WEEK 15 Blobjects

Week 12 DAI 227 Questions. Worth 2 points each.

1) In the article "Between a Blob + a Hard Place" Steven Skov Holt & Mara Holt Skov argue in the File InCA_Spring05.pdf (on page 20) that the 'blobject' phenomenon really took off in the ID (industrial design) profession in the 1990s. Why?

It took off in industrial design basically because of CAD (computer automated design), different modeling techniques and different ways to rapidly proto-type different designs. Crazy new designs could be created and modeled due to calculus and computer designing.

2) Which year in the 1990s was a watershed?

1998 was the year of the watershed for blobjects.

3) What three other products were introduced this year that were good examples of blobjects?

Three products introduced in this time period were the the five flavor Apple iMacs, Volkswagon Beetle, and the Nike Triax Watch.

4) On page 29 of "Shaping Things" Bruce Sterling describes when a 'gizmo' becomes a 'spime'. Copy the sentence here.

“When the entire industrial process is made explicit, when the metrics count for more than the object they measure, then gizmo become spimes.”

5) On page 45 of "Shaping Things" Bruce Sterling describes a defining characteristic of a Synchronic Society. Quote him here.

“A SYNCHRONIC SOCIETY synchronizes multiple histories. In a SYNCHRONIC SOCIETY every object is worthy of human or machine consideration generates a small history. These histories are not dusty archives locked away on ink and paper. They are informational resources, manipulable in real time. A SYNCHRONIC SOCEITY generates trillion of catalogable, searchable, trackable trajectories: patterns of design, manufacturing, distribution, and recycling that are maintained in fine-grained detail.”- Bruce Sterling

FINAL Question

What did I learn in DAI 227, why take it?

Initially I decided that I was taking DAI 227 basically as a filler class because it is not a requirement. While taking the class I began to realize that the information I learned was crucial because to be in an industry where digital media is everywhere it is key to know where it came from and its fundamentals.

I feel this way because we started out with learning about where the computer came from and it’s a device I had no idea of it’s history, despite using it everyday for every assignment and so much more. We learned about concepts that the computer took from areas I never would of though of such as avant garde concepts like cut and paste. Taking something from one environment and putting it into another. I also learned that during wars there is some good, huge technological advancements, such is the case with Colossus, the super computer created at Bletchley Park designed to decrypt German codes in England, arguably what saved the world from death camps and more air raids.

I also learned a lot about simulation whether it was in google sketchup, second life, or augmented reality. In google sketchup we learned how to create a faux world, and then cut and paste things we found in its library to create somewhat of a movie set. I have used computer automated design before but not with such fun attributes such as a Godzilla and the Moma in my own design. In second life, similar possibilities can be achieved however it is an online community like Facebook, however people can interact, build, earn an income, and have a great time. Augmented reality was something I was somewhat aware of but after reading a bit about it I learned just how amazing it is, with google maps that can be live, or automated cars that can show the driver facts about their surroundings or where to eat. We also looked at a remote control helicopter that can battle other helicopters but only in this virtual augmented reality.

We then went on to learned about video games, their history, and how they are related to theme parks, more importantly Disneyland. Like videogames , theme parks are devised so the user doesn’t have to reverse their path, there are objects called “weenies,” large landmarks that make the terrain more navigable. Ever since I was young I have lived on the coast, and I have always been able to use the ocean as a sort of “weenie,” for direction, or large hills such as Twin Peaks here in San Francisco.

I also learned a great deal about animation and special effects. This information was so interesting to me because I make films however have never been taught how to do so, and using simple special effects such as glass with a painting on it, a large projector with the set in front of it, or just special camera angles, are things I plan to use when making future films. Regarding animation we learned simple rule, twelve of them, that create simulated reality, these rules make things so much more tangible for the human eye, I like to think they are like the Gestalt principles of seeing that I learned about in my graphic design classes.

Overall I would recommend this class as being a requirement for DAI students. I enjoyed it and didn’t so much as look at it as a class but more as a media integrated talk regarding things I am very interested in. It was also great to be taught by someone who has actually been in the field for so long and worked on such relevant projects such as animation and augmented reality.

Week 14

Here is the map I created!
I really enjoyed this activity and will definitely use it in the future!

View My DAI 227 MAP in a larger map

WEEK 13

1)        Squash and Stretch.
As the ball is stepped on by Luxo Junior, it squashes and stretches according to the amount of force applied to it by him.

2)        Timing and Motion.
As Luxo Jr. pushes the ball the viewer gets an understanding of how light the ball is, the way Jr. moves also gives us an emotional sense of youth, wobbling and scattered.

3)        Anticipation.
When Luxor Jr. jumps he moves down a little bit before jumping up.

4)        Staging.
Initially we are presented with the Luxor and then the focus of the animation is primarily on Luxor Jr. we know this because he is making most of the movements and the story is about him.

5)        Follow through and overlapping of action.
When Luxor Jr. pushes the ball he doesn’t just stop, he carries through giving us the illusion that he is somewhat anatomically real or obeying the laws of physics.

6)        Straight Ahead Action and Pose-to-Pose action.
We see a contrast in how Luxor vs. Luxor Jr. move and play with the ball. Luxor Jr. is wobbly and young seeming whereas it is easy to tell that Luxor is more matured because he seems to know the physics of the environment.

7)        Slow in and out.
This can be seen when Luxor Jr. Jumps, he doesn’t just go up and down quickly but he reaches his maximum height, he slows and then speeds up on the way down.

8)        Arcs.
Arcs can be seen in how Luxor Jr. Jumps forward, the same way a ball would move it was thrown.

9)        Exaggeration.
We get a real good understanding of the ball’s flexibility because of the way it is squashed and stretched in an over exaggerated manner.

10)    Secondary Action.
The cord of the lamps move around after they do. Initially we see Luxor Jr. jump, but his cord also follows in a wave like pattern as a result of the jump.

11)    Appeal.
People typically think klutzy children are cute as they find they’re bearing and that is exactly what Luxor Jr. is.

WEEK 12 Questions!!!

) What was the name of the film made by Edwin S Porter that made use of a double-exposure to show a train window view of passing landscape?

2) Who invented the traveling matte shot in 1916?

3) How many weeks did it take to animate the main character in 1933’s KING KONG?

4) Which film made use of the ‘slit scan’ process in the 1960s?

5) In his essay “Industrial Memory” theorist Mark Dery argues that the silver fluid T1000 cyborg character represents a ‘masculine recoil’ – but from what?

6) Tim Recuber in his essay “Immersion Cinema” describes the key idea – that of immersion cinema itself – what is it? What makes it unique?

7) In the special effects history links, in the Time magazine history of special effects, there is a description of ‘motion control’ cameras developed for “Star Wars” in the 1970s. What is motion control?(1 paragraph)

8) Out of the 14 minutes of Jurassic Park’s dinosaur footage, how many minutes were computer generated imagery or CGI?

9) In the ‘denofgeek’ website, what is the name of the film that features an army of sword fighting skeletons, made in 1963?

10) In the ‘denofgeek’ site, which 2005 film used a special effects shot to sell the idea of a remake of a famous science fiction story to Steven Spielberg?

WEEK 11 DISNEYLAND!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

1) In Margaret Crawford's Essay "The World in a Shopping Mall she outlines that 'the size and scale of a mall reflects "threshold demand"' - what is meant by this term?

In Margaret Crawford's essay she defines the term "threshold demand," as being the smallest potential number of customers within a given region that are willing to buy an item to generate profit. She goes on to explain the difference between neighborhood shopping centers, such as strip malls that have typical things such as a grocery store, a nail salon, a bank, a pharmacy, a doughnut shop and some other stores that can be found at any other shopping center. These centers typically have a crowd that is willing to travel about two miles on average to get to this center. Community centers are defended as being places where people are willing to travel three to five miles to make a purchase maybe there is an computer store here or a book store. Next is the regional mall, these malls are typical malls such as the "Stonestown Mall," or the Westfield Mall, where there are department stores, movie theaters, maybe around 100 shops and people are willing to travel on average of 25 miles to these places. Furthermore is the super regional mall, where people are looking for something extraordinary, such as the West Edmonton Mall, there are rides, wave pools, various attractions and maybe 300+ shops.

2) In the same article Margaret Crawford describes something called "spontaneous malling" - what does this mean?

Spontaneous malling is difference between actually going shopping to a mall as an activity to an experience that is omnipresent; it can take place almost anywhere. Designers and city planners can create "pedestrian zones" with nearby parking lots by blocking off areas of a city, "allowing the development of concentrated shopping."

3) According to Michael Sorkin in his essay 'See you in Disneyland', how did Disneyland have its origins?

According to Sorkin there are two myths regarding Walt Disney's ideas regarding the origins of Disneyland. The first is that in 1938 Disney visited the Chicago Railroading Fair where he was invited to drive a historic locomotive, it was doing this that the idea came to him. The Disney Family also visited an unconventional theme park that lacked organization and good hygiene. Therefore Disney wanted to recreate this idea as a utopia in what was once an orange grove in southern California.

4) Michael Sorkin writes in his essay that Disney's EPCOT Center was motivated largely by frustrations Disney felt at his Anaheim CA park. What were those frustrations?

Disney was frustrated by the developments around Disneyland; therefore he relocated in secrecy to Florida in order to create everything without other developers knowing. He was able to create a greater utopia encompassing the customers with it's own hotels and businesses instead of other businessmen's ideas.

5) In his essay "Travels in Hyper reality" Umberto Eco describes Disneyland as 'a place of total passivity' - what does he mean by this?

Umberto Eco describes Disneyland of a place where consumers are not able to have any other option but the "utopian," option Disney offers. Consumers are not able to escape the game without playing it, or paying for it, "they must agree to behave live its robots." Railings directing visitors to a new location, a new store, or a new ride always interfere with the individual’s decisions; there is no void of indecision.

WEEK 11 DISNEYLAND!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

1) In Margaret Crawford's Essay "The World in a Shopping Mall she outlines that 'the size and scale of a mall reflects "threshold demand"' - what is meant by this term?

In Margaret Crawford's essay she defines the term "threshold demand," as being the smallest potential number of customers within a given region that are willing to buy an item to generate profit. She goes on to explain the difference between neighborhood shopping centers, such as strip malls that have typical things such as a grocery store, a nail salon, a bank, a pharmacy, a doughnut shop and some other stores that can be found at any other shopping center. These centers typically have a crowd that is willing to travel about two miles on average to get to this center. Community centers are defended as being places where people are willing to travel three to five miles to make a purchase maybe there is an computer store here or a book store. Next is the regional mall, these malls are typical malls such as the "Stonestown Mall," or the Westfield Mall, where there are department stores, movie theaters, maybe around 100 shops and people are willing to travel on average of 25 miles to these places. Furthermore is the super regional mall, where people are looking for something extraordinary, such as the West Edmonton Mall, there are rides, wave pools, various attractions and maybe 300+ shops.

2) In the same article Margaret Crawford describes something called "spontaneous malling" - what does this mean?

Spontaneous malling is difference between actually going shopping to a mall as an activity to an experience that is omnipresent; it can take place almost anywhere. Designers and city planners can create "pedestrian zones" with nearby parking lots by blocking off areas of a city, "allowing the development of concentrated shopping."

3) According to Michael Sorkin in his essay 'See you in Disneyland', how did Disneyland have its origins?

According to Sorkin there are two myths regarding Walt Disney's ideas regarding the origins of Disneyland. The first is that in 1938 Disney visited the Chicago Railroading Fair where he was invited to drive a historic locomotive, it was doing this that the idea came to him. The Disney Family also visited an unconventional theme park that lacked organization and good hygiene. Therefore Disney wanted to recreate this idea as a utopia in what was once an orange grove in southern California.

4) Michael Sorkin writes in his essay that Disney's EPCOT Center was motivated largely by frustrations Disney felt at his Anaheim CA park. What were those frustrations?

Disney was frustrated by the developments around Disneyland; therefore he relocated in secrecy to Florida in order to create everything without other developers knowing. He was able to create a greater utopia encompassing the customers with it's own hotels and businesses instead of other businessmen's ideas.

5) In his essay "Travels in Hyper reality" Umberto Eco describes Disneyland as 'a place of total passivity' - what does he mean by this?

Umberto Eco describes Disneyland of a place where consumers are not able to have any other option but the "utopian," option Disney offers. Consumers are not able to escape the game without playing it, or paying for it, "they must agree to behave live its robots." Railings directing visitors to a new location, a new store, or a new ride always interfere with the individual’s decisions; there is no void of indecision.

MIND MAP

This is a copy of my mind map, it is too large to take a photo of and succesfully upload so I am a bit confused. However I read the articles and here it is.

SECOND LIFE

1) The social life in Second life seemed as if it were a more personally subjective social media meeting place as opposed to something such as Facebook or Myspace. The reason being is that reality doesn't effect your social experience because you can create the person and world that you desire. As opposed to the one given or inherited, which turns up in social media sites.  

2) People converge in different meeting places in Second Life or simply by just walking around and talking to someone. The purpose seems similar to Google SketchUp, however within Second Life there seems to be a real community in which people share ideas, designs, or inner personalities. 

3) I found the game to be relatively easy to control my characters behaviors, I can be friendly and just cruise around or I can aggravate people. I found that other people in Second Life were relatively friendly, I interviewed someone named El Rijj about their take on the game and why they like it, therefore It seemed that the behavior of the people in Second Life was pretty accommodating.

4) People that I imagine are most attracted to SL are people who enjoy gaming, designing, or escaping reality for a better life. I believe this, because within the game, I was able to leave my tiny apartment and freely navigate around a beautiful scenario, escaping my feelings, bad weather, and pathetic savings. 

5)  I'm pretty sure you can buy nearly anything you want in SL, Five things I saw were,

1. Mens clothing, I saw a mens jacket called the Alphamale, black for L 485 
2. Art, I saw a sculpted Lion called Panthera Leo, for L750
3. You can buy aircrafts, this week a Kinoshita from SF labs was for sale for L4,499, or L1000
4. I different vehicles for sale, this week there was a 1968 Ford Mustang for L2000
5. I even saw a private island for sale this week, one in particular was Commercial City Island, and I think it was free because it said L0.

8) List five people you met online per week and a) who they were and b) what they hope to get out of SL and c) how did they view you?

1. El Rijj, he was a gothic avatar, he liked playing the game because he could create a world of his own despite having little money in real life. He thought it was pretty cool that I was able to play the game for a class, I told him I was doing research at SFSU for a digital media history class.
2. The next character I interviewed was , Donatien Alphonse Francois, he plays because "I like it because it is a way to escape real life[13:44] donatienbathori: it's not that MY life is bad [13:44] donatienbathori: but I find that the real world can't entertain me very much [13:44]donatienbathori: is so tedious, and vulgar"
3. I then interviewed someone names Shifty Gears, who was not very nice, I nicely asked why play and they said to escape reality as well as their life sucks, the interview was quick and rough.
4. I then interviewed someone named Mal Swords who said they play because of the cultural diversity as well as escaping reality. They talked about how one can be anywhere in the world and play with character anywhere else in the world, its a way to "connect with others and get close to foreign cultures." The interaction was relatively negative.
5. I then interviewed someone in french name Liotta Vin, This person enjoyed playing because of SL's ability to create anything from nothing, and escape the day to day. You can build without restriction, there is no torture, pollution, or pain. No suffering in SL 
• It seemed everyone used this program simply to escape reality.

9) I only had one negative interaction with someone on the game, Mal Swords, other than that people were ecstatic to find that I was playing for school. As well as doing research regarding possibilities as well as why others play.

10)  People in SL are employed to make SL currency or they spend their real money in the game. There are virtual Stores where items are either free or for sale, people can also create their own things and sell them. 

11) It seemed that the SL economy was way better than the real economy, for two reasons, One, you can buy pretty much anything, and the second is that money doesn't define your life, but your desire to create and be creative, also the economy isn't failing!

12) If a person wants to live in a gothic medieval world they can, they can have wings and fly around, they can even date. Therefore it seems that people are able to pretty much do anything their innerself want but their reality restricts such as money, up bringing, or race. 

13) It seems that on the outside it's like a very very friendly mall, however I believe that people can get very close an intimate and create very intimate relationships. The game is very informal, I believe this because of the way I was causully able to interview people unlike in the real world peoples egos seem to shape them.

14) The rituals of everyday life were pretty similar to that of real life, people have property, shelter, a job, relationships.

15) I had a pretty positive experience once I had told people that I was a student doing research, however if I didn't tell them that it seemed that they assumed I was a Newb and they wouldn't really acknowledge me.

16) I would say that people are almost more friendly in SL than in real life. People seem very honest with their replies and they don't have tones of voices. 

17) From the point of a researcher, I learned that people use second life in order to interact in a vital world, leaving the real world behind and only taking certain elements of it. People come from all parts of the world and background, people are of all ages and occupations, and none of this information defines who they are in SL. It's as if people are over the trails and tribulations reality and are entering a matrix.

WEEK 7 Questions!

1) Who invented the first computer game on the PDP1?

 Steve Russell was the first computer game inventor on the PDP1.

2) What was the name of the game?

The game he created was Spacewar! 

3) What was the name of Morton Helig's amusement device that let you smell, hear and see in 3D filmed experiences?

Morton Helig is responsible for creating the Sensorama! 

4) What early 1970s movie does an arcade console machine of Spacewar appear?

 Spacewar was seen in the film Soylent Green in 1973.

5) What was the name of the man who developed the first TV tennis game?

 Ralph Baer is the name of the man who first developed TV tennis.

6) Who was the man whose company Atari commercialized the idea of the arcade computer tennis game?

 Nolan Bushnell was the name of the man who founded Atari.

7) What was the name of this version of the game?

 Pong was the name of his version of the game.

8) What are vector graphics?

 Vector graphics are graphics that are based off of mathematical equations regarding geometry that display beams of light on the screen that constantly update themselves so the images on the entire screen can quickly appear live.

9) What types of games do vector graphics lend themselves to?

Vector graphics primarily lent themselves to games that were based on mathematical equations such as shooters where precision and quick responsive movement was key to seem real. Detailed static backgrounds also could be shown where the live images could be simple and quick to move.

10) When home computers were first made available, how did owners load games into them?

The first owners of computers had to load games onto by typing the game codes themselves. These codes were distributed by groups of enthusiasts as well as through early publications. They also loaded them using cassette tapes and later floppy disks.

11) What is the name of the 1985 film in which a young Matthew Broderick starts World War III with his home computer and modem?

 In the film WARGAMES, Matthew Broderick starts WWIII by hacking on his home computer.

12) From what sources did the designer of the Space Invaders aliens draw inspiration?

An early adaptation he had seen of H.G. Wells "War of the Worlds" was the early inspiration of the game Space Invaders.

13) What is the name given to the contemporary subculture of 8 bit music made with gameboys and other 80s game technology

 Chiptunes!

14) "Escape from Woomera" was a videogame which was used to draw attention to the plight of inmates at a remote detention center in desert town in what country?

Australia is the country where the prison that "Escape from Woomera" is based off.

-Sensorama Patent

WEEK 6 QUESTIONS

1) Steve Mann describes his wearable computer invention as a form of architecture for one person.

2) Steve Mann's concept of opposing camera surveillance with "Sousveillance" is described as a form of “reflectionism,” or "inquire -in-performance." Steve Mann's idea of "reflectionism" is best described is best described as a way of surveilling the surveyor. After all if we established the establishment we should be able to created a mirrored image of itself to keep itself in check. If we survey the surveyor we are able to get what we want because after all it is supposed to be a democracy not a police state. 

3) Steve Man Talks about hidden cameras becomes more complexed if used in places that are more surveilled or "semi-public," such as malls. He then goes on to talk about how on the street, in public people become immersed in the playfulness of the camera and don't really mind being filmed whereas in more private places or "semi-public," people reacted much harsher and confrontation was much more prominent. 

4) The final paragraph sums up what Mann considers the benefits of "sousveillance" and "coveillance". The benefits are such ways of "surveying the surveyor," or keeping the establishment in check. Since the dawn of surveillance technology, the use has been primarily one-sided, therefore Mann suggest the use of portable surveilling technology enables individuals membranes of the larger network to unite and strategies against the lack of protection given by the surveyors. 

5)  In William J Mitchell's 1995 book "City of Bits" in the chapter "Cyborg Citizens", he puts forth the idea that electronic organs as they shrink and become more part of the body will eventually resemble clothing and eventually be woven into the fabric of cloth. 

6) A vehicle that knows where it is will able able to do quite a bit Mitchell list quite a few, such as, commentary on local history and listed agricultural products of an area.

7) Mitchell tells the story of Samuel Morse's first Washington-to-Baltimore telegraph message was, "what hath God wrought."

8) Donna Harroway in "A Cyborg Manifesto" argues that women should take the "battle to the border". Donna talks about what is at stake in this battle, things such as "…territories of production, reproduction, and imagination." These a extremely significant things at stake for women because Donna argues that they need to be heard and a utopian world with a one gender society is not possible.

9) The Utopian dream the Harroway is talking about is of a utopian genderless future society. A society where gender is completely transparent and not an issue. She suggest that gender isn't thrown out, but overtime dropped from society.

10)  I do believe that we are cyborgs, this is because of the type of technologies we use effortlessly and dependently daily. I wake up depending on an alarm clock, can interact with people far away live, on a cellphone, and I get around the city depending on traffic lights, MUNI times, and  other machines that are extensions of human desire. I have thought of humans as cyborgs since I first saw the first blue tooth cellphone devices. It was as if people we telecommunicating, lost in the matrix, or completely insane. I believe that the more we urbanize the more we become cyborgs because of our dependency on technologies. 

Battlezone

Year of Publication 1980

Game Publisher ATARI

Game Developer  Ed Rotberg(in house) at ATARI 

1 The game genre is combat simulation/vehicular combat.

2  The game environment is just a green line drawing of a simple x/y plane, there is also simple objects on this plane such as cubes, prisms, pyramids, and volcanoes. 

3 The perspective of the player, is first person as if they were the tank.

4 The actual point of the game is to drive around as a tank, shooting at other tanks and killing them while dodging their fire. Occasionally a flying saucer scoots by the horizon and it is possible to earn bonus points from these objects .

5  The gameplay is very intuitive, run or die, kill or be killed, kill more and earn more. As far as the controls, they are very simple , the keypad arrows guide the tanks and turret movement.

6 The game play is patterned, the same objective on the same plane, against the same opponent,  

7 Although simple today, this game reveals quite a bit about technology of the time. The US Army commissioned similar programs, therefore it can be seen that this simple black and green vectored technology was cutting edge. The vectored screen keep refreshing itself so it seems live.

8 

A. The ease of Battlezone, has a bit of a curve to it, once the player gets a solid grasp of the cross hairs and how to dodge other tanks, the rest of playtime is just refinement of these simple tasks. The game is pretty easy to understand and get better at.

B. Battle Zone is very enjoyable, so enjoyable it becomes addicting. Although death in the form of a cracked screen is always lurking, this game is very fun because its quick and you always just want to beat your last score.

C. The game is very engaging, and like I said above addicting, therefore you always want to do better, shoot more flying saucers, dodge more enemy fire, and definitely not hand the game over to someone else because of it's simple very interactive quality.

9 I had played this game when I was about 10 on a friends' brother's computer. I remember being very into it at a young age also because of it's simplicity.

10 This game reminds me of radar and military simulation or movies of that genre. Also the movie Tron, however I have only see  the preview for Tron, I am familiar with the vector line art. This also reminds me of CAD programs I have used.

GOOGLE SketchUp

While using Google Sketchup I created a virtual world composed of buildings from real places, Godzilla, a semi truck, dogs, a jumbo jet and two people. I placed and scaled buildings that I like and have seen photos of, mostly art museums but the SFSU science building was in the 3-D warehouse, so I decided it looked nice under the terror for Godzilla's deadly breath. The buildings were laid out in a way that creates a sense of city square of common area, this is where I would create a virtual film. I also scaled and placed different trees around my landscape in order to a create a more tangible sense of reality.

If I was to create a virtual movie in my scenario, it would start would the DAI 227 class being at a field trip at the SF MOMA, seen as the brick building. We would them put on virtual reality equipment, sensors, headgear/goggles, and go into a dark quiet room where the future events would unfold. We would visit other museums, walk their galleries, see their art in exact quality, we would visit the sphinx in Egypt, even climb it. However when visiting these places, someone malicious hacked into the system and created a virus that looked like Godzilla, and it started destroying all the museums and their digitized art data bases. The 227 class was on the upper garden area at the MOMA, and saw some of this going on so we ran down the stairs on the left side of the building, where Professor Cox wrote a code for a digital jumbo jet. The class filled into the jet and we zapped into the Bahamas, but stilled trapped in virtual reality because the exhibit at the MOMA was destroyed by Godzilla, we slowly attempted to reverse engineer the systems but never succeeded, therefore we stayed living in the virtual Bahamas forever. 

Homework Week 2 DAI 227

1) The beginning of the turn of the century was so important because of the huge advancements made in many different fields such as einstein's theory of relativity and the Wright brothers' first flight. For our concern computers were advancing at a rapid pace, with the transition of lightning fast vacuum tubes and Alan Turing's new vision of programable computers, a vision that completely let the cat out of the bag, because prior to Turning's involvement, computers were seem as machines for number crunching whereas Turning saw computers as machines that could perform any logical function that a man was capable of doing. 

2)  Aspects of the Dada art movement that really stuck with the rise of computers are notions such as cut and paste on the computer. This idea was seen in the work of Marcel Duchamp's "readymades," where Duchamp would take ordinary modern objects of the time and put them into galleries and museums, as if he cut the object out of life and pasted it into a completely different setting. 

3) Lev Manovich describes Vertov's film as a set of databases compiled together and then shown on an interface. This sounds very similar to how a computer works, it has a database (the memory), and it has an interface (the screen), and literally anything can be called onto the interface from the database instantly in an omnipresent fashion whereas analog works strictly in a continuous motion. 

4) Constructivism is the idea that you can create a society or world around yourself.

5)  Manovich the first level is the story of the camera man filming the whole project. The second aspect is the shots of the audience watching the film, and the third level is the screen shots of the different land and cityscapes. 

6) Norbert Weiner developed the idea of cybernetics, an idea where humans and machines exist within a feedback loop.

7) In "Computer Lib" Ted Nelson describes Hypertext as "Non-sequential writing."

8) Transistors were considered impractical in the 1960's because they still needed to be individually wired.

9) The first available computer kit was the altair.

10)  Twenty years from now the average living room is going to look very different especially in terms of digital visual media. The two dimensional interfaces of todays computer will seem ancient as three dimensional interfaces consisting of holographic interfaces will be absolute. These super computers will be able to project films and other types of data onto walls, however most programs will be run in three dimensions. Furthermore books will because interactive, objects such as the kindle and ipad will remain. I believe this because of the way people do research today, if one is reading he/she quickly surfs the web or smartphone when they have a question, therefore if reading was always done digitally, one can do research when stumbling, immediately. The video games these systems can run will be extraordinary as well, games that completely immerse the user's senses in every aspect in order to achieve a higher sense of reality. Perhaps classrooms and professors will be made holographic so students can learn from home or not miss a sick day.

Homework Week 1 DAI 227

1. What made Charles Babbage's Analytical Engine different compared to his Difference Engine was that it was programable and would produce different results.

2. Ada Lovelace played the role as the first computer programmer in the development of Babbage's Analytical Engine.

3. ENIAC was reprogrammed with removable sections of vacuuming tubing that people had to manually move about in order to program the machine.

4. Post ENIAC, portable data and memory, such as Floppy discs, made programming much faster because the "software," didn't need to be stored in the computer. 

5. Binary counting was better for computers because as much information that is packed into the common numerical could be packed into binary code by only using a 1 and 0 or a flash of a light and it's absence, translate that into a series of switches and code is produced. Therefore this binary language worked perfect for the switches used int he first computers.

6. UNIVAC influenced the portrayal of computers in popular culture in the 1950's by in cartoons such as Warner Bros. Looney Toon's, "Rocket Squad," performing functions such as playing pianos, functions other than just computing numbers. 

7.The name of the computer at Bletchley Park in England, was Colossus.

8. Alan Turing who understood the implication of such machines later went on to describe them as computing machines.

9. I remember the first time that I used a computer, it was at a friends house and we tried to play games on it. The screen was blue and all the information was white. We were unable to play games however we still had a great time just typing randomness into the computer. The several times that I used a computer after that, I played actual computer games on the computer.

I believe that it is these games that allowed me to became much better than my parents at using a computer from a very early age. I had an early familiarity with these machines that I learned through games, these games taught me through repetition and exploration, how to use a computer. I also created a website in school at a very young age, something I don't remember anything about today but it was very simple, maybe two photos and barely any text.

10.I believe that computers are extremely restricted in what they are used for today, I believe that there is a huge amount of untapped potential in computers. Like the house in 1999 A.D., I believe society has the potential to be at that technological level today however for some reason we focus our computing technologies on other things. Individual houses could all have a computer that plugs into it and monitors, literally everything, it could see unseen relationships, create data sheets regarding shopping lists, electrical bills, cooking, cleaning, etc. It could tell you when you need to buy things that are running out, it could monitor light levels one needs to intake, there are so many things.

The computers could also run government, therefore voting could become more and more important on a daily basis or weekly basis, a government where there is no leader but a decider(computer), create for and by the people, where each individual is just as important.