September 2024 - Members - lists.sigcis.org

American codebreaker exhibit - but you can't see it
by Jonathan Coopersmith 30 Dec '24

30 Dec '24

https://dcist.com/story/23/09/22/arlington-foreign-service-institute-recogn… Actually, I suspect we could probably arrange a tour. Stay sane, Jonathan Jonathan Coopersmith Fellow, American Association for the Advancement of Science Professor Emeritus Department of History Texas A&M University College Station, TX 77843-4236 979.739.4708 (cell) "Technological obsolescence, <https://www.nationalacademies.org/news/2023/05/technological-obsolescence>" National Academy of Engineering *Perspectives* May 23, 2023 It's taking longer to vote - especially if you are Black or Hispanic <https://theconversation.com/its-taking-more-time-to-cast-a-ballot-in-us-ele…> , theconversation.com Preserving space archives: https://www.toboldlypreserve.space/ *FAXED. The Rise and Fall of the Fax Machine* (Johns Hopkins University Press)

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The impact of computer patents
by Brian Randell 30 Dec '24

30 Dec '24

Hi: I would be grateful for recommendations on books and papers containing thoughtful well-justified discussion of the likely or actual practical impact of the outcomes of the various attempts to patent the concept of a programmable computer (whether granted, refused or invalidated) on the early development of the computer industry, in the US and elsewhere. I have in mind the ENIAC and especially the Konrad Zuse patent cases, but am also interested in any others. (My searches for good references have been hampered by the proliferation of articles on software patenting - a topic which I am not trying to cover.) Cheers Brian Randell Sent from my iPhone

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cfa: The Global Cochlear Implant
by Mara Mills 30 Dec '24

30 Dec '24

The Global Cochlear Implant: Provincializing “Brain Implants” through Disability Technocultures Michele Friedner (University of Chicago) and Mara Mills (New York University) have received funding from the US-based National Endowment for the Humanities <https://www.neh.gov/program/dangers-and-opportunities-technology-perspectiv…>for a conference, working group, and book project on “The Global Cochlear Implant” for the period Fall 2023-Fall 2025. We are seeking chapter contributors for our interdisciplinary edited volume that will focus on: -Historical and contemporary accounts of cochlear implant development and utilization in specific geographic contexts, including developing contexts -Pre-histories of cochlear implant development and use (especially in Russia, France, Austria) -Analysis of the ways that cochlear implantation is changing (or not) deaf and disability identities, socialities, solidarities, and life trajectories in specific geographic contexts - Ethics of cochlear implantation development, dissemination, and use in diverse contexts; an exploration of ethics can also include discussions of brain implants and biotechnology more broadly - Humanistic and aesthetic accounts and representations of cochlear implantation - Histories connecting cochlear implants to the broader category of brain implants Doctoral students are welcome and encouraged to apply. Contributors can be at any academic or non-academic rank and will be offered a stipend for their chapters as well as travel and lodging funds to attend the October 2024 conference in Chicago. Participants will also be invited to attend monthly zoom group meetings where they will receive support for writing their chapters. The deadlines are as follows: 1. Submit abstract and cv to michelefriedner(a)uchicago.edu and mmills(a)nyu.edu <mamills(a)nyu.edu> by December 1 2023; please email both with questions and/or concerns. 2. Decisions will be made by Jan 1, 2024. 3. Working group meetings in support of research and writing of papers will commence first week of February. 4. Conference will be held in October 2024 at the University of Chicago; Participants will present talks based on their chapters. 5. Versions of chapters will be sent to the selected press in April 2025. Project Abstract: Perhaps no medical device has sparked more popular discussion of the “dangers and opportunities of technology” than the cochlear implant (CI). The first true bionic device, CIs (re)produce an absent ‘normal’ human function (Blume 2009). Despite ongoing polarizing debates about the ramifications of CI technology, only a few book-length studies of the technology exist, and these have overwhelmingly emphasized U.S. and European perspectives. This collaborative humanities project will document the impacts of the technology itself (e.g. algorithmic bias), the influence of the global corporations that market it, and the range of ways implants have been domesticated, maintained, and re-interpreted. At this pivotal moment for the development and global dissemination of neuroprosthetics, with brain implants widely featured in the popular press, this multi-disciplinary, international project will serve both a documentary and a comparative function, as well as provide a platform, through our conference and published work, for alternative narratives of CI use. Mara Mills <http://maramills.org/> | Associate Professor | Media, Culture, and Communication | New York University Co-Director, NYU Center for Disability Studies <https://disabilitystudies.nyu.edu/> Crip Authorship: Disability as Method <https://nyupress.org/9781479819355/crip-authorship/>, eds. Mills and Sanchez (NYU 2023) Testing Hearing: The Making of Modern Aurality <https://academic.oup.com/book/36957>, eds. Tkaczyk, Mills, and Hui (Oxford 2020)

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Fwd: Lien framaform
by Camille Paloque-Bergès 07 Oct '24

07 Oct '24

Dear Colleagues, This message is to inform you of the first session in the 2024-2025 academic year of the Socio-History of Informatics seminar <https://sohistinfo.github.io/>, a research seminar organized at the HT2S research center of the Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers in Paris <https://technique-societe.cnam.fr/histoire-des-technosciences-en-societe-ht…>. The goal of this seminar is to explore new narratives in the long-term history of computing, with a focus on how computing intertwines with social, economic, political, and cultural issues. Every two months, we will invite a researcher in history and/or anthropology and sociology (with a historical or diachronic perspective) of computing to present their work. Website link : https://sohistinfo.github.io/english/ The first session will take place online and at CNAM in Paris on Monday, October 14, 2024, from 3:00 PM to 5:00 PM with Ksenia Ermoshina (Centre Internet et Société, CNRS) - *A "Sovereign Intelligence"? Infrastructures, Representations, and Geopolitics of Russian AI: A Comparative Approach*. Registration form: https://framaforms.org/inscription-seminaire-de-socio-histoire-de-linformat… *Summary of the presentation:* *As part of the ANR CulturIA project, this investigation focuses on the contemporary history of artificial intelligence and its socio-cultural aspects, particularly within the Russian-speaking world and its international relations. Marked by the war against Ukraine and economic sanctions, the field has undergone a restructuring both in terms of infrastructure and in terms of discourse and representations. The collective research, conducted in collaboration with Boris Melnichenko, follows Russians who create or use AI in exile as well as engineers working for large companies in Russia. In line with the spirit of Science and Technology Studies (STS), it remains attentive to code and infrastructure and describes the significant restructurings of technological projects in the context of a major geopolitical crisis. By comparing Russian machine learning and AI projects with similar initiatives from the United States and China, this research asks: can we speak of a “Russian AI”? Are there distinctive characteristics that define the ways of developing and discussing AI specific to Russia, despite the inevitable borrowing, influences, and transnational exchanges that shape this field?* *Future sessions:* - December 16, 2024, from 3:00 PM to 5:00 PM - Barbara Hof - University of Lausanne - February 10, 2025, from 3:00 PM to 5:00 PM - Cédric Neumann - CNAM, HT2S - April 1, 2025 - Marie-José Durand-Richard - CNRS-Paris 7 Denis Diderot, SPHERE - April 14, 2025, from 3:00 PM to 5:00 PM - Jaroslav Švelch - Charles University (Prague) - June 16, 2025, from 3:00 PM to 5:00 PM - Michael Homberg - University of Cologne The summary of each presentation will be communicated later. Each session will be held in a hybrid format at the Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers, 2 rue Conté, 75003 Paris, in room 30-1-18 (Building 30, 1st basement level, Room 18). To facilitate the organization of the sessions, please register via this form: https://framaforms.org/inscription-seminaire-de-socio-histoire-de-linformat… A connection link (Big Blue Button) will be sent after registration to allow remote participation in each session. This research seminar will focus on the history of computing not for its own sake within the well-defined framework of the omnipotent computer and its pervasive environments, but through the study of situations where computing plays a pivotal role in the articulation of science-technology-society relations. In this way, the seminar aims to shed light on a socio-history of computing over the long term and in spaces expanded geographically as well as socially, culturally, politically, and economically. You can find a more detailed presentation of our approach (with the program of planned sessions) on the seminar website: https://sohistinfo.github.io/ Looking forward to seeing you there. Best regards, Mathilde Fichen (PhD student, HT2S), Adrien Tournier (PhD student, HT2S), and Camille Paloque-Bergès (Researcher, HT2S) for the seminar organization. -- Institutional email address : camille.paloque_berges(a)cnam.fr *Laboratory for the History of Techno-Sciences (HT2S), Conservatoire national des arts et métiers, 2 rue Conté, 75003 Paris, France

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A new book on writing computer and information history
by William Aspray 02 Oct '24

02 Oct '24

Some of you may be interested in a book that I edited, published by Rowman & Littlefield (as of last week, now part of Bloomsbury), entitled Writing Computer and Information History: Approaches, Reflections, and Connections. The e-book is already out, and the hardcover will launch June 14. The book includes chapters by 18 authors experienced in writing computer history or information history: Toni Weller, Thomas Haigh, James Cortada, Laura Skouvig, Geoffrey Bowker and John Leslie King, David Gugerli and Daniela Zetti, Shane Greenstein, Daniel Garcia Swartz and Martin Campbell-Kelly, Philip Doty and William Aspray, Valerie Schafer, Matthew Jones, Howard Rosenbaum, Greg Downey, and Liesbeth De Mol. Bill Aspray

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Cornell IS ad for a qual/ethno/interpretive TT position
by Gili Vidan 27 Sep '24

27 Sep '24

Hi all, My department, Information Science, is hiring in Ithaca and one of our search areas this year is explicitly people who use qualitative, ethnographic, and interpretive methods in their research: https://academicjobsonline.org/ajo/jobs/28405 Please consider applying and/or share the ad with others on the market! Happy to chat to anyone considering applying about the department and my experience as a historian in a computing college. Best, Gili --- Gili Vidan Assistant Professor | Information Science | Cornell University Pronouns: she/her

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SIGCIS <--> Substack
by Ceruzzi, Paul 25 Sep '24

25 Sep '24

I have moved my observations on computing history from SIGCIS to Substack. That site seems to be a much better fit for me than other social media, which I have joined and abandoned over the years (AOL IM, Tumblr, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, MySpace, Geocities, LinkedIn, and a bunch of others that I have forgotten.). You might be interested in my latest take on the relations between SIGCIS and SHOT. Comments welcome: Paul Ceruzzi Curator Emeritus National Air and Space Museum substack.com/@paulceruzzi

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Annals 46(3) now available
by Troy Astarte 23 Sep '24

23 Sep '24

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CfP: Shady Subjects workshop | April 24–26, 2025 | Ithaca, NY
by Marc Aidinoff 20 Sep '24

20 Sep '24

Dear All— I hope some of you are able join an academic paper workshop on “Shady Subjects: Everyday Contestation in Automated Systems.” Submission deadline: October 15, 2024. Details below or at https://shadysubjects.org <https://shadysubjects.org/>. Best, Marc ----- CALL FOR PARTICIPANTS Shady Subjects: Everyday Contestation in Automated Systems Workshop | April 24–26, 2025 | Ithaca, NY | Cornell University When things go wrong with automated systems, we tend to call on lawyers, engineers, and regulators for solutions. Fairness audits, disclosure requirements, algorithmic accountability, and civil litigation are just some of the initiatives intended to redress automated harms. Yet, as anthropologists, historians, and sociologists have shown, authoritative systems tend to be gamed (Biagioli and Lippman 2020), appropriated (Eglash et al. 2004), disobeyed (Thoreau 1849), resisted (Scott 1985; Gopal 2019), ridiculed (Waller 2017), and otherwise contested long before official interventions take effect. This academic workshop brings together scholars studying everyday practices of contestation in the shadow of an automated system. Often dismissed, denounced, or overlooked, these practices may seem trivial at first, but play a crucial—and often paradoxical—role in both challenging and sustaining automated systems. How are those affected by these systems adjusting and responding to their situations? What new and non-obvious forms of evasion, obfuscation, gaming, storytelling, false compliance, disobedience, cheating, humor, sabotage, complaining, trolling, misdirection, circumvention, workarounds, and other forms of contestation can we find? What can we learn by looking at these practices across places, times, technologies—and how might these insights help us rethink conventional notions of due process, recourse, and redress in automated systems? What we’re looking for The goal of the workshop is to take stock of these seemingly shady practices to analyze and theorize what happens if we consider them as an integral part of automation. We welcome empirically grounded, methodologically innovative, and analytically generative contributions from scholars in science & technology studies, history, sociology, anthropology, media studies, socio-legal studies, and related fields. We are particularly interested in historical, ethnographic, and other interpretive studies that document, contextualize, and theorize reactive practices in specific areas, periods, and settings. The workshop is an excellent opportunity to share work in progress and think through the broader implications of studying automated systems from the margins. Book chapters, journal articles, dissertation excerpts, or a piece specifically written for the workshop are all welcome. We do not yet have a plan for a particular product. Our main goal is to invite your best, most interesting, and relevant work without prior commitment and see what—if anything—emerges during discussion. What you are expected to do Accepted participants are expected to submit a working paper of not more than 8,000 words for discussion in time before the workshop and act as discussant for one other paper. At the workshop, the discussant, rather than the author, introduces and leads a discussion on the paper. There are no panels or talking heads; all attendees read all papers in advance and offer constructive feedback as full participants. The workshop takes place in person in Ithaca, NY. We will start in the afternoon of Thursday, April 24, 2025 and wrap up after lunch on Saturday, April 26, 2025. How to apply If you’re interested in attending, please submit the following information by October 1, 2024 at https://shadysubjects.org/: * Name, email, affiliation * 600–750-word abstract, detailing your study, contribution, and relation to the workshop theme * Short biography (<200 words) and link to profile/work (if available) * Three articles or books related to the workshop theme you recommend Accepted paper authors will receive a travel stipend and accommodation. Participation is limited; we expect to invite ten paper authors, which leaves space for a small number of Key dates Abstract deadline: October 15, 2024 Selection notification: Early November, 2024 Papers for circulation: March 25, 2025 Workshop: April 24–26, 2025 Questions? Email the organizers at shadysubjects(a)cornell.edu <mailto:shadysubjects@cornell.edu>. Organizers Malte Ziewitz (Cornell) & Marc Aidinoff (IAS, Cornell). Additional Program Committee Members: Gili Vidan & Karen Levy. The workshop is supported by the National Science Foundation, the Department of Science & Technology Studies, and the Digital Due Process Clinic at Cornell University.

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Musical automatons
by herbert.bruderer＠bluewin.ch 11 Sep '24

11 Sep '24

Dear colleagues: Perhaps of interest to you: Technical Marvels, Part 6: Musical Automatons – Communications of the ACM Posted Sep 11 2024 Best wishes, Herbert Brudere P { margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0; }

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