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CLick here to expand all course descriptionsPosts by Ilwon Yoon (1) By Ilwon Yoon, on December 11th, 2012
ITP is like a good buffet. There are so many food in the restaurant and I have a certain limited time. If I try to different type of food, it could be good or bad experience, but it would be better when you focus on big main stream. If you try too many different food, you might taste many things, but will be full soon.
Being at ITP is an extraordinary experience in terms of inspiring and encouraging community as well as struggling with writing various types of codes during the semester. First of all, I will retrospect my original goal of attending ITP at the first place. I have studied Fine Art for years, focusing on staged photography, sculpture and installation. However, over the years of presenting works only in galleries space or institution, I felt limited in a way that I don’t have enough audience to talk about it and gallery show format did not satisfy me. In order to fulfill my desire of sharing thoughts and ideas, I decided to move forward to practical implementation such as building a social networking or developing web as well as not losing the interest of creating interactive installation.
My expectation before school and real life at ITP was being met in general, which I am so happy about it, yet there were a couple of things that I was not able to predict. At the time of writing, I can list at least three things that I have realized it hard. Above all, managing all different type of classes, and maintaining focus was not hard to manage. Taking 6 classes was so hard that I cannot maintain my focus on one thing. Even in a day, I had to move back and forth between classes to finish homework and there was not enough room to take a deep breadth on a subject matter. For instance, if I spent a few days with processing, I was getting to forget about the electronics circuit, vice versa. This happened very occasionally whenever I moved to the other subject, and it drove me crazy. I questioned myself whether I was capable of learning complex code or not. Although I found out that there was a group of people struggling with same issues, yet it is somehow hard to keep focusing at one subject matter and get depth of it at the first semester.
Secondarily, collaborating did not come easy to me in many ways. Because of the characteristic of my former majors, photography and sculpture, I got accustomed to work individually and it was hard for me to yield about the reason why we made work as I believe that is the essential part of creating things. I was not able to involve myself enough in a project if I couldn’t find a reason to do it. However, I am totally admitting that I did not put my full effort on communicating with others, convincing my thought and negotiating, which I felt regretful about it. Ironically, doing collaboration with others was the one of the drives that forced me to be in ITP, and I have realized that I need to have a mindset toward collaboration.
In contrast to collaboration perspective, I was also required to do individual work, especially writing code. However I found it very challenging for me to maintain full length of attention in the way that it is intangible media. My initial plan for the first semester was focusing on computational media instead of focusing on physical computing, but I found myself in the shop all the times as I love making things in tangible manner. Compared to the making things, writing code takes significant amount of time, and cannot see the outcome of the work right away unless my code works properly. Being stuck with broken code was terrible moment and could not stay with it for long time. So, I got inclinable to go to the shop to make tangible objects instead of debugging code, but time went by, I had started to feel guilt about not spending enough time on it. Long story short, my lesson of this semester is that the amount of the time I spend on code is proportional to my capabilities of writing code, and I am here not for staying in my comfortable zone, but for marching to new field regardless of how hard it is. Lastly, I really want to say that this ITP community is truly inspiring community. Through the entire semester, every colleague and all professors are my biggest motivation of working all semester long. Everyone on the floor is good source of others and is willing to help each other nevertheless they are in the busy mood. Additionally, by watching the progress of people here, I was able to keep maintaining myself focused and staying busier than ever in my life. Furthermore, all professors at ITP are very knowledgeable and accessible to answer our questions. To demonstrate this, I would like to share one of the story that I got impressed so much. For my final physical computing project, I am now working on automatic cat feeder that will be controlled by people over the extension of Internet. However, I was jammed with mechanism at the beginning as I had no idea of making motor controlled open rid, including locking system to prevent my cat to eat foot without permission. For the time being, I tried to figure out how to design a simple and efficient system all the time, even before I lied in my bed. Then, here comes the story. When I worked at the shop, Tom just came to the shop and gave a thing to me, and I did not know that what it was and why he gave that to me. I thought that that would be miscommunication with someone. Then, he explained it that the thing was his automatic cat feeder he had and it did not work with his cat. He thought it would be useful for me in terms of mechanism design built in the machine and would be a prototype for my future cat feeder. I know it is not a big action or something truly meaningful, but that meant something to me as I came from different culture of education. Generally, I am so happy that I am here!
ITP is like a good buffet. There are so many food in the restaurant and I have a certain limited time. If I try to different type of food, it could be good or bad experience, but it would be better when you focus on big main stream. If you try too many different […] December 11th, 2012 | Category: Uncategorized | Comments are closed
Posts by Jing Zhao (1) By Jing Zhao, on December 10th, 2012
After I read this book ,I always thought about “How would you define physical interaction?””What makes for good physical interaction?” 2. Then let me add “physical” before “interaction”: If the physical is material things, just as Bret Victor ranted in A Brief Rant on the Future of Interaction Design, The touch screen of computer and mobile should open and develop our human’s hands ability. If the physical is natural features, it is similar feeling when we using material things to interaction. When we use hands to touch the future mobile and computer, we couldn’t ignore the natural feature of human( we also couldn’t ignore the natural feature of all tools). Are there works from others that you would say are good examples of digital technology that are not interactive? After I read this book ,I always thought about “How would you define physical interaction?””What makes for good physical interaction?” In my opinion, 1. According to Crawford, “interaction: a cyclic process in which two actors alternately listen, think, and speak.” In human- machine interactive process, the 3 steps above of listen, think, speak could be […] December 10th, 2012 | Tags: The Art of Interactive Design | Category: Uncategorized | Comments are closed
Posts by Edward Button (2) By Edward Button, on December 9th, 2012
I found the comments and descriptions in this article to be very good. Being a straight white male it made me think a lot about my position in the world. The analogies where precise and non threatening. One thing that is clear is these positions have been rapidly changing. There is great proof of that and we should be proud of it as a culture. Women in the 25-30 year old college educated professional categories in several urban markets are now making more money and have higher job security than men (from a cnn poll, don’t know the details or testing methods). I know for sure that being a privileged white straight male does not guarantee the kind of position it did even 10 years ago. The roles of males are changing as well. Increasingly, they are required to fill different positions in society. It is amazing how far we have come in the last 50 years with racial and gender equality. Now, we not only need to continue this trend but find a way to keep women’s life expectance from continuing to decrease. Eventually we will all be doing the same jobs, valued the same, and be responsible for ourselves in the same manner. I think we have a very bright future to look forward to when it comes to the race, gender, and sexual preference divide. We will be able to advance much farther as a people. I found the comments and descriptions in this article to be very good. Being a straight white male it made me think a lot about my position in the world. The analogies where precise and non threatening. One thing that is clear is these positions have been rapidly changing. There is great proof of […] December 9th, 2012 | Category: Straight White Male is the Lowest Difficulty Setting There Is, Uncategorized | One comment - (Comments are closed)
Posts by Moe Shahrooz (1) By Moe Shahrooz, on November 20th, 2012
November 20th, 2012 | Tags: Moe Shahrooz | Category: Uncategorized, Understanding Comics | One comment - (Comments are closed)
Posts by Tianyu Wu (2) By Tianyu Wu, on November 11th, 2012
As an international students, except to the culture shift, there are two things I learn most from ITP. One of it is the way to realize the idea, the other is about the definition of innovation. 1.The methodology to make the result as big as your dreams. ITP is good at teaching people to own infinite imagination, the technique of how to realize your idea seems seldom to be discussed. For me, I always have a crush on the people who can turn a small idea to a bigger one. And I never think a relatively bad idea is a killer to the whole thing. I just learn from some good partner from ITP who is super organized and powerful to getting things done step by step. And I think this ability should always be mentioned in ITP. My conclusion about getting things done: try to make full use of restriction and resources, divide the whole things into several parts, and regard every parts as the goal and make it. 2. The definition about innovation I always think the term” new”, is different from person to person. Some people have similar experience in their life with creator and they think it is old and not novel at all while others may feel in an opposite way. So I am avoid trying to push myself think in a new way. Viewing students’ project in ITP, I found that even a little bit redesign of the ordinary could be a huge step into innovation. For example, Google is not the first company thinking of making a search engine. Someone in the history have already come up with this idea like “hotpot” and “excite”. Why Google? Maybe Google has the ability to make a search engine only showed as a box ,maybe it just has a better algorithm? The idea never changed, the way they present the idea go a step further. As an international students, except to the culture shift, there are two things I learn most from ITP. One of it is the way to realize the idea, the other is about the definition of innovation. 1.The methodology to make the result as big as your dreams. recently my friends and I took an interesting […] November 11th, 2012 | Category: Uncategorized | Comments are closed
Posts by Peter Terezakis (3) By Peter Terezakis, on November 10th, 2012
I am investigating an opportunity to bring Josh Fox to NYU. Please let me know if you would be interested in attending a screening of his documentary Gasland and participating in a Q & A. Thanks – Peter  click to watch THE SKY IS PINK – documentary by Josh Fox I am investigating an opportunity to bring Josh Fox to NYU. Please let me know if you would be interested in attending a screening of his documentary Gasland and participating in a Q & A. Thanks – Peter Please click the image below for his film on fracking and New York […] November 10th, 2012 | Category: Uncategorized | Comments are closed
Posts by Peter Terezakis (3) By Peter Terezakis, on November 7th, 2012
There was something about Philip K. Howard’s presentation this past Tuesday night which troubled me. Actually, there were several items which did not sound quite right. I did some research and attempted to both look and read between the lines of his presentation. The first item that came to my attention was Mr. Howard’s place of employment.  ” For many clients, Mr. Howard acts as coordinator of lawyers in different practice areas, particularly in corporate and litigation matters that have a significant regulatory or public relations component. ” – Philip Howard bio page at Covington and Burling LLP Mr. Howard is both founding partner (1999) and vice-chairman of the international law firm of Covington & Burling LLP. Covington and Burling is not a typical law firm. In 1919 it represented the Kingdom of Norway against the United States, employs over 800 lawyers, offices including one in Beijing, Brussels, London, Seoul, and five in the United States. In January of 2011, Covington & Burling LLP became affiliated with the Institution Quraysh for Law & Policy which has offices in Doha, Jeddah, London, and Riyadh. Partners at Covington and Burling are said to earn $665,000/year. As a senior partner and vice-chairman, Mr. Howard’s compensation package may be substantively greater than that of other partners. Money has its own momentum. The momentum of directed wealth possesses the power to change laws, policies, and history. Vast sums of money focused on an issue transform momentum into pure energy and cause water to run uphill, blue skies to become pink, and to subvert the will of the people to that of corporations. Aside from subverting the intent and will of the people and of law, wealth is able to recruit loyalty, and purchase the services of all who sell themselves. “If you let every case come down to the vote of the jury you never know where you stand.” – Philip K. Howard Given the right to a jury trial is part of the United States Constitution exactly whose “Common Good” would be represented by the changes Philip K. Howard proposes? The manufacturer of an automobile whose gas tank was known to explode on impact or the human being (or their estate) affected by corporate negligence? Who will lose when multi-billion dollar corporations are allowed to corrupt our government and have their way?  Covington and Burling LLP an international corporate law firm successfully serving the interests of multinational corporations and royalty since 1919. There was something about Philip K. Howard’s presentation this past Tuesday night which troubled me. Actually, there were several items which did not sound quite right. I did some research and attempted to both look and read between the lines of his presentation. The first item that came to my attention was Mr. Howard’s place […] November 7th, 2012 | Category: Uncategorized | 16 comments - (Comments are closed)
Posts by Wyna Liu (1) By Wyna Liu, on November 2nd, 2012
In How We Decide, Jonah Lehrer attempts to describe the neurological foundations behind our human decision-making. He focuses on two main areas of the brain, the prefrontal cortex and the midbrain dopamine system, and explains how they are mapped to the different types of decisions we make, which he defines as “rational” and “emotional”. The first sections of the book describe how these parts of the brain are activated in specific decision-making circumstances, for example when weighing long term rewards over short-term stimulation. The prefrontal cortex (connected with the “rational brain”) becomes active when a fireman overrides the instinct to run away from a fire and instead decide to light a smaller one, creating a buffer of burnt land for protection. It has the ability to override instinct. The dopamine system in the brain (connected to the “emotional” brain) is active when anticipation is called upon, like when a monkey expects a sweet reward after learning how to pull on a lever. Lehrer likens the rational brain to computer hardware. Though incredibly capable of processing information, it’s bound by it’s own physical limitations. He writes, “These new talents [created by the development of the prefrontal cortex in humans] were incredibly useful. But they were also incredibly new… [they] suffer from the same problem that afflicts any new technology: they have lots of design flaws and software bugs” (p. 24). In contrast, the emotional brain relies on instincts that have evolved over the last several hundred million years. The thinking that a quarterback needs to throw a complete pass under pressure is different than what a pilot requires when his plane is going down. Lehrer states that the emotional brain falls short when dopamine neurons try to evaluate a situation and sense a pattern where there isn’t one. He explains the emotional brain can’t always be trusted, for example when faced with picking stocks or playing a slot machine. “Because the dopamine neurons can’t figure out the pattern, they can’t adapt to the pattern. The result is that you are transfixed by the slot machine, riveted by the fickle nature of its payouts” (p. 61). In situations like this, where the brain seeks out patterns when they aren’t there, intuitions can’t be trusted. Conversely, it is possible to “overthink”. One of the points I find most interesting and relatable in this book is the idea that there are physical limitations to the types of information our brains can process, and when those thresholds are exceeded, different modes of decision making become more appropriate. Lehrer acknowledges the misconception that more information always produces smarter decisions. He argues that there is a time and place when intuition, which comes from the emotional brain, is sufficient to make the “best” choice; when the brain is forced to overthink, it can actually result in an overload of unnecessary stimulation that impedes the decision-making process. He cites an experiment involving a taste test of forty-five different types of strawberry jam. Those results would be compared to ones already calculated by Consumer Reports. In this blind test, subjects were asked to rate the jams from best tasting to worst. The results were overwhelmingly consistent with the professional ratings. “When it comes to judging jam, we are all natural experts” (p. 142). When the test was repeated with a separate group of tasters, who this time were asked to explain why they preferred one jam over the other in a questionnaire, the correlation to the Consumer Reports ratings plummeted. People talked themselves out of their own instincts when pressed to consider variables that weren’t vital to the decision being made (texture and spreadability, for example). The “wisdom” of their instincts was lost, replaced by an overload of unnecessary “rational” observations. I find this to be true whenever filling out evaluations. Even if I have a negative experience (in a group work situation, or with a course or instructor), when asked to articulate these feelings I almost always talk myself out of them (“It really wasn’t that bad… If I can’t describe why I have these feelings, they must not have existed in such a way”). My rational brain overwhelms my visceral responses, and the result is I just go with what I can express on paper. Another practical experience I’ve had relating to the effects of too much information has been described by The Simpsons as “Three Stooges Syndrome” (bear with me). Mr. Burns, the town’s resident hundred-year-old evil billionaire, goes to the doctor and is told that the reason he hasn’t died yet is because he has every disease known to man. The individual diseases haven’t killed him because they’re all trying to get through the “door” at once, and they get stuck. The following dialogue results:
Mr. Burns: So what you’re saying is, I’m indestructible.
When there’s too much going on, everything cancels out. The brain becomes overwhelmed and checks out. Overstimulation feels like no stimulation at all. When I was younger, I always believed the word “ambivalence” meant apathy. Although they are opposites, their results are the same. The mind can experience Three Stooges Syndrome and when it’s unable to cope, can simply give up and shut down. What Lehrer ultimately concludes is that these two different types of brain activity should not be seen in conflict with one another, but in collaboration due to special functions of prefrontal cortex and dopamine systems, best suited to different tasks. The trick is to learn how to better balance how and when they are used. Although I felt that a good few of Lehrer’s points were relatable and well-explained, I still had some issues with his reliance on concrete definitions of “emotion” and “reason”. At times the examples he used seemed to be analyzed and presented in an overly simplified way, to better reinforce this binary. The foundation of his thesis felt too simple to support the variety of evidence he provided, which at times seemed as if they could be understood in different ways. I understand the benefit of simplifying such complex neurological phenomena, if it were more technically written most of this book would be beyond my understanding, but I ultimately found the style and simplicity distracting from the validity of his points. Although I had stronger negative visceral response to this reading, when forced to articulate exactly why in this response, I found I could not. Conflict between emotional and rational brain, case in point!
In How We Decide, Jonah Lehrer attempts to describe the neurological foundations behind our human decision-making. He focuses on two main areas of the brain, the prefrontal cortex and the midbrain dopamine system, and explains how they are mapped to the different types of decisions we make, which he defines as “rational” and “emotional”. The […] November 2nd, 2012 | Category: Uncategorized | 4 comments - (Comments are closed)
Posts by Christina Carter (1) By Christina Carter, on October 23rd, 2012
At first I thought maybe the entry for “The Inner Game of Tennis” on the reading list was a typo. What does tennis have to do with ITP or anything non-tennis related for that matter? Nevertheless, I was intrigued and decided to find out for myself. I quickly realized the book’s relevance to ITP and life in general. While the book does focus a lot on game of tennis, I think it would do itself a favor by emphasizing the book’s subtitle – The Classic Guide to the Mental Side of Peak Performance – because it provides a far more accurate description of what the thesis and theory behind the book are. On the other hand, both the main title and subtitle might mislead one to think it’s a self-help book, or a “how to succeed in business” or “how to get ahead of everyone else” type of book. But it’s really none of these things. At least not if you read it the right way. It can get a little watered down at parts when Gallwey prescribes a heavy dose of tennis analogies and technical tennis explanations. I guess you can’t blame him though since he came up with his theory while he was a tennis teacher, and spent the majority of his professional career employing his theory on the court. But more recently Gallwey has introduced the Inner Game approach to corporations and individuals in a variety of fields and I can understand why. The Inner Game of Tennis is a fascinating study of the mind, and the struggle between what Gallwey refers to as the two selves: Self 1 and Self 2. Self 1, the “conscious teller” is the part of the brain that gives instructions to the Self 2, which is the part of the brain that translates our knowledge of technique into physical action. To use a tennis analogy, Self 1 is the side of the brain that’s consciously focusing on your form, swing, how hard you’re hitting the ball. Self 1 judges Self 2 and is often heard saying things like, “Why can’t I hit the ball straight today?”, “my serve f@*king sucks”, etc. Self 2 is the part of the brain that would like to just perform the physical action as it has learned to do so. Gallwey’s main point is that Self 1 is untrusting and judgmental of Self 2 and interferes with the natural abilities of Self 2. Gallwey explains that your body learns to do most things naturally without judgment such as walking into a room, turning on the light and sitting in a chair to read. Or how a child begins walking after seeing others walk, then imitates the action, and ultimately continues to walk even after falling a few times, because the Self 2 realizes it’s better than crawling. Gallwey explains that “the process by which the body learned and performed these actions is no different from the process by which it learns and plays the game of tennis”. This applies to a lot of things outside of the court such as taking an important test, playing an instrument, performing, problem solving. The theory of Self 1 and Self 2 can explain why when we are warming up, practicing an instrument, or in dress rehearsal, we tend to do well because Self 1 thinks it’s not important. Then when it’s time for the real thing (a match or opening night), you perform worse than you did in practice because Self 1 is now aware of the importance. Self 1, untrusting and judgmental, doesn’t believe that Self 2 can do the job on its own and takes over. There are a few instances in recent memory that I find fit this theory. One, for example, physical computing. In the beginning, I struggled with the labs because (I think) my Self 1 was very aware of how little experience I had. When something didn’t go right I found my Self 1 doubting and putting down my Self 2. As a result, I kept making errors and becoming more discouraged. Then one day I was working on a lab that wasn’t due any time soon and I wasn’t nervous or really thinking too hard about what I was doing, and next thing I knew I had done everything right on the first try. Speaking of physical computing, during office hours with Tom Igoe a few weeks ago (before I started reading The Inner Game of Tennis), he said something along the same lines as Gallwey’s theory that struck me: when you all of a sudden start doing well and feeling like you “get it”, you become self-conscious of your success and start to question it. As I read The Inner Game, I was reminded of this conversation. Perhaps Tom was the one to add this book to the list?? Another memory that came to mind was my experience preparing for and taking the LSAT. I scored 5-7 points higher on all of my practice exams (which were taken in a simulated test environment to the real thing) than I did the two times I took the official exam. I have no doubt that my Self 1 is partially to blame for that. Although looking back I suppose I owe Self 1 a thank you. Had I scored 5 points higher on the real thing, I might have actually ended up applying to and attending law school (gasp!). So how do we try to overcome the power of the self-doubting, distracting, Self 1? One way, Gallwey argues, is to focus on imagery. The best way to “speak” to Self 2 is in its native language which is sensory images. Movements are learned through visual and “feeling images”, and getting a clear image of what you want to happen is the most useful method for communication with Self 2. Instead of letting Self 1 tell Self 2 to keep your wrist tight, keep your feet moving, swing through, see in your mind the image of yourself doing these things. Similarly, as we planned our physical computing midterms, we were advised to imagine what you ultimately want your project to be, and then worry about how to execute it. A good analogy for how we should treat the learning process is to act like an umpire would in a tennis match. When one player serves a double fault, that player call is a terrible shot and is unhappy. The other player judges it as good and is pleased. Then there is the umpire who simply calls the ball as he sees it. By calling things how they are, we can accept them, learn from them, and try to correct them. Gallwey says, “When the mind is free of any thought or judgment, it is still and acts like a mirror. Then and only then can we know things as they are.” The way to do this, Gallwey argues, is keeping our minds concentrated on the here and now. But I think most of us would agree that this is not an easy task. Gallwey’s discussion about this really resonated with me: It’s perplexing to wonder why we ever leave the here and now…they are the only place and time when one ever enjoys himself or accomplishes anything…Most of our suffering takes place when we allow our minds to impinge the future or mull over the past. Nonetheless, few people are ever satisfied with what is before them at the moment. Our desire that things be different from what they are pulls our minds into an unreal world, and consequently we are less able to appreciate what the present has to offer. I think most people would agree with Gallwey after reading this concept, but I had never really thought about it this way before. Why do we leave the here and now when we indeed suffer the most when we indulge in reliving the past and daydreaming about the future. The Inner Game of Tennis and the theory of the two selves provide a compelling explanation for why we often come up short when we feel as though we have tried our hardest and why, on the contrary, the when we aren’t trying so hard we are surprised by the results. Even though Gallwey’s process for letting Self 2 shine seems like a lifelong battle against Self 1, I think that simply being aware of the two selves is incredibly valuable. I have already recommended this book to a few people close to me that I think could benefit a lot from simply looking at one’s learning and performance in this light. At first I thought maybe the entry for “The Inner Game of Tennis” on the reading list was a typo. What does tennis have to do with ITP or anything non-tennis related for that matter? Nevertheless, I was intrigued and decided to find out for myself. I quickly realized the book’s relevance to ITP and […] October 23rd, 2012 | Tags: Christina Carter | Category: Inner Game of Tennis, Uncategorized | 18 comments - (Comments are closed)
Posts by Liz Khoo (2) By Liz Khoo, on October 16th, 2012
This seems to be becoming a more talked-about issue as programming continues to be pushed out to a broader audience. Made me think about recent discussions I’ve had about what is next for One Laptop Per Child and as someone who is new to programming. Kind of loosely related to Nathan Shedroff’s presentation about UX and machines but I mostly just wanted to share this article with everyone 🙂 This seems to be becoming a more talked-about issue as programming continues to be pushed out to a broader audience. Made me think about recent discussions I’ve had about what is next for One Laptop Per Child and as someone who is new to programming. Kind of loosely related to Nathan Shedroff’s presentation about UX […] October 16th, 2012 | Tags: design, education, interfaces | Category: Keep Talking, Uncategorized | One comment - (Comments are closed)
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