Term
| Why does McLuhan argue that media, and not their content, should be an object of study? |
|
Definition
A medium affects the way society works and how people in the society react to things. The
content is not necessarily important because it can be delivered in many different ways; the way
it is delivered has the biggest affect on society. |
|
|
Term
| Briefly describe Bush’s concept of the Memex. |
|
Definition
MEMory EXtender: device delivers an expansion of human knowledge by connecting library
materials and automatically cross reference them |
|
|
Term
| According to Janet Murray in Hamlet on the Holodeck, what are the four properties of the digital medium? Briefly describe each. |
|
Definition
1. Encyclopedic: breadth & depth of information/sources. *creation of narrative
2. Spatial: the sense of space that the user navigates within to move from one piece of
information/procedure to another. *navigable space
3. Procedural: the commands the program/medium executes. *Ability to execute a series of
rules
4. Participatory: user being able to input and receive feedback . * Exhibit rule-based
behavior + we can induce that behavior |
|
|
Term
| What areas of knowledge does the field of “computational media” cover? |
|
Definition
| All aspects of computer as a technical, historical, critical, and applied medium. |
|
|
Term
| Describe Ted Nelson’s stretchtext. How does it allow the user to control data? |
|
Definition
Stretchtext is similar to outlining, except that newer nodes are added to current nodes.
Stretchtext expands the content in place instead of replacing it, you can choose how detailed
you want the facts to be |
|
|
Term
| How did the invention of print change culture, according to Marshall McLuhan? |
|
Definition
The invention of print made it possible to organize the public into a nation. Print made writing
separate from speech. The printing press made visual culture dominate over oral/aural culture.
Deals with " the medium is the message" and that such changes influences perceptual habits
and social organization. |
|
|
Term
| In Nelson’s unrealized system Xanadu, what party managed the system? |
|
Definition
| The users of the Xanadu system were the primary managers. They would be the ones to link documents together in collaboration, as such a large managerial database would allow for even larger amounts of growth. |
|
|
Term
| Describe McLuhan’s distinction between figure (medium) and ground (context). |
|
Definition
Figure is the area of “attention,” ground is the area of “inattention”
Figure: technology, hardware, quantifiable benefits, physical+financial processes and
systems
Ground: situation that gives rise to technology, environment of services, disservices and
effects
To fully grasp the impact of a new technology, one must examine figure (medium) and
ground (context) together, since neither is completely intelligible without the other.
McLuhan argued that we must study media in their historical context, particularly in
relation to those technologies which preceded them. The present environment, itself
made up of the effects of previous technologies, gives rise to new technologies, which,
in their turn, further affect society and individuals. |
|
|
Term
What recommendation does Nelson have for managing categorization and
directories in the proposed Xanadu system? |
|
Definition
Nelson describe "Zippered Lists": (p. 137 NMR) “It was apparent also that some type of list
structure was necessary. Making the file out of lists would allow different categories of personal
notes, separate drafts, outlines and master indices all to be handled as lists of some sort. Their
segments could then be manipulated.”
He is thinking about an EVOLUTIONARY FILE STRUCTURE (ELF), and Lists to handle a
hierarchy of files
Note in Xanadu: Authors work on smaller chunks of media (e.g., a paragraph, not a document)
These bits could be connected to other things via transclusion.
Remember: the nature of links in Xanadu – bi-directional - linking these small chunks
Xanadu has built-in versioning, regression, and time- based views of documents |
|
|
Term
| In Computer Lib/Dream Machines, how did Ted Nelson predict computers would be used? |
|
Definition
| Continue the traditions of literature, scholarship, and freedom. |
|
|
Term
| Why did Weizenbaum choose the Rogerian psychotherapist as an initial script for ELIZA? |
|
Definition
The Rogerian Psychotherapist
(Person-centered therapy (PCT) is also known as person-centered psychotherapy, person-
centered counselling, client-centered therapy and Rogerian psychotherapy. therapists create
a comfortable, non-judgmental environment by demonstrating congruence (genuineness),
empathy, and unconditional positive so that the patients may find own solutions to their
problems) |
|
|
Term
| Why did Weizenbaum worry about people’s reaction to ELIZA? |
|
Definition
| He worried that people would not be able to draw the line between what is real and what is created in terms of the program. People would begin to think of Eliza as a legitimate psychoanalytic program that could potentially be used to help them. |
|
|
Term
| Noah Wardrip-Fruin argues that agency is not “being able to do anything,” but enticing the user to do what? |
|
Definition
| To do things the software system can satisfy |
|
|
Term
| Douglas Engelbart is famous for delivering the “Mother of all Demos.” List at least three key innovations that he demonstrated. |
|
Definition
Document Processing:
- modern word processing
- outline processing
- hierarchical hypertext
- multimedia
Input/Output Devices
- the mouse
- one-handed chorded keyboard
- high-resolution display
- multiple windows
Communications:
- Shared files
- Electronic messaging
- CSCW |
|
|
Term
| What do Mateas and Montfort argue is the main commentary minimalist languages like Brainf*ck make about computation? |
|
Definition
| These languages exploiting the syntax and semantics of the language to comment on the language itself. These languages make a connection between them being hard to read because of the general code and languages like assembly just being hard to read period. |
|
|
Term
Who came up with the term Hypertext and what did it mean (as they used the
term)? |
|
Definition
Ted Nelson: a body of written or pictorial material interconnected in such a complex way that it
could not conveniently be presented or represented on paper |
|
|
Term
| What does the name Oulipo mean? What characterizes the Oulipo as an artistic movement? |
|
Definition
OULIPO: Ouvroir de la Littérature Potentiele or Workshop for a Potential Literature
Inspired by mathematics and linguistics, it is the idea that language is embodied in logics,
literary expression is enforced by constraints and structures, and that potential literature is the
search for new forms and structures for writers of literature |
|
|
Term
| What is the main creative strategy of the movement known as Oulipo? |
|
Definition
S+7, sometimes called N+7: Replace every noun in a text with the noun seven entries after
it in a dictionary. For example, "Call me Ishmael. Some years ago..." (from Moby-Dick)
becomes "Call me islander. Some yeggs ago...". Results will vary depending upon the dictionary
used. This technique can also be performed on other lexical classes, such as verbs.
Lipogram: Writing that excludes one or more letters. The previous sentence is a lipogram in B,
F, H, J, K, Q, V, Y, and Z (it does not contain any of those letters). |
|
|
Term
| Describe the structure of Queneau’s A Hundred Thousand Billion Poems. Why does it have this name? |
|
Definition
The lines can be turned independently of one another. Each line maintains the rules of rhyme,
syntax, and meter.
It is written as 10 sonnets with dotted lines in between each line
a line of one sonnet can be interchanged with the same line in another sonnet to create a different poem - for example line 3 of sonnet 1 can be switched with line 3 of sonnet 6
Because lines are interchangeable, you literally can make millions of poems |
|
|
Term
| In Calvino’s understanding of computer-aided literature, what purpose does the computer serve? |
|
Definition
| The computer serves to help randomize the "cut ups" that Calvino was experimenting with. This is not to say that the computer was the only component in this randomization process, but human interaction was much less than it used to be. |
|
|
Term
| What does Donald Norman mean by “designing for error?” |
|
Definition
A conceptual model allows us to predict the effects of our actions, and shows the way a device
works. (p13) His reference was his refrigerator/freezer |
|
|
Term
| What was the original goal of Tim Berners-Lee’s WWW at CERN? |
|
Definition
| Easily sharing information among many participants on a distributed project |
|
|
Term
| Briefly describe the business model Ted Nelson suggests for Xanadu. |
|
Definition
| Xanadu would be micropayment – based public utility |
|
|
Term
| What was the importance of the NeXT computer in the development of the WWW? |
|
Definition
Object – oriented software development system geared towards the scientific and academic
community “interpersonal” computer; Tim Berners-Lee builds a web browser and web server
that runs on a NeXT computer at CERN |
|
|
Term
| What does “the medium is the message” mean? |
|
Definition
The content of a medium is unimportant to McLuhan. It is the structure of the medium and how it
communicates its message (form) that is important. |
|
|
Term
| What 20th century avant garde artist was Burrough’s idea of the “cutup” based upon? What were the differences between the two? |
|
Definition
Like in a poem, you take a poem, you cut it up into phrases or lines and scramble each cut-
up part in some random order. Mozart (I think) also implemented this idea where he has a list
of measures with different tunes or notes and then he rolls a dice to decide which measure will
come up next.
Brion Gysin
Burroughs focused on fiction while Gysin applied it to just about any art, including "music" (audio cut-up) |
|
|
Term
| What is the difference between “structured play” and “double coded” (or “multi coded”) weird programming languages, according to Mateas and Montfort? |
|
Definition
Double coding: a practice which produces source code that can be compiled or read in multiple contexts, for example, a program that can be compiled in multiple languages. Double coding becomes a means for describing the multiple meanings inherent in code-just as it is inherent in natural language-adding the computational realm as another milieu of signification
Structured Play: weird languages comment on the nature of computation and the vast variety of structures capable of universal computation. In their puzzle aspect, weird languages comment on the inherent cognitive difficulty of constructing effective programs |
|
|
Term
| Explain Engelbart’s notion of augmenting human intellect. |
|
Definition
The world is becoming more complex and that complexity is increasing at an increasing rate.
Engelbart set out to “boost” mankind’s ability to deal with complexity. This boost would come
through “augmenting his intellect” through technology. |
|
|
Term
| What does a “thinking machine” mean for Turing? |
|
Definition
"Can machines do what we (as thinking entities) can do?"
"Are there imaginable digital computers which would do well in the imitation game?" |
|
|
Term
| What is the name Turing gives to the process of constructing instruction tables used to make computers carry out operations? |
|
Definition
Programming
“To programme a machine to carry out the operation A means to put the appropriate instruction table into the machine so that it will do A.” |
|
|
Term
| What were the two inspirations for Joseph Weizenbaum’s ELIZA? |
|
Definition
1. Eliza Doolittle, Pygmalion
2. The Rogerian Psychotherapist
(Person-centered therapy (PCT) is also known as person-centered psychotherapy, person-
centered counselling, client-centered therapy and Rogerian psychotherapy. therapists create
a comfortable, non-judgmental environment by demonstrating congruence (genuineness),
empathy, and unconditional positive so that the patients may find own solutions to their
problems) |
|
|
Term
| According to Weizenbaum, why is there no general solution to computational natural language understanding? |
|
Definition
| He says “that language is understood only in contextual frameworks, that even these can be shared by people to only a limited extent, and that consequently even people are not embodiments of any general solution.” |
|
|
Term
| What areas of knowledge does the field of “computational media” cover? |
|
Definition
| Technical, historical, critical, applied |
|
|
Term
| What aspect of pre-WWII research bothered Vannevar Bush? |
|
Definition
| Data was not backed up if a major catastrophe occurred |
|
|
Term
| The Semantic Web was intended to solve a problem with the WWW. What was it? |
|
Definition
| The meaning of the web is not machine-accesible |
|
|
Term
| Describe one aspect of the development and market dynamics that Tim O’Reilly has called “Web 2.0.” |
|
Definition
Web 2.0 was meant to make a profit, each user has a value for their involvement. Web 2.0 is
based on user instead of corporate activity. |
|
|
Term
| Very briefly describe the operation of an Abstract Turing Machine. |
|
Definition
The Turing machine reads the tape symbol that is under the Turing machine's tape head. This symbol is referred to as the current symbol.
The Turing machine uses its transition function to map the current state and current symbol to the following: the next state, the next symbol and the movement for the tape head. If the transition function is not defined for the current state and current symbol, then the Turing machine crashes.
The Turing machine changes its state to the next state, which was returned by the transition function.
The Turing machine overwrites the current symbol on the tape with the next symbol, which was returned by the transition function.
The Turing machine moves its tape head one symbol to the left or to the right, or does not move the tape head, depending on the value of the 'movement' that is returned by the transition function.
If the Turing machine's state is a halt state, then the Turing machine halts. Otherwise, repeat sub-step #1. |
|
|
Term
| Explain what “process intensity” is. |
|
Definition
Process intensity is the degree to which a program emphasizes processes instead of data.
All programs use a mix of process and data. Process is reflected in algorithms equations,
and branches. Data is reflected in data tables, images, sounds, and text. A process-intensive
program spends a lot of time crunching numbers; a data-intensive program spends a lot of time
moving bytes around. |
|
|
Term
| Although Alan Turing theorized the computer and prefigured artificial intelligence, he is best known for something else. What is it? |
|
Definition
Alan Turing is a Cambridge mathematician and cryptographer that worked to decrypt encoded
language, went on to create the “Turing Machine” and the “Turing Test”. He helped establish the
fields of computer science and artificial intelligence.
During WWII, Turing worked for the Government Code and Cypher School at Bletchley Park,
Britain's codebreaking centre. For a time he was head of Hut 8, the section responsible for
German naval cryptanalysis. He devised a number of techniques for breaking German ciphers,
including the method of the bombe, an electromechanical machine that could find settings for
the Enigma machine. |
|
|
Term
| Briefly define “Turing Completeness.” |
|
Definition
| A computational system is said to be Turing complete if any algorithm can be implemented within it. |
|
|
Term
| Turing believed that “Can machines think?” is a meaningless question. What did he suggest as a replacement? |
|
Definition
Are there imaginable digital computers which could do well in the Turing test
“What will happen when a machine takes the part of A (the man) in the “imitation game”(Turing
Test)? Will the interrogator decide wrongly as often when the game is played like this as he
does when the game is played between a man and a woman?”
“Can a computer, communicating over a teleprinter, fool a person into believing it is human?” |
|
|
Term
| How does the Turing Test work? |
|
Definition
A human engages in natural conversation with a human and a machine. If the human cannot tell
the difference, the machine passes the test (based on the imitation game which is a party game
in which players try to guess the gender of a hidden partygoer).
Introduced in 1950’s Computing Machinery and Intelligence paper, the Turing Test is a test of
a machine's ability to demonstrate intelligence. It proceeds as follows: a human judge engages
in a natural language conversation with one human and one machine, each of which tries to
appear human. All participants are placed in isolated locations. If the judge cannot reliably tell
the machine from the human, the machine is said to have passed the test. In order to test the
machine's intelligence rather than its ability to render words into audio, the conversation is
limited to a text-only channel such as a computer keyboard and screen. |
|
|
Term
| What was the key innovation of the Von Neumann Architecture, which made computers less onerous to program? |
|
Definition
It was a design model for a stored-program computer that was proposed at a time when
computers were fixed-program, meaning that they were designed to carry out a limited number
of pre-defined instructions (for example, a simple desk calculator, which performs basic
mathematics, but cannot act as a word processor, game console, or any other sort of program).
With this architecture, program modifications can be made because a new set of instructions
detailing a new computation can be added to memory external to the central processing unit. |
|
|
Term
| Why did textual instructions become the standard for computer programming? |
|
Definition
| Textual data utilizes the smallest amount of space and is the easiest to understand universally. |
|
|
Term
| How did Warren Robinett’s Adventure alter the trajectory of exploring space in digital media? |
|
Definition
| ADVENT greatly influenced the path of space in digital media because it was the first time three-dimensions were used in computer simulation. People had never given thought to computers having three-dimensions on the inside, and this changed that thought process. |
|
|
Term
| Why do Wardrip-Fruin and Montfort suggest “making something” in the “user’s manual” foreword to The New Media Reader? |
|
Definition
| You must make something in order to truly understand it and study it. |
|
|
Term
| Explain McLuhan’s “shockwave” metaphor. |
|
Definition
| We only begin to understand media as it is beginning to pass. |
|
|
Term
| Why does McLuhan argue that media, and not their content, should be an object of study? |
|
Definition
A medium affects the way society works and how people in the society react to things. The
content is not necessarily important because it can be delivered in many different ways; the way
it is delivered has the biggest affect on society. |
|
|
Term
| What are “hot” and “cool” media, according to McLuhan? |
|
Definition
Hot: using a single sense
cool: using multiple senses |
|
|
Term
| What does Ted Nelson mean by “fantics”? What computing discipline did it influence in particular? |
|
Definition
Fantics: the art and science of getting ideas across; it influenced PRESENTATION (prefigures
human computer interaction) |
|
|
Term
| Where does the term “immersion” come from, and what does it mean with respect to media? |
|
Definition
“plunging” - being surrounded; experience of being transported; Murray - immersion = spatial +
encyclopedic |
|
|
Term
| Explain the origins of the “interactive fiction” form. |
|
Definition
| Derived from the Adventure Game |
|
|
Term
| How did Warren Robinett’s Atari game Adventure alter the trajectory of exploring space in digital media? |
|
Definition
| Adventure was the first action-adventure game on a video console, the first to contain a widely-known Easter egg, and the first to allow a player to have a stash of items, which required the player to select which one to use at any given moment, usually through keyboard or joystick input. |
|
|
Term
| What was Ted Nelson’s main theoretical argument in Computer Lib/Dream Machines? |
|
Definition
| The computer will be embraced everywhere. |
|
|
Term
| What is agency according to Janet Murray? |
|
Definition
| Agency is the player's ability to take meaningful action and see the results of their decisions and choices. |
|
|
Term
| What is agency according to Janet Murray? |
|
Definition
| Agency is the player's ability to take meaningful action and see the results of their decisions and choices. |
|
|
Term
| What is the difference between the Semantic Web and Web 2.0? |
|
Definition
semantic: a group of methods and technologies to allow machines to understand the meaning –
or “semantics” - of information on the WWW
web 2.0: the business revolution in the computer industry caused by the move to the internet
as a platform, and an attempt to understand the rules for success on that new platform;
decentralized; “remixing” |
|
|
Term
| What political situation did Dada react to? Describe that reaction. |
|
Definition
Dada was an avant-garde movement of the 1910s in response to the disgust with the war
(WW1) and its cultural preconditions, which lead to public gatherings, demonstrations, and art/
politics/culture. |
|
|
Term
| How does Murray define “interactivity” in terms of her four properties? |
|
Definition
Interactivity = procedural + participatory
Procedurally
Dungeons and Dragons is procedural because you can play the game multiple times and come out with different results. I think it depends on who is the DM (Dungeon Master) as they determine what happens in different situations.
Participatory
Something we can interact with
Artificial Intelligence
Interaction = procedure + participation
Spatial
Ways to represent different navigable spaces
Not just 3D - Facebook also has a space because it can be navigated
Encyclopedic
Wikipedia
The web |
|
|
Term
| How was Zork able to create the illusion of space without still or moving images? |
|
Definition
Zork described the spaces the player was in and the objects in those places. The user was able
to visualize a map in their head of what was being described by the game. |
|
|
Term
| Describe Xanadu, including who invented it, what it was supposed to do, and how it is different from the World Wide Web. |
|
Definition
1. Xanadu was invented by Ted Nelson and was the first hypertext project. It was an
alternative to the WWW. It could track changes in documents and would store multiple
versions of documents instead of just displaying the most updated one. This way, users
could see how documents evolved. Xanadu would have a clear, centralized organization
system instead of having a search.
2. Two significant differences between Xanadu and the WWW:
a. Xanadu uses versioning, maintaining a record of authorship for the smallest
chunks of information through the revision of a document. The web allows for
such changes to occur without a trail.
b. Xanadu was intended to be centralized, while the WWW is decidedly
decentralized. |
|
|
Term
| Describe the evolution of the World Wide Web, from inspiration to concept to realization. |
|
Definition
The WWW was created largely by Tim Berners-Lee. The first domain-name system was created
in 1984, so addresses could be names instead of an IP address. Berners-Lee got the idea for
the web by experimenting with a personal "homebrew" hypertext system used for keeping track
of personal info on a distributed project. It was easy to share info among participants. |
|
|
Term
| Name and briefly describe Murray’s two spatially motivated narrative environments? |
|
Definition
Solvable maze: story about survival, it’s a roadmap to tell a story (e.g. Zork)
2. Ruptured rhizome: it’s like hypertext narrative, there isn’t a particular goal (more open ended) (e.g. Second Life) |
|
|
Term
| Briefly describe “double coding” or “multicoding” in programming. |
|
Definition
| Double coding: a practice which produces source code that can be compiled or read in multiple contexts, for example, a program that can be compiled in multiple languages. Double coding becomes a means for describing the multiple meanings inherent in code-just as it is inherent in natural language-adding the computational realm as another milieu of signification |
|
|
Term
| Why did the WWW succeed while Xanadu failed? |
|
Definition
Berners-Lee took small steps to actually implement the WWW
He broke problems apart and found solutions for them one at a time
Nelson tried to create a top-down system and wanted to make everything at once, he treated Xanadu as a whole; he wanted to fix everything at the same time, which led to Xanadu’s failure |
|
|
Term
| What does Don Norman mean by “constraint” and “affordance?” |
|
Definition
A constraint limits how an object can be used and an affordance is a property of an object that
gives clues as to how it should be used |
|
|
Term
| What is the connection between story generators like Universe and Minstrel, and Tzara’s found poems or Burroughs’s cut ups? |
|
Definition
Tzara and Burrough’s used cut ups to generate experimental literature or “a collage of words”
Idea was to intentionally create randomness--if we do this we can come across a lot of ideas (since ideas tend to come to us by accident, anyway)
Randomness invokes new processes for ways of composing work
You have generators like Universe and Minstrel that mix procedurality and cut ups, also generate experimental literature
Focus on the rules of interaction
Procedurality, not randomness of recombinance |
|
|
Term
| What is a “perceived affordance?” |
|
Definition
| They can afford (like you CAN click), but does it perceive that affordance (would you like to, does it give any sense?). |
|
|
Term
| What is the connection between Seymour Papert’s LOGO system and Constructionist learning theory? |
|
Definition
A language designed to teach children to program. Constructionist practice of actively
making things tied to motivational activities. - LOGO
Refocuses education on the practice of individualized cognitive development as a goal in itself,
a goal not always reconnected with subject-specific learning outcomes. - Constructionist |
|
|
Term
| What is process intensity? |
|
Definition
Process intensity is the degree to which a program emphasizes processes instead of data.
All programs use a mix of process and data. Process is reflected in algorithms equations,
and branches. Data is reflected in data tables, images, sounds, and text. A process-intensive
program spends a lot of time crunching numbers; a data-intensive program spends a lot of time
moving bytes around. |
|
|
Term
| What does Chris Crawford mean by an “instantial asset?” |
|
Definition
The smallest chunks of data a program performs processes upon.( EX. for the typewriter, it
would be the page. for the word processor, it would be the character). |
|
|
Term
| Describe McLuhan’s take on how printing changed culture. |
|
Definition
The invention of print made it possible to organize the public into a nation. Print made writing
separate from speech. The printing press made visual culture dominate over oral/aural culture.
Deals with " the medium is the message" and that such changes influences perceptual habits
and social organization. |
|
|
Term
| What is the difference between positive and negative feedback in a cybernetic system? Give an example of each. |
|
Definition
Positive feedback
Produces cumulative effects
Divergence; a trend toward zero or toward infinity
(snow ball, gets bigger and bigger)
Negative feedback
Oscillation around an ideal
Self-determination
(the ecosystem)
Designed determination
(Servomechanisms)
Goal seeking behavior
(thermostats, toilet tanks)
(Hunger, eat if hunger)
The relations between parts of a system; Control and Communication in the Animal and
Machine;
• Information, Feedback, Control
• The intrinsic relationship between the observer and the system
• The limits of what things know and how they respond to that knowledge |
|
|
Term
| Briefly describe the design and intended purpose of the Dynabook. |
|
Definition
Alan Kay & Adele Goldberg.
A personal dynamic medium the size of a notebook which could be owned by everyone and
could have the power to handle virtually all of its owner’s information-related needs |
|
|
Term
| In A.J. Perlis’s 1961 “first course in programming,” he argues that the purpose of such a course is not to teach students to program a new language, but what? |
|
Definition
He believed that the purpose of a course in programming is to teach people how to construct
and analyze processes. |
|
|
Term
| What is the aesthetic value typically prized in traditional computer programming? |
|
Definition
Code aesthetics -
Elegance
Beauty
Craftsmanship
... terms that are sometimes found in literary, artistic and cultural criticism...
... but which do not represent the entirely??
But! still focuses on a particular type of aesthetic value, that of the beauty of simplicity and emergence |
|
|
Term
| What computational artifact does Murray compare to the film Arrival of the Train at Ciotat Station (1895)? Why? |
|
Definition
| The printing press. The printing press enabled people to experiment with cut ups, altering text, and all those sort of things just as the camera did. |
|
|
