For my electronics class I had to respond to a reading about early robotic art and telepresence art. One of the pieces involved two human being able to arm wrestle over a network using a robotic arm that they each wrestled independently and which sent data about angle, arm strength etc over the network to the othe player. Sometimes it did not work and it would report both people as winning. The really came up the lamest pseudo-inetellecttual theory for this.

Here is my response with an excerpt below.

I find it hard to believe that the issue of agency raised by telephonic Arm Wrestling, upon it technological failure, were but mere afterthoughts to fill the intellectual void surrounding the project. Especially this quote, "under certain circumstances, both sides could win simultaneously, fundamentally undermining the bipolar competitive model of win-lose . . . a telling commentary on the arms race and the opposition of capitalism and communism."

I was talking with (e:twisted) about an online garden that was an art piece in ars electronica 1996 called telegarden . I realized that in 1995 I was a senior in high school and we didn't even have the internet at home or in school. That was only 10 years ago. I think the first time I saw the internet in action was in 1996 in Flensburg, Germany. I remember I didn't quite understand how it even worked. I thought netscape was the internet at that point. It's funny now looking back on my ignorance. It's amazing how much has changed since then in such a short period of time. It's so weird to think without the net I probably wouldn't have ever even met her.



In response to (e:metalpeter) 's collection question[inlink]metalpeter,251[/inlink]l, (e:twisted) wrote me an IM saying

lwist: now you can say you collect internet friends.

I redid the code it is better now but the whole thing seems really inefficient somehow. I guess it is starting to be fun. Does anyone remember text based RPGs. This screen reminded me so much of my VIC 20 back in the early 80s. I think it was even before (e:mike) 's time. Then we got the commodore 64. I am so sad that I never got a modem at that time. i wonder how different my life would have been if I had been wired at an earlier age. Not just an earlier age for me, but an earlier age for the internet.



Our version of filesharing was the mailman. He would bring a round a list of all of the software other people on the route had for tehir commodore 64, which was pretty pervasive back then. Then we would offere trades and he would copy and drop off disks. It was very similar to kazaa or emule just really manual.

I even rememeber copying programs on audio tape during that time. Does anyone have any early days on the net stories they can share. Or other experience with other net communities on a local level.



' {$STAMP BS2}
DEBUG "code start", CR

INPUT 12
INPUT 13
INPUT 14
INPUT 15

dir VAR Word 'current direction
old_dir VAR Word ' last direction

north VAR Byte 'keep tabs on # of times up was pressed
south VAR Byte 'keep tabs on # of times down was pressed
west VAR Byte 'keep tabs on # of times left was pressed
east VAR Byte 'keep tabs on # of times right was pressed

Index VAR Nib ' Define normal nibble variable.

test:

'reset dir for next test loop
old_dir = dir
dir = 0

nloop:
IF IN12 <> 1 THEN sloop
dir = 1
north = north + 1

sloop:
IF IN13 <> 1 THEN wloop
dir = dir + 10
south = south + 1

wloop:
IF IN14 <> 1 THEN eloop
dir = dir + 100
west = west + 1

eloop:
IF IN15 <> 1 THEN printloop
dir = dir + 1000
east = east + 1

printloop:

IF dir = 0 THEN nothing_pressed 'don't print anything because nothing is being pressed
DEBUG CLS 'clear the screen

'determine the direction
IF dir = 1 THEN goNorth
IF dir = 100 THEN goSouth
IF dir = 10 THEN goEast
IF dir = 1000 THEN goWest

'angled directions
IF dir = 11 THEN goNorthEast
IF dir = 1001 THEN goNorthWest
IF dir = 110 THEN goSouthEast
IF dir = 1100 THEN goSouthWest

totals:

DEBUG ? north
DEBUG ? south
DEBUG ? west
DEBUG ? east
PAUSE 200 'pause before next pole

IF north > 15 THEN winloop 'if the user pressed up 15 times then go to the winning loop

GOTO test

goNorth:
DEBUG "you are going north", CR
GOTO totals

goSouth:
DEBUG "you are going south", CR
GOTO totals

goEast:
DEBUG "you are going east", CR
GOTO totals

goWest:
DEBUG "you are going west", CR
GOTO totals

goNorthEast:
DEBUG "you are going northeast", CR
GOTO totals

goNorthWest:
DEBUG "you are going northwest", CR
GOTO totals

goSouthEast:
DEBUG "you are going southeast", CR
GOTO totals

goSouthWest:
DEBUG "you are going southwest", CR
GOTO totals


nothing_pressed: 'nothing is pressed try again, don't bother pausing
GOTO test

winloop:
DEBUG "You won by pressing the north button 15 times"
END

END

One of my thesis advisors, asked me today if I was enrolled in the MFA program. This is the same program which I have attended for three years and will be graduating from this summer. That is insane.

I started writing this all to basic code. I hate it no functions, no classes, no strings as far as i can tell. You can't even have an if statement assign a value. it can only run a loop. At first I thought that it would make it easy. It just makes it way harder as I started out with functions and OOP. I don't think I ever want to use a basic stamp after this. maybe t's just beginner irritation.

Yes that is a Virgin Mary candle in on my computer desk. (e:matthew) just got it for me. I think it is helping my basic stamp.



The simple serial joystick code I wrote

' {$STAMP BS2}
DEBUG "code start", CR

INPUT 12
INPUT 13
INPUT 14
INPUT 15
up VAR Bit
down VAR Bit
left VAR Bit
right VAR Bit

upcount VAR Byte 'keep tabs on # of times up was pressed
downcount VAR Byte 'keep tabs on # of times down was pressed
leftcount VAR Byte 'keep tabs on # of times left was pressed
rightcount VAR Byte 'keep tabs on # of times right was pressed

Index VAR Nib ' Define normal nibble variable.

test:
'reset values for next test loop
up = 0
down = 0
left = 0
right = 0

uploop:
IF IN12 <> 1 THEN downloop
up = 1
upcount = upcount + 1

downloop:
IF IN13 <> 1 THEN leftloop
down = 1
downcount = downcount + 1

leftloop:
IF IN14 <> 1 THEN rightloop
left = 1
leftcount = leftcount + 1

rightloop:
IF IN15 <> 1 THEN printloop
right = 1
rightcount = rightcount + 1

printloop:

IF up + down + left + right = 0 THEN nothing_pressed 'don't print anything because nothing is being pressed
DEBUG "total ", ? upcount
DEBUG "total ", ? downcount
DEBUG "total ", ? leftcount
DEBUG "total ", ? rightcount
PAUSE 200 'pause before next pole
IF upcount > 15 THEN winloop 'if the user pressed up 15 times then go to the winning loop

GOTO test

nothing_pressed: 'nothing is pressed try again, don't bother pausing
GOTO test

winloop:
DEBUG "You won by pressing the up button 15 times"
END

END

All of this preparing to graduate is starting to be more work than the actual academic work. I finally got all of my syllabi togther. i decided to start cataloging everything online to keep it safe. I scanned everything I had from school tonight and uploaded. Now if I ever need copies of anything I can simply grab them off the web. I think everyone should start digitalizing their life. It is definately way more fireproof than paper.

(e:twisted) wrote this a while back. She has really been an inspiration into my continued work with online cmmunity development. Thanks for being there.

Jan 6, 1986
NASA seems to follow the saying, "if first you don't success try again, again,again, and again. So, Columbia will try again tomorrow. Let's hope!

President reagan has asked for economic sanctions against libya, and has told americans in Libya to come home soon as possible.

I collect laptops. I also used to collect woman. (e:hodown) was one of them. hahaha

Thanks bill for the serial cable. It works perfectly. My 3D class dissapointed me so much today. Their homework assignments were just too bad to look at. I hope that it changes as the semster goes on.