Where is kid N?

While researching a project I was Joi-fully reminded of networking entrepreneur Joi Ito's website and blog.

Looking around, I found an intriguing link that simply read: "Where is Joi?". The service and application I found is called plazer and plazes.com. Joi Ito's plazes.com account told me the location of Joi's travels. His current location or perhaps where he was last seen. Intrigued by the idea and thankful that I can give my poor grad-school widow some more information on where to reach me, I signed up and enabled plazes on my laptop and then embedded the plazes badge into my website and the links bar on this blog (see to the left).

With plazer/plazes.com you can publish your geo-location through the internet node to which your machine or web-enabled device is connected. Now this kind of self actuated surveillance might seem a bit Orwellian to some of you but, I think it is a very intriguing social networking site/idea.

First, (for all of you conspiratists) I can choose to run the app or not allowing me anonymity to the public. I figure any law agency can do this with or without this app on my laptop. Second, the user chooses to publish his whereabouts, the app requires you to put in the data for location. If someone has done this you can choose the first option for your invisibility. The last lines of privacy include options for setting privileged on who can see you or if you are public.

checkout where the hell kid neutrino is today by going to my website or here.

Pessimism the New Black

Adam Cohen's editorial piece about the cultural ramifications of continued poor predictions, broken promises, faulty calculations, and just maybe outright lies such as "mission accomplished" and "the last throes" really struck me. See: "What is the Latest Thing to Be Discouraged About? The Rise of Pessimism", New York Times, 28 August 2006.

I have to admit that I am one of those mislead from the beginning of this military "quagmire" (I wonder why the newsmedia hasn't bandied that word in many months??); I tried to give the administration some benefit of doubt. I still experience abject horror when I think of what Hussein did to the Kurdish villages when Bush Sr. declared pseudo-victory in Gulf I. And maybe it was empathy for the Kurds (the white guilt of my generation?) that lead me to swallow the bait of 'Intelligence' the king-makers cast at us. How could they possibly create a credible-false story in the post-Nixon utopia of countless investigative and independent sources? Now I just shake my head and let this be my personal apology to those I called extremists as this was unfolding.

Mr. Cohen hits the nail on the head. The lies don't seem to motivate the members of our society. Instead our legions of pessimists such as me know they are being lied to and know the alternatives suck too. These guys make Dick look like an amateur.

David Kelley Lecture

I had the great fortune of seeing David Kelley speak last night at the Silicon Valley Commonwealth Club in conjunction with ISEA06/ZeroOne. I listen to lectures from this group all the time on the radio. It was a pleasure to attend the lecture and I think I will try to attend more in the future.

See the short article I wrote on this compelling lecture on Design Thinking here on the Switch Magazine Blog coverage of ISEA06/ZeroOne.

Switch Blog: the Festival and Symposium

be sure to check out the Switch Magazine blog as we report the happenin's at ISEA06 and the ZeroOne Festival. link

Rapporteur ISEA 2006
rap-por-teur |ˌraˌpôrˈtər| noun a person appointed by an organization to report on the proceedings of its meetings : the UN rapporteur. ORIGIN late 18th cent.: French, from rapporter ‘bring back.’orteur |ˌraˌpôrˈtər| noun a person appointed by an organization to report on the proceedings of its meetings : the UN rapporteur. ORIGIN late 18th cent.: French, from rapporter ‘bring back.’

I have volunteered to assist Edward Shanken as an Assistant Designer/Rapporteur for the ISEA06 symposiums wiki. This wiki will be a record of the symposium content and commentary. Think of it as real-time reporting and ultimately a document of ISEA06. Find the wiki here and make commentary, ask questions, and report on the symposium.

Edward Shanken is Professor of Art History and Media Theory at the Savannah College of Art and Design. He is known for his advocacy of collaborations and syntheses of AST (art, science, and technology). Shanken has also become a proponent in the expanding in move for alternative approach to trans-discplinary graduate eduation. See a lecture Eddie gave on these subjects at UCLA December 2005 here.

My cohort also assisting the rapporteuring, is Christopher Baker. Chris a graduate art student from the University of Minnesota. His research log is here.