Search results for tag #rusticcomputing
In more interesting #computing , last night I stumbled on Brendan Howell's Rustic Computing project: https://wintermute.org/project/Rustic_Computing/ ; also https://moddr.net/rustic-computing/
which I find very fun to consider.
Rustic Computing refers to the construction of calculation machines using pre-industrial or even pre-historic technology. It reveals a history of computing as the pastime of dilettantes, amateur scientists and gentleman tabulators who construct machines to manipulate abstract symbols with no practical application. As these machines are generally less efficient than conventional pencil and paper computation, they allude to a more epicurean practice of computing for pleasure rather than production. Much like "Slow Food", Rustic Computing valorizes the process as being more "natural", "traditional" and "organic".My favorite computer science results and algorithms are those that transfer into the non-digital world. You can sort a deck of cards using merge sort. John Hopfield apparently had his students implement a neural network calculation wherein each student was a simulated neuron that (who?) interacted with neighboring student neurons. Danny Hillis built a minimax tictactoc player out of Tinker toys and fishing line.