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Post by Mr. Vitale on Jul 7, 2015 16:48:32 GMT
Write your responses to the essay "Space is Numeric" by responding to this thread.
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iant
New Member
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Post by iant on Jul 30, 2015 10:05:17 GMT
Ian Taylor
Mr. Vitale
AP English 11
30 July 2015
Ellen Ullman's "Space Is Numeric" was a surprising read. Not due to it being hard to understand, read, or enjoy, but simply because I thought it was on a different subject than it really is. When I first came across this essay and read the title, I imagined an essay from an astronaut who had an interesting moment in space. However, I was wrong, and the thought of reading about a subject I truly love was gone- or was it? "Space Is Numeric" was sadly not about space, but rather it was about "coding". To "code" something is to put in a sequence of commands to have a computer do something. Codes make up EVERYTHING you can see on a computer; which means this forum that we write on is made of code. This is interesting as I am a gamer at heart. Not just any gamer, but a dedicated COMPUTER gamer, and as someone who wants to make a career out of video-game design, this book fascinated me. It allowed me to get a first-hand look at how difficult coding can be, and I really and truly enjoyed that. It didn't allow me to see the code itself in terms of imagination, rather it gave me the emotions of the people using the code.
This means that i can get an emotional grasp on why things are being done and HOW they are being done, and as a hands-on learner, this is a nice hint towards how things could go in my future. I've done some minor coding for friends ad there is a couple of video games I have made modifications on, but I have never done what the author described doing- which was making a website to help AIDS patients let doctors know they are sick and unable to afford treatment for their condition. That is what makes me want to do coding, and by "that", I mean helping people. It truly is an amazing feeling having to do it, and it is almost like a "behind a mask" feeling when I can make a website/function for any normal human being that will help them, without physically being there. All-in-all, this was an awesome read and I'm extremely happy I got an in-depth look at the emotions running behind coding from Ellen and her co-workers.
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Post by heavenskelly on Aug 20, 2015 3:25:03 GMT
"Space is Numeric," by Ellen Ullman, illistrates a perfect picture of just how time consuming creating a computer program can be. This essay was not about a space in time, or outer space, but rather an essay about the coding process. Software engineers pour their whole heart and soul into creating new and affective programs. This essay portrays a woman who has been working on one program for years. Codes upon codes are used to perform even the simplest operations. And yet, if one code goes wrong, the whole thing may be ruined completely. Then, when it comes down to it, the engineers begin to question whether it was all worth it anyway. Not just worth the time and money, but was it actually worth creating in the first place? Will others even benefit from the creation? Self dought sinks in at an extreme level.
"I am worse than uncool: I am aiding and abetting the bureaucracy, I am a net consumer of federal taxes- I'm what's wrong with this country." The shame floods Ellen Ullman's mind as if it were a waterfall. She faces the fact that she created a program that may errupt in a different kind of "bug" than what she is used to. Real world people, with real world problems. She was so caught up in the world of programming, that she forgot to consider the outside world. Being too focused on work is not always a good thing, which this example shows all too well.
One can always find fault in absolutely everything. The choice is yours as to whether or not you chose to look at the positive side or negative. One could event a cure for cancer, and someone would say " why didn't you find it sooner?' Negative people like that will always be out there, but Ellen needs to choose to ignore them. Although there might be faults in her program, or it may not appeal to all, she has to believe in the fact that is was designed to help others. The good will always over shadow the evil. All her harwork was not for nothing. No ones hard work and determination should be overlooked, and it should especially not be seen as bad or worthless.
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Post by sziemba on Aug 31, 2015 0:38:58 GMT
With such a basic title as “Space is Numeric” i thought this essay was going to be a cake walk. However Ellen Ullman’s frantic and chaotic writing style made this essay an interesting read. She tells the reader a story of how in her line of work, its hard to tell the difference between digital code and reality. When working on programs she often has a hard time telling the difference between a someone using her program or someone simply inputting data to create a chain reaction inside the program. She expresses her ideas and how she feels she sits on the line between humanity and code through a story in which she worked on a project for aids people. This story aroused multiple mixed feelings and reactions inside me.
The intro of “Space is Numeric” raised multiple questions and interesting reactions inside me. Ellen Ullman’s choice of starting off with her and her fellow programmer, Joel, struggling to complete a program a day before its deadline surprised me. “I have no idea what time it is. There are no windows in this office and no clock, only the blinking red LED display of a microwave, which flashes 12:00, 12:00, 12:00, 12:00.” Their late night babble and urgency reminded me of every time I had forgotten a paper and had to rush submit it the night its due. After having finished coding, Ellen Ullman goes into saying how her work in coding with Joel has changed how she viewed machines, her job, and her coworkers. “Our bodies were abandoned long ago, reduced to hunger and sleeplessness and the ravages of sitting for hours at a keyboard and a mouse. Our physical selves have been battered away. Now we know each other in one way and one way only: the code.” This passage initially shocked me, due to its abrupt and surprising detailed description of the work process Ellen Ullman and Joel go through when coding. The idea of losing one’s physical self and becoming part of something mechanical also opened up my eyes to the idea that there is no definite line between man and machine.
Immediately after describing the work that coding takes and its long process, Ellen Ullman expands upon the theme of “Space is Numeric,” which is that there is no definitive line between man and machine. “I started to panic. Before this meeting, the users existed only in my mind, projections, all mine. They were abstractions, the initiators of tasks that set off remote procedure calls; triggers to a set of logical and machine events that ended in an update to a relational database on a central server.” Upon reading this paragraph, I was floored. The idea of dehumanizing someone and interpreting them as just an initiator seemed so futuristic. However upon reading the last paragraph I became fully aware of the idea of man becoming a machine and how we would the principles that make us human in the process. “They must pass through this semipermeable membrane where urgency, fear, and hope are filtered out, and only reason travels across. There is no other way. Real, death-including viruses do not travel here. Actual human confusions cannot live here. Everything we want accomplished, everything the system is to provide , must be denatured in its crossing to the machine, or else the system will die.” This last paragraph showed me that there is no prefect world and how in order to live in a world where everything can be accomplished we must give up the flaws and personalities that make us human. While these things slow down our work efforts, they give our lives individuality and in order to accomplish 100% efficiency, we must lose these parts and become a machine.
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Post by BridgetM on Aug 31, 2015 15:47:55 GMT
In Ullman's Space is Numeric, I read a lot about a world I hardly knew existed. Personally, I have never really been one to be involved in programming or computers, but the further I read into this essay the more I learned. When I first began to read the essay and I realized it was mainly just computer bugs I thought that I would not enjoy reading this one but it turns out it was able to catch my interest. Learning about all of the work that went into a simple website really amazed me, especially when I read about how tired and stressed the people on the project were at the end. When Joel says, "This will sound strange... but I hope I don't see you tomorrow" I thought it was funny that the two were able to joke together after their long and stressful weekend of debugging the program. It was also interesting to learn about Ullman's experience with being in charge of the team and working with the people she hired. When Danny was tired and seemed to challenge Ullman by simply leaving instead of waiting for her to test the system, I found it interesting that she just allowed him to go instead of calling him back. I assume that this was due to the fact that Ullman understood what the week had been and how difficult it was for Danny with the stress and pressure of being on time with the debugging of the system. The fact that she was able to call back her anger and let it go was very impressive.
Later in the essay, Ullman wrote of the "real people" that were involved in the group meeting to discuss the project. She explained how even though she tried to stop herself from speaking, her "brain whirred out a sea, of logic-speak..." This part made me realize that even though Ullman was doing her best to hold back from these people in the group, she cared a great amount for the project she had been in, and she wanted them to understand why it deserved to be used. At the end of that paragraph, she mentioned that she wanted to take claim over wanting to help the people, but she really was focused on saving all of her hard work. "... I'd like to claim a sudden sense of real-world responsibility. But that would be lying. What I really thought was this: I must save the system." Even though she cared for the people who would have the benefit of using the system, she really cared about saving her and her group's work. Although what she said could seem a bit selfish I think we all could relate to it. No one wants to see their work go to waste, especially when this specific work took full days to complete. After the meeting ended, Ullman went back to her programming group and easily sorted out all of the changes that needed to be made. My favorite part was probably when her group started talking together and all solving the problems at once. It was where Ullman really belonged. Instead of feeling out of place like she did in the meeting, she fit right in with the group and helped create solutions to the problems that had been handed over.
The essay in whole was an experience that I was not expecting to receive. Although I could not directly relate to the situation at hand, I enjoyed learning about Ullman's time in the group. Even though I did not have any experience with what her project involved, I was able to easily relate to the emotions she was feeling when it came to whether or not her system was going to be used. The pressure and the fatigue that she felt after the long amount of time spent with her projects were two things that I could easily connect to. Although it could be hard to follow at some points, I really enjoyed reading this essay and learning about the project and the people involved in it.
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Post by kellyhenderson on Aug 31, 2015 18:35:03 GMT
In Ellen Ullman's 1995 essay, "Space is Numeric", she describes her experience writing code for an AIDS database. This database, if written incorrectly, would expose the names of every AIDS patient in the United States. Nevertheless, her and her team stay awake for days in the final stage of the programming.
On page 173, Ullman states "Our bodies were abandoned long ago, reduced to hunger and sleeplessness and the ravages of sitting for hours at keyboard and a mouse". Here, the author brings out the symbolism in their dedication to this project by describing how their bodies are withering away as they work for hours upon hours to reach their deadline. The more they physically fall apart, the closer their code is to being complete. It also gives the reader a visual, more than just saying "we worked on the code for days straight". This is a phrase that could have easily been added in replacement of the original quote, but wasn't for the sake of visual purposes.
Throughout the essay, I as a reader had issues determining the point that Ullman was trying to get across with her coding experience. It wasn't until the last paragraph, "some part of me...system will die." that I was able to understand the point being presented. It is because of code that we can take the universe and translate it into a set of numbers. However, what is unique and beautiful about these numbers is that it filters out the pain and the sadness, only to leave what is good and painless. Code is a filter that we did not know we needed, and is what Ullman found most fascinating.
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tonyg
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Post by tonyg on Sept 1, 2015 3:24:46 GMT
Ellen Ullman's essay "Space is Numeric" gives me a much greater appreciation for the engineers who program and write the code for every computer program, smartphone app, and television broadcast. The level of dedication and work ethic required to be one of these engineers is amazing. As the author writes in the beginning of the piece, she completely lost track of the time and day while working on a program that would help AIDS patients. She was so committed to getting the program finished that she would not eat some meals, she would not go home, she would not sleep, and she lost track of the days because she was so involved in her work. She is at work so much that she practically loses her social skills. She struggles to have normal conversation with her clients at a meeting. She has to continually remind herself that she is thinking at a much faster speed than her clients and she has to slow down. These computer technicians and engineers work insane amounts of time to make our everyday lives more convenient and enjoyable.
At first I chose to read this essay because I had thought it would be a piece about outer space and the connection between the cosmos and our number system. When I began reading this essay I soon realized it was not what I thought it was. My first reaction was that I was going to regret starting this essay. But I soon found that I could not turn the page to another essay. I became more and more fascinated with the story Ellen Ullman was telling and I came to enjoy the essay, even though almost all of the time I had no idea what she was talking about. The only connection I could make to this piece was the movie, The Matrix. Every time she mentions "The Code" my mind instantly turned to Laurence Fishburne as Morpheus. The fact that I knew next to nothing on the subject of coding and computers did not squander my reading. Actually reading this essay helped teach my the value of programmers like Ellen Ullman.
This article helped me understand the enormous amounts of time devoted to work when in the fields of engineering. Now I realize that in the future when I become an engineer, I will have to dedicate a whole lot of time to my work. I am glad that I chose to read this article. While it may not have been what I was expecting, it helped me much more to decide what I want to do in my future. I got a lot more out of reading this essay about a team of computer programmers than I would have out of a story about an astronaut. This was one of the most unexpectedly interesting essays I have read in this collection.
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