July 11, 2008

support creative commons

by participating in this polish study about flickr here.

[thanks boing boing]

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June 11, 2007

alter ego

alter-ego.jpg

this is a cool book juxtaposing in-game avatars with their human counterparts. it seems both totally obvious and completely surprising.

[thanks ]

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May 14, 2007

sxsw panel ratings

I didn't post this earlier but the ratings are up for the sxsw panel, sex and computational technology, i was on. we scored a 4.62/5 and were the 12th highest rated panel [out of about 100]. woot!

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April 18, 2007

links you've been missing

here are a bunch of links pertaining to one of my projects, undersound as well as more general urban/representational stuff that i'm working on for my dissertation.


interfaces for public transport:
engaging bus shelters
oy! an oyster card game
S.U.I., smart urban intelligence based on suica cards
nyc subway smell map
overheard on the underground
scratch and sniff ads are banned in SF bus shelters


interfaces for sound:
sonic graffiti
stint an emobodied music sharing project from Alexandra Deschamps-Sonsino
volume over lumen is a communication interface
mystrands does music recommendation mapping
bill to ban iPods in Albany crosswalks


interfaces for bluetooth:
imity is a bluetooth-enabled social network
echo is a robot which embodies online social networks
bluetooth ads are invading our phones


representations of and interfaces for urban spaces:
realtime rome
cityscape rugs
SuckUK tube map wallet
resistant maps took place in genova in 2006
aphrodite project platform shoes
googleplex display of queries round the world


misc:
nicoline van harskamp studies security guards
Cayetano Ferrer's transparent street signs of chicago
the aymara have an interesting way of talking about time
suburban sprawl making us chunky?
coconut couriers keep things moving
why websites are like games

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bruce shneier shirt

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this is so stupid but it made me laugh guiltily. more than once.

buy it here.

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June 09, 2006

internets 1, hollywood 0

there's a story on the bbc site today highlighting a debate between mpaa president bill glickman and eff [electronic fronteir foundation] co-founder / grateful dead lyricist john perry barlow. why do the people from the industry sound like such idiots all the time:

It is ridiculous to believe that you can give product away for free and be more successful. I mean it defies the laws of nature. Would a clothing store give all their clothes for free? Would a car dealership give all its cars for free? Of course not. If they don't make a profit in this world they're out of business. That's just the laws of human nature.
capitalism obviously is human nature, face it. *cry*

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June 08, 2006

plug in to pepsi

pepsi_ad.jpg

bbdo of canada has created the above ad for pepsi. it has a fully funtional headphone jack in it, and when you plug in you get to hear samples of tracks available only at pepsiaccess.ca. they are up and running in toronto and vancouver right now. of course i'm interested in anything where public transit and music collide...

[thanks engadget]

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June 07, 2006

babies heart satan

need i say more? ;]

[thanks boing boing]

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the ark of the covenant

raiders_of_the_lost_ark_1.jpg raiders_of_the_lost_ark_2.gif


this article from the fortean times was awesome. it's a conjecture about what the ark of the covenant might actually have been - a super fancy leyden jar. really cool stuff.

Continue reading "the ark of the covenant" »

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June 03, 2006

jetblue gets the internets

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jetblue won a license to offer high-speed internet on their aircrafts yesterday. jetblue flies direct from long beach to boston which is great for me, and we already have wireless at the long beach airport. airlines like jetblue are super convenient and actually seem to attract customer loyalty considerably more than a lot of the "established" companies; they definitely have my vote. but i'm wondering a] is it going to be free and b] are they going to ban skype? heh.

[thanks gizmodo]

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May 15, 2006

ray bradbury says la needs monorails

monorail.jpg

doesn't it though?
check out the full article from the la times after the jump.

[thanks boingboing]

Continue reading "ray bradbury says la needs monorails" »

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painting rooftops

paintedroofs.jpg

it's not a completely new phenomenon - painting the rooftops of buildings to advertise to the skies. typically you find these places around airports, creating advertising for a nicely targetted crowd. however, apparently people have been seeing these things on google earth that aren't really close to any airports. this has all sorts of interesting implications for the evolving ways of navigating through and seeing, in both the literal and nonliteral sense, our landscapes.

[thanks boingboing]

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May 08, 2006

cellphones and subway flashers

a while back the associated press had a story about a 15 year old girl who snapped a photo of a subway flasher [his face, mind you] with her cameraphone and turned it over to the police. nice to see ubicomp appropriated for some good.

[thanks gizmodo]

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April 20, 2006

rfid software provider
[supply insight] + my dad

my daddy is in the news. he is the new CEO of a company called supply insight which developed a distributed RFID framework. yay :]

Continue reading "rfid software provider
[supply insight] + my dad" »

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November 01, 2005

GAYmobile

GAYmobile.JPG

a new cell company is being launched in denmark called GAYmobile.
the flagship product? why of course it's called HOMOBIL.

at last... seperate but equal cell phone service. ;]

[thanks engadget]

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August 18, 2005

riaa powerpoint

riaa-narm.gif

if you seriously have "we are morally right" in your powerpoint presentation...
oh just kill me now.

[thanks boing boing]

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August 14, 2005

logan airport, wifi haters.

logan airport [of boston] is trying to put the kibosh on free wifi. check out the story on cnet. this is completely ridiculous. not only should i have to pay $63 dollars for a cup of coffee, but now if continental airlines wants to offer up free wifi [albeit in their frequent flyer lounge which i'm sure i'll never visit] the fine folks at massport are trying to stop them. they'd prefer i pony up 8 bucks for their "reasonably priced" service. shame on you, logan. shame.

[thanks boing boing]

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August 13, 2005

saudi youth + bluetooth

the AP has got a cool story about how saudi youth have coopted bluetooth for some less than acceptable: flirting.

But for many Saudi youths, who have almost nowhere to meet members of the opposite sex, the technology is a godsend. It is replacing a favorite method of flirting: throwing phone numbers at women through car windows or in shopping malls.

[thanks boing boing]

Continue reading "saudi youth + bluetooth" »

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July 22, 2005

entertainment ratings safety board says more violence less sex

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the ersb has rescinded its rating for grand theft auto: san andreas and advised retailers to stop selling the game. now, we all know gta is full of violence and debauchery already. but what's the problem? a mod [hot coffee] lets you unlock secret sex scenes which may damage your sensitive hacker mind. secret weapons which allow you to torture the other characters more violently [is that even possible?], now that, that would be fine. but sex, sex?!?!? you ought to be ashamed of yourself.

[thanks /.]

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scigen makes it to orlando

although you've probably heard about scigen already [if you are uberleet that is], what you may not know is that they actually went down to orlando to present along side WMSCI. they randomly generated the slides for their talk and did not give them a once over before presenting. but isn't that basically what we all do anyway? ahem. my advisor is not reading that... anyway, go and check out the video, it's hilarious. "and in doing so, it prevents the world wide web..."

[thanks boing boing]

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July 19, 2005

former bush offical to sport ye olde mark of the beast

the former health and human services secretary [yeah health, *snort*], tommy thompson, is going to get himself an rfid implant. way to go tommy! why would he do such a thing? because he's on the board of applied digital which owns the makers of said implant, verichip, duh. tommy plans on becoming a robot and joining the destructocons later this year.

[thanks boing boing]

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July 06, 2005

wardriving: now a crime?

the hard-hitting st. petersburg times [of florida] is reporting that a man was arrested for "illegally accessing" and "hacking into" someone's network [full article after the jump]. while sitting in his vehicle outside the man's house [on public property] he used the network, which was completely open and not encrypted. the owner of the network admitted he knew how to secure it but hadn't bothered. now i am sorry, but even if he was downloading pr0n or posting tips to terrorists this is not illegal. of course ISPs would like to make it be. but plain and simple that's like saying a neighbor who catches a glimpse of what's on someone's television set while passing by their window is a thief. we need to get this straight, america. otherwise i'm gonna go and sue someone for having their wifi access extend onto my private property and claim i'm getting cancer and start wearing a foil hat. wise up.

[thanks /.]

Continue reading "wardriving: now a crime?" »

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May 16, 2005

grad hat mod

this kid modded out his graduation cap. check out the video. hah.

[thanks gizmodo]

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May 09, 2005

python challenge

take the python challenge! no, not wrestling with a dangerous reptile. solving riddles using python scripts. it's brilliant, seriously.

[thanks meme pool]

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February 28, 2005

paris h[axxored]ilton

i always say that americans tend to place more value on big-giant-safety-ensuring-machines than on the human aspect of security, and once again that holds true. so for all of you out there here is social engineering defense 101:


  1. if you are a celebrity

  2. if you flaunt your sidekick like you flaunt your...

  3. if everyone knows the name of your dog because you flaunt her like you flaunt your...

DO NOT HAVE THE SECURITY QUESTION FOR YOUR T-MOBILE LOGIN IN BE "WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE PET'S NAME?"

it's just that simple. most of the news coverage about this has been along the lines of "hackers are everywhere! beware!" but, the o'reilly network tells it like it is. instead of attacking the technology, maybe we need to start taking a look at the users. PEBKAC!

[thanks engadget]

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lego love

lego and ipod? it's just all too much! from podbrix.

[thanks core77]

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February 24, 2005

pimp my ride: combining car mods with d&d

it is so cool to take you love of dungeons & dragons and merge it with your stick shift. it really is.

[thanks gizmodo]

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February 23, 2005

computers + nudity: only in the czech republic!

okay, probably not -only- in the czech republic. but who else could do it so well? a bunch of students from a technical secondary school there compiled their [apparently] traditional tableau of graduation photos but added a special twist. posing naked with bits of hardware tastefully covering there, well... bits. you can check the photos out at their original location but since they are getting hammered for bandwidth best to check them out at drunken blog instead. take note that women continue to be woefully underrepresented in the technical fields. girls, take of your knickers and throw on a hard drive ;]

oh these aren't particularly safe for work [depends where you work though eh?].

[thanks drunken blog]

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computers made of chickens

this is no joke, richard wool [no puns please], a chemical engineering prof at the university of delaware, proposes to use chicken feathers to manufacture circuit boards.

Circuit boards are typically made of an epoxy-fiberglass composite, Wool said, which is then printed with wires and circuits. Wool envisions using soybean oil to replace the epoxy and chicken feathers to replace the fiberglass, creating a healthier composite for the environment.
you can check out the full story in wired. for yourself. i'm all for renewable resources, and apparently the discarded feathers are usually used for cattle feed [don't get me started...] so i guess this is a better use for them. but, wouldn't that make my computer un-vegetarian? what is a girl to do.

[thanks we make money not art]

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February 06, 2005

boston's south station is the vulnerablest

all you leet haxxors back home take note: e-walking into south station's wireless network is easy as pie. think computer has a great little white paper on just how wide open the network of the largest transportation hub in boston is. not only can you access the network itself, but you can get yourself onto 25+ other networks around the city without paying a dime! act now, because i'm sure this is a limited time offer ;]

[thanks /.]

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January 26, 2005

the birth of mac

the machintosh was born before my little brother [sorry jon, it's true]. it was one of the first computers i ever used and now we can all finally relive it's debut. awesome.

fitting that it was preserved on a betamax tape isn't it?

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