HW 1 (CHAPTERS 1-3 LINKED)
In the first 3 chapter of his book Linked, Albert Laslo Barabasi delves into the intricacies of networks and how they dominate human to human interactions. He uses the examples of a 15-year-old kid (Mafiaboy) who hacked Yahoo and how Paul spread the gospel of Jesus to illustrate the extent to which networks, either social or digital, can cause an effect. He then criticizes the way scientists have spent billions of dollars to reduce nature into its components (reductionism) when in reality it should be studied as a whole. I personally find this idea quite impactful as it is easy to forget about the whole when fixated on the component.
In Chapters 2 and 3, Barabasi uses graph theory to explain networks. I found the way he deconstructed complicated graph theory concepts, like the Konigsberg Bridge problem, simple and easy to follow. He explains how graphs or networks are composed of nodes and links, and how the union of both creates interesting characteristics in the resulting component. In particular, he explains how Paul Erods and Alfred Renyi believed that connecting nodes randomly is the fastest way of creating a complete network. The more links there exists, the easier it is to create a path between different nodes. Ideas like Karynthy’s 6 degrees of separation and the Internet’s 19 degrees of separation between web pages are used to illustrate how close nodes are regardless of the size or complexity of the network. This is a particularly captivating idea and representative of present day reality, as different social and physical networks are in place allow for humans to connect despite the distance or the growing complexity of the aforementioned networks.
Assignment 1.
For this assignment, we were posed with challenge of sending bytes from one Arduino with buttons on it to another Arduino with LED lights on it. This assignment resembles the typical Arduino assignment that teaches students how to turn on an LED light with a button, but with an extra layer of complexity as we need to do so by connecting our Arduino's over a router for them to communicate with each other and accomplish the same task. Assembling the physical layout of the Arduino was simple as we have done so in previous Interactive media classes. The challenge came when coding the Arduinos, understanding the difference between the code in the transmitter arduino and the receiver arduino, and sending bytes from one Arduino to another. Personally, I didnt fully understand the protocol of sending bytes from one arduino to another through udp. I also didnt fully understand the data structure of the byte that was being sent. After knowing that the byte was sent as an array, we decided to send 3 separate packages (one corresponding to each button in the transmitter arduino) containing a byte with two pieces of information on it: the pin number of the button and the Pressed/notPressed status of the button). We used the pin number to differentiate between the 3 different colored buttons in order to turn on the appropiate LED light. On the receiver Arduino, we utilized if statements that inspected the content of the packages the Arduino Received and turned on the correct LED light according to the pin number of the button that sent the message.