Ken's Lecture

Awesome! Even though his soft voice was lulling me to sleep, the content of his presentation was stellar. He takes all the stuff in his imagination and makes it a digital reality. The best part is that his tinkering has unknown benefits. For example, his face program, that represented different emotions, was able to help autistic kids identify emotional facial fluctuations. Technology has the unique ability to constantly evolve in every direction. Things that people thought were staples of technology (initial touch screens) can be re-imagined in so many ways (multi-touch, pressure sensitive displays). I would love to have his technical know-how. He also seems to be educated and concerned with things outside his discipline which makes him seem very worldly.

Google WAAAAAAAaaaavveeee

Remember when in almost all my other blog posts I said I loved integration? Well, Google has made me rethink that. Maybe I totally missed something in the presentation, but Google Wave looks like it sucks. Why would I possibly need real time email? Is ELECTRONIC mail not fast enough, I need people responding in REAL TIME? Also, this is what Gmail does anyways. I can have a Gchat box open talking with someone in real time while also emailing.

Digital Dirt! OOoOoOoOoOOo Spooky

I have always been wary of the internet and the fact that whatever you put there will be there forever. Ever since I saw my first set of embarrassing photos (even before they called FAIL photos) I knew the internet was dangerous. I have my facebook on crazy lockdown; it's not in google search, I install no programs and anyone I'm only acquaintance/employee with/of is on my limited profile. The only thing that comes up when you google my name are my online articles I wrote for CMJ and some random photo my friend put up of me on istheshit.com. I think the best way to avoid being embarassed is to vett yourself. Search yourself and find out what's there.

New Media Reader: Ch. 10-12

Chronology:

• 1964: Roy Ascott publishes "The Construction of Change"
• 1965: Theodor Nelson publishes "A File Structure for the Complex, the Changing, and the Indeterminate"
• 1973: Raymond Queneau publishes "Yours for the Telling", Claude Berge publishes "For a Potential Analysis of Combinatory Literature", and Jean Lescure publishes "A Brief History of Oulipo"
• 1981: Italo Calvino publishes "Prose and Anticombinatorics" and Paul Fournel publishes "Computer and Writer: The Centre Pompidou Experiment"
• 1983: Raymond Queneau publishes "100,000,000,000,000"
  

Summary:
10. The Construction of Change

Conneting cybernetics and art. This led to fields such as digital design and digital media art.

11. A File Structure for the Complex, the Changing, and the Indeterminate

The term hypertext is created. The idea of hypertext is supposed to imply a reconfigurable structure of information with no limit.

12. Six Selections by the Oulipo

A compilation of sonnets that were generated using complex algorithmic techniques. The point of these sonnets are to blur the lines between author, reader and text.

KP Whatchu got for me

Ken Perlin is impressive. He does programming problems for fun which automatically makes him more useful than myself. The video demonstrations of PAD were incredible. The original pad compare with Seadragon, even in today's standards, still seemed more impressive. Infinitely expanding into and out of any image with super high resolution. It's totally great. And he made it decades ago. If I were KP, I would totally want some Seadragon money.

His most notable innovation was his academy award winning visual technology noise-turbulence. Even though his "space vase" looks incredibly dated with today's special effects, its still good to appreciate the amount of work it takes to even create marble. I love that his inspiration was late night coffee.

Favorite Condiment Results!

HOLY CRAP EVERYONE LOVES KETCHUP

The New Media Reader: Ch. 5-9

Chronology:

• 1960: Joseph Licklider publishes "Man-Computer Symbiosis"
• 1961: Allan Kaprow publishes "Happenings", and William Burroughs publishes "The Cut-Up Method of Brion Gysin"
  
• 1962: Joseph Licklider becomes the head of ARPA and Douglas Engelbart publishes "Augmenting Human Intellect"
• 1963: Ivan Sutherland publishes "Sketchpad A Man-Machine Graphical Communication System"

Summary:

• Licklider helped change the thinking of ARPA by redirecting funding from private companies to universities, helping to create the military industrial complex
• He attempted to display the importance of human/machine interaction
• A large number of interactive, new-age art displays were created by Kaprow in the 50s and 60s under the name "Happenings"
  
• The "cut-up method" was a form of a textual collage. It allowed the creator the ability to make poignant things of unrelated things.
• Engelbert invented the defining features of computers what would later become a mouse, a window and a word processor.
• Engelbert saw the rapid progress of technology, and how it could shift at any moment, he wanted, and saw the importance in, to create tools that made it easier for humans to interact with their digital counterparts.
• Sketchpad began the digital vision. It hinted at the ability for computer to simulate reality so humans could experiment in the digital sphere instead of the physical one.
  

Internet Documentary

Yay the history of the thing I'm using. Corny 90s visual effects aside, the documentary was awesome. I absolutely love hearing about the advent of technology and the people that inspired its inception. Since the internet is ridiculously useful, and ubiquitous, I think it's supremely important to see how this technology was created. I wonder how it would've been different if ARPA didn't sponsor anything. Would someone else have sponsored the initiaitive or would we just be behind technologically and I'd be using AOL 2.0 right now?

Steampunk stuff

Again, I can't understand the fascination with this modern derivation of victorian stuff combined with steam power. It's kinda cool and anything done well (like the steampunk art we saw) is worth viewing. I would definitely check out the steampunk indie festival if I was around I just hope I'm not picked up by some goon with a steam powered rifle and forced to work in his mechanical spider factory all day.

new world of music

Not to sound really awesome or anything but I've been using these sites forever. To be honest, I mostly use pandora to find new music then just download the music I like. Songza, imeem, seeqpod, grooveshark etc. are all amazing pieces of software that allow users to instantly stream any song. I most interested in spotify thats like these free streaming services but also has a desktop application that allows you to actually download the music for free. However, it's not in the US yet. Nuts.

Augmented Earth

Yay more integration! All the technology was there (google earth, publicly available video footage) they were just smart enough to combine the two. I'm having a hard time finding a non-invasive use of this technology (more like why is video camera footage publicly available?) besides for tracking a person's children. Also, how recent is the video footage data? I would only use it to see the lines at my favorite restaurants like the Shake Shack cam.

Photosketch

Crazy concept. I wonder who thought that making composite photos needed to be given to the masses. It's super cool I just want to try it before I praise it. All promo videos show technology at its best in the ideal setting. What if I want a phoenix fighting Hercules in a minefield? Ya, I didn't think it could do that.

FontCapture

Since I have ridiculously terrible handwriting (it's like reading the scribbles of a baby with a pencil in its mouth) this program wouldn't do anything for me. However, the concept is incredible. Using your own handwriting as a font is genius. While I'm sure it's easy to tell that it is computer generated, having something so personal digitized is super convenient. It's ironic in a way to digitize handwriting since the whole point of word processing is to avoid handwriting. Yay meta culture.

Augmented Reality

I love integration. Combine my desk, refrigerator and iPhone please? It's awesome to see people taking existing hardware and transforming devices into something completely new. Having an augmented reality overlay would make sightseeing a pleasure. No ripoff tour guides and you could do it at your leisure. While the idea is great, I'm sure its real-world execution has numerous technological hurdles it has to overcome. Once it's easily viable, I would love to see this technology everywhere.

Natal

I know Natal is going to be bad. It's going to suffer from "Wii Syndrome" which is having the company promise everything and delivering around 20%. I can't imagine the interface being so precise and being able to tell where exactly each movement of your body is relative to the digital characters on screen. In addition, if they can't make the promotional video look fun, I don't think they have a chance. Refastening wheels to race cars? Really?

Brain Scan Tech

Finally! A new technology with immediate practical ramifications! I really loved watching these new technologies, brain-to-text and brain-to-mouse, work their magic. They enabled these people to regain something they had lost. We constantly take for granted the ability to easily communicate and ambulate. Hopefully these technologies will get sleeker and faster as time goes on.

To be obsessed with anything is probably a waste of time. To be obsessed with Steampunk is definitely a waste of time. I don't really understand the fascination with steam-powered retro-futuristic things. They look moderately cool, but to have a subculture? I'm not saying it's ugly, I just don't get the obsession. In fact, I really liked the steampunk guitar that guy in the video made. However, if he spent the time learning guitar that he speant going to steampunk conventions, he'd be a virtusso by now.

New Media Reader: Ch. 2-3

Chronology:

• 1945: Vannevar Bush publishes "As we May Think"
• 1950: Alan Turing publishes "Computing Machinery and Intelligence"

Summary:

• The new power of the military-industrial complex is staggering. However, what will all those academics and scientists devoted to the cause of war do once peace arrives?
• The future holds the minimizing of the size of all technology while at the same time upping the ease of use and quality.
• Bush predicted many of the machines and contraptions of the future that were supposed to make our lives easier.
• Turing sets out to define what is "intelligence" and how a computer can acquire what humans would define as "intelligence"
• Turing predicted many of the problems and inventions that computing would develop 50 years down the road. (processing power, storage)
  
• He then tackles his opponents of his own question of "could machines think" answering retorts like the dreadful consequences of thinking machines or the mathematical impossibility of a thinking machine.
  

(I'm happy the British government finally issued an apology for their abuse of Turing)

Rich Rodriguez’s Computer

Rich is the man. He hardcore represents video game culture without hesitation. It's cool. It's powerful. It's more profitable than the movie industry. It's also incredibly dorky. The game Little Big Planet is not the first game to introduce user content. The Tony Hawk series has allowed users to create their own skate parks, decade before Little Big Planet. I don't even know what the first game was that introduced user content, but Tony Hawk was surely mine. Also, the introduction of games like Scribblenauts is astounding. Developers used to have complete linear control of a game. Now they are letting their users go all free-form. Awesome.

While

I'm going to stop beginning my posts with the word "while".