I was in NYC this past weekend for the Mobile Tech for Social Change conference. Got to stay up way too late at Mohan’s in Brooklyn and hang out with Snuggles:
February, 2009 Monthly archive
so there won’t be too many updates. my pear tree site is not loading (who knows why?) and i spent too much time programming an interactive map in scratch for my workshop class; now there is no time to read a 120-pg thesis and write an analysis paper on it. i am, however, excited to be the new TA for Ed Barrett‘s digital poetry course next semester. i need to get back to writing poetry, although i also need to do a wipe & redesign of my other new website. so, anyway, i’ll be back when the dust settles.
meanwhile, you can check out DD’s new photo site: NOPARTICULARPLACE.NET, which he works on diligently now that i’m never around.
MCE and I are working on a project for our workshop class under the assigned theme “urban/natural”. Without completely giving it away, it involves this homemade website (see what you can make with $15, five hours and an internet connection?) as well as a sticker that may or may not resemble this:
Meanwhile, I’m heading to Manhattan this weekend to attend MobileActive’s barcamp (one-day working conference), in the hopes of making some strategic alliances for saving the world through mobile phones. Wish me luck.
My favorite documentary right now is Please vote for me, by Chinese director Weijun Chen, about third graders in China taking part in a fascinating democratic election for class monitor. Amazing. Beautifully directed. Here’s a clip — you can watch the full video on Netflix streaming, if you have an account:
< geekout >
I’ve been spending the week battling with web design, front- and backend. I want to have a homepage (on one of my sites) that pumps in a little of everything — the latest twitter, latest Tumblr, latest flickr, videos, Google Reader bookmarks, etc. To this end, I tried adapting Nick’s code from his page but couldn’t seem to tweak the Twitter & Tumblr javascript well enough. Then I discovered Kevin’s site, which he has built using a combination of Yahoo Pipes and homemade js code.
As such, I’ve plunged into Pipes — a very cool app that allows you to mix a million feeds with sorting info and maps and customize it as much as your tech skills allow — but so far have only been able to create a superfeed of my own content, my friends’ content, world news feeds, media & tech, and mobile & ICT updates. I still need to feed everything into a static html page (oy).
Meanwhile, I still can’t post mobile photos to Utterli (no idea why it stopped working), therefore they are no longer crossposting onto this blog. I had to go back to posting to Tumblr at m.tapioca.tv.
< /geekout >
In unrelated news, it feels like a day in 1997. I can remember sitting in Peter Shippey’s class at Emerson and watching the rain throw down out the window. One of those moments where it’s not spring, but almost, and you can smell it.
For my workshop class, we have an assignment this week to “get lost” and document the experience. DD convinced me to drive around with him, blindfolded in the passenger’s seat, and call out directions while he drove until we got lost. It pretty much worked, and we ended up at Nut Island in Quincy.
Welcome to episode one of This Bostonian Life. I’ll warn you it’s a little boring to outsiders, as it’s more a mundane and vaguely sentimental commentary on our relationship than an objective documentary about the lost experience. But in case you’re interested, here it is…with some photos below.
I have to post “real” photos now because Utterli.com is having technical difficulties posting my phone photos. This one’s for BB in Prague: our actor pal Greg formed a band in NYC a while back — Maybe the Welders — and I went to see them play on a freezing Thursday evening at a lonely Kenmore club this past week. As expected, he jumped off the stage in character during the last song and writhed around on the floor with mic in hand. Classic.
