Category: Interface Culture

Joe Weizenbaum in Klagenfurt, 2007

Posted on · Leave a comment


Joseph Weizenbaum at MEDICHI 2007

Klagenfurt Campus TV recorded the keynote from Mike Mahoney What Makes the History of Software Hard and Why it Matters, the read-out talk for Niklaus Wirth A Brief History of Software Engineering, Tibor Vamos’ presentation Nothing is More Practical than a Good Theory, and Joseph Weizenbaum‘s closing keynote Social and political impact of the long term history of computing at MEDICHI 2007.

Watch the video here  /via.

Find more videos at mprove: webcasts.

PS: Happy birthday Joe, to your 85th birthday today!

human reason

Posted on · 1 Comment

Image of Computer power and human reason
According to Joe Weizenbaum, the single most important paragraph of his book Computer Power and Human Reason is the following on page 276:

It is a widely held but a grievously mistaken belief that civil courage finds exercise only in the context of world-shaking events. To the contrary, its most arduous exercise is often in those small contexts in which the challenge is to overcome the fears induced by petty concerns over career, over our relationships to those who appear to have power over us, over whatever may disturb the tranquility of our mundane existence.

I met Joe at MEDICHI in Klagenfurt last year. A great moment where he touched me.

New blogs on the block

Posted on · 2 Comments

5 new blogs will accompany mprove.de and provide more focus in each area.

Zeitgeist

Posted on · Leave a comment

Zeitgeist – An independant film by Peter Joseph

An impressive film about religion, the church, culture, war, history, money, terror, media, and a little bit about the truth. But, as the author said:

It is my hope that people will not take what is said in the film as the truth, but find out for themselves, for truth is not told, it is realized.

A duel at reboot9

Posted on · Leave a comment

I am happy to present
at reboot9 this year. I’ll talk about a
duel between desktop- and web-computing.

Abstract. Today the user of personal computers is facing several inconsistencies which originate from an unresolved situation between two competing interaction models. The WIMP desktop model was developed nearly 30 years ago at Xerox Parc and Apple Computer. The web model became popular in the mid 1990s and has profoundly changed business and the perception of social relationships. Contradictions between these two models have a severe negative impact on human-computer interaction.
The presentation will be based on a similar talk I gave at MEDICHI a month ago.
Technorati Tags: ,