On this episode of Spark: Smart Cities, Rural Tech, and the Beauty of Binary. Click below to listen to the whole show, or download the MP3 (runs 54:00).
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 54:35 — 50.1MB)
You can also listen to individual stories below.
A Month of Letters
When was the last time you sat down and wrote a letter? Writer Christina Crook took an internet sabbatical for a month and started writing letters to a friend, who in turn posted them on a blog called Letters from a Luddite. Similarly, author Mary Robinette Kowal spent a month without the internet, corresponding only by paper letter. Now she’s issued a challenge on her blog called A Month of Letters. The challenge is, for the month of February, to mail at least one item through the post every day it runs. And write back to everyone who writes to you. (Runs 6:41)
Play audio:
- Letters From a Luddite
- The Month of Letters Challenge
- Mary Robinette Kowal
- You might like this Spark story about love letters
- You might also like writing us a letter! Spark, CBC Radio One, P.O Box 500, Station A, Toronto, Ontario, M5W 1E6
The City With No People
Imagine a city with buildings, roads and offices, but no residents. Robert Brumley and his company Pegasus Global Holdings, are creating the Center for Innovation Testing and Evaluation. Which is basically a full functioning city designed for just that –testing and evaluation-… just minus the people. (Runs 8:37)
Play audio:
- Robert Brumley
- Press release for the Center for Innovation Testing and Evaluation
The Urban-Rural Tech Divide
It used to be that urban life and rural life were two solitudes. But technology has changed the culture of small towns. Spark contributor Denis Grignon spends some time with classic urbanites-come-ruralites-because-of technology and the reluctant-established-ruralites-struggling to live with them. (Runs 6:59)
Play audio:
The Beauty of Binary
What do computers, knitting, and 18th century China have in common? For mathematician and technology historian, Kristen Haring, the answer is binary systems. Haring is researching the cultural history of binary, and she wants to show us that we know more about binary than we even realize. It’s everywhere!
And she takes Nora on a fascinating tour. (Runs 25:53)
And she takes Nora on a fascinating tour. (Runs 25:53)
Play audio:
- Kristen Haring
- A video of Kristen’s talk How to Knit a Popular History of Media
I found this interview utterly fascinating. Who ever thought to bring the Morse Code and knitting together? I had no idea this had been done in war time as a means of communicating. Makes perfect sense after hearing about it on the show. And the binary aspects of the conversation were mind boggling as well. Keep it up Nora, the show is wonderful.
Agreed. I wonder how the Incan quipu might relate.
Though quipu were not created in a binary fashion, Gary Urton has written a binary analysis of them (_Signs of the Inka Khipu: Binary Coding in the Andean Knotted-String Records_, 2003). The choice to interpret the quipu as binary, in my opinion, reflects our contemporary association of binary systems with powerful information technology.
The interview was, indeed, very interesting, however, I have a small remark concerning the Morse and Binary codes. In fact. the Morse code is not binary. It is a ternary code because besides the dot and the dash, there are also empty spaces which separate letters and words, Thus, we have in all three values with which to transmit information. This, actually, makes the code more efficient than the binary. This in no way takes away anything from from the interviewee's fascinating activities.
Loved the first segment about writing letters. Especially the part about your brain running faster than you write. I thought I was the only one suffering from that! I guess handwriting is just like a muscle. Once you stop physically writing, your handwriting atrophies.
I loved that too, as was perhaps obvious from my reaction. I just need to slow down!!
maybe not so fast, Nora……. the arithmetic of communication is changing. If people speak @120 wpm then they hear@120wpm? However they read @400wpm or so. But how fast can one compose. Typing is only say 50wpm for amatuers, but the message content increases with abbreviations, symbols, acronyms, puntuation/emoticons etc.. Short hand need only to keep up to about 120wpm.
The problem with asynchronous rate of current handwriting might be more a matter of the expected modern rate of composition is much greater than it used to be?
Still, for all that. silence is golden and the less said the better. So….. twitter …. we say less but more often – lol.
As far a medium goes…… print allows 100's wpm and A/V adds graphics (a picture is worth 1,000 words? – but is ambiguous without captions or narration – WHICH 1,000 words). Radio – when well edited with skilful interviewers still conveys great content with the added luxury of being the easiest to multitask with??
….and still for all this does humankind understand each other any beter?
You'll never guess what I was doing when the segment about writing letters started … yes, I was writing a letter to a friend I met at university more than 30 years ago. We've kept in touch since, mainly through letters. Although I don't write as many letters as I once did, I write far more than many people do and am always told how nice it is to receive something other than a bill in the mailbox. I never could send a birthday, anniversary or Christmas card with my name signed and nothing else. As long as I'm able, I will write letters.
How cool – knitting in morse code. It's surprising how many math & science related shows I've been watching on TVO, PBS or Knowledge network – The Code, quantum physics, etc. I've learned more about these subjects and how they relate to our lives in the last 6 months than I learned in highschool. My new math studies are so much more enjoyable than what I remember slogging through in school.
Please spend some time reading the document "Origami and Geometric constructions" by physicist and world-renowned Origami artist Robert Lang (pages 5 – 10). The document discusses the use of binary in Origami design and most particularly dividing a square sheet of paper in 'n' divisions, If you associate 1s and 0s to folding a sheet of paper from the top(1) or from the bottom(0) to the last fold created, you will get your desired division. For example, folding a square into fifths is a difficult task without reference points. The binary code for 1/5 is .0011 (repeating) then you would fold the square in half from the bottom, then fold from the bottom to the last fold created, then fold from the top to the last fold created twice. Which will get you an approximate 1/5 division of your sheet of paper depending on the number of times you repeat the sequence for accuracy. I challenge you to give it a try. I find repeating this code twice works well.
Thanks very much for this suggestion! I will check it out.
This inspired me to create a Morse Code knitting chart: http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/morse-cod…
Love the idea!
Careful when comparing binary and Morse Code. The terms bits and bytes are used when discussing the code but they assume that 0 and 1 compares with a dot and a dash? Actually it is short tone, long tone and NO tone. The more accurate binary analogy is that a dot is a tone followed by no tone and a dash is three tones together. "S" is more like 10101 than just 111 and "O" is more like 11101110111.
Actually the concept is more recently called variable length bytes – important when data conduits are restricted. Samuel Morse, the resourseful man he was, visited a typsetters office and notices the most commonly used letters had had the largest containers so gave them the shortest code!
Interesting show.
Right — Morse code is not binary in terms of dots and dashes, but in terms of the system underlying those symbols. Morse conveyed information by toggling electricity on and off. As you have written, a dash represents a telegrapher sending three pulses of electricity in a row (a long tone), followed by a period in which a pulse is not sent. The example we used in the show was letter "A": symbolized by dot-dash in Morse code, by 10111000 in binary numerals, or by PKPPPKKK in knitting.
Hearing the music selections, made me
wonder if a music box is binary,
from the early invention in 1796 of a cylinder
with pegs that trigger a harp comb
through the exquisite,
http://www.reuge.com/
to the to the hobby diy ditty
http://thetrendisnear.blogspot.com/2007/10/music-…
Any thoughts Spark community?
It was a wonderful, provoking show.
As the "APM music used in this episode" link doesn't work, what was the extro muisc for this episode? Great show, as always. Thanks.
Yet another interesting show, indeed, my handwriting has suffered due to tying or taping out words on various keyboards. Which is strange, because being an artist, you think my penmanship would be exemplary.
Hi Nora
Listened to your show today with interest.My husband and I have embarked on a project that is nearing the 1 year mark where we live as close to the year 1865 as we possibly can. SO you guessed it hand writing letters , with ink well and nib pen..funny enough I was on my way to post one such letter as I heard your program.
victorianyear1865.blogspot.
Re: The Beauty of Binary
Kirstin Haring seemed to stretch her postulate that anything that could be shown to be a two state situation could be considered binary. A previous poster has already commented on her look at Morse code, and I felt that she showed an unwillingness to realise the difference between form and substrate, between media and message here.
Her concept, as presented is essentially too loose in its parameters – is an automobile a binary device because you are either in it (1?) or out of it (0?)?
A player piano roll uses holes to play a tune as the roll progresses, based upon the real time imprint based upon the original recorder roll. A person familiar with piano rolls and printed sheet music could usually identify, and perhaps hum the tune by looking at either. There is no encoding to a different, base two form, simply an indication of play this note here, via holes to signal the player piano's mechanisim.
What I am trying to express is that a binary expression is essentially, by its very nature also encoded. The simple condition of being a/b, 0n/off may be a binary state, but has little to do with a digital or computer related subject.
regards
Dustin
Alas, the youth who have been weaned on microprocessor!__Boolean logic predated electronic circuts but the application of one to the other was pure fate and a perfect match. The development of the semicinductor integrated circuts accelerated the application of rapid binary decisions to yeild computations or decisions. Current processors have left these foundations of computer circuts the business of cyber paleontologists?__However, in applications where control circuts were very basic, the enviroment severe and electric circuts a hazard, pneumatic or gas pressure switching circuts processed basic control logic.__Nevertheless the commenter makes a good point. On a computer circut board, for example, the program is binary coded on the platform below the machine code
…cont'd…
; and below the binary code is the digital (voltage) logic and to transmit the codes in the conductors (bus) it is an electromagnetic signal analogous to FM.
A strict Technical perspective types aside, many mathematicians were also philosphers and the philosophy of binary applications throughout society and history surface all the time, however unaware the users were of their significance.
I don't know about piano rolls, but dot matrix printers, in graphics modes would have the pins strike the ribbon via a circut/relays that would apply (or appear to apply) the binary digit directly. A byte of 01010101 would be a striped line/bar, a byte of 11111111 would be a solid (black) bar. Although the underlying code was digital.
I guess what I was trying to say was that Kirstin seemed to force the data to fit the theory. Calling knitting a binary operation just because there are two types of stitch, is simple corelativism, not corelation.
It is no wonder the Chinese Emporer rejected the Jesuits binary explaination of creation (one thing from zero) as it probably seemed contrived and facile to him as her whole approach seems to me. Again it was a case of making the data fit the theory.
It is odd that she missed some real points, when I heard about the realtionship between knitting and computers was going to be explored, I assumed that the punchcard controlled rug and weaving looms that iinspired Babbage and Lovelace would have been discussed.
It is obvious that true Binary operations have played a role in histoic calculations, as mentioned, there are ancient references to them in Asia. A true binary operation, however has a purpose byond the two state system, a codex of operations in which the binary condition is mandated. Simply noting that humanity has, at times set up a or b choices for certain systems is as relevant as noteing that we also like 3's, 7's, and 12s.
I don't agree with your data+theory argument. Any theory, by definition, is a reduction of some phenomenon to critical aspects that give it prediction and explanatory power. The selection of those critical aspects is a choice to value certain things over other things. The point whether knitting is *actually* binary or not is no different than saying anything else is. Nothing is really binary, it's all about thresholds and abstraction. Sure 0V is 0 and 5V is 1, but what about 4.9 V? (probably still 1).
I think the point is about representation. Binary is just another form of numerical representation, and nothing in the interview negates this, it only enriches the discussion.
During my B.F.A. I made an artwork called "two hands and five fingers" and it was a grid of numbers, where each row was the previous row + 1 and each column a number system of a different base. On the left was base 10, a familiar pattern, and then proceeded with base 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, ending on another familiar pattern. The point was to show that while we think of technology as some alien force, it is not. Perhaps base 10 results from us having 10 fingers (a lovely idea linking concept and biology). Technology is purely human, an extension of how we think and not alien at all. I think what makes technology appear alien is the complex and exploitative power structures that modulate the construction of technologies. This does not change that they are inherently extensions of our thinking, for better or for worse.
While I very much enjoy the witty and even sarcastic dialogue on blogs, I am trying to hold back from making such remarks because I am truly distressed of your portrayal of rural Canadians in your episode “Urban-Rural Tech Divide”. I had to wait overnight, in the hope that my internet service provider would cease throttling my bandwidth, so that I could comment. The interviewer was obviously going for a light comic piece – but it came off as patronizing and offensive. The inference is that people in rural areas are wary of “people from the city” and reluctant to use technology because we are unsophisticated folk that have never heard of interior designers or clams and have only recently learned how to use those fangled-dangled cell phones.
The Urban/Rural tech divide is about money and technology. Too few cell towers mean that your cell phone might not work while you are driving. While governments fund Internet Service Providers to give web access to rural areas, those companies have not invested in infrastructure that can offer access that would meet anyone’s standard of good internet service.
Perhaps the gentleman interviewed only uses a cell phone does so because the other digital tools don’t meet his needs for robust and easy access to the Internet while on the road.
In rural areas of my province, New Brunswick, the ONLY highspeed provider is Xplornet. This gives me marginally better access than a dial up connection. Our usage is monitored and if I exceed their Fair Access Policy of 525 MG my service is downgraded – for 24 hours. Xplornet have directed their customer service support to remind us that the service is free from monitoring from 2am to 7am. I either have to restrain myself from participating to the digital world during daylight hours or get up at 2am to check email, post pictures or Skype with my daughter in college. Please understand that I do not live on an isolated back road where you might perish if your GPS mistakenly directs you to my part of the world.
And yes, we don’t have the population to be a lucrative market. But that’s not funny
Hi Michelle, thanks for your comments. I'm sorry you were troubled by Denis' piece. I should say that Denis is a rural Canadian, as we mentioned at the start of the piece; he lives in the area he was reporting from, so perhaps what you're interpreting as condescension is actually self-deprecating humour.
That said, we do hear from rural listeners about the problems of connectivity in rural areas, and as you say, not necessarily from people in particularly remote areas. It's something we've talked about on the show in the past, such as in the episodes below: http://www.cbc.ca/spark/2008/09/digital-wish-list… http://www.cbc.ca/spark/2010/10/spark-123-october… http://www.cbc.ca/spark/2010/05/repeat-episode-ma…
It's an important issue, and perhaps one we should return to. Thanks again for your comments.
Oh – he didn't know what an interior designer was.
I listen to your show primarily via Pod-casts so this comment is lagged a bit.. But came across this today about another unconventional computing and yet another binary systems. Soldier Crabs presence and absence.
Japanese Scientists Build a Computer From Swarming Crabs http://tinyurl.com/7m8rjng