Interactivity : Whitney Artport Findings

Found under Algorithmic & Software is the Ecosystem project

• important step in game play that the environment and structure of the game feeds (in realtime) off of outside data (generated by the international currency markets and market indexes along with the weather report at JFK airport)
• much of the world “lives” off of these markets today as the global economy is growing more interconnected each day
• transforms the financial world into a 3D world of flocks of birds which makes into nature which reinforces the fact that the global economy is a living thing, as well.
• puts the volatility of the financial markets into a context that everyone can understand : life vs. death, weather patterns, nature
• interesting detail : patron was finance corporation that supplied all of their data for the project

Found under Artificial Intelligence is the ARTificial ART: lines.

• program that creates organic shapes from randomly generated numbers.
• I like the issue that this brings up: the idea of randomness in human form vs. randomness in digital form
• if drawn by hand would this art be considered accomplished? when you take the human element out does it cease to say anything?

Interactivity : Thoughts on Joseph Weizenbaum’s “On Tools”

This reading is an organized and methodical analysis of tools beginning with the need for man’s imagining of the tool through to the way our world changes from the introduction of these tools.  Here are some key points from the text:

• “Man can create little without first imagining that he can create it.” p.18
• “[Tools] symbolize the actions they enable.” p.18
• Inventions such as the six-shooter, ships, the printing press, and the cotton-picking machine changed the world as they became an extension of the human body, making it more power and enabling more control on its environment.  “[The tools] signify that man, the engineer, can transcend limitations imposed on him by the puniness of his body and of his senses.” p.20
• The introduction of the idea of time and the clock was the introduction of an autonomous machine based on the planetary system.  Man no longer looked to the sun to know when to rise or when to sleep, but rather looked to the clock face.  “This rejection of direct experience was to become one of the principal characteristics of modern science.” p.25
• Creating new tools can unalterably affect our world.  There is an element of risk involved in such a change.  “‘Every thinker,’ John Dewey wrote, ‘puts some portion of an apparently stable world in peril so no one can predict what will emerge in its plasce.’ So too does everyone who invents a new tool or, what amounts to the same thing, finds a new use for an old one.” p.26
• Modern tools are changing our world at a much faster rate.  “Later tools, e.g., the telephone, the automobile, radio, impinged on a culture already enthralled by what economists call the pig principle: if something is good, more is better.  The hunger for more communication capacity and more speed, often stimulated by the new devices themselves, as well by new marketing techniques associated with them, enabled their rapid spread throughout society and society’s increasingly rapid transformation under their influence.” p.27
• It is beyond our imagination that the systems of a World War or the development of an Atomic Bomb could have happened without the computation abilities of a computer.  Weisenbaum believes that although we think that the industries of past decades would have imploded without the introduction of the computer that is not necessarily the case.  However, he does go on to say, “the belief in the indispensability of the computer is not entirely mistaken.  The computer becomes an indispensable component of any structure once it is so thoroughly integrated with the structure, so enmeshed in various vital substructures, that it can no longer be factored out without fatally impairing the whole structure.

Electioneering : Who Catherine is…

Born and raised in Texas, I then went off to college in Virgina. Needless to say, I’m familiar with my state of residence showing up in red at the end of an election. In the past, I would not say that I was very politically minded.  Frankly, I found the media frustrating and never knew what information to trust.  Although I continue to question the way information is fed to us all through the national media, I now feel empowered to find information on my own terms through the web.  I decided to take this class because it seemed like an opportunity to take a look at the voting process without the engine of the media as the guide. Also, it seemed to offer a chance to look at a part of the political process that is at a moment of transition with emerging technology. And lastly, the timing just couldn’t have been more perfect… investigating the process of voting in an election year.

Class discussion on the first day was definitely thought provoking. The one idea that does not resonate with me, though, is that of “worthiness” of voters. The idea that uninformed voters should not be encouraged to vote seems like the wrong way of viewing the problem (aside from being judgmental and unmeasurable). Rather, it would seem that more force should be put behind ensuring that the average person is able to BECOME informed.

Electioneering : Voter Confidence

How important is voter confidence? Well, it would seem that it’s pretty important. So important, in fact, that it is often the defense taken by digital voting machine manufacturers when inquiries are made about possible errors according to Rachel Gillet in the article, “Pay No Attention to that Man behind the Voting Booth.” It states, “Criticism of a company’s wares is spun as an attempt to “undermine voter confidence,” so it takes a court order to uncover the truth.” I can see how public perception can be a delicate balance; the country does not want to hear about another miscount or mistake. However, I don’t believe that a private company should be able to keep public records from review.  This should somehow be amended to voting law.  In my opinion, it is the secrecy behind the methods that should undermine voter confidence to a far greater extent than asking for a recount.

Also mentioned in this article is a website called VerifiedVoting.org. According to their website, “VerifiedVoting.org champions reliable and publicly verifiable elections in the United States.” I agree with their belief that election results should be able to be substantiated with more than a possibly corrupt form of digital memory. Until the day arises that the digital method can be trusted with a similar margin of error to mechanical voting booths they should remain a joint process with a paper to back up the digital.  This brings up the point that some states have laws against paper records that can be traced to specific individuals.  In that case, it might just be that the states should remain mechanical or change law to accommodate the new technology and its need for backup.

TITLE: Pay No Attention to that Man behind the Voting Booth Curtain
SOURCE: Humanist 64 no5 S/O 2004 WN: 0425202929015