#they have a course on algorithms that goes slightly deeper than sorting

[lesser-vissir]

The problem here is your view that plagiarism is a valid thing to be worried about in academia, much less in a CS degree.

if you are genuinely worried about undergrad students cheating using chatGPT you have either bought into the marketing hype or you're admitting that the only thing you look for when grading is "basically grammatically correct sentences, some of which are obstensibly about the topic"

[peakwealth]

Dry Rot

The printed word, ages ago (actually 2015, Italy)

The corruption of the news by commerce and entertainment is an old story. But it is getting worse. The incursion of ads, more or less disguised, and the encroachment of nebulous 'partner content' in the middle of editorial websites is gaining ground. So is the volume of trash and trivia, designed to attract or retain internet users who might not be overly interested in actual news.

As many news organizations struggle to stay afloat, their editorial integrity is being compromised a little more every day. A few screenshots will illustrate this. But I would also like to look at the broader picture of how mainstream news is getting squeezed in other ways. Why people are becoming receptive to misinformation or 'paid content' - in essence fiction or propaganda of one sort or another.

***

EXHIBIT A. This is what many news sites now look like. Hiding between legitimate news stories, virtually identical in layout and typeface, is sponsored or partner content. This is obvious doublespeak since the advertiser is not a “partner” at all. It is more of a usurper, a Trojan horse from the corporate world, hiding behind the trees, trying to cash in on the legitimacy of the journalistic environment.

Of course this happens with the consent of all concerned. But the risk of reputational damage is self evident. In order to generate income, publishers allow advertisers to piggyback on the core value of the news operation, its credibility.

***

EXHIBIT B. This page from The New York Times is slightly more upfront. Although the ‘paid post‘ is more easily recognizable because of the difference with the trademark typeface of the newspaper, the invasive intent is clear.

***

EXHIBIT C. Classic juxtaposition of user-friendly fluff and serious news on the BBC. One is about the abduction and murder of a woman on her way home from work. The suspect was a London police officer. The other is an old story about how many Dutch people have grown so tall within a generation or two. Also note the adjacent box (aka a ‘chumbox’)  showing two female teenagers with blonde hair. The story? A Spanish princess will attend an expensive private school in Wales.

This practice degrades news that is significant (femicide by a UK police officer) since it gets equal billing with manifest trivia and celebrity. It suggests there is equivalence in value of news and non-news. It confuses and infantilizes the reader. As for the use of smiling young women as eye candy and generic clickbait, it has become so universal you hardly notice it. It is the anaesthetic that makes the manipulation go unnoticed. But on the website of a global news organization like the BBC it must count as malignant editorial pollution. It adds to the blurring of the line between news and cosmetic commercials.

To make matters worse, all of the items in this section are ‘recommended by Outbrain’. Outbrain is an ad targeting service, founded in Israel and headquartered in New York. It is one of many.

***

EXHIBIT D. This is the more familiar ground of advertorials, except that this one masquerades under the brand of BBC future. In smaller print, removed from where the eye focuses, it reveals that the feature is presented and paid for by Singapore Airlines. Even so it looks deceptive and undermines the standing and bona fides of the British Broadcasting Corporation as a trusted source of information.

***

EXHIBIT E. Anxious to sell advertising space, many news operations allow advertisers to superimpose or slide commercial messages on top of the editorial content, obscuring much or most of it. Some do so briefly, others make it last. In this local example, only a small fragment of the editorial content (the box marked in yellow showing a photograph with the words CENTRO MEDICO) remains visible but is rendered meaningless. The rest of the screen is all advertising.

In the next example below, a full editorial photograph is still visible but the unrelated name of the bank Sabadell has been mysteriously superimposed on it. Clearly red lines are being crossed here.

***

EXHIBIT F. Human or animal interest stories inserted into the mix also make for efficient clickbait, no matter how superficial. Once the click is acquired, it can initiate a chain of individualized, algorithm-driven content placement.

The next screenshot shows how the fluff strategy works. In the ranking of ‘most watched’ news videos (BBC), a wandering swan attracts more viewers than the complex strategic issue of the dispute over sovereignty in the South China Sea, a potential trigger of global war. No surprise there.

***

So much for the dry rot that has invaded the news.

The main reason for this contamination, the growing encroachment by non-news, is easy enough to see. Fragmentation of the audience and strangulation by social media are two of the most obvious threats to the old news organizations. As readers and viewers drain away, so do budgets. But the trouble goes deeper than the algorithms of Facebook and Google, or the omnipresence of youTube or Instagram.

There's another kind of dry rot in society at large. It has to do with people turning their backs on evidence-based knowledge. The last decade has brought signs of increasing skepticism and unreason. This is not the kind of doubt as found in 'healthy skepticism'. Instead it is an extremely unhealthy skepticism, a sense of entitlement - even enjoyment - to reject factual information when it is deemed to be unappealing, when it does not match a specific 'worldview' (a loaded term, I know) or when it offends a set of prejudices and feelings.

In other words, the problem is not merely about life in a Trumpian era where disinformation flows into people's mobile devices. It is about a certain bottom-up user fatigue, a lack of inhibition that allows people to dismiss reality, no matter how obvious and incontrovertible.

Those who are no longer bound by reason to accept facts also feel free to say they're just fed up with the news (mostly bad by definition). Fed up with reality, with science and everything else that is depressing and leads to anxiety when a much rosier version is available across the fence in the land of entertainment, trivia, sports, spirituality, etc. Faced with a spreading, naked disinterest in reality, the intellectual imperative to tell it like it is (= news) is being subverted as well.

To the news organizations who deal in professionally mediated facts, their analysis and interpretation, this must come as a shock. Caught between dwindling audiences, rubbish news, clickbait and the invasion of ‘partner’ content, life is not going to get any easier.

[jimwithonem]

My Creative Process

Generative art is digital art made with programming code. That's one definition. I like to think of “genart" as a vehicle for artistic expression for those who can’t paint or draw. That’s me. I couldn’t brush or illustrate myself out of a corner, but I can code. Generative art provides me the capability to express myself in a way I never thought possible. So, I welcome the convergence of art and algorithm and the creative freedom it provides.

I use the Java programming language in Processing, an open-source IDE developed specifically for designing visual electronic art. In this post, I describe my process for creating these types of non-illustrative, non-objective compositions including the song lyrics they contain. Call them, I don’t know, symmetrical abstractions maybe.

I derive the aesthetics for my compositions primarily from Suprematism and simple geometric abstraction and strive to express feelings associated with or produced by the deeper meanings of lyrical content. I’m concerned with stripping down the message of each piece into its raw expressive form, as opposed to constructing some sort of metaphorical object.

For the lyrics, I draw from my own encounters with a vast range of musical styles and genres. A sort of synesthesia takes over when I write where certain words or phrases link to works from music's past. Such impressions, if you will, augment my research into topics of interest and anchor my work in the last 70 years of music. Exploring foundational art forms gives me an occasion to find relevant contexts and expressions with a healthy dose of chaos and randomness.

My lyrical writing process adapts components of the universal creative problem-solving process. For me, I’m more concerned with the process of creating art than perhaps the product itself. I don’t consider myself any sort of authority about music or art, but I do think that process is interesting and perhaps offers a different way of thinking about how art is made which, in my case, means framing new lyrics within a visual piece. Waiting around for inspiration, or lightning, to strike is sort of a Ben Franklin approach where one is dependent on bad weather. Process streamlines this out of the equation.

To prepare for writing this post, I’ve eaten a bowl of fruit, drank a glass of water, found a comfortable chair, donned my headphones, and decided to bang it out. I want to listen to my gut, rather than it distracting me for attention. I suspect there may be many interruptions and temptations to quit early, but I’m intent on ignoring those for the moment. Now, there’s nothing to it but to do it.

The Lyrical Process

Articulate

In the articulation phase, I pick a topic to write about. It may be suggested by someone else, is related to something I’m experiencing at the time, or is inferred from some musical work of the past or present. For example, a topic I chose recently was about finding love in an unusual place or circumstance which David Bowie wrote about in his song Heroes. I wouldn’t dare presume to rival Bowie’s work, but topics are free for anyone to explore and play around with.

Inspire

Now it’s time to lower the lights and get into a mood. Each topic suggests certain attitudes and feelings that require I achieve an emotional state. It’s harder to write when I’m not feeling it, so music helps me reach a certain place where I can tap into available inputs and jumpstart creativity. I prefer to feed my creative process rather than starve it of information. Avoiding creative anemia requires a certain amount of intention, perhaps.

Accept

This phase is all about commitment. It’s my goal to finish the first draft of a piece in one sitting. Sometimes that’s as little as an hour or even days. The blank page can be a tyrant unless it knows your serious about putting something down. Acceptance helps me gather the energy I know I will need to see the project through from start to finish, or until my laptop battery runs out of juice. (Right now I'm sitting at about an 82% charge, so we’ll see.)

Analyze

Here I hop on Google and research the topic by reading articles, watching videos, and scanning blogs and boards. I’m looking for psychological or philosophical insights and perspectives to fill my cup of knowledge. Oftentimes this stage goes very quickly, but other times the information is just not there in sufficient quality or quantity. In this case, I do a soft pivot and come at the topic from a slightly different angle by changing my question or query.

Ideate

This is where the process gets a little easier. Once the creative waters are heated to a steady boil, words and phrases stand up and take notice and I write them down without analysis or edifice. I try not to actually write the song here, just curate the words I need to fill my palette with color. At the end of the day, I will attempt, in the spirit of Bauhaus minimalism, to use as few keywords as possible in the final work to convey a feeling, situation, meaning, or story. Too many words in the final piece are prohibitive for the reader in my opinion.

Associate

Making associations to prior art and current culture is a cool way to position a piece within its larger context. It also helps to have a bit of synesthesia here. For me, that means words or phrases trigger prior works without any conscious effort. So, I just write these down along with everything else and welcome the possibility of standing on the shoulders of giants. Perhaps art is a sustaining innovation where one just hopes to make incremental improvements to delivering a message, and the language of love takes over from there.

Arpeggiate

I start forming a repeating rhythm in my head here as a way to sort of frame the meter of the lyrics. My goal is to play around with the meter and stretch the boundaries and rules to my liking. For me, that means less is more. Because of many years of private vocal training, I can envision a phrase, run, rest, or diphthong and how it might be interpreted by a singer - sort of like visualizing vocal sounds as shapes - which allows me a bit of latitude in development. Typically, I won’t jump on an electronic or app arpeggiator here, just use the percussionist in my head.

Overflow

Sort of like making a prototype, or a blacksmith shaping a blank of molten metal, a work takes its form from repeated blows of the hammer. If the art is allowed to cool down it must be reinserted into the fire for another iteration with the master implement. I like to sustain momentum here and strike while the iron is hot. Cooling down too soon may result in ideas sitting just out of reach with no ladder to retrieve them.

Rewrite

There’s no getting around for it. Writing is about effort, yo. One must write and rewrite, then rewrite again, until a piece reaches a certain momentum or economy of scale. If necessary, I put the work down and come back to it later if I feel it's not ready or I’m exhausted. At this stage, I want to evaluate what I have and whether its something I want to proceed with.

Assuming I now have a lyric I’m more or less happy with, and this is a judgment call more than anything else, I move on in the process. Since I’m creating for me, I try not to impose any sort of perfection or expectation. I’m looking to startle myself or discover an effect. I don’t think this is a goal per se, more of a perception of what “done” means. Of course, art is never really done, right, so it’s just a matter of putting it out there with warts and all. Perhaps there is some sort of beauty in imperfection and uncertainty that gives room for love to cover the gap in unexpected ways. This means not shying away from essentially darker tones or topics and really acknowledging those emotions without discrimination.

The Genart Process

Through the experience of learning Processing, I have created a sketch applet to lever as a framework for constructing pieces of art. The sketch has undergone many redesigns, refactorings, and iterations which permits me to focus on configuration over convention. While the app is not gold plated or even perfectly constructed, it does use principles to encapsulate complexity and accelerate runtime.

Import

After converting a lyric into CSV format, I configure the app to import it into the sketch at runtime. The idea here is that the elements of each lyrical piece are analyzed and combined with a level of randomness to algorithmically achieve a unique output. I find that using the code in this way liberates my mind from intentionality and objectivity and suggests interesting or unusual geometrical representations of the work.  

Configure

A few choices have to be made about the font, color, and level of randomness, and dimensions of geometry. This is an iterative process, but typically a lyric will imply a color palette based on its mood or message. I try to find a starting place that provides an appropriate level of detachment that doesn’t overwhelm the final piece. Just enough is good enough, in my opinion, but too simple is boring. I prefer the artwork conjure a picture in the viewer's mind however abstract.

Experiment

A composition begins to form at this stage which leads me to code and recode the geometrical equations in relation to their placement on canvas. I like to experiment with color, movement, and perspective to shape the art into submission. What starts out as a divergent step may morph or molt the work until I start to see something I like. Then, I converge on that and continue to work it out.

Iterate

Finally, I iterate and evaluate until I’m more or less satisfied with the results. Small tweaks are often better than larger ones because it keeps the work true to its disorganized qualities. Too much intervention or intention can lead to overkill which can cause a setback. A certain level of acceptance of what is good enough is balanced with what I want to see emerging from the piece. However, it’s interesting to note that the two products, the lyrics and the artwork, synthesize into a new whole where each is evaluated and improved in relation to the other until a completed work results.

It’s fun and rewarding to make something that I or someone else may think is beautiful or inspiring. I want to thank you for reading and invite you to hit me up anytime with questions or comments. I wish you the best with your own artistic journeys. 

Jim