Fourth of July in Boston
July 10th, 2005 3 minutes of Boston on the fourth of July. Click below.
Quicktime player needed.
If this is not working for you, could you please take a sec and drop me a line.
Boston Penthouse For Sale
July 10th, 2005 Have you ever wanted to experience downtown living in Boston. Well, I’ve dediced to part with my beloved downtown Boston penthouse apartment. At this writing, I have not signed with any brokers or placed any ads aside from this one.
Click this image for more info.
See an interactive map of this location.
Photo collage courtesy of Alexis.
London Reports London
July 10th, 2005 
There are very interesting trends in media these days and the they were illustrated through the tragic events in London a few days ago. While the talking heads repeat themeselves over and over again for “those who have just joined us”, the community at large is providing better, more compelling information organically on the net. You just have to know where to look to get near realtime eyewitness accounts.
Try WikiNews next time news breaks. London coverage here.
Need a visual? There were over 800 photos posted on Flickr in the London Terror Attacks pool.
UPDATE:
Sometimes, the major news outlets rely on the blogsphere.
London Rush Hour Explosions
July 7th, 2005Waking to the news that terrorists have set off explosives during rush hour in the subway and on buses in London. Just heard back from two friends, Pierre and Lanka; both fine. Pierre passes through two of the stations that were hit. I was worried when I could not raise Pierre by cell phone but happily was able to communicate via email. Pierre mentioned that he believes the mobile phone networks have been disabled in order to prevent the detonation of explosives via the mobile network.
Have to believe that the explosions are timed to disrupt the G8 summit… which will go on. Ironic that the presumably disenfranchised terrorists would effort to disrupt a meeting designed to marshall aid from the powerful countries to those less powerful.
Question: How long before they can confirm that these conventional explosions were not some sort of “dirty bomb” that released radioactive or biological materials?
2012
July 6th, 2005London will host the Olympic games in 2012. See you there!
Making Decisions
June 30th, 2005 “Somewhere along the line of development we discover what we really are, and then we make our real decision for which we are responsible. Make that decision primarily for yourself because you can never really live anyone else’s life.”
– Eleanor Roosevelt
SDTV, EDTV, HDTV, 480i, 480p, *BREATH* 525p, 720p and 1080i
May 18th, 2005Last night Don and I watched the Pistons pound the Pacers 86-67 on the HDTV Plasma Screen at the bar at Sibling Rivalry. The game was good, the food was extraordinary, and the picture wasn’t bad either. As I always do when I encounter HDTV, I felt more than a little technolust.
However, if you’re considering buying one of these monsters, you’ve got a research project on your hands. The bartender offered “Don’t buy plasma“. And Don suggested LCD is the way to go. My uncle Hank, who is no slouch in the gadget department, likes DLP.
In case you’re beginning your research, there is a great article that attemps to clear the fog.
Snip:
The consumer electronics industry has done a spectacular job spreading mass confusion about video. Time was when there was just TV. Now we’ve got SDTV, EDTV, HDTV, 480i, 480p, 525p, 720p, 1080i, progressive scan, component video, composite video, blah blah blah. Enough to make you feel like you need an engineering degree to buy a projector or TV.
Sibling Rivalry
(617) 338-5338
525 Tremont St
Boston, MA 02116
NYC and NYU and ITP in Spring
May 9th, 2005Spent last weekend in NYC. You forget about how fantastic New York is when you have not been in a while. Lex and I had a great time road tripping down there. (Although she slept most of the way… great co-pilot). Mapquest says that it takes 4 hours. We were in the city in 3:15. Then we spent 45 minutes trying to find the right combinations of turns that would route us around the Romania Day Street Festival. (Something Google Maps did not know about) Our hotel was on Church St. directly across from ‘Ground Zero’ and between all the construction and street fair bedlam, we had a tough time finding the hotel. No wonder you have to be 18 to drive in Manhattan.
We proceeded directly to the Tisch School at NYU so that we could catch graduates presenting their Master’s Thesis’. The urban campus had a great energy to it, with purple and white banners everywhere. The school itself was in a really great high-ceilinged space with a lot of art and photography on the bricked walls. Lex and I were mesmerized by some backlit large format photographs. However some of the photos were pretty pedestrian and mundane… as my sister can attest.
Going up to the fourth floor, we entered the ITP area. The main lobby was lined by student projects one of which was quite engaging. ‘The Wooden Mirror” was a panel with hundreds of wooden tiles that tilted up and down based on input from an embedded camera. The wooden tiles would arrange themselves based on the image captured from the camera. (Lex has a photo of herself in front of the wooden mirror on her flickr site.)
The high ceilings and brick walls gave the place a real artist loft feel. We proceded to the presentation room which was totally wired for simulcast on the internet. The small room was about three quarters filled, half with open laptops tuned into the webcast of the presentation that was taking place right in front of them. Lex noted that they were chatting in real time with people watching on the net.
The first presentation we saw Limor Garcia presenting her web site cellphedia.com.
From the site:
Cellphedia is the 1st Ubiquitous Social Encyclopedia
This is a cell phone application that promotes the sharing of knowledge. It allows to send and receive encyclopedia-type inquiries between specific, pre-defined groups of users, through Text messaging. Users can register here on this site and start building the quick-reference Cellphedia-type encyclopedia entries, by asking other users and answering other users’ questions where-ever cell phone service is available.
I was really impressed. This is exactly the type of thing I would find interesting.
However, not all the presentations were as interesting as Limor’s. Some were downright unimpressive. For example one student had made flash animation for her baby to watch. It was a nice little movie, but I wouldn’t want to spend two years and 6 figures learning how to make a flash movie. Perhaps she did other interesting work, and I don’t want to cast stones… but in shopping for a place to go to school I found myself wondering what the school really had to offer.
Other projects that we saw:
Too Fast for Tracks
Losing Dogs and Losing Dog Men - An Experimental Documentary
GCard Collaborative Interactive Greeting Cards
My cousin Jason, who works in an academic environment, told me that there is normally a big range when it comes to the quality of Masters level work. He suggested that I meet the faculty and get a good feel for the facilities that would be at my disposal. Looks like it’s back to New York this fall to take part in their normal student recruitment activities.
UPDATE: dodgeball.com, a project from last year was just bought by google.
_
Romania Day Festival
Broadway from Battery Place to Fulton Street
• Saturday, May 7, 2005
Millenium Hilton
55 Church Street,
New York, NY, 10007
Tel: +1-212-693-2001
