It looks like I am probably going to be going to Camberwell to study on the Creative Computing MSc from September 23rd. Which is exciting! I had my apprehensions about studying on such a new course (I’ll be in their second ever year), but I have kept an eye on it all year and I think it ticks a lot of boxes. I knew I either wanted to study on a super technical computer science masters, OR on a conceptually challenging and critical masters, and I think the course at Camberwell leans towards to latter quite nicely. It will be technical but I can’t imagine it will encourage programming in C or learning about data structures. But the conceptual side of things feels like it’s a nod towards the [now non-existant] Design for Interaction course at the RCA, which was at one time a dream masters for me. It seems like the tutors and the people affiliated to the course are great people too, like Ben Stopher, Tobias Revell, and Filip Visnjic of Creative Applications.

Any way, given that I finally have something in the calender and an idea of what I’m currently working towards, I thought I’d start writing down some ideas I’ve been having.

Robin Hood Trading

Software which uses the same high-frequency trading algorithms used by the big investment banks/hedge funds/billionaires to trade money on the stock market which then gives all profits to chartities.

This I’m sure is a lot easier said done, but I do wonder if there is a way to simply mimic what the big traders are doing, and to make the same decisions in order to make money. One doesn’t need to beat them, simply copy them?

Digital Me

Mining all the data that is available related to myself online and applying machine learning techniques to try and recreate a digital/online version of myself. Perhaps by creating dummy Facebook/Instagram/G-Mail accounts and trying to mimic the decisions I would make. Is it possible to even create an avatar that looks like me based on the types of friends I have, my girlfriend, where I was born, when I grew up etc. Could this fake me then exist as a valid online persona?

Camberwell Analytica

[I’m jumping the gun a little bit with the name, but I like it].

Similar to Digital Me but more about playing with other peoples data. How hard is it to re-create the methods adopted by Cambridge Analytica when they found out how to accurately character profile a person based on their Facebook usage habits. I would assume it’s not that complicated because I seem to remember they said they could be [very] accurate based on four ‘likes’ on Facebook (or something).

I’m not sure where I’d go with this yet, but perhaps if you can understand and use their methods, you’d getter a better idea of how to protect yourself from this kind of behaviour. Everyone clearly leaves a trail of breadcrumbs behind them on the internet which is invaluable to sinister behaviour such as that used by Cambridge Analytica and subsequently Donald Trump and the like. So there must be a way to stop dropping these breadcrumbs, or at least clean them up after you move on.

Proving the Moon Landing

Could you prove (or disprove) the moon landing by comparing the images from the 70’s to modern day satellite (or surface) imagery of the moon? I presume the surface of the moon hasn’t changed much given that there isn’t any wind or rain on the moon. So the iconic photographs of the flag and Niel Armstrong playing golf should look exactly the same if taken from the same angle now.

I think that’s all I came up with in the last couple days. But now I know that this will be usefuly for me, I’m going to start writing things down more frequently.

Josh