I'm still alive, even though no one reads this anyway.
Long time not post. More infomation to come soon.
Friday, March 02, 2007
Wednesday, August 10, 2005
Friday, March 25, 2005
It's Not Graffiti, It's Grafedia
[From Wired News]
What if the internet extended beyond computers and high-speed connections, with web pages expanding down city streets and onto the sides of buildings?
This is the vision behind an interactive new media project called grafedia, which enables folks to make the world their canvas by publicly posting e-mail addresses or keywords that, when punched into certain mobile phones or an e-mail account, retrieve corresponding images.
Created by John Geraci, a graduate student in New York University's interactive telecommunications program, grafedia is part public art, part advertisement and part subversion. It's also a newfangled take on old-fashioned graffiti.
Like graffiti artists, grafedia practitioners get out their messages in the usual way, by chalking, marking or spray-painting text in public places. Unlike graffiti, however, grafedia messages allow viewers to interact with authors using cell phones or e-mail accounts.
As Geraci puts it, grafedia is chiefly concerned with the idea that the direction media moves in is preordained, but it's up in the air as to who can control it.
Today, companies with big advertising budgets are the main players in interactive media, engaging in activities like online ad campaigns or billboards encouraging some sort of viewer involvement. Geraci would like to change that.
"Grafedia is the option for the little guy to get involved in that dialogue," he said.
The little guy is definitely catching on. Since the project launched in late December, instances of grafedia have popped up stateside in places like New York City and San Francisco. Outside the United States, the project has gained fans in Brazil, France and England, Geraci said. So far, several hundred images have been uploaded to the grafedia server.
Anyone with the right tools -- a phone that supports picture messages and is under a T-Mobile, Verizon Communications or Cingular Wireless contract -- can view grafedia. You can also view it on a computer through an e-mail program.
Anyone can make grafedia, too. To do so, a user selects a rich media file (image, video or sound) and then chooses a word (say, "wirednews") to go along with that file. The user then uploads the file from a computer or sends it from a cell phone to, using this example, wirednews@grafedia.net. The user can then paint, draw or tattoo "wirednews" in public spaces in blue with an underline to identify it as grafedia. Viewers can interact with the grafedia by sending a message via their computer or certain cell phones addressed to "wirednews@grafedia.net" to get the content behind the link.
Geraci wants grafedia to make people think about the idea that the boundaries of the web are totally arbitrary. If you can put links in different places, he said, you're essentially extending the internet.
In this vein, in addition to general grafedia proliferation, he'd like to see large-scale examples, like multiple, related instances over several blocks or on an entire side of a building.
This idea of finding ways for people to interact with each other and technology is a theme that also runs through Geraci's other work, including Neighbornode -- a Wi-Fi message board project -- and the Us-ophone -- a device that creates music through people touching each other.
The grafedia site was quiet at first, but in late January new media nonprofit Rhizome.org published a piece about grafedia on its website and the project began to take off, Geraci said.
"It kind of contextualized it or just gave it the lift it needed," he said.
Suddenly, people in Germany were making grafedia, and some in Argentina formed plans to make some, too.
"It just caught hold," he said.
Additions have come in waves, Geraci said, as the first upswing in January leveled out in early February. Activity began picking up again in early March.
"Some people saw it as this really radical, subversive idea; others saw it as a way to advertise.... I think most people just saw it as a fun thing to do with their friends," Geraci said.
He’s seen all sorts of images, some really personal. One linked the word "parents" (as in, parents@grafedia.net) to an image of what he assumes are the creator's parents in a 1960s-era photo. There are also uploaded pictures of actual graffiti, which, along with the project's encouragement of public link posting, begs the question: Is grafedia just a cute name for the traditional street art?
Not according to Geraci.
"I'm not advocating vandalism. I'm encouraging people to engage the spaces around them in a new way," he said.
In fact, a lot of good grafedia can be made with chalk or printed on creators' bodies, he said, though he soon added, "I'm not saying don't use spray paint."
Grafedia fan Daniel Camp isn't using spray paint to alert others to his creations, but rather a blue Sharpie marker. Camp, who lives in Sonoma, California, usually puts his pen to use when he's in San Francisco. So far, he's made about 20 posts, he said, a few in Sonoma but most around the city.
His images range from poems to photos, and he posts links in various places -- on outside or bathroom walls, on the sides of trucks marked with graffiti.
"It's fun. It's kind of got an element of a treasure hunt.... When I first set out to make pictures I noticed everything written in blue and wondered if it was a grafedia," he said.
Camp doesn't see his grafedia as graffiti.
"Like, graffiti is so self-centered. It's like a dog pissing on a pole or something -- 'I was here.' Grafedia, at least the stuff I was trying to do, people see something totally new that they hadn't noticed," he said.
What if the internet extended beyond computers and high-speed connections, with web pages expanding down city streets and onto the sides of buildings?This is the vision behind an interactive new media project called grafedia, which enables folks to make the world their canvas by publicly posting e-mail addresses or keywords that, when punched into certain mobile phones or an e-mail account, retrieve corresponding images.
Created by John Geraci, a graduate student in New York University's interactive telecommunications program, grafedia is part public art, part advertisement and part subversion. It's also a newfangled take on old-fashioned graffiti.
Like graffiti artists, grafedia practitioners get out their messages in the usual way, by chalking, marking or spray-painting text in public places. Unlike graffiti, however, grafedia messages allow viewers to interact with authors using cell phones or e-mail accounts.
As Geraci puts it, grafedia is chiefly concerned with the idea that the direction media moves in is preordained, but it's up in the air as to who can control it.
Today, companies with big advertising budgets are the main players in interactive media, engaging in activities like online ad campaigns or billboards encouraging some sort of viewer involvement. Geraci would like to change that.
"Grafedia is the option for the little guy to get involved in that dialogue," he said.
The little guy is definitely catching on. Since the project launched in late December, instances of grafedia have popped up stateside in places like New York City and San Francisco. Outside the United States, the project has gained fans in Brazil, France and England, Geraci said. So far, several hundred images have been uploaded to the grafedia server.
Anyone with the right tools -- a phone that supports picture messages and is under a T-Mobile, Verizon Communications or Cingular Wireless contract -- can view grafedia. You can also view it on a computer through an e-mail program.
Anyone can make grafedia, too. To do so, a user selects a rich media file (image, video or sound) and then chooses a word (say, "wirednews") to go along with that file. The user then uploads the file from a computer or sends it from a cell phone to, using this example, wirednews@grafedia.net. The user can then paint, draw or tattoo "wirednews" in public spaces in blue with an underline to identify it as grafedia. Viewers can interact with the grafedia by sending a message via their computer or certain cell phones addressed to "wirednews@grafedia.net" to get the content behind the link.
Geraci wants grafedia to make people think about the idea that the boundaries of the web are totally arbitrary. If you can put links in different places, he said, you're essentially extending the internet.
In this vein, in addition to general grafedia proliferation, he'd like to see large-scale examples, like multiple, related instances over several blocks or on an entire side of a building.
This idea of finding ways for people to interact with each other and technology is a theme that also runs through Geraci's other work, including Neighbornode -- a Wi-Fi message board project -- and the Us-ophone -- a device that creates music through people touching each other.
The grafedia site was quiet at first, but in late January new media nonprofit Rhizome.org published a piece about grafedia on its website and the project began to take off, Geraci said.
"It kind of contextualized it or just gave it the lift it needed," he said.
Suddenly, people in Germany were making grafedia, and some in Argentina formed plans to make some, too.
"It just caught hold," he said.
Additions have come in waves, Geraci said, as the first upswing in January leveled out in early February. Activity began picking up again in early March.
"Some people saw it as this really radical, subversive idea; others saw it as a way to advertise.... I think most people just saw it as a fun thing to do with their friends," Geraci said.
He’s seen all sorts of images, some really personal. One linked the word "parents" (as in, parents@grafedia.net) to an image of what he assumes are the creator's parents in a 1960s-era photo. There are also uploaded pictures of actual graffiti, which, along with the project's encouragement of public link posting, begs the question: Is grafedia just a cute name for the traditional street art?
Not according to Geraci.
"I'm not advocating vandalism. I'm encouraging people to engage the spaces around them in a new way," he said.
In fact, a lot of good grafedia can be made with chalk or printed on creators' bodies, he said, though he soon added, "I'm not saying don't use spray paint."
Grafedia fan Daniel Camp isn't using spray paint to alert others to his creations, but rather a blue Sharpie marker. Camp, who lives in Sonoma, California, usually puts his pen to use when he's in San Francisco. So far, he's made about 20 posts, he said, a few in Sonoma but most around the city.His images range from poems to photos, and he posts links in various places -- on outside or bathroom walls, on the sides of trucks marked with graffiti.
"It's fun. It's kind of got an element of a treasure hunt.... When I first set out to make pictures I noticed everything written in blue and wondered if it was a grafedia," he said.
Camp doesn't see his grafedia as graffiti.
"Like, graffiti is so self-centered. It's like a dog pissing on a pole or something -- 'I was here.' Grafedia, at least the stuff I was trying to do, people see something totally new that they hadn't noticed," he said.
Monday, March 14, 2005
Megatokyo Forums 2
"One thing which has been puzzeling me for a long time is gravity. Ever since I've first heard the concept of gravity i've never truly understood it. I've asked how can it constantly be pulling the heavenly bodies together? Where is all this energy coming from? The introduction of string theory and the invention of the gravitron may find the elegant answer I've been looking for. However even today I wonder if you could some how harness and tap into this source of energy. Thus breaking the fundemental first law of thermodynamics.
The first rule of thermodynamics gives rise to the conservation of energy which states "energy can neither be created nor destroyed, only transfered". From this we can infer that there is a finite amount of energy in the universe as energy cannot be created. So in theory finding a way to harness a source of never ending energy we would be breaking the rule. You could gain an infinite amount of energy that must at one point break this finite limit.
Then it struck me, it's easy to gain energy from gravity. In fact were doing it as we speak and its almost definately not the only way, tidal power. Now to demonstrate how this all applies, consider this thought experiment. Imagine a perfectly spherical planet stationary on its axis and consisting of a core - much like our planet, yet perfectly uniform. Overlaying this core will be a mass of water, the lack of an atmosphere causes the water's surface to be impeccably still. Now we need to add two tidal generators on either end of this planet. Intentionally, the center of gravity will lie in the exact center of this planet. For the final step we need to add two spherical moons in a perfect orbit around this planet both exactly opposite with the same mass, speed and direction. Now, leaving this model undisturbed shouldn't it generate unlimited energy? The perfect nature of this model ensures that either moon will not stray from their intial orbit, as the main planet's center of gravity shouldn't move.
One question that has been posed is how will one store unlimited energy provided by this model. My solution to this would be to pool the energy into the spin of an object floating in neighbouring space. As newtons laws of motion ensures that it will keep spinning and in doing so store the energy. Einstein's E=MC^2 dictates that this spinning object will gain mass and therefore gravity, so it would be wise for this object to be slowly moving away from my model. So hypothetically all this should have created a perptual motion machine.
Now, what are your opinions? Anybody see any obvious loopholes in my logic?"
-Adam (aka addit)
[from Megatokyo Forums; Topic 1695159]
Thursday, March 10, 2005
Yon Laptop!!!!!
It's alive!!! ^_^!! Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!!!!!! Sqeeeeeeeeee!!!! Sw33t!! Sw33t!! Sw33t!! Yaaaaaaaaaay!!!! ^_^!!!!! cfjfdkgdkf!!!! vbkfjkgjfk!!!!!!!! kgdjkfjekfje!!!!!! dkgjdkdjfkds!!!!!! iturfgjrigk!!! kdndkfkdsf!!!! ereuteiue!!! cmncmvncx!!!! cxcasca!!!! hkghgkdsh!!!!!! ^_^ djfhdgkjehfke!!!!! Yaaaaaay!!! Weeeeeeeeh!!!! ^_^ !!!!!!
Tuesday, March 08, 2005
Megatokyo Forums
I quote:(from topic about The Golden Compass:) "Third Book- Basically they all go to hell, and get suck with a-whole-bunka dead people, it's a bit weird. Second Book- Starts out with a kitty cat in paradise, then *chop, chop* not more kitty cat. First Book- Boring... (city in the sky, compass, I forgot most of it)" Quote: "Its all fun and games until someone sacrifices a chicken."
Sunday, March 06, 2005
Photobucket Day!
This post will have all images from Photobucket! And (hopefully) all of them will be spiffy! Yay!! <-- Firefox!! Look at the little voodoo dolls! --> Well that about all the nice spiffy images I could find or Photobucket, I'm pretty sure there's a lot more but I'm lazy so.. they'll have to wait.
