January 25, 2006
I started work in late December on a book for
Addison-Wesley/Prentice Hall based on my
Google-Driven Web Development tutorial. The basic
idea of the book is to use Google as both a source of inspiration and a tool
for development. The first half of the book will be spent examining the design
of Google's more popular apps — Gmail, Maps, the personalized homepage,
Google Suggest, and others — and the second half will give examples of
how to develop your own Google-like application or an application built with
Google's available APIs and open source code.
Sound interesting?
January 12, 2006
Over the holiday break (and yes, I actually unplugged and took a
holiday this year) Jerry and I watched
all three Matrix films in a
single sitting. Watching the films this way exposed ideas and themes
that I didn't see in earlier viewings. The films have stayed with me a bit
longer this time than I imagined they would. I continue to be amazed by how
the imaginative and fantastic world of the Matrix is so much like our own.
I suppose that given my background and work it's no wonder that I'm as
fascinated as I am by the series. I studied many of the theories that
underpin the films while working on my English degree at
Auburn. And now, I make my living with
computers. I find myself a student of both humanity and machine — not
to put too dramatic a spin on it — and there is a lot that the study of
one can reveal about the other.
I especially love the juxtaposition of postmodern theories (of perception,
what is the "real", etc.) versus the absolutism of a binary machine.
Postmodernism, or more accurately post-structuralism, would say that a word has
meaning only in its context — what is "True" is a construct of a given
time, place, culture, etc. The computer says, there is only 0 or 1,
False or True, Off or On. Postmodernism objects to binary distinctions, but in
the machine there can only be binary distinctions. Keep in mind that it's we
indeterminate humans that created the binary-fixed computer.
So here's a question to "bake your noodle," to borrow from the Oracle:
Is the world somehow naturally represented in binary? Or, in creating
computers, did humanity simply recreate its own cultural hegemony in
electronic form?
