Actions Events Filtering

Using self-setting threshold to filter data and trigger event : heart beat.



Code:

arduino:

/* I AM ALIVE heart beat led
* by meng li based on the code by Jeff Gray - 2008
* ----------------
* Triggers a one time event when value goes over threshold,
* and a different trigger once the value goes back below the threshold
*/

int an1,an2 = 0;
int redLedPin =13;
boolean triggered = false;

void setup(){
Serial.begin(9600);
pinMode(redLedPin, OUTPUT); // set the red LED pin to be an output
// Serial.println("Starting");
}
void loop(){
// read analog value in
int an2 = analogRead(0);
Serial.print("Y");
Serial.println(an2,DEC);
//threshold
int an1= analogRead(5);
Serial.print("X");
Serial.println(an1,DEC);


if(an1 > an2 && !triggered){
triggered = true;
digitalWrite(redLedPin, HIGH); // turn off the red LED
}
if(an1 <= an2 && triggered){
triggered = false;
digitalWrite(redLedPin, LOW); // turn off the red LED
}
}

processing:

import processing.serial.*;

String buff = "";
int val = 0;
int NEWLINE = 10;
int xPos,yPos,zPos = 0;
int displaySize = 2;
int an1, an2, an3;
//an1 pot; an2 ir;

Serial port;

void setup(){
background(80);
size(800,600);
smooth();

port = new Serial(this, Serial.list()[1], 9600);
}

void draw(){
// new background over old
fill(80,5);
noStroke();
rect(0,0,width,height);

// wipe out a small area in front of the new data
fill(80);
rect(xPos+displaySize,0,50,height);

// check for serial, and process
while (port.available() > 0) {
serialEvent(port.read());
}

}


void serialEvent(int serial) {
print("A"); //header variable, so we know which sensor value is which
println(an1); //send as a ascii encoded number - we'll turn it back into a number at the other end
//Serial.print(10, BYTE); //terminating character

print("B"); //header variable, so we know which sensor value is which
println(an2); //send as a ascii encoded number - we'll turn it back into a number at the other end
//Serial.print(10, BYTE); //terminating character


if(serial != '\n') {
buff += char(serial);
}
else {
int curX = buff.indexOf("X");
int curY = buff.indexOf("Y");


if(curX >=0){
String val = buff.substring(curX+1);
an1 = Integer.parseInt(val.trim());

xPos++;
if(xPos > width) xPos = 0;

sensorTic1(xPos,an1);
}
if(curY >=0){
String val = buff.substring(curY+1);
an2 = Integer.parseInt(val.trim());

yPos++;
if(yPos > width) yPos = 0;

sensorTic2(yPos,an2);
}

// Clear the value of "buff"
buff = "";
}
}

void sensorTic1(int x, int y){
stroke(0,0,255);
fill(0,0,255);
ellipse(x,y,displaySize,displaySize);
}

void sensorTic2(int x, int y){
stroke(255,0,0);
fill(255,0,0);
ellipse(x,y,displaySize,displaySize);
}

"we are boycotting your party"

can you imagine how you'll feel, if you've been working so hard to host a party for your faraway guest kids who you never met before, and 3 days before the party, these guest kids are responding to your invitation, saying "hey, look, we decided to boycott home party".

So ok, before feeling sad (i'm feeling sad), you may ask why? OK, the reason is "your grandma and grandpa are cracking down a peaceful protest, your grandparents are communists, so they look the same as Nazi German, Nazi sucks, so you also suck! your family is not transparent...

well, who told you that? you even never been to my home and never knew me, how did you feel so confident and so sure about how bad I am. you feel so confident about your source of information? you are so sure about what your parents told you? you even judge from the appearance that we look the same to Nazi German?

about transparency, is that a simple issue, everyone in the world should be transparent? is the world flat? isn't it too naive to think the world village is flat?

plus, is that true that my grandpa and grandma are cracking down a peaceful protest? how much do you know about the infrastructure of this huge family? how different it is from your family? do you know how poor this huge family with 13 billion people is? do you think following the same way as your family could feed those poor people who live under 1 dollar per month?

this country is big,with 1.3 billion people, speaking this language which is totally different from English, and will not disappear for sure and will affect the globalized world for sure. if you truly want to help to make the world better (there are a lot, i believe, at least some of my friends, my classmates), please be rational, be skeptical, be open, be brave to enter into the door and come to the party, after all, you'll lose nothing.

and you'll discover something you didn't know before also.

bias is dangerous.

still alive? heartbeat (IR)sensor report

Principles: Sense heart rate by using a pair of infrared emitter and reciever, next to each other on top the measuring site on top of the finger. The light bounces from the emitter to the detector across the site. with each heart beat the heart contracts and there is a surge of arterial blood, which momentarily increases arterial blood volume across the measuring site. This results in more light absorption during the surge. if light signals received at the photodetector are looked at 'as a waveform', there should be peaks with each heartbeat and troughs between heartbeats.
(http://www.oximetry.org/pulseox/principles.htm)



Sensors: Infrared Emitters and Detectors
SKU#: SEN-00241
Price: $1.95

Description: Side-looking Infrared Emitters and IR Detectors. These simple devices operate at 940nm and work well for generic IR systems including remote control and touch-less object sensing. Using a simple ADC on any microcontroller will allow variable readings to be collected from the detector. The emitter is driven up to 50mA with a current limiting resistor as with any LED device. The detect is a NPN transistor that is biased by incoming IR light.

datasheet:

IR Emitter (Clear)

IR Detector (Tinted pink)

how it works:

R1	270 ohm resistor
R2	10k resistor
LED1	Infrared LED
Q1	Infrared-sensitive photoresistor

Circuit: (simple one without amplifier)

Dubug process: The signal is sometimes weak, sometimes strong. It may be because of my finger position, my IR sensors which are very fragile or my circuit, or just simply because the signal is weak.

pot is used to set the threshold. So I could detect the heartbeat.

Code:

arduino:

/* I AM ALIVE heart beat led
* by meng li based on the code by Jeff Gray - 2008
* ----------------
* Triggers a one time event when value goes over threshold,
* and a different trigger once the value goes back below the threshold
*/

int an1,an2 = 0;
int redLedPin =13;
boolean triggered = false;

void setup(){
Serial.begin(9600);
pinMode(redLedPin, OUTPUT); // set the red LED pin to be an output
// Serial.println("Starting");
}
void loop(){
// read analog value in
int an2 = analogRead(0);
Serial.print("Y");
Serial.println(an2,DEC);
//threshold
int an1= analogRead(5);
Serial.print("X");
Serial.println(an1,DEC);


if(an1 > an2 && !triggered){
triggered = true;
digitalWrite(redLedPin, HIGH); // turn off the red LED
}
if(an1 <= an2 && triggered){
triggered = false;
digitalWrite(redLedPin, LOW); // turn off the red LED
}
}

processing:

import processing.serial.*;

String buff = "";
int val = 0;
int NEWLINE = 10;
int xPos,yPos,zPos = 0;
int displaySize = 2;
int an1, an2, an3;
//an1 pot; an2 ir;

Serial port;

void setup(){
background(80);
size(800,600);
smooth();

port = new Serial(this, Serial.list()[1], 9600);
}

void draw(){
// new background over old
fill(80,5);
noStroke();
rect(0,0,width,height);

// wipe out a small area in front of the new data
fill(80);
rect(xPos+displaySize,0,50,height);

// check for serial, and process
while (port.available() > 0) {
serialEvent(port.read());
}

}


void serialEvent(int serial) {
print("A"); //header variable, so we know which sensor value is which
println(an1); //send as a ascii encoded number - we'll turn it back into a number at the other end
//Serial.print(10, BYTE); //terminating character

print("B"); //header variable, so we know which sensor value is which
println(an2); //send as a ascii encoded number - we'll turn it back into a number at the other end
//Serial.print(10, BYTE); //terminating character


if(serial != '\n') {
buff += char(serial);
}
else {
int curX = buff.indexOf("X");
int curY = buff.indexOf("Y");


if(curX >=0){
String val = buff.substring(curX+1);
an1 = Integer.parseInt(val.trim());

xPos++;
if(xPos > width) xPos = 0;

sensorTic1(xPos,an1);
}
if(curY >=0){
String val = buff.substring(curY+1);
an2 = Integer.parseInt(val.trim());

yPos++;
if(yPos > width) yPos = 0;

sensorTic2(yPos,an2);
}

// Clear the value of "buff"
buff = "";
}
}

void sensorTic1(int x, int y){
stroke(0,0,255);
fill(0,0,255);
ellipse(x,y,displaySize,displaySize);
}

void sensorTic2(int x, int y){
stroke(255,0,0);
fill(255,0,0);
ellipse(x,y,displaySize,displaySize);
}




Since the signals to different people are different. Some seems have very weak heartbeat or even no signal according to my way of sensing. So I decided to use amplifier to filter and amplify signals.

(thanks to justin downs and yanyan cao at itp)

http://johnhenryshammer.com/TEChREF/opAmps/IRHEARTSCHMATIC.html

Code:

arduino:
// from justin)

#define mask 255 // kill top bits

int potPin = 0; // select the input pin for the pot

int ledPin = 13; // select the pin for the LED

int val = 16706; // variable to store the value coming from the sensor

int val2 =0;

int a =0;

int b =0;

int beats[]= {0,0,0,0,0};// to track last five reads for a pattern

boolean beated = false;

//function dec

boolean getBioData();


void setup() {
pinMode(ledPin, OUTPUT); // declare the ledPin as an OUTPUT
Serial.begin(9600);
}

void loop() {
char check=' ';
val = analogRead(potPin); // read the value from the sensor
if (Serial.read() =='a'){ // check buffer for an 'a'
val2 = val;
b= val & mask;
a =((val2>>8) & mask); //just in case mask
delay(20);
// Serial.print("b"); // debug
// Serial.print(b);
Serial.print(a,BYTE);
Serial.print(b,BYTE);
if (getBioData()){ // call bio function
Serial.print('b',BYTE);
}
else Serial.print('n',BYTE);
}
}
boolean getBioData(){
int beatVal = analogRead(potPin); // read the value from the sensor
beats[4] = beatVal; // put in back of array
int beatDif = beats[5 - 1] - beats[0];
for (int i = 0; i < 5;i++){
beats[i] = beats[i+1]; // push zero out front
}
// check for beat
if ( beatDif > 10 && (beated != true)){
beated = true;
return true;
}
else if( beatDif < 2 ){
beated = false;
return false;
}
else return false;
}


processing:

//CODE USED TO GET DATA AND GRAPH IT FROM THE

// HEART MONITOR ARDUINO CODE

// in Java




import processing.serial.*;


Serial port; // Create object from Serial class

int val; // Data received from the serial port

int WIDTH=800; // set width

int number=0;

int num[] = new int[3];

int points[]= new int[WIDTH]; // points to be drawn from incoming data

char beat=' ';

int beats=0;

int dropNum[] = new int[4]; // array used to compare data not needed

void setup()
{
println(Serial.list());
size(WIDTH, 700);
frameRate(30);
// Open the port that the board is connected to and use the same speed (9600 bps)
port = new Serial(this,Serial.list()[1], 9600);
}

void draw()
{
background(0);// to erase
port.write('a');
if (2 < port.available()) { // wait for three bytes
for (int i=0;i<3;i++){
num[i] = port.read(); // read them into an array
}
//println( num[0]);
//println( num[1]);
number = (num[0] << 8)+num[1]; // num range add two incoming bytes together after shifting
beat = (char) num[2]; // look to see if there is a 'b' to signal a beat
println(beats);
}
stroke(0,255,100); // color stroke
if (beat == 'b'){// sent from arduino
beats++;
}
// draw heart beat data
strokeWeight(1);
points[(WIDTH/2)] = number; // strat drawing half way accross screen give current reading to array
//goes through all points and draws a line between consecutive ones
for (int i=1 ;i points[i]= points[i+1];
line(i,height-points[i-1]-40,i,height-points[i]-40);
}
}




Documentation:
without amplifier:


with amplifier:

no title

here is the title

wow, urban computing is tooooooooooo good, especially the discussions, the two smart lecturers, the critiques, i want to take it again and again!!!!
here is the link: http://itp.nyu.edu/blogs/urbancomputing

The Prisoners’ Dilemma

The Prisoners’ Dilemma

The classic example of game theory is the Prisoners’ Dilemma, a situation where two prisoners are being questioned over their guilt or innocence of a crime. They have a simple choice, either to confess to the crime (thereby implicating their accomplice) and accept the consequences, or to deny all involvement and hope that their partner does likewise.

The “pay-off” is measured in terms of years in prison arising from each of their choices and this is summarised in the table below. No communication is permitted between the two suspects – in other words, each must make an independent decision, but clearly they will take into account the likely behaviour of the other when under interrogation.

Two prisoners are held in a separate room and cannot communicate They are both suspected of a crime They can either confess or they can deny the crime Payoffs shown in the matrix are years in prison from their chosen course of action Decisions made under uncertainty		Prisoner A
		Confess	Deny
Prisoner B	Confess	(3 years, 3 years)	(1 year, 10 years)
	Deny	(10 years, 1 year)	(2 years, 2 years)

What is the optimal strategy for each prisoner? Equilibrium occurs when each player takes decisions which maximise the outcome for them given the actions of the other player in the game. In our example of the Prisoners’ Dilemma, the dominant strategy for each player is to confess since this is a course of action likely to minimise the average number of years they might expect to remain in prison. But if both prisoners choose to confess, their “pay-off” i.e. 3 years each in prison is higher than if they both choose to deny any involvement in the crime.

However, even if both prisoners chose to deny the crime (and indeed could communicate with each other to agree this course of action), then each prisoner has an incentive to cheat on any agreement and confess, thereby reducing their own spell in custody.

The equilibrium in the Prisoners’ Dilemma occurs when each player takes the best possible action for themselves given the action of the other player. The dominant strategy is each prisoners’ unique best strategy regardless of the other players’ action Best strategy? Confess? A bad outcome – prisoners could do better by both denying – but once collusion sets in, each prisoner has an incentive to cheat!		Prisoner A
		Confess	Deny
Prisoner B	Confess	(3 years, 3 years)	(1 year, 10 years)
	Deny	(10 years, 1 year)	(2 years, 2 years)

Real world applications of game theory

Game theory analysis has direct relevance to our study of the behaviour of businesses in oligopolistic markets – for example the decisions that firms must take over pricing of products, and also how much money to invest in research and development spending. Costly research projects represent a risk for any business – but if one firm invests in R&D, can another rival firm decide not to follow? They might lose the competitive edge in the market and suffer a long term decline in market share and profitability.

The dominant strategy for both firms is probably to go ahead with R&D spending. If they do not and the other firm does, then their profits fall and they lose market share. However, there are only a limited number of patents available to be won and if all of the leading firms in a market spend heavily on R&D, this may ultimately yield a lower total rate of return than if only one firm opts to proceed.

The Prisoners’ Dilemma can help to explain the break down of price fixing agreements between producers which can lead to the out-break of price wars among suppliers, the break-down of other joint ventures between producers and also the collapse of free-trade agreements between countries when one or more countries decides that protectionist strategies are in their own best interest.

The key point is that game theory provides an insight into the interdependent decision-making that lies at the heart of the interaction between businesses in a competitive market – particularly those dominated by a few leading players!

source: http://tutor2u.net/newsmanager/templates/default.aspx?a=840&z=1

Object centred sociality

Today's class, talking about commodity, traditional commodity, e-commodity, networked commodity, then networked objects, then object centered sociality which is from social object project from MSR. They are so fascinating to me, especially the idea sociable objects. Picture is sociable object, in today's class about commodity vs. e-commodity, and bar code, and then object centered socialityflickr; music is sociable object, in myspace; people is sociable object, in facebook; we also have: book is sociable object, in amazon; how about the designer's crafts in moma? how about the cloth in v's secret? how about the medicine? the thing we can't negotiate about, we know little.

market, old vs. the new, farmer market vs. e-bay

What’s missing after moving from farmer market to ebay? That’s my first question. There are people in certain time, under certain circumstance, wishing to reducing the shopping time to zero, e.g. weekly or daily grocery shopping. Yes, time is money. Shipping fee is much less than the value of the time. But there are also people in some mood, don’t treat shopping as a task, but a relax, a desirable activity, a social event: selecting dresses with buddies, bargaining with sellers, listening to sellers talking about their home grow products. Bargain, to me, is very interesting since it’s a face to face marketing, both ends are willing to talk, some came to agreements and made a deal, some compromised, some rejected, and even rejection “saying no” to the seller’s final price is also so different person by person. I always tell my foreign friends in Beijing, to practice Chinese as well as learn about normal people, go to the local market and bargain with the sellers. Both goods and trust are tried to be sold to consumers, after a short time face to face interaction.

Then my questions go to: How to make e-commerce meet people’s desire, other than merely fulfilling the task of transaction? What’s brought by e-commerce to discover people’s new desire?

Say, guessing the best time to book the airplane tickets after looking into the dynamic statistics graph , or getting the feeling of reassuring themselves after seemingly knowing more data before making a decision ( naked data seems more powerful than traditional advertisement to persuade a decision)

Yes, that’s the experience after e-commerce is invented, after getting people actually use e-commerce, after everything is being digitalized. The amazing part is those fun experience are not in physical market.

How about they borrow some experience from each other? e.g. e-commerce involve social factors into online shopping experience while physical market in the corner of the street actually gave people access to digital data or other digital experience?

So above is all about consumer end, how about the sellers? Like what Adam mentioned, “the art of buying a commodity where it is cheap and selling it where it is expensive.” So what digital tools brought to sellers to get what they want? An example came into my mind: Fishermen in a place in India using mobile phone to get where the fish is in demand oversupplied, so they actually could know where they should go to sell those fish in that particular day, or even a particular hour. But before adopting cellphone and using them to call other places, they just stick to the place close to their home, if too oversupplied to one place, they may just guess and move. sometimes, the second place is also already full. Because fish market is very time sensitive, they can’t afford searching and moving to several places within such a short time when fish is fresh, so they end up with not being able to sell out all the goods. (http://www.economist.com/finance/displaystory.cfm?story_id=9149142)

here really comes everybody~~

same thing how people question, criticize mainstream media, (this example is sing dao daily, a hongkong based newspaper) by using their collective power on internet, by using tele-presense: cameras, dvs, social network websites, webpages, or even just comments against false and misleading news photos on mainstream or huge media corp.

http://www.zonaeuropa.com/20060103_2.htm
Sing Tao rises to speak up on behalf of the police. There is a website (no URL) prepared by a private citizen that included comments from citizens as well as police officers. Among the comments were by a police officer about the demonstrators: they "used long poles and stripped down iron bars to stab us, they also used slings to fire iron bolts and it was super-painful when we get hit." The statement about the sling shots was supported by the Hong Kong Police Supervisors Association Vice-President Lau Tat-keung. Lau said that the demonstrators had three years of military service, they wore life vests that can ward off the blows from police truncheons and they used slings to shoot iron bolts. This showed that they came prepared. (Note: You can read more at The Police Stories at WTO).

In the middle of this half-page feature on page A4 of Sing Tao, there is a photo of a man wearing a gas mask and firing off a sling shot. The words at the top left corner of this photo are (in translation): "The anti-WTO demonstrators used powerful slings to shoot iron bolts at the anti-riot police."

And this is how sing dao daily react to the mass critique.

The following item appeared in a small box on the editorial page (A18) on Thursday, January 5, 2006. I thank a journalist in another newspaper of the Sing Tao group for pointing that out to me.

(In translation) Notice of Clarification: On January 3, our newspaper had a report on page A4 titled "Sling used to fire screw bolts, Police hurt painfully" with which there was a file photo of a Venezuelan demonstrators using a sling. The source of that photo was not noted. A reader has written a letter to point out that this can easily cause misunderstanding. Our newpaper thanks the reader for pointing that out, and we apologize for having caused any midunderstanding.

thoughts from tibet riot and media reaction, and mass grassroot reactions

oh~~ i have a strange feeling i'm gonna fail in some courses coz i can't stop searching and digging into the tibet riot issue and it has been several days, doing nothing, oh my god, my sensors, my voyeu couture...

I'm obsessed by people's reactions to the Tibet riot (actually, not just the Tibet riot, but how different media interprets Tibet riot), and people's collaboratively digging into the issue, researching, looking for clues, and showing the evidence to question media's authenticity. here comes everybody ;) ~~

I'm also obsessed by the cross border critique and the global voices being heared by people, back and force, which give a lesson to both Chinese people and westerners, which also shows bias from both of them from the comments. But the most fascinating thing is people, no matter what ideology they have, how much money they make, what color the skin is, under what education system, both formal education and informal ones, such as the media, people all pursue truth and fact!!! So finding out the fact became goal for everybody, thus makes us as a group, focusing on one thing, that it: what's actually happening in Tibet?

The Tibet Riot built a bridge for people far from each other, geographically and ideologically, culturally and economically, start conversation, discussion and question, even condemn, to both each other and themselves. It's ok, as long as that helps digging out the truth.

I'm also obsessed by the ties of US and China in such a globalized world, i mean, the economic ties. Even though, we put what's the truth aside, not talking about weather tibet should be free or not, the simple question is: Will US really support Tibet, regardless of China? will boycott to Olympics happen?

It reminds me of the old article Dano brought up: Foreign Affairs Big Mac I http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B03EEDD123FF93BA35751C1A960958260

Anyway, so what happened these past 10 days was :

My attention was caught by CNN and NYT's news about Tibet Riot, shocked by how stupid Chinese government was to attack Tibetans, since that's not logical at all, I actually didn't believe they attack a peaceful protest in Tibet, such a sensitive place at such a sensitive time before Olympics, i mean even without any patriotic judgement, just simply based on the logic and rationale, and the basic knowledge about Tibet and China, I felt the news was really bizarrer.

Then I followed the news, turning back to a Chinese media, sine.com.cn, which linked to CCTV, broadcasting the video and some pictures. The interesting thing is that pictures are almost the similar, either in CNN or in Sina, but the interpretation is different. I also didn't trust Chinese state owned media. But this time, these media used same batch of pictures and videos, telling different stories, that interested me a lot. At least one telsl lies or both?

I admitted I'm not so careful finding the tricky little things in those photoes, until here, in globalvoicesonline, blogs by chinese people digged into the media: http://www.globalvoicesonline.org/2008/03/24/china-bloggers-declare-war-on-western-medias-tibet-coverage/
http://anti-cnn.com/

CNN's march 14's online news about tibet riot chopped the picture and gave a biased report (this link and picture is already taken down by CNN as i traced back yesterday, but google cache and other media sourcing from CNN still has them, just google "report: 100 dead in tibet violence" which was the title of that piece of news in CNN
http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://i.l.cnn.net/cnn/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/03/15/tibet.unrest/art.lhasa.riot.afp.gi.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/03/15/tibet.unrest/%3Firef%3Dhpmostpop&h=219&w=292&sz=13&hl=en&start=1&sig2=zz32wtZBFua8ui1V3bcRHQ&um=1&tbnid=vP_Xz8v1Z_nGLM:&tbnh=86&tbnw=115&ei=kO7rR_nBAZf0edeo2YYB&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dreport:%2B100%2Bdead%2Bin%2Btibet%2Bviolence%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official%26sa%3DN
http://byfiles.storage.live.com/y1phrrOYdDY5fv4BIN6AIAuctuXHf7ekDftxK8ERgGOf_9aofkLErbcis1DdkBmzeMssQiL3_s-knc

Below: the picture is not taken in Tibet, China, but is used by time.com as a support to its news. http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1722509,00.html?iid=sphere-inline-bottom

There are other evidences from GlobalVoicesOnline, showing how the news being tailored with purpose by media giants: bbc, fox, times, rtl.

Yes, I also don't trust Chinese state media, then I stared researching into it. Looks like the evidence (pictures and videos) came from a foreign tourist: http://kadfly.blogspot.com/. It's amazing this normal tourist, not a journalist, just used his camera documenting what happend, triggered a lot reactions. It was ridiculous some comments even said he was with Communist Party. Another foreigner, a writer from the economist http://www.economist.com/world/asia/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10875823, was also eyewitnessing the whole thing and finally was interviewed by CNN.

That's basically how the thing was. hungry now, b.r.b.

OQpR/C: anonymity, on line, double edge sword

"Does anonymity breed nastiness in the online world?"by Jaron Lanier This is the question bothering me a lot recently after hearing about so many online "human meat search" (a new urban term in China, meaning massive mob collaboratively searching, investigating, condemning and scolding bad behavior netizens. e.g. young lady killing cat event in 2007 in China. There were many nasty comments towards this nasty thing this lady did. Several people involved were almost ruined by the powerful net mobs. If we say the anonymous lady who killed the cat was irresponsible, then how about those among the anonymous crowds throwing out the irresponsible comments?

"People who can spontaneously invent a pseudonym in order to post a comment on a blog or on YouTube are often remarkably mean. Buyers and sellers on eBay are usually civil, despite occasional annoyances like fraud. Based on those data you could propose that transient anonymity coupled with a lack of consequences is what brings out online idiocy. With more data, the hypothesis can be refined. Participants in Second Life (a virtual online world) are not as mean to each other as people posting comments to Slashdot (a popular technology news site) or engaging in edit wars on Wikipedia, even though all use persistent pseudonyms. "

"Since there were so few people online, though, bad “netiquette” was then more of a curiosity than a problem."

"It’s not crazy to worry that, with millions of people connected through a medium that sometimes brings out their worst tendencies, massive, fascist-style mobs could rise up suddenly."

Of course, we all know anonymity could keep our privacy, make people brave to express their opinions, somehow protect people and fight against the authority. But the double edge sword affords people great "freedom" to even abandon their identity and act mean in this anonymous online world. People all know that's mean, I assume, but the world is anonymous, so...

OQpR/C: make the invisible visible

a guest speaker visited our class: sousveillance culture: Richard Pell (Institute for Applied Autonomy) , and brought the topic of gene in the second part of his talk, not directly related to surveillance, but somehow, address the same issue (as far as i interpreted what he talked about myself): artists need to make invisible things visible to public, why something should be visible but being kept invisible, who should account for it? what's hiden inside the invisible.

i remember when i did my industrial design "energy pot" for red-dot I.D. competition, for saving energy, i also have this thought, to make invisible visible, but in an mild way, since those invisible is not because of someone hiding something, it's just because of how the world is. we can't see the energy being consumed and we don't have the sense of it. right now, the invisible thing is far more complicated coz that's purposefully invisible.

OQpR/C: secret vs. privacy, and power

after attending the conference : Radars & Fences :When the Paradigms of Discipline and Control Collide , the question about where the fine line should be drawn between secret and privacy always bothers me. should we be claiming anonymous online identity is human right? or should we force registration so to reduce the evil part from our gut growing in such an anonymous online world?

then here are some an interesting article the same day when i'm wondering the thing: The Myth of the 'Transparent Society'. "If I disclose information to you, your power with respect to me increases. One way to address this power imbalance is for you to similarly disclose information to me. We both have less privacy, but the balance of power is maintained. But this mechanism fails utterly if you and I have different power levels to begin with. " ---- Bruce Schneier .

OQpR/C: language for we human as a species

"We humans think a lot of ourselves as a species; we have a tendency to suppose that the way we think is the only way to think. Maybe we need to think again."
----Jaron's World : What cephalopods can teach us about language http://discovermagazine.com/2006/apr/cephalopod-morphing/

each stroke per country

As long as there are human beings, there will be conflicts. With the globalization, the conflicts will increase because of more and more interactions. To solve the problems from conflicts without using war, we are required to have a globalized mindset: open minded and could respect and appreciate and critically think about the conflicts.. How much we know about other cultures? how to be more tolerant towards difference?
Believe or not, we adult, all have bias, because of the different cultural and historical background, different language, different channels of information, different values and ideologies and different interests. Teens don't have that strong and well-shaped background, but they are also not simply a blank piece of paper. So I'd like to create a community for teens to expose them to different cultures and make them participate in. Though teens from all over the world speak different language, drawing is the universal language. So I want to design a community for them to draw.To make it fair, each teen could only draw one continuous stroke, then waiting for teens from other countries to draw. The color representing different courtiers based on IP address will indicate whether it's your turn.I'm also thinking to encourage some meaningful interactions. Not just "hey, how old are you?" but a bit deeper at how they regard global issues, such as wars, environment problems, Olympic games. So they are encouraged to draw on top of existing pictures or drawings of those topics.

crossroads

Yes, so what happens when two or more city streets intersect?

When two or more streets intersect, my mental system quickly activates itself. It's a reminder to check if that’s the right direction or if I should keep going or make a turn. Firstly, because they give you choices, 4 or 6 directions to go, compared with the streets. Secondly, there are street signs which most of the time, only located at the intersections, as an efficient way to annotate the urban street network. Thirdly, it's a place people get an excuse or chance to stop and think, and make a decision. Then after making the decision, my mental system started relaxing and deactivating itself, leaving my body moving, coz here comes the street, on direction.

There can not always be crossroads in our life course, and also can't be without crossroads, need a balance. Sometimes you can foresee and expect in confidence that's the right direction, e.g. walking on Manhattan is predictable, with the numbers naming the streets and the tall symbolic buildings to remind me the direction; sometimes, you cannot, have to make a guess.

Crossroads are magic in that it's the only chance people walking on two streets could encounter. After the encounter, maybe depart again, but at least, there's an encounter. Imagine, without the crossroads, that would be sad. People are heading to the same direction, but will not meet, or even know the existing of the parallel partner at all.

Crossroads are shared by different flows, with different and some time, conflicting interests. Simply setting a rule of the game: say, red traffic light means stop, when people and vehicles are following the rule, the crossroads turn to a gate.

Walking on the streets in Manhattan, the simplest strategy to play with the intersections game rule is to make a turn, and cross the street with the "little walking guy" sign first, instead of standing and waiting for the switch of the traffic light, or to be more precise, the traffic itself (we tend to ignore traffic lights), even though, ironically, sometimes, that may not be more efficient since it may turn out no need to cross the street, it just gives an illusion that our time hasn't been stolen by the traffic light.