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Essay on Silicon Valley and behaviorism
by Shreeharsh Kelkar 04 Jan '21

04 Jan '21

Dear all, I wanted to share a new piece I wrote on whether Silicon Valley engineers are behaviorists <https://medium.com/swlh/are-surveillance-capitalists-behaviorists-does-it-m…> that might be of interest to people on this list. I argue that they are not--though I'm agnostic on whether calling them behaviorists is tactically useful. Given the expertise of everyone on this list, I'd love to know if you have any feedback/thoughts/reactions. Wishing everyone a happy holiday season! Best, Shreeharsh _______________ Shreeharsh Kelkar http://www.shreeharshkelkar.net

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Fwd: Pandemics and Games Essay Jam
by Jonathan Coopersmith 04 Jan '21

04 Jan '21

fyi Stay sane, keep washing those hands, and practice social solidarity as well as physical distancing, Jonathan Jonathan Coopersmith Professor Department of History Texas A&M University College Station, TX 77843-4236 979.291.2925 (cell) 979.862.4314 (fax) Engineering elections: https://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/telecom/security/engineering-principles… Racial disparities in waiting to vote: https://theconversation.com/it-takes-a-long-time-to-vote-141267 *FAXED. The Rise and Fall of the Fax Machine* (Johns Hopkins University Press) ---------- Forwarded message --------- From: Center for Science and the Imagination <imagination(a)asu.edu> Date: Mon, Jan 4, 2021 at 12:14 PM Subject: Pandemics and Games Essay Jam To: Jonathan Coopersmith <j-coopersmith(a)tamu.edu> Join us Jan 4-10 to explore the tangled relationships between pandemics and games. View this email in your browser <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://mailchi.mp/asu/pandemics-and-games-essa…> Pandemics and Games Essay Jam Presented by Critical Distance and the Center for Science and the Imagination January 4-10, 2021 [image: An illustration of a human head wearing a virtual-reality headset. On the left side of the image, a number of games-related images, like a chess set and a controller. On the right-side, a number of pandemic-related images, like hand sanitzer and tissues.] <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://asu.us5.list-manage.com/track/click?u=7…> Learn More and Join the Jam! <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://asu.us5.list-manage.com/track/click?u=7…> The global cataclysm of COVID-19 has brought enormous changes to the games industry, the ways we play video games alone and together, and the meaning and content of games old and new. In the Pandemics and Games Essay Jam <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://asu.us5.list-manage.com/track/click?u=7…>, presented by Critical Distance <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://asu.us5.list-manage.com/track/click?u=7…> and the Center for Science and the Imagination, we invite you to contribute to a book of micro-length essays, 500-800 words, that explore these themes and others: - How the COVID-19 pandemic has shaped and transformed our relationships to, and encounters with, video games - How it has catalyzed changes in the games industry, from design and labor issues to marketing and corporate structure - How pandemics and other transmissible diseases are represented in games yesterday and today - How game worlds, especially in social and live games, have been affected by pandemics, whether rooted in game narratives or through “viral” trends in player behavior - How the trauma of COVID-19 has retroactively changed the legacy of older titles After the Jam, we'll collect all of the contributions together into an ebook, which will be distributed for free. All contributions will be distributed under a Creative Commons license. To learn more and participate, visit the Pandemics and Games Essay Jam website <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://asu.us5.list-manage.com/track/click?u=7…>. * <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://asu.us5.list-manage.com/track/click?u=7…> Copyright © 2021 Center for Science and the Imagination, All rights reserved.* You are receiving this email because you are a member of the Center for Science and the Imagination distribution list. To unsubscribe from this list, use the link below. Illustration by Venkatesh Lakshmi Narayanan *Our mailing address is:* Center for Science and the Imagination PO Box 876511 Tempe, AZ 85287-6511 Add us to your address book <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://asu.us5.list-manage.com/vcard?u=757c526…> Want to change how you receive these emails? You can update your preferences <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://asu.us5.list-manage.com/profile?u=757c5…> or unsubscribe from this list <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://asu.us5.list-manage.com/unsubscribe?u=7…> .

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Percy Ludgate regarding a "true automatic calculating machine"
by Aristotle Tympas 02 Jan '21

02 Jan '21

Dear Brian, Congratulation on the article about Percy Ludgate -- thank you for sharing it! Certainly someone that we need to know more about, because he left us, I think, key comments on critical occasions. Including this: "It must be admitted, however, that the true automatic calculating machine belongs to a possible rather than an actual class". The absence of "true" automatic calculating machines, now considered to be the exemplar mechanical ancestors of the 'digital', meant, for Ludgate, extension of the dependence on humans "operators" (from the celebrated catalog of the 1914 Edinburgh World Fair-- nothing short of a Bible, I think, for us historians of computing technology). Happy New Year to all the colleagues and friends of this invaluable list, may 2021 not bring "true" automation so that us humans continue to be as indispensable as ever, Aristotle > Hi: > > I had a number of very quick responses to my query. As a result, I now > know that Baxandall's 1926 Science Museum publication was largely reused > in both the 1929 and 1940 editions of Encyclopedia Britannica, and each > time Ludgate was mentioned, but only as someone who had designed a > difference engine. No mention was made of the fact that he had designed, > and indeed published a paper describing his design for, an analytical > engine. This seems to have been completely forgotten by the time of World > War 2. > > My thanks to all who responded to my request. > > Season's greetings, everyone. > > Brian Randell > > > — > > School of Computing, Newcastle University, 1 Science Square, Newcastle > upon Tyne, NE4 5TG > EMAIL = Brian.Randell(a)ncl.ac.uk PHONE = +44 191 208 7923 > URL = http://www.ncl.ac.uk/computing/people/profile/brianrandell.html > > > On 28/12/2020, 16:10, "Brian Randell" <brian.randell(a)newcastle.ac.uk> > wrote: > > Hi: > > Season's Greetings everyone! > > I%

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An Encyclopaedia Britannica query, regarding Percy Ludgate
by Brian Randell 28 Dec '20

28 Dec '20

Hi: Season's Greetings everyone! I was wondering whether there was anyone on the list who has easy access to the 14th edition of Encyclopaedia Britannica (1929). I am trying to find out whether the article "Calculating Machines" by D. Baxandall has any mention of Percy Ludgate (1883-1922), the Irish computer pioneer. (I've been helping with a new paper on Percy Ludgate that has just been accepted by the Annals - see https://www.computer.org/csdl/magazine/an/5555/01/09261950/1oPzQDvL4k0 ) Baxandall's 1926 Science Museum catalogue "Calculating Instruments and Machine" did contain a mention of Ludgate - the only one I know of in the period between the First and Second World Wars. However, I've only just recalled that Baxandall contributed an abridgement of this to the 14th edition, and I am wondering whether he repeated anything about Ludgate from his 1926 Science Museum publication. Best wishes for the New Year Stay safe! Brian Randell — School of Computing, Newcastle University, 1 Science Square, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE4 5TG EMAIL = Brian.Randell(a)ncl.ac.uk PHONE = +44 191 208 7923 URL = http://www.ncl.ac.uk/computing/people/profile/brianrandell.html

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New essay on Kidder's Soul of a New Machine in CACM
by thomas.haigh＠gmail.com 26 Dec '20

26 Dec '20

Hello SIGCIS, CACM has just published the first in what is supposed to be a trilogy of essays from me looking at classic representations of IT work. The first of these is "The Immortal Soul of an Old Machine," inspired by the 40th anniversary of the publication of Tracy Kidder's Pulitzer Prize winning book The Soul of a New Machine. It's a book that developers and historians both continue to find fascinating, as a blending of literary craft and engineering practice. My aim is to take the book apart to see how it works and discover what it can tell us about how tech work has (and hasn't) changed in four decades. I've been thinking about the book for almost thirty years, since reading it in the only Manchester University undergraduate computer science class that dealt with such things, and it was fun to go back with a new perspective to try to understand what makes it so readable and relatable. The second will look at Levy's book Hackers, with some discussion of relevant parts of Turkle's more critical depiction in The Second Self. And the third part will explore Ullman's Close to the Machine and the relatively recent TV show Halt and Catch Fire. Unfortunately this wasn't chosen as one of the paywall-free items for the current issue of CACM. Those of you with access might want to show your support for historical work by fetching it form the digital library via https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3436249. But for everyone else, you can get a copy at https://tomandmaria.com/Tom/Writing/CACMSoulOfANewMachine.pdf. Best wishes, Tom

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Bits & Bytes: News from the Charles Babbage Institute
by Jeffrey Yost 23 Dec '20

23 Dec '20

Dear Colleagues, Please find below the new CBI* Bits & Bytes*. In addition to write-ups of the October 2020 online symposium CBI's "Just Code: Power, Inequality, and the Global Political Economy of IT" (very special thanks from Con and I to our tremendous authors/presenters and to so many of you for attending), it contains news of a major new AI collection just acquired (and other CBI Archives news), a biography/remembrance of Gideon Gartner, and reminders of the Tomash Fellowship and Norberg Grants (for 2021 remote CBI archives use/scanning) competitions, both with deadlines in about three weeks (Jan. 15, 2021). Amanda and I also encourage submissions of short essays (2,000 to 3,500 words) on any topic/theme in computing and culture to the interdisciplinary journal *Interfaces: Essays and Reviews in Computing & Culture*. We have some terrific content in the works for *Interfaces *in early 2021! Wishing everyone a happy and healthy holiday season! Best, Jeff Fall/Winter edition of CBI's e-newsletter. View this email in your browser <https://mailchi.mp/d9e41ab79cc8/cbi-bits-and-bytes-9442924?e=7e9b315345> <https://umn.us4.list-manage.com/track/click?u=ac86934aa6cefdac2c4dcaa2e&id=…> <https://umn.us4.list-manage.com/track/click?u=ac86934aa6cefdac2c4dcaa2e&id=…> *Bits & Bytes: News from CBI* *Help us build a brighter tomorrow for the study of computing and culture. * Give today! <https://umn.us4.list-manage.com/track/click?u=ac86934aa6cefdac2c4dcaa2e&id=…> *Director's Desk* The global pandemic has temporarily changed our location of most of our work, but not the core of what we do—to work tirelessly to advance the understanding of computing’s past through our own research, and especially, facilitating the research of many others globally with our events, editing, and assistance and advice on projects and resources. Read more. <https://umn.us4.list-manage.com/track/click?u=ac86934aa6cefdac2c4dcaa2e&id=…> *Wrap up of CBI’s “Just Code” Symposium* On Friday and Saturday, October 23 - 24, CBI held its interdisciplinary online symposium, “Just Code: Power, Inequality, and the Global Political Economy of IT," and was a grand success in every measure Read more. <https://umn.us4.list-manage.com/track/click?u=ac86934aa6cefdac2c4dcaa2e&id=…> *Behind the Scenes at Just Code: Thoughts from Our Graduate Associates* Katherine Buse (PhD Candidate at UC Davis) and Lauren Ruhrold (PhD Candidate at UMN) worked as graduate program associates for the 2020 Just Code Symposium. Conference organizers Jeffrey Yost and Gerardo Con Diaz asked them to reflect on their experiences attending the conference and working behind-the-scenes. Their participation yielded new insights about power, technology, pedagogy, and their own research. Read more. <https://umn.us4.list-manage.com/track/click?u=ac86934aa6cefdac2c4dcaa2e&id=…> * From the Archives* This has been an interesting year for the Charles Babbage Institute Archives. Since March, U of M staff have largely been working remotely, including many of the Libraries full-time staff, and we’ve learned a number of lessons about service delivery and ensuring open access to our collections. Read more. <https://umn.us4.list-manage.com/track/click?u=ac86934aa6cefdac2c4dcaa2e&id=…> *New CBI website to launch in late January* <https://umn.us4.list-manage.com/track/click?u=ac86934aa6cefdac2c4dcaa2e&id=…> The Charles Babbage Institute (CBI) is thrilled to announce that we will have a new website come next month. The site built in a much more user-friendly layout will allow for increased accessibility and improve the overall user experience for our visitors. *Read more*. <https://umn.us4.list-manage.com/track/click?u=ac86934aa6cefdac2c4dcaa2e&id=…> *Interfaces: Essays and Reviews in Computing and Culture; Ongoing Call for Papers* In June 2020 Charles Babbage Institute for Computing, Information, and Culture (CBI) launched a new E-Journal, entitled *I**nterfaces: Essays and Reviews in Computing and Culture*. Read more. <https://umn.us4.list-manage.com/track/click?u=ac86934aa6cefdac2c4dcaa2e&id=…> *Remembering Gideon Gartner* Gideon Gartner, an unparalleled pioneer in innovating IT industry market research and analysis services and products passed away on Saturday, October 12, 2020. He and his wife Sarah have been extremely supportive of CBI’s research and archives programs, for which we are tremendously grateful. Read more. <https://umn.us4.list-manage.com/track/click?u=ac86934aa6cefdac2c4dcaa2e&id=…> *Now accepting applications for the Tomash Fellowship in the History of IT* CBI is pleased to announce we are currently accepting applications for the 2021-2022 Tomash Fellowship in the History of Information Technology. The fellowship will be awarded to a graduate student for doctoral dissertation research in the history of computing. Read more. <https://umn.us4.list-manage.com/track/click?u=ac86934aa6cefdac2c4dcaa2e&id=…> *Announcing 2021 Norberg Grant for CBIA Use* Each year, the Arthur L. Norberg Travel Fund within the Charles Babbage Institute (CBI) provides short-term grants-in-aid to help scholars with travel expenses to use the collections at CBI. Given the global COVID-19 pandemic, we will be awarding grants to use the collections remotely in 2021 through placing scanning orders based on our finding aids/guides. *Read more.* <https://umn.us4.list-manage.com/track/click?u=ac86934aa6cefdac2c4dcaa2e&id=…> *Solid State nominated for a Midwest Emmy* Two outstanding local public TV productions used Libraries’ resources in their runs for a Midwest Emmy. One was successful; each is worth a look. Read more. <https://umn.us4.list-manage.com/track/click?u=ac86934aa6cefdac2c4dcaa2e&id=…> Subscribe <cbi@umn.edu?subject=I%20would%20like%20to%20receive%20Bits%20%26%20Bytes%20from%20CBI> Charles Babbage Institute COMPUTING, INFORMATION & CULTURE [image: Facebook] <https://umn.us4.list-manage.com/track/click?u=ac86934aa6cefdac2c4dcaa2e&id=…>

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New book Digital Histories, on digital or computational history and its methods
by Petri Paju 17 Dec '20

17 Dec '20

Dear all Our new book, Digital Histories, on digital or computational history is available, online. Besides co-editing it I wrote a chapter that studies historians as users of computers from the 1960s onwards up until recent years. It's Chapter 3 in the book. I was looking at the topic through mostly Finnish materials and cases, and see that much more could be done on that general theme. If you know good sources or reflections on how historians' use of computers has evolved, I would be happy to hear of those for possible future use. It is an Open Access book published by the Helsinki University Press: Fridlund, M., Oiva, M. and Paju, P. (eds) (2020) Digital Histories: Emergent Approaches within the New Digital History. Helsinki: Helsinki University Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.33134/HUP-5 Here's the blurb: Historical scholarship is currently undergoing a digital turn. All historians have experienced this change in one way or another, by writing on word processors, applying quantitative methods on digitalized source materials, or using internet resources and digital tools. Digital Histories showcases this emerging wave of digital history research. It presents work by historians who – on their own or through collaborations with e.g. information technology specialists – have uncovered new, empirical historical knowledge through digital and computational methods. The topics of the volume range from the medieval period to the present day, including various parts of Europe. The chapters apply an exemplary array of methods, such as digital metadata analysis, machine learning, network analysis, topic modelling, named entity recognition, collocation analysis, critical search, and text and data mining. The volume argues that digital history is entering a mature phase, digital history ‘in action’, where its focus is shifting from the building of resources towards the making of new historical knowledge. This also involves novel challenges that digital methods pose to historical research, including awareness of the pitfalls and limitations of the digital tools and the necessity of new forms of digital source criticisms. Best wishes, Petri --- Petri Paju PhD, Researcher Dep. of Cultural history University of Turku

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[Book Announcement] Lives of Data: Essays on Computational Cultures from India
by Sandeep Mertia 17 Dec '20

17 Dec '20

Hello, (Hope you are safe and well. Apologies for cross posting) I’m happy to announce the publication of my edited volume, "*Lives of Data: Essays on Computational Cultures from India*", with the Institute of Network Cultures, Amsterdam < https://networkcultures.org/blog/publication/lives-of-data-essays-on-comput…>. It is available for download in ePub and PDF formats and for print-on-demand orders (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International). Foreword by Ravi Sundaram. Authors: Sandeep Mertia, Karl Mendonca, Sivakumar Arumugam, Ranjit Singh, Puthiya Purayil Sneha, Lilly Irani, Anumeha Yadav, Preeti Mudliar, Prerna Mukharya and Mahima Taneja, Guneet Narula, Gaurav Godhwani, Noopur Raval, Aakash Solanki, and Anirudh Raghavan. Blurb: *Lives of Data* maps the historical and emergent dynamics of big data, computing, and society in India. Data infrastructures are now more global than ever before. In much of the world, new sociotechnical possibilities of big data and artificial intelligence are unfolding under the long shadows cast by infra/structural inequalities, colonialism, modernization, and national sovereignty. This book offers critical vantage points for looking at big data and its shadows, as they play out in uneven encounters of machinic and cultural relationalities of data in India’s socio-politically disparate and diverse contexts. Lives of Data emerged from research projects and workshops at the Sarai programme, Centre for the Study of Developing Societies. It brings together fifteen interdisciplinary scholars and practitioners to set up a collaborative research agenda on computational cultures. The essays offer wide-ranging analyses of media and techno-scientific trajectories of data analytics, disruptive formations of digital economy, and the grounded practices of data-driven governance in India.Encompassing history, anthropology, science and technology studies (STS), media studies, civic technology, data science, digital humanities, and journalism, the essays open up possibilities for a truly situated global and sociotechnically specific understanding of the many lives of data. Reviews: "This remarkable collection is the first major portrait and assessment of the social and technical relationalities that constitute the ecology of big data in India today. Equally remarkably, the authors represent the first generation of scholars of digital media who speak through an Indian lens while being totally conversant with the cutting edge of global scholarship on big data." — Arjun Appadurai, Goddard Professor of Media, Culture, and Communication, New York University "Wide-ranging and incisive, *Lives of Data* is essential reading for those who wish to understand the seductions and contingencies of being or becoming data-driven." — Lisa Gitelman, author, *Paper Knowledge* and editor, *‘Raw Data’ Is an Oxymoron* ... Regards, Sandeep Mertia PhD Candidate, Dept. of Media, Culture, and Communication New York University

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New Book
by James Cortada 16 Dec '20

16 Dec '20

Dear colleagues, I wanted to bring to your attention a book of possible interest. Rowman & Littlefield just published a book I wrote, *Building Blocks of Society: History, Information Ecosystems, and Infrastructures,* which brings together much of my thinking about how to write the history of information filled environments. It includes a series of case studies dealing with computer scientists, IBM sales staffs, and how our community of IT historians created their own information ecosystem, in addition to other case studies. Jim -- James W. Cortada Senior Research Fellow Charles Babbage Institute University of Minnesota jcortada(a)umn.edu 608-274-6382

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New book about Militarization of Outer Space
by Ceruzzi, Paul 08 Dec '20

08 Dec '20

I want to call your attention to a new book edited by Alexander Geppert et al, on the Militarization of Outer Space. While Space History is not directly a SIGCIS topic, you will find that several of the chapters deal with human-computer interactions. Individual chapters may be downloaded separately, if you wish. Paul Ceruzzi https://www.palgrave.com/us/book/9781349958504 Militarizing Outer Space - Astroculture, Dystopia and the Cold War | Alexander C.T. Geppert | Palgrave Macmillan<https://www.palgrave.com/us/book/9781349958504> This book explores the dystopian and destructive dimension of the Space Age and challenges conventional narratives of a bipolar Cold War rivalry, concentrating on weapons, warfare and violence. It is the third volume in the European Astroculture trilogy. ... www.palgrave.com

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