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Computers And The Imagination
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Book Synopsis Computers and the Imagination by : Clifford A. Pickover
Download or read book Computers and the Imagination written by Clifford A. Pickover and published by Palgrave Macmillan. This book was released on 1992 with total page 444 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An examination of how visualization has transformed the way humans perceive and understand their world uses a computer to gain insights into the origins of human creativity. Original.
Download or read book What Algorithms Want written by Ed Finn and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2017-03-10 with total page 267 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The gap between theoretical ideas and messy reality, as seen in Neal Stephenson, Adam Smith, and Star Trek. We depend on—we believe in—algorithms to help us get a ride, choose which book to buy, execute a mathematical proof. It's as if we think of code as a magic spell, an incantation to reveal what we need to know and even what we want. Humans have always believed that certain invocations—the marriage vow, the shaman's curse—do not merely describe the world but make it. Computation casts a cultural shadow that is shaped by this long tradition of magical thinking. In this book, Ed Finn considers how the algorithm—in practical terms, “a method for solving a problem”—has its roots not only in mathematical logic but also in cybernetics, philosophy, and magical thinking. Finn argues that the algorithm deploys concepts from the idealized space of computation in a messy reality, with unpredictable and sometimes fascinating results. Drawing on sources that range from Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash to Diderot's Encyclopédie, from Adam Smith to the Star Trek computer, Finn explores the gap between theoretical ideas and pragmatic instructions. He examines the development of intelligent assistants like Siri, the rise of algorithmic aesthetics at Netflix, Ian Bogost's satiric Facebook game Cow Clicker, and the revolutionary economics of Bitcoin. He describes Google's goal of anticipating our questions, Uber's cartoon maps and black box accounting, and what Facebook tells us about programmable value, among other things. If we want to understand the gap between abstraction and messy reality, Finn argues, we need to build a model of “algorithmic reading” and scholarship that attends to process, spearheading a new experimental humanities.
Book Synopsis Ada Lovelace, Poet of Science by : Diane Stanley
Download or read book Ada Lovelace, Poet of Science written by Diane Stanley and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2016-10-04 with total page 40 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A fascinating look at Ada Lovelace, the pioneering computer programmer and the daughter of the poet Lord Byron." --
Book Synopsis Imagination and Play in the Electronic Age by : Dorothy G Singer
Download or read book Imagination and Play in the Electronic Age written by Dorothy G Singer and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2009-06-30 with total page 223 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Television, video games, and computers are easily accessible to twenty-first-century children, but what impact do they have on creativity and imagination? In this book, two wise and long-admired observers of children's make-believe look at the cognitive and moral potential--and concern--created by electronic media.
Book Synopsis Imagination House by : E. Lee Walker
Download or read book Imagination House written by E. Lee Walker and published by Texas A&M University Press. This book was released on 2019-06-13 with total page 164 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When twenty-one-year-old Michael Dell asked E. Lee Walker to be the president of his fledgling computer company, PC’s Limited, Walker, in his mid-forties, immediately thought about all the people who had helped him through life—as an undergraduate at Texas A&M (class of ’63), a graduate student at Harvard, and a once-young entrepreneur himself. As he and Dell created the foundation of what would become one of the most successful companies in the world, Walker was guided by the lessons of his past business ventures, by his belief in the power of imagination, and by his relationships with people who had provided encouragement when he most needed it. When he left Dell Computer Corporation to teach, Walker discovered that the stories he took with him—of his aspirations, of his failures and triumphs, and of his friends and mentors—were the key to engaging and inspiring his students. Here, Walker records those stories in a memoir that spans five decades and reveals a man whose curiosity, resourcefulness, and luck led him out of South Texas and into corporate boardrooms, university lecture halls, and community activism. In fast-paced tales about life as a high-tech entrepreneur, adjunct professor, civic leader, and environmental advocate, Walker manages to convey the importance of creative thinking and communal effort in all his endeavors. Originally offered to a small group of college students in Italy for study abroad, this affecting memoir will introduce to a wider audience not only a seasoned executive and philanthropist but also a wise and delightful storyteller.
Book Synopsis Phantasmal Media by : D. Fox Harrell
Download or read book Phantasmal Media written by D. Fox Harrell and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2013-11-08 with total page 441 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An argument that great expressive power of computational media arises from the construction of phantasms—blends of cultural ideas and sensory imagination. In Phantasmal Media, D. Fox Harrell considers the expressive power of computational media. He argues, forcefully and persuasively, that the great expressive potential of computational media comes from the ability to construct and reveal phantasms—blends of cultural ideas and sensory imagination. These ubiquitous and often-unseen phantasms—cognitive phenomena that include sense of self, metaphors, social categories, narrative, and poetic thinking—influence almost all our everyday experiences. Harrell offers an approach for understanding and designing computational systems that have the power to evoke these phantasms, paying special attention to the exposure of oppressive phantasms and the creation of empowering ones. He argues for the importance of cultural content, diverse worldviews, and social values in computing. The expressive power of phantasms is not purely aesthetic, he contends; phantasmal media can express and construct the types of meaning central to the human condition. Harrell discusses, among other topics, the phantasm as an orienting perspective for developers; expressive epistemologies, or data structures based on subjective human worldviews; morphic semiotics (building on the computer scientist Joseph Goguen's theory of algebraic semiotics); cultural phantasms that influence consensus and reveal other perspectives; computing systems based on cultural models; interaction and expression; and the ways that real-world information is mapped onto, and instantiated by, computational data structures. The concept of phantasmal media, Harrell argues, offers new possibilities for using the computer to understand and improve the human condition through the human capacity to imagine.
Book Synopsis Creativity, Inc. (The Expanded Edition) by : Ed Catmull
Download or read book Creativity, Inc. (The Expanded Edition) written by Ed Catmull and published by Random House. This book was released on 2014-04-08 with total page 367 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The co-founder and longtime president of Pixar updates and expands his 2014 New York Times bestseller on creative leadership, reflecting on the management principles that built Pixar’s singularly successful culture, and on all he learned during the past nine years that allowed Pixar to retain its creative culture while continuing to evolve. “Might be the most thoughtful management book ever.”—Fast Company For nearly thirty years, Pixar has dominated the world of animation, producing such beloved films as the Toy Story trilogy, Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Up, and WALL-E, which have gone on to set box-office records and garner eighteen Academy Awards. The joyous storytelling, the inventive plots, the emotional authenticity: In some ways, Pixar movies are an object lesson in what creativity really is. Here, Catmull reveals the ideals and techniques that have made Pixar so widely admired—and so profitable. As a young man, Ed Catmull had a dream: to make the first computer-animated movie. He nurtured that dream as a Ph.D. student, and then forged a partnership with George Lucas that led, indirectly, to his founding Pixar with Steve Jobs and John Lasseter in 1986. Nine years later, Toy Story was released, changing animation forever. The essential ingredient in that movie’s success—and in the twenty-five movies that followed—was the unique environment that Catmull and his colleagues built at Pixar, based on philosophies that protect the creative process and defy convention, such as: • Give a good idea to a mediocre team and they will screw it up. But give a mediocre idea to a great team and they will either fix it or come up with something better. • It’s not the manager’s job to prevent risks. It’s the manager’s job to make it safe for others to take them. • The cost of preventing errors is often far greater than the cost of fixing them. • A company’s communication structure should not mirror its organizational structure. Everybody should be able to talk to anybody. Creativity, Inc. has been significantly expanded to illuminate the continuing development of the unique culture at Pixar. It features a new introduction, two entirely new chapters, four new chapter postscripts, and changes and updates throughout. Pursuing excellence isn’t a one-off assignment but an ongoing, day-in, day-out, full-time job. And Creativity, Inc. explores how it is done.
Book Synopsis Abstractions and Embodiments by : Janet Abbate
Download or read book Abstractions and Embodiments written by Janet Abbate and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2022-08-30 with total page 473 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Cutting-edge historians explore ideas, communities, and technologies around modern computing to explore how computers mediate social relations. Computers have been framed both as a mirror for the human mind and as an irreducible other that humanness is defined against, depending on different historical definitions of "humanness." They can serve both liberation and control because some people's freedom has historically been predicated on controlling others. Historians of computing return again and again to these contradictions, as they often reveal deeper structures. Using twin frameworks of abstraction and embodiment, a reformulation of the old mind-body dichotomy, this anthology examines how social relations are enacted in and through computing. The authors examining "Abstraction" revisit central concepts in computing, including "algorithm," "program," "clone," and "risk." In doing so, they demonstrate how the meanings of these terms reflect power relations and social identities. The section on "Embodiments" focuses on sensory aspects of using computers as well as the ways in which gender, race, and other identities have shaped the opportunities and embodied experiences of computer workers and users. Offering a rich and diverse set of studies in new areas, the book explores such disparate themes as disability, the influence of the punk movement, working mothers as technical innovators, and gaming behind the Iron Curtain. Abstractions and Embodiments reimagines computing history by questioning canonical interpretations, foregrounding new actors and contexts, and highlighting neglected aspects of computing as an embodied experience. It makes the profound case that both technology and the body are culturally shaped and that there can be no clear distinction between social, intellectual, and technical aspects of computing. Contributors: Janet Abbate, Marc Aidinoff, Troy Kaighin Astarte, Ekaterina Babinsteva, André Brock, Maarten Bullynck, Jiahui Chan, Gerardo Con Diaz, Liesbeth De Mol, Stephanie Dick, Kelcey Gibbons, Elyse Graham, Michael J. Halvorson, Mar Hicks, Scott Kushner, Xiaochang Li, Zachary Loeb, Lisa Nakamura, Tiffany Nichols, Laine Nooney, Elizabeth Petrick, Cierra Robson, Hallam Stevens, Jaroslav Švelch
Download or read book Dreaming in Books written by Andrew Piper and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2009-08 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Examining novels, critical editions, gift books, translations, and illustrated books, as well as the communities who made them, Dreaming in Books tells a wide-ranging story of the book's identity at the turn of the nineteenth century. In so doing, it shows how many of the most pressing modern communicative concerns are not unique to the digital age but emerged with a particular sense of urgency during the bookish upheavals of the romantic era. In revisiting the book's rise through the prism of romantic literature, Piper aims to revise our assumptions about romanticism, the medium of the printed book, and, ultimately, the future of the book in our so-called digital age."--Pub. desc.
Book Synopsis Gardens of Imagination by : Christopher Lampton
Download or read book Gardens of Imagination written by Christopher Lampton and published by . This book was released on 1994 with total page 580 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Veteran author Chris Lampton demystifies the programming techniques behind sophisticated maze games such as Wolf3D and gives step-by-step instructions for programmers to create their own 3-D mazes. The centerpiece of this package is a full-fledged maze game, written by the author with professional game programmer Kevin Gliner. Enclosed disk contains tools for designing new mazes.
Book Synopsis From Counterculture to Cyberculture by : Fred Turner
Download or read book From Counterculture to Cyberculture written by Fred Turner and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2010-10-15 with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the early 1960s, computers haunted the American popular imagination. Bleak tools of the cold war, they embodied the rigid organization and mechanical conformity that made the military-industrial complex possible. But by the 1990s—and the dawn of the Internet—computers started to represent a very different kind of world: a collaborative and digital utopia modeled on the communal ideals of the hippies who so vehemently rebelled against the cold war establishment in the first place. From Counterculture to Cyberculture is the first book to explore this extraordinary and ironic transformation. Fred Turner here traces the previously untold story of a highly influential group of San Francisco Bay–area entrepreneurs: Stewart Brand and the Whole Earth network. Between 1968 and 1998, via such familiar venues as the National Book Award–winning Whole Earth Catalog, the computer conferencing system known as WELL, and, ultimately, the launch of the wildly successful Wired magazine, Brand and his colleagues brokered a long-running collaboration between San Francisco flower power and the emerging technological hub of Silicon Valley. Thanks to their vision, counterculturalists and technologists alike joined together to reimagine computers as tools for personal liberation, the building of virtual and decidedly alternative communities, and the exploration of bold new social frontiers. Shedding new light on how our networked culture came to be, this fascinating book reminds us that the distance between the Grateful Dead and Google, between Ken Kesey and the computer itself, is not as great as we might think.
Book Synopsis Builders of the Vision by : Daniel Cardoso Llach
Download or read book Builders of the Vision written by Daniel Cardoso Llach and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-06-05 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Builders of the Vision traces the intellectual history and contemporary practices of Computer-Aided Design (CAD) and Numerical Control since the years following World War II until today. Drawing from primary archival and ethnographic sources, it identifies and documents the crucial ideas shaping digital design technologies since the first numerical control and CAD systems were developed under US Air Force research contracts at MIT between 1949 and 1970: the cybernetic theorization of design as a human-machine endeavor; the vision of computers as "perfect slaves" taking care of the drudgery of physical labor; the techno-social utopias of computers as vehicles of democracy and social change; the entrepreneurial urge towards design and construction integration; and the managerial ideologies enabling today’s transnational geographies of practice. Examining the contrasting, and often conflicting, sensibilities that converge into CAD and BIM discourses - globalism, utopianism, entrepreneurialism, and architects’ desires for aesthetic liberation - Builders of the Vision shows that software systems and numerically controlled machines are not merely "instruments," or "tools," but rather versatile metaphors reconfiguring conceptions of design, materiality, work, and what it means to be creative. Crucially, by revealing software systems as socio-technical infrastructures that mediate the production of our built environments, author Daniel Cardoso Llach builds a strong case for the fields of architecture, media, and science and technology studies to critically engage with both the politics and the poetics of technology in design. Builders of the Vision will be essential reading for scholars and practitioners across disciplines interested in the increasingly complex socio-technical systems that go into imagining and building of our artifacts, buildings, and cities.
Download or read book Computers Ltd written by David Harel and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2004 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: David Harel explains and illustrates one of the most fundamental, yet under-exposed facets of computers - their inherent limitations.
Book Synopsis The Closed World by : Paul N. Edwards
Download or read book The Closed World written by Paul N. Edwards and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 1996 with total page 468 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Closed World offers a radically new alternative to the canonical histories of computers and cognitive science. Arguing that we can make sense of computers as tools only when we simultaneously grasp their roles as metaphors and political icons, Paul Edwards shows how Cold War social and cultural contexts shaped emerging computer technology--and were transformed, in turn, by information machines. The Closed World explores three apparently disparate histories--the history of American global power, the history of computing machines, and the history of subjectivity in science and culture--through the lens of the American political imagination. In the process, it reveals intimate links between the military projects of the Cold War, the evolution of digital computers, and the origins of cybernetics, cognitive psychology, and artificial intelligence. Edwards begins by describing the emergence of a "closed-world discourse" of global surveillance and control through high-technology military power. The Cold War political goal of "containment" led to the SAGE continental air defense system, Rand Corporation studies of nuclear strategy, and the advanced technologies of the Vietnam War. These and other centralized, computerized military command and control projects--for containing world-scale conflicts--helped closed-world discourse dominate Cold War political decisions. Their apotheosis was the Reagan-era plan for a " Star Wars" space-based ballistic missile defense. Edwards then shows how these military projects helped computers become axial metaphors in psychological theory. Analyzing the Macy Conferences on cybernetics, the Harvard Psycho-Acoustic Laboratory, and the early history of artificial intelligence, he describes the formation of a "cyborg discourse." By constructing both human minds and artificial intelligences as information machines, cyborg discourse assisted in integrating people into the hyper-complex technological systems of the closed world. Finally, Edwards explores the cyborg as political identity in science fiction--from the disembodied, panoptic AI of 2001: A Space Odyssey, to the mechanical robots of Star Wars and the engineered biological androids of Blade Runner--where Information Age culture and subjectivity were both reflected and constructed. Inside Technology series
Book Synopsis Walt's Imagination by : Doreen Rappaport
Download or read book Walt's Imagination written by Doreen Rappaport and published by Little, Brown Books for Young Readers. This book was released on 2018-07-04 with total page 48 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An inspiring picture book biography of legendary leader in entertainment, Walt Disney, by the critically-acclaimed author of the Big Words series. Walt Disney's name is synonymous with family entertainment. Mickey Mouse, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Bambi, Disneyland, and numerous other creations have inspired generations of children the world over. From his childhood in rural Missouri to his legendary stature as a film and television icon, Walt governed his life with imagination, ingenuity, and scrupulous attention to detail. Faced with both public failures and massive success, he revolutionized the art form of animation, always seeking innovative solutions, cutting edge technology, and new ways of storytelling. Devoted to perfection, Walt was not always easy to work with, but no one can deny his profound talent and impact. Charting Walt's progression from farm boy to actor to artist, animator, director, and entertainment celebrity, Walt's own words are presented and contextualized within Doreen Rappaport's signature compelling prose. Illustrated with vivid authenticity by animator/painter John Pomeroy, this stunning entry in the award-winning Big Words series reveals a man of deep and varied passions with a constantly evolving vision, and a storyteller above all.
Book Synopsis Score for Imagination by : Jonathan Eig
Download or read book Score for Imagination written by Jonathan Eig and published by Albert Whitman & Company. This book was released on 2020-10-01 with total page 91 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Lola and her friends want to play soccer. The boys don’t want them to. The girls are not only good players, they’re also strategic, and end up scoring for the team.
Book Synopsis Electronic Life by : Michael Crichton
Download or read book Electronic Life written by Michael Crichton and published by Alfred A. Knopf. This book was released on 1983 with total page 234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
