Saturday, March 29, 2008

Response to Kittler - by Ben, Duy, Kevin and Scott

Kittler first writes about optical fiber networks, and how this medium merges mediums that were before seperate. A prominent concept in his writings is the storage media. The latter which recalls and reproduces the flow of time. He covers transitions such as writing to type. He then moves from the Turing machine into discussion about there not being software. His basis is that any software broken down reveals hardware and analog signals. Observations are made concerning how machine are discreet and ordered while reality of man is continuous and chaotic.

Discussion about the Turing machine led to questions about interface. Aspects that deal with the user interaction with the computer cannot be defined by a mathematical formula in the sense that there is no perfect interface. From considering our interactions with computers, we notice that we are conditioned to use certain interfaces. For example, the qwerty keyboard is not in theory better than the dvorak layout after having switched from typewriters to computers, yet it is widely used.

Does the discrete nature of computers make it a difficult medium to try and recreate the chaotic man?

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