MachineMachine /stream - tagged with code http://machinemachine.net/stream/feed en-us http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Sweetcron therourke@gmail.com Peter Krapp: Noise Channels: Glitch and Error in Digital Culture (2011) http://monoskop.org/log/?p=4169 To err is human; to err in digital culture is design. In the glitches, inefficiencies, and errors that ergonomics and usability engineering strive to surmount, Peter Krapp identifies creative reservoirs of computer-mediated interaction. Throughout new media cultures, he traces a resistance to the heritage of motion studies, ergonomics, and efficiency, showing how creativity is stirred within the networks of digital culture. ]]> Wed, 23 May 2012 09:46:17 -0700 http://monoskop.org/log/?p=4169 Did a Copying Mistake Build Man's Brain? http://www.livescience.com/20102-copying-mistake-build-man-brain.html A copying error appears to be responsible for critical features of the human brain that distinguish us from our closest primate kin, new research finds. When tested out in mice, researchers found this "error" caused the rodents' brain cells to move into place faster and enabled more connections between brain cells. ]]> Wed, 09 May 2012 08:14:46 -0700 http://www.livescience.com/20102-copying-mistake-build-man-brain.html Post-Digitalism and Contemporary Spanish Fiction http://hispanicissues.umn.edu/assets/doc/02_SIERRA.pdf Postdigital literature is not centered in code, but in addressing a reality shaped by a mix of coded/uncoded reality – German Sierra (german_sierra) ]]> Mon, 30 Apr 2012 10:48:18 -0700 http://hispanicissues.umn.edu/assets/doc/02_SIERRA.pdf Synthetic Genetic Polymers Capable of Heredity and Evolution http://www.sciencemag.org/content/336/6079/341?utm_content=tweetdeck&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=science&utm_source=shortener Genetic information storage and processing rely on just two polymers, DNA and RNA, yet whether their role reflects evolutionary history or fundamental functional constraints is currently unknown. With the use of polymerase evolution and design, we show that genetic information can be stored in and recovered from six alternative genetic polymers based on simple nucleic acid architectures not found in nature [xeno-nucleic acids (XNAs)]. We also select XNA aptamers, which bind their targets with high affinity and specificity, demonstrating that beyond heredity, specific XNAs have the capacity for Darwinian evolution and folding into defined structures. Thus, heredity and evolution, two… ]]> Fri, 20 Apr 2012 12:31:07 -0700 http://www.sciencemag.org/content/336/6079/341?utm_content=tweetdeck&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=science&utm_source=shortener THEORY BEYOND THE CODES: Doing with Icons makes Symbols; or, Jailbreaking the Perfect User Interface http://www.ctheory.net/articles.aspx?id=703/ctheorynet Doing with Icons makes Symbols; or, Jailbreaking the Perfect User Interface http://t.co/t4bOSiYv Norm Friesen – khaoid (khaoid) http://twitter.com/khaoid/status/192507088491126784 ]]> Wed, 18 Apr 2012 00:29:31 -0700 http://www.ctheory.net/articles.aspx?id=703/ctheorynet What is the biological equivalent of discovering the Higgs Boson? http://www.nature.com/news/life-changing-experiments-the-biological-higgs-1.10310#/ We put the question to experts in various fields. Biology is no stranger to large, international collaborations with lofty goals, they pointed out — the race to sequence the human genome around the turn of the century had scientists riveted. But most biological quests lack the mathematical precision, focus and binary satisfaction of a yes-or-no answer that characterize the pursuit of the Higgs. “Most of what is important is messy, and not given to a moment when you plant a flag and crack the champagne,” says Steven Hyman, a neuroscientist at the Broad Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Nevertheless, our informal… ]]> Thu, 29 Mar 2012 08:44:00 -0700 http://www.nature.com/news/life-changing-experiments-the-biological-higgs-1.10310#/ Death of a data haven: cypherpunks, WikiLeaks, and the world's smallest nation http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2012/03/sealand-and-havenco.ars A data haven is "the information equivalent to a tax haven," a country that helps you evade other countries' rules on what you can and can't do with your bits. (Think "Swiss banking" for data.) The best-known example comes from Neal Stephenson's 1999 best-seller Cryptonomicon, whose heroes go up against murderous warlords, rapacious venture capitalists, and epic authorial digressions in their quest to bring untraceable communications to the masses and get rich in the process. ]]> Thu, 29 Mar 2012 06:46:28 -0700 http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2012/03/sealand-and-havenco.ars Death of a data haven: cypherpunks, WikiLeaks, and the world's smallest nation http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2012/03/sealand-and-havenco.ars A data haven is "the information equivalent to a tax haven," a country that helps you evade other countries' rules on what you can and can't do with your bits. (Think "Swiss banking" for data.) The best-known example comes from Neal Stephenson's 1999 best-seller Cryptonomicon, whose heroes go up against murderous warlords, rapacious venture capitalists, and epic authorial digressions in their quest to bring untraceable communications to the masses and get rich in the process. ]]> Wed, 28 Mar 2012 03:42:27 -0700 http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2012/03/sealand-and-havenco.ars Gamers Outdo Computers at Matching Up Disease Genes http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=gamers-outdo-computers-matching-disease-genes/gamers-outdo-computers-at-matching-up-disease-genes-scientific-american An excellent example of distributed cognition. http://t.co/O3V5h1Nv – Sam Scott (bigsagacity) http://twitter.com/bigsagacity/status/184651180788551680 ]]> Tue, 27 Mar 2012 07:58:19 -0700 http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=gamers-outdo-computers-matching-disease-genes/gamers-outdo-computers-at-matching-up-disease-genes-scientific-american Interactive Fluid Dynamics Rendered in ASCII http://nkwiatek.com//nick-kwiatek-web-amp-interaction-designer-developer Interactive Fluid Dynamics Rendered in ASCII (by @nkwiatek): http://t.co/zwEhxVMJ #code #play #x ]]> Sat, 17 Mar 2012 04:54:35 -0700 http://nkwiatek.com//nick-kwiatek-web-amp-interaction-designer-developer Trans Terra Form: Liquid Architectures And The Loss of Inscription https://findings.com/therourke/finding/213609 To inscribe is to write in, to place the mark of one thing within the fabric of another. Carving is the prototypical kind of inscription, though every other kind of writing partakes in this modification of one substance by another: the particles of ink lodge themselves within the roughness of the paper and will not leave without a trace. Even invisible ink enters the pores of the paper upon which secrets are trusted. Visibility itself is not a measure of inscription, modification of the substratum is. Digital writing celebrates the loss of inscription by removing the trace from acts of… ]]> Fri, 16 Mar 2012 07:31:02 -0700 https://findings.com/therourke/finding/213609 How Can We Understand Code as a "Critical Artifact"? http://henryjenkins.org/2011/09/how_can_we_understand_code_as.html The working definition for Critical Code Studies (CCS) is "the application of humanities style hermeneutics to the interpretation of computer source code." However, lately, I have found it more useful to explain the field to people as the analysis of technoculture (culture as imbricated with technology) through the entry point of the source code of a particular digital object. The code is not the ends of the analyses, but the beginning. Critical Code Studies finds code meaningful not as text but "as a text," an artifact of a digital moment, full of hooks for discussing digital culture and programming communities.… ]]> Wed, 21 Sep 2011 04:23:48 -0700 http://henryjenkins.org/2011/09/how_can_we_understand_code_as.html How Can We Understand Code as a "Critical Artifact"? http://henryjenkins.org/2011/09/how_can_we_understand_code_as.html The working definition for Critical Code Studies (CCS) is "the application of humanities style hermeneutics to the interpretation of computer source code." However, lately, I have found it more useful to explain the field to people as the analysis of technoculture (culture as imbricated with technology) through the entry point of the source code of a particular digital object. The code is not the ends of the analyses, but the beginning. Critical Code Studies finds code meaningful not as text but "as a text," an artifact of a digital moment, full of hooks for discussing digital culture and programming communities.… ]]> Tue, 20 Sep 2011 10:26:12 -0700 http://henryjenkins.org/2011/09/how_can_we_understand_code_as.html The Philosophy of Software: Code and Mediation in the Digital Age http://www.leonardo.info/reviews/sept2011/berry_parikka.php Berry’s book is less one specific philosophical argument of what software is and what code does, but consists of chapters that illuminate different ways one can approach software and software culture philosophically. It gives a broad way of looking at the way in which code mediates and media is nowadays coded. As such, it indeed is good in tapping into various fields of philosophy: ontology (what is code as mode of abstraction from voltage differences to assembly languages), aesthetics and phenomenology (algorithmic art and how do we experience code), epistemology (how do we understand, make sense of code and how… ]]> Tue, 06 Sep 2011 04:15:28 -0700 http://www.leonardo.info/reviews/sept2011/berry_parikka.php The Manichean World of Tim Wu http://prospect.org/cs/articles?article=the_manichean_world_of_tim_wu For the past dozen years, several distinguished thinkers about law and technology have warned that a golden age of Internet freedom may be about to close. The most influential alarm-ringer has been Lawrence Lessig, who argued in his 1999 book, Code, that under corporate and governmental pressures, the Net could be flipped to serve top-down control instead of individual freedom. In The Future of the Internet and How to Stop It (2008), Jonathan Zittrain showed why this reversal might come about as a result of popular demand. Both the personal computer and the Internet are what Zittrain calls “generative” technologies,… ]]> Thu, 18 Aug 2011 01:34:27 -0700 http://prospect.org/cs/articles?article=the_manichean_world_of_tim_wu How Digital Detectives Deciphered Stuxnet, the Most Menacing Malware in History http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/07/how-digital-detectives-deciphered-stuxnet/all/1 On June 17, 2010, Sergey Ulasen was in his office in Belarus sifting through e-mail when a report caught his eye. A computer belonging to a customer in Iran was caught in a reboot loop — shutting down and restarting repeatedly despite efforts by operators to take control of it. It appeared the machine was infected with a virus.
Ulasen heads an antivirus division of a small computer security firm in Minsk called VirusBlokAda. Once a specialized offshoot of computer science, computer security has grown into a multibillion-dollar industry over the last decade keeping pace with an explosion in… ]]> Wed, 13 Jul 2011 03:09:47 -0700 http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/07/how-digital-detectives-deciphered-stuxnet/all/1 Animated GIFs Triumphant http://dashes.com/anil/2011/07/animated-gifs-triumphant.html The facts about animated GIFs are stark. They only support a palette of 256 colors. No current browser lists support for animated GIF as a codec for the HTML5 <video> tag. That omission is understandable, as GIF compression of animation isn't particularly efficient. They even lived under an unfashionable cloud of patent uncertainty during the web's formative years. And those are just some of the traits I love about the format.

GIF's origins are modest. The Graphics Interchange Format was introduced by Compuserve in 1987 with a specification published by the late Larry Wood. By just two… ]]> Tue, 12 Jul 2011 07:41:34 -0700 http://dashes.com/anil/2011/07/animated-gifs-triumphant.html Oh, Infinite Stream of Data and Light http://killingthebuddha.com/mag/icon/oh-infinite-stream-of-data-and-light/ Visitors enter the dark, gargantuan room and take up postures of reverence in front of a massive screen, which towers 40 feet above them. They take off their shoes at the edge of the white floor—the sort used in dance studios—laid across the room’s stripped wooden floorboards. They sit down in front of the screen with legs crossed, rapt in attention. Some lay flat on their backs. Others press their bodies up against the vertical screen and let the sound and light play over them. Strips of black and white flash across the screen in varying configurations, loosely attuned to… ]]> Thu, 16 Jun 2011 16:22:37 -0700 http://killingthebuddha.com/mag/icon/oh-infinite-stream-of-data-and-light/ Digital Autonomy http://art-research.co.uk/digital-autonomy-a-reponse-to-hito-steyerl

“Is an ephemeral image, a moment in a streaming video, a thing? Or if the image is frozen as a still, is it now a thing? Is a dream, a city, a sensation, a derivative, an ideology, a decay, a kiss? I haven’t the least idea.”

Extract from David Miller, Materiality : An Introduction [1]

In A Thing Like You and Me, Hito Steyerl plays out her ongoing obsession with the copy, skirting briefly over her wider, yet more implicit concern: the digital. Echoing the work of Bruno Latour, Steyerl acknowledges the materiality by which… ]]> Sat, 11 Jun 2011 04:02:00 -0700 http://art-research.co.uk/digital-autonomy-a-reponse-to-hito-steyerl/is-an-ephemeral-image-a-moment-in-a-streaming-video-a GlitchBot http://bitsynthesis.com/glitchbot/ GlitchBot is an automated glitch creation / distribution program and persona.
GlitchBot maintains an active presence on flickr, including a profile and photostream, with new images created and uploaded daily.
GlitchBot is not an interactive program. GlitchBot works alone on a fixed schedule, creating a single new glitched image every day and presenting it to the world via the GlitchBot flickr page (see above links) and slideshow (see below).
GlitchBot creates its images by glitching source images pulled from other flickr users' photostreams. Only source images with an appropriate Creative Commons license are used. In order to… ]]> Mon, 30 May 2011 02:17:52 -0700 http://bitsynthesis.com/glitchbot/