ITP AlumniBlender

So quite awhile back when I went to Wired Nextfest, I saw a robotic arm with 33 pneumatic pumps. I thought it was amazing because it could pick an object as fragile as an egg, but I couldn't visualize how this could be translated to helping amputees. But recently on a 60 Minutes program, DARPA is funding this amazing project. You can control the arm connected to sensors with your foot. In this clip, you can see a user pick up a bottle of soda, open it, and drink from it. Also in the last portion of the clip, this company experiments with brain waves by connecting sensors to the limb (not sure, but could be related to phantom limbs). Anyway, I was blown away by this technology. If you have any insight, and ping me links to other scientific research (address is posted in the footer--Thx).
Watch CBS News Videos Online You can read more about this story, here.

• The Interaction-Ivrea offspring - Core77
  "When reading Wired's article about Massimo Banzi and his Arduino team - see this earlier post - Experientia's Jan-Christoph Zoels and I thought it might be good to provide readers with some further insight on the offspring of the acclaimed but defunct Interaction Design Institute Ivrea (archival site)."
  (tags: design interaction interactiondesign education)
• YouTube - Lin-Manuel Miranda Performs at the White House Poetry Jam: (8 of 8)
  Alexander Hamilton as hip hop hero
  (tags: americanness history)

Stefan Hechenberger

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Enjoy the first update in a long while. My ARM got the official physical therapist O.K. That means I can draw again!!!! Took it easy on this one. Call it a test draw.

Seriously awesome work by James Hopkins. Be sure to checkout the Balanced Works on his website.

I had a look at ReadWriteWeb's post on "Google's Eric Schmidt on What the Web Will Look Like in 5 Years" and this point caught my eye:

It's because of this fundamental shift towards user-generated information that people will listen more to other people than to traditional sources. Learning how to rank that "is the great challenge of the age." Schmidt believes Google can solve that problem.

Obviously this is a problem well known to librarians and those involved in research. We even have a name for it, 'Authority'.

The thing is, in an online world where a thousand million billion flowers are blooming, you don't need less of it, you need more. In fact, Schmidt alludes to this in his own charming SEO-based way when he talks of page rank being the "great challenge of the age".

I don't see though how this would diminish the value of "traditional sources". There may be a shift in where those sources are located but dependable and authoritative aggregators will still play a central role for the simple reason that individuals can't.

Otherwise, Google would be waiting for people themselves to start scanning books.

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I’m showing my project “Alerting Infrastructure!” at Prospectives 09 Digital Arts Exhibition and Festival opening in Reno Nevada from November 12-14th. Some really great projects at the show! Check out the link for more info.

shoe box by aya masuda

This shoe box could not be more perfect. It is from a series of workshops and exhibitions called Without Thought organized by Naoto Fukasawa, the latest focused on the Box.
Box – Without Thought Vol. 10

More boxes from the workshop at designboom

It's nice to see Drupal mentioned in the context of "cool thing to do" but I don't think Cindi Trainor in her piece on Sacred Cows in Library IT gets exactly what you can do with it:

Experimenting with low-cost or no-cost tools like Twitter will only cost staff time, but implementing expensive (think federated search) or complex-but-free technologies (think Drupal) because it's the cool thing to do can be a very costly lesson for a library to learn, in terms of budget, staff time, morale and user satisfaction.

First, there's no impediment to 'experimenting' with Drupal any more than there is to experimenting with Twitter. The first implementation I ever dealt with was on my own laptop. I didn't even need a network connection!

Also, as far as complexity goes, what are we comparing it to? I mean, you can't run a website on Twitter so that's not an option.

It just so happens that an institution's website is a fairly complex organism. It's going to involve a considerable investment no matter how you choose to go about it.

The fact that Drupal can potentially make it less costly in terms of budget, staff time, etc. -- while being far more effective as a tool -- that's what makes it "cool" and why people choose it. Not the other way around.

P.S. It's kind of ironic that the above quote fell under the Sacred Cow, "Cutting-edge is better; bleeding-edge is best" -- considering that the piece grew out of a discussion on the oh-so-bleeding-edge "Google Wave".

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• 12 of the World’s Coolest Packaging Designs | Slideshows
  There'll always be a part of me that wishes I got into package design. Some great stuff here.
• Uncovering Steve Jobs’ Presentation Secrets – BusinessWeek
  5 great tips for better presentations as gleaned from observing one of the best.
• Functioning Form – Mobile First
  Great post on why keeping mobile at the forefront will ultimately help you design a better product.
• Virgin Atlantic Releases iPhone App for People Afraid of Flying | Reuters
  So so smart and so on brand. Bravo.
• Twitter Lists in Action: NHL Builds a Social Network for Fans
  NHL doing interesting stuff leveraging Twitter lists. Smart to test this stuff initially with a small audience. He-yo!
• Developers: the best smart phone platform is?
  Good piece by Scoble that backs up how I feel (US) developers should tackle their mobile strategies – focus on iPhone and Android (and monitor Blackberry).

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When we started, it seemed that everything that could have gone wrong with moving into a new place, went.  Our new landlord was gutting the bathroom and putting in a brand new one (yay!) but they ran into some plumbing problems and by the time we started moving our stuff in, there was no bathroom.  The previous tenant, our friend J, still had half of his stuff in the apartment.  Construction dust was all over the place.  It didn’t look at all habitable.  Then it rained the entire time we were loading and unloading the car.

Since the bathroom was not finished, we had to spend the night at the old place and moved the mattress the next day, which started off horribly.  After Mark drove the truck to our place, we realized it had a flat tire and was actively leaking air.  And this was the first time we’ve ever had a flat tire with a zip car.  The zip car rep called a mechanic, who arrived about an hour and a half later and took another half hour to try taking out the flat tire but couldn’t.  The truck had to be towed.  By that point, it was actually becoming quite hilarious.

Anyway, we ended up getting another truck and the rest of the move was surprisingly fine.  The apartment eventually came together in the afternoon.  Our landlord and her sister got down on the floor and scrub every inches in the kitchen.  The bathroom was usable.  Everything we owned is moved in and today we skipped work to unpack and rearrange stuff.

Even though the two places are somewhat similar in size, we manage to have more stuff than could fit in the kitchen and more clothes than we thought we owned.  Every time I move, I get rid of clothes when I pack.  Then I get rid of more when I unpack.  And then somehow, the next time I look through my clothes, there are always more to get rid of.

The new place is cute.  We have the top two floors of an old house.  It creaks with every step you take and I’m sure our house mate downstairs can track us around the house by listening to sound of our footsteps.  The stove is this a vintage Lady Kenmore from who-knows-when still in great condition but all the markings on the knobs are rubbed off and you have no idea how hot you’re turning it to.  There was an old wall sconce which we were excited about, but then the landlord took it out and the wall is plastered over.  There’s a deck with a view of the CN Tower.  There’s a lot of Italian neighbors and cats.

My favorite, though, is the presidential street corner:  Clinton & Gore.

(photo from Mike Stroud on Flickr)

You may remember Daito Manabe from this video:

Over the years since that began, he has apparently been building a zombie army of body hackers.

It’s good to see the Daito’s body hacking experiments going two ways: from computer to body, and also from body to computer, forming a symmeterical network.

And this is the most interesting direction – copying his face onto his friends’ faces… exactly relevant to a concept I’m beginning to think about over at the Brain Interface Design & Development blog.

Lest we forget the master of all things body hacking, Stelarc:

Smell ya later, Piglett.

johncarney:

evangotlib:

icodeforlove:

This is absolutely hilarious!

tedr:

ericmortensen:

cvxn:

juliasegal:

Princess Leia and her stunt double waiting (and tanning) on set.

More like “sleeping off a bender” for Carrie.

Want.

mattlehrer:

Recycled Bowling Lane Furniture which Inhabitat says is “right up our alley.”

Really smart stuff on the differences between tangible and intangible value and the often untapped benefits of the latter.

Thanks to @mtbrady for the tip.

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Little Sister Katie™ was a bowl of mac and cheese for Halloween - ha!

(via kcrowley)

Broadway @ 8th Street.  I walked under this 2x yesterday.  Yikes!

Pic by Jesse Chan Norrie [more]

hifiny:

Well, that’s reassuring. I walk under this scaffolding twice every weekday. [At Broadway & 8th Street … Via]

Halloween 2009 = two dance parties, two pinatas, a lil’ piggie and Cru Jones:

Halloween 2009 = two dance parties, two pinatas, a lil’ piggie and Cru Jones

Started pre-bar’in at my apt, hit up Seth’s @ Porch, then to Grellan’s @ Mary’ Os, then to Becca’s @ Summit and then sleepytown. JJ& Jac rocking the pinatas (complete with candy tossin’ action), Chelsa went as a Piggy Bank, McSimmons as some SNL character (sorry!), Xtian as a bat made from busted umbrella parts (brilliant).

I threw together some last minute Cru Jones action: www.imdb.com/title/tt0091817/ You have no idea how hard it was to find a pair of red warmup pants (I ended up finding a pair of Kids XL in the basement of Paragon)

“

There are roughly three New Yorks. There is, first, the New York of the man or woman who was born here, who takes the city for granted and accepts its size and turbulence as natural and inevitable. Second, there is the New York of the commuter - the city that is devoured by locusts each day and spat out each night. Third, there is the New York of the person who was born somewhere else and came to New York in quest of something. Of these three trembling cities the greatest is the last—the city of final destination, the city that is a goal. It is this third city that accounts for New York’s high-strung disposition, its poetical deportment, its dedication to the arts, and its incomparable achievements. Commuters give the city its tidal restlessness; natives give it solidity and continuity; but the settlers give it passion.

And whether it is a farmer arriving from Italy to set up a small grocery store in a slum, or a young girl arriving from a small town in Mississippi to escape the indignity of being observed by her neighbors, or a boy arriving from the Corn Belt with a manuscript in his suitcase and a pain in his heart, it makes no difference: each embraces New York with the intense excitement of first love, each absorbs New York with the fresh eyes of an adventurer, each generates heat and light to dwarf the Consolidated Edison Company.

”

-

Here is New York, E. B. White, 1949 (via cdixon + fred-wilson)

Slightly related, but is there a better NYC anthem than Jay Z’s “Empire State of Mind?”

[Chorus: Alicia Keys]
New York, concrete jungle where dreams are made of
There’s nothin’ you can’t do
Now you’re in New York
These streets will make you feel brand new
Big lights will inspire you
Let’s hear it for New York, New York,
New York

On Friday, Handy and I saw Alessandra Belloni & John La Barbera with I Giullari di Piazza at the Peter Norton Symphony Space in the upper west.  As soon as the band arrived, I thought I recognized John La Barbera from somewhere…

He looked suspiciously like a younger guy at Curtiss’ birthday party I had met a few weeks ago, the night before the Harry Chapin Run Against Hunger (thus explaining my placing 61st in the race as I ran against hunger and a hangover).  This guy had made an impression: he had arrived, after I was well on my way to happiness, with an amped-up entourage of two significantly larger women, all smiling, sweaty, and possibly drunk.  Could this be the same person?  The inimitable Alessandra Belloni introduced him on stage as someone she had begun performing with 30 years ago in Greenwich Village, so it couldn’t be.

Without further ado, Alessandra Belloni began banging her Alessandra Belloni Signature REMO^TM Tambourine, and the ragtag ensemble of musicians began learning the songs.

Alessandra Belloni seems to be quite a character.  Despite her age and girth, she can dance the tarantella with the best of them, and although her demeanor lacks any sensuality as she furrows her brow and manhandles her oversized drum, you get the feeling that she is a three-breasted Awa commanding devotion from her rabble of musicians and dancers.

Three beautiful muscular Italian girls began prancing around on stage, with a tall gangly but graceful Italian guy as their male counterpart.  The movement was a mixture of traditional folk dance interspersed with segments of modern interpretive movement.

You see, the tarantella is a dance of trance-like exorcism in a traditional society, so it was only a matter of time until the girls began humping and flailing on the floor while Antonio Fini ran around with glow sticks in only his gold lamé underpants.

But I tell you, even that paled in comparison to the presence of Nando Citarella of Napoli.  As soon as he stepped up to the microphone in his white linen shirt and pants and bare feet, you knew you were in the presence of a master.

The southern Italian Ninna Nanna lullaby rivals even my own personal favorite Georgian Nina Nana lullaby in its sweet sounding nananess.  Nando Citarella does his own rendition in a living room in Napoli.

• Twitter Lists To RSS
  Subscribe to the content coming through a Twitter list via RSS.
• Now Planes are Tweeting, Too
  Love to see a brand build a utility that others can take advantage of.
• Focusing On Value: How I’m Changing How I Use Twitter | Steffan Antonas
  Awesome, inspiring post.
• Six Words That Make Social Media Experts Disappear – Lithosphere Community
  Brilliant.
• How to Advance Your Career Without Selling Your Soul – Advertising Age – TalentWorks
  Simple, smart tips that seem like common sense but can often get lost in the fray.

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Watch the Blueprint 3 album cover come to life in this fascinating behind-the-scenes video.

New York, November 1, 2009 - We recently received notice from the Committee for Open Fashion NYC, organizer of Fashion Camp 2009, requesting that the fashion.nyc domain name be reserved for use by New York City’s fashion industry. The Committee recommended that fashion.nyc:

• Should present a complete and unbiased directory of the city’s fashion industry.
• Care should be taken to assure that suitable control is exercised over those listed in the directory to assure that they are indeed city businesses.
• That FASHION.NYC serve as a means to locate fashion resources beneficial to the city’s fashion industry – suppliers, manufacturers, designers, fashion houses, and students.
• That a simple fill-in form providing a webpage for new entrants into the fashion industry, e.g., www.fashion.nyc/newcompany, be made available.

The Committee for Open Fashion NYC is exploring FASHION.NYC’s content, business model, and governance structure. We have offered to assist the Committee with its explorations as part of our quest for models for other important city portals.

Learn more about fashion.nyc at Open Fashion’s .nyc’s website or see our fashion.nyc wiki page.

I’m giving 3 talks in the next few weeks, hope you can make it out to one or all of them! Details:

1. Nov 7 @ Mobile Art and Code Symposium and Workshop, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA.

2. Nov 11 @ Digital + Media Lecture Series, Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, RI

3. Nov 14 @ User Labor: Creative Responses Panel, Digital Labor Conference (Internet as Playground and Factory), New School University, NYC.

Bye Quicktime, Hello Vimeo. No more plugin headaches on my site, plus 2 projects I missed from the ITP days. Enjoy!

"withDRAWal" a new software piece about making scribbles. Please try it out and tell me what you think.

The grl graffiti brush source code is now available in OpenFrameworks format for all you curious OF coders out there.

The color of art is #A79F94.

Website has a tag system now. Easier to find stuff you're interested in. Tagging all the work took me a week.

Scribble Variations ported to C++ OF and now works fullscreen on PCs and Macs.

Pirouette, my first wxWidgets app, is now available for your enjoyment. Send me your screenshots!

Marley Carroll's new album Melanaster uses Pinch software to generate album graphics.

Interview on the Making of "Boom Boom Pow" video for Black Eyed Peas

GRLBrush able to manually choose colors with popup dialogs. Thanks Paolo Berto for suggesting this.

A Javascript port of BallDroppings is part of Google Chrome Experiments along with some very interesting projects by names you know.

The Black Eyed Peas video is released .. big congrats to everyone who was on this project. Extra props to coders Keith Pasko and Ryan Alexander. Hooray for Motion Theory.

BallDroppings on the front cover of Processing.org exhibition.

So the email goes out: "pumpkin nut/raisin bread" in the Reference Workroom.

Sounds nice, huh? So what's left when the Saturday crew finally shows up? You're looking at it.

Outrageous!

Ever notice this sound installation in the 34th St subway station (N/R track?) Put your hands over the black dots (IR sensor) and sounds play. There’s one each side of the track too so you can make music with your uptown friends too!:

“REACH New York”- An Urban Musical Instrument
by Christopher Janney (January 1996)

More here: www.flickr.com/photos/dpstyles/4061238252/

And here: www.nycsubway.org/perl/artwork_show?121

Current Cites for September 2009 is out! You can find the issue here...

I wrote about an interesting study of how people deal with the plethora of login passwords (hint: it ain't pretty). What stood out in the article was the realization (finally) that maybe it's the convoluted systems themselves rather than the poor user that's the problem.

Anyway, the thing is called "Password Authentication from a Human Factors Perspective: Results of a Survey among End-Users" (pdf). It's short and well worth a read.

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Ha!  I don’t remember ever got any dodgeball halloween costumes back in the day :)

foursquare:

And the first of the foursquare halloween costumes :)

Just saw this tweet from my friend @heathercapri:

“Look! @elaineellis is a foursquare scout! Look at all those badges she’s earned! No wonder she’s mayor”

More:

http://brightkite.com/objects/1e84bec1f9fe3264109b724ca8b842d5?referer=http%3A%2F%2Ftwitter.com%2F

zachklein:

oats:

Settlers of Catan - Ore (Zach), Wool (Courtney), and Lumber (Matt)

Courtney, Matt, me, and several others recreated a human-sized version of the board!

caro:

johncarney:

…

caseydonahue:

Ran into these guys on the train. They win Halloween.