice P. talked to me about blogging for an article for a McMaster publication and we got talking about guilt and blogging. Like the journals I used to keep and the research note books I kept up until I started this blog, I feel guilty if I don’t post on a regular basis (lets say once a week.)

On her blog she comments on guilt and blog death. (Hi JP!)

I wonder if the blog hasn’t reopened all our worries around journals and immortalizing everyday thoughts. Someone must have written on this.
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Independent Activities

How can Multimedia contribute to open learning at McMaster? If I am right that we have to create learning activities outside of classes in response to the increases in class sizes and the lack of opportunities to teach small classes then we need to imagine a venue for small learning activities.

IAP 2004 Activity: Getting Started with Weblogs is an example of something that seems to happen at MIT. It looks great and the site shows the potential for linking lots of these little courses. Hmmmm… something to think about.

History of Computing

M.S. Mahoney – Articles on the History of Computing is a page of links by the Princeton historian to articles about the history of computing. He argues in “The History of Computing in the History of Technology” that “the history of computing has yet to establish a significant presence in the history of science” (p. 1 of the PDF). As a result a lot of the popular history of computing out there is “heroic” and focuses on people or companies and insider knowledge.
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Hayle(s) The Humument

Katherine Hayles dedicates a chapter of Writing Machines to Tom Phillips’ original treated art book A Humument.

Humument began as A Human Document a forgotten novel that itself purports to be an edited version of the journals and scapbook of lovers. Phillips paints over the pages letting rivers of text flow through to produce a new material work of art and literature. Hayles uses Humument to bring forth the materiality of textuality – a materiality that helps us understand problems for electronic literature. There is always a technology of inscription, even when we forget it.
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Deleuze and Interrupted Machines

What is a machine? Deleuze and Guattari in anti-oedipus come up with a suprising definition:

“A machine may be defined as a system of interruptions or breaks (coupures). .. Every machine, in the first place, is related to a continual material flow (hylË) that it cuts into.” (p. 36)

I can think of two ways to interpret this.

1. We can define a machine by its breakdown. A machine is utilitarian and thus is evident when it breaks down and stops serving a purpose. Then the transparency of the machine becomes evident – it doesn’t work and is thus no longer a machine (working.) Thus an organ that breaks down becomes evident in its machineness – its service to a goal. (By comparison to desiring machine D&G set up the “body without organs” or the “corps”.)

2. The machine is defined by its manipulation of a flow. The interruption or capacity to stop and start a flow is the most basic form of manipulation. All other interruptions come from the breaking of a flow into parts or segments. The interruption is the basic move in analysis – the breaking down of the continuous into components for synthesis into something new – in other words manipulation or interactivity.
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The SINE Curve of Design

What if a curve was the design principle of a site?

The curve is a flow of digits to cityscape. Lines of text fall out in curves like poorly loosened venetian blinds.

SINEarts is the site of a “digital research hub nedtworking staff and postgraduate developments in innovative electronic projects.” SINE stands for Science Intermedia Network Environment and is a project at the University of Auckland.