Month: September 2009

Response to “The Machine Ends” by E.M. Forster

Written in 1909, “The Machine Stops” is about a futuristic society in which humanity lives underground and is dependent entirely upon the Machine, which has taken over the entire maintenance and care of all human needs. It describes how people have given up control of their own freedom to exert free will, in exchange for complete obedience to the Machine.

It was a peculiar but interesting story, particularly being written in 1909. According to Wikipedia, US events in 1909 included Taft succeeds Roosevelt as president, Pearl Harbor is founded, and the Manhattan Bridge is opened, while in Europe construction begins on the Titanic and the oil company that eventually became BP was founded. Forster seems to be writing from a perspective of relatively significant industrial and social change so the story is likely meant to be a reflection and a warning on unrestrained acceptance of technological innovation, and a belief that machines alone are the key to the future of the human race.

One of the phrases that reinforced this idea was on page 18, “No one confessed the machine was out of hand”. That could be taken literally, as in ‘no one is willing to complain that the machine is breaking’. Or it could be taken as it is in the phrase, the “Master Brains had perished”, which describes how complete knowledge amongst humans regarding the mechanical knowledge about the Machine — and possibly its usefulness — had been split up, so that now no one can really remember how the machine is supposed to work. In comparison to the use of the internet, there are still people who do not know what the internet is, let alone know how it can be used or misused. I suspect that most people who use the internet, do not really understand how it works, why it exists, or care much to learn.

The first sentence gives a clue to that the tone of the story is about obedience and regulation, when it describes the setting as being similar to the “cell of a bee”. The discussions about ideas, seem like the collective thought for the humans in this story is that unless something leads to progress or to a new idea, it is a useless waste of time. For instance, when other people in the story discuss the rumor of the machine ending, they cannot even comprehend the statement. As much as I can hardly comprehend living without civil rights or an electrified home, I suppose that soon there will be people who cannot comprehend a time before the internet or computers.

Lastly, the people in this story seem afraid to think on their own and come up with their own ideas, particularly when those ideas are not acceptable to those allowed by the Machine. The internet now makes it very easy to find ideas like your own. So that if you want to find arguments that agree or disagree with your own, it’s easy to find examples, without really coming up with your own critical analysis of a problem.

Phys Comp: Week 2 – Analog sensors, Part 1

This week we worked with analog sensors.

For the lab, I was able to correctly set up the breadboard, Arduino, and potentiometer to create my first analog input. I documented along the way.

Then I made a two-input analog switch with two LEDs as output. Here’s the code:

int ledPinGreen = 10; // Green pin
int ledPinRed = 9; // Red pin

int analogFSRLeft = 0; // Left analog input
int analogFSRRight = 1; // Right analog input

int FSRValueLeft = 1; // Value of the left FSR
int FSRValueRight = 1; // Value of the right FSR

void setup() {
// initialize serial communications at 9600 bps:
Serial.begin(9600);
}
void loop() {
FSRValueLeft = analogRead(analogFSRLeft); // read the left FSR value
analogWrite(ledPinGreen, FSRValueLeft/4);
Serial.println(FSRValueLeft); // print the FSR value back to the

FSRValueRight = analogRead(analogFSRRight); // read the right FSR value
analogWrite(ledPinRed, FSRValueRight/4);
Serial.println(FSRValueRight);

delay(10); // gives a 10 millisecond delay
}

Cool devices I wish I’d thought of first

So, an assignment in one of my classes this week has been to come up with a fantasy device, that does something you’ve always wanted. I’ve always wanted a unicorn, but our assignment says we have to come up with some type of physical manifestation for this fantasy device. Unicorn-maker sounds a bit outside the realm of normal possibilities, even for ITP.

Most of my brainstorming has been to think about what’s going on in my life that could be improved by a handy-dandy “???????“. I think I may have an idea of something, which I’ll post later, but I did want to post some things I found as a part of the research I did on other cool things people have made:

Bacon-scented alarm clock – Since high school, I’ve had a terrible time waking up in the morning. But, whenever I go home, I don’t have any trouble getting up when I smell the scent of bacon cooking and hearing the sound of eggs on the stove. Thinking about this brings up memories of waking up in my bed at home, coming downstairs and my Mom saying good-morning. So, I had the idea to create an alarm clock that sounded like eggs and bacon frying, while also being attached to an aerosol canister that sprayed bacon scent, like those new kind of air fresheners that periodically spray your room. There would be maybe 2-3 scents, bacon-and-eggs, bakery-brownie scent, and bakery-bread scent, but there would a few sound environments to mix and match…like, Paris cafe, Mama’s house, New York diner. Unfortunately, someone beat me to it!

Cordless device charger – Spending too much time in Starbucks, fighting over outlets gave the idea that wouldn’t it be so nice to just put my laptop, iPhone, camera, walkie-talkie, pace-maker…whatever on a portable mat that just charged everything and I wouldn’t need to worry about all these cords.

This is Belkin’s version. I don’t know if it’s even real, but it’s pretty sweet. I like that it’s not too big, but I’d be worried about someone leaving the gas outlet open.

Here’s a solar-powered version, though it doesn’t look like it’s easily able to actually portable enough to get outside for a good charging.

I think it would work better if the table could sync my camera, iPod, and computer, too.

Oh, wait! Microsoft came up with something like that already. Microsoft Surface does a lot of neat-o stuff, that seems pretty far out of my league. This video from Popular Mechanics describes a lot, but I guess if you can build your own multi-touch screen interface + infrared cameras + projection camera + wireless CPU with graphics card, you could do it too.

Comm Lab: Week 2 — My (short) Tree Museum visit

This week, one of my assignments was to head to the Bronx to check out the Tree Museum, a public art project by Katie Holten. By name only, this sounds like it actually might be kind of interesting. I visited the Bronx Botanical Gardens last summer (2008) and I was thoroughly impressed. Everyone should go check it out. However, when I checked out the website, my hopefulness began to wane. Seriously. Rather than go into a terribly long discussion about what I didn’t like, I’ll just mention the two areas that disappointed me the most and will probably keep me from checking out more of this tree tour.

Disappointment #1: The first thing I was disappointed with was The Bronx. Well, I’m sort of scared of the Bronx. I mean, say what you will about gentrification, but what you don’t say is unsafe. I guess I prefer prefer strollers and soccer moms to whatever it is that goes on in the Bronx that keeps most people from visiting every weekend. So, I was a bit hesitant about checking it out. Also, the tour seemed to be about 70 blocks long and it just seemed like a bad idea for someone to go wandering around an unfamiliar neighborhood with no particular destination in mind, except to walk the length of the Bronx and look at semi-random trees that most people in the surrounding neighborhoods didn’t really seem to take too much notice of. So, to be safe, I wanted to look up as much as possible as I could on the website before visiting, including calling the 718 (not toll-free) number and see what this thing was all about. Which leads me to…

Disappointment #2. Not only was the audio quality poor enough that I could barely comprehend the speaker’s voice while sitting in a semi-empty room on a Sunday afternoon, but they also let the artist herself speak. What you learn on the site is that Ms. Holten is Irish. I love accents, but “poor audio” + “funny accent” = “I don’t know what you’re talking about”.

I don’t want to sound like I’m picking on the Irish accent, but the audio quality was very poorly implemented. It seems as if they forgot that New York City is L-O-U-D. When I visited on Wednesday morning, I didn’t call the 718 number but it wouldn’t have mattered anyway. I got off the subway at the 135th St. stop in the Bronx. Right under a bridge. If I could barely hear inside a building, how would I possibly be able to hear anywhere in NYC outside and especially near a bridge? The street where the tour takes place is called “Grand Concourse”. It sounds like a major street, and I would expect that it’s probably always loud.

I don’t know if this walking museum idea was actually tested out before going through with the project, but my guess is no. I know that Fort Tryon Park is pretty darn quiet for anywhere in Manhattan. Seems like it would be a much better destination for outdoor listening of relatively good audio. And, there are definitely plenty of kids and strollers.

How to solve a Rubik’s Cube

For the Data Visualization class I’m on the waitlist for, we were asked to come up with the solution for solving a Rubik’s cube.

To solve a Rubik’s cube, you basically need to remember that the whole thing consists of a series of patterns that, if you trust them, will solve the puzzle for you. In the past, when I’ve tried to solve the puzzle, I was somehow able to solve one side of tiles. Then, when I try to complete the rest of the puzzle, I find that I’m stuck. Whenever I try to complete another side, I find that I am too afraid of messing up the side I’ve completed, so I stop working. This fear is, of course, justified, since I do in fact mess up the side I just completed when working on the new side.

I’ve come to learn that what I’ve been missing is an algorithm or several algorithms. “Algorithm” sounds like a math term, and since I tend to stay away from math, I can’t say I’ve come across it before. However, since I’m supposed to come up with a description for how to solve a Rubik’s cube, I did some research:

• I understand that an algorithm is a set of defined instructions that are carried out until certain conditions are met. – Wikipedia

• Different algorithms can be used to accomplish the same task. The one that is used depends on the constraints for each task. – howstuffworks.com

• Algorithms are used to solve a recurrent problem. – whatis.com

These are all interesting, and apparently algorithms are what make up computer languages. But, using these definitions, algorithms are also what fill up cookbooks and instruction manuals. Hmmm….

Well, anyway, now for my solution:
1. Get a Rubik’s Cube.
2. Turn the faces of the Rubik’s Cube, one face at a time, until one side consists of the same color in each of the nine squares. Call a side that consists of the same color in each of the nine squares a Full Side.
3. Repeat step 2 for each of the five colors but whenever you need to break a Full Side, so that the nine squares of the same are no longer touching, you must put them back so that they are touching again.
4. Repeat step 3 until there are six Full Sides.

ICM: Week 1 – Introducing Processing

In this week 1 exercise, my idea was to create a display of “swatches”, showing the color spectrum against a background of either white or black. I also created swatches of either white lines against the background of each color, and a final long series of stripes of white against no color, or black.

The whole thing was created in Processing. For the colors, I used the RGB values. It was a little difficult thinking of where each stripe would go, because I had to navigate using pixels. Pretty much, in the end I thought this was much like creating DIVs in CSS – but, less goofy. I cut and paste a lot, and experiment a bit trying to figure out which coordinates I should change when creating the new rows. The interesting part was that at one point I thought about reversing the colors, and did so in the code. However, since each rectangle’s location is specified by coordinates, the order doesn’t really matter. The order of the background’s does matter, because if it comes last, it would cover up the stripes. I guess the opacity of the backgrounds could be decreased so that some color shines through, but I’m just keeping the colors as they are.

I thought this was pretty fun, and useful perhaps in the future. I’ll give some credit to a fellow student, who suggested that I make the rows thinner than they originally were. Thank you, Nik!

Colored Lines
Week 1, color bars