DAI 227 Week 4 Questions

DAI 227 Week 4 Questions

1. According to the text "Remediation" the author uses the phrase (in relation to Hollywood's use of computer graphics)
"remediation operates in both directions" - what is meant by this?

What the author of “Remediation” means by saying “remediation operates in both directions” is that film and television can seek to appropriate and refashion digital graphics and vice versa. In more detail, films use digital compositing often, especially in action-adventure films. The goal is to make stunts and special effects appear as natural as possible. Also, computer graphics can replace real life for cartoons such as Up or Toy Story. Overall, it is either reality or digital graphics that tries to refashion the other.

2. What does Michael Benedikt, author of "Cyberspace the First Steps" introduction argue had happened to modern city by the late 60s, having become more than 'a collection of buildings and streets'?

In addition to becoming a collection of buildings and streets, the city also became a mess of massive communication, transportation, storage, and education. No matter how neatly structured or green the grass, the complexity of the working system is a huge cluster of busy work. The city by the late 60s was building itself unpredictably and buildings played with all the technological toys and tools that were given to them.

3. In his short story "Skinner's Room" William Gibson describes how Skinner watches a tiny portable 'pop-up' TV set. What can skinner no longer remember? (remediation in relation to television as an idea is neatly summed up in this sentance!)

In the short story, Skinner can no longer remember when he was able to distinguish commercials from programming. He does not turn the sound on because the images displayed are comforting. The television makes it seem like life is there. Digital media, in this case television, is refashioning real life for Skinner.

4. Author of the famous pamphlet "Culture Jamming" Mark Dery paraphrases Umberto Eco and his phrase "semiological guerrilla warfare". What does this mean?

According to Umberto Eco, the people have a residual freedom to read and interpret a message in a different way. By allowing and encouraging the people to control a message and produce multiple interpretations, one medium can be employed to communicate a series of opinions on another medium. The result would be the universe of Technological Communication being patrolled by groups of communications guerrillas “who would restore a critical dimension to passive reception.”

5. From Mark Dery's pamphlet, briefly describe "Subvertizing"

“Subvertising” is the production and dissemination of anti-ads that deflect madison Avenue’s attempts to turn the consumer’s attention in a given direction and is a ubiquitous form of jamming.

Week 4 Google Sketchup Assignment

Front View

Top View

Perspectival View

Closer Perspectival View

Side View

This scene is meant to be for a video game with its random elements scattered about the landscape. The area is designed with both land and water because it will provide maximum potential for exploration in a video game. There is not much detail, but the player is supposed to be able to travel on the water to transfer from island to island as well as go underwater. The planet hovering above is more terrain to explore. The diversity should keep players entertained and give them the freedom to go wherever they want.

                The complex looking hover craft is what enables the player to glide over the water and, with some imagination, transform into a submarine that can explore the depths of the sea. The random houses should provide more interactive elements to the scene and the castle is the same but on a larger scale with more possible activities. The large catapult is what launches the character to the planet above. As ludicrous as it is, I believe it will be rather entertaining. As for the volcano, any danger that can be incorporated will increase the entertainment level. The overall scene may not be much right now but it has been made at an amateur level and it is meant to appeal to a player’s desire to explore wherever they want to.

DAI 227 Week 3

1)     In Paulina Boorsooks Book "Cyberselfish" she contrasts the development of technologies that were group efforts and thus stand in stark contrast to the myth of the lone 'hero' entrepreneur. Name two such more group-based technologies. (Under the heading "Closer to the Machine")

a) The World Wide Web. Thousands of programmers from all over the world contributed in the Open Sourcfe computer movement.

b) The software of computers such as the operating system

2) In the section labelled "Human, Too Human" Boosook describes one type of technolibertarian - the "Extropians". What do extropians want or yearn for?
Extropians yearn for maximizing human potential by becoming transhuman. They believe we should enhance ourselves through as many surgical procedures as possible, through cryonics, through uploading brain-contents in computers, and reaching for the stars.

3) In her film BIT PLANE, Natalie Jeremijenko describes Doug Englebart as being a pioneer - of what? (view film via VIMEO link in separate post)

Natalie Jeremijenko describes Doug Englebart as being a pioneer of personal computing
4) In "Silicon Valley Mystery House" writer Langdon Winner compares the Silicon Valley to the Winchester Mystery House. In what way does he consider them similar?

The Winchester Mystery House and Silicon Valley are similar in the way that they both keep expanding at an astounding rate. The drive for expansion is fear, as both are “scared of death.” Mrs. Winchester kept expanding night and day in order to escape vengeful ghosts, and Silicon Valley keeps expanding to avoid declining profits. Rather than confusing rooms, Silicon Valley builds more offices, production plants, satellite hookups, etc.

5) In Langdon Winner's essay "Silicon Valley Mystery House" he describes East Palo Alto as a very different kind of place from areas such as upscale Stanford and downtown Palo Alto. What type of area is East Palo alto, "just  across highway 101"?

As described in the reading, East Palo Alto is a “forgotten land” that is considered ghetto and seemingly beyond remedy for poverty and unemployment. It is barely acknowledged by its “neighboring community of technical scholars”.

6) In her Processed World article "The Disappeared of Silicon Valley" Paulina Boorsook's "Deep Throat" (inside information source) describes some unpleasant realities of most Silicon Valley startups and how they end up. List two.

Most startups are not high-tech and are not venture-funded. People can lose their savings, salary, and even their sanity as the inside informative puts it. Even the hardworking people can get screwed when the company folds, gets acquired at a discount, or goes public then tanks.

7) What is the Long Now foundation and why was it formed?
The Long Now foundation was formed to develop the Clock and Library projects and counter the “faster/cheaper” thinking today with a “slower/better” mindset.

8) In the documentary DOCUMENTARY - SILICON VALLEY - A HUNDRED YEAR RENAISSANCE (1997) Steve Jobs describes the joy of successfully making "blue boxes" which let he and his friends make free phone calls. What aspect of this experience does he say was so important to the creation of Apple computer?
The experience of making “blue boxes” made Steve Jobs and his friend realize how powerful an idea can be. With the “blue box” they could control billions of dollars’ worth of infrastructure with a couple hundred dollars’ worth of tools. It gave them confidence and made them believe that they could influence the world.

9) List three aspects of the work of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) - (see the "Our Work" section of their website)

EFF battles for digital freedom in the courts. They cover free speech, innovation, intellectual property, international issues, and privacy. More specifically, the EFF fights for issues such as bloggers’ rights, anonymity, privacy, copyright trolls, file sharing, etc.

10) According to Richard Stallman's website, what is his status in relation to the social media site Facebook?

Richard Stallman is not a fan of Facebook at all. He believes that people should create their own sites rather than relying on a social network. Since most people rely on this site, Facebook has a lot of power. The site stores our data and can take it away from us or use it in a way they shouldn’t. It threatens privacy in many ways, so people should not post their personal information on it at all. In fact, we should not use it period.

DAI 227 Week 2

1)     Why was the period at the turn of the 20th century so important?
 The turn of the 20^th century was important because the conditions and perspective of technology was changing drastically. All sorts of new technology and development opened up the perspective of people and encourages the future to reinvent culture, technology, etc.

2) What aspects of the Dada art movemement are important from the point of view of the rise of the computers and digital visual media? (for example Marcel Duchamp's "readymades"?)
One aspect of the Dada movement is that it introduces new ways of thinking. This is important to the point of view of the rise of computers and digital visual media because instead of a strict and structured thought people will need to think outside the box to progress in technology. The readymades were jabs at several different aspects of culture at the time. In order for digital visual media to be in a rise people will have to abandon or change most of their current culture.

3) Name one aspect that links "The Man with a Movie Camera" with digital media according to Lev Manovich (ReadingsB)
One aspect that about “The Man with a Movie Camera” is the composition of different material from several different documentaries. This links it to digital media because it is the most important example of database imagination in modern media. It was a new type of interface operation.

4) What was 'constructivism'?
Constructivism was a philosophy from Russia in which  you construct a new society.

5) Read pages VI (6) to XXII (22) of "The Language of New Media" in ReadingsB:


What does Lev Manovich suggest are the 'three levels' of "The Man with a Movie Camera"?
One level is the story of a cameraman filming material for the film. The second level is the shots of an audience watching the finished film in a movie theater. The third level is the film “The Man with a Movie Camera” which consists of footage recorded in Moscow, Kiev, and Riga.

6) Who first developed the idea of "Cybernetics"?
Norbert Weiner

7) In "Computer Lib" Ted Nelson describes Hypertext as "Non ___________" writing (fill in the blank)
Non- Sequential writing

8) (Lecture) why were transistors, even though 100 times smaller than vacuum tubes considered impractical for building computers in the 1960s?
Transistors were still impractical because they took a lot of wiring that easily gets tangled by the amazing amount of wiring required. Only so many pieces could be wired together. It became known as the tyranny of numbers.

9) What was the name of the first commercial available computer (kit)?
The name of the first commercial available computer kit was the Altair

10) Write a paragraph:


In your own words: What are things going to look like in 20 years from now in the average living room in terms of digital visual media? What types of digital media will your kids be using around 2030?

My kids will probably be using interfaces that seem to float in mid-air. It is already a concept that is being imagined in science fiction movies, in which the operator is touching images or buttons that hover right in front of their face. This interface is also capable of being dragged around at the user’s convenience. While it may seem ludicrous, it is actually this type of thinking that allowed the progression digital visual media. I believe this is what my kids will be using thirty years from now because the trend seems to be that the lack of something is more interesting. For example, cell phones are now touch screen since buttons are no longer as intriguing. The fact that this imaginary floating interface is being feature in blockbuster movies is also evidence that this is how society wants future technology to be.

DAI 227 Week 1

The Machine That Changed the World

1) How was unique about Charles Babbage Analytical Engine, compared to his original Difference Engine?

     The Analytical Engine was programmable with punch cards, while the Difference Engine was not. This enabled the Analytical Engine to do a limitless number of computations.

2) What role did Ada Lovelace play in the development of the Analytical Engine?

     Ada Lovelace enrolled herself as Babbage's interpreter to the world at large after seeing a test piece of the Analytical Engine. She also gave enthusiastic support to Babbage. She was known as the first computer programmer for her detailed notes on Babbage's engine.

3) How was the ENIAC computer reprogrammed?

     The ENIAC computer was reprogrammed by rewiring the hundreds of different cables since it could not store its program inside.

4) Name an innovation that helped make programming faster post ENIAC (see ep. 2)

     The transistor is the innovation that helped make programming faster. It replaced the vacuum tube since it was smaller, more powerful, and projected much less heat.

5) What is it about binary counting that makes it so well suited to computers?

     It only has two numbers: 0 and 1. These two numbers alone can produce just as many different possibilties as sets of ten and they can be represented very simply by a switch of on and off.

6) In what ways did UNIVAC influence the portrayal of computers in popular culture in the 1950s? Give an example. (see ep. 2)

     At first no one beileved that computers were capable of predicting and calculating. One example is the calculation of Eisenhower winning by a landslide. CBS did not believe it and stated so on public television. However, when the machine successfully calculated the landslide win UNIVAC caught everyone's attention and people started believing in the capability of computers.

7) Codebreaking required the automatic manipulation of symbols to unscramble messages during WWII.

What was the name of the rudimentary computer at Bletchley Park in England that unscrambled Nazi codes.
     The name of the computer was Colossus

8) Alan Turing who understood the implications of such machines later went on to describe them as __________ machines.

     Alan Turing describes them as computing machines


General Questions

9) Describe when you first used computers and what types of tasks you performed on them.

     When I first used computers I played around with simple programs such as the paint and the games that came with most computers. I remember playing solitaire and composing horrid pictures at first but in a couple years I started using it for more specific purposes. My papers in elementary and middle school were typed with Microsoft Word and amateur presentations were made with Powerpoint. Whenever there was a computer game available I would play that on the computer as well.
     Now that I am older I am using the internet to conduct research for massive essays and soon I will be using Adobe Creative Suite 4 to do classwork. In addition to mandatory work I also use the computer for the internet and all its glory. Online social networks and more games can be found online.

10) How restricted do you think computers are in terms of what they can do compared to how they are most often used?

     The computers are not very restricted. Of course, social networking and status updates does not seem very complex but the process behind it must be very intricate. First of all, people must be connected in order to instantly transmit random information. The computer enables people to communicate within seconds and manages to do so on a massive scale. The whole world is very demanding of the computer, and while the majority of the public may not be working on programs for computers they still require the computer to do tasks that seem impossible.