The Theory Of Human and Machine Communication

The main focus on how humans and machines interact when it comes to electrical or digital pieces are that there has to be a way for humans to tell the machine how to do something. Obviously that was, well, obvious! One example I can give is how people use adobe Flash in order to have information portrayed as an animation. Code that humans wrote can be input into a software program which humans also wrote in order to produce a computer generated animation which the machine wrote with our guidance.

Most of the time it's something we wrote that needs to be portrayed but sometimes, with the help of machines, we can take something and portray it in a way completely different than it was initially intended. Using programs that understand a bit of language, for example being able to distinguish between verbs and nouns, you can create an article out of an article but without any of the nouns it initially had. A person can do it sure, but a machine can do it faster.

I honestly think most electronic literature out there now is something any person can do physically but in order to distribute to the masses, which is another good reason that this interaction needs to take place, we use the computer and the internet. It's with the internet that we are allowed to share most of our pieces of art that we created with the aid of computers.

It's because of our basic understanding of computers that we can also see art created by others. Internet has connected us in a way that nothing else can reproduce. I can see something created across the globe in seconds thanks to my internet connection. Without machines, that wouldn't be possible.

It's also because of this that there are an uncountable amount of works which means that no ONE piece will be the greatest. Or at least, there has yet to be one named the best internet piece ever. But I have a nominee... the internet itself. I feel the internet is the greatest electronic work of art ever created. Everyone gets a different story from it and everyone is allowed to use and share knowledge through it.

There's an infinite amount of answers waiting to be asked and found and an infinite amount of ways we can view the answers, as imagery text, video, audio etc. What is the internet if not one huge interactive story?

Let's play a game shall we?

When it comes to reading a book, is there a specific way to read it? Is there a correct way, or an incorrect way? Sure there is. When the author of said book is writing a book, there is an intent to have it read a specific way. In most of our class assignments and things we see on the internet, the rules are stated to us at the beginning. Most pieces of literature are meant to be read the old school way, from page 1 to the end of the book. However there are other forms of literature, namely ergodic. In this sense, there are rules that you don't exactly have to read a text from page 1 to the end, in fact you may not even read pages 2-10. Does that mean it's not reading? No it doesn't, because you are, and there is a narrative. Its just different because the way we perceive it will be different.

There is then this question of advancement. With the Ipad releasing books on it's kindle in forms that we are used to, are we advancing or sticking with the old? Honestly, I'd say it's merely baby steps. We're in a time period where self esteem is fairly high regarded. No one wants to look bad because everyone wants to fit in. However with all these new inventions and games being played with the way we normally do something, it becomes difficult to say whether or not we want to join that fad.

One example given was the music aps that are out there and still use the typical nob to show turning or changing of a sound. Why use a nob? Because it allows us to relate to it. We get to become imaginative DJ's playing with our own personal soundboard that's on our Ipads/Ipods/laptops/etc. There is a certain fear of looking weird that people aren't willing to step out of their safe zone, and would rather turn a nob than click a limb or some other provocative image. By doing something new, we essentially commit to that idea and can be judged by it, but since we are using something that everyone else is used to, the nob, and we are given the rule that we have to turn that nob, then it's alright if it doesn't turn out great because we followed a set of rules that led us a stray rather than thought of that dreadful idea ourselves.

I feel that eventually, we will get into a form of writing where narrative doesn't require order as much. Where finding out the finale of a series won't ruin how we watch the entire show from the middle. Essentially, comedic shows are acceptable in the sense that the episodes themselves will be funny even if you see them out of order. Family guy comes to mind. The reasons critiques are so skeptical is because they are used to old rules, where you need a beginning middle and end, where sequence and linear facts aid in the story. Soon, the story will just be a narrative of interchangeable events that give us what we want to know.

There is also a connection to the cybertextual reader being a gamer. I couldn't agree more! In that respect, we must first identify what a game is.. and from Websters dictionary it's a amusement, or a past time. What is reading? Basically the same thing, unless you're like me and read because you have to not because you want to.. hah. But yes, adding these new rules of how to read will only aid in making reading more fun. A story with multiple endings will always trump a story that has one ending... why doe DiCaprio have to die in Titanic! I say he pulls her into the water and takes her raft..

The Screen and I

Today I was posed a question on how my computer screen affects me as type of space. Honestly, my computer screen has a fairly significant affect on my life. Mostly because I'm a gamer and I rely heavily on what my computer screen has to offer. When I'm home, I'm probably in my recliner with my laptop... well on my lap. I use my laptop for new, I use my laptop for gaming and I use my laptop for homework. It's basically my entire functional life, talk about being a cyborg.

I honestly don't find a need for television anymore because anything that can be seen on the television can be seen on the computer screen. Thus, when it comes to space I'd have to say that the computer screen encompasses my world. I, am the mouse cursor and I click what I want to find out more about. If it's homework I generally go towards the applications that allow me to manipulate the screen to create the art needed to pass my classes. Therefore I also call viruses and invasion of supreme privacy. If I ever got a virus, which I take care to not get, my entire lifeline would be shut off... what would I do? Go outside like the normal kids? No thanks. OK, yes that's a bit exaggeration but honestly I don't think we're that far off from being this hooked on computers.

As a language, I'd say it speaks exactly what I need to understand it. It's symbols and visuals allow me to understand what it's sending my way and I interpret it with my brain. The best thing also is that I can view as many things as I want at any time I want.

To go off of the example in class, the screen allows me to hold a book of 300 pages, and view the pages at my leisure and not have to hold the book. I no longer have to manually light the room for my book since the screen is automatically lit.  A great thing too, now, is that if the book had something I couldn't understand, I can simply use my internet browser and search for it's meaning. It brings information straight to my fingertips instead of having to go to an actual library. Not to sound ignorant or ungrateful for libraries, but honestly it would seem that their time is coming to an end for people that don't care about relocating their physical bodies when they can simply search for information on their computers at home.

I honestly feel that I expect everything of my laptop. I want, and use it for everything. To talk to friends, I use facebook or game forums, to learn I use google and to work I use the adobe suite. My computer understands what I'm telling it... so long as I tell it correctly. This kind of goes back to language and how I, not exactly me but, programed my computer to output and input English. Error commands etc are directed towards me in English, but there is also computer language such as java, actionscript, c++ etc. At that point it's taking codes that it already knows to do certain things and processes them the way they were set to be processed. If i use addChild(x) in action script, for example, it's going to go into my action script library and look for the symbol x and then place it on the stage. Why? Because that's what the code is meant to do. If I spelled it wrong, then the code is wrong and doesn't say what I meant at all. That's when it gets tricky, because computers are typically literal. There is no common sense in coding, if I spell addChidl instead, it will give me back an error saying that the code is unrecognized and that I should look over it.

Thus, that is the language developed so that we, humans, can speak to our computers or programs. Creating a new form would be no easy feat as we would have to look at pretty much every aspect needed. Design programs for example have to have thousands if not hundreds of thousands of commands because art and design is meant to be fairly detailed and how else can we be detailed if we don't have various ways to do things.

Eventually things were made easier, for example if you open Flash you can literally click the square tool and place a square on the stage. Before you would have to code the program to have a border appear at the x and y coordinates on the screen as a certain color. This is also what changes laptops from new technology like ipads. Where now instead of a mouse, which sends codes to the computer specifying how the cursor should move, uses heat sensory technology to tell the cursor where to go, or what to click or open on the screen. That conversation is now being done in a different language, a more physical language. Touch vs movement.

Back in Action

Spring break... my last spring break, and what a great one it was. Every day I did something different, with different friends. It was a great week, and I'm sad it had to end... mostly because I had so much work due the week back and I realized I hadn't done anything. That was unfortunate, honestly.

BUT, I'm back in action and catching up on all my work. I've completed some digital works for Funkhouser, one Interactive photogallery... that wont upload to the AFS so I'll have to show him in person... and the other is a video...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1iamSvUp6_0&feature=youtu.be

Check it out :D

Now to do Electronic writing workshop work.

EDIT: Now completed the workshop.

http://web.njit.edu/~ac247/Eng390/Movement.swf

Enjoy, gave me a laugh it did. I wonder if this hits 2 birds with one stone.. there is some.. interactivity haha

Second Critique

Forgot to hand this in during class but here it is.

Angel Cruz

Dr. Klobucar

Electronic Writing Workshop

3-5-12

Anthony Misistia’s eGnoetry

Anthony discussed in his blog assignment entry that he hates and loves eGnoetry equally. The mix of randomly generating lines as well as the ability to change or alter certain words in the piece seems to be a bit much for Anthony to handle, at least to begin with. Once he got accustomed to the program he felt that he was no longer butchering the original authors work, but making his own electronic version of it. His latest dabble with eGnoetry produced this:

And
farther
whiles I refuse
‘but heavens would wish to take
place.
I saw this remark and alligators sunned themselves.

          Based on the grammar from the given work, you can tell that the work is generated. The actual algorithm in the generator itself is a mystery to me, but for some reason it decided to give him this stanza with a very little amount of words. I feel that this aids in the poems ability to provide a subtle but precise answer. It’s because of the final product, the two sentences, that the poem becomes a kind of conversation with the reader.

The first sentence is speaking of an event that wishes to occur, the heavens taking place, and then the fact that the remark itself made alligators sun themselves. It’s an interesting affect because personally, I know alligators sunbathe to increase their body heat since they can’t directly control their temperature. Anthony must have chosen the words to change in order to make two sentences that at least slightly make sense. What we get then, is a reason for the alligators to go and sunbathe.

The first sentence ends up sounding like someone, the narrator, is refusing the heavens from taking place even though they wish to. It’s an interesting affect especially if you at least know some religion. You know that god created the heavens and that only he should really have control over it, and now this narrator is speaking about refusing their existence and honestly that would give me chills. It would seem that this has also caused some type of decrease in the alligator’s body heat. At least that’s what I make of the lines.

He didn’t really mention how many times he clicked to change the words, or which words were changed so I can’t really say how much of the originally “random,” generated, poem he changed. Personally, I felt he could change maybe two more words to better the sentence. Those words, in my opinion, would be “whiles” and         “ ‘but.” They just annoy me, as the reader because they are grammatically incorrect and since I know about the program and his ability to change it, I just kind of hoped he would have.

As far as patterns, I can’t really say I see any. Again, this goes back to not knowing the algorithm in which the generator produces poems. Even when I created my own using this generator, it came up with a random number of lines and words in each line as well.

The piece itself works fairly well, as I mentioned before. The fact that it has two sentences makes it a sort of cause and effect situation. It may also just be that the second line is so powerful and grammatically correct, that it completes the poem. I personally really like it, and what makes this even better is the fact that I know no one else could randomly generate the same poem. Or at least they’d really have to try hard and figure out what he did to get what he got.

Crit number 2

Just finished up a crit on Anthony Misistia's most recent piece. Was an interesting poem. I really liked the second sentence of his poem because I feel that it made the poem make sense. I like what he did in that respect . I felt he could have changed a few things, but maybe i'm missing something he did on purpose. Good night all.

Missing in Action

As you may have noticed, I've been missing for the past week, and let me tell you I do have a reason. I'm in this semesters musical at NJIT: Cabaret.

I encourage you all to come and view me as well as the rest of the cast perform tonight, through Sunday.

http://www.facebook.com/events/329534743756251/

That's the facebook event.

This is the flyer.