Mark C. Marino

An argument that we must read code for more than what it does-we must consider what it means.Computer source code has become part of popular discourse. Code is read not only by programmers but by lawyers, artists, pundits, reporters, political activists, and literary scholars; it is used in political debate, works of art, popular entertainment, and historical accounts. In this book, Mark Marino argues that code means more than merely what it does; we must also consider what it means. We need to learn to read code critically. Marino presents a series of case studies-ranging from the Climategate scandal to a hactivist art project on the US-Mexico border-as lessons in critical code reading.Marino shows how, in the process of its circulation, the meaning of code changes beyond its functional role to include connotations and implications, opening it up to interpretation and inference-and misinterpretation and reappropriation. The Climategate controversy, for example, stemmed from a misreading of a bit of placeholder code as a "smoking gun" that supposedly proved fabrication of climate data. A poetry generator created by Nick Montfort was remixed and reimagined by other poets, and subject to literary interpretation.Each case study begins by presenting a small and self-contained passage of code-by coders as disparate as programming pioneer Grace Hopper and philosopher Friedrich Kittler-and an accessible explanation of its context and functioning. Marino then explores its extra-functional significance, demonstrating a variety of interpretive approaches.

As Siobhan continues living most of her normal life with her family, Colleen is looking forward into marrying Lance. However, as she and her friends confront an adversary hellbent on revenge against the people of England, one that her actions against terrorists led into creating, Colleen must take action against the Russian and her fellow Central Asian nationalists and bring them down before the situation escalates.

Nothing like a trip to Bran, Romania for another Spooktacular adventure for the banshees as Treasa O'Brien makes friends with a widowed Serbian American woman named Adrijana Lazarevic Ryder. The two explore the reaches of Eastern Europe until their friendship leads them into making a mistake that unleashes formidable adversaries Treasa and Siobhan came face to face with in the past called the vantoase. Now the banshees must team up with the last of Romania's mythical guardians known as the zanna and stop the queen of the hostile supernatural forces from getting her hands on a powerful weather stone that could shift the course of mother nature at her own will.

With conflict and every global crisis still going on, Siobhan and her friends are summoned to Guadalajara to help the family of a recovering drug kingpin fend off a supernatural breed of chupacabras. As arguments with one another and more tight situations unfold, Siobhan learns more about her past and her friend Sarah Vasquez discovers a shocking revelation regarding her connection with the leader of the mythical Mayan pack.

Two years after the defeat of A.I.Z.E.N. and their leader King Azraghul, Siobhan and her friends have gone their separate ways after moving into the United States of America in groups, on their own and with friends they've met back in Paris and Cairo and are currently living among the humans and aiding government forces against the toughest regular physical threats and sometimes with them and on their own against supernatural threats hidden across the globe. But when Siobhan's older sister Abigail gets taken hostage by the sinister threat behind the disturbing events in the 1930s known as the Morrigan, Siobhan rallies five of her friends in the Hooded Crow Clan to her aid and goes to Rajasthan to receive some sacred training from the Hindu God of Motion known as Savitr to maintain as much potential speed motion chakra as possible in efforts of defeating the evil phantom queen and rescuing her sister at all costs.

Electronic literature is a rapidly growing area of creative production and scholarly interest. It is inherently multimedial and multimodal, and thus demands multiple critical methods of interpretation. Reading Project: A Collaborative Analysis of William Poundstone’s Project for Tachistoscope {Bottomless Pit} is a collaboration between three scholars combining different interpretive methods of digital literature and poetics in order to think through how critical reading is changing—and, indeed, must change—to keep up with the emergence of digital poetics and practices. It weaves together radically different methodological approaches—close reading of onscreen textual and visual aesthetics, Critical Code Studies, and cultural analytics (big data)—into a collaborative interpretation of a single work of digital literature.Project for the Tachistoscope {Bottomless Pit} is a work of electronic literature that presents a high-speed, one-word-at-a-time animation synchronized to visual and aural effects. It tells the tale of a mysterious pit and its impact on the surrounding community. Programmed in Flash and published online, its fast-flashing aesthetic of information overload bombards the reader with images, text, and sound in ways that challenge the ability to read carefully, closely, and analytically in traditional ways. The work’s multiple layers of poetics and programming can be most effectively read and analyzed through collaborative efforts at computational criticism such as is modeled in this book. The result is a unique and trailblazing book that presents the authors’ collaborative efforts and interpretations as a case study for performing digital humanities literary criticism of born-digital poetics.

A single line of code offers a way to understand the cultural context of computing.This book takes a single line of code-the extremely concise BASIC program for the Commodore 64 inscribed in the title-and uses it as a lens through which to consider the phenomenon of creative computing and the way computer programs exist in culture. The authors of this collaboratively written book treat code not as merely functional but as a text-in the case of 10 PRINT, a text that appeared in many different printed sources-that yields a story about its making, its purpose, its assumptions, and more. They consider randomness and regularity in computing and art, the maze in culture, the popular BASIC programming language, and the highly influential Commodore 64 computer.