Symposium 0.7

We were shown two really cool things during this weeks lecture, The Faces of Facebook and The Oracle of Bacon.

The Faces of Facebook online app has scanned the public profile images of each member, which is equal to one seventh of the Earth’s population. The makers claim that if you were to browse all of them individually it would take 36 years, 5 months, 9 days, 6 hours, 46 minutes and 16 seconds.

The Oracle of Bacon reflects nicely on last weeks reading on databases. Every couple of weeks The Oracle downloads several database files from Internet Movie databases containing around 1.5 million actors and actresses, around 1.2 million movies and TV shows, and around 200,000 nicknames. The Oracle builds a big map of actors and movies and stores it in a 252 MB database file. The database server uses a breadth-first search (BFS) to find the shortest path between pairs of actors.

Below are some of my takeaway ideas for further thought and discussion.

 We often forget that technological inventions are made within a society that has particular values. How does this context get embedded into the technology and shape the way it is used?

• It is quite important to acknowledge the broader context around the technologies, like the way they are used by specific groups and cultures.
• VHS (licensed to anyone) and BETA tapes (Sony – not licensed to anyone)
• Technique
• Eg: Walkman. Initially designed with two outputs so two people could listen to it at once, “music is a shared experience,” representative of a moment before technology became so individualized. Sony acknowledged user behaviour to want to listen alone and thus changed their design.

Does technique drive technology or does technology develop technique?

• Technique is required when you have technology, therefore technology develops technique through consequence
• The affordances of the technology can influence behaviour.