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Recently, in discussions with a couple from San Francisco, I pointed out that while I like San Francisco, I was very disappointed with the Golden Gate Bridge as an experience. I found its engineering to be aesthetically dull, wrong, out of balance, lacking rhythm, the wrong colour etc. By way of contrast, I pointed out how much I love the Sydney Harbour Bridge. This contrast was brought back to mind by a piece by Nick Seaver on medium.com: ³On reverse engineering: Looking for the cultural work of engineers² (see excerpts below). I agree with his efforts to redeem engineering. Cheers Keith >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Excerpts ³. . . engineering is about universalizable things like effectiveness, rationality, and algorithms, while culture is about subjective and particular things, like taste, creativity, and artistic expression. Technology and culture, we suppose, make an uneasy mix. When Felix Salmon, in his response to Madrigalıs feature, complains about ³the systematization of the ineffable,² he is drawing on this common sense: engineers who try to wrangle with culture inevitably botch it up.² . . . . ³We may talk about technology and culture as though they were independent domains, but in practice, they never stay where they belong. Technologyıs straightforwardness and cultureıs contingency bleed into each other.² On Reverse Engineering Looking for the cultural work of engineers Nick Seaver Nick Seaver in Anthropology and Algorithms https://medium.com/anthropology-and-algorithms/d9f5bae87812 ----------------------------------------------------------------- PhD-Design mailing list <[log in to unmask]> Discussion of PhD studies and related research in Design Subscribe or Unsubscribe at https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/phd-design -----------------------------------------------------------------