4 – Projects Board
Originally uploaded by jazzmasterson.
This photoset on flickr (via Sippey) details one person’s fantastic index card and envelope organisational system.
Inspiring, for many reasons.
Press “play”
^ Doug Church on “play”
I’ve been working on the subject of “play”, in its sense of a human universal drive, for the last few months at Nokia.
As part of this, during October, with the assistance of Ludicorp, we were able to gather a diverse, interesting group of ‘players’ together for a discussion on the subject – during which Justin Hall interviewed a number of them, resulting in this short film.
More play this week – I’m heading to the Other Players conference in Copenhagen, where the programme features Richard Bartle and TerraNova’s Nathan Combs amongst others.
If you’re there, I’ll be the guy with the iBook covered in Pete Fowler stickers…
The new muzak
Observation/idea: I had to wait on a customer support line today for quite a while. I’m sure you’ve had to do this too at some point.
The company in question had selected some modern pop standards and AOR (Robbie Bloody Williams, Norah Bloody Jones, Dido Bloody Dido etc) to play while I waited, punctuated with cheery automated estimates of my wait time.
I’m sure they got sold a hold music package that was focus-grouped by some unfortunates and tailored to their brand image at quite a premium. It was nethertheless, obviously, supremely irritating. Not only to me, but because I work in a shared office, to my co-workers who caught the second-hand smog of musak through the speaker of my cellphone.
This lead me to think about designing musak.
I was trying to multitask during the dead-time of waiting on the line, which meant working at my computer keyboard while half-listening to the hold music in case the customer-support person answered. Because they were playing pop music – it had to be held in focus to differentiate between the vocals of Williams et al, and the dulcet tones of the support guy. I had to listen all the time.
So first suggestion – use ambient music that makes for a clearer distinction between the wait mode, the announcements of how long you have to wait, and the voice of the person you’re waiting for – allowing me to multitask between the call on hold and my work that little bit more easily
Second suggestion – go further with this and create generative ambient music which would be unique and pleasant to listen to – and could also act as a preattentive aural information channel.
It could use rhythm and melody to keep you aware of you place in the queue, a recurring theme might build anticipation… an allegro con brio indicating you’re drawing near to the answer… a crescendo of attention building to the sweet moment your call gets answered.
Of course it’s an opportunity for sonic branding for the company also… getting their customers happily whistling their hold tune throughout the day…
Alternate strategies for alternate histories
^ image from http://xroads.virginia.edu/
One of my favourite sites, Today in Alternate History has announced that they are to begin selling serialised novellas from their strands of twisting timelines, with the readership dictating which will make the leap from the site to the novellas:
"When I began this site, it was with the intention of using it to test out some ideas for other, for-profit projects. With your assistance, thanks to our poll, the first such project is now available for you to purchase. Beginning today, TIAH will be selling our novels in serial format – 1/3 of a book every month. At the end of the 3rd month, the serialized parts will be replaced with the complete novel for sale, and the next serialization will begin. By responding to our polls, you will determine which timelines produce novels and which remain curiosities only available here on TIAH. The price for the downloads will be very reasonable – each serialized part will be US$1.50, the complete download will be US$5.00, and the trade paperback version will be US$12.00."
There’s something about this puts me to mind of penny dreadfuls and Charles Dickens – microcontent that plays to the cheap seats in a marvellous way.
Timelines and What-ifs are a form of fiction I have always enjoyed greatly (I loved David Mitchell’s "Cloud Atlas" and I’m currently reading Phillip K Dick’s "The Man in the High Castle"), so I think I will be trying a couple of the TIAH novellas.
Ok.
Noodle warning … just some stuff that’s been brewing since Amsterdam and catalysed by the above…
A half-formed digression on alternate histories and future histories: do you think our* science-fiction and science fact vision of the future is getting wider, not deeper?
Tony Stark on Etech
In the final pages of Iron Man #1, the reboot/takeover by Warren Ellis comes a scene between alcoholic billionaire technologist arms-dealer Tony Stark and Maya Hansen (who looks to be a central character in the 6 part series)
They are at a bar in the conference hotel, and Starck is bemoaning the lack of “Genuine outbreaks of the future” that he’s seen there.
They are at a conference called "WestTech", which seems pretty obviously to be O’Reilly’s Emerging Technology conference…
The line up for 2005’s Etech has been posted, and so far it seems like the same people talking about the same pet subjects. Not many ‘genuine outbreaks of the future’ so far.
Now, I know that I maybe jaundiced by the fact that I have been to every Etech so far – that’s 3 years on the trot (no blog-software pun intended, much), so perhaps take this with a pinch of salt.
There are lots of interesting things on the schedule, including what sounds like a great workshop by Tim Igoe and Raffi K, and m’colleague Chris on tangible computing. There are a fair few brits there again, including The Beatles of post-broadcast technology, Coates,Webb, Biddulph and Hammond (I’ll let you decide which is Ringo… but does it make Hill = George Martin?)
It’s just that the topics on offer: y’know – the copyfight, social software, bloody blogs, web services etc. might still be worthy topics for discussion, but I feel like I’ve been around those blocks quite a few times now, and I want some genuine outbreaks of the future.
Erupting technologies, not emerging ones… Surely these topics have crossed the chasm to be at the front-of-mind of the business world, if not the consciousness of what might be called "the mainstream".
I thought with the advent of the Web2.0 that some of the stuff that Etech had covered so well in the past would be retired, moved over for the $2000 suits to chew over – clearing the decks for some really out-there stuff. The current schedule suggests this is not the case.
What would I have there instead? On the hardware side: more mobile! Might be heresy coming from me, but how about someone from Qualcomm? Or even better, Ningbo Bird! Fuel cell technology, flexible displays, printed electronics, multiradio – Flarion, Wimax, Ultrawideband, and their implications for cities, suburbs and rural communities.
More robots, toy manufacturers, Rodney Brooks, Natalie Jeremienko and/or Neil Gershenfeld as keynote… On software and services: more simulcra and simulation… Ben Fry on working with bioinformatics and the genome, get Alan Kay again… or David Gelertner …
What’s going on with agents and distributed computing, autonomic computing – is it on the way after the hype-cycle of the mid 90s? Artficial life and AI – what’s the state of the theoretical art and the practical applications happening right now?
NBIC – the confluence of Neuroscience, Bioengineering, Information Technology and Cognitive Sciences. Bioinformatics, biometrics, and exploring the ethics of engineering in these fields. Get some sociologists in – what are these sciences and the new fields of convergence they bring doing to their domain of study and it’s application to our collective future?
Which leads me to society and technology, the unacknowledged but most interesting part (for me) of etech usually – some contrarians and tech-inspired creatives to prick the conscience: John Thackara and/or Michael Crichton and/or Warren Ellis. Lessig and Shirky, much as I love them, aren’t the only ones who can deliver a tubthumper. Patch-ecologists, biologists, cognitive psychologists! Anyone but the same old silicon valley apologists!
I know there are a fair few months for big hitters and game-changers to find their way into the programme, so perhaps this is unfair – but the theme of the next conference is ‘remix’ and at the moment it seems to be much more of a ‘retread’. Ok, rant over.
If I do go along I guess I’ll be getting pissed in the corner with Tony Stark.
A goal
I really need to learn the finnish for:
"Excuse me, taxi-driver, but would you mind not driving so fast through the snow and ice and traffic whilst text-messaging? Thank-you."
Perhaps I should feed it to folksonomy of the moment: 43 things.
Cleghorn’s foghorn
Paul on BBC2’s ‘Culture Show’
Originally uploaded by BeMa.
My old china plate Paul Cleghorn of Neuromantics and The Bunker fame was apparently on the BBC this very evening ranting about this podcasting mullarkey that seems to be the rage.
Hopefully a suitably time-and-placeshifted digital record of this unique cultural moment will be available to the expat community soon…
Walking City: 21st Century Mirrorworlds remix
^ Comparison of YRM/Tom Carden’s ‘Destinations’ (Detail) with Ron Herron/Archigram’s ‘Walking City’ (reversed out-of-black by me)
Congratulations to Tom Carden on getting a piece selected for the architecture section of The Royal Academy’s prestigious Summer Exhibition this past year. It’s called ‘Destinations’ and is a beautiful simulation of passenger movements through an airport terminal over a day.
Many things notable about this: that an artifact that is a simulation of flow through architecture is included in a celebration of the aesthetics of architecture, that these complex simulations of ‘people weather’ are not only working tools of large-scale architectural practice, but also now boundary objects that communicate to wider audiences, and that as David Gelertner put in his mid-90’s book MirrorWorlds, that now we have the power to make magic mirrors of what might be, how does that inform our actions – as architects, designers and citizens.
I was fortunate to sit down and have a chat with Tom this week in London, where we talked about simulation, visualisation, cities and agency and if those sorts of fields fascinate you, too, I recommend subscribing to his blog, Random Etc.
The other thing that struck me about Tom’s image was it’s superficial resemblence to Ron Herron’s iconic Walking City – appealing, as it’s an image of that peculiar 21st century transient city: the airport and it’s inhabitants – walking…
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See also: Rodcorp’s "life in the walking city" [via Anne G. to whom I apologise for the non-ironic utopian, technological, democratic discourses I hope she keeps reading 😉 ]
Design Engaged 2004
At Design Engaged in Amsterdam.
Had a very good morning… I’ve still to finish writing my presentation, but here’s a sneak preview of it’s lowbrow take on ubiquitous computing and embodied interaction; with apologies to Frans Hals, Paul Dourish and Richard Marks.
Dan Hill is about to speak about “self-centred design”
Update: My presentation, about embodied interaction, touch-technology, RFID, NFC and semiotics: “Being in the world: the long-now of RFID” is here
The 5th of November
Where’s V when we need him?
Petafloptimism 