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Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 34, No. 166. Department of Digital Humanities, King's College London Hosted by King's Digital Lab www.dhhumanist.org Submit to: humanist@dhhumanist.org Date: 2020-07-15 08:23:52+00:00 From: Willard McCartySubject: strata of abstraction and their influence? In their book Forensic Discovery (2004), Dan Farmer and Wietse Venema note that, > Over time, computer systems have become more and more complex. As > seen by the user, systems become increasingly mature and stable. > Under the surface, however, computer systems have become less and > less predictable regarding when and where they store information, and > how they recycle storage space. They use metaphors of archaeology ("the direct effects from human activity, such as artifacts that are left behind") and geology ("autonomous processes that humans have no direct control over") to describe what digital forensics explores when probing the implemented 'layers of abstraction' or layers of system architecture. I suspect these metaphors have considerable leverage, but finding the literature in which 'digital archeology' and 'digital geology' are applied to computing systems rather than to the disciplines of archaeology and geology respectively is difficult. I would very much appreciate references to sources that use the archaeological and geological metaphors to describe investigation of the strata of computing systems for evidence of their shaping influence, despite the pretense that by taking another or a different step back from the machine anything thinkable can be implemented. Many thanks. Yours, WM -- Willard McCarty (www.mccarty.org.uk/), Professor emeritus, Department of Digital Humanities, King's College London; Editor, Interdisciplinary Science Reviews (www.tandfonline.com/loi/yisr20) and Humanist (www.dhhumanist.org) _______________________________________________ Unsubscribe at: http://dhhumanist.org/Restricted List posts to: humanist@dhhumanist.org List info and archives at at: http://dhhumanist.org Listmember interface at: http://dhhumanist.org/Restricted/ Subscribe at: http://dhhumanist.org/membership_form.php
Editor: Willard McCarty (King's College London, U.K.; Western Sydney University, Australia)
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