Relevant History

Giving STS a good name...

Wonkette reports that a Dartmouth professor

is suing her class for discrimination, as she revealed in a series of regrettable and bizarre emails that promptly ended up all over Dartmouth blogs. Priya Venkatesan (Dartmouth '90, MS in Genetics, PhD in literature) emailed members of her Winter '08 Writing 5 class Saturday night to announce her intention to seek damages from them for their being mean to her.

Looking at that academic pedigree, I immediately started to worry. Sure enough, she was teaching STS. Her book, Molecular Biology in Narrative Form "is a groundbreaking, interdisciplinary study that shows a connection between molecular biology and French narrative theory."

With many new insights on the link between science (in the form of DNA, a set of codes) and literature (in the form of language, another set of codes), this book looks at modern experimental science within the framework of semiotics. Priya Venkatesan reveals the extraordinary parallel between the work of scientists and the work of narratologists who develop narrative paradigms and analyze literary texts. Molecular Biology in Narrative Form will be a useful resource for scientists and literary theorists interested in the epistemological workings of science, as well as, anyone that desires to explore the linkages between scientific theory and literary analysis.

Two things come to mind. First, didn't Lily Kay and Tim Lenoir do exactly this about 15 years ago? Or does the project just bear a strong resemblance to George Landow's Hypertext, with its argument for unexpected parallels between computer science and literary theory?

And... suing her students? Huh?

[To the tune of Times Online, "The Bugle - Episode 16 - Afghanistan in a zen state of chaos," from the album "The Bugle - Audio Newspaper For A Visual World".]

Paper Enigma machine

Sure, the Enigma was cracked in World War II, but it's still a pretty cool device. Did you know you can make a (very simple) paper version?

[via Bruce Schneier]

[To the tune of Perpetual Groove, "Get Down Tonight," from the album "Live at The Music Farm, 31 December 2006".]

Technorati Tags: mathematics, security

Reprints!

Got a pleasant surprise today: a package of reprints for my latest article, a piece on "The Industrialization of Vision in Victorian Astronomy" in Bildwelten des Wissens. It's always nice to get these. I'll have to send them off to various academic friends, for whom the ritual of receiving reprints holds some cultural meaning.

The article is one I wrote a while ago, but never quite got around to publishing; so when the chance came last year to contribute to this issue, I figured, why not make good use of it? I'm not doing much work on Victorian science now, but still it's a subject that never ceases to be interesting.

And in an ironic twist, last night I was up late answering queries from an editor who's working on a piece of mine on mobility and the end of cyberspace. My old and new intellectual lives overlapping.... Though actually I think that's not quite correct: you don't really have old and new intellectual lives, unless you completely change fields and go from, say, string theory to eschatology; you just mobilize your interests and intellectual skills around different subjects.

[To the tune of Ben Folds & William Shatner, "In Love," from the album "Fear of Pop, Vol. 1".]

Technorati Tags: academia, history of science, postacademic

In the Mercury News

John Boudreau, unable to get anyone credible to comment on the Deep Meaning of the Microsoft! bid for Yahoo!, quotes me! in today's Mercury News!:

After just 14 years in which it helped launch the Internet age, Yahoo has hit "middle age" and faces the fate of many other iconic Silicon Valley companies - takeover bait.

Microsoft's $44.6 billion unsolicited bid for Yahoo is yet another indication of a common valley axiom: Innovate or face unwanted suitors.

"Yahoo may join the long list of distinguished companies going back to Fairchild Semiconductor known in their time for doing great stuff that couldn't keep up with the times," said Alex Soojung-Kim Pang, a research director for the non-profit Institute for the Future.

Actually, I love you John-- you do great work, and help me look more impressive to my in-laws.

[To the tune of Ella Fitzgerald, "It's Only A Paper Moon," from the album "Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Cole Porter Songbook".]

Technorati Tags: history of science, Silicon Valley

Digital cultures of California

This forthcoming issue of Convergence looks really interesting.

Special Issue on ‘Digital Cultures of California'
Guest editor: Julian Bleecker (Near Future Laboratory and University of Southern California)

This call invites submissions for a special issue related to digital cultures of California. Internationally, California is a phenomenon in terms of its relationship to creating, consuming and analyzing the era of digital technologies. From the legendary garage entrepreneurs, to the multi-billion dollar culture of venture capital, to stock back-dating scandals, to the epic exodus of California’s IT support staff during the Burning Man festival, this territory plays an important role in the political, cultural and economic underpinnings of digitally and network-mediated lives on a global scale.

Half of my brain trying to figure out if there's some piece of my end of cyberspace project that I can carve out and submit, and the other half is more sensibly telling me to get the Hell back to work on the book ms. This damn essay on paper spaces-- on how some interactions with paper are more architectural and spatial than merely personal (obviously I need to work on the language a little)-- is the last distraction I should allow myself.

[To the tune of Billy Idol, "Flesh for Fantasy," from the album "Rebel Yell".]

Technorati Tags: California, digital culture, end of cyberspace, postacademic, writing

History of the signal board?

Has anyone written about the history of those boards that stock exchanges use to show information to traders-- the ones that in the movies always have guys running around them, frantically updating prices?

[To the tune of Ratatat, "Wildcat," from the album "Classics".]

The utility of STS demonstrated yet again

Thomas Van der Waal has a great post about "the elements in the social software stack." In addition to having some great advice, and offering a nice clear way to think about social software, the following bit jumped out at me:

It was through reading Jyri Engeström's blog post about "Why some social network services work and others don't — Or: the case for object-centered sociality" that I came to have familiarity with Karin Knorr Cetina's object-centered sociality. It was through the repeated mentioning of this Knorr Cetina concept by Rashmi Sinha in her presentations and from personal conversations with Rashmi that the ideas deep value sunk in (it is a concept central to Rashmi and Jon Boutelle's product SlideShare).

Interaction designers have long been reading anthropology-- Chris Espinoza once told me that when they were designing the first Mac interface, he and the other designers had copies of George Lakoff's work on metaphor in the office-- and I've been aware for a while of more academic interface design types being familiar with STS and history of technology. But it's good to see that people who are actually doing serious products-- Jaiku, SlideShare, etc.-- are using it, too.

[To the tune of Cocteau Twins, "Pur," from the album "Four-Calendar Cafe".]

Technorati Tags: postacademic, social software, STS

I would have so won this

Proving that half of my brain is also filled with game memories.

"Tron Contest Framed," from the fantastic Retro Arcade set on Flickr.

Tags: arcade, videogames, tron

New review

My review of Stuart Clark's The Sun Kings: The Unexpected Tragedy of Richard Carrington and the Tale of How Modern Astronomy Began is in the latest issue of American Scientist.

It was a good book, but to be perfectly honest, it was one of those reviews that the editor took apart, rearranged, and greatly improved. So equal credit on this one should go to Flora Lewis.

Thanks to Bill C. for letting me know it was out!

[ Posted from Caffe Espresso 1929 via plazes.com ]

Technorati Tags: astronomy, books, history, history of science, science

Off to Berlin

My article on the industrialization of visualization in 19th century astronomy, that is, not me. I hope the editors think well of it. It's a shorter piece, but that's what the journal publishes.

I still need to root around to see if I have any pictures I can run with the piece.

The article is actually one I started ten years ago, but set aside to write a couple other things; but in the intervening years, there have been a number of articles on photography, drawing, and observing practices in Victorian science, so I was able to fill in a couple gaps, and send it off. It's a relatively short piece. We'll see.

Now back to other things, most particularly the end of cyberspace.

[To the tune of The Beatles, "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band," from the album "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band".]

Technorati Tags: astronomy, history of science, science, visualization