Month: April 2019

I think that this article is a fantastic introduction into data and the information age, where statistics and data can allow us to live more “efficient” lives through its processing by computers. When I read this article, I thought “this is fantastic that Waze is able to analyze traffic routes and Siri can dig through databases of information and users’ sound recordings,” but when data is used to create things more convenient for us, make us live more efficient lives, we are also giving this network data about ourselves. I think that this chapter, and I do recognize that this is a chapter of a book and probably does not discuss everything the whole book does, is not able to show that this is a double-edged sword, that there is a huge risk involved in providing this data that makes the auto-entry Gmail emails of today possible. I greatly appreciated reading this chapters because it provided statistics and examples that seemed objective in its analysis of how technology and data are utilized today. Oftentimes, most of what I read about the implications of data and technology are either completely against technology or completely confident that we can be living in a utopia because of all of this information and the proper technology used to process it. But this chapters focus on statistics of how data is being used and how much data is present, which was a welcome change from the often extreme viewpoints I see in the media.

So this week’s reading was very interesting in the sense that I was able to relate the content and examples of the article with lessons from another class. In “Cyberwarfare”, the other class I am taking, we have discussed how users are unexpectedly always providing data to businesses such as Facebook or Netflix when we are using their products. I feel like the same is happening with Waze. In order to have a better experience, as it says in the article, more people have to use it, since the app has to record date and time and therefore can reuse the log once another person makes the same trip. I know this data gathering from people is for a positive use as shown in the Waze example, but I would be careful since privacy invasion is also a significant matter these days and giving your information to navigator apps like Waze also could expose yourself to anyone who wants to track you down.

In the second part, to see digitization in an economic perspective, I get the author’s point, and it is certainly true that digitization has made our lives much more convenient in numerous methods. However, I do think that the author is too positive about this change, and I have a few reasons on why I politely disagree with this notion.

To begin with, digitization also means that any sort of data can be pirated. This is extremely harmful in the cases of starting musicians or artists who want to make cash by selling their work online. It is cool if I share my pdf book file to Hank, but to do that for free? If I pay and he doesn’t, but I still share it to him because he is my friend, the author gets half the price of the book in the real world. Currently, torrenting has become a huge problem in our modern society, especially in terms of copyright claims and what not. I think, in that sense, there are still perks as to why keeping some objects in the physical world might be more safe.

Similarly, data breaches are also very dangerous. This ties to the first argument, but I want to talk more about subjects such as finance or personal information. Let’s look at finance, for example. If I have my money in a bank or a safe, it will be arduous for a robber to steal my money. Even if they do, chances are I will use CCTV cameras or fingerprint scanning, even collecting hair in the suspected areas to go on to find who the suspect is. However, cyber-security is not as developed yet, and in the cyber world it is way harder for police to digitally track down someone. This of course, leads to individuals getting away and even sometimes groups of people working for nations, as we have seen in the Russian hacking of elections a few years ago.

Overall, I like the concept of the article and it has taught me new things that I previously did not know, but I wish the author put in the opposite perspective’s views, especially in terms of how digitization can be disruptive and negative so that we should always be cautious but it can still be beneficial if used correctly. Unfortunately, there does not seem to be too much negative connotation that can provide alert and warning to the readers, which I personally believe is very significant.

The author illustrates digitization through Waze, a mobile GPS application that provides users the fastest way to a destination depending on the time, traffic, and other variables. We are situated in the moment where nearly all of the “offline” data are becoming digitalized – and these raw data are floating around the medium we know of as “the internet”. Some are being efficiently utilized, such cases shown through Waze where it uses the sensor data of its users’ mobile devices on top of general map information and GPS data. However, I would say that most of other raw data are still waiting for their turn to be polished into a proper use – which leads to new terminologies like Big Data.

As the author describes as “data explosion”, I agree with his claim on how statisticians will be one of the sexy jobs. To put it simply, we have tons of increasing number of ingredients but we do not have enough people to refine those ingredients to make something new – and this is where the hype of data science comes in. A lot of the innovations are hidden under these sets of data and once we can analyze these septillions of data, maybe we can answer many questions about behavioral sciences as well as automation of complex human tasks.

I liked how simple and straightforward this reading was, and I was especially drawn to the concept of the network effect that the author referred to in relation to the navigation app Waze. Essentially, the network effect is a “situation where the value of a resource for each of its users increases with each additional user.” So as the amount of users increases, the overall quality of the app increases, and this is because user input is crucial to the accuracy of the app’s results. User input, in this instance, does not only mean manual information provided by users (typing in traffic updates, warnings of accidents, etc.), it also means gathering information from each mobile device’s sensors, processors, and transmitters.

Another interesting, relevant point raised in the chapter was the idea that “new ideas yield new recipes”. The author uses the example of Waze to contextualize the idea of using layers and generations of digitization within the application. Here, the oldest layer would be digital maps, then GPS location information, then social data. Social data refers to the point raised above about the network of everything and how users directly contribute information about various factors affecting one’s transportation from A to B, almost like crowdsourcing data. After social data comes sensor data, which utilizes every car using the app to collect data. This is where sensors, transmitters, and processors come to play. This data is calculated and converted into the app to help people find the quickest, most reliable routes, amongst other services.

So, Waze used an already existing technology or system: GPS navigation. However, they increased its potential to a very great degree by adding two more layers to the system: social data, and sensor data. I think this is a very important aspect of modern-day innovation. Technology has come a far way, and sometimes we become too pre-occupied with the idea of creating entirely new technology, or finding brand new breakthroughs, that we don’t think of the ways we can massively improve already existing technology with our newly-found knowledge and capabilities.

 

 

The reading discusses an app called Waze. Waze is a GPS app but with a twist, it does not only tell you how to get to your destination and what the shortest route is, but it also tells you which route has traffic and how long it’ll take you to get to your destination with traffic taken into account. This is not a new idea- to me at least because I have seen it applied in my google maps app. This application of the “social” in the “digital” to make applications even more useful to humans. In the old days, people would have to listen to the radio to know how the traffic conditions are, but now we have such apps to make our lives easier. The inventors of Waze did not create something completely new, they just relied on sensor technology to measure the traffic in the streets. They worked on something that existed previously and helped better it by adding what the reading calls “layers” to the original format – the map.

The Digitization of Just About Everything

At first, I didn’t understand where the author was going with this text. However, his example of the Waze app really clarified the ‘digitization’ dialogue of the text, that due to it, we have new ways of acquiring knowledge and also, higher rates of innovation. These are two things that will form the next generation of the digital age. However, I think the most interesting part of the text for me was that as humans, our science will get better and better as digitization improves. This possibility seems so exciting  for the future of research as it gives us more and more access to answering questions we never thought we would have the ability to answer. This made me wonder if/to what extent computers will ever reach the speed, depth and complexity of the human mind?

This reading’s most interesting part to me is the talk of fashion and design for disability clashing. The focus was on glasses, which have now are now called “eyewear” in the industry. While needing glasses is a minimal disability to meet, the design to comfort the wearer and to remove the stigma around wearing them has been successful. Unlike most “designs” for other disabilities, the fashion industry did not try to hide them, but rather emphasize them. Glasses have become more of a fashion accessory rather than a medical necessity. The mention of embracing fashion when designing for disability seems very interesting because it might shed a more positive light on prosthetics and the overall confidence of the person who wears them.

In the reading, prosthetic hands were mentioned, and it said that most of them were either functional, but not good looking, or realistic with minimal function to them. I think we should try to snap out of the traditional thinking and try new “approaches” like the reading suggests in order to best progress and to provide options that are inclusive and will not leave the person to compromise between features.

This reading also reminded me of the alternative limb project. The project “explores the themes of body image, modification, evolution, and transhumanism, whilst promoting positive conversations around disability and celebrating body diversity” Their projects are really beautiful and artistic. Exploring exactly what the reading suggests.

http://www.thealternativelimbproject.com

This week’s assignment offered a lot of freedom in terms of what to do. Maybe, for my indecisive soul, a little too much of it. Coming up with an ‘art piece’ from scratch was above my end-of-the-semester exhausted creative capabilities – so I decided to take on a slightly different direction and make an already existing art piece interactive. I also wanted to learn to work with images, so this was a perfect opportunity to do so.

I took the most mainstream piece of artwork you can find – Mona Lisa- and gave her hands that move with the cursor. I started with slicing existing images in Photoshop, getting rid of the background and creating a png.  The code is very similar to what we did in class- but writing it on my own and mending it to what I needed to achieve with this assignment actually helped to contextualize and understand Object Oriented Programming a lot more. I did not want to research much and attempted to write the code with as little outside help as possible.

The only issues I encountered was figuring out how to place and rotate the hand images. I knew how to do it with small objects that were drawn in Processing, and it took me a lot of trials and errors until I got a hang of it. What is more, I wanted to make the disco lights a little more interesting by adding some randomized blur to them, but using the filter(BLUR) function slowed down the image so much that the hands stopped moving smoothly- and I rather dropped the idea.

Another difficult part was getting used to thinking in terms of classes and not linear lines of codes. But, to be honest, it made the code incredibly neat and clean and made it very easy to change things up (especially pictures), whenever I wanted to trie or change something. Now I really can see why there is so much hype around it!

Here is the main code followed by the class code:

Hands handL;
Hands handR;
PImage Mona;

void setup() {
  size(640, 460);
  
  //loading the image of Mona from a folder
  Mona = loadImage("hey mona final.png");

  //locating where the cookies will be when cut out of the cookie cutter
  handL = new Hands(150, 500);
  handR = new Hands(400, 600);
}

void draw () {
  background(0);

  //Disco lights that follow the cursor - there is a little randomness in strokeweight, colors and lenght
  for ( int i = 0; i < 5; i++) {
    pushMatrix();
    strokeWeight(random(1, 3));
    stroke(random(255), random(255), random(255));
    line((random(width)), random(height), mouseX, mouseY);
    popMatrix();
  }

  //locating Mona to her spot on the screen
  image(Mona, 0, 0);

  //cutting the exact cookies out
  handL.update();
  handL.displayL();
  handR.update();
  handR.displayR();
}

class Hands {

  float angle;
  PVector origin;
  PImage handL, handR;

  Hands(float x, float y) {
    origin = new PVector(x, y);
    angle = 0;
  }

  void update() {

    PVector destination = new PVector(mouseX, mouseY);
    PVector direction = PVector.sub(destination, origin);
    angle = direction.heading();

    handR = loadImage("ruka dlha copy.png");
    handL = loadImage("ruka dlha.png");
  }

  void displayL() {
    pushMatrix();
    translate(origin.x, origin.y);
    rotate(angle);
    //handL.resize(200, 100);
    image(handL, 0, 0);
    popMatrix();
  }
  
  void displayR() {
    pushMatrix();
    translate(origin.x, origin.y);
    rotate(angle);
    //handL.resize(200, 100);
    image(handR, 0, 0);
    popMatrix();
  }
}

“Design depends largely on constraints”, is among the most important arguments that is suggested by Graham Pullin in his book. Pullin quite strongly asserts that “good design” requires that the designer values simplicity over all other attributes of the design. This is an interesting point to me, because while I agree that it is important that the user is able to navigate using the design easily, there has to be a more holistic way to approach design. To an extent, the aesthetics of a design and its functionality can be interconnected, as we observed in a previous reading.

Pullin delves into the realm of designing for disability, and a crucial aspect of his argument regarding how “disability inspires design”, is that design in this framework aims to attract minimal attention and intends for the user to blend into their surroundings. This notion of presenting oneself as “normal” implies that there is something to be ashamed of in the first place. Pullin weaves in the example of glasses as a design that is successful in the sense that it eyewear is not associated with disability, due to certain fashion and media sensationalism that normalized this design. The fact that glasses are so successful as a design though, is not strictly due to their functionality, but rather to how people began perceiving them as products and items of fashion – when they are mainly designed for a certain disability.

After reading up on all the examples the text provides, Pullin’s argument regarding the importance of simplicity in designing a product became more vivid. When less emphasis is placed on the aesthetics of a product or design, perhaps more will go into “mak[ing] a design more accessible”.

//Box B[];
//startScreen S;
RotateBox Box;
EvilSquare evil, evil1;
boolean overButton = false;
boolean buttonPress = false;
int qwerty = 100;

void setup() {
  size(820, 640);
  //  int lineLength = 30;
  //  int w = width/lineLength;
  //  int h = height/lineLength;
  //B = new Box[w*h];
  //float i = 0;
  //S = new startScreen();
  evil1 = new EvilSquare(qwerty);
  evil = new EvilSquare(qwerty+100);
  Box = new RotateBox();
}
void draw() {
  background(175, 200, 250);
  landscape();
  Box.run();
  startScrn();
  if (buttonPress == true ){
  //if (millis()% 10 == 0){
  //translate(0,random(-300, 300));
    evil.evilRun();
    evil1.evilRun();
//for int i == 
textSize(25);
text("DEFEND!", width/2-50,height/2-10);



  }}
 



void landscape() {
  noStroke();
  fill(20, 200, 125);
  rect(0, height*.8, width, height);
  noStroke();
  fill(175, 180, 125);
  triangle(width*.1-10, height*.75, width*.1+10, height*.75, width*.1, height*.75-100);
  noStroke();
  fill(20, 200, 125);
  ellipse(width*.1, height*.8, 100, 100);
}


    void checkButtons() {
  if (mouseX > width*.4 && mouseX < width*.6 && mouseY > height*.4 && mouseY <height*.55) {
    overButton = true;   
  } 
  }
  


  void startScrn(){
    
    if (buttonPress ==true){
    noFill(); }
      else {
        stroke(random(255),random(255),random(255));
    strokeWeight(5);
    fill(230);
    rect(width/20,height/20, width-width/10,height-height/10);
    stroke(0);
    strokeWeight(5);
    fill(255);
  rect(width*.4,height*.4, width*.2,height*.15);
    fill(0);
    text("start game", width*.46,height*.47);
      }
    

  }

  //void reset(){
    
  //  noFill();
  //  stroke(0);
  //  strokeWeight(3);
  //  rect (width*.87,height*.9, 80, 30);
  //  text("reset", width*.92,height*.92);
  //}

 void mousePressed() {
  if (overButton && mousePressed) {
  buttonPress = true ;}
   
}

void mouseMoved() { 
  checkButtons(); 
}

Sorry.

class RotateBox {
  PVector origin;
  float angle;
  int len;
  
  RotateBox(){
    
    origin = new PVector(width*.1, height*.75-100);
    angle=0;
    len =50;
  }
  
  
  void update() {

    PVector mouse = new PVector(mouseX, mouseY);
    PVector direction = PVector.sub(mouse, origin);//I want to subtract second from first one
    angle = direction.heading();
  
  }

  void display() {

    pushMatrix();
    translate(width*.1, height*.75-100);
    rotate(angle);

    stroke(0);
    strokeWeight(4);
    fill(200,200,175);
    rect(0, 0, len, 15);

    popMatrix();
  }
  void run() {
    update();
    display();
  }
}

class EvilSquare {
  float x;
  float y;
  int qwe;
  EvilSquare(int _qwe){
    qwe = _qwe;
    x = width +100+qwe;
    y = height/2;
  }
  
  void scare(){
  x --;
  }
  
  void display() {
    
    pushMatrix();
    
   

    stroke(0);
    fill(255,10, 10);
    strokeWeight(0);
    rect(x,y, random(20, 50), random (20, 50));
    
    popMatrix();
  }
  
  void evilRun(){
  scare();
  display();
  }
  
    
  
  
}