Tom Igoe
Hearing all of this up front is good, I think. In my field, I know I get slightly annoyed or frustrated whenever I see something that has been done a thousand times before, so this list as reference will hopefully make working with everyone more friendly. While I think there is definitely creativity to be had in all of these genres, being pushed to make something totally unlike any of them will do us all good overall.
Descendant
I enjoyed the reading. The part that sticks with me the most is how we as humans choose to personify things, tools, etc. Here, literally giving voice and sentience to the suit. It feels almost like the main character died once he stopped having the imagination to view his tool (the suit) as a living thing. Imagining it as a hallucination dehumanized or deanthropomorphized the suit, and happened right before he died. Tools as extensions of ourselves instead of separate, clunky, orbiting things feels like the philosophical lifeblood of what I’ve been taught in any industrial/product design I’ve taken.
Another small thing I really liked was the suit’s conversation with the drone missile at the end. It felt like Toy Story in that our playthings or tools may have lives of their own outside when we are using them. Given that the suit is sentient, that’s to be expected, but still a nice thought to be had when empathizing with others’ lives outside of our contact with them.
Background
I’m a computer scientist by training and job experience, taken robotics and microcontroller courses, some Electrical Engineering and Physics related to circuity. I also worked in a woodshop for a couple years and have a good working knowledge of it all. Currently, I’m a designer. Looking forward to working with you all!
