WEB DEVELOPMENT: MODULE BEGINS ON MONDAY

Now that the second semester has kicked in the module Developing a Website is going to be what I'll be teaching. The first lecture-tutorial will take place this Monday, February 7, at 18:00 at the Computer Lab, and we'll discuss the historical development of the Web from the late 1980s when TBL first started working on his idea for a system that would streamline the exchange of scientific information and documents to the contemporary Web that we're all using in our everyday lives for a myriad different reasons. So, the first lecture will be, to a large extent, theoretical, however, also touching upon the underlying technologies that power the World Wide Web (WWW), and discussing the motivations behind, as well as the conflicts involved in, the development of the WWW.

The best resource on the subject is the website of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), which I strongly advise you to get very familiar with as you'll get to use it a thousand times over the duration of the course, and the book Weaving the Web by W3C's co-founder (and developer of the Web) Tim Berners-Lee.

See you all on Monday afternoon! Till then, enjoy your weekend!

ARE THOSE PEOPLE FOR REAL?

It's not the first time I got email from someone [this one came from Jasper Conrad] claiming they give out fully-legit degrees in exchange for hard cash....but this one is the funniest of all, so I thought I'd share it with you. have a good laugh:-)



And remember: if you don't take it as a joke, but, rather, you are tricked into playing their game, then, in the best case scenario, you'll be taken for a ride, possibly resulting in loss of some money. In the worst case scenario, you're going down as an accomplice to fraud.

COMPUTING: WRITTEN ASSIGNMENT & PRESENTATION

I uploaded the PDF with the topics for the written assignment to be submitted on Friday, and all the instructions/notes pertaining to it. Don't forget that the presentations complementing the assignments will take place on that very same Friday. Late submissions may not be considered.

Feel free to ask any questions either here or via email. And btw, good luck:-)

CALL FOR CONTRIBUTORS

As I told some of you during last Friday's tutorial, this weblog would welcome contributions from all of you. Therefore, if any of you feel like giving it a try, taking this conversation a step further, either leave a comment here or send me email and I'll send you all the info (perhaps an admin account?) you need to get started with posting on this weblog.

hey, it should be fun too:-)

COMPUTING: READING LIST

The following reading list comprises several (hyper)texts that have been discussed, and/or referred to in the course of the first semester for the module Introduction to Computing. Of course, the only text that is essential reading is McLuhan's all-time classic Understanding Media (unfortunately though, only the first seven chapters are available online; yet, on the other hand, these chapters constitute the main theoretical backbone of McLuhan's seminal book, and as such, they ought to be given particular attention).

-- here goes then:

Adorno, T. and Horkheimer, M. (1944) The Culture Industry: Enlightment as Mass Deception, from The Dialectic of Enlightment.
Bauwens, M. Peer-to-Peer: from technology to politics to a new civilization? (document in progress), 2001.
Dafermos, G. (2001) Management and Virtual Decentralised Networks: the Linux Project, First Monday, November.
Dafermos, G. (2003) Blogging the Market: how weblogs are turning corporate machines into real conversations.
Debord, G. (1967) The Society of the Spectacle.
Debord, G. (1988) Commentaries on the Society of the Spectacle.
DiBona, C. et al. (1999) Open Sources: Voices from the Open Source Revolution.
Joy, B. (2000) Why the Future Doesn't Need Us, Wired, April.
Kaczynski, T. (1995) The Unabomber's Manifesto (Industrial Society and its Future), The Washington Post, September.
Locke, C., Weinberger, D., Searls, D., and Levine, C. (1999) The Cluetrain Manifesto: the end of business as usual.
Marcuse, H. (1955) Eros and Civilization, A Philosophical Inquiry into Freud.
McLuhan, M. (1964) Understanding Media, the Extensions of Man.
Negri, A. and Hardt, M. (2000) Empire. Also available here, here, and there.
Vaneigem, R. (1972) The Revolution of Everyday Life (Traité de savoir-vivre à l'usage des jeunes générations).


Have I forgotten anything? Please let me know.

Also, I Intend to continuously update this list as time flows on, with more books, essays, papers, etc. For the time being though, the list carries only texts that I managed to find on the Web. Soon, I will also update the list with texts that are not (yet?) accessible online, such as Jeremy Rifkin's Age of Access, Bernard-Marie Koltes' s In the Solitute of the Cotton Fields, etc., etc.

UPDATE: I uploaded the updated version of the reading list (offline texts and proper links included) here.