On Saturday, I gave a Processing workshop at the Hunter College Integrated Media Arts (IMA) MFA program, sponsored by the Colab program. It was rather insane to try to cover what I usually do in an entire semester over a period of 4 hours, nonetheless, I had a terrific amount of fun blabbing on and on and on and, at the very least, a nice set of examples (26 total!) emerged. It’s all here.

Some comments about the workshop also ended up on Grand Text Auto and on Vade.

I’ll be doing another session on April 29th. . .

(I’m behind on my obligatory “I posted something new” post. Here goes. . .)

New P5 Nature of Code tutorials online!
Now with light grey background!
Hot particle action!
All sine and cosine all the time!
(and something on web crawlers too)

I’ve developed a basic Java implementation of Paul Graham’s bayesian spam filter as an example for my Programming from A to Z course. A full explanation is available. This isn’t a robust spam filter by any means, but simply demonstrates the basics.

The above visualization was quickly hacked out with Processing and shows the words most likely to indicate a spam e-mail with size tied to frequency of occurence (Note these aren’t the same thing, just because it appears more often doesn’t mean it’s more likely to indicate spam. It could just as well appear more often in so-called “good” e-mails.) This also uses an incredibly lame (i.e. small) training set of “bad” and “good” messages and is flawed in many other ways. Someday, I might actually do something interesting with this. Sigh.

Today in my Programming from A to Z course we’ll be going over how to program a simple concordance in Java storing words in a binary search tree. It may be hairy, but I hope it proves to be a useful means for improving the programming skills of ITP students. . . if any data structure / algorithm gurus wander by this site, please feel free to correct any mistakes i’ve made in this initial tutorial. . . being the severely flawed human being that i am, i’m sure they exist. .

week 2 tutorial — Vectors

Week two of the nature of code tutorials is up. I guess I don’t really need to post announcements here each time a new tutorial goes up, but at least it gives the appearance that I’m keeping this blog (oh dear, I have a blog, how embarrasing) up-to-date. . .

Oh, and for that matter, a new tutorial about regular expressions in Java for the Programming from A to Z class is available too. Let the world of regular expression masters slowly pick it apart for all its inadequacies. . .

A terrific programmer and artist toxi has written up some thoughts about “Code (with a capital C)” and Processing. The post inspired a great deal of discussion on the Processing forum as well as a second and third post on toxi’s blog.

I was about to post some of my thoughts on the forum and here, but realized, eh, what do I really know. Who better to respond and discuss this topic than those in my nature of code class? So, well, I made it “homework. . . ” Post away! (use the comments here to leave your response, but feel free to post to the Processing forum as well.)

week 1 tutorial

Ok, so the first edition of the new revised nature of code tutorials is up and online. As I continue to update the lessons over the course of the semester, I’ll slowly take the old site down. Comments, critiques, welcome!

My students in Introduction to Computational Media presented their final projects. Truly, fantastic, inspiring, awesome stuff! I am so obsolete it’s not even funny. . .

Since the project links are hidden behind a password protected wiki, i’ll post them here for all to admire.

Carolina • Rolf • Matt • Jet • Jeff • Ed • Jane • Summer • Lara • Charles • Leif and Jadie • Nanna • Tikva • Jury • Rob • Rebecca • Sam • Josh • Won

(some students took photos in class so hopefully I’ll have a chance to post some of those. . .)