CSOC

Dear Felienne! You won’t believe it. This time, I actually did the homework you assigned instead of going off course. I am a bit scared to comment on this Turing test paper, though! First, because I don’t want to repeat Alan Turing’s mistakes and say all kinds of things without sufficiently engaging with other domains. And second, because I make my points with a story about Alice and Bob having great sex. I am not sure the Computer Science community (who probably only knows Alice and Bob from cryptography lessons where they send each other rather innocent encrypted text messages!) is ready for that. But ok, here we go… ...

Dear Felienne! I had promised you a shorter homework for this week, and I think I did it: it’s a tiny little bit shorter (based on my own estimate). But also, it isn’t really exactly the homework you suggested. I did something else instead. I guess I went off course… but in some way, I hope that’s the point. So what did I do? What the Stair Climber, Slack, Ellipticals, and Emails Have in Common As a first step, I reflected on how I see the computer. In our episode, we discussed that Brenda Laurel sees it as a theatre. I see it more as a gym. That’s because I find working with the computer super exhausting. But there are a few more parallels I want to draw. For instance, think about all these emails that come in and that need to be answered. This is really like the stair climber in the fitness centre, where the stairs just keep coming and coming… an endless flow of stairs, similar to the endless flow of emails. There is no destination we will reach, but they keep us feeling busy and productive. ...

Dear Felienne! It has been some time since we recorded the Peter Naur episode, but I finally did the homework. Or at least, what I remembered about the homework. Well, actually, I changed the homework a little to better fit my life and (lack of programming) skills. In any case, here are my notes. Please take my notes with a grain of salt. As you know, I am not entirely sure who I am — but I am definitely not an experienced programmer, I am also not an educational scientist, and I have not studied computer science even though I ended up in the CS department. And, of course, I have not looked into scientific articles to see how well my thoughts hold up against those of experts. Also, I overdid it a bit. Future homeworks will be shorter, I promise!!! ...