My friend John lent me a fantastic game for the Nintendo DS - scribblenauts. And I am now listening to a podcast on the making of scribblenauts via Kotaku.
What is scribblenauts and why does it deserve its own blog post?
Scribblenauts is a puzzle game. At each level there is a star buried in a landscape - and the players goal is to type in words like, apple, jackhammer, time machine, in order to get to the star. So for example the star is beyond a plane inhabited by brown bears - what do you do. Type in 'steak' and throw it to the bears - then pass through the field while the bears eat the steak.
There are multiple solutions to any puzzle - for example - I could type helicopter and fly over the bears. You get additional points for creating less items and for using ingenious solutions.
There is a database of about 20000 words from apple to centerfuge. The work that went into this game and the fact that it is successful is absolutely mind boggling - and the fact that it is an engaging, addictive game is nuts.
What I imagine is going on is that each landscape feature has a certain set of attributes and each word has an effect on a certain set of attributes. So for example, a bear, has hunger of 5, movement of 3, and vision or 5. If you throw an apple with hunger of 2 then you have to use something else, perhaps a skateboard of movement 2. An apple will not satisfy all the bear's hunger, so you need to use another tool - a piece of meat however with hunger of 5 will completely satisfy the bear allowing you to progress with ease. Does this make any sense?
Anyway, loved the podcast! I discovered that scribblenauts is often used as an educational game. On the podcast, there was an insane story about a little 5 year old boy who learned how to write by playing scribblenauts. He would carry around a book with all of the possible scribblenaut objects and use different combinations to complete levels.
I now want to check out drawn to life.
Thursday, December 31, 2009
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Thoughts on Pictures
I have dusted off my point and shoot in an attempt to populate my blog with more photos. To inspire myself I visited fffound this morning and, mirabile dictu, I was actually inspired. Really I was inspired by this photo of angels painting people before they are born - or that is at least what I saw. The artist, Jeremy Enecio - check out his blog - he is super talented= seemed to have other intentions. The name of the jpg is "albinopaint." When I was in college I knew a guy who wrote his senior thesis on the names of art works. Today we don't have names we have file names - and those file names actually have performative value - a file name is an actual index to the work (or a representation of the work) - not some sort of arbitrary linguistic reference.
Anyway albino paint! I love this picture because I immediately started constructing a myth around it. You see - this painting depicts not albinos but the the period before you are born. Here the angels are coloring the people before birth, and fashioning their exterior qualities. I may write a short story about this. It brings to mind the chinese folk tale about the origin of the little indentation above your lip. The painting arouses all sorts of metaphysical/religious questions - where do we come from and why we look the way we do. This, I suppose is what a great painting or image is supposed to do - open up your mind. Most of the time we are bombarded by beautiful images that tell us what to think instead of asking us to create our own interpretations.
Anyway albino paint! I love this picture because I immediately started constructing a myth around it. You see - this painting depicts not albinos but the the period before you are born. Here the angels are coloring the people before birth, and fashioning their exterior qualities. I may write a short story about this. It brings to mind the chinese folk tale about the origin of the little indentation above your lip. The painting arouses all sorts of metaphysical/religious questions - where do we come from and why we look the way we do. This, I suppose is what a great painting or image is supposed to do - open up your mind. Most of the time we are bombarded by beautiful images that tell us what to think instead of asking us to create our own interpretations.
Monday, December 28, 2009
Opening of the Day
I am in the midst of going through old emails and returning to the git rapidsms hornet's nest - and decided to take a break and play some computer chess.
But Chess was depressing. Here I was thinking entering my middle game. Oooh I'm so clever pinning a bishop with my knights. Then out of left field - or B5 (to use funky chess notation) - the enemy queen swoops into my 2 rank (that is the rank with all the pawns).
I know I am a goner.
If the queen is in your pawn rank and you cannot take her out with a bishop or something then she will take all your pawns, and then your rook and then your soul (or just your king). I cant take the slaughter - and restart the game.
Ok this time I am black. I am going to mind-f@#$k the computer - even though the computer does not have a mind. I am going to mimic every move the computer makes until the endgame. The computer moves all the pawns to the 4th rank. The computer is a f#@$king idiot - I think. Perhaps my ELO (chess rating) has gone so low from forfeiting all my losing games - that the computer is on idiot level.
Now that I believe the computer believes that I suck at chess(which I do), I change my strategy. Ahh, I breath a sigh of relief. I dont have to go through all the permutations of every movie and can just play. Sadly again the queen swoops into my pawn row and takes what little pawns I have left - with my rook and has a very funky mating procedure with the knights.
I need to do something about sucking at chess. Perhaps I should play some people - maybe I can beat them. Sadly my online chess membership has lapsed. Instead I visit chessgames.com and look at the opening move of the day and the opening game of the day.
The opening of the day is something called the Caro Kann Defense Steinitz Variation. The salient feature seems to be - the knight in front of the king and opening black pawn at c6. Chessgames asks if I would like to play a game using this opening. Dont mind if I do - and I am swiftly knocked in the 2 rank by the queen - Sheesh. What the hell is the point of this opening - and after googling - I find some answers for the Caro Kann defense but not the steinitz variation. There is a little paper that promises to help me in my goal of maximum procrastination and increased knowledge of caro kann - " In Xanadu did caro kann...." It seems Caro-Kann helps black develop a good pawn structure without contesting the middle. It is an explanation that makes no sense outside the context of chess theory - which is a tangent to a footnote to a conversation between heraclitus and Parmenidies annoated by Whitehead. (and reminds me of all the Foucault and discourse I have been reading for a possible doc on the history of madness and the leather clad philosophers who write about it).
But really, why do I suck at chess? I am generally good at boardgames? I dont suck at chess, so much as I cannot crack it. I cannot game the chess game. In other games such as Settlers of Catan, hearts, or even backgammon - I feel that there are weaknesses that I can exploit.
What is this weakness? Chance. I can only play games with dice rolls, or handicaps- even if I am handicapped. I can only play games that involve luck or chance. And I think this is because I am able to work very well with incomplete information, and because chance invigorates rather than depresses me - even if chance deals me a bad hand. In chess, everything is manifest -there is no chance - and if you are playing the game because you hope your opponent messes up (chance) - you are playing incorrectly. I am constantly telling myself in games and in life "act dont react". In games of chance you are constantly reactingand perhaps I am a better reactor than an actor. (depresssing ?) I also think that once I make a strategy unless I am obviously disturbed by say the capture of a piece - I tend not to notice the other player's strategy and barrel through until the enemy's queen is bayonetting my little pawns.
The one thing I can do is beat computer chess on time - that is the computer uses up all its time trying to come up with moves. My strategy is to make good but convaluted moves that forces the computer to use many cpu cycles and search many nodes in its internal combinatorial chess graph to find the optimum next move. With this strategy - I believe I could become a grandmaster but only against a computer. This feels dishonest and cheating - it does not give you that chess pleasure of figuring out the right move - it does not make a you a clearer thinker. I can use this strategy against a computer, but not against a human. And lo the day when I am to be pitted against a human - his motherboard will not fry when confronted with a bizarro move - instead he will move his queen to my 2 rank and wonk my pawns on the head.
Maybe I should code some more - a strategy game where there is no opponent.
But Chess was depressing. Here I was thinking entering my middle game. Oooh I'm so clever pinning a bishop with my knights. Then out of left field - or B5 (to use funky chess notation) - the enemy queen swoops into my 2 rank (that is the rank with all the pawns).
I know I am a goner.
If the queen is in your pawn rank and you cannot take her out with a bishop or something then she will take all your pawns, and then your rook and then your soul (or just your king). I cant take the slaughter - and restart the game.
Ok this time I am black. I am going to mind-f@#$k the computer - even though the computer does not have a mind. I am going to mimic every move the computer makes until the endgame. The computer moves all the pawns to the 4th rank. The computer is a f#@$king idiot - I think. Perhaps my ELO (chess rating) has gone so low from forfeiting all my losing games - that the computer is on idiot level.
Now that I believe the computer believes that I suck at chess(which I do), I change my strategy. Ahh, I breath a sigh of relief. I dont have to go through all the permutations of every movie and can just play. Sadly again the queen swoops into my pawn row and takes what little pawns I have left - with my rook and has a very funky mating procedure with the knights.
I need to do something about sucking at chess. Perhaps I should play some people - maybe I can beat them. Sadly my online chess membership has lapsed. Instead I visit chessgames.com and look at the opening move of the day and the opening game of the day.
The opening of the day is something called the Caro Kann Defense Steinitz Variation. The salient feature seems to be - the knight in front of the king and opening black pawn at c6. Chessgames asks if I would like to play a game using this opening. Dont mind if I do - and I am swiftly knocked in the 2 rank by the queen - Sheesh. What the hell is the point of this opening - and after googling - I find some answers for the Caro Kann defense but not the steinitz variation. There is a little paper that promises to help me in my goal of maximum procrastination and increased knowledge of caro kann - " In Xanadu did caro kann...." It seems Caro-Kann helps black develop a good pawn structure without contesting the middle. It is an explanation that makes no sense outside the context of chess theory - which is a tangent to a footnote to a conversation between heraclitus and Parmenidies annoated by Whitehead. (and reminds me of all the Foucault and discourse I have been reading for a possible doc on the history of madness and the leather clad philosophers who write about it).
But really, why do I suck at chess? I am generally good at boardgames? I dont suck at chess, so much as I cannot crack it. I cannot game the chess game. In other games such as Settlers of Catan, hearts, or even backgammon - I feel that there are weaknesses that I can exploit.
What is this weakness? Chance. I can only play games with dice rolls, or handicaps- even if I am handicapped. I can only play games that involve luck or chance. And I think this is because I am able to work very well with incomplete information, and because chance invigorates rather than depresses me - even if chance deals me a bad hand. In chess, everything is manifest -there is no chance - and if you are playing the game because you hope your opponent messes up (chance) - you are playing incorrectly. I am constantly telling myself in games and in life "act dont react". In games of chance you are constantly reactingand perhaps I am a better reactor than an actor. (depresssing ?) I also think that once I make a strategy unless I am obviously disturbed by say the capture of a piece - I tend not to notice the other player's strategy and barrel through until the enemy's queen is bayonetting my little pawns.
The one thing I can do is beat computer chess on time - that is the computer uses up all its time trying to come up with moves. My strategy is to make good but convaluted moves that forces the computer to use many cpu cycles and search many nodes in its internal combinatorial chess graph to find the optimum next move. With this strategy - I believe I could become a grandmaster but only against a computer. This feels dishonest and cheating - it does not give you that chess pleasure of figuring out the right move - it does not make a you a clearer thinker. I can use this strategy against a computer, but not against a human. And lo the day when I am to be pitted against a human - his motherboard will not fry when confronted with a bizarro move - instead he will move his queen to my 2 rank and wonk my pawns on the head.
Maybe I should code some more - a strategy game where there is no opponent.
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
List O things to do
1) merge adam's and evans git rapidsms repos into my 3 pronged repo
2) work on holistic dissection project
3) down load a copy of taxi driver, cut it and then export the xml file of the cuts to generate an editing template of the movie
4) Respond to Follow up emails
5) Continue work on O singularity
6) drink smoothie
2) work on holistic dissection project
3) down load a copy of taxi driver, cut it and then export the xml file of the cuts to generate an editing template of the movie
4) Respond to Follow up emails
5) Continue work on O singularity
6) drink smoothie
Monday, November 30, 2009
Open Source Culture: Video Mashups
Why open source?
The most compelling reason is to paraphrase Newton - to see farther by standing on the shoulders of giants.
In software development, this means that I can, for example, use django to publish a content rich website, instead of writing my own web publishing software.
This sort of example though is not very powerful, after all you could make a similar claim about microsoft word.
The additional power comes from the release of the code behind the application.
why?
1) From a pedogogical standpoint, I can look at successful and well architected open source projects and improve my own coding abilities
2) From a practical standpoint, if I think that I can improve say the data aggregation feature in django then I can contribute to the django source code (rather than wait for the team to get around to implementing this feature)
The economic model for open source software is consulting, if I am a large contributor to django then I can go out and assist people in implementing their django implementations. Write the software for free and charge on the maintenance fees so to speak.
Open source software is very compelling as a model to emulate probably because
1) I can use software that other people make and realize my software vision
2) Perhaps I dont have the time to build an entire software package myself, but I can still contribute to an open source product and thus satisfy my desire to be part of this creative/technical/whatever process
Now writers, filmmakers, artists, etc look to the open source and are interested in emulating some of these aspects
Say I want to use the music of miles davis as the soundtrack to an animation, or clips from taxi driver in a movie, or if i want to make an animation staring mickey mouse, or I want to use parts of a the fan man in my own novel about the east village (Walter Benjamin for example kept notebooks composed entirely of quotations from other books)
Why open source culture?
The pedogogical nature is apparent.
I want to make an animated movie but I want to using an existing character, or I want to learn how to edit rather than shoot, so I want to use some existing clips to make into a movie.
However from a creative standpoint - perhaps I want to respond to a particular work by using that particular work, or an aspect of that work (think of all art that uses mass market appropriation like Warhol's brillo boxes, or Richard Prince)
But what does it mean to open source a cultural artifact and how can you use a these cultural atoms to create a work of originality? What are the atoms of cultural that we need to isolate in order to talk about open source culture.
I'll first talk about filmmaking, since I have made some movies.
The building blocks of film is the footage, the assets. In an animation, you could also imagine the assets being a character as well as all the photoshop layers of different character parts that can be animated seperately.
However the building blocks of film is also the score, the dialogue, the script, and the editing timeline.
There is a difference between releasing all the assets in a 'hard day's night', and the wav file of the song 'a hard day's night'. In the case of audio - I can go in and cancel out certain notes and frequencies. I apply certain filters and actually turn the song into an entirely new song. With a clip of a hard day's night - I am in many ways bound to the baked clip unless I want to insert a green screened character or use another compositing technique (for example forrest gump meeting past presidents, or the old coke commercials combining living performers with deceased performers). Now, it is possible that I could take all the clips of say, 'The Shinning' and turn it into a romantic comedy, however I am stuck with the framing, the acting, the lighting, the cinematography of the original movie. It will always look like 'The Shinning' more than my remix 'Winter in the Old Hotel'. A video mashup looks much different from a musical mash up. A musical mashup can still be considered a song, most video mashups dont resemble a narrative.
Another building block of film is the editing timeline. This is an interesting aspect of filmmaking that people dont really look into when considering open source culture, but is another aspect that could be shared. The cutting, the pacing, and the types of cuts will be different for Hitchcock's Rope compared to Lucas' Star Wars. In addition to open sourcing assets, filmmakers could open source editing timelines. In final cut pro, for example, you can export your timeline as an xml document. The clips are referenced as filenames that can be replaced by any other clip. So I can upload the cutting of a film for other people to use in their own films.
Further to build on open source software collaboration is the notion of version control.
In an open source software I different people can build on different version of the same software, diverge for a time, and then recombine into a master version. There is a lineage to open source software. I can see the same thing taking place with open source culture, placing culture within a context, an artistic lineage.
I am going to explore this a bit more in a series of studies providing the editing framework for classic movies - stay tuned!
Also - please contribute comments, criticisms, and suggestions.
The most compelling reason is to paraphrase Newton - to see farther by standing on the shoulders of giants.
In software development, this means that I can, for example, use django to publish a content rich website, instead of writing my own web publishing software.
This sort of example though is not very powerful, after all you could make a similar claim about microsoft word.
The additional power comes from the release of the code behind the application.
why?
1) From a pedogogical standpoint, I can look at successful and well architected open source projects and improve my own coding abilities
2) From a practical standpoint, if I think that I can improve say the data aggregation feature in django then I can contribute to the django source code (rather than wait for the team to get around to implementing this feature)
The economic model for open source software is consulting, if I am a large contributor to django then I can go out and assist people in implementing their django implementations. Write the software for free and charge on the maintenance fees so to speak.
Open source software is very compelling as a model to emulate probably because
1) I can use software that other people make and realize my software vision
2) Perhaps I dont have the time to build an entire software package myself, but I can still contribute to an open source product and thus satisfy my desire to be part of this creative/technical/whatever process
Now writers, filmmakers, artists, etc look to the open source and are interested in emulating some of these aspects
Say I want to use the music of miles davis as the soundtrack to an animation, or clips from taxi driver in a movie, or if i want to make an animation staring mickey mouse, or I want to use parts of a the fan man in my own novel about the east village (Walter Benjamin for example kept notebooks composed entirely of quotations from other books)
Why open source culture?
The pedogogical nature is apparent.
I want to make an animated movie but I want to using an existing character, or I want to learn how to edit rather than shoot, so I want to use some existing clips to make into a movie.
However from a creative standpoint - perhaps I want to respond to a particular work by using that particular work, or an aspect of that work (think of all art that uses mass market appropriation like Warhol's brillo boxes, or Richard Prince)
But what does it mean to open source a cultural artifact and how can you use a these cultural atoms to create a work of originality? What are the atoms of cultural that we need to isolate in order to talk about open source culture.
I'll first talk about filmmaking, since I have made some movies.
The building blocks of film is the footage, the assets. In an animation, you could also imagine the assets being a character as well as all the photoshop layers of different character parts that can be animated seperately.
However the building blocks of film is also the score, the dialogue, the script, and the editing timeline.
There is a difference between releasing all the assets in a 'hard day's night', and the wav file of the song 'a hard day's night'. In the case of audio - I can go in and cancel out certain notes and frequencies. I apply certain filters and actually turn the song into an entirely new song. With a clip of a hard day's night - I am in many ways bound to the baked clip unless I want to insert a green screened character or use another compositing technique (for example forrest gump meeting past presidents, or the old coke commercials combining living performers with deceased performers). Now, it is possible that I could take all the clips of say, 'The Shinning' and turn it into a romantic comedy, however I am stuck with the framing, the acting, the lighting, the cinematography of the original movie. It will always look like 'The Shinning' more than my remix 'Winter in the Old Hotel'. A video mashup looks much different from a musical mash up. A musical mashup can still be considered a song, most video mashups dont resemble a narrative.
Another building block of film is the editing timeline. This is an interesting aspect of filmmaking that people dont really look into when considering open source culture, but is another aspect that could be shared. The cutting, the pacing, and the types of cuts will be different for Hitchcock's Rope compared to Lucas' Star Wars. In addition to open sourcing assets, filmmakers could open source editing timelines. In final cut pro, for example, you can export your timeline as an xml document. The clips are referenced as filenames that can be replaced by any other clip. So I can upload the cutting of a film for other people to use in their own films.
Further to build on open source software collaboration is the notion of version control.
In an open source software I different people can build on different version of the same software, diverge for a time, and then recombine into a master version. There is a lineage to open source software. I can see the same thing taking place with open source culture, placing culture within a context, an artistic lineage.
I am going to explore this a bit more in a series of studies providing the editing framework for classic movies - stay tuned!
Also - please contribute comments, criticisms, and suggestions.
Saturday, November 28, 2009
Lost in programming translation
So today I am starting to follow up on some work that has piled up this week...
first up rapidsms on the malawi server. This has been a big issue because we switch ISPs, then I was unable to log on, then it seemed to be an issue with verizon fios (rather than malawi ISP), and now I am actually able to log in from my verizon fios - although we just lost internet.
also up is rapidsms clean up & easy install (setup tools)
For this integration testing I will probably use the
Cruise Control tool developed or adjusted by Jez
Humble. An example with some rapidsms forks is here
Seeing that this is a ruby tool has made me feel even worse about myself not using ruby, but really I dont have all the time in the world to develop on every platform known to man, and I have heard that ruby websites have some performance issues (thats just what I hear). So does python, but not as bad as ruby. Perl is best (really c is the best or assembler)- but it encourages idiosyncratic code. I sort of like to think of all these different programming languages as evolutions of natural language. For example perl (or perhaps assembler) is like egyptian heirogylphics - you need a specialized class of people (scribes) to read and write this language. Then eventually we get coptic (egyptian written in greek), and everyone can read and write it - it is like ruby - but perhaps you lose something in this.
Another analogy - different chinese transcriptions. There are different ways of connecting chinese sounds with the roman alphabet:for example Wade–Giles and Pinyin. Each system captures certain features of chinese, but neglects others, what you get in ease of use in using either system you loose in precision (of using the actual chinese)
Translation is hard
I also succumbed and picked up a git oreilly book. I am sick of scowering the web everytime I something unexpected happens during a merge, or push, or pull and I think I just need to cuddle up with a git book and a hot toddie. My current method of using git is rather sloppy and I would like to be sure and do everything the correct way as I start integrating the rapidsms apps/core etc.. More on version control another day.
first up rapidsms on the malawi server. This has been a big issue because we switch ISPs, then I was unable to log on, then it seemed to be an issue with verizon fios (rather than malawi ISP), and now I am actually able to log in from my verizon fios - although we just lost internet.
also up is rapidsms clean up & easy install (setup tools)
For this integration testing I will probably use the
Cruise Control tool developed or adjusted by Jez
Humble. An example with some rapidsms forks is here
Seeing that this is a ruby tool has made me feel even worse about myself not using ruby, but really I dont have all the time in the world to develop on every platform known to man, and I have heard that ruby websites have some performance issues (thats just what I hear). So does python, but not as bad as ruby. Perl is best (really c is the best or assembler)- but it encourages idiosyncratic code. I sort of like to think of all these different programming languages as evolutions of natural language. For example perl (or perhaps assembler) is like egyptian heirogylphics - you need a specialized class of people (scribes) to read and write this language. Then eventually we get coptic (egyptian written in greek), and everyone can read and write it - it is like ruby - but perhaps you lose something in this.
Another analogy - different chinese transcriptions. There are different ways of connecting chinese sounds with the roman alphabet:for example Wade–Giles and Pinyin. Each system captures certain features of chinese, but neglects others, what you get in ease of use in using either system you loose in precision (of using the actual chinese)
Translation is hard
I also succumbed and picked up a git oreilly book. I am sick of scowering the web everytime I something unexpected happens during a merge, or push, or pull and I think I just need to cuddle up with a git book and a hot toddie. My current method of using git is rather sloppy and I would like to be sure and do everything the correct way as I start integrating the rapidsms apps/core etc.. More on version control another day.
Monday, November 16, 2009
Online Friendship
Should everyone be friends online?
One of my favorite talks at the IDF conference last week at the New School was Sean Cubitt's talk on the immateriality of labor panel. He mentioned friendship in relation to Aristotle's Nichomachean Ethics (how there are different types of friendships -his example was between the artist and the patron). He contrasted this with friendship in online communities - where friendship is now commodified and 'has a history.' It becomes more akin to joining a guild or a society than becoming 'friends'. This online friendship is not Aristotle's friendship. But what is it?
First what is Aristotle's notion of friendship? (Book 4 Nichomachean Ethics).
Well the idea is, what good it is to have happiness and success if you have no friends to lavish gifts on, or friends to celebrate you. If you are unhappy friends give you support, if you are airing in your ethical conduct friends will shame you into acting correctly. Friendship is what binds you to society at large. It sort of presiages the panopticon. So how is this different from online friendship?
The main difference is transparency. Online friendship is not really the friendship between two people, but is more of a specticle - it is mediated friendship This is what we are really talking about. It is the impression of friendship and the acts of friendship in an open space so other 'friends' can see that you are friends with other people. This sort of relationship is mistakenly called friendships. Really it is more like social status. Now there is another measure to which people can be judged. With regards to money, position, and popularity.
As I get older I find Aristotle more and more interesting. This probably means that I am becoming more and more boring.
In any case, there are two points in Aristotle's Ethics that I think are applicable to the online community space.
1) Friendship - there are different kinds of friendships - not everyone can be friends in the same way,
2) Gifting - not everyone can bestow gifts (or rather not everyone ought to bestow gifts)
The gifting idea is more radical in a way - namely that the virtue of a gifter is in the size of the gift relative to his capacity to give it. So is it ethical for a journeyman programmer to 'gift' his code in an open source project. Or is it perhaps incorrect to think about open source as a gift economy. Rather the journeyman is paying his dues - in a guild type system - building up capital. Is open source programing really a gift economy. Am I giving a gift when I send someone a cow on facebook, or am I giving a gift when I share my photos? Am I giving a gift - or am I accruing social capital? What sort of transaction is this?
I used to like to say that Morgan Stanley (where I worked) operated on a gift economy. I would need something from the market data team and they would give it to me, even though they dont report to me, because I would give them a mexican interest rate model (for example). A gift though really is not something that should operate in an economy, but rather should be an end in itself, or rather for the glorification of the gift giver.
I suppose capitalism turns everything into a transaction. I dont know if this is good or bad - but it makes it difficult to produce heros in the classical greek sense.
This obviously needs to be fleshed out a bit - but it has already languished a week in my drafts folder so better blogged than nothing
One of my favorite talks at the IDF conference last week at the New School was Sean Cubitt's talk on the immateriality of labor panel. He mentioned friendship in relation to Aristotle's Nichomachean Ethics (how there are different types of friendships -his example was between the artist and the patron). He contrasted this with friendship in online communities - where friendship is now commodified and 'has a history.' It becomes more akin to joining a guild or a society than becoming 'friends'. This online friendship is not Aristotle's friendship. But what is it?
First what is Aristotle's notion of friendship? (Book 4 Nichomachean Ethics).
Well the idea is, what good it is to have happiness and success if you have no friends to lavish gifts on, or friends to celebrate you. If you are unhappy friends give you support, if you are airing in your ethical conduct friends will shame you into acting correctly. Friendship is what binds you to society at large. It sort of presiages the panopticon. So how is this different from online friendship?
The main difference is transparency. Online friendship is not really the friendship between two people, but is more of a specticle - it is mediated friendship This is what we are really talking about. It is the impression of friendship and the acts of friendship in an open space so other 'friends' can see that you are friends with other people. This sort of relationship is mistakenly called friendships. Really it is more like social status. Now there is another measure to which people can be judged. With regards to money, position, and popularity.
As I get older I find Aristotle more and more interesting. This probably means that I am becoming more and more boring.
In any case, there are two points in Aristotle's Ethics that I think are applicable to the online community space.
1) Friendship - there are different kinds of friendships - not everyone can be friends in the same way,
2) Gifting - not everyone can bestow gifts (or rather not everyone ought to bestow gifts)
The gifting idea is more radical in a way - namely that the virtue of a gifter is in the size of the gift relative to his capacity to give it. So is it ethical for a journeyman programmer to 'gift' his code in an open source project. Or is it perhaps incorrect to think about open source as a gift economy. Rather the journeyman is paying his dues - in a guild type system - building up capital. Is open source programing really a gift economy. Am I giving a gift when I send someone a cow on facebook, or am I giving a gift when I share my photos? Am I giving a gift - or am I accruing social capital? What sort of transaction is this?
I used to like to say that Morgan Stanley (where I worked) operated on a gift economy. I would need something from the market data team and they would give it to me, even though they dont report to me, because I would give them a mexican interest rate model (for example). A gift though really is not something that should operate in an economy, but rather should be an end in itself, or rather for the glorification of the gift giver.
I suppose capitalism turns everything into a transaction. I dont know if this is good or bad - but it makes it difficult to produce heros in the classical greek sense.
This obviously needs to be fleshed out a bit - but it has already languished a week in my drafts folder so better blogged than nothing
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