ITP BlogBlender

Softness class basics

David Steele Overholt — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 03:28:47 +0000

Class website: http://www.itp.nyu.edu/softness/2008/softness.html

Syllabus PDF: http://www.itp.nyu.edu/softness/2008/softness.pdf

Other references:

“Olafur Eliasson, the Danish-Icelandic inventor and engineer of minimalist spectacle, is so much better than anyone else in today’s ranks of crowd-pleasing installational artists that there should be a nice, clean, special word other than “art” for what he does, to set him apart. There won’t be. “Art” has become the promiscuous catchall for anything artificial that meets no practical need but which we like, or are presumed or supposed to like. “

by Peter Schjeldahl
http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/artworld/2008/04/28/080428craw_artworld_schjeldahl

Materials:
http://www.itp.nyu.edu/materials/
http://www.materialconnexion.com/
http://www.itp.nyu.edu/help/Help/Materials

Softness class basics

David Steele Overholt — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 03:28:47 +0000

Class website: http://www.itp.nyu.edu/softness/2008/softness.html

Syllabus PDF: http://www.itp.nyu.edu/softness/2008/softness.pdf

Other references:

“Olafur Eliasson, the Danish-Icelandic inventor and engineer of minimalist spectacle, is so much better than anyone else in today’s ranks of crowd-pleasing installational artists that there should be a nice, clean, special word other than “art” for what he does, to set him apart. There won’t be. “Art” has become the promiscuous catchall for anything artificial that meets no practical need but which we like, or are presumed or supposed to like. “

by Peter Schjeldahl
http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/artworld/2008/04/28/080428craw_artworld_schjeldahl

Materials:
http://www.itp.nyu.edu/materials/
http://www.materialconnexion.com/
http://www.itp.nyu.edu/help/Help/Materials

Rest of You class basics

David Steele Overholt — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 03:24:46 +0000

Class Notes: http://itp.nyu.edu/varwiki/Syllabus/Computers-for-the-Rest-of-You-F08-Notes

Syllabus: http://itp.nyu.edu/varwiki/Syllabus/Computers-for-the-Rest-of-You-F08

Class Site: http://itp.nyu.edu/blogs/restofyou

Project Examples: http://itp.nyu.edu/varwiki/ClassWork/Computers-for-the-Rest-of-You-F07#Examples

Reading: http://itp.nyu.edu/blogs/restofyou/reading/

Rest of You class basics

David Steele Overholt — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 03:24:46 +0000

Class Notes: http://itp.nyu.edu/varwiki/Syllabus/Computers-for-the-Rest-of-You-F08-Notes

Syllabus: http://itp.nyu.edu/varwiki/Syllabus/Computers-for-the-Rest-of-You-F08

Class Site: http://itp.nyu.edu/blogs/restofyou

Project Examples: http://itp.nyu.edu/varwiki/ClassWork/Computers-for-the-Rest-of-You-F07#Examples

Reading: http://itp.nyu.edu/blogs/restofyou/reading/

Network Object - First week project

Elim Cheng — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 02:42:00 +0000

For the first project for Network Object class, we need to make something that will response to a person's reaction. It has to allow people to interact with it. The purpose is to see our abilities of physical computing.

I made something very simple. When a person blow into the straw, will break up the texts "DO NOT BLOW" on screen, texts come back together when the person stop blowing.

So inside this cup, there is a microphone connects with an Arduino. And the Arduino connects with Processing. When the microphone receives sound, which is the blowing, sends values to the Arduino, then Arduino sends values to Processing to change the result on screen.

LED Cube and Pyramid - Concept and Construction and Shoot

Jason Krugman — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 01:25:34 +0000

I worked with 7 New York on this piece for their new campaign. The project entailed 2 different parts - an interior cube, glowing from the inside, and a pyramid structure made of interlocking pieces. The pyramid was designed in Auto Cad and then built using the NYU Advanced Media Studio’s stereolithography machine.

Wow.. RIA’s are all the rage and things are definitely moving forward..

vanevery — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 05:48:13 +0000

So.. I took a break from anything but PHP for a while. Didn’t really focus on learning any new browser based technology for the past 6 months or so. Today, I took a look around.. Am going to be using the the Flash Media Server in my class this semester and thought I would checkout the Flex SDK (which is pretty nice I must say, much much better than developing in Flash).

Looking through that got me to wonder what people were thinking of Silverlight, Google’s Chrome and finally JavaFX.

Talk about eye-opening.. I think RIA’s (rich internet applications) have arrived!

Silverlight, Microsoft’s Flash competitor impressed me initially with their cross-platform push. It was a nice change and the streaming of the Olympics looked great.

Chrome with it’s revamped JavaScript interpreter seems as though it will be a pretty big game changer as well. (Wonder what that means for FireFox.) WebKit seems to have electrified the browser space (cross-platform and device (iPhone, S60, Safari, Chrome and so on)).

JavaFX looks like it *might* be something.. (This is my secret wish as Java is my first love but Sun has let me down so many times in the past with video support that I am not going to even bother until they support H.264 cross-platform)

Flash with it’s new H.264 support is what has me the most interested..

In any case, I don’t think I will be doing anything more than playing with most of the features of any of these. I will be using Flash for it’s video support and controlling it through JavaScript and using AJAX with PHP for the time being..

Ok.. Time to get back to FMS..

Summer school at Scholz&Volkmer

Elim Cheng — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 22:29:00 +0000

There are six of us. It is a creative workshop that held by this advertisement/interactive design company called Scholz&Volkmer in Germany Wiesbaden. It's a young company but has great achievements on commercial designs.

We were selected to this program, the company paid the plane tickets and housing in Germany for us, and some money for the living expense. We have one month to come out some projects for about 6 clients of this company S&V. They are really opened mind and knows lots of cool stuff about interaction design.

It was a great experience for me. We came out 4 concepts and prototypes at the end. The project that Meng and I are working on, got the chance to actually set up on the streets of Wiesbaden, and got on the press of Frankfurt-live.com.

It is always good to walk away from school to look around the real world with different perspectives.

NYU’s ITP Ceiling Collapses.

Oscar G. Torres — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 20:34:10 +0000

So there I was hanging out at ITP getting ready to eat my salad Lunch. Elizabeth who is a first year at ITP was having trouble logging into the wireless network, so I went over to help her out.
As we where debugging the wireless issue, unexpectedly out of nowhere, the ceiling collapsed.

At first I was in disbelief at what just had happened. Then once I analyzed the damage made by the collapsed ceiling I realized the seriousness of the situation. Immediately Tim and some of the ER (equipment room) staff began to take action and inform the appropriate people and security at school.

Thankfully the only casualties where a metal chair that was destroyed by the concreate that fell on it and the foosball table which got a good chunk of concrete fall on it.

It was definitely a frightening moment. Specially since there was no indication or warning that there was anything wrong with the ceiling. Before the collapse, it was really quiet around the floor, it did not sound like anyone was jumping around the top floor or any other disturbances that may trigger such an event. It was so sudden, unexpected and random that it felt like someone was playing a joke on us, but it was not a joke. Someone could of got seriously hurt. Someone whose name starts with “O” and ends with “scar.” I guess i’m glad that New York City does not get earthquakes… that often.

Links for 2008-09-05 [del.icio.us]

ProphecyBoy — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 05:00:00 +0000

Dan Hillier
artist, some cthulu-esque prints, plus skull dinnerware

This is long but good one (final)

Elim Cheng — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 20:02:00 +0000

On the Monday morning, I was the first person who arrived the Taiwanese Embassy. After 20 mins waiting, a man who came to open the door, I told him what happened to me, he told me he is from the department of economic, people who should take care of my case will be here soon. He leaded me to the waiting room and told me if I need anything can go for him.

After 2 hours waiting. The woman who should takes care of my case came in. I told her what happened, I said I need to get a new Taiwanese passport, so I can get a new US student visa. She replied me right away. "It is impossible." She said the passport the embassy can provide is very roughly, it's even "hand-made", the US embassy won't accept that. "The best way for you is to go back to Taiwan", she made the conclusion. I was really desperate. There was a moment I think I'm about to cry. "I still wanna give it a try, please give me the new passport." When this not-really-friendly woman went to "make" my passport, I went for the man I met in the morning, he was very kind to allow me to use their computer to check email stuff. While I'm checking my emails, the director of the economic department over heard my story, so he invited me to have lunch with them. It turned out it's a huge Chinese style lunch. They told me, there were many Taiwanese whose passport or baggage got stole, but none of them got a free meal!

After I back to the embassy, the passport is finished. Guess what, the new passport looks exactly like the old one, only the color of the picture is black and white. I'm really glad I didn't give in.

Monday, I got my passport. Wednesday, I got the documents sent from NYU. Jackie, the adviser of NYU international student office, is happen to sit next to me at the place where I had part time job in NYU. She sent me all the documents that I need, and an envelope with $100 US dollars inside. Actually, I almost miss that package, because when the deliver guy came, it was too early, the embassy is still closed. When I came to the embassy, the driver already left. People from the embassy helped me to call the UPS, they said if the driver left, it's not likely to come back at the same day. Even though the driver can come back tomorrow, they can't guarantee when the package can be delivered. People from embassy told me maybe I should just go home, there's no points to wait. But I insisted to wait a little bit longer. I was praying really hard during when I was waiting, I were making all the deals with God. After 10 mins, the deliver guy came back, with my package!

I was like running, to the US embassy. I had the google map in my hand, if I have to pick a day not to get lost, that day would totally be the day. I wrote email to the US embassy before, they told me they are willing to help me, so as soon as I got my documents, I can just go there without any appointments. That's why I was running. I thought, the best situation is I can come to pick up the visa in the afternoon. It usually took about 2 to 3 days to get a visa. "Do you mind wait here a little bit longer? I can issue the new visa right away." They asked me. "I don't mind at all!" So I got my new-five-years students visa in 20 mins!!! While I'm waiting, they even asked me have I had my lunch yet, then handed me a pack of snack!

When my dad changed my flight from Monday to Saturday, I thought there is no way I can get everything done by then. But it turned out it only took me three days to get a new passport, documents and a new US student visa. Not just that, I also met so many great and nice people during this "extra" week. I met a couple from Italy and Germany who let me stay at their huge house outside of Rome. I met a guy who gave me his pajamas. Countless helps from people I first time met. I am actually thankful about this "unexpected" adventure. "Where my help comes from? My help comes from the Maker of haven and earth." How great is that?

Nick Hasty 2008-09-05 17:12:55

Admin — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 17:12:55 +0000

Cats and Cowgirls

Oscar G. Torres — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 16:34:01 +0000

This is my type of woman!
Do you know anyone that would rescue over one hundred cats from the freezing cold weather, give them a home and feed them? Meet such a lady and someone’s interpretation of what is happening in this little apartment in Russia.

If this was not enough action for you. Maybe this movie clip will change your perspective of nurses.

More Burning Man Pictures

Lucas Longo — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 13:34:00 +0000

http://picasaweb.google.com/ChristianBuhl4

links for 2008-09-04

Swerdloff — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 00:33:37 +0000

Ultimate Source for tiled background patterns | Design Shard | Web Design Blog

(tags: tutorials inspiration graphics free)

Three interlaced Klein bottles

David Steele Overholt — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 14:12:55 +0000

This Klein bottle at the Science Museum contains three interlaced Klein bottles in one. For a very brief explanation of what a Klein bottle and Möbius loops/strips are, check out Clifford Stoll’s talk on TED at the 4:30 minute mark.

Burning Man Videos

Lucas Longo — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 23:25:00 +0000

http://br.youtube.com/BurnsLosAngeles

This is a long but good one (part 2) - What should I do?!?!

Elim Cheng — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 18:54:00 +0000

I didn't want to do anything, so I went to bed. In my dream, I found out the US president Bush is a fiend of my friend, so I told him what happen to me, asked him if he could get me back to States. He turned to discuss with his advisors, then told me that, he really wants to help, but it's impossible without a passport. Then I woke up. Suddenly I had a thought, even though the president of United States can't help me, my God will take me back!

There is a Korean girl who heard my story, opened her baggage, handed me some t-shirts and said, "We have the same sizes, take my clothes!"

The only thing I can do in that hostel was keeping checking my emails. Surprisingly, I got reply from NYU. I didn't expect the advisor will check her email on weekend. She gave me her personal phone number, told me to call her as soon as I see it, don't think about the time difference. She sent me all the information that I will need to get back to State in the email, and told me she will have all the documents ready when she backs to work on Monday.

I was really relief to hear the voice that I'm familiar with.

So I know in older to get a new passport, the fast way is to go to Rome where the Taiwanese embassy located. So I got on the train again, this time, to the south.

links for 2008-09-02

Swerdloff — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 01:03:01 +0000

The Personal MBA: DIY Business Education & Training for Entrepreneurs and Small Business Owners

For those of us who didn't get into the Stern classes we wanted to.

(tags: toread tools reference productivity marketing management ideas)
Diaroogle.com

The Premier Toilet Search Engine

(tags: web2.0 tools nyc mashup)
New York Neighborhood Maps | MondoMap.com

(tags: nyc tools web2.0)
Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories - Five Electronics Tools You Might Not Know About

(tags: tips engineering electronics diy)
The educational encyclopedia, electricity and electronics

(tags: tutorials tutorial toread engineering electronics)
Free Electronic Circuit Diagrams Directory

(tags: schematics project hardware free engineering electronic electronics diy toread reference)
5 Universities with Free Online Electrical Engineering Courses — Education-Portal.com

(tags: tutorials science reference)

Nancy Garcia 2008-09-02 19:39:51

Admin — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 19:39:51 +0000

Effi Briest performing live at Secret Project Robot, Brooklyn, on April 7, 2007.

Burning Man

Lucas Longo — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 16:58:00 +0000

Words are not enough to describe it all.

The photos are not able to capture the energy.

The videos show fragments of the experience.

The few basic rules - have fun, share, don't litter, let yourself go, and explore!

It is an adult's playground.

Spontaneous organization.

All tribes, all kinds, all costumes, all ideals - one community.

Survival conditions brings everyone to a common denominator.

The benevolence is fantastic.

Negative energy is left behind.

You can make what you want of it.

If you want to wake up early, do Yoga, get a massage, bike in the middle of the desert, talk to complete strangers, participate in events, party all night and the next day, and then look at some impressive art work, installations, mutant vehicles and so gigantic sculptures - you can.

All in a days at Burning Man.

First Day of Class!

David Steele Overholt — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 04:54:51 +0000

Back in NYC? Check.
Moved in to new apartment? Check.
Started new semester? Check.

Learning Processing now available

David Steele Overholt — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 19:35:04 +0000

Shiffman’s new book Learning Processing: A Beginner’s Guide to Programming Images, Animation, and Interaction is now available for purchase. We used a pre-release copy last year in ICM and it’s a great intro to the Processing language.

Check it out (and the site when it becomes available).

Learning Processing now available

David Steele Overholt — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 19:35:04 +0000

Check it out (and the site when it becomes available).

This is a long but good one （part 1) - Where is my bag?!?!

Elim Cheng — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 18:43:00 +0000

After one month summer school in Germany, I had a chance to travel to Italy. I went to Venice and Sorrento. I stayed at Sorrento for the most of the time. It is a small town near Napoli by the beach, I went to swimming every mornings, took it easy, went to different town nearby alone the coast in the afternoons. Read a book in the evenings. I am very thankful for having this opportunity to take a relax before school starts.

When the trip was about to finish, I have to take a train to Milan to catch the flight to Frankfurt, to pick up my computer and liggage that I put in Germany, then fly back to NY. After one month away from NY, I started to miss it.

But I guess God's plans are a little bit different with mine.

On the train I met a nice Italian family, they can not speak English at all, but they shared their huge sandwich with me. I fall asleep deeply after they got off because of there were more spaces. When the train about to arrive Milan, I woke up, ready to get off. But I didn't see my baggage.

I looked around, I couldn't believe my eyes. Someone stole my baggage!! The whole bag was gone!!! The first thing came to my mind was, I can not go back to New York. My passport is in that bag!

The couple who sat next to me told me their money got stolen as well. so three of us went to the police station in the train station, asked for helps. The polices can not speak English, the Italian couple explained what happed to me to the police. The police told me, there's nothing they can do for me, the embassies are all closed on weekend. This is different than what I pictured! What I pictured was, I will be seating in a room in the police office, and people from my embassy ( if there's one ) will come to pick me up and comfort me, and tell me they will take care of everything.

So I went to the hostel I book in advance, at least I can use internet to get helps. I sent out mails to my parents to change my flight schedule, to my friend in NY to contact with my bank to release my credit card, to NYU for new i-20 form, etc. I was really exhausted after I contacted all the people I think I can get helps from, I was really freaked out. I didn't know what I can do other than wait for the replies. I can't get any information because of the weekend. I think that was the longest weekend in my life.

links for 2008-08-29

Swerdloff — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 00:32:10 +0000

[ timebeat ]

An interesting meditation on time. Very pretty.

(tags: design cool inspiration)

Interactive Shade

minsooFrame — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 17:08:17 +0000

The INTERACTIVE SHADE project was started with three objectives in mind for the public square space. The first was to enable citizens to use the space more intimately(when sunny and rainnyday). The second was enabling the space to hold hundreds of different programs efficiently and flexibly. And the last was to reduce the loss of time and finances that occur whenever event programs switch.
I suggested the utilization of intelligent fabric structures, as in combining the preexisting Tent structure with the interactive mechanisms such as the Auto-Folded umbrella structure, the Interactive Pole and the Panel-Link system. This sustainable shelter structure would exceed the limit of simple mechanism from the old tent structure, which is not changeable or flexible. Also, it can make the composition of the plaza space more functional and dynamic.

Socialbomb: level up!

mike. — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 16:45:44 +0000

Hey, remember when I used to blog about what I was doing? Man, that was a fun time.

A lot has happened since Stern, including finishing my thesis, graduating, and turning Socialbomb into a real company. I’ll be writing about all that relatively soon, so expect updates (finally).

Meantime, I should mention that Socialbomb now has offices on 23rd St. in NYC (overlooking the Shake Shack line!), which makes us like 57% more believable as a company.

Also, I’m super-stoked to say I’ll be coming back to ITP as a Resident Researcher this year. I’m planning on working on a pile of urban-, music- and sustainability-focused projects, so hopefully I’ll have lots more to say in a bit.

So, many good things in the works, very little time to talk about it, and more entries coming soon.

Back in NYC

Alex Reeder — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 13:13:59 +0000

Back in NYC!

After three months in Tokyo, it is time to dig in and get to work...

-- Fri, 29 Aug 2008 09:13 -0400

Learning Processing Available Now

Daniel — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 03:18:30 +0000

Just a quick note to let you know that my book, Learning Processing, is now available for purchase. If you are local to NYC, you can buy the book at the NYU bookstore.

Amazon says “out of stock”, but I’m told by the publisher that this is an error and they do, in fact, have copies. Also, at $37.00, this seems to be the cheapest option online that I can find.

All the example code will be available live online at learningprocessing.com by early next week. Feel free to contact me with comments, questions, feedback!

Who is this book for? Check out my earlier post.

some sonus

Adam Nash — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 03:13:59 +0000

sonus_sketches

Solar Tree Concept is catching on!

Oscar G. Torres — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 20:56:09 +0000

Vivien Muller came up with a tree design to harvest the sun just like my tree concept, Helios: The Power tree.

PhotonSynthese is a small little tree that can charge your gadgets just like the Helios. But thats about all it does. It is built of 52 mini PV solar cells, so it should get around a quarter of a watt of electricity.

This is a good wake up call to put the Helios production on high gear!
Here is the article that Mike Rosenthal sent me about the tree: Photosynthesis Solar Tree Concept Is the World’s Best Looking Solar Gadget Charger

MCAF Grant!!!

Pravin — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 17:16:49 +0000

I have received an Manhattan Community Arts Fund grant from the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council to finish my concept work REDACTED. Check out the beta version here: http://pravinsathe.com/redacted

The project will launch in December '08!

Mike Anderson Website Launches

Pravin — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 16:42:55 +0000

The website of ACD/Art Director Mike Anderson has launched. Built with a mySQL backend and with standards compliant CSS, it showcases the video and print work of Mike. Check it out at http://mikesbookandreel.com.

Gorki Aguila

Admin — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 01:57:06 +0000

Cuba to put anti-Castro punk rocker Gorki Aguila on trial

Miami Herald, August 27, 2008

By Frances Robles