commit 1ef51bbf83065db4c92c71665bd2d80068cdc85e
parent f53797a44f408e98af4342576e729f00a868462b
Author: Ville-Matias Heikkila <viznut@low.fi>
Date: Fri Aug 19 12:30:24 +0300
add pages
Diffstat:3 files changed, 62 insertions(+), 0 deletions(-)
diff --git a/Permacomputing_2020.mdwn b/Permacomputing_2020.mdwn
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+**Permacomputing 2020** is a shorthand to [[Viznut]]'s essay that introduced
+the concept of [[permacomputing]] in July 2020. Its original title was
+"Permacomputing (some early notes)".
+
+ * [The original text at viznut.fi](http://viznut.fi/files/texts-en/permacomputing.html)
diff --git a/awareness_amplification.mdwn b/awareness_amplification.mdwn
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+**Awareness amplification** is an important purpose of computing as well as
+a design [[principle|principles]] of permacomputing. In general, it refers
+to technologies that make the world (including the local environment) more
+observable to people, but it also includes making computers more aware and
+sensitive of their surroundings.
+
+Observation can be either active or passive. The user may specifically focus
+on a specific part of the world or have a background awareness of what is
+going on in general. This is a major difference from
+[[intelligence amplification]] that emphasizes an active and narrow focus on
+specific objects of information.
+
+When amplifying the user's background awareness, it is crucial to not steal
+their attention. Many user interface designs fail this; a common mistake is
+to use intrusive notifications for events that are unrelated to the user's
+current focus of attention. [[Soundscape]]s and landscape-like
+[[visualization]]s could offer a non-intrusive alternative.
+
+The more complex a technology is, the more important it is that it dedicates
+a portion of this complexity to explain itself. Simple tools such as hammers
+or bicycles are pretty much self-explanatory due to their simple and easily
+observable designs, but computers need to amplify their own observability in
+order to be observable at all.
+
+Examples of awareness amplification within core computing:
+
+ * A non-intrusive visualization of everything the computer knows about its environment (energy sources, network traffic, data from any additional sensors the computer is connected to)
+ * A computer that adjusts its operation to what it knows about its environment.
+ * A [[user interface]] that makes the computer's inner workings and material-energetic conditions easily observable to the user.
+
+More applicative ideas:
+
+ * A [[sensor]] system that increases the observability of the ecosystem the computer and its users belong to, including the cultivated and constructed parts thereof. This may help people notice changes and details that beyond the reach of normal human senses.
+ * [[Simulation]]s of ecosystems, economic systems and other "subsystems of the world" can be used in planning as well as in gaining deeper insight to how these systems work.
+ * Many [[intelligence amplification]] applications may also amplify awareness: automatic information retrieval, mind-mapping and note-taking systems, co-operative telecommunications environments, etc.
diff --git a/intelligence_amplification.mdwn b/intelligence_amplification.mdwn
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+Computers (and many of their predecessors such as mechanical calculators and
+tabulating machines) were invented to assist humans in cognitive tasks such
+as calculation and data processing. **Intelligence amplification** takes
+place when computer interaction assists the human user in conceptual
+thinking by e.g. improving access to information. A lot of today's common
+computer applications (including the [[WWW]]) can be regarded as IA, even
+though the concept became unfashionable in the 1980s.
+
+For permacomputing purposes, IA can be regarded as a subset of
+[[amplification awareness]].
+
+The use of punched cards and mechanical devices for "enhancing natural
+intelligence" was already suggested in 1832 by Semyon Korsakov and in the
+1910s by Wilhem Ostwald. In these suggestions, each punch card would contain
+an idea or a "micro-thought", and a mechanical device would assist in
+finding and connecting them. Emanuel Goldberg (1930) and Vannevar Bush
+(1945) combined this concept with a microfiche viewer/searcher.
+
+In Douglas Engelbart's Augmentation Research Center, these ideas evolved
+into a user interface prototype that supported a form of human-computer
+symbiosis. Hypertext and many modern GUI concepts originate from Engelbart's
+project.
