Westward and then Northward Ho

I’ve decided to take a job in Seattle with Microsoft. No the small mom and pop software business. But the big one. I working for a group called Office Labs which does interface prototypes and videos like this one:

Although the video is really polished, I tend to like things that are a little more raw and unusual. Luckily, they also have a few really exciting projects in the works that have great potential. I can’t talk about them yet. But soon I might be able to give you glimpses.

Filed under: technology, work

US Weekly

I just saw John Malkovich while out to lunch today. He’s a terrifying old man. Which is a complement.

This morning I saw this beautiful video from Encyclopedia Pictura– they’re doing the new Bjork music video. I had seen their awesome video for Grizzly Bear, but hadn’t connected the dots. Anyway, Seventeen Evergreen reminds me of a friend’s thesis proposal… I hope she’s making it as beautiful as it started out. Also, I’ve been looking at Kineticards recently:

And a little at looping animated gifs. Some art projects are brewing!

Lastly, Invivia Inc., a fun company I’ve done some work for,  is having an open house. (booze will be provided) It should be fun, come visit.

Filed under: art, music, projects

Canine Gattaca

While walking my dog Mattie (a dog among Gods) last weekend, another hiker and dog-owner commented that she looked like a Southern Black Mouth Cur.

For comparison, here’s a picture of my dog and a picture of the Southern Cur:

There’s some similarity. And apparently, although the yellow cur seems to be more popular, Southern Curs can sometimes have brindle or brown coats like Mattie, and often have their tails docked in the same way. I’d always assumed she lost it in an accident in her former rough life.

I’ve never heard Mattie called a Cur before and, if she is in fact that breed, it’s something of a relief. Mostly, when people look at Mattie, they see scary pit bull. (Although she’s the friendliest dog in the world.) But being a pit bull (or even part pit) is more than just scaring people, the laws in Boston require that pits (all pits) be muzzled when out in the public. Given that I’m a mutt and so is my dog, I’m of the opinion that these breed (race!) specific laws are unfair and inaccurate. Rather than standing up and protesting the law, however, I have been looking into getting my dog genetically tested.

I’m not sure how any of this relates to humans, exactly, but it is very strange for me to think of purchasing a genetic test online, like shopping on ebay or amazon or something.

Filed under: dog, technology

Comestibles

First, an addendum: The Van Cliburn YouTube competition is for 35 and older only. Double poo! My praise has been redacted.

As reward that I had been planning for a very long time, K and I had dinner last night at TW Food. It was restaurant week in Boston, but their special menu was so abbreviated, that it seemed a travesty not to hit the seven course Winter Grand Tasting. We tapped that. It was the best meal I’ve had in a looong time. Three hours of delicious food and great wines. Awesome.

In other news, Chessgames.com has updated their viewer. Now, while watching a game (like a movie), you can pause and play out different lines of the game yourself, in the position of Byrne or (sigh) Bobby Fischer. I wish more media experiences incorporated the idea of the “choose your own adventure”.

A long time ago, when I worked at AMNH, we recorded a fly-thru in the known universe with cue-points that allowed a user to get off the “spaceship” and look around. (Not the most beautiful thing I’ve ever made, but an interesting experiment.) While this type of thing may be considered a “non-linear” narrative, the novelty of the experience is actually how the user would construct a very linear pathway through the interactive. In fact, the user wants linearity as much as possible in order to organize and understand what they are seeing.

These days we’re brainstorming a project whose main conceptual twist is an audio and video with two seperate narratives. The video is an idealized world; the audio, the purgatory of a mundane life. The problem with fashioning such a “non-linear” (or duo-linear) narrative is that a viewer automatically tries to rectify the two stories into a single understandable story. For example, showing a radio alarm clock, but playing a ringing bell, makes the viewer think that there’s another alarm clock off-screen; not that the audio might tell another story.

Even as it’s foiling my plans, there’s something fascinating about this desire for single, linear, understandable narratives. According to K, Ricoeur has a crapload to say about Time and Narrative. I guess I have some reading to do. In the meantime, here’s a lovely quote that aptly describes what low brow books I am actually reading.

Then, too, narration includes prophecy in its province to the extent that prophecy is narrative in its fashion.
Paul Ricoeur

Continuing my quest to have some sort of aesthetic position on “the future”, I’ve been reading a fair amount of science fiction. Of course, the reading list includes the Hugo-Nebula award winners, but also some pulpy losers from the 60s and 70s. The fonts, graphics, and yep, even the writing are nuts.

A Hugo award winner, for instance Dune (one of my favorite books– and Lynch films– of all time), has one of the traits of a timeless work of art, namely that it is timeless. Reading it today, it is as fresh and unusual as when I read it 15 years ago.

Sci-fi pulp, on the other hand, is of its time, and has many recognizable idiosyncrasies of the culture, time, and place in which it was written. Perhaps this just creates some sort of hot tranny mess, but maybe, when we’re looking to sample styles, the obviousness of these expressions is an asset. (Prada’s gorgeous new look isn’t about the subtle 70’s.)

Filed under: art, books, fashion, programming

Put the “Burn” in Van Cliburn

I’ve been so tired of the YouTube derivatives. MC Hammer’s DanceJam (see: Kanye’s Search Engine, although K-Fed tapped that years before West did.)

This contest, however, seems pretty cool. American Idol type competitions loves them some YouTube and it makes a lot of sense for Van Cliburn (the consumate performer) to encourage precisely this type of “pop” interaction. Although the contest only serves as a primary for the larger, live competition in Texas, it’s still a great idea. I hope we have an architecture contest soon on YouTube.

And not to put my own foot in the mouth, but this does make me think that there needs to be a youtube-esque site for sound, not necessarily music but sounds and voice. The .flv format mauls sound. And, while sites like hypeM or MySpace are great for music, sometimes I just want to upload and tag conversations, lectures or just random sounds.

In preparation to buy one of these, I’ve been practicing recording my voice. I find that I don’t have shit to say when I’m talking to a machine. On the other hand, (for me anyway) it seems like my best ideas come out of conversations– which might mean I take all my ideas from my more talented friends. Regardless, it would be cool to have an Eliza (but tapped into all my delicious links etc) to talk to instead. Creepy, maybe, but also cool.

Filed under: music, programming, projects, technology, web

Mötley Crüe

Just read a sci-fi book called “Blindsight“. I’m not going to do a great job with a plot synopsis or anything so here’s a killer quote stolen from the Wikipedia entry.

The book has been described by Charles Stross as “Imagine a neurobiology-obsessed version of Greg Egan writing a first contact with aliens story from the point of view of a zombie posthuman crewman aboard a starship captained by a vampire, with not dying as the boobie prize.”

It’s a pretty good book. Since it’s released to the public under the CC license, I read it on my laptop all in one 7-hour glorious sitting. Reading a whole book online for the first time, I finally might see the reasoning behind getting one of those digital books.

Anyway, as part of my job, I am often asked to think about “the future”, often, in particular, the future cast as a technologists wet-dream. Sometimes it’s called “trend analysis”. I’ve been looking at advertisements and concept movies out there and a lot of it looks very similar. Using a watch as phone has been an idea since the days of Dick Tracy. And yet, it still seems to be a big deal to Ideo and Nokia.

So in search of unusual ideas, I’ve been looking at sci-fi as background research. Peter Chung’s old Aeon Flux(s) might have some ideas worth keeping.

Filed under: art, books, movies, technology