Design & Computation Group Forum

05/12/2012

Theodora Vardouli created a post titled, "Read DCG F'11-S'12 list of readings":

Now that the first year of Read DCG has reached its completion, we invite you to take a look at the reading list which was formed through the Group participants’ suggestions. We hope that you will find the readings as exciting as we did and that you will join us next year for another round of stimulating discussions!

04/05/2012

Carl Lostritto created a post titled, "Amber Case at TED":

Mentioned in forum: We are all cyborgs now

04/03/2012

Will Patera created a post titled, "GLSL Sandbox":

Found this today. GLSL sandbox running in browser (chrome). Check out the gallery for examples.

03/31/2012

Onur Yuce Gun responded to Onur Yuce Gun: my wishes coming true! thanks Will.

03/31/2012

Onur Yuce Gun responded to Carl Lostritto: archiave = archive :]

03/31/2012

Onur Yuce Gun responded to Carl Lostritto: I have something special for run C-003-001.. i don't know what. series D is pretty appealing to me for its potential to generate very diverse drawings. watching the plotter in action is both exciting and scary (!). I agree that this is a great archiave and i am sure it will be documented in the thesis... however it would really be great to have these in a "booklet" of their own. maybe around half-letter sized small, relatively thick book... i'd enjoy having one on my shelf! Wonderful work Carl, keep producing more!

03/31/2012

Will Patera created a post titled, "Weekend Browsing: Ralf Baecker's Works":

I came across this artist’s work today while browsing the internet. I have yet to read the statements in detail, but visually the installations are compelling and I thought that they might interest some people in the group. Specifically the works titled: “The Conversation,” “Irrational Computing,”“Rechneder Raum,” and “Counter.” (Not to mention magnets… Daniel this [...]

03/30/2012

Carl Lostritto responded to Will Patera: Hi DCG, Here are some things I can't live without. Like Will, a lot of mine relate to programming. I'm curious to hear from others so that we can broaden the scope of this post. That said, here are my essentials: Oldies but goodies: 1) Wordpress. I do love scripting in PHP but I so hate dealing with web databases. (If you've ever wanted an if statement inside your html document, PHP is for you!) I use wordpress lately for every website I make, often simply for its "post-as-object" structure and category taxonomy. It's used to create this site and many others that look nothing like the kind of "blog" it's often associated with. A wordpress "theme" is a set of php scripts that call wordpress functions (or do anything with php) to generate html content. Themes can be extremely complex but what people often don't realize when first browsing wordpress.org is that they can also be extremely simple. With a 5-line code that gets some posts and then loops through them, you're off and running. Wordpress is free and open so you can hack it however you please. 2) If you want/need to code in Javascript, Mootools, makes it a pleasant experience. The best mootools primer can be found here: walkthrough.ifupdown.com/walkthrough-1.2/start. JQuery does a similar job but ever since I worked on a project that required mootools I have never used anything else. A lot of internet resources say you need to know javascript before using mootools but I don't buy that--I think it makes javascript "dive-in-able" for anyone who has programmed in another language. New(ish) Discoveries: 3) Pygame is my go-to resource for drawing things (especially things that move) on screens and making/reading images. Robust. Straightforward. Works. 4) I also need some way to output vector graphics with Python. The SVG format is a web standard (most modern web browsers render .svg images) so I have been exploring ways to output directly into this format. SVG also supports animation so if you are nostalgic for Flash, you'll like this. I started out using PySvg but now am much more a fan of the SvgWrite library. SVG files are xml based, which means you can (among other things) open them in a text editor and understand them. 5) Chiplotle! It lets me control my plotters with Python. It also can be used to create .hpgl files, which can be plotted using your friend's plotter and may be readable even by some contemporary vinyl cutters. (Many devices have an "HPGL emulation mode" which allows them to understand this primitive language) 6) I used to use this horrible shareware app to make animated gifs. I recently discovered you can file-open in photoshop and pick the first image in a sequence, check the image-sequence box, and you've got a multi-frame image. Do anything you want like resize or do adjustments then save-for-web as a gif and that's it. (This may be one of those things that everyone new about except for me.)

03/26/2012

Will Patera responded to Carl Lostritto: Excellent archive. Looking forward to seeing the drawings pinned up on the walls, all together, in person.

03/25/2012

Will Patera created a post titled, "Share Your Resources with the DCG":

I started writing this post with the idea that I would just share a few resources that have proved incredibly useful for my/our thesis work. However, after writing the majority of the text for this post, I realized that this could be a good opportunity for others in the group to share some resources. The general prompt: “What are your resources, distractions, preoccupations, tools, etc …?” Share them with the group. Whether they are blogs that you visit frequently, programming tools you’re interested in, writing samples, books, esoteric wikipedia entries, … etc. Put them here to preserve them for future generations.

03/25/2012

Moritz Kassner responded to Carl Lostritto: Really great! I like the high resolution images. Its the closest to the real thing you can get online I suppose..

03/19/2012

Carl Lostritto created a post titled, "Drawings for SMArchS thesis research":

Hi DCG. I’m writing to share a website I recently made that documents drawing for my thesis: http://lostritto.com/research/ The site is not an online version of the thesis, but merely a database for the representation of the drawings themselves. Thanks for taking a look and, if you have time, providing feedback. And there’s the (probably [...]

02/22/2012

Onur Yuce Gun created a post titled, "Expanding content on DCG.MIT.EDU?":

Though of two more links that we could add on the right side of the page, if everyone agrees. 1. A page with DCG lecture series and their posters (so we can build this up in upcoming semesters, and maybe add the older posters, so we have a timeline for all(?) the talks) 2. Another [...]

02/08/2012

Moritz Kassner created a post titled, "for everybody that likes Terminal and at least enjoys being a nerd ":

open Terminal and paste: << telnet towel.blinkenlights.nl >> much more and actually very useful stuff from: http://www.commandlinefu.com

01/16/2012

Will Patera created a post titled, "Sunglass.io":

An MIT DCG alumni project goes public. http://sunglass.io/ Give the demo a try and/or take a look at the video here:

12/31/2011

Moritz Kassner responded to Moritz Kassner: Upon further research: Googolplex is dwarfed by graham's number. (in magnitude yes, but no points for cool name...)

12/31/2011

Moritz Kassner created a post titled, "My new favorite Wikipedia article":

My son asked me about the biggest number I knew: Googolplex – first heard about it in 6th grade and never forgot. This article nicely exemplifies how the transition from a graspable quantity to infinity really is a gradual one. (googolplex leans to the latter though…) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Googolplex Wikipedia is so GOOD!

12/29/2011

Moritz Kassner responded to Carl Lostritto: Hi my name is Prof W. and I have been at MIT for 500 years....

12/17/2011

Carl Lostritto created a post titled, "Patrick Winston on NPR":

Studio 360, SMART PROGRAMS READ SHAKESPEARE

AI intelligence stories VSNC Winston

12/08/2011

Will Patera created a post titled, "SMarchS Thesis Proposals":

This Friday we will be holding thesis proposal presentations for the Second Year SMarchS in the group. Each presentation will be limited to approximately 10 minutes, as there are a lot of proposals to present. This presentation will serve as a way for the second year SMarchS to get some feedback about their trajectories and [...]

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