Paul Graham: Hackers and Painters

Hackers and Painters by Paul Graham is a readable essay about hacking and how it is not computer science, but is akin to painting or writing. He concludes with:

Over and over we see the same pattern. A new medium appears, and people are so excited about it that they explore most of its possibilities in the first couple generations. Hacking seems to be in this phase now.
Painting was not, in Leonardo’s time, as cool as his work helped make it. How cool hacking turns out to be will depend on what we can do with this new medium.

Embedded in the essay is an idea about fame and open source hacking that needs some thought. My sense is that hacking is in the age of genius, while the arts Graham gives as examples were developed during an age where individual genius was not recognized as it is now. Hackers essentially want the recognition they think artists get for open source work even though our idea of genius is a product of a history of Western art culture. What if we reversed the theory and imagined computing culture, that downplays individual genius relative to other arts, as providing a paradigm back to the arts where the genius artist is no longer the norm?
This link came from Matt Patey.

d’art Design Group: Interface by group94

Drew Paulin drew my attention to an interesting interface for the D’ART DESIGN GRUPPE which was deisnged by group94 / webdesign from belgium who have their own neat interface.
I was talking with a web designer over the weekend about why he doesn’t have a web site. His take was that you don’t get jobs from your web site – at most it acts like a online portfolio, and one that takes lots of work to keep up to date. That said, it seems some of the most creative web works are those by design groups to show off their creativity.

Centre for Global Dialogue: Virtual Themeworld

VIRTUAL THEMEWORLD is a shards and space interface to themes about global governance and risk. I think this is meant to be the neat showcase interface for the Swiss Re Centre for Global Dialogue. (Swiss Re is a reinsurance company.) The Themeworld is a Shockwave based interface for exploring linked themes that when you first enter feels like Asteroids in colour.
Jan. 28 Update – I got an e-mail from the creator of Themeworld, Matt Bindoff of .bindoff. He justifiably corrected me that it is Shockwave based not Flash. If, like me, you are fuzzy on the difference see, Macromedia – What’s the difference between Shockwave and Flash?

Pac-Manhattan: City Games

Wired News: Manhattan Gets Pac-Man Fever describes a game Pac Manhattan where people run through Manhattan wearing coloured ponchos playing Pac-Man characters. They get instructions from generals over cell-phone who have some sort of control panel. Now this is an idea for a wired city! This urban game was an experiment by New York University’s Interactive Telecommunications graduate program. Pac-Manhattan is the NYU site on the game.
For some reason I thought I had blogged this before … obviously I am having a blog identity crisis.