a looking-glass book

web censorship

most of the people on this side of the world don't read my personal blog. yesterday was a bit of (behind-the-scenes) 'excitement' over there.

it seems that one of my friends had to have all their posts pulled down, off the site. not their choice and im not really able to discuss it over here, in public.

its an issue. it rears its head in different ways. this whole 'public vs private' that seems to be hitting me daily. yesterday it was more of a professional vs private life thing.

people are getting canned all the time over blogs. see this, just a couple of weeks ago. it makes no sense - fired for blogging about work - as a web developer. like the guy fired from microsoft last year for taking pictures of apple machines.

its becoming a real thing. that your job determines what you are allowed to put in public. (i think it was last month's 'playboy' (yes, i currently have a subscription, let's move on [see? another private vs public topic.]) that had a blurb about police officers getting in trouble for starring in online porn.)

so why bring all this up? why make a post, a hand wave over all this?

because my thesis is going to make this topic of blogs look like an anthill. when you can suddenly be incriminated because there exists records of your actions, what then?

big brother wont turn out to be the government. itll turn out to be my peer group. itll be will and kurt and todd and brinker and stephanie and my girlfriend and my sister and all the people close to me who disagree with variable x on how i lived my day. whether its the route i drive, the food i eat, the people i talk to - all this will be not only public, but then open to debate.

you want collective responsibility? this has the opportunity for it.

so far, ive been lucky. no where that i have been employed has had issues with my site. at this point, its so tied into who i am, what i do, that it would probably come first over a job. thats some serious stuff. and not everyone feels that way. and not everyone has that choice - most of these people have been fired/disciplined after the fact.

i didnt mean to go off on such a rant about this. but its a serious topic to consider, this whole 'public face/private face'. the legal, moral and socilogical implications of it arent to be downplayed. the facets of your life that will be affected are serious.

im ready to get fired for it.

excuse me while i go put on my camera.

/. roundup

another piece on video surveillance and privacy here. this one is a bit less weird - a roommate installed a hidden camera in the bathroom. (the comments range from 'nothing you can do about it' to 'def illegal.' not sure where it really falls.) nonetheless, for me, it raises a bigger issue - how do we opt out of things like video recording?

and

'possible spectator mode for xbox 2'
to which id like to say congrats to dr. drucker on this one, finally.

u2 slideshow

similar to some of the stuff im working on/towards is this little flash piece.

its a set of stills, but let the pics load and then give the flash piece focus and hold the space bar, itll do a neat little slideshow kind of thing that ive been working on implementing in javascript.

cough.

ive been _trying_ to implement in javascript.

right now, the page is a bit of a mess, its in progress. but im taking the 640 pics from ea (which ill post in a better format/way soon), splitting them into chapters based on content/color/location. finding a ratio to apply across each chapter and then spitting out the right number, separated by that ratio.

when you mouse over, the image at the top swaps. hopefully by thurs, when you mouse over, it starts a slideshow, switching that picture with another in the equence (the full 640 image sequence, not just the 60 or so displayed on the page).

sadly, setTimeout is a fickle fickle beast and doesnt seem to work like it should. so im still wrestling.

once i get it working right, ill post and would love to hear your thoughts on the experience.

whew.

bio

for those of you stumbling across this site, i thought an introduction might be in order. (its dry, it perhaps boring, but i wanted to push out my skillset, background and thesis work in some sort of collected manner for those who havent heard it 600 times.)

im tripp millican, a third year in the program.
ive got a bs in computer science from william and mary ('98) and a bfa in communication design (w/ an emphasis on kinetic imagery) from virginia commonwealth university ('02).

from 98-02, i worked as a web developer for a number of companies, including several fortune 500 ones. most of my work was design oriented, with some light server-side programming.

on my own, ive done a fair amount of database and server-side programming - personally its been in asp and mssql, but here at school, its been php and mysql.

whew. that was dry and boring.

my thesis is working towards a 24/7 point-of-view video recording system, publishable to the web. its a very deep project - the more i dig, the more stuff seems to surface.

im way into narrative. reading, writing, telling stories.

i'm always looking for help - programatically or creatively. im working towards several hardware systems right now and would love you to be interested enough to volunteer wearing it one day so i can see your life.

you can aim me at trippywah
or email me at trippp at gmail
(and yes, its with 3 p's, as gmail makes you have 6 characters)

new thesis woe

well bolas, here go your thoughts on my thesis as porn.

from this article:
"Calling video voyeurism the new frontier of stalking, the House on Tuesday approved legislation to make it a crime to secretly photograph or videotape people, often for lascivious purposes.

Under the legislation passed by voice vote, video voyeurism on federal lands would be punishable by a fine of not more than $100,000 or imprisonment for up to one year, or both.

The bill would make it a crime to videotape or photograph the naked or underwear-covered private parts of a person without consent when the person has a reasonable expectation of privacy."

anyone have any thoughts on this?
i was worried til i read that last paragraph. even so though, seems worryingly vagueish.

kerry for president

ive decided to use my powers for good.
there are less than 8 weeks until the next presidental election.
and realizing this, realizing i have a duty to what i believe is right. and i believe that bush should not be re-elected.
sadly, i have some people close to me that disagree.
and we can debate back and forth until we are blue in the face.
what i want to do is build up a series of (well-respected) links, information and arguments on why bush should not be re-elected.
this should be pretty easy, but i havent seen anything like this done yet.
and i figure if i can change 1 person's mind in the next 8 weeks, that's one step closer.

i know some of you have topics you like, so ill start with an easy one:

the automatic gun ban just expired. though bush claimed he would support it, he didnt raise a finger to stop this. i dont think anyone has ever given a good reason on why citizens need to own uzis. ill give you hunting rifles, even handguns. but uzis for personal ownership?

'i found some of your life'

project outline

this rules. not unlike the project i started for peggy last fall and then moved it into actual production for perry before i go sick. will be done before the end of the semester.

'a walk home'

i had forgotten about this project until a few days ago.

in the summer of 2001, i walked from my work to my apartment (which i did most every day), taking a picture every three steps.

its not that different from the pictures i took the other night at the ea event. i want to get them posted soon, but where this is a series of 288 pictures, the ones from the last week are a series of 640. (web space is almost becoming an issue.)

it would be nice to tweak this a little further to make it easier to snag photos out of the slideshow, but they arent that spectacular.

a couple of things to realize from this experiment - i turned the camera. shots switch from portrait to lanscape depending on the composition. and the pics were also not so much where i was looking as much as 'take 3 steps, find an interesting pic from that spot'. so it isnt exactly pov, but more a record of the space on that day.

perhaps slightly subtle differences, but important ones to point out when dealing with my thesis.

email black hole

a few weeks ago, i referred to scott fisher as an email black hole. he, in turn, used it with kurt. now kurt is claiming to also be an email black hole.

i just wanted to get credit.
(and be bumped to the top of the blog role.)

memories

(i dont normally post personal stuff on here, thats a job for my 'real' home. but i had a dream last night that has snowballed into a lot of the things ive been currently trying to understand.)

(if youre like most people and dont care about other peoples dreams, hit 'extended entry' and read the rest of the thoughts in parens. the stuff outside the parens is the dream. the rest is my reaction.)

(last night.)
i dreamed that i was giving carter a tour of bennington. my heart swooned with pride of the school. it was more mountainous than in reality, with the campus being much bigger and more crowded.

we drove into town and walked around. as we stood in about the middle of campus, i drug her up a big hill to vapa [15 on the map] (in my dream i recalled it as the barn but then as vapa, then the vapa building, then visual and performings arts building). we walked around, exploring nooks and crannies and i tried to explain my time in the lofts there to her. it was a lost cause, but i remember remembering the tunnel to under the stage that none of us wanted to enter.

we walked into a demonstration, with many people get a lecture. i think nohaptimus was there though im not sure in what capacity.

as we left, it became obvious through listening that the lecture was radio related. i had forgotten they have a station there.

we walked back out and down and i pointed out the main building [3], hidden like a ski lodge up and to the right of the hill, hidden by trees. carter didnt want to see it, so we walked down the hill to the 'dorms' [1].

i pointed out the houses, which were more traditional victorian than the true houses. i pointed out skyes and said thats where hank lived. highways encroached all around. we walked to the 'end of the world' [20], which had been taped and re-leveled, so it was merely a small downhill spot now. the dorms where matt lived freshman year were not only gone, but highways made it impossible to even tell where they had been.

we loaded up and left.

(weirdness. i remember thinking yesterday briefly about bennington as i went to class. i didnt realize the exact power the barn and that school had on me. the importance of having a lab space, a creative space. need to mention this whole thing to mark today. we need this space here.)

(it is also exceedingly odd to remember such a space that is so far away. i am sitting in a coffee shop on hollywood blvd, thinking about the campus of a small, extremely liberal college in new england that i think i attended in a former life. that i spent a total of maybe 2 weeks living at and yet hold more intense memories from it sometimes than any of the other colleges i have attended over the last ten years.)

(i dont understand the combination of memory and location. not remembering a specific time but understanding another part of the world so throughly it become a feeling. you can imagine yourself walking through that space, remembering your actions there. its what happens when you think of a place, not a time. and it is happening to me with bennington right now. and apparantly it has been happening since some time last night.)

(im on this huge nostalgia kick right now, along with time, location and memory. part of this i think is psychological aftereffects of being sick, part is my thesis, part is trying to remember where i have come from and where im going. more on this later, im sure.)

***

(about 10 minutes after posting this, 20 after writing it, i went and found all the links to the bennington map. i would like to point out that i originally called the 'end of the world' the 'edge of the world'. but that it was all typed up straight from memory, though with all the links, its easy to think i assembled it with help from the map. i feel like that would be cheating somehow and i feel like the story is less pure now. but i wanted badly to give context. and what exactly does that bring to memory?)

camera needed

i need help. advice, if you will.

i am looking for a small point-and-click digital camera. i only want it for web stuff, i dont care about zoom, resolution or flash (almost). 640x480 is huge for me. i just want something with the ability to hold a large flash card and has good battery life. and is small.

anyone know of a camera that fits my needs?

dhtml sketch

this isnt exactly right on yet and it probably wont stay at this url forever, but heres a rough draft of the ui im working on for my thesis.

the mouseovers arent behaving correctly yet, but thats obvious.

the 'cool' part of this thing is that its being done dynamically in asp. the images for each 'chapter' are in separate directories. im reading through the directories and writing out the images with changes in the style for each one.

whew.

'white noise'

showing at the red cat until halloween, theres a show called 'white noise'.

from their page:
"White Noise considers disruptions and interferences on the visual, sonic and structural landscape. Artists in the exhibition capture easily overlooked or hidden elements in the everyday perceptive field. Although "white noise" is a term commonly linked to sound frequencies, the exhibition will play with notions of what is perceptible and imperceptible in video, photography and sculpture. White Noise includes works by Artemio, Stefan Brüggemann, Felipe Dulzaides, Rubén Gutiérrez, Rodney McMillian, Tercerunquinto, Laureana Toledo, and Shirley Tse."

i'm going to try to hit this, let me know if you are. either we can meet there or at least talk about it later.

'virtual boyfriend'

sent to me, i figure this balances out the virtual girlfriend bit. i mean, who doesnt want a boyfriend pillow? (thought youd like this kellee)

memory vs. media

kurt and i had a talk on the way home about the difference between memories and media. i feel like my thesis (once again) opens up all kinds of issues about how memory functions. how does one change the other?

i have long held the belief that photos have changed and shaped the way i remember my youth. this is true for video tapes as well, though only footage (for me) exists from my high school years. but i worry that these types of recording media allow us to forget things we might otherwise remember. i can remember boss patterns for nes games but not the sound of my grandparents voices? would i have been able to remember it if i didnt have other useless stuff in my brain?

how do we use media as a crutch? its not something that is easy to answer, but i think its really important, esp when we start talking about recording everything we see in during a day in our life. will i come home and want to rewatch my day - both for the nostalgia factor as well as a memory tool? will it make us less observant during the day, focusing more on what is to come rather than what is presently occuring?

big questions. i have a feeling some of these will become apparant once filming begins (and i welcome any of you volunteering to wear the camera for my thesis if you want), but i welcome your opinions now as well.

'the final cut' trailer

thanks to mark bolas for finding this - it seems the movie 'the final cut' is my thesis in a hollywood movie. im not sure whether i should be happy or sad.

things we read

this isnt a comprehensive list, but it is some sites i check out on a regular basis that usually have some connection to classes in some sense or another. this is by no means comprehensive, and at midnight, watching kurt play nes batman, im sure it wont even be a good list.

so add your links in comments. and then we will never have to 're-post' stories found on these other sites. (cause it seems we all already read them anyway, so lets generate some original content.)

slashdot
boing-boing
penny arcade
ign
gizmodo
(scott will hate me, but) fleshbot [not work safe]
gamespot
we make money not art

nes

i took today to relax a little. and play (with kurt), a ton of nes emulated on the dreamcast. this is such an ingenius thing.

but more than that, we reminsced about all the old nes games that were impossible (ones like tmnt). and then, to further waste time and abuse ourselves, we made it a mission to beat the batman nes game. even with infinite continues, 3 hours later, we are still only on board 3-3. my thumb has the imprint of the 'a' button from the dreamcast controller and my back is sore.

ive been thinking a lot about nostalgia. this def ties into that; im only interested in (re-)playing the games i owned and played as a kid. i want to revisit those places; im not interested in exploring 'new' worlds on the nes.

thats really kinda weird to me. im still trying to process why this is the case.

im also trying to resist the lure of jumping and shooting through caves and hanging from pipes. whoever designed this game should get a caning.

Thesis Proposal

elevator pitch

iam is:
24/7 point-of-view video,
published to the web as serialized metafictional video blogs,
in a layered/drill down UI,
exploring narrative possiblities and new types of personal filmmaking.

2 page overview (pdf)

abstract

iam is a research project to explore and catalogue user created point-of-view video. When recording media today, one pulls out imaging equipment and records the scene. But when the equipment becomes visible, the scene itself changes. People behave differently knowing their actions are being recorded. To this end, the iam system helps the user create personal stories while they are occurring, without the author (or the audience) being conscious that recording is happening. Not only does the author become the director, editor and actor in his or her own movie, the point-of-view video allows the author to review (and relive) his or her experiences directly from his or her vantage point. Others are able to experience life through your eyes, able to see your life story in front of them to experience through your eyes. Once this large amount of video data has been recorded, software is needed in order to navigate through it. Using data analysis, scene extraction and meta-data, iam provides an interface that allows the user to quickly absorb an overview of the entire video. Using the system, users are able to create personal content, share it with others and easily navigate and browse the videos they have created.

thesis proposal (PDF)

Excerpts from PDF:

Project Description

Twenty four/seven video recording is becoming a reality as technology advances. Storage space continues to grow, ensuring that data is no longer worth destroying. Camera technology also continues to improve, creating smaller, better recording devices. These cameras can be easily mounted on a person, recording what a person sees: point-of-view video. The combination of these two factors leads to one inevitable conclusion – in the future, everything will be recorded and saved.

The iam system creates a personal hybrid of television's reality show and scripted drama. It will naturally change the way authors live their lives, while opening their experiences up others on the Internet. It is not difficult to imagine the system to be used as a memory aid, as a personal nostalgia instrument, an extended personal diary or photograph collection. These creations allow others to see life from your point of view. The movies will change the way one looks at the world and the way one moves through it.

These are all valid, but simple, uses. Iam gets more interesting when one begins imagining creative content beyond these scenarios. Amateur serialized movies, much like television soap operas, are possible and can be easily produced. Staged events and friends playing characters blur the line between reality and scripted drama, not unlike present-day reality shows.

Additional usages for the system become apparent when one looks beyond personal use into community and team-based situations. Training, reconnaissance, even anthropological community studies offer new content opportunities to a variety of authors and viewers.

But the creation of this much video creates a huge data glut. Unlike traditional media, time-based media requires the audience to spend a set amount of time with the creation. While a painting can be viewed for as long (or as little) as one wishes, video (and other time-based creations) requires one to stay with the entire piece in order to understand it fully. When the piece is not only shot in real-time but is also continuously being produced, the ability to watch everything that is shot becomes an impossibility. From the creation standpoint, trying to edit this much video is formidable. And with storage capable of holding all of the video, there is no reason destroy any of it.

What is needed is not to present the viewer with less video, what is need is better summation tools and a UI suited to handle large amounts of video data. The iam system auto-summarizes the video for the viewer, saving time and helping them understand the full video without having to watch it.

By incorporating a button with the camera, the author is able to tag moments during his/her day as 'important'. Software can analyze video for changes in scenery and lighting which further breaks apart video into separate scenes. By offering a stackable interface, the audience is able to quickly understand the complete content of a video in a way that was previously impossible.

Unobtrusive recording from a personal viewpoint offers a good deal of personal recording opportunities, allowing you to review your actions and reactions throughout the recording period. This alone is an interesting proposition, but when coupled with the ability to share these same events with others so that they can see what you have seen, it literally offers a new way to view the world.

Scenerio

The ability to watch another person's life through their eyes would be amazing. To see what they have seen and to understand the events that shape their perception of the world is something that has never before been available. While content creation could begin in this way, it could quickly jump into more sensational video creation – reality television and Jackass movies will spring forward. From these movies, it is another simple jump to more serialized dramatic fare, mimicking soap operas.

Jimmy puts on camera, complete with empty memory card (for recording) and button for marking important moments. Turning the system on begins the recording, straight to the memory card. Because the camera is mounted to the glasses Jimmy wears, it records what he sees. (Future versions hope to actually be able to follow the focus of the eye, not simply the field of vision.) Jimmy goes about his day, or, in the case of the movie maker, he records his fictional movie (hyper-real/meta-fictional cinema verte). * As Jimmy sees or experiences interesting moments during his recording session, he hits the button on the camera. This sets a flag on the video, noting the timecode. These moments can be anything from seeing a billboard as he drives to work to a humorous conversation over the water cooler. It is these moments which will help the viewer relate to Jimmy's experience later, while the video in its entirety will offer a complete record.

Jimmy has decided to record a meta-fictional narrative. He has spent time 'offline' of the iam system, scripting out the next chapter in the ongoing film of his life. He begins recording for the day, having let his friends and actors know what parts he wants them to fulfill during the day. He has scouted locations for the day's filming as well.

Jimmy gets a call from Frank, one of his friends, telling him to head up to the Hollywood sign around 10am. This friend owes him money and, although the location is odd, Jimmy is curious. He drives there and then hikes the rest of way to the sign. As he makes his way to the sign, he takes scenic routes, trying to compose interesting shots from his point-of-view. He tags several of the shots he composes.

Frank is waiting for Jimmy when he shows up. Previously, Frank had gotten himself in trouble he never clearly explained to Jimmy. They are friends and Jimmy loaned Frank 750 dollars to help him. The money didn't get Frank out of his problems; while Jimmy thinks he is there to get repaid, Frank is intent on asking Jimmy for more money.

While they are meeting, Jimmy gets a call on his cell phone. He can feel it vibrating in his pocket, but not wanting to interrupt the current scene in his movie (and knowing he can't reshoot), he ignores the call. Later, during a lull in the narrative or when he has wrapped for the day, Jimmy can check to see who was calling him.

He and Frank get into a fight over money and during the argument, Jimmy makes sure to press the 'important moment' button on the recorder. Frank threatens Jimmy and then storms off. Jimmy follows Frank down the trail to the cars, prompting another fight (which Jimmy also tags) before Frank pulls off in his car. Jimmy checks his phone to see who was calling.

It was Jimmy's girlfriend, Jennifer. She wants to have lunch with Jimmy on her break from work. He drives near her workplace, again taking a strategically planned route through the city. He picks her up several blocks from where she works, attempting to provide some privacy for her. He doesn’t want viewers to figure out exactly where she works, for fear of her safety.

He picks her up for lunch and they drive to their favorite Mexican restaurant. He doesn't mention Frank, not wanting to bore his viewers with redundant information. In fact, as he records things, he makes sure to move his head often, offering new information and vantage points to the camera so his audience has new content continuously. This is important as Jimmy doesn't have the luxury of editing his shots – everything occurs in a single, real-time shot.

In the restaurant, Jimmy spots one of his friends. Unfortunately, Jimmy hasn't scripted his friend into the narrative recently and wants to avoid ad-libbing right now. He ignores the friend, actually going through elaborate movements to avoid being seen and causing an awkward moment. Jimmy and Jennifer discuss matters over lunch; Jimmy steers the conversation in specific ways, fully aware of the items he is speaking aloud for his viewers (and intentionally leaving other pieces of the conversation vague and unexplained for another episode).

When Jimmy is finished recording, he turns the camera off. He removes the memory card from the camera and connects it to his computer. He uploads the recorded movie to his web server and publishes it. Jimmy can tweak, add and delete flagged moments if he wishes at this point.

The server processes the file for other users, creating stills and flagging the moments Jimmy marked. Jimmy is done authoring. The system provides the scene breaks for his day (his apartment, the drive to the sign, the encounter at the sign, the drive to lunch and lunch) as well as the tagged moments within each scene.

The system parses the video for scene changes and flagged moments. These are saved out as stills. The longest scene is then split into 20 chapters, with the first frame from each chapter saved as a still. The space between each chapter is then used on the rest of the chapters. This produces a stack of frames for each chapter, all separated by the same amount of time. Important moments are read back in and also saved as stills.

Jenny visits Jimmy's site. She selects the day/movie she wants to catch up on. The computer returns to her a horizontal line of scenes, with all stills for that scene layered behind the first. Important moments are indicated by an arrow above the still. Mousing over any of the stills raises it out of the pile. Clicking on any of the stills opens the movie to that location and begins playing.

Jenny is able to quickly scan the chapter list and visually tell the length of each scene within the movie, as well as being able to quickly browse (and watch if she chooses) the interesting moments of Jimmy's day. She has the option to spend as much or as little time with his movie as she desires, while still being able to absorb the overall story quickly and easily. She will also return regularly, becoming more and more involved in the ongoing narrative of Jimmy's life.

Images, References and Schedule all are within the PDF.

* Several important features differentiate Jimmy's fictional movie from more traditional films: 1. Although the movie features Jimmy, Jimmy does not actively star in the movie. Because the film is Jimmy's POV, Jimmy's face is only seen in reflections, much like real life. 2. The movie is one continuous take. Much like "Time Code" or "Rope", events occur in real time. Jimmy does not have the option of retakes or pickups. 3. He is living the movie. Jimmy isn't creating movie magic – he is experiencing it. The narrative he is telling is also the story of his life, whether it is fictional or not.

serial

i might be reading too many comic books, but there is def something there about the serialized comci book/soap opera/blog thing. i see this as part of my thesis...i just havent figuredout exactly what it means yet. exactly what following a set of characters over time says as a viewer. but theres def something to that.