a looking-glass book

an interactive deck of oblique strategies

in the 70s, brian eno created a deck of cards for creative inspiration. they were to be used to help brainstorm and create. since then he has made several decks and (finally) the entire set has been reprinted, so you dont have to pay hundreds of dollars for it on ebay. people have also taken the information on the cards and made virtual sets. more info

in orgranizing my thoughts for the 499 midterm/outline, i decided to make my own set of cards, but related directly to interactive media. my deck has 100 cards in 5 suits: overall, medium, user, interface and content.

i printed out the phrases on labels (avery 8163), the affixed them to colored index cards which matched the suits.

this pdf is formatted for the avery labels i used and contains 2 pages for each suit.
linky

simulation

for 534, i decided to simulate a space. i am interested in the idea of simulated/virtual/real space, especially as it is used as a character sketch.

i set up a shoutcast server to my machine in my room with a microphone. it isnt always interesting to listen to because there isnt always a lot going on my room. but the mic picks up typing and my winamp (which, as luck has it, is controllable from my personal website on the left side of the page). so this is an audio simulation of a real space.

(id like to tie it into the rest of the assignments for the semester, tying video and audio together in some way of some space. ideas are floating but i have no concrete plans yet. ideas or suggestions anyone? i like the idea of using cams as frames or even some sort of teleporter.)

ill leave it up for a while, but not forever.

when the page loads, click listen at the top. ill see if i can find a direct link when i am not on my own machine.
linky

'the decentralization of art'

ok, pretentious title aside, this is a first draft of the paper i have been slaving over for weeks (for fun, on my own. im a sick sick man). to forewarn, it weighs in just shy of 6000 words, 14 pages single spaced.

but i welcome and would love to get some comments on it. id like to sharpen it into a publishable piece asap, so whether you think it need some trimming or the whole thing sucks, id like to hear what you think.

linky

grouphug

i dont like posting random links. i think, for the most part, link lists are a waste. but this is such a great idea that i wish i had thought of. a perfect use of technology and a firghtening result.

http://grouphug.us/

random, anonymous confessions by people, sent in and posted.

these are the weird things we can do simply with the internet. who says it is all about tracking and big brother?

3d images

a couple of 3d images taken at the getty over the weekend. i think the steps is a little better, but the foreground/background isnt as fun. though perhaps thats why its better....

Headphones

Steps

zombie sim - 534 final project

i know todd posted his, but since i had written one up too...
here is my outline for the zombie sim we are working on.

[i am working on this with the mobile group, as well as on the patholog, the proposal living over on will's blog.]

digging for nuggets of wisdom

and raise your hand if you think that we have too much data already?

(i raise my hand)

here it is from the end i dont agree with really - data mining. from the nyt (the google link, kellee) and slashdot.

im not saying that this isnt important, but it doesnt inspire us to create better data. it allows us to continue to be lazy and expect (hope) that software and algorithms will catch up with the glut of crap we are creating.

audiotistic

on sat at the la sports arena, 2pm-1am audiotistic

chemical brothers (dj set), nas, big boi, ed rush and optical, bad boy bill, doc scott, doc martin, seb fontaine, qbert and automator, z-trip...and more.

30 bucks. whos in? i need a posse.

also, even though i wont be here:
monster massive on halloween - not only felix da housecat and spooky, but this:
"Everyone who passes through the gate will get a pair of 3-D glasses to participate in the visual candy of Chromadepth 3-D, an effect that transforms two-dimensional images to three."

who says i cant post on topic?

the delivery

interactive narrative is tricky. branching paths, multiple authors, too much freedom - there are a lot of stumbling blocks no matter which way you head. so for perry's assignment, i decided to try a mockup of workflow id been talking about since the summer, on the mobile media project.

this experience relies on some "basic" items, leveraging actors when necessary and triggering events behind the scenes. it does offer limited paths, but i think the flow covers that up. its only obvious if you are not playing.

the delivery

is that cell phone tower watching me?

also from slashdot today:

An anonymous reader writes "Cell phone networks, FM radio towers and television antennaes could all turn into pieces of cheap and dirty tracking networks that use passive radar, according to this fairly comprehensive article. These new systems are only a couple years away from roll out for uses such as small airport radar coverage but wild possibilities abound including using cell phone networks to track speeders, terrorists or even individuals walking on city streets."

now we are talking. a couple of years away makes it seem like needing gps in the phone will be moot by then. looks like we better start plowing ahead faster, boys.

blog comment spam removal

from slashdot:

mattwarden writes "The back-and-forth between spammers and mortals continues. Anyone with a MovableType blog that is even remotely on the map has no doubt been hammered lately with comment spam, comments made on entries by a script or program in an attempt to increase search engine page rankings. Prior to today, one had to manually delete each of these comments. No more! Jay Allen has developed a plugin for MovableType that removes these spam comments based on a blacklist (of both hostnames and regular expressions) and intercepts new spam comments before they are made. There's even a one-click link included in the comment notification email that makes it easy to de-spam your blog."

now, im all for this type of thing. but this again goes back to the conversation i have been having with kurt and will. the owner of the site decides what is spam. is this an all or nothing deal? can you have a system that filters junk without discarding it? is there an adavantge to keeping everything? esp when it effects things like page rankings?

tv's tipping point

will, im sure youve already read this but here it is anyway. from slashdot:
tv's tipping point

fakster

i swear i havent said anything to my sister. but today she posted about loving the fakesters. so there you have it, word from the street.
weird.

google page rank and expertise?

will and i had a short conversation last night regarding links, searches, data, filtering and expertise. while youll see more from me regarding this in the next few months, here are a few more links related to the topic and everyone's favorite search engine.

google buys search engine - pagerank rip?
page rank is dead
is google broken?

favorite quote thus far (from the first article):
"As Gary Stock noted here last May, Google "didn't foresee a tightly-bound body of wirers. They presumed that technicians at USC would link to the best papers from MIT, to the best local sites from a land trust or a river study - rather than a clique, a small group of people writing about each other constantly. They obviously bump the rankings system in a way for which it wasn't prepared."

amis on criticism

started reading 'the war against cliche' today. the intro is online as its own piece (mostly) here.

from the article:
"Democratisation has made one inalienable gain: equality of the sentiments. I think Gore Vidal said this first, and he said it, not quite with mockery, but with lively scepticism. He said that, nowadays, nobody's feelings are more authentic, and thus more important, than anybody else's. This is the new credo, the new privilege. It is a privilege much exercised in the contemporary book review, whether on the web or in the literary pages. The reviewer calmly tolerates the arrival of the new novel or slim volume, defensively settles into it, and then sees which way it rubs him up. The right way or the wrong way. The results of this contact will form the data of the review, without any reference to the thing behind. And the thing behind, I am afraid, is talent, and the canon, and the body of knowledge we call literature."

so what does literary criticism have to do with this blog or my work?

well, im working on this paper still. and this sums up my main point fairly well. the second half of the paper is discussing the solutions to the problem.

but its nice to see the same problems i am grappling wit, written by someone of higher stature about a different field. it validates some of my thoughts, if nothing else.