Fred Truman
Design & Code Creative
No Day Like a Snow Day
January 27, 2011
With the weather being what it is and classes at NYU being canceled, I’m taking this opportunity to give an overview of all my hopes and dreams for the classes I’ll be taking this semester. This will be a good way to organize my thoughts, fill in the gaps and hopefully create a habit to continue on til late spring.
Classes officially began on Monday but I didn’t have any until Tuesday came around and brought me my first (hopefully) Daniel Shiffman class: The Nature of Code. Although, I’m still on the waiting list and not officially in the class I’m hoping that he’ll either let some of us stay, or (less likely) that five people drop it. It’s by far one of the most popular classes at ITP right now and it’s a credit to Mr. Shiffman’s teaching style. This is also a particularly good time to be in the class because he’ll be simultaneously self-publishing the book The Nature of Code with Kickstarter and will be focusing a lot of his attention on the subject matter. I’m really hoping I end up in this!
Following this I sat in on another class that I found myself on the waiting-list for: Data Representation with Jer Thorp. I was really excited for this class, taught by a guy who clearly knows the subject matter on a level few others do, but alas he was quite decisive about taking no one from the waiting list and I’ve resigned myself to forgetting about this one. The good news is that he will be running the ITP Data Working Group, which the entire community is welcome to attend and he’ll be inviting some interesting guests to join in and yadda-yadda-yadda it should be a great data time. I’ll be sure to be there for those sessions.
Moving along to yesterday, another class I’m pretty excited for is Reading and Writing Electronic Text with Adam Parrish. In it we will be using the Python language to create algorithms to parse and “decontextualize” texts into interesting juxtapositions. As I sat in the first class, my mind began turning at the possibilities for application of these techniques. I can imagine myself producing similar results in this course as I would in the Data Representation course, only I think I will be more focused on the act as a form of expression rather than the specifics of a particular API or having the pressure of trying to live up to a set of standards that are not my own – in a very good way. I also think Mr. Parrish’s teaching style and demeanor will facilitate a great environment for learning a new language.
This brings me to today, Thursday, and I was supposed to have two classes both of which were canceled due to the wonderful imagery you see here in the photo. The first is 3D Sensing and Visualization Seminar taught by Zach Lieberman (co-creator of openframeworks!) and Kyle McDonald. The good news is that this class seems so &^%#ing cool – the bad news is that I’m pretty unfamiliar with openFrameworks and C++ and I hope that this doesn’t slow me down in doing rad visualizations (although I get to learn with the guy that made it!). Needless to say, I’m into this one. After that I’m slotted to take Identity and Evasion, a course which is being taught for the first time at ITP by Christina Goodness. I really need a bit of time to read and feed my brain with thoughts about our world and the future and this would seem like a great class to discuss some very important topics surrounding our identities. Here’s an excerpted description:
What is identity in 2011? And can we escape it? When a baby is born, evidence of that new person’s identity is a tiny collection of data, unstable until “certified” and given a tracking number by the state. As we live our lives, the collection becomes larger, less centralized, with ownership belonging to many parties but in no one place. Our identities are abstracted yet intensely personal. Until just a few hundred years ago, individuals could outrun past identities, and effectively hide secrets for millennia. What is identity, what does identification mean, and what does it mean to be identified by someone else? Who ultimately now owns the data that identifies us?
It sounds like something Jason Bourne would be into. I need a place to escape the mountains of programming I’ll be doing in all my other classes, so here’s to hoping this class pays off!
Finally, I’ll be taking a course which is really an in-depth extension of the final half of Daniel Shiffman’s The Nature of Code course, called Learning Bit by Bit taught by Heather Dewey-Hagborg. In this class we will be exploring artificial intelligence and machine learning – looking at examples and ultimately creating our own projects in Java. I’m pretty psyched for this as well, as this class has been around at ITP before and I’ve heard Heather is particularly passionate about the subject. Looking forward to it.
Just to review, here are the courses I’m in:
- The Nature of Code (praying to the spaghetti monster I get in)
- Reading and Writing Electronic Text
- 3D Sensing and Visualization Seminar
- Identity and Evasion
- Learning Bit by Bit
This seems so code-heavy and out of character for what I’ve done in the past, but I’m really optimistic that the foundation of understanding code I’ll be building this semester will take my work to a new level. I’m eager. Yoinks and away!
Random thought about music: I recently discovered Casino versus Japan and I can’t stop listening.