April 2006 Archives
Podcasting is lame. Theres a study that proves it.
An article off Digg states that a single penny (one cent) actually costs 1.3 cents to make. This brings a dumb smile to my face—anachronism. Physical currency is becoming irrelevant, already archaic. The parallels drawn to other tech relevant matter. Think media publishing. Is there a place for vulgar physically manifestations of abstraction? Bring on the RFID.
Or selling beads.
Working on the design of our (Xin, Quanya, Fino) PPM final project (and Fino's thesis). Check out the progress. Also, check out the user experience flow-chart.
An article on WebUser.co.uk reports that most internet users are [leaches]—they don't participate. So what does this mean for largely participatory media? I don't know. What I do know is that the tools are there, and freely accessible to create and participate and so on and so forth. I'd like to see statistics on the effects levels of accesibility (of creative and publishing tools, as well as social software) has on the levels of participation. Statistics like those spewed forth in this article mean nothing. They are given no context, just branded the negative—diminishing the validity of accessible media and the products thereof.
Well, it was bound to happen. Finally pissed off MediaTemple enough for them to blast one of my scripts.
This little gem was thrown into the script (which really was destroying the database) while I was letting it run. Feeling slightly bemused.
Saw Jeff Han (multi-touch hui/display) speak at this evening's dorkbot. Great stuff, although I really wish he brought the thing; but as he himself said, a bunch of nerds (or dorks...) in a room would mean nothing but trouble. He made some excellent points on HUI (human user interface, for the tech-challenged) mostly bashing the traditional stabbing mouse. The videos were great, offering a huge array of applications. Now I just need to build one of the things.
Why is there such an effort to reinvent television on the web? We already have TV, thanks, and it sucks.
In response to my near brush with death this past Friday evening, I post the site of MPAA—Mobile Phone Abusers Anonymous. If the jackass who almost ran me over is reading this, sign up. Please.
During the weekend I got through most of Lawrence Lessig's Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace. The text is out-dated, naive, a fossil—but still somehow stimulating/thought-provoking. The subject of encription and trusted systems is pretty interesting. I still need to develop a more informed opinion on the risks and benefits of publishing intellectual property in digital form. Lessig brings up his token idea of the commons—Creative Commons. Still, I'm just not convinced by the arguments of a simple code-based architecture structuring the passage through the net. Many project ideas are coming out of reading the book, though, so look forward to more on this.
UPDATE: Link - maybe the book isn't so obsolete.
