Tag Archives | Programming

The Adventure Of Randomized Shopping

By on April 2, 2013 in News 0

Craving the excitement that consumerism arouses, Darius Kazemi designed the Amazon Random Shopper, which buys random object each month, and documents the results. Could this randomized consumption prove more rewarding than shopping according to our supposed needs, desires, and tastes?

Recently I’ve been making a bunch of weird stuff that randomly generates things. The first iteration of this was going to be a program that bought me stuff that I probably would like. But then I decided that was too boring.

How about I build something that buys me things completely at random? Something that just… fills my life with crap? How would these purchases make me feel? Would they actually be any less meaningful than the crap I buy myself on a regular basis anyway?

So I built Amazon Random Shopper. It grabs a random word from the Wordnik API, then runs an Amazon search based on that word and buys the first thing that’s under budget.

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Rushkoff: Why Johnny Can’t Program

By on October 1, 2010 in News 12

ComputerkidsDoug Rushkoff bemoans the lack of programming in education, at Huffington Post:

Ask any kid what Facebook is for and he’ll tell you it’s there to help him make friends. What else could he think? It’s how he *does* make friends. He has no idea the real purpose of the software, and the people coding it, is to monetize his relationships. He isn’t even aware of those people, the program, or their purpose.

The kids I celebrated in my early books as “digital natives” capable of seeing through all efforts of big media and marketing have actually proven *less* capable of discerning the integrity of the sources they read and the intentions of the programs they use. If they don’t know what the programs they are using are even for, they don’t stand a chance to use them effectively. They are less likely to become power users than the used.

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Program Or Be Programmed: Programming Is Our Era’s Equivalent Of Literacy

By on May 15, 2010 in News 0

Obama Hates iPadsFascinating, albeit brief, comments by Doug Rushkoff on his blog. I can’t wait to hear more of his thoughts – I think he’s right, but what does it really mean in practice for those of who who aren’t programmers and are well past college?

I am writing Program or Be Programmed as a book. I will be done soon. Weeks, not months. Recent events in the Facebook and Apple universes have convinced me more than ever that programming is our era’s equivalent of literacy. Whether corporations are controlling the direction of technology, or whether technology is an emergent entity doing this on its own, our only option is to participate in its unfolding by participating in its programming…

Obama recently told a college audience that they’re being distracted by their iPads, and that they need to become aware of who is programming the devices they use. He is right…

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