MachineMachine /stream - tagged with programming http://machinemachine.net/stream/feed en-us http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Sweetcron therourke@gmail.com "Videogames are the experience of being ruled" http://killscreendaily.com/articles/essays/will-work-fun/ Revolutions are often thought of in terms of conflict and disorder, but they just as often come on waves of peaceful obsolescence. The old way of doing things is allowed to linger as long as it likes while everyone else gets on with the future. In the last few years the "free-to-play" model— where games are given away on mobile phones or online while the developer makes money through advertisements or the sale of in-game items—has encircled the videogame industry. At first it seemed like a curiosity, a unique idea that made sense in China and Korea, where loot-hoarding games… ]]> Thu, 17 May 2012 03:32:16 -0700 http://killscreendaily.com/articles/essays/will-work-fun/ How Computational Complexity Will Revolutionise Philosophy http://tumblr.machinemachine.net/post/8731851297

Since the 1930s, the theory of computation has profoundly influenced philosophical thinking about topics such as the theory of the mind, the nature of mathematical knowledge and the prospect of machine intelligence. In fact, it’s hard to think of an idea that has had a bigger impact on philosophy.

And yet there is an even bigger philosophical revolution waiting in the wings. The theory of computing is a philosophical minnow compared to the potential of another theory that is currently dominating thinking about computation.

@ Technology Review

]]> Wed, 10 Aug 2011 05:31:23 -0700 http://tumblr.machinemachine.net/post/8731851297 Brute force or intelligence? The slow rise of computer chess http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2011/08/force-versus-heuristics-the-contentious-rise-of-computer-chess.ars When you visit the History of Computer Chess exhibit at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California, the first machine you see is "The Turk."

In 1770, a Hungarian engineer and diplomat named Wolfgang von Kempelen presented a remarkable invention to the court of Maria Theresa, ruler of Hungary and Austria. It consisted of a mechanical figure dressed in (what Europeans saw as) Oriental garb, presiding over a cabinet upon which a chess board sat. Full of gears ostentatiously placed in a front side drawer, The Turk was cranked up by hand, after which an opponent… ]]> Mon, 08 Aug 2011 08:39:13 -0700 http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2011/08/force-versus-heuristics-the-contentious-rise-of-computer-chess.ars 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/ Wonderful: Robots Develop Own Language http://www.geekologie.com/2011/05/wonderful-robots-develop-own-language.php Researchers at The University of Queensland and Queensland University of Technology have taught robots how to develop their own language. That way, when they're about to deal the finishing blow to an injured human, they can ask if you want the laser beam in your beep boop or grabble grabble. Options, wonderful. The robot language was developed by a group of 'Lingodroids' wandering around an office making up words for places. God, it's called 'by the water cooler' you f***ing idiots! ]]> Thu, 19 May 2011 02:11:00 -0700 http://www.geekologie.com/2011/05/wonderful-robots-develop-own-language.php 40th Anniversary of the Computer Virus http://blog.fortinet.com/40th-anniversary-of-the-computer-virus/ This year marks the 40th anniversary of Creeper, the world’s first computer virus. From Creeper to Stuxnet, the last four decades saw the number of malware instances boom from 1,300 in 1990, to 50,000 in 2000, to over 200 million in 2010. Besides sheer quantity, viruses, which were originally used as academic proof of concepts, quickly turned into geek pranks, then evolved into cybercriminal tools. By 2005, the virus scene had been monetized, and virtually all viruses were developed with the sole purpose of making money via more or less complex business models.

 In the following story,… ]]> Wed, 16 Mar 2011 14:50:04 -0700 http://blog.fortinet.com/40th-anniversary-of-the-computer-virus/ Is It Time to Welcome Our New Computer Overlords? http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2011/02/is-it-time-to-welcome-our-new-computer-overlords/71388/ "Watson is a computer that uncovers meaning in our language, and pinpoints the right answer, instantly. It uses deep analytics to answer questions computers never could before, even the ones on Jeopardy!" Then a Jeopardy! clue is displayed: "Groucho quipped, 'One morning I shot' this 'in my pajamas.'"
Now, that's a provocative set of claims. Watson's performance in the tournament (despite a few howlers along the way) clearly demonstrates that it is very skilled in particular types of question-answering, and I have no doubt it could handle that Groucho clue with aplomb. But does that mean that Watson "understands"… ]]> Thu, 17 Feb 2011 16:38:15 -0700 http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2011/02/is-it-time-to-welcome-our-new-computer-overlords/71388/ The Men Who Stole the World http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/printout/0,29239,2032304_2032746_2032903,00.html A decade ago, four young men changed the way the world works. They did this not with laws or guns or money but with software: they had radical, disruptive ideas, which they turned into code, which they released on the Internet for free. These four men, not one of whom finished college, laid the foundations for much of the digital-media environment we currently inhabit. Then, for all intents and purposes, they vanished.

In 1999 a Northeastern University freshman named Shawn Fanning wrote Napster, thereby pioneering peer-to-peer file sharing and a new paradigm for consuming media without the… ]]> Wed, 01 Dec 2010 05:22:00 -0700 http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/printout/0,29239,2032304_2032746_2032903,00.html The Year of The Animated Gif http://www.artfagcity.com/2010/10/07/the-year-of-the-animated-gif/ 2010 is the year of the animated gif. They are everywhere. Tumblr’s Three Frames, a site that posts only gifs drawn from movies on a daily basis is recommended to me by students virtually every time I give a lecture. Fuck Yeah Gifs, and Gif Party are... ]]> Tue, 12 Oct 2010 02:47:31 -0700 http://www.artfagcity.com/2010/10/07/the-year-of-the-animated-gif/ The Year of The Animated Gif http://www.artfagcity.com/2010/10/07/the-year-of-the-animated-gif/ 2010 is the year of the animated gif. They are everywhere. Tumblr’s Three Frames, a site that posts only gifs drawn from movies on a daily basis is recommended to me by students virtually every time I give a lecture. Fuck Yeah Gifs, and Gif Party are also popular. Images on group artist-run blogs like Nasty Nets and Spirit Surfers have always had a keen interest in the file format and have custom software to better display them. No one does the job better than Dump.fm on the image platform front though, which likely explains the frantic production amongst their… ]]> Tue, 12 Oct 2010 02:47:00 -0700 http://www.artfagcity.com/2010/10/07/the-year-of-the-animated-gif/ Big Ball of Mud http://www.laputan.org/mud/mud.html#ShearingLayers The notion of SHEARING LAYERS is one of the centerpieces of Brand's How Buildings Learn [Brand 1994]. Brand, in turn synthesized his ideas from a variety of sources, including British designer Frank Duffy, and ecologist R. V. O'Neill.
Brand, Page 13

Brand quotes Duffy as saying: "Our basic argument is that there isn't any such thing as a building. A building properly conceived is several layers of longevity of built components".

Brand distilled Duffy's proposed layers into these six: Site, Structure, Skin, Services, Space Plan, and Stuff. Site is geographical setting. Structure is… ]]> Sun, 18 Jul 2010 06:09:00 -0700 http://www.laputan.org/mud/mud.html#ShearingLayers Critical Code Studies http://www.electronicbookreview.com/thread/electropoetics/codology by Mark C. Marino

The computer does not understand what it says. Literally speaking, the computer does not even interpret that code. When the function is called, the computer will print (output) the list of the two atoms (as symbolic units are called in Lisp) "Hello" and "World." The single quotation marks tell the computer not to interpret the words "Hello" and "World" (as the double quotation marks do in this sentence). With this distinction, language becomes divided between the operational code and data. The computer here merely shuffles the words as so many strings of data.… ]]> Mon, 21 Jun 2010 03:30:00 -0700 http://www.electronicbookreview.com/thread/electropoetics/codology The Chess Master and the Computer http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2010/feb/11/the-chess-master-and-the-computer/ In 1985, in Hamburg, I played against thirty-two different chess computers at the same time in what is known as a simultaneous exhibition. I walked from one machine to the next, making my moves over a period of more than five hours. The four leading chess computer manufacturers had sent their top models, including eight named after me from the electronics firm Saitek.

It illustrates the state of computer chess at the time that it didn’t come as much of a surprise when I achieved a perfect 32–0 score, winning every game, although there was an uncomfortable… ]]> Sun, 20 Jun 2010 15:11:00 -0700 http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2010/feb/11/the-chess-master-and-the-computer/ Inside Code: A Conversation with Dr. Lane DeNicola and Seph Rodney http://www.3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2010/06/inside-code-a-conversation.html
posted by Daniel Rourke

A couple of weeks ago I was invited to take part in a panel discussion on London based, arts radio station, Resonance FM. It was for The Thread, a lively show that aims to use speech and discussion as a tool for research, opening up new and unexpected angles through the unravelling of conversation.

The Thread's host, London Consortium researcher Seph Rodney, and I were lucky enough to share the discussion with Dr. Lane DeNicola,…

]]> Sun, 13 Jun 2010 21:25:00 -0700 http://www.3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2010/06/inside-code-a-conversation.html Triumph of the Cyborg Composer http://www.miller-mccune.com/culture-society/triumph-of-the-cyborg-composer-8507/ Along with his work on synthesis, or using machines to create sounds, Cope had dabbled in the use of software to compose music. Inspired by the field of artificial intelligence, he thought there might be a way to create a virtual David Cope software to create new pieces in his style.

The effort fit into a long tradition of what would come to be called algorithmic composition. Algorithmic composers use a list of instructions — as opposed to sheer inspiration — to create their works. During the 18th century, Joseph Haydn and others created scores for a… ]]> Fri, 12 Mar 2010 04:09:00 -0700 http://www.miller-mccune.com/culture-society/triumph-of-the-cyborg-composer-8507/ Code is Law http://harvardmagazine.com/2000/01/code-is-law.html Every age has its potential regulator, its threat to liberty. Our founders feared a newly empowered federal government; the Constitution is written against that fear. John Stuart Mill worried about the regulation by social norms in nineteenth-century England; his book On Liberty is written against that regulation. Many of the progressives in the twentieth century worried about the injustices of the market. The reforms of the market, and the safety nets that surround it, were erected in response. This regulator is code—the software and hardware that make cyberspace as it is. This code, or architecture, sets the terms on which… ]]> Sun, 07 Feb 2010 10:20:00 -0700 http://harvardmagazine.com/2000/01/code-is-law.html De-constructing 'code' (picking apart its assumptions) http://ask.metafilter.com/mefi/144810 De-constructing 'code': I am looking for philosophical (from W. Benjamin through to post-structuralism and beyond) examinations of 'code'. That both includes the assumptions contained in the word 'code' and any actual objects or subjects that code is connected to - including, but not limited to: computer programming, cyphers, linguistics, genetics etc. I am looking to question the assumptions of 'code'. Perhaps a specific example of a theorist de-constructing the term.

I am currently knee deep in an examination of certain practices and assumptions that have arisen from digital media/medium and digital practice (art and making in the era of… ]]> Tue, 02 Feb 2010 07:35:00 -0700 http://ask.metafilter.com/mefi/144810 The Work of the Moving Image in the Age of its Digital Corruptibility http://www.3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2009/12/the-work-of-the-moving-image-in-the-age-of-its-digital-corruptibility.html

by Daniel Rourke

"The cinema can, with impunity, bring us closer to things or take us away from them and revolve around them, it suppresses both the anchoring of the subject and the horizon of the world... It is not the same as the other arts, which aim rather at something unreal or a tal. With cinema, it is the world which becomes its own image, and not an image which becomes world."

Giles Deleuze, Cinema 1: The Movement Image

Take 12 images and splice them end to…

]]> Sun, 27 Dec 2009 22:06:00 -0700 http://www.3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2009/12/the-work-of-the-moving-image-in-the-age-of-its-digital-corruptibility.html The dark side of the internet http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/nov/26/dark-side-internet-freenet In the 'deep web', Freenet software allows users complete anonymity as they share viruses, criminal contacts and child pornography. The modern internet is often thought of as a miracle of openness – its global reach, its outflanking of censors, its seemingly all-seeing search engines. "Many many users think that when they search on Google they're getting all the web pages," says Anand Rajaraman, co-founder of Kosmix, one of a new generation of post-Google search engine companies. But Rajaraman knows different. "I think it's a very small fraction of the deep web which search engines are bringing to the surface. I… ]]> Tue, 08 Dec 2009 08:14:00 -0700 http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/nov/26/dark-side-internet-freenet Arcangel and the future of digi/net art http://www.metafilter.com/mefi/87272 Corey Arcangel is perhaps the internet's most infamous hack, masher-upper, digi/net artist. His work stands for a growing culture of artists who run wildly through animated GIF landscapes populated with corrupted data-compressed bunny rabbits and tinny, MIDI renditions of Savage Garden ballads. As the Lisson Gallery, London, opens its archives to Arcangel's curatorial eye, could digi/net art be set to infect the real, fleshy world, like a rampant Conficker Worm? Has YouTube become the truest reflection of our anthropological selves? Are… ]]> Tue, 08 Dec 2009 06:44:50 -0700 http://www.metafilter.com/mefi/87272