{
  "$type": "site.standard.document",
  "content": "---\ntitle: \"Centre for the Public Awareness of Code\"\ndescription: \"Most people can name a favourite film or band, but not a favourite algorithm. We need code communicators doing what Carl Sagan did for space.\"\ntags:\n  - ccc\n---\n\nimport Picture from \"@/components/Picture.astro\";\n\n_What's your favourite movie?_ Most folks already have an answer to this\nquestion (because they've been asked before). Mine's\n[The Castle](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118826/).\n\n<Picture file=\"posts/the-castle.webp\" alt=\"Cast of 'The Castle'\" />\n\n_What's your favourite band/album?_ Again, a pretty standard \"dinner party\" line\nof questioning. As a muso (at least in the loose sense of the word) I find this\na much tougher one to answer, partially because I have so many favourites, and\npartially because I'm trying t\n\n_What's your favourite scientist or scientific theory/fact?_ This one is harder,\nbut thanks to great work by many\n[gifted](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Sagan)\n[science](https://drkarl.com/) [communicators](https://twitter.com/ANU_CPAS)\npeople increasingly have an answer to those questions.\n\n**_What's your favourite bit of (software) code? What's your favourite\nalgorithm?_** I reckon that most people will struggle to have an answer for this\none. In fact, most folks probably won't understand the question. Yet code (and\nthe algorithms they manifest) _does_ impact the world today. Mark Zuckerberg is\nstill\n[travelling](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2018/04/11/zuckerberg-facebook-hearing-congress-house-testimony/)\n[around](https://www.latimes.com/business/technology/la-fi-tn-facebook-zuckerberg-europe-20180522-story.html)\nwith a suit and a haircut apologising for the way his code changed the course of\nhistory. It also true that a naive \"code doesn't kill people; people kill\npeople\" techno-dualism doesn't really stack up in practice. The modern world is\na complex, socio-technical assemblage (a glorious hot mess!) and everything\naffects everything else.\n\nThis isn't about setting up a dichotomy between those who \"get\" code and those\nwho don't, and it certainly isn't about adding a moral dimension to code\nliteracy (so that if you don't code, you're a bad person). There are some\namazing code communicators out there---check out Dan Shiffman on the\n[Coding Train](https://thecodingtrain.com/). And there's stuff like\n[Critical Code Studies (CCS)](https://www.electronicbookreview.com/thread/electropoetics/codology),\nalthough that's more about understanding code-as-text _deeply_ rather than\nraising awareness of what code is currently doing in the world.\n\nWhat we need is a **Centre for the Public Awareness of Code**, with a bunch of\nfolks doing for code/software/algorithms what Carl Sagan did for space science\nwith [Cosmos](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmos:_A_Personal_Voyage). I've got\nsome ideas about how we could do it\n([musical livecoding](https://vimeo.com/269115310) is one of them) but I'm sure\nthere are other ways as well.\n\nI know that there are a lot of people (and organisations) who are working hard\nat this problem right now, all over the world. Which angles are they attacking\nthe problem from? Who's doing it best? What can we all learn from each other?\n",
  "createdAt": "2026-05-13T23:15:06.223Z",
  "description": "Most people can name a favourite film or band, but not a favourite algorithm. We need code communicators doing what Carl Sagan did for space.",
  "path": "/blog/2018/06/05/centre-for-the-public-awareness-of-code",
  "publishedAt": "2018-06-05T00:00:00.000Z",
  "site": "at://did:plc:tevykrhi4kibtsipzci76d76/site.standard.publication/self",
  "tags": [
    "ccc"
  ],
  "textContent": "Most people can name a favourite film or band, but not a favourite algorithm. We need code communicators doing what Carl Sagan did for space.",
  "title": "Centre for the Public Awareness of Code"
}