Humanities Computing

Really cool article (and magazine more generally) for thinking about things you can do with css and javascript (and getting advice/code). The options include: an analog clock; dynamic, layered index cards; creating perceived depth and 3d ribbons; newspaper layouts; navigation bars; and more.

Google's New Search Algorithm to Crack Down on 'Black Hat Webspam' By Ars Technica By Matthew Braga, Ars Technica Nefarious search engine optimizers be warned. Google is coming for you-again. Following previous changes to Google's ranking and page layout algorithms, the search giant is pushing yet another update to its algorithm this week with the hopes of curbing "black hat webspam" from creeping into search results. * Google thinks that by increasing the complexity of its algorithms, it can weed out malicious intent. Funny thing about complexity is that it tends to breed more complexity. This reminds me a bit of Bogost's book on games. This cat and mouse scenario between Google and fake SEO creators seems to lead to ever evolving code much like in natural systems where the adaptations of the prey animal to take advantage of an environment are eventually matched by a predatory animal with adaptations designed to match or exceed the prey's abilities...

A neat -WIRED- blog documenting new developments in software (mostly Internet based), also offering some tips-and-tricks kinds of features too.

Whoops

Blod devoted to videogame "archaeology" as Bogost would call it. The site actually suggests reading his book too.

Microsoft combined the functions of two of their cloud storage services--SkyDrive (storage) and Mesh (file synchronization and remote access)--to create what they consider a superior alternative to Dropbox, Apple's iCloud, and Google's apps storage.

McLuhan and Bogart would probably enjoy this article because it involves procedural rhetoric. It examines how "gamification strategies"--using games to change behavior in real life--can promote energy efficiency. Companies like SimpleEnergy are creating apps that let users track their energy usage, find ways to improve, and compete with friends and neighbors for spots on a leaderboard. Gamification succeeds because apparently social pressure can motivate people even more than monetary incentives, and these initiatives combine both types of incentives: An energy usage competition at the University of Hawaii led to some dorms cutting energy usage by up to 20 percent. This specific method also allows users to save money and conserve energy without "radical infrastructure changes" or the corruption and waste that often results from government subsidies to politically-connected "green" companies like Solyndra and possibly Sapphire Energy. In addition, the apps provide large-scale energy usage data that researchers can use to measure both change over time and the impact of energy usage on other variables.

While Diigo isn't mentioned here explicitly, this blogger's thoughts (he manages a neat blog called TreeHugger) regarding consumerism can still apply to our source for digital bookmarking.

Art games by Jason Rohrer

Bogost talking with Stephen Colbert. Nation, this man believes video games aren't just for wasting time.

A humorous breakdown of the uses of social media.

Hush, empathy in Rwanda.

Response to Kellee Santiago from Roger Ebert as he sticks to his guns claiming that video games still aren't art.

I was taught web design based on a set of pretty intense basic rules (like use the color blue as I mentioned last class), but here is an awesome site that not only tells you the rules, but how and why to break them. The text and tables concepts especially apply here.

This is a completely pointless website that kind of made me laugh. I'm one of those people of 50% of the time uses "Google" as a verb ("Just Google it") and who 50% of the time still asks an actual human being the question first but inevitably gets: "Well, did you Google it?" So...this isn't an article. But still kind of funny. Digital technology is certainly changing our language: Just Google it, Wiki it, I friended her the other day, when I was Pinning, I wish I had a "Like" button right now!, and so on...

A smart political article about the relation between communication and capitalism. Useful especially on the way technical networks both present themselves as political and foreclose the political.

This is an article that responds to some of the issues brought up last class (March 20) about employers asking for facebook passwords.

I talked about this in class and I've posted on this before, but when I first posted this the idea was still in the inchoate stages of development. Now you can click on different chapters of the story and there will be a menu on the right hand side that shows animated versions of people added to the story. By clicking on this drawing, the story will advance to the period where this person makes a guest appearance and will show the real photo used for the drawing which is sometimes a facebook profile picture. Why I think this is especially interesting is that it has elements of IF that are in use in electronic literature, but it also creates a participatory community based around a specific exigency which is buying products from AXE.

This is a web site of a friend I used to work with, and thought it was a nice example of designing a web site for a professional portfolio as well as including personal interests and links.

Jobs in social media are apparently very popular and lucrative, especially in Boston.

Control that extends far beyond what was discussed in "The Internet Treats Censorship as a Malfunction and Routes Around It?"

This article is extremely interesting as we think about online "spaces" because the author describes how he pictures the literal "space" of each social networking site he uses.