EDC&I 583

Message Design

 

Things to Look at for May 27

 

Don Norman  (2007).

The design of future things.  (NY: Basic)

(Handout distributed in class.)

 

mark stephen meadows

Pause and effect: The art of interactive narrative

Read the 4 excerpts linked from this site.  Meadows is a graphic artist and game designer.  The excerpts don't have the graphics that are in the book itself, but this will give some flavor of his work.

 

Jaron Lanier

"Jaron's World" columns from Discover magazine

Read (at least) these items:

- Sex, Drugs, and the Internet:  Does anonymity breed nastiness in the online world? 03.14.2007

- Morphing Messages:  Describing ideas so subtle they are literally beyond words. 01.10.2007

- I Smell, Therefore I Think:  Did odors give rise to the first words? 05.27.2006

 

Nicholas A. Christakis at Edge

SOCIAL NETWORKS ARE LIKE THE EYE

Where do networks come from, how do they work, and how individual are we, really?  Thoughts from a former hospice doctor, with comments by (among others) Alan Alda.

 

Ray Kurzweil

Foreword to The Intelligent Universe

Superintelligence and the approach of the Singularity.

 

Long Now Foundation

Welcome to the year 02008!  Check out this fascinating attempt to think about time frames longer than the next election cycle, by a lot.  Founded by Stewart Brand, this group seeks (among other things) to develop a clock that will run automatically for 10,000 years.

 

Look at these specific items:

Babbage Difference Engine No.2

IBM History Flow

 

Communication to the Long Future

Avoiding Nuclear Waste until 12000 AD

How would we mark a site to indicate to people who may not speak English or any other now-known language that the site contains dangerous nuclear waste?  How would we make sure that new generations would also learn that the site is dangerous?