Infocult: Uncanny Informatics

Fearing the blogs

80% of the blogosphere offers "potentially offensive content," according to a ScanDefender report.  In the best Marty Rimm tradition, the majority of the medium is seen as threatening.

What is offensive?  ScanDefender defines this as "rang[ing] from adult language to pornographic images".  Sadly, the rest of the study focuses entirely on malware, without developing the content angle further. 

(via Ars Technica)

Medieval automata: a Middle Eastern genius

Automata present fascinating precursors for modern robotics, offering early strides into the uncanny valley between human and nonhuman.  Today's case is an old one, dating back before Vaucanson's duck, even before da Vinci's robot, but after Heron: the twelfth-century Arab mechanical engineer Al-Jaziri (spelled Al-Jazari for the Wikipedia entry).  Born in Iraq, he worked in northeastern Turkey for the local lordship.

For uncanny humanoid robot purposes, he's notable for artifacts and theory.  Al-Jaz*ri built a boat full of mechanical musicians, which may have been programmable.  For theory, he wrote up a mechanical engineering textbook around 1206 CE, The Book of Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devices (good account here)  On the side, he invented the crankshaft and combination lock.

(via clockpunk central)

Glenn Gould glimpsing the future

Brian Lamb posts this great, prophetic quote by Glenn Gould, about collaborative digital media in 1964:

Electronic transmission has already inspired a new concept of multiple-authorship responsibility in which the specific concepts of the composer, the performer, and, indeed, the consumer overlap. ...It will not, it seems to me, be very much longer before a more self-assertive streak is detected in the listeners participation, before, to give but one example, "do-it-yourself" tape editing is the prerogative of every reasonably conscientious consumer of recorded music (the Hausmusik activity of the future, perhaps!). And I would be most surprised if the consumer involvement were to terminate at that level. In fact, implicit in electronic culture is an acceptance of the idea of multilevel participation in the creative process.

The worst, best Russian textbook ever

When I was in university, I took Russian for several years, and began with the strangest language textbook I've ever experienced, before or since.  Lipson's A Russian Course concerns itself not with greetings and everyday life but with... shockworkers.  Loafers who conduct themselves badly in parks.  Concrete-mixers (diminutive form).  The nearly ubiquitous tigers.  Poor mad Olga who steals shoes from under the table.  Super-Person.  And the rousing concrete song, as Languagehat reminds me:

Our plant is a concrete plant.
Our brigade is a concrete one.
Our plant is a concrete plant.
And our task is concrete.
Concrete, concrete, concrete, concrete...
(singing marked variously as "loudly" or "quietly")

It was awful, for learning the language.  Our next year saw a different, more realistic textbook, and we had to redo a year of Russian in a hurry.  But I can't forget the songs, or friends nicknamed ударники and бездельники.

Praise the archival glee of web 2.0.  And the concrete tigers.

Gene Wolfe honored

Gene Wolfe's being inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame.  Excellent.

Robots from the uncanny valley, looking straight into you

Today's use of the uncanny valley as a robot design principle comes from MIT.  The focus is on eyes, which are supposed to trigger emotional engagement.

"I found that, by making them immediately understandable as eyes, it was very easy to read [Domo's] eye-gaze direction, which is important when working with it," Edsinger said. "They also greatly increase people's comfort level with the robot."

For bonus points, a truly disturbing robot head from USC.  It "can learn facial movements from human teachers and watches objects it finds interesting."  I'm trying to imagine it in action.

(thanks to ever-resourceful Jesse Walker)

Today's ubicomp education anecdote

Today's snapshot of ubicomp and education comes from the Volokh law blog:

One Benefit of Laptops in Law School Classes:

As told in a guest post at Balkinization by Michael Stokes Paulsen:

I was, quite literally, teaching *Stenberg* v. Carhart (following on the heels of Monday's class on Roe v. Wade and Tuesday's on Planned Parenthood v. Casey), when a student broke in with the comment that the Court had decided today's partial-birth abortion case, upholding the federal statute. (Ah, the joys of internet access in the classroom.) Seamlessly weaving the student's interjection into the class decision, I asked him about the holding: "Who wrote?" (No one needed to ask the vote or the lineup.) "Kennedy?! Makes sense. Was Stenberg overruled? Could he do that, consistent with his opinion in Casey?"

As you might expect, there's lots of interesting blogging about Carhart at Balkinization; just keep scrolling.

 

So we see the world-class barrier being breached.  Note the web 2.0 connection - we read this on a blog, and can find more on other blogs.  Note, too, that this is about research and the live web.

(thanks to Jesse Walker)

Doublequote connection

Charles Cameron, master of the Hipbone Game, responded to my challenge and created a fine doublequote image, revealing to the world the mysterious Nixon-Castaneda link:

Bryan's iron law, sadly confirmed

My iron law of hotel internet connectivity was confirmed once more.  Earlier this week I stayed at a Hyatt Regency.  Upscale place, and the "broadband" was slow, unreliable, and pricey (almost $20/day).  Tonight I checked into a Hilton Garden Inn, which costs roughly half to one-third as much as that Hyatt (depending on season), and the broadband is fast, stable, and free.

Creole teaching

Just came across this great gem about teaching and collaboration from Howard Rheingold, who blogs a presentation about cultural appropriation:

European cathedral builders in the Americas left blank spaces around the specified iconography of the churches' facades, and encouraged native craftsmen to fill it in with references to their own culture,

I love the pedagogical sense this makes.  How we teachers provide content, guide students to content, and how students create content that can fill in gaps.  How students will find gaps and create within them, regardless of instructor's desire.  A great form of constructivism, this.

Howard has a previous post covering the first half of the talk.