Any discussion of theory has me looking for competing theories and seeing how they function in the same context as the specified theory. In this case Aristotelian drama immediately calls to my mind comparisons with Frazer’s and Campbell’s theories, centered on the hero and their actions, in stark contrast to the gestalt families of dramatic theories focusing on story, context, and relationship.

I’m having a hard time seeing the ‘hero’ theories comparison to software development leading me to think there is some quality to story theories that does relate to software.

Campbell and Frazer call to mind the brute force empiricism of Alexander’s Pattern Language, a set of theories and theoretical approaches that has been widely adopted and proved useful in software development, but at this point we’re talking more about motif and archetype than the organic of gestalt type theories. A comparison in the physical sciences would invoke the challenge of the anatomists and the computationalists, I know of similarly theoretical conflicts in geology and in biology.

I think there is another element to the rise of interactive and interpretative experiences of media linked to a humanistic need for having sufficient interpretive space in media. The rise of all media technology and the links Laurel describes between narrative and technology are occurring simultaneously with a growing body of post-modern criticism that has pushed the interpretive duties away from the author, and I’m speaking here specifically of Stanley Fish’s reader response criticism, and onto the patron of the piece. By eliminating authorial intent as the base of analysis many schools of post-modern analysis have shifted the basic layer of meaning to the text itself (reader response, semiotics, deconstructionism) and have required the bulk of interpretation to occur in the patron. This can be a burden on the patron! Adding additional interpretative layers in the form of media production in the form of games, films, television, teleplays, dramatization, etc. allows the patron to offload their interpretive duties and simply experience or enjoy the meaning of the work.

Laurel’s description of character, agent, and action and their uses in interpreting drama or computer programs is a fascinating framework for these ideas. The first thoughts that come to mind in this area are that we’re essentially dealing with meta agents and meta actions; that is to say that its not the ‘computer’ or the ‘drama’ that is inducing the actions of these agents, but rather there is a very real authorial intent that brings them into being, at which point we’re running into a reduction problem so that’s a bit of a dead end. The other thought I have is remembering several “bad writing tricks” like a character looking into a mirror and describing themselves; the old command to ‘show and not tell’ what is happening in the action.

One point Laurel supports well but I don’t think is as explicitly stated as some of the others is that characters are not people, they are exemplars of the action, there for narrative expediency and coherency but not always meant to represent fully formed people.

I wanted to offer a couple of observations on the discussion topic for this week’s New Media Seminar, Personal Dynamic Media by Alan Kay and Adele Goldberg. The most striking thing about these early discussions of computer technology, in this case about personal computers and applications, is how prophetic they have proved to be. In particular I could readily identify modern analogues to the demonstration applications discussed in the article. From a computer architecture point of view Kay and Goldberg are focusing their Dynabook platform on desktop applications and personal computing, contrasting it with the shared time central computer systems more common in the ’70s. There are  couple of points to take a look at here: where the interface lies, where the data resides, and where the processing happens. As the technologies behind interface, processing, communication, and storage have changed over time we’ve seen all these different areas of computing take place in different physical and logical locations. We’ve been on a path of doing more and more ‘on the desktop’ at the location of the computer interface but that has slowed and started to reverse with the rise of the Internet, ‘the cloud’, and generally increased communications speeds, ubiquity and reliability. Anecdotally, processing that I used to do on the desktop is now being shifted to ‘cloud’ based super computers and specialized back-end processing tasks are taking place on application specific servers. As a side note, I’m still not sure what ‘cloud’ means besides ‘resides somewhere other than the desktop’, it seems to be used in one sense as short hand for logically and physically distributed processing and storage; but more often than not it seems to mean ‘not on the desktop,’ which we used to just call ‘the network.’

The other point I wanted to mention has to do with the nature of application architecture, just as changing technologies have moved processing and storage alternating closer and further, the nature of applications have varied a great deal between paradigms of self-contained desktop programs,  applet program components, web based applications, and device specific portable applications. I have a vague sense that the long dominance of self-contained desktop applications has more to do with a comfortable metaphor than any technical specification. The quick move toward and subsequent feint away from the WWW as application platform in favor of portable devices is the latest development and doesn’t completely make sense to me.

Finally, the question I always want to ask computer, network, and application architects is about optimum document storage. Are documents best stored with their parent applications or separately as ‘documents’ apart from their parent applications. The default hierarchical storage designs in most personal computers tend toward the latter, but that wasn’t always the case and with the move away from desktop storage and away from web applications I’m wondering if documents specifically associated with parent applications will become more prevalent. As a quick example, just about any new personal computer is going to come with a ‘Documents’ directory intended to store files, with applications and their support files hidden in sub directories in ‘other parts’ of the drive. Contrast that with applications that manage their own files like iTunes, or programs with specific file types that would not be intended to be used across applications.

The Build LAB has been moving at break neck pace through the Fall and Spring terms. A couple of highlights include a new research project headed by Rohin Lahoria looking at CNC manufacturing of structural building components. That project will include a join industry/academic meeting April to include workshops, demonstrations, and general knowledge exchange. Very exciting stuff. We are in the very first stages of setting up a summer research project looking at intellectual property issues in the digital/physical conversion process.

As always the best way to see what’s happening in the lab is to come by, announced or otherwise.

Build LAB will be represented at Maker Faire New York 2013 by a presentation outlining the LAB’s mission, purpose, and capabilities. The Faire will be September 21st and 22nd at the Hall of Science in New York. We’ll be bringing a group of interested students to the Faire as well. This will be great exposure for the nascent LAB, a chance to recruit students who probably don’t know about all the amazing things happening in construction, and a nice trip for our students. Attendance last year was right at about 100,000.

If any Virginia Tech students would like to be part of the trip, get in touch with me

.

At the invitation of graduate student Khris Beagley this morning I had the pleasure of watching the testing of some novel composite lumber samples at the Brooks Center, part of the Department of Sustainable Biomaterials. The sample in the photo finally failed at 39k lbs. Khris’s research is working on developing the engineering data to manufacture CLT structural members like the one in the photo using hardwoods instead of softwoods. I also had a tour of the research and teaching facilities at the Brooks Center, all very impressive with a huge range of capabilities in wood. That’s Anthony in the photo.

We have new equipment of all kinds arriving all the time now. The new Grizzly machines (jointer, spindle sander, bandsaw, and planner) are setup, the Festool portable power tools are ready to go, the epoxy mixing and vacuum bagging products are ready to go, the list could go on and on. Renovation work is just beginning on the building to include new power for the big machines. I’ve been in and out the past three weeks first at conference at the Haystack School in Maine and then a couple of days for a family vacation. With just a few weeks until the start of the semester and with the summer Principles course I’m teaching there is less and less time to spend on the lab setup and a greater imperative to concentrate on several writing projects.

We’re looking forward to a great Fall semester with at least a partial lab running and my hope is that the new equipment and machinery will be a draw for our students to come in and help with some of the setup and initial problem solving of getting the big machines running. The current tentative thinking is to have everything running and able to demonstrate by December and as long as our contractors get power installed and our vendors complete their deliveries of new equipment and supplies, I believe that is a comfortable date. 

I’ve just returned to the LAB after a conference at the Haystack Mountain School. It was a really fruitful trip and a great conference on interdisciplinary work. Great presenters, much directly on the topic of working together across boundaries in places just like the LAB. Its going to take some time to unpack everything but there will be some impacts on our projects and collaborations in the LAB. All very good stuff.

Now that I’m back I see some of our new equipment has begun to show up and we’ll be getting to start playing and making with things very soon. Next week is shaping up to be very ‘digital.’

The Build Lab is a project of the Myers-Lawson School of Construction and the Department of Building Construction in the College of Architecture and Urban Studies. Members of those communities are our most immediate users but the LAB is intended to be an interdisciplinary space whose goal is to foster the sort of serendipitous collaboration and discovery that might not otherwise happen in a ‘department only’ lab. The entire Virginia Tech community is encouraged to participate in Build LAB, the only thing required to bring to the LAB are a Kantian good-will.

The LAB houses faculty research activities, class activities, and personal projects in a flow and flux of space and resources. LAB activities exist at all those different project scales from long term research to short term courses and supports the cross-pollinization of ideas and skills that can occur when we bring together so many disparate people and goals. Material availability varies with our sources of support, users will generally need to bring their own materials, but we have an active scrap pile and many projects form directly out of what is available there. Specialized materials like raw stock for the 3D printer and vinyl for the plotter are available on a limited basis, just ask.

What the LAB does ask of its users is flexibility to help with our space allocation and schedule, a willingness to demonstrate at any time whatever work is being performed, and a participatory attitude. LAB culture will develop over time as a product of our users’ experiences and we will implement and revise various LAB policies for space allocation, material use, storage, operating hours, and whatever else we need to do to keep things humming along.

Hours of operation are always an early question. Being open depends upon having a trained and qualified individual (usually students) available and that depends upon funding. We find funding where we can and do our best to keep regular and long hours, the website is the best place to check current operating hours. Our website can only go so far in representing the LAB, you really just need to come by, no experience required.