Why War? is a web site by students at Swathmore on issues around peace and democracy. They recently posted information from a Diebold list that documented the problems of Diebold computer based voting machines. Makes me worried about democracy. Diebold is now suing use the DCMA and has spooked Swathmore and MIT into blocking the information.
Iraq & Peace in the World
EUROPA – Public Opinion analysis – Home Page includes a link to the PDF of the report on “Iraq & Peace in the World”. While parts of the report were covered in the press what was missed was the Europeans think the US is on par with Iran and North Korea when it comes to countries that are a threat to peace. Why is that?
Color Music
iota – Linksis a collection of links related to the issue of music colour or abstract cinema. This goes back to the 18th century with experiments on color organs that played colours rather than sound. It is an interesting history that tied to transcoding. I believe Diderot was inspired by it.
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More on Judy and Theory
HUMANIST archives — October 2003 (#65) is Willard’s response to my post on theory. (See earlier blog entry on Judy the Robot and Theory.)
I want to argue that a computer model can be a theory the way a book can be. Otherwise we have a problem of where and what theories are.
What follows is a post I sent in response.
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Judy the Robot and Theory
My Dinner With Android is the site of Tom Sgouros’ performance “Judy -or- What Is It Like To Be A Robot?”. This excellent performance raises questions about artificial intelligence and consciousness. I loved how the script of the performance became part of the issue.
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Progress Quest, RPG
Flak Magazine: Baking a Progress Quest, 12-17-02 is an article about the game Progress Quest which satirizes RPGs. You run it, you chose your character, and then it just runs a story that never ends.
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Go West – Immigration Video Game
“Go West” is a game by Gentian Shkurti that is about escaping Albania to emmigrate to Italy. It looks like a first person shooter that calls into question certain issues.
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Rebecca V.1
Rebecca v.1
v.1 of Rebecca can be played without specialized software. You only need access to a server with the appropriate programming tools. The system is set up so that the players have Read, Write and Execute access to a directory. The start.text is placed in a subdirectory called “startText”. As each player makes a move they must create a new subdirectory with their initials and the number of the move. In that subdirectory they should place their code (move.program) and the output.text. In the game root directory there should be a shared html file called game.html that is used to keep track of the moves and which has links to the moves.
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Skins
How do we approach skins as a research issue?
The following is from a note I sent Ruth Nichols who is doing her M.Sc. thesis on skins and UI at McMaster.
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Rebecca 2
Rebecca is the daughter of Ivanhoe game that Steve Ramsay and I have been trying to imagine. (See previous Rebecca post.) Here are some more thoughts on features to the game.
– Limiting moves to the output of others
– Algorithmic spirit
– Challenges
– Journals
– Code and Literary Programming
– Literary Moves
– A Game of Collaborative Algorithmic Interpretation
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