For the NMS this semester, just read Kay and Goldberg’s (1977) “Personal Dynamic Media,” which was more or less a product review for their proposed and in-the-works “Dynabook.” It had its interesting aspects: seeing that in 1977 the concept of…
October 2014
McLuhan and Determinism: I really have little choice!
Marshall McLuhan’s media work has been criticized as being technologically determinist. In other words, he supposedly argues that new media technologies (such as the printing press, radio, and TV) effectively dictate the actions of people who use the technologies. In a determinist approach, human choice is minimized or disappears altogether. In the world of the […]
Kay & Goldberg: I’ve been a fool
I loved this reading. It was one of those readings that made me realize that there was a lot of thought about things that I take for granted long before I was born. In particular, I enjoyed the way in…
Legacies Found and Lost. Wikipedia and Laika
I have a thing for space dogs, especially Laika, the first living being to orbit the earth. Less than a month after the launch of Sputnik 1 in October 1957, the Soviets sent Laika to the great beyond in Sputnik 2. The fact of her voyage made her an instant celebrity as well as a […]
Like a Pizza, or maybe a Theremin?
Originally posted on Sirius Reflections:
Last wednesday’s class kept me thinking well into the evening. (Yes, this post has been in the works for a while. I’m thinking of this as an elastic week.) I loved how Janine and Nathan framed our discussion — there was just the right balance between supplementary / explanatory nuggets…
Tangential post with Asimov
I ran across this amazing essay by Asimov today, which I think I can tie into the new media seminar, we’ll see. It is something he wrote on creativity in the 1950s and is filled with wonderful take-aways, aka nuggets.…
14 NMS_05 Icarus, a second chance
14 NMS_05 Icarus, a second chance ref: Ted Nelson, Computer Lib / Dream Machines OK, I apologize. Icarus is back. He’s dried himself off, put…
Computer Lib or Computer Fib?
We have been reading about visionaries who have (correctly) forecast some amazing things that computers can do. Most recently, we read how Ted Nelson described (in the 1970s) how computer images on screens could be resized, how people will uses their fingers instead of styli or other pointers, and how these technologies will make it […]
Discussion ideas for Ted Nelson
For those who may read this before this afternoon’s seminar and want to think ahead and/or for reference during our discussion, here’s a few things that feel to me like good starting places: No More Teachers’ Dirty Looks This section of Dream Machines was, for me, the most thought-provoking — particularly given that our discussions […]
Double Creative Disruption Nugget
The internet’s disruptiveness is a consequence of its technical DNA. In programmers’ parlance, it’s a feature, not a bug – i.e. an intentional facility, not a mistake. And it’s difficult to see how we could disable the network’s facility for generating unpleasant surprises without also disabling the other forms of creativity it engenders. — John […]