2005-03-16

Bits & Atoms
http://conferences.oreillynet.com/cs/et2005/view/e_sess/6326


computer science froze a model of computation dating back to 1950

things he won't talk about:
- analog logic
- internetworking of devices

going to talk about:
- fabrication: the state of the art

basic fab process: spread stuff around and bake it.

so the real state of the art is the ribosome.

redundant, lossy rna code comes along. it's lossy because if you make a
copy-error you end up with something that works roughly the time. trna comes
along, does error correction, etc.

the ribosome computes to build. it doesn't compute the tool, it *is* the tool.

fabs in our world have computation on the edges, but we still make with analog
materials.

saul griffiths thesis that writes "MIT" by extruding things like a protein chain
with simple logic to fold up [and it looks fantastic and rich. need to ask about
this.]

1940s: communications. shannon. realised that it's possibly to communicate at
zero error for a low threshold. means we can communicate perfectly under certain
limits.

1950s: computation. winograd, von neumann (and others). "you don't need to worry
about the numbers in your spreadsheet decaying over time because of the state
restoration that's happening all the time." every gate in the chip is making a
reliable computer out of unreliable parts. this is a consequence of shannon and
it took a decade to realise it was possible. it wasn't obvious at the time.

2000s: fabrication.

centre for bits and atoms: metre, millimeter, micrometer. they wanted to be able
to fab at any length scale.

started teaching a class "How To Make (almost) Anything"

showing Kelly Dobson's ScreamBody. [the use of giving this technology to artists
is that we begin to see what this stuff should really be used for.]

another one "InterPet Explorer"

Yoon's "Defensive Dressing"

also: an alarm clock you have to wrestle with to prove you're awake.

literacy emerged in the renaissance as control of the means of expression. it
was a liberation. making stuff was called an illiberal art. this was a mistake.

but the students became a peer to peer, just in time learning environment that
he could just loosely shepherd. they would teach each other to use the
technology.

realised that we're already in the personal fabrication era, without noticing
it, it's just not at the molecular assembler level yet.

[KEY POINT] there's not just a digital divide, there's something much bbigger.
there's an instrumentation and fabrication divide. computation isn't enough. you
need to measure and modify the world.

[oh, oh, oh. the ethical imperitive to give everyone ontic powers washing back
into the physical world as computation crystalises out from the virtual to the
physical. awesome.]

haakon karlson: nomadic data. fab tools are being used to follow animals.

viral deployment of connectivity to stabilise the border [of someone on the edge
of china]. we're very close to having machines that can make machines, labs that
can make labs.

book: FAB, Neil Gershenfeld

http://cba.mit.edu/~neilg

#

conversation:

new highly-specific CAD programs on the web. eg, there's one to print parachute
templates with an inkjet printer. a japanese one to turn any 3d object into
something that can be folded from paper. all you need is an inkjet printer to
make templates for a laser cutter.