An inspiring day yesterday at Open Mobile Camp 09, particularly meeting the team from Trinity College working on the POSIT system under HFOSS.
The Humanitarian FOSS Project - Home
Having seen how difficult it can be to set up the (supposedly easy) screen sharing of Macs, I wonder if this is good enough to pay $600 a year.
Zero-Config Remote Access, Screen Sharing, and Diagnostics for Mac OS X and Windows - Home
Looks like a great resource for our Girl-E class this fall.
Teaching Geometry with Google SketchUp
Considering using Unity to begin working on realtime dome displays, using Paul Bourke's technique.
I thought I had blogged this already. The folks at Pachube released their pachube2sketchup plugin this summer. I promised Usman I would try it out. Will soon.
Pachube :: blog: Pachube2SketchUp: realtime sensor data in SketchUp
How to set up Ubuntu Linux on a Mac -- it's easy and free
I just finished "Red Mars" by Kim Stanley Robinson. In it, prospective Mars colonists are run through tests to see if they are stable enough to go. Of course, they have to be crazy to want to go there for the rest of their lives. But they do a good job of faking it.
Op-Ed Contributor - A One-Way Ticket to Mars - NYTimes.com
For a trailer 2 years older, but yes, I am considering doing it myself. Why do you ask?
Other good restoration tips on this site as well.
For Kent.
RIM BlackBerry Desktop Manager for Mac (v1.0.0) leaks | Software | iPhone Central | Macworld
Why don't we do it in the dome...
MxM talk: Manuel Lima on data visualization on Vimeo
One of my least favorite part-time jobs. I may need this for reference.
Ten good things about Snow Leopard for IT admins | Business Center | Macworld
MacMod - Connecting Smart Mac Users - M3 - Mobile Mac Mini
OK, so I like the Sparky robot concept (Mac mini based telepresence) but I want to use iChat, the Arduino and better motors. One piece of the puzzle is replacing the Make controller board and the code that goes between it and Skype. Here's a hunt for hints.
Arduino Forum - Arduino Applescript quick fix...
todbot blog » Blog Archive » Arduino-serial: C code to talk to Arduino
scie.nti.st » 1 Minute Post: AIM Bot in Ruby
One comment on this post:
"This is a great library. I have used it to send messages to an Arduino using ruby to listen to AIM and then send messages over a serial connection, again using ruby, to the Arduino and then display the message on an LCD and control various external devices. Much fun."
Good solid base, but I think I'd use the Mac Mini instead of the board they use here.
WiFi Robot Platform Design Instructions - roboteq.com
Good pointers to suppliers:
Another Hilary suggestion. Tell a story in 3D and learn programming basics.
Snap together programming interface for kids. Suggested by Hilary at NYC Resistor tonight.
Scratch | Home | imagine, program, share
More than you'll want to know. But that's good.
Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard: the Ars Technica review - Ars Technica
Arduino compatible with ARM processor.
Maple Prototype « Leaf Development Blog
Apple updates Remote Desktop admin, client software | Networking | Macworld
Best Science Visualization Videos of 2009 | Wired Science | Wired.com
Study says that while American students are taught science and some math, technology and engineering are being slighted.
Top News - Momentum building on STEM education
They've been busy for 10 years, and they are all here.
Simple hardware, takes a bit of hacking. I may return to this.
V-USB - A Firmware-Only USB Driver for Atmel(r) AVR(r) Microcontrollers
SparkFun Electronics - AVR Stick
Hey, why not?
Hacking Roomba » DIY Robotics with Roomba Holiday Buying Guide
Interesting to see where my interests lie on the roller coaster.
Gartner Hype Cycle 2009: Web 2.0 Trending Up, Twitter Down
YouTube - Pachube.com: augmented reality demo
This fall's project with the girls?
Meet Sparky, the DIY Mac mini telepresence robot
Slashdot Entertainment Story | Charlie Stross, Paul Krugman Discuss the Future
Want one.
New Use for Your iPhone: Controlling Drones | Danger Room | Wired.com
I have to revisit my Arduino projects. This guy has a great Arduino/Xbee hack going. Think I'll follow his progress.
From Memo Akten.
Create Digital Motion » Trick Out Your PS3 Eye Webcam, Best Cam for Vision, Augmented Reality
Four remote cameras at the same time.
iCam brings video from home to the iPhone
From the Google Sketchup list, an email from Steve Meier that includes links and tips for taking a Sketchup model and unfolding it, either to print the designs or to create papercraft models. His email is below (click More).
http://www.phlatforum.com/viewforum.php?f=52
View the videos by Crash, kram242 and AnyAirRc of them using SketchUp
to create 3D models of aircraft, then unfolding the model to have flat parts to print as patterns to cut out the actually flying RC model airplane.
http://www.phlatforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=95
Must have Sketchup Scripts/Plugins - these are used in the above videos.
Examples: jf_unfoldtool.rb, progressbar.rb, weld.rb, repair_broken_lines.rb, Slicer3.rb
http://www.phlatforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=98
skin25.zip
http://www.phlatforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=94&t=987
Converting your SketchUp plan to PDF video tutorial by 3DMON on Fri Jul 24, 2009 2:16 pm
http://www.foamcasualty.com/cad.shtml
SketchUp screenshots of F6F Hellcat and FW-190 unfolded, ready to print.
http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=920416
This thread is "Using google Sketchup for modeling... With practical examples". It explains how to import a 3-view, create the SketchUp drawing, and how to print it out to scale.
http://www.tamasoft.co.jp/pepakura-en/
Export your SketchUp model as a Google Earth .KMZ file. Pepakura Designer v3 will open that. Then just click the Unfold button. Unregistered Pepakura Designer has "Save" disabled, but you can print the patterns using a PDF virtual printer (CutePDF, PrimoPDF, et al).
Search for "Papercraft SketchUp Unfold" and you will find many tutorials on how to unfold models. You will be able to print 1:1 scale patterns to the PDF file. You can add graphics to your bike by opening the PDF in Inkscape (free).
Installation - wave-protocol - Installation Instructions - Project Hosting on Google Code
Yes, lots of ways to do it, unless Time Warner blocks you (as appears to be the case in the one I've been struggling with).
Add more power to 10.5's screen sharing | Utilities | Mac OS X Hints | Macworld
ScreenSharingMenulet makes quick work of Screen Sharing Review | Networking | Mac Gems | Macworld
Not mine, but inspiration.
Behold! My Mac mini media center
Uses the Collada file that is in the KMZ. Looks good for leveraging the ease of modeling in Sketchup.
alexvaqp - From SketchUp to Blender
Two sources I've found:
and Little Bird Electronics
Make: Online : Arduino wifi shield
Andy’s Life » Basic Environment Monitoring using Arduino and Pachube
How To: Building Your Own Render Farm : Introduction - Review Tom's Hardware
Doing it with Xserves:
Apple Qmaster Render Farm Setup | Geekzine.org
Paul Bourke's work continues to amaze. Here he shows some 360 degree fisheye views.
A useful note on his "normal" technique:
> I have to photograph the inside of a building and recreate this in a fulldome master so it looks like we are standing inside the building.
> would I be better using something like stitcher to create a cubic image and then compositing this in after effects with a fulldome plugin or is it better to create a spherical stitched panorama and possibly convert this to a circle in photoshop?
In general I prefer spherical panos, generally assembled using AutoPano Pro using either lots of standard camera shots from really high resolution, or 3 fisheye shots. Then I have personal tools to directly create fisheyes from that, but you can equally apply the spherical pano to a sphere in your favourite 3D package and render fisheye views. I'm sure there are lots of other ways also. The Frozen show by Peter Morse used this technique
http://vimeo.com/groups/fulldome/videos/1618365
Tom Casey's approach:
A more straightforward approach would be to use a fisheye lens to get the fulldome circle directly. There is a technical paper on how to do this from a session at the last IPS conference here...
http://www.homerunpictures.com/fulldome/Digital_Image_Capture_for_the_Planetarium.pdf
You might also try doing this as a high dynamic range image, taking the various range of exposures and then combining in Photoshop to get more detail across the interior's brightness range... since interior images tend to be low on contrast.
Matthew Mascheri's suggestions:
Paul and Tom are putting you on the right track. Here are just my two cents on this as well. We shoot 3 fisheyes and stitch them in PTGui. When shooting, shoot in RAW and bracketed for high dynamic range (HDR). This will give you the best look on the dome, as you can combine the exposures, and even tone map to bring out some of the details. You can do this in either PTGui or Photomatix. Once you get your equirectangular image, you can map it to a sphere in your 3D application of choice and render away.
There are some examples of our technique (for both real-time and pre-rendered) on our website http://www.Dome3D.com in the FullSphere™
Gallery.
And a link to other great images.
Flickriver: Most interesting photos tagged with hugin
BBC NEWS | Science & Environment | Most complete Earth map published
ASTER Global Digital Elevation Map
Polyhedra - Wolfram Demonstrations Project
Studies to update and return to train frieight systems.
Aggies rethinking truck freight with electric train | Planetary Gear - CNET News
Back on the Sketchup track, to update the model.
Three tutorials on bringing CAD drawings into Sketchup, grouped together:
How to use SketchUp with CAD files to create structures | Wonder How To
Main Sketchup video site on YouTube:
YouTube - SketchUpVideo's Channel
And the YouTube site for "Sketchup for Dummies" - excellent.
YouTube - aidanchopra's Channel
An example of an embedded model - let's see how it works.
Lower Eastside Girls Club - Volumetric Model by DaveP - Google 3D Warehouse
Click and then drag side to side.
UPDATE: I had some issues with getting the embed to work and Google folks were quick with help. Here's their first response, which may help other users:
******
First off, there are some models that still don't load properly in the Google Earth Plugin. We're looking at those issues and hope to resolve them soon. Please post links to 3D Warehouse models where there are problems - in the group please! - so we can look at specific examples.
Secondly, the embed functionality has a bit of smarts in it that will intelligently revert embed types depending upon what's available. So if you ask for a Google Earth Plugin embed for a non-geo model, you'll get a 3D View. If you ask for a 3D View for a model where for some reason we don't have the generated images (as in the example posted above), we'll revert to the image type.
Finally, some sites don't allow embedding via the IFRAME technique. Google Sites is an example. In this case, you'll need to create a Google Gadget to do the embed. I slapped something together that I'm happy to share in a thread on the group.
*******
Another version, without as many neighboring buildings:
Put any Google 3D Warehouse model in a webpage. Upload a Sketchup model to the Warehouse and place in a page.
Good tool for 3D blogging in a visualization class. Hmmm...
Official Google SketchUp Blog: Take your 3D with you
An old standby, now for Leopard. It costs, but the free solutions we have tried won't work.
Netopia Timbuktu® Pro For Mac OS - Remote Control Desktop for Mac - Remote Computer Access
For remote screensharing. Other approaches.
BTMM
Mac OS X 10.5: About Back to My Mac security
SSH
macosxhints.com - 10.5: How to use screen sharing remotely and securely
I read John August's "The Variant" last week, a first for self-publishing on Kindle. In this post he tells how to format your work for Kindle.
johnaugust.com » Kindle formatting for web geeks
In some cases may equal most useful.
Top 18 most downloaded WordPress plugins ever
Mapping - Links to sites from presentations at the recent Where2.0 conference. One guy's notes, well done.
Hairyegg's where2009 Bookmarks on Delicious
Easy tool for doodling on Google Maps.
quikmaps.com :: maps for the masses
Share your location publicly on a blog or web site. Interesting (like most of this location-aware stuff) and profoundly creepy.
Google includes this warning on the page:
Privacy Notice
You may choose to share only your city-level location or the best available one.
If enabled, your location will be publicly available to everyone. You will not be able to limit where and with whom you share your location through the badge.
Presentation Zen: Making presentations in the TED style
The TED Commandments:
# Thou Shalt Not Simply Trot Out thy Usual Shtick.
# Thou Shalt Dream a Great Dream, or Show Forth a Wondrous New Thing, Or Share Something Thou Hast Never Shared Before.
# Thou Shalt Reveal thy Curiosity and Thy Passion.
# Thou Shalt Tell a Story.
# Thou Shalt Freely Comment on the Utterances of Other Speakers for the Sake of Blessed Connection and Exquisite Controversy.
# Thou Shalt Not Flaunt thine Ego. Be Thou Vulnerable. Speak of thy Failure as well as thy Success.
# Thou Shalt Not Sell from the Stage: Neither thy Company, thy Goods, thy Writings, nor thy Desperate need for Funding; Lest Thou be Cast Aside into Outer Darkness.
# Thou Shalt Remember all the while: Laughter is Good.
# Thou Shalt Not Read thy Speech.
# Thou Shalt Not Steal the Time of Them that Follow Thee.
Toronto teenager used Sketchup, tied for a NASA Grand Prize.
Official Google SketchUp Blog - Eric Yam is my new favorite SketchUpper
Good list of examples and demos.
27 Handy Javascript Techniques for Web Designer | Desizn Tech
These kids used parts from Ponoko but I could cut them on the NYC Resistor laser cutter!
Arduino Simple Walker | ArduinoFun.com
Take photos of a real object, and the website returns a 3D computer model.
Henry Hudson 400 | Amsterdam - New York | April - September 2009
FliPhone: R/C helicopter controlled by iPhone | DVICE
Hamachi on Mac OS X | Command-Tab
ExpanDrivel » hamachi os x startup boot configuration - The ExpanDrive Blog
Looks like it has to do with the Airport not being in Bridge mode. But still looking. Have to go out and connect by ethernet to test.
macosxhints.com - Another possible iChat fix for connection issues
No real answers here, but some ideas.
Homemade plastic recycling? [Archive] - CNCzone.com-The Ultimate Machinist Community
A commercial version.
Perpetua - Self-powered Wireless Sensors
I played with QR-codes in the workshop with Massimo a couple of weeks ago, but haven't cmbined them with AR or used them as fiducials. If all of this is mystifying, look at this for ideas of where it's leading.
Though mostly cosmetic, this app to customize DMG files could be useful - as in the DMG I put out this week.
DMG Canvas 1.0.8 Review | Utilities | Mac Gems | Macworld
At two ends of the scale but the same idea - 3D printing of real, useful objects.
MakerBot Industries: CupCake CNC
Using Xbees to control relays « adafruit industries blog
I've created a kit of elements to allow easy install of an Opensim server on Intel Macs. I'll keep the links here, and I'll update with any notes or improvements.
OpensimOSX kit version 1 (175mb DMG)
OpensimOSXkit Tutorial Document only
I've disabled comments here, but leave comments on the Maxping site where this is posted, and I'll check there.
Maxping - How-to install Opensim on Mac OSX -
You can teach an old dog new tricks. It just takes a while.
Two ways to turn shell scripts (series of commands in Terminal) into clickable apps:
Use Platypus to give it a Mac application wrapper.
Sveinbjorn Thordarson's Website - Platypus
Or just make the script itself double-clickable.
[HOWTO] open (Terminal) shell scripts by double-click - macosx.com
Official Google SketchUp Blog: Google puts 3D on the web, and it's no joke
Via Dan Shiffman, processing classes for audio and graphics.
Downloads - toxiclibs - Google Code
100mb/s for $11 a month.
Slashdot | Why Is Connectivity So Cheap In Stockholm?
Work by ITP researchers and others in sustainable use of technology.
Sustainable Interaction | Main / Papers
Sustainable interaction design | Sustainable Minds
Design For the Other 90% | Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum
Have to check this out. High-level futuristic mindgames. With scientists.
Welcome | The Signtific Lab | Massively Multiplayer Thought Experiments
The Web of Data: Creating Machine-Accessible Information - ReadWriteWeb
On the verge of comprehension.
Introduction to Open Source Scripting on Mac OS X
The Takeaway: Hackers play around with the next generation of technology
Necessary to run recent Opensim builds on Mac. The things I get myself into.
MySQL :: MySQL 5.1 Reference Manual :: 2.5 Installing MySQL on Mac OS X
Collecting some links:
Environment (IDE) \ Processing 1.0
Cheap servos, I learn, are designed only to swing a certain range of rotation, not to turn continuously like wheels. I'd heard of hacks to override this limit, but here's a good how-to from Tod Kurt, of Todbot.
todbot blog » Blog Archive » Tiny Servos as Continuous Rotation Gearmotors
This is a great simple LilyPad project. Looks like a winner for the first LilyPad project in the Girl-E class (Make Break and Burn).
Make: Online : CRAFT Video: LilyPad Arduino Bike Patch
Just ran into this as many others have. Some new computers in the office. Migration of files from old Emac to nice new iMac went fine except for Mail, due to this bug.
Apple - Support - Discussions - [SOLUTION] Mail does not quit or show old messages
I finally assembled a Tweet-a-Watt hack of the Kill-a-Watt power meter, which adds an Xbee chip transmitter, sending to a receiver on a laptop. In LadyAda's original tutorial, the data is sent to Google App Engine to provide web access and graphing. But I wanted to send it to Pachube.
Love the lazy web. Brian Naughton had already adapted the Python script to report to Pachube, and shared it with me. Now he has posted it.
UPDATE: I added back the Twitter code that Brian removed. So now there is a PachTweet-a-Watt version, that does both. It can be found here.
Ties it all together with effective stimulus plan.
Wonk Room » The Smart Grid And Cybersecurity
But...but...what about that 1984 Mac commercial? That was 25 years ago?
Big Brother! ActyMac DutyWatch spies on your employees
Part of the Arduino workshop - Massimo Banzi has created an OSC network in Processing that has as an input a QR-code reader on the iSight camera. It sends an OSC message of the text in the printed QR-Code. That processing code to come in an update
OK, I am at my geek limit running a python script from Terminal for the TweetaWatt hack of the KillaWatt power meter. But if I decide to go all the way, I can turn that Terminal business into an OS X app and just double click it. I already struggled through the MacPorts install to get where I am.
Aral Balkan - How to make standalone OS X application bundles from PyQt apps using py2app
Keeping an eye on this - could be our first network storage.
DroboPro: Drobo bigger, better, rack-mounted and faster
Had to look for this how-to again. With 2 SXS cards in the Sony EX1, it is inevitable that you will get shots spanning the two cards. This shows how to deal with, and combine, those two incomplete files.
Transferring Video Files Spanning 2 cards in FCP! - The Digital Video Information Network
"The language added on March 30 to AT&T's wireless data service Terms and Conditions was done in error. It was brought to our attention and we have since removed it. We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused."
TUAW -- The Unofficial Apple Weblog
TOS changes to restrict use of its network. This means iPhone apps for accessing sensor nets.
As if things aren't bad enough... AT&T terms change targets Sling
Make: Online : Arduino MEGA video featuring Tom Igoe
Geeky. But I will no doubt need it for an in-world demo. So it's come to this.
Arduino Sketchup Model | Bussoli
I made some progress a year ago but this could be the refresher I need. If I were a coder...
iPhone Dev 101: Creating Xcode projects, brief Xcode UI overview
Thanks to Ben Combee who is contributing to the Arduino community by making it easier to use the "official" ethernet shield.
I was reminded of this great set of tutorials, combining Arduino with Processing.
arduino meets processing - PUSHBUTTON
More from my "if I were a coder" series. Memo makes it as easy as he can - no objective C programming.
Simple openFrameworks application on iPhone Sample 1 | memo.tv
Starting to get interesting here.
Real time application sharing for virtual meetings | CyberTech News
Like I said...
Built-in Obsolescence | Serial Consign
In case some iPhone dev should wander by here. We're not worthy...
Developing for iPhone using openFrameworks and ofxiPhone | memo.tv
Jeff Crouse » Archive » openFrameworks on iPhone
exploration » Blog Archive » openFrameworks iPhone libs
And the new v0.06 release, with iPhone support
Insights into the creation of two very different iPhone applications. Geeky but good reads on how they think. And coders are only human.
Official Google Mac Blog: Using Google APIs in an iPhone App
Strange but evocative 3D browser. Try it. Java download for all platforms.
If I were a coder...
REAS.com / Blog » Blog Archive » Twitch, Chrome Experiments Launch
And I didn't even have to pledge. Highly recommended - reread "The Difference Engine" by Sterling and Gibson.
Ada Lovelace Day - Bringing women in technology to the fore
The future. Live it or live with it.
More like Philip K. Dick every day.
Sensor networks and virtual worlds « No there there
No, I can't do this without help from a skilled hacker and yes, there is a method to my madness.
UPDATE: I underestimated my own persistence and the work that the realXtend developers have put into making it easy to install the server. See comments on the first link above. Give it a try - it's not too hard.
MORE UPDATE: This is actually an exercise in getting Sketchup into RealXtend. For Opensim, I found the Windows install very simple, the Mac install of latest builds next to unknown. In any case I will start leaving relevant links here:
The far out begins to be mainstream - GE has a demo also.
Official Google SketchUp Blog: Cool technologies to help visualize your models
A play to push more HD video on the web and trigger upgrades in the router business.
Why Cisco's Flipping Into Consumer Video - Forbes.com
Like it says:
Posterous - The place to post everything. Just email us. Dead simple blog by email.
Recommended by the hacker cognoscenti. Good enough for me.
Hakko 936-12 - ESD-Safe Soldering Station, 60W with C1148 Medium Soldering Iron
Nice gadget. Now who has the kits for us hobbyists?
Grand Idea Studio » Archive » Persistence of Vision Watch
Why I will wait until the building is built to figure out this part of the puzzle.
Cisco's expected server splash raises data center ruckus | Business Tech - CNET News
I found this last summer and passed it on to a producer friend moving to FCP. It includes two introductory videos for TV (read Avid) editors moving to Final Cut. Best tip - I looked again today for this - is
x o delete x i delete
what the instructor calls top and tail editing, perfect for today's "throw everything on the timeline and trim it into shape" style of editing.
Apple - Seminars Online - News and Sports Editing - Infinite Possibilities with Final Cut Pro
Can't help seeing this as the Usumacinta simulation I wanted to make a few years ago. No shipping there. But other things to note.
Naked Imagination · Visualizing live shipping data in OpenSim (Isle of Wight Ferries)
Visualizing Sensor With Arduino and Processing | uC Hobby
Brewster Kahle, archivist and idealist | The internet's librarian | The Economist
Wolfram Alpha is Coming -- and It Could be as Important as Google | Twine
Project to create global sensor network to monitor earth and climate.
:: Planetary Skin - Resources ::
Exhibit in September, NYC, featuring Usman Haque of Pachube.
Situated Technologies: Toward the Sentient City | Situated Technologies
Novel approaches to sequences of learning « John W Lewis
Nice CD wheels, paper driver.
Mr.Green (aka Bean) | Let's Make Robots!
The Green Home - Keeping Household Electronics Out of the Landfill - NYTimes.com
With ITP's help as usual. We begin the new "Make Break and Burn" class with a step towards robotics - our first servos.
Physical Computing at ITP | Labs / Servo Motor Control with an Arduino
And a great link on that page, to the Flying Pig animations of mechanical motion.
Tiny, Linux, USB and GigE.
Marvell: SheevaPlug Development Kit
Google LatLong: Explore more with User Photos in Street View
Very clear and well illustrated.
Living Architecture Spring 2009 Columbia: Tutorial 2: Pachube.com
Living Architecture Spring 2009 Columbia: Tutorial 3: Ethernet Shield and Twitter.com
(Tutorials are images - click on them to enlarge)
Oh, the Arduino geeks are going to be happy campers. A version of the hacker standard with many more I/O lines - 42 in all - and double the program memory.
via Bre on Twitter
Using an Express Card adapter. Much cheaper than Sony's cards, but no 60fps overcranking (as in this clip).
Hyper Link: SD Cards in the Sony EX-1
Super simple intro to controlling servos with Arduino. Step one towards Girl-E.
MAKE: Blog: How-To Tuesday: Arduino 101 potentiometers and servos
[HRC33322S] Hitec HS-322HD Standard Heavy Duty Servo
Must be seen to be believed. Mouse over the chart and have your mind grown.
A Periodic Table of Visualization Methods
Oceans, historical imagery, narration recording on tours and fly-throughs.
Record in 35mb/s Quicktime directly to SXS or SDHC cards.
JVC introduces new solid-state camcorders
More on this storage device.
Working with a robot: Drobo in action - The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)
Okay it's getting out of hand now.
Spime Watch: Pachube Wranglers | Beyond the Beyond from Wired.com
Interesting insights from Usman, who is insanely responsive to user queries. Still having fun with this.
Pachube, Patching the Planet: Interview with Usman Haque | UgoTrade
If you say so. Window into their world.
Installs in Firefox. via Bre.
Wikipedia - Grey Lady | userstyles.org
In the smallest alpha test on record, one other person and I tested the pachtweet app for Pachube. Setting graphed values and text through Twitter. Will be released this week. I'm a tweeting fool.
pachube :: connecting environments, patching the planet - C4C Pachtweet test
Profoundly silly, but a good first project for the class to use a servo.
Easy DIY Home Automation (using servo switches)
New staff find White House in tech Dark Ages - Washington Post- msnbc.com
New York Times' blog on their own development efforts.
Code - Open Blog - NYTimes.com
Looking for a procedure to combine clips that were recorded across two cards, I found this. Still haven't been able to download the new version of XDCAM Transfer utility, but I'll keep trying. UPDATE: version I have (2.1) does the trick.
Apple - Support - Discussions - Sony XDCAM EX import Workflow ...
Guess I'm not the only one who's a bit confused.
Twitter Blog: How @replies work on Twitter (and how they might)
I started writing a tutorial this morning on using Arduino and the Danger Shield to connect to Pachube. Zach "Hoeken" Smith, the designer of the Danger Shield (multiple sliders, sensors and displays for Arduino) invited me to add it to his site. Still in progress but it might help some folks get started.
ZachHoeken.com: Connecting To The World with Danger Shield
Pachube, the online sensor database repository, continues to make it easier to share and access data online. My only disappointment: The Pachube2Sketchup app is still "coming soon".
pachube.apps | connecting environments, patching the planet
We're recycling (repurposing) the plastic case.
A General Electric film, made in 1945, that is used in a least one Physical Computing class in college today. From the Prelinger Archives.
Internet Archive: Details: Principles of Electricity
It was fairly painless to set up the "official" Arduino ethernet shield following Usman's instructions on Pachube. This page allows remote control of Arduino outputs, if you have an account log-in:
Web page - Remote Control Arduino
Next step is a cheap webcam so I can confirm the control changes remotely. Fun.
Possible results of $30 billion invested in technology:
ITIF provides a detailed analysis and estimate of the short-term jobs impacts of spurring investment in three critical digital networks: broadband networks, the smart grid (making the electric distribution system intelligent) and health IT, and outlines policy steps to spur this investment.
Corny but cheap enough. It is a glorified music box that plays Scott Joplin's "The Pianist" among others. It hit the gadget blogs a couple of years ago and disappeared. But stupid.com still has stock - $12.99 each.
The Pianist - Robotic Piano Hand : Stupid.com
Digtal TV options for short distances.
Getting from here to there digitally
For the Blind, Technology Does What a Guide Dog Can't - NYTimes.com
Developing Assistive Technology » Assistive Tech Labs
For project X.
Testing, Testing, ChipCorder | Popular Science
Yes this site is becoming my scratchpad. Bear with me. You may need to know this some day.
PortForward.com - What is port forwarding?
Port Forwarding for the Broadnext BritePort 8120
People more obsessed than I am.
Energy.Techhouse.org - Energy Consumption
Nice simple circuit.
Instructables - Self Sufficient Arduino Board
For our OspreyCam. And maybe EastRiverCam
furious green cloud: Arduino Speaks to LANC Devices (Camera)
Goose's Tech Blog » Blog Archive » Zoomduino - Arduino Zoom Controller
The pan tilt servos:
Lynxmotion - Pan and Tilt Kit #RK-PT-200
Controlled like this:
Moving Servos with a SSC-32 and an Arduino - LearnHub
Plus some inspiration from this guy:
The Long Way Home: New Pan Tilt Head
Now let's do it over ethernet. And the Internet.
From the folks who brought you Arduino, a way to control your Mac with it.
Tinker it now! » Control your Mac from Arduino, the easy way
Earthcam and others.
dailywireless.org » New Year's Eve EarthCams
And about that new, LED ball they used:
Times Square Alliance - New Year's Eve - About The Ball
Working on the Lantronix Ethernet devices for Arduino.
code, circuits, & construction :: Sensorbase datalogger
And because that's the way I need it:
You go, geeks!
Urban Studies - For Geeks, a Frat House and Lab, All in One - NYTimes.com
More great documentation from NYU ITP. This is my holiday project.
Developing Assistive Technology » Processing Arduino/Accelerometer Serial Data
Libelium in Spain is defining this open sensor space and making a business out of it. Good overview here.
Wireless Sensor Networks Research Group - 802.15.4 vs ZigBee
Some links to answer the eternal backup question.
Q&A About Time Machine, Time Capsule, and Drobo From "News and Views from the Data Robotics Team"
Small design that includes Arduino, XBee socket, Li-Ion battery jack and USB charger for it. I'm jumping ahead in my understanding but had to try this.
SparkFun Electronics - Funnel IO
funnel.cc | Hardware / FIO (Funnel I/O)
Xbee Adapter - wireless Arduino programming
Arduino Forum - Yet another small size Arduino clone with XBee
Arduino Forum - Simple Xbee passthrough with SoftSerial
Photo textures on previously gray buildings. Above, First Street in the foreground. (Click for larger image)
Thanks Rob! I needed this a couple of weeks ago, when I struggled with the number 1 item on the list, then discovered I needed a Windows-only utility to upgrade the firmware.
Common XBee Mistakes at Rob Faludi
edge_of_the_emerald_city [kmlwiki.net]
An open wiki where anyone can easily post a Google Earth window and description.
Made by using DokuWiki with this plugin as described in this Ogle Earth post.
From the Xbee hive at ITP, of course.
MAKE: Blog: ITP show: Epimetheus, trees will tell you when they're on fire
This is two years old - I'll have to see if it has been updated:
This group sponsors high school scholars:
CENS: Center for Embedded Networked Sensing
And here's one of their associated projects, using Google Earth and multiple sensors, webcams, and overlays.
James Reserve - Data Management Systems
Then there's this page of hundreds of maritime maps using Google Maps, and Google Earth:
Google Ocean : marine data for Google Maps / Google Earth
Examples of using Sketchup in the new Google Earth browser feature.
sketchup package:http://earth-api-samples\.googlecode\.com - Google Code Search
Examples and demos of a variety of browser displays using the API (which is not really new - it's just finally available for OS X):
earth-api-samples - Google Code
Google Earth API Examples - Google Earth API - Google Code
Google Earth Plugin - Interactive Samples
And the most basic example, a variation on the classic Hello World:
Hello From the Lower Eastside!
A screengrab from Google Earth and a link to the 3D Warehouse model:
Lower Eastside Girls Club - Volumetric Model by DaveP - Google 3D Warehouse
And a webpage with embedded Google Earth player and Girls Club model (updated 12/20/2008):
Lower Eastside Girls Club Center for Community
Good resource for students of Processing, both enrolled and self-motivated.
We'll want sunlight controlled dimmers in the building if we want NYSERDA incentives for that energy saving addition. How would we do it off-the-shelf? How DIY?
Sensor Workshop at ITP | Reports / TAOSTSL 13 S
Arduino Forum - Programmable Thermostat, Light Dimmer System
Andrew Kilpatrick » Interfacing: AC Line
Still not sure I have a handle on the values on the y axis. I'll keep playing. Update: better now. Gnight.
Another update: adding the second graph. But ranges are screwy again.
12/18 Update: switched to new feed after mystery freeze up.
pachube.community | connecting environments, patching the planet
These guys are serious. Public libraries of printed circuit board designs, and all the information to use them and design your own. Thanks Sparkfun!
SFE Footprint Library Eagle - Open Circuits
SparkFun Electronics - Eagle Tutorial
Set UP eagle on mac os x - Fritzing
Finally.
Google Geo Developers Blog: Google Earth... in your browser... on your Mac!
The third part of the Arduino-Processing constellation. This is open source electronic design automation.
So, hardware/software/fabware.
Not quite Rudy Rucker's Software-Wetware-Freeware-Realware but it is a brave new world.
Official Google Mac Blog: Google Calendar now supports Apple iCal
And a free utility to make it even easier:
Calaboration 1.0.1 | Mac Gems | Macworld
First test graphs. The top two show a snapshot as of this post, using two sliders on an Arduino, as I tested, slept, tested again today including a flatline when I tried a software combination that did not work.
Update: I have reassigned the input sensors, from the sliders (which I was changing myself) to the light and temperature sensors on the shield. I may need to abandon this first feed at some point and start a new one to get a useful range on these new sensors.
At the link below you can see the updated sensor graphs on the Pachube (patchbay) website.
UPDATE: I deleted this feed and created a new one, to use update software on the site. See this post.
pachube :: connecting environments, patching the planet - C4C test feed
Free Web Plan Being Pushed by FCC Head - WSJ.com
You're Leaving a Digital Trail. What About Privacy? - NYTimes.com
"Pachube (pronounced “PATCH-bay”) is a Web service that lets people share real-time sensor data from anywhere in the world. With Pachube, one can combine and display sensor data, from the cost of energy in one location, to temperature and pollution monitoring, to data flowing from a buoy off the coast of Charleston, S.C., all creating an information-laden snapshot of the world."
And soon to come, a Sketchup plugin and data overlay on Google Earth. Oh boy.
The big picture:
Pachube @ Homecamp08 | Pachube - community
Weblog on all things show control, by the author of "Control Systems for Live Entertainment".
- John Huntington's Entertainment Technology Blog
Well, 340 degrees, in any case. On Coldplay's latest tour.
Coldplay PufferSpheres PufferFish Barco XL video Hippotizer - Total Production Magazine
Video:
Pufferfish :: :: Digital Spherical Displays :: News :: Coldplay
Now looking for Arduino-based building management systems (BMS).
pachube :: connecting environments, patching the planet - HDR Office sensors (low tech BMS)
Hobby Robotics » SHT15 Humidity and Temperature Sensor
That is, Direct Digital Control for the Lower Eastside Girls Club. The protocol that our mechanical engineer is using for environmental systems.
DDC Online - Direct Digital Controls
HVAC DDC Controls - Fan Powered VAV Boxes - Variable Air Volume Box
Start-up Meraki to sell solar-powered Wi-Fi gear | Wireless - CNET News
Digital Domain - The Forces Driving Women Out of Computer Science - NYTimes.com
Simple audio synthesizer, using a combination of triangle waves instead of harsh square waves. Based on Arduino of course.
Auduino - tinkerit - Google Code - Details of the Auduino synthesiser
And something else that popped up (both of these from members of the NYCResistor mailing list):
Build It. Share It. Profit. Can Open Source Hardware Work?
I'll need something like this in 2 years. Creating and deploying Mac images across the network - can't I just hire someone?
Freeware.
A month ago this would have meant nothing to me. But since I'm working through Tom Igoe's "Making Things Talk" book I see it now - tiny controllers around us, talking behind our backs. When they aren't busy telling me what I need to know.
Slashdot | World's Smallest IPv6 Stack By Cisco, Atmel, SICS
The Contiki Operating System - uIPv6: Contiki is IPv6 Ready
Found this while looking for something else, as usual.
Create Digital Motion - If M.C. Escher Did Augmented Reality: Julian Oliver's Levelhead
First of many, now that the NDA is lifted.
InformIT: iPhone Developer's Cookbook, The: Building Applications with the iPhone SDK - $25.59
Looks like the choice is the Sony SRX-R220 4K SXRD projector, among others.
Hollywood investing $1 billion in digital theater projectors | Gaming and Culture - CNET News
Still finding all the great work done by Rob Faludi, Dan Shiffman, Tom Igoe and their students at ITP. And thanks to our pal Marianne Petit who first mentioned Arduino to me and started all of this.
code, circuits, & construction :: XBee
Search Results for "Xbee" at Rob Faludi
XBee Programming Arduino Wirelessly
Indoor Micro-Energy Harvesting: complete & working « Raphael Zollinger
I'll collect a few here.
Learning \ Processing 1.0 (BETA)
Processing Workshop :: ACAD :: April 3-5 2008
Okay, I admit it - I'm trying to teach myself what those lucky kids at ITP are learning. They get to collaborate, I bang my head on the wall by myself. But some of it is getting through. They'll get through this class taught by Rob Faludi in one semester, I'll be struggling for years. But I'll get the tech girls to help, and some day we'll have a sunny room on Ave. D just for this.
Collaborative Mesh Networking: Syllabus
From Tom Igoe at ITP.
And a video from someone who did it:
MAKE: Blog: Fun with Xbee and Arduino
Open wireless sensor/bluetooth/WiFi mesh network. Is this the way to go?
SparkFun Electronics - Arduino XBee
Libelium Comunicaciones Distribuidas - SquidBee
RepRap is short for Replicating Rapid-prototyper. It is a practical self-copying 3D printer - a self-replicating machine.
Work produced for the 120X12 foot screen at the IAC headquarters building, designed by Frank Gehry.
The increasing deployment of sensors and hand-held electronics in recent years is allowing a new approach to the study of the built environment. The way we describe and understand cities is being radically transformed - alongside the tools we use to design them and impact on their physical structure. Studying these changes from a critical point of view and anticipating them is the goal of the SENSEable City Laboratory, a new research initiative at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
technology enhanced learning: Main/Multitouch Page
Finally. Enough with the social networks and ad models...
O'Reilly: Stop throwing sheep, do something worthy | The Social - CNET News
"(These are) pretty depressing times in a lot of ways," O'Reilly said in an address that first had looked like it would simply be a starry-eyed discussion of enterprise opportunities for Web 2.0. "And you have to conclude, if you look at the focus of a lot of what you call 'Web 2.0,' the relentless focus on advertising-based consumer models, lightweight applications, we may be living in somewhat of a bubble, and I'm not talking about an investment bubble. (It's) a reality bubble."
Slashdot | Stanford To Offer Free CS and Robotics Courses
From NYU's Interactive Telecommunications Department, tutorials for all things Arduino.
Physical Computing at ITP | Tutorials
Well, our webmaster pal uses it on his job and likes it. We'll try out the demo site and see if it's for us.
Live demos of Zimbra's open source email and group calendar software
Someday we'll have a girls club shop (or a corner somewhere) for DIY projects.
The Little Bird Electronics Network
Alberto Bietti's projects blog: Arduino Theremin
Adafruit Industries, Unique & fun DIY electronics and kits
leah buechley - do it yourself - make your own wearable LED display
leah buechley - LilyPad Arduino - introduction
SparkFun Electronics - LilyPad Starter Kit
SparkFun Electronics - Tutorials
For Halloween:
todbot blog » Spooky Projects - Introduction to Microcontrollers with Arduino
Another approach, going into servo motors:
todbot blog » Bionic Arduino - Introduction to Microcontrollers with Arduino
Look! No Arduino!
leah buechley - do it yourself - make your own electronic sewing kit
Great weblog by one of the programmers of Comic Life...
UI and us - User Interaction Reviews, News and Musings
...who I ran across in this demo of a neat Wiimote/Quartz Composer hack...
PixelCorps.tv - Wiimote Adaptation
...which is a Mac version of one of Johnny Chung Lee's famous Wiimote tricks.
YouTube - Head Tracking for Desktop VR Displays using the WiiRemote
Classic geeky hacks. But this Mac version only came out this summer, thanks in part to the good folks at kineme.net.
WiiMote Control Patch | Kineme
Still finding multitouch projects. We'll pick one to do at the Girls Club.
Instructables - Interactive Multitouch Display
YouTube - Low-Cost Multi-touch Whiteboard using the Wiimote
First one with an Ikea FTIR multitouch table wins...
ikea hacker: Ramvik TV and music console
ikea hacker: Marry a Powerbook with a Ramvik for an arcade cocktail cabinet
First the Sony point and shoot:
And the Nikon digital SLR:
State of the Art - New Nikon Holds a Secret - NYTimes.com
Test Drive: Nikon D90 S.L.R. - The New York Times > Personal Tech > Slide Show
Fun to look at the diagrams and the variety of home networks out there.
Post your network diagrams here.. - dslreports.com
This site has a wider variety - large networks, rack installations, etc.
In the U.S. Not saying much - French urban areas are 3X as fast, Japan much higher. And even in this study, New York is far down the list.
Slashdot | East Coast Broadband Fastest In USA
Through Eyebeam Atelier, a preassembled screen/camera/software combination FTIR multitouch system.
An iPhone application to provide a multitouch interface to OSC, Open Sound Control, "a modern networked cousin of MIDI." This post does not have a link to it in the App Store, but you can search for it there and find it.
One simple use is as a wireless controller for Garageband running on another computer. The link above shows how to use it that way, and with the cross platform audio software PureData.
Ping - Digital Designers Rediscover Their Hands - NYTimes.com
From the site:
Touché is a free, open-source tracking environment for FTIR-based multitouch tables.
FTIR stands for "frustrated total internal reflection".
The inventor/pioneer of FTIR, Jeff Han
Multi-Touch Interaction Research
Here's a guy who has built an FTIR table
Bridger's Multi-touch: Creating a New FTIR Frame
But here's someone who shows how to build it, and sells finished tables:
FTIR Multitouch and Display Device - Experiments with Processing, OSC - Thomas M. Brand
Because the cable operators and phone companies are focusing only on selling more expensive services to "more valuable" customers instead of making more affordable offerings.
Quote:
Twenty of the largest cable operators and phone companies in the U.S. only signed up about 887,000 new subscribers during the quarter, the Leichtman Research Group reported Monday.
Broadband growth plummets in Q2 | News - Digital Media - CNET News
Meanwhile, a new study finds New York City underserved:
More than 600,000 households in New York City have yet to connect to the Internet at high speeds.
Only 26% of low income households in the five boroughs have broadband, compared with 54% of moderate to high income homes, according to a recent study conducted by Diamond Management & Technology Consultants.
Well, as I have found, there is the DIY way, as done at Uinversity of Minnesota and Purdue:
Biology's Digital Sign Project - College of Science IT Wiki
One trick - Use Apple Remote Desktop to monitor, an Applescript to run the Keynote presentation.
Applescript Forums | MacScripter / Using Keynote as a Digital Sign / Kiosk
Depending on the display, you may need this:
And then there's the commercial way, just announced this summer:
Still looking for other options.
Just backed up the laptop, now desktop. Here's Apple's guide to restoring when the day comes.
Restoring files from a Time Capsule backup
Interesting feature in QC on Leopard - network patches. Can this be used to sychronize or control multiple flat screen displays? Answer - yes.
Miracle::Pixels: Quartz Composer
Miracle::Pixels: Synchronising playback in Quartz Composer 3
Leopard's Quartz Composer and Network events - Celso Martinho
One of our inspirations, and our thanks go out to one of our new advisers, Benjy Bernhardt.
Apple - Science - Profiles - American Museum of Natural History
A high bandwidth project based on HD interactive video conferencing.
UltraGrid: A High Definition Collaboratory
Clear presentation of the need for alternative sources of bandwidth.
Quote:
Just as the industrial revolution depended on oil and other energy sources, the information revolution is fueled by bandwidth. If we aren’t careful, we’re going to repeat the history of the oil industry by creating a bandwidth cartel.
Op-Ed Contributor - Why Bandwidth Is the Oil of the Information Economy - Op-Ed - NYTimes.com
Through the Quartz Composer work of Memo Akten:
Timestretching (Slit-scan) in Quartz Composer | memo.tv
I found this site:
An Informal Catalogue of Slit-Scan Video Artworks and Research - Golan Levin and Collaborators
Which included a link to this:
KHRONOS PROJECTOR - Alvaro Cassinelli
And this interactive sunset:
sketch_KHRONOS : Built with Processing
One of the best uses for the iPhone that I've found is storing and studying video tutorials. You will have to let the videos on the page below stream until completed, and you will need Quicktime Pro, but they are easily saved and loaded onto an iPhone or iPod.
Apple - Final Cut Studio 2 - Tutorials - Soundtrack Pro - Surround Sound Editing
Fascinating interviews with the Wall-E team give insights into their working methods and custom tools. The tool article dates back a few years but describes a simple and elegant collaborative system they devised for The Incredibles.
adaptive path » blog » Peter Merholz » Conversation with Michael B. Johnson of Pixar - Part 1
Animation World Magazine - Hello, WALL•E!: Pixar Reaches for the Stars
Animation World Magazine - Hello, WALL•E!: Pixar Reaches for the Stars
A "high performance exchange point in New York City" that I need to know more about. A presentation on Cinegrid at the Fulldome Summit led me to MAN LAN as the closest point that we might use to join in a high speed network of domes. Ask me about it in 2012.
Here's a video logging and annotating program that uses the MPEG-7 metadata standard to embed shot by shot information in the clip itself. I'm wondering if Final Cut Server has any of this capability.
Frameline 47 Features: Overview
Even crazy ideas have a pedigree. Here are some good photos of the StoryCorps Airstream trailer, one subliminal inspiration for our future podcasting studio. Ours will be funkier. Our trailer is about 30 years older.
StoryCorps Mobile StoryBooth in Indiana
A simple new app in the "Google Mac Playground", to record using the built-in camera on a Mac and upload to YouTube. Video diaries, comments, flames. Or carry your laptop around as our friend Barry does, to give a tour of your house.
Official Google Mac Blog: Vidnik
Obama losing white support? No.
Clinton losing black support? Precipitously.
The Field » Operation Anti-Chaos: The Narrative on White Voters Is Fiction
And uglier.
5 Minute, Dirt Cheap Multitouch Pad - HacknMod.com - Amazingly Cool Hacks, Mods, and Projects.
From Eyebeam in New York, a low cost Multitouch system. We'll do it. Yep.
GroundReport | Indiana | Candidates Help Indiana Newspapers Steal Live TV Market
Still in beta, but some amazing new features (like timelapse sunrise to sunset and full 3D building models) and a new interface.
Google LatLong: Introducing Google Earth 4.3
TechCrunch is usually a little too much insider talk on social network startups. But this quick guide to web video, with a focus on Blip.tv for distribution, is well done.
Google Maps YouTube Videos = Local Video White Pages
Seen first at NAB last year. Media asset management in a dark grey interface that was surprising when I saw it at NAB but makes sense if you are reviewing clips and thumbnails all day.
On the 40th anniversary of "2001: A Space Odyssey." via Daring Fireball
Movie City Indie: Throwing bones in the air as 2001 turns 40
An educational resource for teachers, but also a great collection of links and tutorials for anyone using GE.
Shared iCal server. Need it. May do it.
Free and geeky:
Macworld | Set up a free CalDAV server
Apple - Mac OS X Server - Features - iCal Server
$20 and just works:
BusySync - Sync iCal and Google Calendar - from BusyMac
Maybe they'll want to discuss our (future) vintage airstream podcasting studio.
Show Archive - The Vintage Airstream Podcast
And another thing
1958 - 1963 Overlander - Airstream Forums
I may not need this immediately - CBS News here wants footage of yesterday's press conference but may be able to convert it themselves. How to get quality output of standard definition from EX1 HD material.
Outputting Standard Definition in FCP from the Sony XDCam EX1
It's getting closer - only 6 or 7 blocks away from the new Girls Club site. Maybe by 2010, when we'll need it.
Fios envy in the Big Apple | Tech news blog - CNET News.com
Macworld | Survey finds gaps in U.S. broadband
Sixty-five million Americans depend on broadband services for work, education, entertainment and communications but many others have no access to broadband, Tellabs asserts.
The United States ranks 15th globally in broadband penetration measured against population, Tellabs says, citing data from the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development.
The company’s survey also found that 81 percent think America should use some of the current Universal Service Fund (USF) to expand rural broadband. USF is designed to fund telecommunications services in rural areas of the country.
It also found that 79 percent of respondents think where you live should not dictate broadband availability, and 77 percent believe economic status should not determine broadband availability.
100,000 downloads of iPhone SDK. All of Google's servers to play with. Every Mac geek running his iPhone batteries down, looking for an angry fix.
No wait, that's Allen Finsberg reading Howl
Maybe if I stay up all night it will come to me...
Official Google Mac Blog: New frontiers with Google Data APIs and Objective-C
gdata-objectivec-client - Google Code
You're HOME! The Bowery Poetry Club
Breaking: FCC Confirms that Big Winner in Spectrum Auction is Verizon. So Why Is Google Smiling?
The real winner here is Google precisely because it lost. Google committed to bidding the minimum $4.6 billion that would trigger open device and open application rules that it had lobbied for, but nobody seriously thought it actually wanted to win the auction. Building out and operating a wireless network is a much lower-margin business than search advertising, and even leasing out the spectrum would have been a distraction. But by putting its $4.6 billion on the table early, it was able to dictate the new rules of the game. Rules that Verizon is now stuck with. All Google really wants are broadband wireless networks that cannot discriminate against Google mobile apps or Android phones no matter who operates them.
From Intel. For rural areas.
Technology Review: Long-Distance Wi-Fi
I found the names of a couple of old colleagues in this post. Mark Miano are you out there?
Confessions of an Aca/Fan: From Serious Games to Serious Gaming (Part Five): iCue
OK, I'm psyched again. After the C4C (Center for Community) is built, I'll be the white-haired, white-bearded guy knocking on doors with little mesh boxes (see photo of Michael Burmeister-Brown in the next link).
dailywireless.org » The Open-Mesh Revolution
One developer already chafing under the restrictions Apple has built into the (beta) version of the SDK. The discussion in comments is smart and shows a variety of opinions out there.
Under The Microscope » Blog Archive » iPhone SDK Bug Filing
And voice. Ready for the TouchWall at the Girls Club in 2 years.
Coming Soon: Nothing Between You and Your Machine - New York Times
About as far from Macabilero as you can get. But with a giant new cell phone tower in La Tecnica, the Sierra del Lacandon may actually have coverage. Bizarre.
Apple Developer Connection - iPhone Dev Center - iPhone Developer Program
From Glenn Fleishman.
Macworld | Hands on with Time Capsule
The video-sharing site Vimeo has HD capability and excellent conversion into Flash. Better showcase than Youtube for this, and quicker playback than my own post of the video below.
And for other video shot with the same camera (Sony PMW-EX1) check this Vimeo channel.
A firehose of information from your neighborhood. Or at least from mine.
EveryBlock: A news feed for your block.
Value in an age of "free" content.
From the comments:
"The one thing that becomes increasingly less "free" as options for spending it increase, is our time."
Some of the solutions are too expensive, some impractical - 130 days to back up a terabyte - but this is a good survey of alternatives.
The Economics of Online Backup - Inside Lightroom
Free online seminar.
Apple - Seminars Online - Final Cut Studio Workflow with Sony XDCAM HD
So I can find this when I need it. I plan to backup and upgrade to Leopard this week.
James Duncan Davidson > Restoring from Time Machine
Via Daring Fireball
Mike Davidson - A Rookie Guide to Digital SLR Cameras
"There comes a time in every point-and-shooter’s life when he or she wonders if there is more to photography than a palm-sized block of aluminum stowed away in one’s pocket."
Edward Tufte, authority on visual information design, has an interesting video on where the iPhone got it right and where it still has room for improvement. And I'll bet that video plays great on the iPhone.
Ask E.T.: Interface design and the iPhone
How this guy found a different approach to reviewing the new Apple offerings is a mystery. Just smart, I guess.
In four parts. via Daring Fireball.
lonelysandwich - Part 1: MacBook Air
Google Maps - N.H. Primary results
Okay, I'm a fan. Isn't everyone?
Keys to the Kingdom: Entertainment & Culture: vanityfair.com
The story is set in 1957, and this time Dr. Jones goes up against cold-blooded, Cold War Russkies—led by Cate Blanchett in dominatrix mode—instead of the Nazis he squashed like bugs in previous installments.
Q&A: Steven Spielberg on Indiana Jones: Entertainment & Culture: vanityfair.com
Have your kids gone as far as to edit and add sound and things like that?
No, our kids don’t like to use the software, the tools. They pretty much do it the way I did it in 8-mm.: they cut in the camera.
Simplest tutorial ever, to learn how to create a Mac application.
Cocoa Dev Central: Learn Cocoa
iTunes feed, RSS feed, download. Fantastic resource.
School - Sketchup Podcasts, Videos, Education, News, Tutorials, and Classes
Hitting the wall. This is my New Year's resolution.
Too Much Information? Ignore It - New York Times
Google Public Policy Blog: Who's going to win the spectrum auction? Consumers.
Previously only available in Google Earth.
Google LatLong: Explore new terrain
Looking for possible shared spaces that are NOT Second Life. Here's one way to do it.
FUTURE-MAKING SERIOUS GAMES: MellaniuM: Serious Games Widening Your Horizons By Simulating The World
Google Street View Camera - Immersive Media - Spherical Video Applications - Popular Mechanics
Online virtual version of the maps exhibit at Field Museum.
Maps: Finding Our Place in the World
My weekend project.
How do I place a SketchUp model in Google Earth?
A brilliant cool day in San Francisco, and a woderful visit with friend Kate who has a new job at Google Earth Outreach. In the supporting materials for our efforts with Google Earth I found this great blog and blog post.
Google Earth Design: Top 10 Google Earth Bad Design Practices
Testing embedding a movie, recorded with Google Earth Pro, in a webpage. At present there is no way to put Google Earth directly in a page, since it is a separate application.
Here's the future location of Lower Eastside Girls Club. Just testing to see how we want to use Google Maps and Google Earth.
No I don't have one yet. But this is inspiring.
iPhone development with PHP and XML
I haven't confirmed that this works yet, but I may need it now that I am an overly equipped road warrior. Gotta get back on the river and leave it all behind.
forums.fibble.org :: View topic - HOWTO: Use your 8800 as a Bluetooth Modem with your Mac
I needed this to fix someone's laptop this week. Didn't forget my password. But I'll need this again sometime.
Mac Tip: Reset your lost OS X password - Lifehacker
On Jamma's recommendation I am looking into Wings3D. It does look like the easiest way to make sculpted prims.
SL Forums - Sculpty exporter for Wings 3D
With sculpted prims on their way in Second Life, this open source 3D modeling tool will attract many new users. I'll be one of them, if I find the time.
Tech Firms Push to Use TV Airwaves for Internet - washingtonpost.com
The Daily Graze » Blog Archive » The Magic of Streaming Video: Part 1
Official Linden Blog - Embracing the Inevitable
The Ultimate Distance Learning - New York Times
I passed most of the weekend happily procrastinating, learning what I could of the RSS/PHP/TeXML/SMIL/Quicktime connection. Here's one tutorial.
BU | WebCentral | Learning | SMIL | Overview
For the growing Spanish speaking contingent in Second Life.
MiOtraVida - Tu Segunda Vida en Español
Just another virtual spot I'm working on. Turning it over to TechSoup when they get to it - an info center for new SL arrivals. In the meantime, other NPOs can make kiosks there.
Lots of geeky do-it-yourself kits and gadgets.
MAKE: Blog: The Open Source Gift Guide: Open source hardware, software, and more for the holidays!
That's so ten days ago...
Second Life is a preview of the Internet of the future - Nov. 10, 2006
Thanks to Michael Silberman at EchoDitto, a pointer to this wrapup of online politics 2006.
This free program allows you to design, render and export RAW files for use as height field maps. For Second Life of course, though I haven't confirmed the settings needed.
And a tutorial that is a little sketchy but describes going from Photoshop to Terragen.
Ashundar Terragen Community - Raw Tutorial
Thanks to Ron for this one. Now we need to hook it up to SL.
Virtual Canoe stops short of simulating a soaking - SlashGear
From the socially engaged to the seriously geeky. I am starting to explore the Second Life / web connection in the LSL scripting language.
FROM SL TO WEB - This is the best beginning thread I have found:
SL Forums - How to use llHTTPRequest
FROM WEB TO SL
SL Forums - Query in-world object from the web?
Reference:
LSL Wiki : llHTTPRequest
A small place, near Techsoup, where SL residents can find out about the Girls Club. Thanks to Lori Bell of the Alliance Library System and everyone at Info Island.
SLurl: Lower Eastside Girls Club Kiosk, Second Life
On Info Island at Library 2.0, a multimedia exhibit about the Declaration of Independence. (And in other small news - the Lower Eastside Girls Club now has a kiosk on Info Island, thanks to help from Lori Bell. I'm pleased to have helped and to be around to see the evolution of the island)
Library of Congress Exhibit Now Open In Second Life on Flickr - Photo Sharing!
Library of Congress Exhibit Now Open In Second Life Library 2.0
I'm collecting resources for nonprofits in Second Life, for my own education and for TechSoup. Click More to see the links, which I will keep updating.
START HERE:
Second Life: Your World. Your Imagination.
Second Life | Membership Plans
Second Life | Land Pricing & Use Fees
ONCE YOU JOIN
Getting Started - NMC-Campus (overall guide to getting around in Second Life)
NEW USER TOUR HUD
Out to Pasture » Blog Archive » Second Life New User TourHUD
INFO ON NONPROFITS IN SL
Google Groups: TechSoup Second Life
Tech Soup\'s Second Life Non-Profit Directory
Second Life: Non-Profits - SimTeach
Second Life Nonprofit Information Resources
EDUCATION IN SL
Second Life Annotated Bibliography
Pathfinder Linden - John Lester
SimTeach: Information and Community for Educators using M.U.V.E.'s
SL BLOGS
(there are many of them, here are a few)
Beth Kanter: Beth's Blog
her category for posts on nonprofits in Second Life
Beth's Blog: npsl
Angry's Tripping the Metaverse
BlogHUD : Second Life blogging system
SL NEWS
The Metaverse Messenger | A Real Newspaper For A Virtual World
ART AND COMMERCE
Out to Pasture » Blog Archive » Text 100’s machinima on SL
UNREAL ESTATE
ANSHECHUNG.COM - Your global leader in virtual real estate.
WHAT"S A SLURL?
SLurl: Location-Based Linking in Second Life
THE BASICS
Scripting guides - LSL
Scripting examples:
Using Linden Script Language (LSL )
Linden Lab Tutorials:
BEST INWORLD TUTORIALS
The Ivory Tower Library of Prim, Natoma (207, 170, 25)
The Particle Laboratory, Teal (200, 60, 21)
(Just search for these under the places tab, you can teleport directly)
THE SL-to-WEB CONNECTION
SL Forums - How to use llHTTPRequest
EXERCISES:
Dispensing information:
Tutorial: Create a box that gives an item when clicked (beginner)
Making a donation box:
Second Life Knowledge Base | How do I make a donation box?
NOTE: As someone has commented on the page, the donation script given requires another } bracket at the end to work properly.
Giving a presentation:
Giving a PowerPoint Presentation in Second Life
Creating clothes:
Tutorial: Create a basic black tshirt (beginner)
Nicola Escher - SECOND LIFE TUTORIALS
Creating Textures:
Creating Textures with Transparency Using Adobe Photoshop CS
Playing Media (audio and video):
LSL Wiki : llParcelMediaCommandList
Creating Particle Effects:
Tutorial: Create a candle with particle effects (intermediate)
Creating a texture animation:
Tiny prims
SL Forums - HOW TO: Make Tiny Prims
An elevator script (good general LSL tips also)
Jeff Barr's Blog - Second Life Scripting - The Elevator Script
Second Life tutorials developed by Doe-Hyung Kim
Second Life Tutorials at CTER Portal
The making of the virtual guitar played by Suzanne Vega's avatar in Second Life. Just watch the video. Trust me.
My Digital Double: Suzanne's Guitar
One person's obsession with the One Laptop Per Child program has led to this lively website. Just as on the Digital Divide listserv, there are widely varying opinions here on the usefulness of the $100 laptop.
Unofficial One Laptop Per Child Website
Launches Aug. 3, Kurt Vonnegut and Howard Rheingold guests on Aug. 7. Isn't it great when it all starts to come together? Now we have to do it for nonprofit organizations and progressive politics. Oh, and bridge the damn digital divide so there is more access to this powerful tool. Bandwidth to the people, my friends.
First, the Infinite Mind blog:
The Infinite Mind Comes To Second Life
The Infinite Mind on Second Life Press Kit - a photoset on Flickr
Beyond The Infinite Mind (Torley's Second Life & techno music Blog)
Beyond The Infinite Mind - a photoset on Flickr (Torley's photos) (After the jump - my rant to the TechSoup-Second Life nonprofit folks) Hi folks I'm in a sleepless swelter (91 degrees at 2:30am?) and also a Second You may be aware of this, but a new complex of NPR studios is about to http://www.gomaya.com/glyph/archives/001823.html This makes me even more impressed by what you folks accomplished in 1) We need a tour of the NPR place and an understanding of how to use 2) We need to launch our own project to build a small studio on Info I've been inspired by AngryBeth Shortbread's live TV studio, with I gather from reading year-old SL history that there was a brief move 3) We also need to document a tutorial on how to do this (as you did 4) We have to make sure that the new media facilities in SL are not in 5) I have to get up to speed on a lot of stuff you folks have already 6) The TechSoup event was a good proof of concept. The NPR studio is a 7) More than ever the issue of the digital divide needs to be But we could think about a way to throw a switch in the studio that Mea Culpa and Carpe Diem: Sorry to be the newbie coming in and waving his arms in the air. But sleep...
Life fugue state, so I'm up blogging a development that has me mapping
out my next 6 months of work.
open in SL. I've collected a number of links and some photos that I
ran across (credits to Torley Linden, who blogged her preview) and
posted them:
the last event, on the run and with few resources. It also says a few
other things to me:
it and how to schedule ourselves in there, if it is actually going to
be open for outsiders. I want a tour anyway, don't you?
Island. Maybe it's a research and training studio. Maybe we get the
gurus of other studios in to speak. Maybe it's a studio without walls,
with overflow on the lawn. Maybe it has the ability to be "piped" over
to an amphitheatre for bigger groups. I liked the outdoor feel of the
last event. I spent too many years in soundproof rooms. The NPR stills
I've seen look like they went overboard recreating a "real" control
room, because they could. And ours should be self-instructing, a
"physical" tutorial in online media, as the Ivory Tower Library of
Prim functions to teach building in 3D.
multiple camera switching, at The Port (15,70,56) . You can walk in
and teach yourself how to use it in 5 minutes. She also has an
interactive whiteboard available free in the ICT library if you
haven't seen it - it has a lot of potential. I'd love to see a roundup
or exhibit of available media players and equipment in SL.
by Linden Labs to start their own streaming video channel, but it
never happened. There is still a lot of infrastructure, tools and
expertise around. It probably went into the NPR place. You folks
probably know all this better than I do.
out of Boston) for NPOs, and in fact create a stripped down field
technique for smaller or mobile productions. Can it be done with one
laptop, a Skype headset and a webcam? One new Macbook with builtin mic
and iSight? What did you folks use? What are the limits of our video
stream? How do you get video streaming on the web anyway?
fact broadcast centers - that they use all the crazy interactivity
that we got a taste of in the last event, and that we find more ways
to expand on that.
wrestled with, including building and programming. Or bark at the
folks who know it already.
breakthrough in visibility and credibility. Now some funder needs to
come in (Soros?) and help make this a democratic tool.
addressed. True affordable broadband for a significant portion of the
population. But can you address that in SL? I don't think so. We have
to do that in our communities and in Congress.
cuts down the bandwidth required to be functional. Limit chat or IM?
Lower framerate on video to one every 5 seconds if necessary? That
would have been enough last time, frankly. Though I am a 30 frames per
second fan. The audio lag was harder to deal with.
all this is to say that I have some time and energy at the moment,
some mostly useless experience in live and edited television, very
little build and program experience in SL, and a lot of opinions. If
that can be helpful to a team of people with more SL experience, let
me know.
Dave
Ron Blechner, known as Hiro Pendragon inworld, has a good post on educational projects in Second Life. He's been involved in New York Law School's Democracy Island, where he's built a "3D wiki", a model of Landing Lights Park in Queens, that allows collaborative building and moving of objects .
Second Tense: Educators as Innovators
PC World - Nonprofit May Manage Boston's Wi-Fi
The plan calls for designating a nonprofit entity to deliver citywide Wi-Fi at wholesale prices and let other service providers offer end users access to the network, either for free or for pay. Even community-based organizations with grant money could offer service over the network, and the city envisions both companies and individuals finding innovative uses for the infrastructure. Surplus revenue to the nonprofit would go back to the community for programs to get low-income people online.
We can use this right now on the girls club podcast site. We'll try it with Lyceum soon.
1 Pixel Out » Audio Player Wordpress plugin
Remote control of a Mac without a display, or in another location (from folks who host your own Mac Mini).
macminicolo.net : VNC Macintosh
macminicolo.net : VNC Macintosh Port Fowarding
YouTube sued over copyright infringement | CNET News.com
I'll put some interesting links here as I find them.
Pathfinder Linden - John Lester
virtual Teen Library: Second Life
Second Life Education Wiki - SimTeach
SimTeach: Information and Community for Educators using M.U.V.E.'s
Okay, it wasn't a total waste but I did spend a lot of time today my first time with Second Life. We are checking out a session tomorrow for non-profits and I wandered over to the TechSoup place in-game and met a couple of people. Tomorrow I hope to meet the organizers of Global Kids. Their avatars rather. Or them through their avatars. Still a little confusing for an old dog like me.
Global Kids' Digital Media Initiative
Nice site, good tips, got to dig into Wordpress this fall.
Riding shotgun next to WordPress | 5ThirtyOne
A "Mixed reality" event on July 18 for non-profits, sponsored by Tech Soup on Second Life. (click MORE for details)
Just as a follow-up, here are some links for those who want to set up
in advance for the TechSoup / Second Life mixed reality event on July
18th:
To sign up for a free Second Life account
To download the latest Second Life software
TechSoup's satellite office on Second Life
The three links given above are probably all that you need, but if
you're interested in additional context and background, take a look at
these:
Upcoming.Org's listing of the July 18th mixed reality event
Local real life Net Tuesday/Netsquared meetups
The Second Life Wiki, with information for newcomers
An article on "Real Virtuality in your Second Life and beyond"
The TechSoup / Second Life email distribution list
You can also contact the ever-helpful Susan Tenby (TechSoup's online
community manager) at
Yes, I'm back in New York. Mexico's election is ongoing. Lopez Obrador has a rally in the Zocalo there this afternoon. I ran out of time and resources. So I'm back to edit my story and get back to work on neighborhood issues, including internet access. This could be good news.
Smart Mobs: Wireless network in NYC's future
Taking it out of the hands of the Telcoms.
PBS | I, Cringely . June 29, 2006 - If we build it they will come
dailywireless.org - Intel's Mobile WiMAX Chip Due
But as usual on Daily Wireless, the headline is just a small part of the links and information presented in the post. Even with mesh routers on their way, WiMAX is a good possibility for municipal (read: our neighborhood) clouds in the next couple of years.
I'll need this when my Chiapas time has run out. Jason, here's your future.
Doing things with Lyceum at bavatuesdays
The wait is over. Google SketchUp 3D software has been released for OS X. Let the rendering of ancient buildings begin.
Hah! Tracked him down. Teaching a class at Johns Hopkins. Bet those kids are having fun. Don't forget the junglecasts, Nicco.
So it turns out that the $100 laptop uses RoofNet meshed wifi connections.
And where are the RoofNet people from MIT this summer? On sabbatical, they say. Actually launching Meraki, a company that will make the tiny, cheap mesh units we've been waiting for on the Lower East Side. Can we be a beta site? Tune in this summer...
Kekus Digital - Panorama Tools for OS X :: Download
I just discussed this back in New York with our non-profit's new network expert Jordan. Might be something here for quick daily backups.
Strongspace Weblog - Automated Backups with Transmit
Thanks to Xeni for the alert on this one. Now my secret favorite album is re-issued. David Byrne and Brian Eno in 1981 breakthrough in recording. 2 cuts offered online as multiple tracks for remix. No secret.
From our friends at EchoDitto, a quick look at Asterisk, the open source Voice-over-IP software.
EchoDitto Blog | Asterisk for Fun and (non)Profit
Now, there's even more need for this in light of this.
Also see my previous pointer to an Asterisk how-to.
For my fantasy OS X server. Some day...
MySQL on Mac OS X: An Ideal Development Combination
Wealthy suburb gets 100 times the bandwidth at the same price as Time-Warner here in New York? Grrr...
SoCal Suburb To Get 45-Mbit Internet Service
Say no more.
Geeky Traveller - A Travel Blog for Nerds | The Geek Shall Inhabit the Earth
Leon again. Blonde bearded longhair, profane gospel wail. Tulsa in LA.
Gringo by the Grijalva. And I thought I could tell this story.
Stranger in a Strange Land.mp3
For geeks. via Ben Hammerley's Blog. An easy way to embed a Flash object in a page. Because Lyn wants Flash and I must deliver.
deconcept - FlashObject: Javascript Flash detection and embed script
In 1981 I worked on the last of these beasts at WNET13 in New York. My thanks to Paul Pekurney who patiently showed me how to thread the giant reels of two-inch wide tape and calibrate each of the four heads to make a seamless recording. I can still hear the deafening whine and rattle of the thing in operation. In the corner were a few new videocassette machines, only trusted for playing back promos and previews in the breaks, and the one-inch tape machines, state of the art at that point. A heavenly racket as Sesame Street and Mr. Rogers came off the satellites and spun back out for local broadcast. I'd found my place in an electronic cloud.
tvtechnology.com - The Videotape Recorder turns 50
General purpose storage online. Pay as you go. I haven't looked at Amazon lately but this looks good.
Amazon.com Amazon Web Services Store: Amazon S3 / Amazon Web Services
I missed this in my first craze with Google Earth. It may be going out of date now that Google has purchased SketchUp.
Google Earth - SketchUp Google Earth Plugin
But doesn't it always change? Wikipedia as of what date?
Encyclopodia - the encyclopedia on your iPod
They've already been in Tenejapa and here in San Cristobal.
Vision Magazine - Geeks Transcend Their Borders by Manny Frishberg
Another one for me. Later. Maybe.
Apache and PHP on a Mac - The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)
I may need this later. You may need it now.
NewsForge | Must-have WordPress plugins
Thanks to Josh Kinberg and Jay Dedman for this. It creates the code for a pop-up video window that will work with quicktime clips, whether the user has a Mac or PC. Simple and useful.
embedthevideo.com - Video Pop-Up Link Maker
Securing Public Access PCs Without Shutting Out Users
BBC NEWS | Technology | Podcasts reach Peruvian villages
Martin Varsavsky | A dream come true
My heart's in Accra - FON, and why sharing WiFi's a cool technology for Africa
Joho the Blog: Google and Skype team on wifi
This is big on digg at the moment. A little inspiration.
Mini Network with a Big XServe Style | MetaSkills.net
Most people still do not use RSS, let alone OPML (I only dabble) but here is an interesting tip from Nathan Nutter's blog via Dave Winer.
Nathan Nutter - iTunes 6.0.2 can import/export OPML
To export your podcasts list to OPML you just go to Podcasts. Then choose File > Export Song List… when you save the file choose the Format OPML and you’re done.
Glenn Fleishman offers his recommendations for mail and DNS services, for people running their own webservers who don't want to do it themselves.
GlennLog - Recommended Internet Services
Exhaustive roundup (as usual from Sam Churchill) of growing choice of mesh solutions for community wireless networks.
Daily Wireless - Community Mesh Developments
Promises from AMLO, attacks from the PRI, in Mexico's presidential race.
Calderón attacks PRD candidate - El Universal Online - Miami Herald
Jon Lebkowsky points to and quotes Scott Karp on Umair Haque's thinking regarding "Bubble 2.0"
Weblogsky: "Bubble 2.0 Is a Bubble in Media"
"The idea that we’re living in an “attention economy” is nothing new. But unless the media/technology industry starts listening to Umair and focuses on creating new ways to help people efficiently allocate their attention in a world of infinite options, the bubble will pop. And it won’t be pretty.
So let’s focus on the user. What the user needs is help allocating a finite amount of attention. And the solution needs to be personal — perfectly tailored to each user’s needs. The user needs a personal killer app."
Of course that runs the risk of everyone having a tailored feed that only suits his own biases. No room for disturbing news, challenging media.
Actually, Apple appears to be patenting tablet interface elements. This website shows illustrations from the patent including an animated gif of a gesture to enlarge a portion of a map.
New Apple Patents tablet at hrmpf.com
I haven't checked this page in a while. They now have more modules for Drupal that they are putting out into the wild. Useful ones including a tell-a-friend node (I couldn't find a good one last year) and blacklist, to prevent comment spam.
EchoDitto's Open-Source Software
The open source website system Drupal has come a long way in a year, since I last played with it. Here's a site that demonstrates some of the new modules and improved look of the flexible community and weblog software.
examples! | Drupal for Artists & Musicians
Also check out page 2 of this excellent resource.
Open Source Mac - Free, Open-Source software for OS X
Also via Daily Wireless, this interesting mesh system.
AnchorFree in San Francisco, Association for Community Networking developing software tools.
Daily Wireless - MySpace Free WiFi
Hey Mick, why didn't you tell me about this?
Stanford University lectures and more online.
Any readers I still have from last year might remember my baby steps with CivicSpace and Drupal. Here is the 2006 improved version.
CiviCRM 1.3 Released | OpenNGO
Taking a break from color correcting a Court TV show (Dominick Dunne, Power, Privilege and Justice), I ran across this at The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW):
Insurance against getting sued if someone on your network uses it to infringe on copyright.
Individual Copyright Infringement Insurance Prompts a Lawyerly Debate
Via CrunchNotes
I saw Larry Lessig's famous Disney/copyright presentation at Cooper Union several years ago and was stunned at the simplicity and clarity of it. Now Lessig has posted his Google Book Search presentation, with notes on how he created it.
Lawrence Lessig - Experiments in presentation technology
Add this to the list of "Things I'll need to know in the new Girls Club media center"...
The Good News for Mac Lab Admins - The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)
Garmin Announces GPS Product Support for Mac OS X
And a related post on the Google Earth blog about using Google Earth with Garmin's Map source software.
Google Earth Blog: Garmin Supports Google Earth
Yep. Intel Macs came out today. Grrr. But my other wish came true. The official Mac OS X version of Google Earth.
And a tip for using GE without an internet connection (as on the Usu, if I'm brave enough): use the cache, and swap them out and save them.
Google Earth Blog: Offline Google Earth Use
Engaged: Conference: inkwell.vue, Topic 262
"The USA right now is the buried shadow of the Confederate States of America. You can watch GONE WITH THE WIND, and it's the secret textbook of the Bush Administration. The South lost that war for a reason. The South didn't have it in them to be a major power, because they were bold, gallant, devout, crooked, dumb and full of unexamined anxieties. The thing is, though: when a culture is "gone with the wind," it's never utterly and entirely gone. You can't make things go away by distributing them into the wind. It's just... up in the atmosphere. The emissions of the past form a smog. A breathable compost. You can't throw the past away and start over with a Year Zero. There is no "away." Tomorrow is this place, at a different time."
The interview is about more than just the deal he made, selling Webjay to Yahoo and becoming an employee. A manifesto for an open media internet. Congrats, Lucas!
I've been dabbling in Google Earth lately. In this post I'll start collecting information to allow more sophisticated mappers to plot data on a Google Earth map.
First, here's how one person mapped the avian flu outbreak.
Declan Butler, reporter » Avian flu maps in Google Earth
Here's a link to a tool (still being developed) that skilled cartographers like Ron Canter could use.
Brian Flood : Arc2Earth - ArcGIS to Google Earth Conversion
I'll post more information here as I run across it.
MiamiHerald.com | 01/05/2006 | Help Hispanics get access to broadband, video choices
"For Hispanics the stakes are especially significant because only one in eight are experiencing the digital fast lane known as broadband. And study after study shows that broadband usage is a predictor of educational advancement and educational attainment."
UPDATE: On the Digital Divide list, a response to this editorial, pointing out the ties between the author's non-profit and telephone companies. (click MORE)
Andy,
Do you think it would have beeen helpful for LULAC or the Miami
Herald to have acknowledged that in 2004, LULAC received a $1
million dollar grant from SBC, and that LULAC's "Corporate
Alliance Members" include: AT&T, BellSouth, Verizon and Sprint:
http://www.sbc.com/gen/press-room?pid=4800&cdvn=news&newsarticleid=21220
http://www.lulac.org/links.html#anchor551841:
Should we celebrate the active engagement in telecommunications
policy of nonprofits being intensively funded by a set of phone
companies that have tended to mix philanthropy and politics, at
times to the apparent detriment of consumers? Might it not be
better for such nonprofits to stay on the sidelines, while
members of the nonprofit sector free of such conflicts of
interest lead efforts to promote telecommunications policy in the
public interest?
Principal LULAC arguments in the op/ed you cite include:
1) "We need to streamline or otherwise eliminate unnecessary
red-tape imposed by state and local governments in deciding
whether an otherwise qualified company should be permitted to get
into the phone or cable business. 'Mother, may I' is truly bad
policy in this technologically dynamic era."
What is LULAC getting at here? The phone companies urgently want
to provide one-way transmission of video services to the public
without needing to first agree to franchise terms with
municipalities like the cable companies have had to do.
And if I interpret correctly, LULAC would like both phone and
cable companies to be exempt from negotiating franchises with
cities. My sense is that in many cities, such as Cleveland,
Seattle and San Francisco, those franchise agreements have given
a major boost to efforts to provide equitable access to
technology.
At the same time there's a lot to be said for the efficiencies of
a single statewide procedure, if the benefits of those
efficiencies flow not just to corporations but also to
disadvantaged citizens. It seems odd strategically that LULAC
would at this stage of the game lead an attempt to cede the phone
companies their desired goal, without making the case that cities
and their citizens must get, as a result of any more efficient,
streamlined process, a much better deal on average than they get
through the current franchising system. It would be naive to
assume that benefits accruing to phone and cable companies will
naturally flow to consumers without explicit, enforceable
provisions to ensure that.
2) According to LULAC, "any company that wants to compete in the
voice-telephone business should be required to contribute to the
Universal Service Fund (to ensure affordable phone service in
remote and low-income areas), to offer emergency 9-1-1 services
and to offer services for the hearing impaired such as Telephone
Relay Service. There is reason for concern, as many companies
that offer Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) services are
trying to evade these obligations."
The phone companies are having their profits eroded by VOIP
providers and would love to slow them down with burdensome
regulations. But presumably LULAC should want them to survive and
thrive. I would guess that LULAC's constituents are in small but
increasing numbers taking advantage of services such as Skype,
Gizmo, Google Talk, and Free World Dialup that enable them to
make VOIP calls within the U.S. and overseas without being
charged for the service.
In the quoted paragraph above, we see a LULAC position very much
in sync with that of the phone companies. But just as LULAC
thinks it efficient to skip municipal franchising, shouldn't it
recognize that there are huge efficiencies to offering services
at no cost, with no need to track and bill very minor payments.
Does it really help achieve the goals of universal service to
require services like Gizmo and Skype to bill each and every one
of their users in order to send money to the universal service
fund?
And as far as the situations where those or other VOIP providers
do charge some customers, shouldn't any call by LULAC for such
companies to contribute to the universal service program be
accompanied by a call for reforms to the universal service
program itself, reforms that may be unappealing to the phone
companies? According to David Hughes, the program has
historically piled monies into the coffers of the wireline telcos
while operating to the severe disadvantage of wireless broadband
providers.
http://www.comtechreview.org/summer-fall-1999/looking_at_erate.htm
And Robert Atkinson argues, I think persuasively, that "any
universal service payments made by VoIP services should go to
supporting the build-out of broadband telecommunications, not to
the PSTN" [The phone companies' public switched telephone
network]. Atkinson writes that, "Using these revenues to support
the 20th century circuit-switched network will only delay that
transition to a robust, packet-switched broadband network for the
21st century. As former FCC Commissioner Reed Hundt stated, this
would be as if government responded to Henry Ford's new invention
of the automobile by discouraging the construction of roads and,
instead, tax[ed] cars in order to subsidize canals and railroads.
http://www.comtechreview.org/spring-summer-2005/000316.html
I wonder whether LULAC agrees with Atkinson's position and would
promote it vigorously?
3) Finally, LULAC calls for, "nondiscriminatory deployment of
video services to every neighborhood to ensure that the process
is competitive and fair. In short, any reform must ensure that
Hispanic neighborhoods get access to these new services as
quickly as non-Hispanic neighborhoods."
Cheers to LULAC for staking out that position, which may clash
with that of its major phone company sponsors.
http://makeashorterlink.com/?D2E412C6C
- Stephen Ronan
Via The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)
I'll need to do this sometime this year. And the old iMac I just revived has no DVD drive, so can't install any other way.
macosxhints - Create a hard-drive based OS X installer
Requires this: Bombich Software: NetRestore
UPDATE 1/11/2006: With Intel Macs come new ways to deal with all this.
The Good News for Mac Lab Admins - The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)
I'm using Tiger at this point but this article has some tips I hope to use to share an Airport connection on my laptop with an older iMac over ethernet or Firewire, since it has no Airport card. And I'm told that Apple no longer makes them for that model, so it's Ebay or this way.
MacDevCenter.com: Panther Internet Sharing
This caught my eye because I may be one of those filmmakers they are addressing this to. If Janet drags me on another Zapatour.
Indymedia - SubDelegado Zero regarding altmedia and coverage
A presentation by Nicholas Negroponte on the $100 laptop.
MIT World » : The Hundred Dollar Laptop-Computing for Developing Nations
This plugin provides an OPML-based sidebar (reading list, blogroll, directory) for a Wordpress weblog. It's the best tool so far for integrating OPML into a more common format.
Back online after 4 days gone. I read 4 books instead. Sweet. Here's the first geeky thing I ran across when I got back.
Maclive.net: Setup Mac OS X VPN Server for Mac & XP Clients
Public Domain Movie Torrents with PDA versions
At least, the future of theater projection. Digital and 3D?
Daily Wireless - Theaters Jammed, Go 3-D
Got a new season of tech workshops with the Girls Club coming up. This has some good circuits, including iPod chargers, something we started this fall.
DIY Live » DIY Archive » Ten most needed circuits for the DIYer
A small muni wireless project in the Scottish town of Troon, using Locustworld meshboxes. Thanks to Sam Churchill at Daily Wireless.
Daily Wireless - Scottish Mesh
For the Girls Club tech program or PS188. Or both.
K12Linux in Schools Project - Home Page
Open source biomedical research. Mick, do you know about this?
WorldChanging: Another World Is Here: The Synaptic Leap
Via Digital Poetics, a roundtable discussion of the video iPod.
Roundtables - "The Video iPod"
From CasdraBlog by Mike Houser, links to Applescripts to make iPod video (and other iTunes items) bookmarkable, so you can come back to where you left off.
Doug's AppleScripts for iTunes « Miscellaneous
This tutorial, and the comments to it, have good information about the EQ capabilities of Garageband, which I discovered I needed last night at the PodLab (grand opening at the Girls Club on Monday).
MacJams.com - GarageBand Tutorial: Built-in Audio Unit Effects
Webpage that will add a "bug" to your movie that is a link to your website. Good idea if you are letting your videos out into the wild. Via the weblog of Lucas Gonze
Linkubator
Another screen movie capture program, for OS X, but it records flash movies instead of Quicktime. Better for the web in some ways.
Polarian Technology - Home of Screen Mimic - Macromedia Flash (SWF) Descktop recorder for Mac OS X
How-to videos are going to be a big area for iPod video downloads. Here's one service now that's offering DVD rentals. The downloads will come in time.
Technical Video Rental - New Videos
Okay, this is cool. Thanks Jon, and Lucas for the pointer
Jon Udell: Greasemonkeying Google Video
New version of their in-the-browser podcasting tool. Easy but your podcast lives on their site.
The Odeo Blog: Podcast Amongst Yourselves
Via Boing Boing. Realtime conversion. iPod compatible. A lot faster than doing it on your Mac. Great gadget.
I never cut feature films. Or any film for that matter. Nothing I've cut has ever been projected larger than a TV screen, with the exception of the Day of the Dead video that I sent back to be shown at the Bowery Poetry Club.
But this meditation on the shrinking and disappearing screen, in the time of the iPod and smaller, intrigues me at a moment when I'm trying to finish something that may be best on the web, on the iPod. How do you tell the story of a vast watershed in the jungle on a 2.5" screen? Keep it personal...
Digital Poetics: The End of the Screen and its Beginning
Amy Gahran's list, recently updated (also available in OPML), of podcasts created or hosted by women. I'll also post this to the girls club Girls On Air! site.
Contentious » Women in Podcasting: The List
Hah! So simple. Just use the standard multi mini plug to RCA video and stereo audio cable (Radio Shack or the one that came with your DV camera) but swap the red and yellow. Video is the red one in Apple's scheme.
MacDevCenter.com: Getting the Video out of Your New iPod--for Cheap!
I don't go to the gym, but I should. And I thought of this idea 2 days before I read about it online. Guess it's an obvious one, and the beginning of a wave of how-tos for the iPod.
iPod Gym - Exercises for your iPod
I don't have either a TIVO or a video iPod but this announcement should kick the market up a notch. I'm still more interested in other types of programming. I can watch TV at home. Guess I'm old-fashioned that way.
TiVo(R) to Bring TV Programming to Apple Video iPod(TM) and PSP(TM) (PlayStation(R) Portable)
JD Lasica, founder of Ourmedia, has posted a great list of open media projects and resources from all over the web.
Open media projects | Ourmedia
Veering into the seriously geeky here. There's one guy who is trying to use this to create collaborative online editing. But if you have to write or generate a page of code to define three audio edits, you're reinventing the wheel. Still, there are some interesting possibilities here.
Final Cut Pro Opens up with XML Interchange Format
Assuming that the price of the video-capable iPods comes down, this is an area that could make sense for short, small videos. And these guys get it - shorter is better.
Automator for the People - 4:30
Podcasting 101 - 4:54
Watermarking using Compressor - 3:17
Watermarking using Final Cut Pro - 6:03
Just as you can record any audio, streaming or otherwise, with a program like Wiretap, you can record any video with Snapz Pro X. Clever.
The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) - 8 easy steps to put Internet video on your iPod
But I wonder how this $2,000 unit compares to the $400 Marantz.
A Recording Studio That You Can Easily Hold in Your Hand - New York Times
Andy Carvin is at the WSIS conference and has made a video of the $100 laptop that was debuted there.
Andy Carvin's Waste of Bandwidth: The $100 Laptop: An Up-Close Look
Technology News Article | Reuters.com - Researchers unveil $100 laptop for schoolkids
Via The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)
Sylvius Neuroanatomical Reference / SylviusVG, iPod Edition
Now, if birdPod came with pictures or photos as well as the birdsongs...
Democrats unveil 'innovation agenda' | CNET News.com
I've posted before about this, here, and here, but I just liked this graphic of the proposed $100 laptop.
WSJ.com - The $100 Laptop Moves Closer to Reality
Here's Engadget's post:
More details on the OLPC $100 laptop - Engadget - www.engadget.com
Since the middle of last summer, I've been keeping track of my site's statistics with a free service - StatCounter. Free but limited - only the last 100 hits have any real information available, unless you pay a monthly fee.
Now Google is providing something similar.
I took a quick look at Automator, but I need someone to walk me through it. These two articles do that.
Macworld: Secrets: Take Control of Customizing Tiger: Automator, Page 1
Macworld: Feature: Take Automator for a trial run
Using special cameras with gigapixel resolution. Yes, that's right.
From Glenn Fleishman, the best how-to writer on networking. How do you get that file from your computer to your friend's? Email it, burn a CD, use a jumpdrive (they call them all cruzers where I work), or try these three networking techniques.
Macworld: Secrets: Ad hoc networking, Page 1
As long as you are online. Which is why we have to get the community network up and running.
COO of Sun, which is now working with Google:
Via Cringely:
PBS | I, Cringely . November 3, 2005 - It's Deja Vu All Over Again
And while I'm at it:
NeoOffice - OpenOffice.org for MacOSX
From Ethan Zuckerman, a "preview" (he only saw a cardboard mockup) of Nicholas Negroponte's $100 laptop, designed to bridge the digital divide. It does provide more technical details than I've seen previously.
WorldChanging: Another World Is Here: One Laptop Per Child - a Preview of the Hundred Dollar Laptop
I'm glad to see this open letter from Micah Sifry on lessons learned. I wondered what they felt about getting 5% of an already tiny voter turnout. Ouch. And I have to agree with the commenter who notes that the posters (with the big fist holding lightning bolts) "looked fascist". Read it and weep. Or at least learn for the next time.
And why can't I find a permalink for the entry?
Here it is: micah.sifry.com - Rasiej Campaign Post-Mortem
UPDATE: I see in the post that Micah knows that the links are broken. And it's worth the effort to find it and read it.
ANOTHER UPDATE: Site is down as of 11/9. Full text of Micah's post is below.
Rasiej Campaign Post-Mortem
Open-Source Politics 1.0:
Lessons from Advocates for Rasiej,
2005 Campaign for NYC Public Advocate
Micah L. Sifry, eCampaign Director
As a longtime community organizer, education activist and successful businessman in New York, I've come to realize that this city's most valuable asset -- its people -- is also its most neglected and under-utilized resource. Every day there are thousands of civic-minded individuals and organizations in hundreds of neighborhoods who are selflessly working to clean up our parks, improve our schools, care for neighbors, and strengthen our communities. Yet, too often, our voices and concerns are not heard and our collective power is never felt, in large part because our city government is stuck in an old paradigm: elect one person and supposedly they will solve our problems. And as a result, little thought is given to connecting and empowering our citizens to have a full voice in their own city.
I have decided to run for Public Advocate because I want to use my experience in bringing ideas and people together to change that outmoded and wasteful way of thinking and leverage the full potential of all New Yorkers. I believe we can do that by reinventing the Public Advocate's office for the 21st Century -- by refocusing it on reconnecting New York, and creating a vibrant, self-sustaining network of public advocates who can effectively raise concerns and solve their own problems and make their government work for them once again. In the coming weeks I will be launching a campaign to build the foundation of just such a network, and begin imagining a new vision for New York's future.
--Andrew Rasiej, campaign “pre-launch” announcement, April 3, 2005
Summary
From April to September of this year, my friend and business partner Andrew Rasiej ran an unconventional Internet-driven campaign for New York City’s number-two office of Public Advocate. As a technology entrepreneur (founder of the Personal Democracy Forum, and before that the Plug-In digital music conference), education reformer (founder of MOUSE, a nonprofit that trains public school kids to be their school’s own technologists) and adviser to Democrats (chair of Howard Dean’s Internet Advisory Council, unpaid consultant to Tom Daschle, Richard Gephardt, Eliot Spitzer and other local Democrats), Andrew hoped to bring a new vision to politics and government. (Taking a leave of absence from editing Personal Democracy Forum, I joined the campaign in mid-May and helped with general strategy, communications, and online organizing.)
Our campaign generated a good deal of sympathetic coverage in both mainstream media and the blogosphere, and raised more money from more donors in less time than any in recent New York City memory. But ultimately, we came in fourth in the Democratic primary with just 5% of the vote, behind the incumbent, Betsy Gotbaum, who got 48%; her chief rival from the previous election, Norman Siegel, who got 30%; and a perennial candidate and complete unknown named Michael Brown, who got 10%. The purpose of this campaign post-mortem is to analyze what worked and what didn’t, and to ponder the potential of Internet-powered politics in what, alas, may be the typical environment for many campaigns today, i.e. one where voters and the press are paying little attention.
We had three over-arching goals for this campaign:
1) that we could push into the public debate some big new ideas about reinventing municipal government, fostering civic engagement, and the value of getting everyone an affordable highspeed Internet connection;
2) that the right way to run for office is to be as open, transparent, people-centered, small-donor-based and network-driven as possible (building on the experiences of various 2004 campaigns); and
3) that reform-minded individuals, groups, writers, editorialists, bloggers, and institutions, along with locally-focused civic activists, would find all of this refreshing and inspiring and they would rally to our banner and help amplify our message.
Arguably, we succeeded with our first goal, and learned vital lessons about how hard it is to live by our second goal, and how much (or little) these choices could affect our hopes for achieving our third goal.
We fell short because:
1) We started very late, which meant a cascading chain of difficulties including low name recognition, weak ties to potential endorsers, intense pressure to raise vital funds, and difficulties in quickly finding experienced staff and building the necessary organizational infrastructure;
2) We didn’t anticipate how hard it would be to gain traction in a low-intensity election cycle, with an indifferent electorate that, along with the media, was paying little attention overall to municipal politics and practically no attention to the office of Public Advocate (even though it is first in line to succeed the Mayor), and essentially felt things in the city were moving in a positive direction (to the benefit of all incumbents);
3) We misjudged how much people would care about our initial pledge to not take more than $100 per donors, and we overestimated how much the Internet could compensate for our weaknesses, in terms of spreading our message and assisting with fundraising;
4) We didn’t realize how much self-proclaimed progressives and reformers in New York City would take an essentially conservative (i.e. indifferent) approach to an office that could be an innovative force for change in the city; and
5) Low name recognition plus low voter attention meant that network effects (such as a message spreading virally, or friends of the campaign being able to convince their friends to donate money) were almost impossible to produce.
Obviously, it took a lot of chutzpah for a first-time candidate to make a serious bid for office under these circumstances, and more than one of my friends told me back in the spring that the whole campaign was doomed to be a quixotic failure. In addition, we should be careful from drawing too many general conclusions from our particular difficulties, especially those that flowed from running such a time-compressed effort.
Nevertheless, change has to start somewhere, and if we don’t try new things and (inevitably) make new mistakes, the old process of candidate selection and promotion is going to produce the same old results. Emboldened by a sense that the Internet is enabling more people to participate, inspired by all the evidence of public disaffection with politics as usual, and motivated by a desire to push a 21st century vision of government and civic life, we dove in and tried to put into practice what many of us have been talking about. What follows is meant to be a continuation of that conversation, neither its beginning nor its end.
Indeed, I am posting this essay on my blog in the hope that lots of people will read it and comment. My only request to commenters is that you use your real name and keep the discussion civil. I should add that Andrew fully encouraged me in writing this post-mortem, both because of our mutual belief in the value of more openness and transparency, and because he agreed that there might be some lessons here of use to others. (By the way, I know there's a problem with permalinks on this blog, and am in the process of trying to get that fixed. If you have trouble leaving a comment, just email it to me at msifry-at-gmail-dot-com and I'll post it.)
~
Introduction
In the early months of 2005, a few of us had a not so modest dream: we were going to show how you could reinvent Democratic politics from the bottom-up, use information technology to involve people in campaigns in a vital new way, and put forward an agenda to reinvent local government as well. In a nutshell, we wanted to re-connect people to each other and to their government, and to demonstrate that if we changed the processes of government we could also change the results. All this, through the candidacy of Andrew Rasiej—a technology entrepreneur, education activist and sometime adviser to top Democrats—for the relatively obscure and wholly underutilized position of New York City Public Advocate.
What follows is the story of how our dream collided with reality.
It’s not the whole story of the campaign, nor need it be. To a large degree, this is my personal analysis of what took place, based on contemporaneous notes and emails and the best of my recollections. The comments and critiques of my colleagues on the campaign, as well as those of close observers, will hopefully inform subsequent drafts of this memo, or at least will be accessible to all through comments and trackbacks below. (That’s assuming we aren’t sick of rehashing this topic before then.)
Why am I writing this? Apart from the cathartic value of reflecting on one’s experience, I think perhaps that others can learn from what we tried to do. I have two (overlapping?) audiences in mind: people who think we need to galvanize new ideas/forces/leaders in order to change the direction of the country; and people who think new web-based communications technologies offer a different and better way of engaging people in politics. Arguably, we have an opportunity to open up politics to more voices now, and a chance to overthrow old ways of doing things.
If only it were so easy!
~
Accomplishments
For a campaign that didn’t formally get started until the end of April 2005 and ended with the September 13 Democratic primary, we did pretty well. Our talented staff, led by Jill Harris (campaign manager from early July to the campaign’s finish), Keara Depenbrock (deputy campaign manager), Giovanna Torchio (interim campaign manager from May through early July) Dan Gerstein (senior strategist), Jay Strell (press secretary), Kenn Herman (Internet director), Gregory Krakower (policy director), Sean Delgado (deputy press and field), Dan Shin (finance director), Ross Offinger (finance associate), Scot Covey (graphics designer and volunteer coordinator), Tom Berman and Jen Vento (advance), Anthony Russamano (scheduler), Pete Mele (office manager) and consultants Bill Hillsman (media), Joel Benenson and Pete Brodnitz (polling), Lori McGrogan (research), Nicco Mele and Scott Bulua (web) and Grant Draper (fundraising), plus some very devoted interns, worked hard and did a terrific job. Here are some highlights:
* New issues put on the city’s agenda. As Andrew was fond of saying, campaigns aren’t only about electing one person, they’re also about advancing ideas, and this was certainly our biggest achievement. Our main idea was low-cost wireless Internet access for all, as a tool for closing the digital divide, improving educational opportunity, strengthening security, modernizing city services and invigorating civic engagement. We also helped pushed the idea of improving transit security via wiring the subways for cell phone service, offered a fresh vision of the role of the Public Advocate as a hub for all the city’s volunteer civic advocates, and planted a seed among some key city council-members who favor a more open and transparent city budget process. All the newspaper editorials on the race praised our wireless Internet proposal, and it was prominently discussed in the two official campaign debates that were broadcast on NY1 and WNBC.
* Great press. We earned a great deal of favorable press coverage, including a whole column by the New York Times’ Thomas Friedman, a laudatory column in the NY Sun that credited our call for low-cost universal wireless Internet service as “the best big idea of the 2005 campaign,” and friendly profiles in New York magazine, Wired, Fortune, the Times Metro section, and the Daily News. Our Wi-Fi plan was featured in cover stories in AM Metro New York (the city’s largest circulation daily) and L Magazine (a free entertainment weekly), as well as in the New York Times and the Amsterdam News. The Daily News featured our demand for better transit security through cellphone service in the subways. And our calls on the incumbent to release her public schedule, which we punctuated with an innovative videoblog called “Where is Betsy,” earned favorable coverage in the New York Times and Daily News, ultimately becoming an important issue in the two official televised debates. (A collection of key clips and documents from the campaign can be found here.)
* Small-donor based campaign. A total of 1732 people made contributions averaging about $195 to the campaign, a total of nearly $340,000, of which just over $200,000 qualified for the city’s 4-1 match for small contributions from NYC residents. Thus we ultimately raised about $1.15 million – more money from more people in less time than any comparable citywide campaign. (Indeed, our contributor base was only about 350 to 450 donors smaller than each of the leading candidates, Betsy Gotbaum and Norman Siegel, both of whom had run before in 2001 and had been fundraising for the 2005 race for years in advance.)
* Innovative field operation. We built a small but efficient field operation that delivered hundreds of thousands of pieces of literature across the city, targeted through an innovative use of the 2001 voter file to areas with the highest voter turnout (using the Google Maps tool we were able to pinpoint high turnout locations to the level of subway stops and individual buildings). Our petitioners collected more than 22,000 signatures, easily qualifying Andrew for the ballot (7,500 valid signatures were needed to get on). And our street-level “wild postings” of Rasiej posters were widely acclaimed for their visibility and their distinctive fist-and-lightning-bolt logo (appropriated straight from the Tennessee Valley Authority and its Depression-era slogan of “electricity for all”).
* Strong online presence. We started with an email list of about 1200 names and ultimately quadrupled it in size. Our website drew nearly 100,000 unique visitors a month. And, thanks in large degree to the volunteer help of pioneers Ryanne Hodson and Jay Dedman, our extensive videoblog got a good deal of notice from the rising community of videobloggers around the country. We were also endorsed or positively linked to by nearly 100 bloggers over the course of the campaign, including Instapundit (the #1 political blog), Doc Searls. David Weinberger, Joi Ito, SwingStateProject, CrooksandLiars.com and many others. (Most of these links are archived on the Rasiej.com blogroll.) For a week in mid-August, Andrew was the “Table for One” guest blogger at Talking Points Memo Café, a new and popular site, which led to a nice spike in traffic and a surprising amount of street-level name recognition. The day before the primary the search term “Rasiej” was the top search term on Technorati (and no, that didn’t happen because my brother happens to be the founder and CEO of Technorati; it happened because we asked many of our blogger friends to post one last pro-Rasiej comment on their own blogs and then we invited our list to go out and read them and spread them around.)
All in all, I think it’s fair to say that we had an impact on the political discourse in New York City, and made a wider impression as well. But on Primary Day, we came in fourth with a little over 5% of the vote. Not only did we come behind our two principal opponents, the incumbent Gotbaum (who got 48%) and the civil rights lawyer Siegel (who got 30%, repeating his second-place finish of 2001), we got fewer votes than a candidate, Michael Brown, who didn’t seriously campaign, wasn’t in the debates, ran no ads and spent almost no money. OUCH!
~
Shortcomings
Why did we come up short? First, the factors that were essentially outside of our control but handicapped our chances:
* Low name recognition. Andrew started the race with almost no name recognition, and on top of that he has a difficult-to-pronounce last name, “Rasiej.” (Say “RA-shay”.) We decided to tackle that head on from the beginning, calling our campaign “Advocates for Rasiej” rather than “Advocates for Andrew” or some variation on his first name (in part because another Andrew, Andrew Cuomo, is already well-known in NY politics). Our posters, fliers and online efforts were all designed to raise his name recognition. However, without greater TV exposure, the unfamiliarity of Andrew’s name was still a major weakness.
* Low media attention to this race. The city’s dailies ran very few stories on the Public Advocate’s race—despite the fact that the holder of the office is first in line to become acting mayor if the mayor dies or is incapacitated. The local TV stations almost completely ignored it. NY1, the local cable news station, devoted more coverage to the contested Brooklyn district attorney’s race than it did to the PA’s race, even though the holder of this office is next in line to succeed the mayor. The editors of two city dailies actually told us that they weren’t going to bother covering the race or issuing an endorsement (though the editorial board of one of those papers did make a perfunctory effort late in the race to interview Andrew and the other candidates before making an endorsement).
* Disinterested Democratic electorate. Compared to the election of 2004, which saw thousands of New Yorkers engaged in grass-roots political activity and a dramatic jump in turnout, this election season was comatose. (Only 450,000 Democrats voted for mayor in the 2005 primary, compared to 785,000 in 2001.) This can be explained by many factors—voter fatigue from the 2004 election results, Mayor Bloomberg’s popularity among core Democratic voters, and lack of excitement with the Democratic mayoral candidates being the most obvious. Still, we had hoped that activist Democrats might be attracted to our campaign as a continuation of the 2003-04 upsurge among grass-roots partisans who volunteered on a host of campaigns; this was not to be.
* Invisible office. Andrew liked to compare the Public Advocate’s office to a dilapidated house at the end of the street that no one wants, that you could renovate and turn into a vital community center. The problem is, few New Yorkers had any idea what the Public Advocate’s office was; not even half could name its current occupant, let alone any of her accomplishments. So half of our work was, in effect, a public education campaign about the existence of the office and its role under the city charter to be a ombudsman and an information provider. Low knowledge about the office meant even lower expectations about its value. The local media both bought into this baseline view and cynically fed it; in the few stories that appeared about the race, the phrase “nobody knows what this office is supposed to do” frequently appeared in one form or another.
* Divided support base. If Betsy Gotbaum had much of the city’s political establishment in her corner (former Mayors Koch and Dinkins, nearly every Democratic elected official, the teachers union, 1199, the NY Times endorsement, etc.), Norman Siegel had the support of a good number of Democratic clubs and union locals, as well as many pieces of the city’s semi-organized left (CUNY’s Professional Staff Congress, the Howard Dean campaign spinoff Democracy for NYC, the Critical Mass bikers, etc.). The "heroic lawyer" model of leadership evidently still makes many liberal hearts beat faster, even if it is woefully out of date. We thought that we could mobilize younger, wired workers (and engage many of them as campaign volunteers) and reach out to black and brown residents of Brooklyn and the Bronx, who our polling showed were the least attached to Gotbaum and most responsive to our platform. But, as discussed further below, the “techies” aren’t a significant base.
~
Mistakes we made
Those are the easiest answers for the weaknesses of a campaign that had such high expectations around it. Here are some tougher criticisms and self-criticisms. I offer these in a spirit of constructive debate. As Esther Dyson likes to say, “Always make new mistakes.” In this campaign we made some old mistakes, and some new ones. And we tried some things that we couldn’t have known were mistakes until we tried them.
* We started too late. First off, this made it much harder to build a conventional campaign staff and infrastructure, though our interim campaign manager Giovanna Torchio stepped into that gap valiantly and did a great job pulling the basic team and backbone together. From a political standpoint, it also meant that we were also playing catch-up in terms of relationships with outside forces that could either help or hurt the campaign (i.e. press, political clubs, activist groups, civic organizations, etc.). Andrew did bring to the table many personal relationships with reporters and elected officials, and these were definitely helpful. But in many cases people were meeting him for the first time when he went to a club or group’s endorsement meeting and while he made many good impressions, it takes time to build relationships and trust. Finally, and this is obvious but has to be said anyway, starting late made it much harder to raise money and increase Andrew’s name recognition.
* No campaign plan. Though there were plenty of people giving advice to the campaign team, including people who had run successful citywide campaigns and prominent local elected officials, no campaign plan was ever written. Many key pieces of a plan were implemented: in rough order, we did do an opposition research report on our opponent as well as on Andrew himself, we did do an internal poll, we did pull together a media plan, a field plan, a fundraising plan and an Internet plan. But time pressures prevented us from ever integrating all of these, and at times it felt like we were moving in several directions at once.
* Frontloaded spending. Thanks to Andrew’s ability to lend the campaign more than half a million dollars in chunks as the cash was needed, we were able to meet our ongoing operating expenses while waiting for the NYC Campaign Finance Board to certify our matching claims and release the funds we were qualified for. And ultimately all the money was paid back. But because we started so late, ultimately we had less money to work with—and the pressures of quickly pulling together a campaign team meant we paid a premium on salaries. (On the other hand, had we started earlier, our salary costs would have been commensurately higher, too.) When August rolled around, we had far less than we needed for a final paid media push. And a proposed benefit concert that could have brought in $500,000 came close to happening, but didn’t.
* Fundraising in small amounts is harder than we expected. One of the things that excited me about this campaign was Andrew’s initial pledge to not take any donation larger than $100, which is rooted in his (and my) belief that campaigns should be people-intensive, not focused on wooing big donors all the time. With the 4-1 match on donations from city residents, we thought that this wouldn’t necessarily be a handicap; indeed, we expected to get some credit for running a people-centric campaign that held lots of “friend-raisers,” and no big-dollar fundraisers.
But after an initial burst of support that came mostly from Andrew’s personal list, supplemented by core staff and supporters tapping their own lists, which got us to about $65,000 for our first filing in mid-May, it soon became apparent that this was no magic bullet. In addition, while much of the money we raised was given online, hyper-stringent procedures required by the Campaign Finance Board gave many of our donors headaches and slowed down the process of obtaining matching funds.
Indeed, the day we sent out our first big e-mail, we got back dozens of replies from would-be supporters who were blocked from making an online donation because the address they gave didn’t match their credit card information, to the letter and spelling of words as insignificant as Ave. or Avenue. Needless to say, it wasn’t much fun to get complaints like “And you call yourself the technology guy!?” when the problem was being caused elsewhere. Ultimately, while 90% of our funds were raised online, more than half probably came in because Andrew or someone on our fundraising team reached donors on the phone and walked them through the online process.
The biggest problem with the $100 limit was that, combined with our late start, it made it even harder to raise the $125,000 from NYC residents that we needed to qualify for matching funds. Several of our senior staff understood this problem sooner than I did and started pushing for us to drop the $100 pledge; ultimately they prevailed and they were right. (See more on how we handled this issue below.)
Unfortunately, New Yorkers did not care enough about this race (or this office, or the abstract idea of campaign finance reform) to be excited by a no-big-money pledge. While some friends in the national campaign finance reform community were individually supportive, we got no meaningful recognition for Andrew’s pledge from local reform activists, or the editorialists who have generally supported NYC’s public financing system. We were especially disappointed that the New York Times editorial board, a longstanding champion of campaign finance reform, seemed uninterested in our pledge. And, to add insult to injury, when billionaire Mike Bloomberg’s campaign announced that it would be holding hundreds of “friend-raisers” around the city to engage more supporters in his campaign, no one noticed that he had appropriated our very language.
Ironically, the $100 limit may well have helped us ultimately raise more $250 donations than we might have otherwise garnered. It was probably easier to ask many of our original $100 donors to make a second, later contribution for another $150 than it would have been to convince them right away to give $250. (Certainly this is what Andrew thinks!)
* Online advertising didn’t produce. We made two significant purchases of online advertising—a little under $20,000 for a run of blog-ads at the beginning of the campaign, in May, and about $75,000 for a wave of banner ads targeted at New York City residents on a host of news and entertainment sites that ran from early August til the end of the campaign. The purpose of the first run was simply to buy some name recognition among Andrew’s core constituency of online political types and wired New Yorkers, and we were pleased with its results. The second run, which was targeted to New Yorkers and appeared on a mix of news sites and cultural sites aimed at young, hip types, however, did not produce the kind of impact we needed. About 80,000 click-throughs were generated (we had hoped for three to four times as many), and very few people signed up as a result. While I’m sure our online ads helped with Andrew’s general visibility, and certainly helped grow our list, the money spent on this second run probably would have been better spent on traditional TV ads or more field efforts.
* Subcontracts to field operatives didn’t produce. While the campaign’s own field team, interns and volunteers did a bang-up job of flyering targeted locations, we also subcontracted some work organizing candidate appearances and postering/flyering to operatives in Brooklyn and Queens. Some church visits and visibility events were quite successful; others were a mess. On Election Day, Andrew and I were dismayed to discover a whole quadrant of voting sites in north-central Brooklyn devoid of any signage, even though we had been assured that these sites were covered (and indeed we were driving around doing visits to polling sites having been told they were covered). Needless to say, this weakness was a result of having to rely on outside operators who are hardly the most scrupulous people in politics.
* Open-source politics is little understood or appreciated. Here’s another example of how hard it is to change the status quo: As we approached our first filing deadline with the Campaign Finance Board, we discovered that the CFB’s system for reporting (known as C-Smart) required that we literally keypunch, by hand, all the data for every single contribution, even though we already had it all in our own database. Our Internet director, Kenn Herman, quickly wrote a program that would interface with C-Smart and enter the information quickly; in effect, an automated typing program. After we used it successfully for our first filing, we decided, in the spirit of open-source politics, to share Kenn’s program freely with all the other campaigns in NYC, starting with our chief rivals for the Public Advocate’s office. Several responded favorably, at least at first.
Well, apparently, no good deed goes unpunished. Much to our surprise, the CFB spokeswoman soon issued a statement warning that our program, which we dubbed “B-Smarter,” was “unauthorized third-party software” and suggesting that any campaign that used it risked losing its matching funds. As a result, every campaign in NYC—except ours—was forced to waste dozens or even hundreds of hours on needlessly retyping contributor data into C-Smart, time and money that could have been more fruitfully spent talking to voters. We thought the press might take note of this small, but telling, example of how politics could be made more user-friendly, but other than The Politicker blog of the New York Observer, none did.
* Weak response from civic groups/activists. In a similar vein, we tried hard to implement Andrew’s notion of reinventing the Public Advocate’s office to be a hub for all the volunteer public advocates already at work in neighborhoods across the city fighting to make the city a better place by mentoring in schools, serving on community boards, feeding the hungry, cleaning up parks, etc. We tried to model this idea with WeFixNYC.com, a website where New Yorkers could email photos of things that need fixing in NYC, like potholes. But we were stymied in our desire to involve local activists more directly in this project, even people who are working on the issue of closing the digital divide, because of their groups’ non-profit status.
If we had had a full-time political director on staff, or if we had come up from within these civic networks more organically, this might have been a more fruitful territory for us. Politicians who have been around for a long time “solve” the problem of engaging the leaders of non-profits by developing those relationships outside of the electoral campaign context; we imagined that the direct connection made possible by the Internet might be a short-cut around that obstacle. Perhaps, if Andrew had been running for an office with greater visibility, that would have been the case. But not here. Again, the press largely didn’t understand or bother to cover the idea (apart from one local radio station and NY1).
* Tech “community” a fiction? Another one of the unconventional premises of our campaign was the idea that young, “wired” individuals who work and play in the new technology economy would rally to support one of their own, a candidate who “gets it”—that is, who demonstrably understands the power and potential of networks and transparency in politics. Indeed, we started with lots of support and good will from key Internet organizers from the Dean, Clark, Kerry and Kucinich 2004 presidential campaigns along with “A-list” technology opinion-shapers like Doc Searls and David Weinberger. Nicco Mele, Dean’s webmaster, was a key adviser, for example (his firm, EchoDitto, handled our web back-end), and Joe Trippi was helpful in pointing to the campaign as a model. Along the way we gained the support of other leading techies like Esther Dyson and Craig Newmark (of Craigslist), and made solid headway with top political bloggers like Joshua Marshall (TalkingPointsMemo) and Glenn Reynolds (Instapundit). And activists in NYC’s wireless community were incredibly supportive, along with local sites like the DailyGotham and Gothamist.
But the fabled tech community turned out to be mostly a fable when it came to actually embracing Andrew’s campaign and setting aside time to spread its message. Yes, about 100 local and national bloggers linked to the campaign. But few made an extended commitment to pitch in. To give one telling example, when I asked a core group of about 30 tech supporters to help us “kick the tires” on our WeFixNYC.com site by sending in a picture of a pothole before we announced the project to the public, at most 3 or 4 responded.
I chalk up our difficulty in mobilizing techies to several factors: 1) the number-two office in NYC is just not of great interest to techies, no matter how innovative the campaign tactics or message; 2) techies are predominantly political independents, or libertarians, and thus hard to mobilize in a Democratic primary context; 3) techies are focused on work, making money, and, for all their complaining about politics, a relatively immature political grouping (compared, to say, Old Media moguls in Hollywood). And unlike some cities where political bloggers play an important role in local affairs (take Portland, Oregon), in New York there is no hive of vibrant conversation about local politics. If anything the political blogging culture reflects the larger political culture here and is dominated by careerism and inside-baseball sniping. Some new websites like DailyGotham hope to change that, but they have so far gained only modest traction.
* Viral campaigns are hard to do in a low attention environment. We made several attempts at engaging our supporters and interested visitors to our website in a conversation that we hoped they would help spread. First, and throughout the campaign, we asked people to share their ideas for how to make New York City a better place. As email messages came in through our online suggestion box, we picked out the interesting ones and wrote back to the senders, thanking them for their ideas and asking for their permission to post them on our blog. Then I wrote up a blog post, adding some comments in the voice of the campaign, and urging others to join in. At one or two points in the campaign, we e-mailed our whole list asking them to help develop a list of “21 ideas for 21st century NYC.” But we got very few responses. Yes, a few of the people who we listened to in this manner became campaign supporters, making a contribution or offering to volunteer. But not enough to become a self-sustaining hub of activity. (Overall, we got about 160 comments on a total of 150 blog posts between April and September, a sign of little community involvement.)
Likewise, we envisioned our videoblog as having a viral potential, especially the humorous “Where is Betsy?” posts that we did, attempting to track the current Public Advocate and demonstrate how inaccessible she is to the public she is supposed to serve. But again, apart from some decent press coverage, this “meme” didn’t spread. Since every one of our “techie” gimmicks also functioned as a press hook, the time we spent coming up with them was not wasted. But our larger hope that these would help spread our message and build our grass-roots base was for nought. Again, the general lack of public interest in the Public Advocate’s office deadened these possibilities.
It took us a long time to implement a “tell-a-friend” feature on our website that we thought would have viral potential. We wanted a way for strong supporters to not only forward a simple message to their friends, but for them to also be able to track their friends’ responses and to see their own impact on growing our network. DemocracyinAction, the list and donation management tool that we were using, does not include that function. So our Internet team ultimately created one from scratch that included a Google Map showing a participant’s own social network by zipcode, enabled them to see which of their friends had responded, and to also see the second-degree connections that might result as those friends invited additional people. We deployed this tool late in the campaign, and about fifty people (a little over 1% of our list at that point) used it to invite additional people to join. With time and attention, I believe this tool would have produced healthy results for us, especially because it gave us a new way to discover which of our own supporters were active connectors. But by this point, we were running out of steam.
* No Democratic or progressive leaders stepped forward. We put a good deal of time into seeking endorsements and other forms of support from Democratic and progressive leaders and groups in the city. Since Andrew has been active in New York City and state Democratic politics for several years, and has built strong personal relationships with a number of elected officials, we thought we had a chance at prying some Democratic leaders away from the establishment and into Andrew’s camp. He personally spent a fair amount of time early in the campaign meeting working on this, but ultimately no one was willing to break away.
Likewise, the process of seeking endorsements from political clubs and organizations, while time-consuming, ultimately produced only one substantial score when Andrew was endorsed by the Laborers Union. (Norman Siegel, to his credit, had deeper relationships with many clubs and interest groups and earned a number of helpful endorsements that way.) Some important individuals who privately expressed admiration and support for Andrew were prevented by their boards (non-profit, educational, etc) from making public endorsements. Other than positive press attention from columnists like Thomas Friedman and Errol Louis, we got very little traction from outside validators. (It’s not clear, given the Democratic establishment’s near unanimous alignment with Gotbaum, whether this could have mattered to voters anyway.)
Personally, I found our interaction with both the Working Families Party and ACORN, two of the most important progressive organizations in the city, to be a big letdown. One would think that these institutions, both of which pride themselves on being organizing and strategy hubs for the city’s liberal-left, might have seen an opportunity in the little-known Public Advocate’s office. After all, with Mayor Bloomberg an odds-on favorite for re-election, and no Republican even running for Public Advocate, whoever held the office would be the city’s highest elected Democratic official. And, with no Republican running, there was no danger that an energetic primary battle among Democrats might hand the office to the other party. Mark Green, the first Public Advocate, had already shown that the office could be a center of alternative organizing and policy formation.
But while the leaders of both the WFP and ACORN were friendly to Andrew personally, their governing boards showed little imagination regarding the race. ACORN endorsed Gotbaum (presumably because she and they are aligned together on the Brooklyn Atlantic Yards development, a huge real-estate deal that is dividing the borough). And the WFP was split between Gotbaum and Siegel, whose old-fashioned appeals to “fight the power” apparently struck a responsive chord. Ultimately, the WFP stayed neutral in the race, which I suppose was sort of good for us. But as someone who has supported the WFP since its birth, I was greatly disappointed to see, first-hand, the limits of the party as a change agent.
* Message was too narrow? Or too broad? In my humble opinion, this was a campaign of ideas that never quite manage to boil them down into a single coherent message. Even now, I have a hard time condensing into a single phrase all of our notions about reinventing the Public Advocate’s office; pressing for greater openness, transparency and accountability in government; and using universal low-cost wireless Internet access as a vehicle for empowering people, improving education, strengthening security, modernizing city services and competing in the Information Age. The themes we did come up with (thanks especially to Dan Gerstein) were “connecting New York City” and “bringing New York City into the 21st century,” do capture all of those ideas, but without greater resources we didn’t have the ability to convey this to enough people. And it’s not as if people already know what a 21st century city that takes full advantage of the new communications technologies looks like. (Such places exist, but Americans – outside maybe of those living in San Francisco or Seattle -- have no idea how far behind they’re falling.)
Because we needed to punch through with something, we embraced “Wi-Fi” as a symbol of everything we were trying to achieve, issuing a detailed plan to “Wi-Fi NY,” launching an online petition drive and holding a major launch announcement on the steps of City Hall with about 100 supporters and Andrew making a big speech holding a wireless router in front of a podium made of old PC mainframes. The press was happy to label Andrew the “Wi-Fi Guy.” But with that came complaints that now we were a one-issue campaign, and worse that our “Wi-Fi NY” proposal ignored the digital divide and was mainly about making it easier for yuppies to check their e-mail while lounging in Central Park. In fact, we were trying to make a very broad point about how enhancing connectivity would enable all kinds of new efficiencies in city services, strengthen security, improve educational opportunities, and so on. (And for the New York Times editorial board to breezily dismiss our fifteen-page Wifi plan as “lacking details,” was nothing short of outrageous).
I continue to believe that assuring that everyone has affordable access to a broadband link to the Internet is an idea as powerful as assuring that everyone have electricity or everyone have a dialtone coming into their home. Today, more than ever, information is power—and the ability to both get information from and give information to the network ought to be seen as a civil right. As more people get on the net and as more applications are built around it, as the reigning telecommunications monopolies continue to gouge consumers while providing a subpar service, and as more Americans wake up to the implications of living in a “flat earth” (to use Thomas Friedman’s term) and of falling behind our international competitors, I am sure this will become more of a political issue. And some smart politician or party will figure out how to ride it.
~
Does “open-source politics” have a future?
One last set of observations: My biggest personal disappointment was discovering how little our attempts to be an open, transparent and bottom-up campaign mattered in a context where few people were paying attention. This is perhaps the most important lesson for anyone considering an “open-source” style political endeavor. Such efforts should be able to gain traction in an environment where lots of people are personally motivated to care about the race or issue at stake. Obviously, a presidential campaign, or a congressional race that could shift the balance of power in Washington, are both likely to garner more free attention from self-starting political activists than, say, a down-ballot race for an urban office few people know about or understand. The same sobering fact may be true for city council races and state legislative races as well.
But at the same time, I question how much we really opened ourselves up to the possibilities of a people-intensive campaign where supporters are engaged not just for their ability to make a donation, but also for their ideas and their ongoing involvement. For example, in late June, when Andrew decided to lift his voluntary $100 limit on contributions and instead focus on $250 contributions (the maximum amount that would qualify for the 4-1 match), I argued that we should ask our existing donor base (which then numbered about 900 contributors) what they thought.
But all the other top campaign staff felt that, if the decision was already a given, then doing any kind of poll or listening process would just be a cynical exercise. In theory, our supporters could have responded “don’t raise the $100 limit; we’ll pitch in harder to make it work”—though given the necessity of getting to $125,000 as quickly as possible made all of us quite skeptical of that working in time. So, at what might have been a “you have the power” moment for the campaign, we didn’t really allow our base to have the power; nor did we trust that including them in our internal decision making process might have made us stronger. Time, and especially our lack of it, made us cut this corner.
In retrospect, I blame my own inexperience for my failure to push harder for a different approach. A conventional campaign was hardly likely to win in this race, given the low attention of the press and the public, Andrew’s essential invisibility, and the support for the incumbent from the local political establishment. As it is, we did not run a conventional campaign when you consider how much money and time we spent on building “buzz” and Andrew’s street-level and online recognition. At one point, our campaign manager, Jill Harris, a seasoned veteran of local campaigns as well as the field director of the 2004 ACT operation in the battleground state of Ohio, said to me that she had never worked on such an unusual campaign. But, she noted, if we took the money and personnel that we were spending on our website, online ads, cultivating bloggers and street-level postering and poured it into more traditional field operations (some of which we were doing already), we’d lose anyway. So perhaps we should have been even more unconventional!
But, to be brutally honest, I don’t think I trusted my own instincts enough on this, and in the rush to find experienced staff to put together a campaign organization we didn’t make belief in “open-source politics” a requirement. (Nor would that have been possible or wise.) One telling moment that stands out in my mind: In mid-April, Andrew forwarded me a memo that he had received from a political consultant who was offering his services to the campaign. The consultant stated, in the frankest terms possible, that if Andrew truly wanted to win, he should toss aside his idealistic notions of running a small-donor-driven Internet-centric campaign and instead invest heavily in polling, focus groups, high-dollar fundraising events and then put the bulk of his cash into an expensive media campaign focused in the final weeks before the primary. Oh yes, and that would cost us a hefty penny in retainer and commissions, all payable to that consultant. (Andrew, to his credit, rejected this guy’s proposal, saying that if he bought it, there would be little point in running since it would be such a conventional campaign it wouldn’t change a thing.)
In reaction to that memo, I drew up one of my own that I entitled “The Rock Star and the Mosh Pit,” evoking the image of a musician who trusts his fans enough to take a leap off the stage, knowing that he will be caught and lifted up by the people in the “mosh pit” below him. I wrote:
We are trying to do something unprecedented here: elevate Andrew not simply as a candidate for PA, but as the focal point of a people’s movement for reconnecting NYC, lighting up the city with free wifi, liberating the Democratic party from big money and bankrupt habits, and reinventing the PA’s office as a hub for public advocates all over the city. Instead of presenting a polished and poll-tested message, we’re going out on a limb and assuming that a network of engaged participants are going to catch us. (That doesn’t mean we aren’t hiring talented and experienced people to help, just that we aren’t running a typical top-down cautious campaign.)
To that end, we’re looking for people to help with all aspects of creative outreach and organizing. Our goals, in rough order, are:
-start a viral conversation online around AdvocatesforRasiej.com and our fundraising drive, and keep stoking it as it grows
-sign up volunteers and listen to everyone’s ideas, both on what the campaign should be doing and what the PA should be doing
-encourage people to self-organize and help spread the message (and offer them good tools for that)
-mobilize supporters for all the campaign’s activities: petitioning, visibility events, GOTV, etc.
I handed this memo out at an evening meeting of Andrew’s “brain trust” (about thirty friends, advisers and sympathetic people active in NY politics) that took place April 18th. I offered some specifics on how we could start engaging people on- and off-line:
First thoughts on first steps:
1. Make our blog the hub for interesting community conversations: this requires daily posting, a human voice (or two or three) that reflects Andrew’s, and constant attention to the feedback rolling in
2. Engage the larger online communities by:
-Building a big blogroll of both local and national blogs
-One-on-one outreach to key bloggers (Kos, Jerome Armstrong, et al)
-Special attention to NYC sites (Research help needed asap)
-Special attention to communities of color online (ditto)
3. Walk the walk:
-Be open and transparent and occasionally vulnerable (admit mistakes and make new ones)
-Show the network it exists: visible feedback loop is vital (and viral)
-Try new tools and tactics (videoblog, podcast, SMS relay)
4. Devise some short-term targets for the network to focus on:
-Ask people for ideas for slogans
-Set a target of raising $X to run an online ad in the NYTimes
-Do a Flickr-style campaign of tagging photos of things that need to be fixed in NYC and ask site visitors to vote on the most urgent
Though something like thirty people attended the meeting, not one followed up with me.
I didn’t want to admit it, but as early as mid-April it should have been clear that our dream of doing things differently was a lot harder to realize that we imagined. The sheer challenge of getting a campaign off the ground, making the matching funds threshold, getting on the ballot and taking care of core tasks like pitching the press, managing Andrew’s schedule, campaign finance reporting, bookkeeping, drafting policy statements, replies to endorsement questionnaires, developing fliers and getting them into the field—all in record time—meant that we couldn’t also do everything according to an “open-source” philosophy of trusting your base to catch you. This time around there was no “mosh pit.” Andrew, sensing exactly what was going on around him, did what any rational person would do and drew back from taking the leap. We were to be a top-down campaign using some nifty online tools that made fundraising easier and communications cheaper. But we didn’t reinvent politics as usual. Not this time, anyway.
Since I seem to be collecting ways to do this, I'll put this one out as well. It requires a short command line script (provided) run in terminal.
And I love it when folks who can write good code down to the last /, \, and " still insist on using "it's" as a possessive. Yeah, I'm a nitpicker, and I can't code.
Phil Windley's Technometria | Using VLC to Create iPod Ready Video
See also this collection of previous posts on iPod video.
Apple is supporting developers of plug-ins for music applications from GarageBand on up. I'll be watching this for the podcasting girls, who are getting proficient at music production.
The Sound of Opportunity Knocking: The Audio Units Community Takes Off
There are free videos there as well.
CommonFlix - a DRM-free media store and community video exchange
Via Doc Searls:
Sci-Fi Hi-Fi » Blog Archive » Recombinant Podcasting
I've been on a map binge, trying to learn how to manipulate Google maps. Geeky. I haven't got much to show for it but I'm making some progress. Talk about learning curve. Had to take on Ning as well.
Ning's winning. Usu Maps
Lots of good resources out there, and a good game.
Using Google Maps with Ning: Ning Developer Documentation (might need a developer login for that)
Brewster Jennings Protects America: The Google Map Hunt Game
What We Have Here Is a Failure to Communicate - New York Times
From Anne Galloway:
What locative media can learn from archaeology
Well, it will probably still be slow, but you could leave it overnight.
Based on my short test, I'm not surprised by the slowness of the conversions in these tests. But when quality is the concern, I think they are asking too much of a compressed 320X240 video. It's supposed to look good for a $2 video on a small screen. Go to the movies, watch TV or buy a DVD if you want better.
If it looked any better blown up, Apple (and everyone else who will get into the business) would never get the deals with the media producers.
iPod-Ready Videos? Not So Fast, and Not So Clear
As I've noted before, I worked on the edge of CBS News (I helped start up CBS News Productions, !994-95), and there was a sense then that their world was coming apart. At the time it seemed more a technological problem, at least from my angle. But now the sense of authority and balance has slipped away.
PressThink: Andrew Heyward: The Era of Omniscience is Over
Automating the steps to create an iPod -ready video.
Jim Heid: iTunes, iPod, iPhoto, iMovie, iDVD, GarageBand
Se also my earlier post on the subject.
Food for the critics.
Wikipedia founder admits to serious quality problems | The Register
This is a freeware solution, but see the notes below.
ffmpegX a DVD, SVCD, VCD, CVD, VOB, DivX, XviD, H.264, PSP, MP4, MOV encoder for Mac OSX
And see this tutorial, useful for more than the title implies.
UPDATE: Since many people are hitting this post, and someone has commented that it doesn't work, I'll add links to my other posts (other methods) for creating iPod video. The most reliable way is to use Quicktime 7 Pro but as commenter Ryan has noted, it is slow. And it costs $29.95 - but it's worth it in my opinion.
UPDATE 2006:
I've just read that the new version of iTunes (6.0.2) has a dropdown to menu option to convert a video already in iTunes to iPod format:
Someday I'll go totally geek and I'll need this. Plus Brainstorms and Raves is just a great site.
Behind the Scenes with Apache's .htaccess - Brainstorms and Raves
Via Wi-Fi Networking News. Thanks Glenn!
USATODAY.com - Biggest Wi-Fi cloud is in rural Oregon
Computerworld | Desktop apps coming to the Web: Google
Google Maps lead engineer Lars Rasmussen discusses Maps and future desktop appications.
Go ahead - locate a few of your favorites.
Placeopedia.com - Connecting Wikipedia articles with their locations
Copyright and Digital Media in a Post-Napster World
White Paper Update (2005) - Digital Media Project
It includes a section on the "K-12 Initiative" that considers digital copies of educational materials for schools.
Yesterday, before I saw this, I went through the same steps - as far as I could go without a new iPod. The conversion from a full-size DV file was slow (on new 12" PowerBook), but the resulting movie was sharp and a fairly small file size. I can see that if you were to convert a significant amount of video, you would need a fast G5.
Apple - QuickTime - Tutorials - Creating Video for iPod
On the new iPod there is a voice recording setting that allows CD quality stereo recording. On the older ones, you are limited to low quality mono.
Apple - iPod - Technical Specifications
With the new video iPod and iTunes 6, it's time to link again to the weblog of Lucas Gonze and the potential of open format video playlists through XSPF: XML Shareable Playlist Format.
Yes Virginia, there is a Santa Claus.
I lived to see the video iPod.
Key to fast bittorrent downloads, among other things. If I can get my brain around it.
PortForward.com - Free Help Setting up Your Router or Firewall
Hats off again to Sam Churchill for an incredible collection of great links and info.
Daily Wireless - Mapping Urban Cloud Users
Via Andy Carvin, links to info on small local wireless bulletin board systems.
Neighbornode: the extensible neighborhood network
Free Neighborhood Wi-Fi - Popular Science
A podcast of Nicholas Negroponte's speech on the $100 laptop that he's been developing to bridge the digital divide.
Andy Carvin's Waste of Bandwidth: Audio of Negroponte's $100 Laptop Presentation
From a good discussion on Slashdot concerning wireless VoIP.
Here's one of those "Doh! Why didn't I think of that?" moments.
They suggest showing your home videos through an iChat session. Why not use it to review your Final Cut editing work at home with your client? I have to do a test of the quality to see if this would work.
Macworld: Mac OS X Hints: Quickly share home video via iChat
The PCR-1. For the podcasting studio. On sale now at J&R. This reviewer likes it better than the Oxygen 8.
Review: Edirol PCR-M1 Ultra-slim Keyboard - createdigitalmusic.com
Including the activist, Cory Doctorow.
BBC NEWS | Entertainment | Digital Citizens: The activist
A glimmer of understanding for me, a giant step for the web.
Ajax for Java developers: Build dynamic Java applications
Despite the title they are not making light of, or a profit on, triage. Bravo to the Nielsen Haydens for a forum that could provide this, and readers with intelligence to comment on it. Indispensable reading for anyone needing emergency medical information, and that seems to be a lot of folks these days.
Making Light: Triage for Fun and Profit
From Global Voices Online. Most useful in places where freedom of speech and press are under attack. Sound familiar?
Handbook for Bloggers & Cyberdissidents
San Francisco only so far. Ready for the battle of the giants?
Google Secure Access: Frequently Asked Questions
With this I may not have to drag my laptop to work.
ThePlaceforitAll.com - Portable Firefox
Interesting.
Berkun blog » Blog Archive » Why I switched to Firefox
For the community wireless portal. It will happen.
Daily Wireless - Mobile WiMax Handsets
I'm revisiting this now that I'm using Tiger and launching the Girls On Air! podcasting project.
Podcast Actions - Automator Actions
Automator - Example 3 - Automate Podcast Preparation
I would have to modify the workflow above, and add this action if I wanted to automate the FTP upload:
Upload to FTP - Automator Actions
With Apple's support of podcasting came their enhanced podcast format, allowing chapters and graphics in a podcast. The first tools to create these were not particularly user-friendly.
Now there's a better tool available, which also lets you create chapter-based "Vidcasts". Works with OS 10.3 or later, QT 6.5 or later.
From the same company, an asset management tool that also helps create chapter based videos.
I posted a while back about using iChat with Google's new IM service. I hadn't used it in a couple of weeks and tried today, but got an error that it seems everyone doing this is getting now. No workaround or fix yet from Google. Back to AIM for now.
ssl error 9843 - Google Search
I have to get serious about Final Cut, finally. My next editing job will be the first hour-long show (dense with effects) that I've tackled on FCP. So I started looking for tips and tricks and found this collection of tutorials from the Berkeley school of journalism. Nothing in-depth, but good insights and well-written. It covers story selection, planning, shooting, editing, audio, Photoshop - a little of everything. Except podcasting.
Back online after a great week roadtripping to Maine, N.H., Vermont, now the Adirondacks. Catching up with wireless news, including the availability of WiMax customer premises equipment from Alvarion.
Daily Wireless - Alvarion BreezeMax Shipping
This one from Dori Smith.
Macworld: Secrets: Whip up a Widget
Like the poster on the blog where I saw this link, I will probably never do this. But I like to read about it.
AFP548 - A True Tale of an Xserve install
Yeah, we're all posting about this one. Here's how I got on.
We're getting in a lot of footage on DVD for the shows that we're producing lately. These links show a better way of converting these to Quicktime and DV formats for editing purposes. They are also useful for a variety of DVR conversions. Via dpwolf/blog » Tech.
Squared 5 - MPEG Streamclip for Mac OS X
DV, DVD and (XS)VCD on a Macintosh
Someone else playing with Quartz Composer and posting his results.
At the Lower Eastside Girls Club, we've had a plan in place for three years, to give away free wireless broadband to Avenue D once the new building is constructed. Andrew Rasiej is running for public advocate on a free WiFi platform. He told us that non-profits should stay out of it. Hmmm...last time I looked, NYC Wireless was a non-profit. They've unwired Bryant Park, the financial district, Union Square. And in Philly the non-profits have played a big role in providing access to their constituents. Maybe Andrew was having a bad night.
Still, we're on the same side in the battle against the telecom monopolies. Here's Andrew's new report on price gouging by broadband providers.
Advocates for Rasiej » Blog Archive » Can You Gouge Me Now?
Another how-to on webserving with the Mac. A constant item on my to-do list.
MacDevCenter.com: Web Apps with Tiger: Getting Started
UPDATE: A list of previous O'Reilly articles on Mac webserving can be found here. It includes a series covering Apache on Jaguar.
An application that puts information about your Quicktime clips into the clips themselves (like mp3 tags). It's part of the Quicktime spec. Will the tags show up in iTunes?
Metadata Hootenanny > Home FAQ
Again, thanks to dp wolf.
Quartonian: live performance with Quartz Composer
From my new favorite tech blog: dpwolf/blog » Tech
A link to CocoaMySQL - A MySQL GUI for Mac OS X - which is a graphic interface for MySQL databases, sure to be handy if I keep working with WordPress.
So I just took the plunge, upgraded my computer and OS, happy as a clam, and I'm starting to play with Quartz Composer. This is an application that takes advantage of new graphic capabilities in the Mac OS. Some folks are running with it already. This looks very cool.
dpwolf/blog » Vidget - Download
For the local business broadband initiative.
InfoWorld Special Report: Build your business with open source
For my microbiologist son.
EETimes.com - Bacteria grow conductive wires
MacJams.com - MIDI Keyboard Buyer's Guide for Mac Users
One of my favorite sources of weblog information just went through the same server move that we did. Well, the original server was a different configuration, but many of the issues were the same. Here is their experience. I'll add our notes when I get to it.
Successful Weblog Server Change! - Brainstorms and Raves
Came to this by a very roundabout route. I saw a post on Smart Mobs that was about two links removed.
In any case, a study in the new issue of "Telecommunications Policy" that reviews developig and developed countries' broadband strategies.
In "Lessons from broadband development in Canada, Japan, Korea and the United States" this gem popped out:
"...the ITU reports that in 2002 Japanese consumers paid $0.09 per 100 kilobits per second of broadband access compared to $3.53 in the United States."
ScienceDirect - Telecommunications Policy, Volume 29, Issue 8, Pages 573-684 (September 2005)
For making enhanced podcasts with chapters, stills, and links.
RBSoftware :: Web Tools for Mac OS X
via Al Delgado's Educational Weblogs.
Dave Winer has made the Mac version of his OPML editor (it's really much more than that) available. Here's the page about it:
OPML Editor support: Welcome to the OPML Editor
And here's the download.
I took a look around, and here are two good sources.
[blog.forret.com]: Podcast icons: what's available
Mainly concerned with economics of coffee shop level hotspots, but interesting.
Slashdot | The Case for Free WiFi?
Andrew Hedges has put together an excellent tutorial on building widgets. Much clearer than anything I've run across, and more helpful to the non-geek than the dashboard developers' list. Thanks Andrew!
Addressing the digital divide with a crank powered mesh enabled laptop.
WorldChanging: Another World Is Here: Negroponte's Hundred Dollar Laptop
The folks at EchoDitto keep bringing out more goodies for Drupal-based websites.
For now there's:
- echo_bat - a Dean campaign-esque bat/thermometer
- echopetition - an exensible petition module
- echodump - reporting and dumps to Excel
- echoinvite - create tell-a-friend nodes
- blacklist - prevent comment spam
- googlesearch - add a block to search your site with google
Keep an eye on their website and their open source page.
I met Jay last week after a panel discussion on the digital divide at EyeBeam, sponsored by City Councilwoman Gale Brewer (Bruce Lai was representing her office). Jay took a bit of a tangent in his comments but was an inspiring and vivid addition to the conversation.
NewsForge | Jay Sulzberger on Free Software (and computing freedom) advocacy
Getting geeky here. I usually try to get a glimmer of the latest buzzwords on the web. Often I don't get much further. Occasionally I get some use out of it.
From this readable and useful explanation of AJAX by Cameron Adams:
"Essentially, remote scripting allows client-side JavaScript to request data from a server without having to refresh the Web page. That's it."
AJAX: Usable Interactivity with Remote Scripting [JavaScript & DHTML Tutorials]
I'll need this later. Thanks to Sam Churchill.
Daily Wireless - Are City Clouds Safe?
Why worry? As the quoted report in Mobile Pipeline points out, it's all just too easy.
WordTech Software: Open Source Applications and Packages for Mac OS X: AquaEthereal
File under "Online global persistent distributed co-op backup"
Two items in Daily Wireless today with useful info for those dreaming of cheap (or free) wifi for their communities.
Daily Wireless - Philly Chooses 3 Finalists
Daily Wireless - Citywide Voice over WiFi
Pedal and solar powered PC and communications system | Inveneo.org
EchoDitto has created some of its best websites on a foundation of the Drupal open source content management system. Now they are beginning to make their elegant add-ons open and available. Cheers to Nicco and the team!
EchoDitto's Open-Source Software
The rumor has it, as early as September.
WSJ.com - Apple Looks to Sell Videos -- and Maybe iPods to Play Them
PBS | I, Cringely . July 14, 2005 - More Shoes
Apple To The Rescue...Again? - Forbes.com
The only one I miss on this chart is civicspace, built on drupal. For a multiple author, open blogging system it works great. But I think the choices in the chart are probably much easier to set up and simpler for each individual author to use.
Blog software comparison chart
Thanks to Dave Winer for the pointer.
How To Publish a Podcast on the iTunes Music Store
I'll want to get back to these: the first two tools I've found to help write the XML for enhanced podcasts, and a forum for chapter tool tips and questions.
ScriptBuilders: PodCastEnhancer 0.3
Doug's AppleScripts for iTunes - Playlist Tracks to ChapterTool XML v1.1
[Apple Chapter Tool Beta] - iPodlounge Forums Archive
It's a geek thing, not a jungle thing. The comments also have some good tips on setting up control of remote Macs without displays of their own.
A brief review of John Markoff's "What the Dormouse Said, How the 60’s counterculture shaped the Personal Computer Industry."
WorldChanging: Another World Is Here: Francis Pisani: Let's Not Forget What We Owe the Hippies
Here's the best roundup so far of information about enhanced podcasts, the new (4.9) capability of creating podcasts that have chapters, graphics and links built-in.
PodcastChapterTool - Voxmedia Wiki
A followup to my earlier post on the Backpack Hotspot. The New York Times gets reactions from Verizon, whose cellular internet connections are being shared by these devices.
For Surfers, a Roving Hot Spot That Shares - New York Times
Good essay on Apple's promotion of podcasting, good and bad, and how it might fix what's lacking.
Daring Fireball: Is That a Podcast in Your Pocket?
A post by Dave Winer that is timely, since he is releasing his OPML editor. I saw a demo of it two nights ago, and was impressed again by the potential of OPML. I'm one of the people he refers to who have been hand-coding their node (mine is the Travel category) of the ipodder.org community directory, an early experiment in a community run, distributed structure based on OPML. If I can do it, anyone can. But the ease and elegance of the new editor application is an impressive sign of new things on the horizon.
www.podcatch.com : The community directory
An excerpt:
The podcasting community did more than bootstrap a new medium in record time. As if that wasn't enough, it also bootstrapped a directory of podcasting resources and podcasts themselves, and a way of doing directories in communities that goes way beyond podcasting in importance. It's a structure of interlinked OPML directories, maintained by the community, linked together by the architecture of OPML. It's the small pieces loosely joined philosophy applied to directories, and it works. There is no official top level of the directory, but many people think of Adam Curry's ipodder.org directory as the top level. For many months Adam toiled over this directory, using an early version of the OPML Editor that I created for him. Many of the people who create directories that Adam links to actually code the OPML by hand, that's how dedicated and visionary these people are.
Via Slashdot. A Google map Firefox plugin that puts a Google map in any page that has an address or location data.
Relevant to what we are doing in the Girls Club, that's for sure.
DDN Communities: Bridging the Gender Gap in Technology
Another mobile communications backpack. But this is the real deal.
Films via WiMax. Another piece of the puzzle.
Daily Wireless - Intel Inside Movie Distribution
No WiMax connection was mentioned in Intel's press release today, but at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year, the premiere of Rize was delivered via WiMax to a Ski Lodge in Park City Utah.
Intel technicians in Hillsboro, Oregon, encrypted Rize, which was shot in high-definition digital video. The file was streamed to Salt Lake City, then beamed via microwave to Park City and through a WiMax connection to the top of a 10,000-foot mountain. A receiver at the ski lodge sent the file to an HP Media Center PC, where it was decoded and projected through a high-end digital projector. The film was encoded in high-definition using Microsoft Windows Media 10 and used Alvarion and Mountain Wireless, an ISP, to deliver the goods.
A constituent relationship manager that is compatible with CivicSpace and Drupal.
From ZDNet via Slashdot.
Slashdot | Google Invests in Power-Line Broadband
Downloaded Skype but haven't used it yet. Here's the open source alternative, which uses the SIP standard and features one-button recording of calls - an easy podcast.
Gizmo - A free phone for your computer
Last fall I was looking into putting links in Quicktime audio files to do this. Now Apple has created Enhanced Podcasts with chapter marks that trigger pictures or links. Details here:
The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) - iTunes 4.9 Chapters in Depth
Typically, I've lurked on the edge of Ourmedia for a couple of months. Here's an overview of what's happening in and around. Confusing and exciting, and very early in the process.
Be the Media: the state of the public webcasting platform - CommonMedia.org
Latest in the legislation battle.
It's McCain Vs. Telecom Firms On Broadband
One of the best analyses of the current political struggle over PBS. Disclosure: I worked for the MacNeil Lehrer NewsHour, 1983-1988, and edited shows in Bill Moyers' series "World of Ideas."
The Armstrong Williams NewsHour - New York Times (may require fee, subscription, or that you go out and buy the paper right now)
"The intent is not to kill off PBS and NPR but to castrate them by quietly annexing their news and public affairs operations to the larger state propaganda machine that the Bush White House has been steadily constructing at taxpayers' expense."
This bio of Dianah Neff has an impressive list of what they've been able to accomplish with Wireless Philadelphia, including links to some of the community projects
Wi-Fi Planet Conference & Expo 2005 - Dianah L. Neff
This suits my current black mood regarding the digital life.
In slashdot, a thread on "Best way to back up digital photos and video" that takes unusual turns in the comments.
Slashdot | Best Way to Back Up Photos and VIdeo?
Having just tackled the issue of backing up a network, I read a number of posts describing 3-level backups on tape, hard drive, CD and DVD, fireproof storage, etc. before coming across this discussion (click More).
this is actually a BIG question (Score:4, Insightful)
by Ralph Spoilsport (673134) on Sunday June 26, @12:13AM (#12912210)
(Last Journal: Monday July 12, @10:38PM)
And one that I have railed about for many years.
I have been in the same position the Author discussed, and I have come to ONLY negative conclusions. In a few words, and I hate to say this, but buddy:
WE'RE FUCKED.
Digital is a loser's proposition. backing up to analogue or even digital data on analogic substrates (such as DV tape) fail. Simply nad purely.
The *only* thing that comes close is some kind of RAID, and those, even with the plummeting price of storage, are still too expensive given the needs.
Also, a RAID assumes a continuity of several things that are not likely to be continuous:
With Video:
Framerate, number of lines, colour depth, aspect ratio, file format, compression format, Operating system compatibility, etc etc etc. All of these things are variables.
With Audio:
sample rate, compression format, bit depth, file format, etc.
Basically all of it points to very bad places.
I am fairly well convinced that our age will simply disappear. They will find our garbage, the few books not pressed on acidic paper, our paintings (fat lot of good the abstract stuff will mean to them) and drawings, that's about it. the rest will just be shiny little bits of crap in the landfill.
Since we will have used up all the dense energy forms, they will be appalled at the energy requirements just to get the few remaining museum piece devices to work. Archiving the 21st century will be impossible. To the 25th century, the 21st century will be seen as a dark age - not only for the holocaust of the die caused by the failure of the petroleum based economy, but from the simple fact that very little of the information formats we are totally geared into will survive, including this note on /.
His problem of saving personal video is just the tip ofthe iceberg. His problem is the problem of our very civilisation, writ small.
That's why I am abandoning video, and going back to painting. In 500 years, my painting CAN survive. the video simply won't.
RS
[ Reply to This ]
Re:this is actually a BIG question (Score:5, Insightful)
by agent oranje (169160) on Sunday June 26, @01:47AM (#12912580)
(Last Journal: Wednesday June 04, @05:01PM)
Mod parent up "brilliant."
In the digital world, there's currently no such thing as an archive. There are backups that last for quite some time, but I seriously doubt any of them will last forever. The only reason any of these backups last so long is because the people creating them put some serious effort into keeping the data safe - and even then, what's to say it's not going to fail tomorrow?
You're right about the 21st century becoming a second dark age. Half the time, it proves extremely difficult to find web-published articles from two years ago, never mind what someone was putting on the web 15 years ago. Servers come and go as those involved become disinterested with the media they created. But, the difference between a print magazine going belly up and a dotcom media source going belly up is that the printed magazine will still exist while the data from the dotcom will likely never be accessible to the public again.
In the case of personal media, digital is a disaster. My grandparents still have stacks of photos documenting their entire lives, as do my parents, as do my parents for me. However, my photo collection currently suffers a gap which will never be recovered, specifically 1997-2000. During those years, I used a digital camera, and I left the photos on a working hard drive for safe keeping - alas, when I went to retrieve some files off of the drive when I wanted to go back and read a paper, I discovered the drive had committed suicide in a year without use. Yeah, that sucks.
Currently, the best way to back up data is RAID - and that's not even backing the data up, it's just making it more persistent. When you move to another machine, move all of the data to the new RAID. Repeat forever. To be extra safe, have a backup RAID just in case the first one suffers from a catastrophe.
Why is digital media troublesome? Books rarely render themselves unreadable while sitting on shelves, and are likewise rarely destroyed when dropped. Carving something into rock requires a bitchin' act of god to get rid of. But the deleting of a file, or the death of a hard drive, can wipe vast amounts of history out of existence, both in a personal and societal sense. Without an ability to permanently archive digital data, none of the data from the digital age will exist in the future.
[After a rebuttal from someone who claims data has never been more permanant, the first writer responds:]
wow - what a load.
OK - point for point:
Thus it's not supprising much of it gets destroyed. For that matter, most of it isn't worth saving anyhow.
That's not the argument - the problem is the evanescence of digital media itself. It's not a question of most - it's a question of ALL.
Books are not such a perminant media as you might think. They wear out, and can be destoryed.
I didn't say they were - they are merely MORE permanent if they are made properly. furthermore, the *context* of their information is much lower - all it takes is paper and pen and you can (carefully) copy the data *with no loss* of the "original* message. This is how the Bible and other "important" works were maintained over the centuries.
DIgital data requires a very high context situation for its copying: it MUST be copied to another digital (drive) or digital supporting substrate (tape). Tape breaks down (I occassionally work in tape restoration - tape SUCKS for storage. Sticky shed gets you sooner or later...) and drives die and corrupt (I found that out the hard way last month when my main computer AND my back up both died within 2 weeks of each other. I lost a LOT of data...)
No one can sit and copy out trillions of ones and zeros - there isn't enough paper. Digital requires a huge and wasteful industrial system, which has been proven over and over to be unsustainable. Something's going to go, and I would submit that video and digital audio will be among the first to go.
The Nordic Legends weren't written down for centuries, yet today we still have them. They were passed down, as an oral traditon for generations. There was no perminance to them other than stories in people's minds, yet they've durvived thousands of years.
Then I suggest you learn all your favourite slashdot posts by heart so you can pass them down to your grandchildren, assuming we all don't starve to death with our kids in a refugee camp in Oregon in 2032.
Via Joi Ito:
Asterisk - The Open Source Linux PBX
Rebecca MacKinnon is on the case.
RConversation: Screenshots of Censorship
RConversation: Chinese Bloggers Respond: The Plot Thickens
RConversation: Confirmed: All Typepad blogs blocked in China
Like it says.
Daily Wireless - Muni/WiMax Weblogs
My new mantra - just add Apple.
Intel invents agile wireless chip - Computer Business Review
Intel late last week said its scientists had invented a new type of chip that can process signals from different types of wireless networks. The chip also could handle upcoming WiMax technology, that promises wireless internet connectivity for up to 30 miles, and future flavors of WiFi.
When I paint my masterpiece...
MacDevCenter.com: An Introduction to Tiger Terminal
MacDevCenter.com: An Introduction to Tiger Terminal, Part 2
and
The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) - Terminal Tips
Daily Wireless - Intel + Nokia = WiMax Mobile
UPDATE:
Apple added:
Nokia - Nokia develops a new browser for Series 60 by using open source software
Technology News Article | Reuters.com - CVS launches disposable digital camcorder in U.S.
Yesterday's announcement by Apple that it would move to Intel chips generated a lot of blather. Blogger Scoble said the whole industry was shaking while his boss at MSoft, Ballmer, asked "What's changed?"
Little has been said about the potential for Apple to take the lead in WiMax enabled devices. Intel wants to build it into laptops. Apple will have Intel based, faster and cooler-running laptops. Conclusion?
WiMAX, wireless, WiMAX Forum, WiMAX one stop, resources from Wireless Review magazine
This document contains a critique of the recent NYC report on the state of broadband in the city. Here's an excerpt:
Almost No Mention of Connecting Low-Income Communities
The report does not discuss bringing broadband to those communities to who could benefit from technology the most low-income communities. Low-income children and families are mentioned once in the entire report. Instead the focus of the report is on attracting and retaining talented people and creative professionals as opposed to growing the talent who live and work in New York City already. The report also remarks that 38 percent of all New York City households have adopted broadband. That means 62 percent of all New York City households have not adopted broadband, and it is likely that most of these households are low-income households. According to recent data (2004) from Nielsen/Netratings and the Pew Internet and American Life Project, the penetration of high-speed Internet in [among households with incomes below $30,000] is around 10 percent.
Limited Mention of Wiring of Nonprofits and Small Businesses
Nonprofit Organizations
In New York City, there are over 27,000 registered nonprofit organizations, including over 9,000 public charities. These over 9000 public charities account directly for $43 billion in annual expenditures, more than 528,000 jobs, or 14% of New York City's employees, and an annual payroll of more than $22.7 billion. In addition, they had assets of $65 billion and revenues of more than $48 billion in the year 2000, which is larger than New York City's manufacturing sector. An estimated 200,000 additional jobs result indirectly from purchases by nonprofits of goods and services from private firms. Despite the apparent importance of the nonprofit sector is to the New York City's economy, there is only one action item of the Administration's telecommunications plan relating to the wiring of nonprofit organizations. Even then, that action item relates to a nonprofit organization, New York State Education and Research Network (or NYSERNet), not the City, working to help nonprofit organizations get access to a broadband connection. Also, while there is a plan for small businesses to be educated on the benefits of broadband, nonprofit organizations have been excluded from this initiative.
Small Businesses
The report focuses on the telecommunications needs of several of the large industries in New York City, most notably financial services, media, health care as well as telecommunications itself. Most of these industries are composed of the largest corporations in the City and are located in the central business districts in Manhattan. These industries are undoubtedly important to the health of New York City's economy. However, there is little mention of the many businesses that support these industries as well as the businesses that serve the workers of these industries who often reside outside of Manhattan. Even though the report concludes that small business have few broadband options and that small businesses often must wait longer [for a broadband connection] and do not receive the highest level of service, the report does not mention any concrete program to wiring small businesses outside of Manhattan besides the program to educate small businesses on the benefits of broadband. The report does state that the City will help Business Improvement Districts (BIDs) and Local Development Corporations (LDCs) deploy wireless networks for the small businesses they serve. However, the City's role in this initiative would be limited to helping local organizations explore the potential of wireless technologies for improving the availability of broadband in their neighborhoods, assisting them in developing project plans, and identifying potential service providers.
Anything with the words community, mesh, Soros, and RoofNet will get my attention. Then "under-$100 nodes" made it a post.
Thanks as usual to Sam Churchill.
Daily Wireless - CommunityInternet.us
Note: I couldn't connect to the MIT RoofNet links, but they live in the Google cache.)
Our new inspiration. I met Ms Neff at the PDF Conference. Here's a great manifesto/interview.
Hands off our Wi-Fi network! | Perspectives | CNET News.com
Via the weblog of Lucas Gonze:
All things Bru: Turn FireFox into a Web JukeBox
I've already linked to the first part of this useful posting. Someday I'll come back and try it all out. Really.
Nerd Vittles » ISP-In-A-Box: Remotely Managing Mac Web Sites Using WebDAV
And here's Nerd Uno's page full of Mac Mini projects. I'm a bit old for Spring Break but I need some indoor projects while all the kids run wild in the East Village.
Nerd Vittles » HOW-TO Extravaganza: Spring Break Projects for You & Your Mac mini
We can hope.
Intel Apple = WiMAX?: Corante > Unwired >
Thanks to the EchoDitto blog for this link. Open source project funding software from this site.
Congrats to Lucas Gonze must be in order.
RSS Playlists, Thanks to XSPF - The Digital Music Weblog - digitalmusic.weblogsinc.com _
DFNYC techs are great! They're turning me into a real geek. Thanks to Connie for this assignment:
Can it be done? Who knows?
Daily Wireless - SF Tries Free, Ad-driven WiFi
Some tremors in the Mac world at the moment about whether Dashboard widgets in Tiger open the Mac to security problems. Last night I read the Slashdot post and the Zaptastic demo that occasioned it (warning: the latter installs a benign widget on your Mac if you use Safari, as a proof of the danger). Dori Smith offers a clear assessment of the risk and steps you can take.
Macworld: News: Dashboard: Widget (In)Security
Online Media Daily - NYC Politico Launches Online Ad Campaign
ANDREW RASIEJ, ONE OF THE challengers to New York City Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum, has turned to the Internet to promote his candidacy in the Democratic primary this September.
And the consequences:
Foreign Affairs - Down to the Wire - Thomas Bleha
"In the first three years of the Bush administration, the United States dropped from 4th to 13th place in global rankings of broadband Internet usage. Today, most U.S. homes can access only "basic" broadband, among the slowest, most expensive, and least reliable in the developed world, and the United States has fallen even further behind in mobile-phone-based Internet access. The lag is arguably the result of the Bush administration's failure to make a priority of developing these networks. In fact, the United States is the only industrialized state without an explicit national policy for promoting broadband."
Looks like they co-opted the citizen journalism line then brought in the suits. As city council member Margarita Lopez said last night, no one else can empower you - you have to take it yourself.
The Nation | Article | Al Gore Gets Down | Ari Berman
Then there's Adam Curry moving to Sirius satellite radio. Good for him - he couldn't just keep mumbling around the house much longer. Dawn and Drew vs. Howard Stern.
The New York Times > An MTV Host Moves to Radio, Giving Voice to Audible Blogs
But is it podcasting? Was pcasting just the audition for bcasting? Does anybody care?
Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. Wasn't MTV revolutionary in its day?
My favorite wireless news site has a post on the New Voices grants, including the one to the Girls Club grant for community podcasting. Good work, Sam! And thanks for the inspiration!
Daily Wireless - Community Journalism Grants
Before it's over - Happy Birthday to Dave Winer - without you, I wouldn't have met Nicco, without Nicco and RSS I wouldn't have become a junglecaster...the list goes on. Best on your 50th, youngster!
I thought I'd been through all the possible cable modem/Airport problems, and knew all the fixes. Yes, I turned everything off and back on to pull new IP numbers. But this time I just had to leave it all off longer. Simple, right?
This helped:
Nerd Vittles » ISP-In-A-Box: The $500 Mac mini (Chapter XIV: Remote Access and Remote Control)
Yes, Tiger is out today. Gotta have it.
Here's a page of related info from Dori Smith of Backup Brain.
Dori Smith: Dashboard Widgets Books, Sites, and Resources
And once I upgrade, this is one of the first widgets I'll download:
UPDATE: I can see I'll have a list of these.
Dashboard Widgets - JiWire WiFi Hotspot Finder
The Lower Eastside Girls Club just got a grant to build a podcasting studio! And I had nothing to do with it, beyond blathering about podcasting for the last 8 months. Lyn wrote the grant when I was off in Mexico, er, podcasting. Pod on, girls!
From the weblog of Lucas Gonze, a link to a 16 year old's lucid explanation of XSPF and how to put a playlist music player on your site (and share it with others).
XSPF - A Better Way to Play MP3s on your site at Forever Geek
The Forever Geek credo: Nerds are for dorks.
Exactly.
Muniwireless: New York City looks into affordable broadband for all
New York City Council Member Gale Brewer has introduced legislation that would create a nine-member task force charged with ensuring that every city resident, small business, and non-profit has affordable broadband access.
From Cory via Joi Ito.
Boing Boing: Amazon directory of free MP3 downloads
Here's another installment in EchoDitto's excellent "Best Practices" series.
Best Practices | EchoDitto | The Blogging Advantage (108k PDF)
Before I went off to Mexico this year I built my first PHP/mySQL application (a simple RSVP), as an assignment from the volunteer tech group at Democracy For NYC. Thanks to Connie and others for their patience.
Now I want to check this out as a package that some better programmers have put together. It caught my eye at Participatory Culture Foundation.
tincan ltd : phplist : What is PHPlist
I am reading more than Daily Wireless, but you wouldn't know it on this site. When Lyn asks me about VoIP, I know that it's making headway in the mainstream.
Daily Wireless - Vonage $99 WiFi Voip Phone?
As expected, Sam Churchill is going nuts over news of Intel's new WiMax chip. He's got a huge roundup of related news:
Daily Wireless - Intel Shipping WiMax Silicon
Here's more:
And is WiMax phone service coming to Ave D? Yes, if I have anything to say about it.
Thanks to Xeni for posting our Maya adventures on Boing Boing. Here's her profile in the LA Times:
calendarlive.com: Behold, the wizard of blogs
And her post:
Boing Boing: Cross-cultural podcasting from la Ruta Maya
Thanks, Xeni!
From Austin by way of John Lebkowsky
Web Informant #405, WiFi as urban renewal How they did it:
Volunteer Orientation and Training - WELCOME TO AUSTIN WIRELESS CITY PROJECT (pdf)
Pod- and videocasting "one stop solution". Unless you have a Mac. Coming for OS X this month they say.
I've got wireless infrastructure on the brain.
Greetings to any folks arriving here from ourmedia. Please look around and comment - I've got too many quiet lurkers.
And for those who haven't checked it out, ourmedia is here:
http://www.ourmedia.org/
Go there immediately and register. You'll be glad you did.
Thanks to JD and Marc and all the rest of the team. Arriba! Andale! Bravo!
My newly discovered wireless access here in San Cristobal is a little spotty. We're working on it. Meanwhile I have moments of adequate signal - now as I sit on my upstairs deck with my iBook propped on the wall. Risky but beautiful out here.
Someone here has the actual magazine. Think I'll read it. Meanwhile here's the online version:
Economist.com | Technology and development
Thanks to Dave for the link.
HOW-TO: Make your own annotated multimedia Google map - Engadget - www.engadget.com
Via Ben Hammersley, a guide to public radio podcasts.
PublicRadioFan.com - Podcast directory
Here's another company that designs progressive websites using civicspace. Their site (like EchoDitto's) is a beautiful adaptation of the platform.
Development Seed | Technical Solutions for Progressive Organizations
Both organizations are featured in a report tonight on NBC in Washington, D.C. Tim Jones of EchoDitto interviewed the NBC producer, I.J. Hudson, and created this podcast:
Episode Thirteen: Digital Edge | EchoRadio
Aldon has helped me several times in the last couple of months as I learned my way around civicspace. He's a great source of information regarding the nuts and bolts of online politics.
Setting up a Paypal account to receive donations online.
Another indication that these guys get it. And another vote towards using them to provide backhaul on the Ave. D building.
Daily Wireless - Towerstream offers Free VoIP
From the always useful EchoDitto site, a post by Terrance Heath on keeping folks coming back to your website. I certainly need advice in that department.
EchoDitto Blog | EchoDitto - Keep 'Em Coming Back, Part I
Good page of information and links, collected by a member of the Yahoo! Groups : Information_Systems_Forum
Robert L. Weiner Consulting: Technology Resources
The New York Times > Technology > For a Start-Up, Visions of Profit in Podcasting
This is a good start, and bold in today's climate.
NEW YORK, Feb. 25 /PRNewswire/ -- The New York City Council unanimously adopted a resolution to provide low- or no-cost high-speed Internet access to affordable housing residents.
Res. No. 669, introduced by Council Member Gale A. Brewer, the Chair of the New York City Council's Committee on Technology in Government, calls upon City agencies to use their funding and regulatory power to support and encourage the provision of affordable high-speed Internet service and computer purchases for the benefit of residents of affordable housing.
"This resolution will help us bridge the digital divide -- lack of access to the economic, educational and financial tools that the Internet provides," said Council Member Gale Brewer (D-Manhattan). "By encouraging new affordable housing developments to be built with high-speed Internet access, we can accelerate the entry of low-income people into the economic mainstream. At a cost as low as $175 a unit, this is an investment New York can't afford not to make."
This resolution represents a major accomplishment for One Economy Corporation, a national nonprofit that utilizes technology to help low-income people improve their lives. One Economy's Bring IT Home campaign, a public policy initiative to bring high-speed Internet access into all new and rehabilitated affordable housing, has affected policy change in 29 states and two cities since its launch in February 2004. According to Mark Levine, One Economy vice president, northeast region, New York has set the bar for other cities to consider similar action for the benefit of their communities.
"We congratulate the New York City Council on its leadership and vision in unanimously passing Res. No. 669," said Levine, who helped draft the resolution. "One of the most debilitating aspects of poverty is isolation ... whether based on geography, education level or discrimination. We believe that technology and the Internet have the potential to help low-income people leap over each of these barriers. New York can set an example for other municipalities in helping our nation's low-income families to tap the transformative potential of technology."
Res. No. 669 states that:
* All future publicly financed or subsidized housing properties for residents earning less than 80 percent of the median area income should provide a high-speed Internet connection in the living area of every unit to residents for free or at a cost of less than $10 per month; * The development of programs that benefit of low-income residents' utilization of technology, such as the affordable purchase of computers, should be encouraged; and * All relevant City agencies should use their funding and regulatory power to support and encourage the provision of affordable high-speed Internet service and computer purchases for the benefit of residents of affordable housing.
One Economy helps affordable housing developers across the nation design and implement high-speed Internet access solutions for residents. By installing shared data networks akin to those in commercial offices, developers can significantly lower the per-user cost. This solution provides broadband Internet access to each family at an ongoing cost of one-third or even one-fourth the market rate. In some cases, the price is so low that housers elect to absorb the cost completely.
About the New York City Council's Committee on Technology in Government
The primary goals of the Committee on Technology in Government are (1) to close the digital divide by expanding access to broadband in underserved communities of New York City, (2) to increase the strategic use of technology in government, thereby, increasing efficiency in government and enhancing the quality of public services, and (3) to promote the openness and transparency of government by making sure that public information is accessible to every New York City resident. Through its ability to hold oversight hearings over City agencies and introduce and hear legislation, the Committee on Technology in Government works to achieve its goals in partnership with the private, public and nonprofit sectors. More information about the Committee and the Chair of the Committee, Council Member Gale Brewer, can be found at the following link: http://nyccouncil.info/issues/committee.cfm?committee_id=106&;ltsbdkey=5121.
About One Economy Corporation
One Economy Corporation is a national nonprofit that utilizes technology to help low-income people improve their standard of living. One Economy's strategy is to bring technology into the home, provide online multilingual content through The Beehive (http://www.thebeehive.org/) -- used by as many as half a million people each month -- and facilitate computer literacy. One Economy's national Bring IT Home campaign promotes state-level public policy change to make high-speed Internet connectivity a standard practice. More information about Bring IT Home and One Economy may be found at http://www.one-economy.com/.
Contact: Angie Dobrowski 503.295.4493 x2 angie@sd-pr.com
Susan Sheehan 503.449.1666 susan@sd-pr.com
Jon Lebkowsky has a brilliant post on the conflict between profit, economic development and the digital divide.
WorldChanging: Another World Is Here: Municipal Wireless, Innovation, and Politics
"My question, though, is that if a significant percentage of the population lacks access to information services that could provide a significant foundation for other forms of innovation, who is going to bridge the gap, and how? If the delivery of information services is strictly the business of private companies, incumbent providers, that provide service only where a clear market opportunity exists, and only to a market that will pay top dollar for service, how will services be delivered to underserved populations. (As Clay Shirky once said to David Isenberg, "I distrust people who call for less regulation unlessthey also call for less scarcity.")
And if services are provided by subscription only, and different providers offer services in different areas, to what extent will that constrain economic development and innovation, compared to free and open wireless access in public places?"
Here's more feedback on the controversy over Philadelphia and municipal broadband. This comment suggests broadband vouchers to help the underserved get internet service while paying the providers.
TalkBack: municipal broadband ill-conceived | reader response on| CNET News.com
I'm about a month behind the curve on this, but MT has released a plugin that supports the Google-initiated 'nofollow' tag in order to fight comment spam. And it works on the version of MT (2.661) that I am still using.
Six Apart - Movable Type 'nofollow' plugin
From the maker of WordPress blogging software, bbPress forum software. Don't care? I do. Or might, when I get over my CivicSpace fixation. Like WordPress, bbPress is based on PHP and MySQL (which I'm finally starting to get) and is free.
From EchoDitto, a report on the state of the internet and its use in commerce, community and information.
The Empowerment Age (PDF)
Gotta come back and check this out. Podcast with Lucas Gonze interview. via Andrew Grumet
Staccato: a Creative Commons music show » Episode 9