meng li's quick notes on "humane machine & machinery human"

MOVED!

2010-09-10T13:51:00.015-04:00

MENG LI'S HOME HAS BEEN MOVED:

WWW.HUMANLYABSURD.COM

A SELECTION OF MENG LI [李萌]'S INSTALLATIONS.

animal quick note

2009-02-03T13:53:00.003-05:00

genesis
the edge of the world is knowable??? stuffing into the rational thoughts.
Joseph Beuys "he is a language guy" his activism is conceptual
we can not escape the self-consciousness, but children can, animals can. that's our weakness as human beings.

adventure

2009-01-27T17:09:00.008-05:00

what defines an adventure?
present, now, uncertainty, intensity, start & end, concern about while aging, to see the actual...
Casanova, fantasy, adventurer,
consequence
confidence
certainty is the illusion.
a adventure fail? risky. the adventure failed when you withdraw.
adventure became addiction?
chance & accessity gambler, resist
gambler & artist
self contained, autonomous, like art. freedom.
island, continent. really large
isolated island, adventure.
when adventure gets bigger...
genius, freedom, stepping outside the ordinary, doesn't see the rule, or boundary,
u believe in nothing. the likely is becoming the unlikely...
carneval, turn up side down...
life of continuity, vs. life of adventure.
getting out of constrains...
overcoming fear, challenge oneself, disclosing your vulnerability.
can adventure be planned?

history & culture,
Victorians property of man, they don't come to a good end.

talking with others while looking around. you read
invention
norm, behavior, body grossness, living alone, no awareness, different interpretation...
what you noticed and how you interpreted it is also telling bits of you.

stranger history

2009-01-27T15:46:00.012-05:00

invisible cities by Italo Calvino
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invisible_Cities
strangers: danger & possibility
magic, princess,...
carnival : new orealand, brazil, mask, making fun of the church, dress up, Halloween. for one moment, they can be strangers to each other.
formal introduction, unless letters reference.
questionable immigrants, no one knows how to read them.
cloth
it's not about danger, it's about how to read the strangers.
18 century theater, noisy, party. 19 century
coffee house, gossip, market price there, democracy. a public as a body of opinion.
public park

19 century
responding to the the gesture.
hat, talk, at that place, class, allow a date,
no follow through, just this moment, over!

private culture, family life, less intimate, more formalized

when cloth mass manufactured... shoes still more hand made, reading details...
how about digital revolution, even harder to read someone.

women is expected to be read as virtuous, couldn't be so fashionable. bought the dress in paris, and put into the cabinet for 2 years to wear, (people hold back, like prada bag)

not interacting, so watch and to be watched.

invulnerability, cosmopolitanism, tolerance, detective novel came at this moment, noticing the tiny details...

social climate. identify criminal

paris commu, massacred, burn all the traces, property record, but burn everything
index card, operator,
a return to make things by hand DIY, art and craft movement furniture design

healing, they wanna to wake up. phenomenology.

feeling, expressing? the expressions are from intellectuals.
film, magic, seeing a stranger at distance...
the memory of the moving camera: deconstruct film
how film can see things, how editing can change your interpretations.

1920s, stranger interactions victorias, disconnection, the sights and sounds, you are inside yourhand while walking around.

seeking out interactions shows a desire to wake up?

inattension blindness http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inattentional_blindness
asking for directions, ??

how to read, how to trust, how to know they are dangerous? friend-friend recommendation.

social fact: motivation

2009-01-23T12:38:00.006-05:00

true for group may not be true for individual.
dilemma(no solution) problem
don't want to be rude, over write the intellectual decision. in competition
groups are always emotional, no purely rational.

real group: social synchronization. never solely externally purely defined. purely internal. hipsters, yuppies, only describe other people.

optional, volunteer, i am not in that group, so i don't say that.
mailing, synchronizing is better; real location, hard.

stop being aggregation, while started grouping.

cross the threshold, group fails, the group never really goes. people are busy...

curiosity group life shared understanding, individual goals and social goals

emotion outcome, make me happy. out of the transaction.

25 bucks to change the air ticket. "it's surcharge, or penalty."

regular transaction is quite emotion.

send the money =? flowers.

transactions, pollute with economic...

economy works, group couldn't just follow the economy.

social fact is nest. my wife is my wife, 10 bucks is 10 busks.

i got change back...
we are in the institution.

degree
the proof. lost the piece of paper. assuring people, certification.

character: animal, quick note

2009-01-23T09:47:00.011-05:00

young, old... psychological comic, round : jimmy gownley :
allegory titian: www.yeatsvision.com/Daimon.html

memory, forget,
http://www.amazon.com/Botany-Desire-Plants-Eye-View-World/dp/0375501290
so the character is the left among those we experienced and filtered.
flat in reality show, character needs to be construct. constructing ourselves biography, twitter, the more stretching, the less relevant
memory was never the reality, but the constantly revolving happening , post-structuralism

how to construct a character, using just one scene/frame, simplicity : round paintings, balthus, http://coromandal.wordpress.com/2008/06/08/laziness-practiced-and-perfected/
adult, child child in adult dress, unfold the painting, props, context, jeff wall's work: http://i81.photobucket.com/albums/j220/artaddicted/MySpace%20Blog%20Images/Jeff%20Wall/JeffWall12.jpg. where does that happen? the dress? the location, the shoes? the expression, ... milk, squeeze it, it's not beer, it's milk, we expect not milk,... that's the story. because the picture is rich, so we engaged in the narrative.
http://totorogo.dyndns.org/wp-content/uploads/Murakami-Cowboy-Hiropon.jpg

cindy sherman film stills
the cowman: http://images.google.com/images?q=the%20cow%20man&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wi

http://fotiou.net/blog/2006/02/in-vivo-in-vitro.html

monster, scale, big huge bird on top of the person.

lost: infinite mirrors, luggage, small person in a big environment,

http://icanhascheezburger.com/

http://www.worth1000.com/contest.asp?contest_id=6489

dog's gesture is being recognized in our way.
bee behavior, dancing

reactions bee

break the wall -- network objects

2008-12-19T15:43:00.001-05:00

Break the Wall

collaborated with sunghun kim and elim cheng

project URL:
http://itp.nyu.edu/~ml1949/breakthewall.html

a kinetic performance of a wrecking ball hitting the wall. the performance is controlled by internet users' clicking the button on the "breakthewall" website. every 10 clicks (either 10 people from the internet clicking, or 1 person obsessively clicking 10 times) will trigger 1 hitting action. the performance will be broadcasted through ip camera to the internet. so your tiny action online will have real impact on the real life.

this is the interface you'll see in your browser, either sitting in the quiet office, in front of your depressing boss, desperately trying to find a way to escape behind your screen, or in seattle, on the bus, having nothing to do, thinking of seeing how wall is doing in new york with you iphone.

some of you may wonder where is the wall exactly, and "da da da da! "here it is!!

building process and technology

So Obsessed with ______

2008-12-16T12:23:00.008-05:00

Project Brief:

Randomness and Rhizomes

Project: Rhizome
Assignment length: 2 weeks
Due Date: Dec 1
# of collaborators: solo/duo

Make a database that tells a cinematic story. How we access it is up to you – it can be computer-based, or real-world based, or a mix.
The content and form should be working together to covey your concept.

Why random access? What advantages can this have for your concept?
Do you still use plot? Events?

I did a project called "i am so obsessed with ______" .

goal:
i want to experiment my thoughts around this obsession project, and i want to get more data from people, and use different criteria to classify those data to look at those data, e.g. emotional involvement; moral judgment, good or bad; socially acceptable or not. I wanna to make people think about their obsessions, especially for people who has obsessive compulsive disorder, who couldn't control and who blame or feel guilty for their obsessions, I want them to go through the process like a routine and take their time to classify, to think about their obsessions, are they really bad? not socially acceptable? or it's just a way how to you look at it.

form:
setting up a scene as a routine, put the objects in the right place, creating a linear space, so people come and automatically follow the rule created by the space.
creating a safe and private atmosphere(i guess i should adapt my setting coz it's not private enough)
guiding people to write down their obsessions using different colors
guiding people to put them into either good/or bad jars
turning everything complex to a cup of "tea" with color, as the Tibetan healing ceremony , mandala http://www.asia.si.edu/exhibitions/online/mandala/default.htm

feedbacks:
I got feedback from ithai, "that doesn't make sense, that's not tea" and then I started thinking about it, what if I did relate that with real tea, but use different colors of tea, mix them together and have real tea, does that make people feel more pleasant?
Also eddie said " the classification of both color/emotion and good/bad is confused". I think this performance is an experiment for me to see which is more interesting, emotion attachment or judgment on good/bad. And rating the obsession as good/bad, and attaching the obsession with emotion are two different things for me.
Marina also said "too many texts on instructions", and Allistar knew my project, having the same concern. The test in the bar showed I should definitely make it as simple as 2 steps, write and drop.
Got feedbacks from Marina and other people on using so many different colors to represent emotion. first, that's very personal; second, i have a lot "pink" and it could be biased. so maybe people will not buy the part of emotion thing.
marina also refers me to 12steps, http://www.12step.org/Forums/. That's fascinating, and I found http://www.myrecoveryspace.com/ from 12steps. I've been thinking a lot, should I continue it to make it on line? or more of a face-to-face and reallife performance thing. The good thing for this 12 steps and myrecoverspace project is it creates a empathy "We are more alike than we are different". That's great to people who need mental support.
People are interested in learning others' obsessions, especially if they know that's classified by the writer as good, even they feel that's bad "the obsessed with money one" . then the conflict creates conversation. that's what I like.
I talked with Marina about the direction of this project. I explained I am more focusing on the obsession content, on people's judgment on these obsessions, obsessions on consuming, obsessions on relationship, than the form I did. Advices from Marina are: setting up the place, more specific, asking the question more specific, setting up in a luxury mall vs. in the subway will be different, and I could get more specific obsessions from this specific group of people, and the questions could be even more constraint than right now. Getting more data from different location and different people group would be my next step. I still need to think about the form later and I also would think about involving my own stories into the performance.

reading note: capital by marx

2008-12-15T04:30:00.003-05:00

Capital

A critique of politial economy

Karl marx

Value :

Intrisic value

Use value

Exchange value

A commodity is first an external object, satisfies human needs, no matter for stomach or for brain, feeling. That's why we consume. Need more, consume more.

Emotional need, as people are obsessed with niky, gucci, apple, etc, people are emotionally obsessed with those brands, luxuries, etc. people need it, and make the exchange value increase, the higher the exchange value, the more emotionally satisfied people feel, and the more they consume, and the more people in the society consume, that's the luxury industry.

My friend told me whenever he is emotionally up/down, or feel lonely (since the capitalism society is a competitive society, and it lacks compassion and it is easy to get lonely), he buys stuff, and good stuff, spends a lot of money. Not sure if that fits to everyone in this system, but interesting point, though.

The usefulness of a thing, or a person. Social capital. Kinda sad, but that's how the society work… where is the compassion, where is the love/??

Technology reduces the labor hour, but the salary of average workers still the same, thus the remaining value workers create increase.

Where is money coming from? Coat and the linen.

The value form, the fetish, is unfamiliar, magic, animating the object.

Exchange Value cames from the social relationships between commodities.all about relationships, the global trading: export/import

The two cow joke: JAPANESE CORPORATION, You have two cows. You redesign them so they are one-tenth the size of an ordinary cow and produce twenty times the milk. You then create clever cow cartoon images called Cowkimon and market them Worldwide.

Japaness cartoon as commodity fetish.

A question, the intrinsic and use value of digital objects, e.g. email service. Or mobile service ?

The virtual QQ coin, the virtual money, as fetish objects in virtual world.

Yahoo as a corporation, putting profit as the highest priority, sacrificing customer's privacy and turned the customer, a dissent to the chinese government. In capitalism, corporation moral is to gain profit.

if table could dance, if coat could speak, uncanny.

Reframe: dead leaves growing up to be flame

2008-11-23T22:02:00.009-05:00

Project: Remix/Reframe
Assignment length: 2 weeks
Due Date: Nov 10
# of collaborators: solo/collab

"Artists today program forms more than they compose them: rather than transfigure a raw element (blank canvas, clay, etc.), they remix available forms and make use of data."

– Nicolas Bourriaud, Post-Production (p.8)

“Visual, sound, and text collage, for many centuries relatively fugitive traditions (a cento here, a folk pastiche there) became explosively central to a series of movements passing through Modernism to Postmodernism: Futurism, Cubism, Dada, Musique Concrete, Situationism, Pop, and Appropriation. In fact, collage, the common denominator in that list, might be called the art form of the 20th century, never mind the 21st. But forget, for the moment, chronologys, schools, or even centuries. As examples accumulate – Igor Stravinsky’s music and Daniel Johnston’s, Francis Bacon’s paintings, and Henry Darger’s, the novels of and the Oulipou group and of Hannah Crafts (the runaway-slave author who pillaged Dickens’ Bleak House to write The Bondwoman’s Narrative), as well as cherished texts that nonetheless tremble on the brink of outcast status for the subsequent discovery of their “plagiarized” elements, like Richard Condon’s novels and Martin Luther King Junior’s sermons – it may seem that collage and appropriation, mimicry, quotation, allusion and sublimated collaboration are the sine qua non of the creative act, a native urge cutting across all boundaries, forms and genres, across high and low, through both self-consciously sophisticated and “primitive” attempts to make those useless and essential artifacts we call culture.”

– Jonathan Letham, The Ecstasy of Influence

Ruleset: The terms of this assignment are simple.
Create a Remix, in which the content and form are reflected in each other.
The original(s) should be recognizable, but you should think about saying something new in your reframing/remixing of the original material.
As usual in ISCO, this cannot be a single channel work that appears on an unmodified screen, projection, monitor, etc.

I worked together with eddie and what we want to do is a remix of life and death, nature and civilization, the intrisic system of leaves and the system of fire, reframing the dry leaves, play with as if they are color pixels, to create a site specific nature graffiti. Also, we want to create a linear narrative, as people walking from faraway to close by, we want to play around the reversal recognition, making people feel those are leaves on actually fire, while afterward, realize that's just leaf graffiti.

This is our ideal site to put this piece.

Eddie and I tried to put it outside, but we failed due to the wind, the material.

Marina and our classmates' critique made us rethink of our project.
1, negative feeling in terms of the material: it's really true that using tape lost all the magic of this project. we missed the detail and we'd love to tie or sew the leaves on the net if we do it again, outside.
2, magic of the project: i understand that after marina pointing out the lost of the magic for our project. i feel our project is pursuing something really literal: reversal recognition, and ignore something subtle: visible vs. invisible; magic.
3, it's totally different if we put it outside, in a site, like the washington square park. that's our initial idea. we forgot to mention that. gallery setting gives people totally another experience. and we also would love people to experience in a linear way, from far, to closer, closer, so we should control the environment, so that people's interaction, distance will be controlled to fit our purpose. that's also what i see, the magic of the project, and how to play with the physical setting to affect people's behavior.

Pineapple Man with the Earphone and a Piece of Newspaper

2008-10-22T21:09:00.013-04:00

Beauties, Specters, and Monsters

Project: Portrait of…

Intro:
Character. Archetype vs. stereotype vs. individual. Cardboard character. Fully fleshed out character.
This next assignment focuses on the challenges of character development. Much of a character’s depth is realized through a combination of its actions, interactions, and supplementary behaviors.
In cinema, a character unfolds over time.
A character is revealed by his/her/its actions.
In media or installation, a character often has to reveal itself in new ways that are non-linear or multi-linear.
Every work – whether that is a Kleenex box, a doorknob, a mascot, or a story’s protagonist has a character to it, that’s made up of its material, content, expression, and environment. This assignment should bring your scrutiny of all the elements that comprise character to the foreground.
Ruleset:
Create a portrait. It could be a real or fictional character, or a chimera – a mythical composite beast.
Your project must contain two or three distinct points of view (literal views, time frames, scales, positions, perspectives, or opinions).
Components: 2-3 screens, 2-3 soundtracks, or 2-3 objects or forms. You must make multiples of the same type of medium (i.e. all screens, all toys, all tape decks, all talking shoes).
Ancillary material: Accompanying this should be a 1-3 paragraph character description. You should draw from the character shopping list or hand-out on characyter development. You will make this available to the class.
Questions: What is the central problem or thesis the character wishes to express?
How is your portrait cinematic? Are you dealing with color, tempo, lighting, atmosphere, and scene to help give a sense of this persona?
How are you characterizing your subject? How is she/he/it round, not flat?
Are you alluding to any particular narrative genres?
What are we gaining in character depth, contradiction, or narrative viewpoints from having more than one perspective? How do multiple viewpoints or iterations help make your character “round?”

---- by Prof. Marina Zurkow

For my Interactive Screen and Cinematic Object class, I created a character: Pineapple Man with the Earphone and a Piece of Newspaper.

An old man, sitting on a bench in Washington park in the dark area under the tree, really faraway to see clearly except that his size is big, and he is holding a newspaper, covering his face. Walking closer by, his face is sort of greenish, seems really not smooth at all, with a pair of dark sun glasses, you know, it 's night time… I say "hi" to him, seems he doesn't hear. Oh… I see, he has a big black earphone covering his ears and a piece of "New York Times" in hand. Seems a knowledgeable professor in Politics or Law or Business, I don't know.

While getting closer to him quietly seems doesn't bother him. He is too focus to even notice me.

He keeps nodding as if he reads something important or hears something satisfying. What is he reading and listening?

"Many Health in Disclosure of Nominees’ Holes

By Lawrence Altman

The limited candidates provided by the information is a striking campaign from recent departure in a year when their significance carries extraordinary health... "

Audience Reaction and Critique

After encountering with my pineapple man, audience associated the character with different figures: old man sitting in the park, vacation guy relaxing, woman in 80's since the sun glasses look like that period, or could be anyone... Whether the character is a male or female? Actually, it is a type of people. It actually could be anyone. That's actually my reflection after the critique. But while before the critique, in order to make my character specific and easy to recognize and describe, I want to make the character as an old man as a professor or so. The problems with this character is (from marina and my classmate's critique) :

1, pineapple associates with vacation, Hawaii, and party. as marina and others pointed, as a sculpture, audience always tries to find the symbolic feature and each of them will affect how they perceive the sculpture. I totally feel I should make decisions by putting myself into the role of the audience, coz this pineapple, for me , i associate it with ugly figure, and it seems just me. so to improve the project, also to reflect "it could be everyone or part of everyone" I want to replace the pineapple with a white ball, generic face; OR I want to create 3 or 4 fruit heads, e.g. pineapple, banana, and watermelon. First to make people think that's actually not just this figure, but different people that could belong to this type. Second, to reduce the association of pineapple.

2 sun glasses should be selected carefully. again, that plus the pineapple makes the character more like a vacation guy to the audience.

3 the newspaper: I am happy most of people got the idea and burst into laugh after reading it. the sound: radio news . some people got it, while others didn't hear anything strange. Hulya burst into laugh when she posited the earphone and she pointed out the interesting thing was she realized she was in a conversation with a pineapple. Steven piointed out the consistancy between the newspaper's nonsense and the radio's nonsense. Some people feel the character is making an ironic statement on politics, and Marina feels the character is an alien or a blind voter trying to figure out the "no-way-to-understand" election, I thought that's interesting and also Jose said, that is same as the financial crisis, no one understands what's on the news. The funny thing is people have intepreted what they heart and seen in very different ways. My description of the character is types of people who pretend to care about the news, but actually he/she doesn't understand what's going on. I want to produce many reversal recognitions for audience, and to create the "ah ha, oh, he is such a character that different from what I saw him before reading what he reads and listening to what he listens to" I realized because of it is a newspaper, the contend also matters. I in fact, just want to use the form to show the non-sense, but since the content is about election, people will of course associate the theme with elections. That's another thing I should be careful. On one hand, I could take advantage of the content, and on the other hand, if I don't want people to associate with the content, I should make the paper less specific, not a new york times or so.

weather map --- 1945 / 1985 sihe garden

2008-10-02T23:07:00.003-04:00

please click to view the bigger picture

The garden is called Sihe Garden, in Beijing. The picture above was my grandpa's parents' house, with different rooms which my grandpa, his brothers, his sisters lived. Different rooms have different conditions and could only be used by certain people, e.g. my grandpa's sisters can not live in the position where my grandpa lives. Different rooms represented how high the status was. Parents were living in the middle main room. The oldest son of the family was No.1, living in the left wing of the garden, then the second son, living in the right wing. And sisters can only live in the backyard. The weather refers to their status.

The picture below was the same house, but in 1985. The change of the society affected the use of the garden. There were different families SHARING this garden, and they were under different family names. There were no "higher, lower" statues anymore and basically, everyone was equal and the same.

In terms of the narrative, the important nformation on the corner was missed by most readers. It's better to use diferent fonts.

butt-on pong controller

2008-10-02T18:00:00.008-04:00

Pong Game

instructions:
1, sit on my special chair
2, press the square button to start the game
3, shift body to press the left button by left butt/right button by right butt ( when left button is pressed, the bar on the screen will move left/vise versa)
4, to control the bar to hit the ball

the chair with buttons:

under the chair, xport direct, arduino, and indication leds:

/* Code by Meng Li based on Tom Igoe's makingthingstalk
Pong client
Language: Wiring/Arduino

This program enables an Arduino to control one paddle
in a networked Pong game. This listing uses the readSensors()
method from the seesaw client in project #7.
*/

// Defines for the Lantronix device's status (used for staus variable):
#define disconnected 0
#define connected 1
#define connecting 2

// Defines for I/O pins:
#define connectButtonPin 9
#define rightLED 3
#define leftLED 4
#define connectionLED 11
#define connectButtonLED 12
#define deviceResetPin 7
// variables:
int inByte= -1; // incoming byte from serial RX
int status = disconnected; // Lantronix device's connection status

// variables for the sensors:
byte connectButton = 0; // state of the exit button
byte lastConnectButton = 0; // previous state of the exit button
/*
When the connect button is pressed, or the accelerometer
passes the left or right threshold, the client should send a message
to the server. The next two variables get filled with a value
when either of those conditions is met. Otherwise, these
variables are set to 0.
*/
byte paddleMessage = 0; // message sent to make a paddle move
byte connectMessage = 0; // message sent to connect or disconnect

void setup() {
// set the modes of the various I/O pins:
pinMode(connectButtonPin, INPUT);
pinMode(rightLED, OUTPUT);
pinMode(leftLED, OUTPUT);
pinMode(connectionLED, OUTPUT);
pinMode(connectButtonLED, OUTPUT);
pinMode(deviceResetPin, OUTPUT);

// start serial port, 9600 8-N-1:
Serial.begin(9600);

// reset the Lantronix device:
resetDevice();
// blink the exit button LED to signal that we're ready for action:
blink(3);
}

void loop() {
// read the inputs:
readSensors();
// set the indicator LEDS:
setLeds();
// check the state of the client and take appropriate action:
stateCheck();
}

void readSensors() {
int left = digitalRead(8);
delay(10);
int right = digitalRead(6);
delay(10);
if (left > right) {
paddleMessage = 'l';
}
else if (right >left) {
paddleMessage = 'r';
}
else {
paddleMessage = 0;
}

// read the connectButton, look for a low-to-high change:
connectButton = digitalRead(connectButtonPin);
connectMessage = 0;
if (connectButton == HIGH ) {
if (connectButton != lastConnectButton) {
// turn on the exit button LED to let the user
// know that they hit the button:
digitalWrite(connectButtonLED, HIGH);
connectMessage = 'x';
}
}
// save the state of the exit button for next time you check:
lastConnectButton = connectButton;
}
void setLeds() {
// this should happen no matter what state the client is in,
// to give local feedback every time a sensor senses a change

// set the L and R LEDs if the sensor passes the appropriate threshold:
switch (paddleMessage) {
case 'l':
digitalWrite(leftLED, HIGH);
digitalWrite(rightLED, LOW);
break;
case 'r':
digitalWrite(rightLED, HIGH);
digitalWrite(leftLED, LOW);
break;
case 0:
digitalWrite(rightLED, LOW);
digitalWrite(leftLED, LOW);
}

// set the connect button LED based on the connectMessage:
if (connectMessage !=0) {
digitalWrite(connectButtonLED, HIGH);
}
else {
digitalWrite(connectButtonLED, LOW);
}

// set the connection LED based on the client's status:
if (status == connected) {
// turn on the connection LED:
digitalWrite(connectionLED, HIGH);
}
else {
// turn off the connection LED:
digitalWrite(connectionLED, LOW);
}
}
void stateCheck() {
// Everything in this method depends on the client's status:
switch (status) {
case connected:
// if you're connected, listen for serial in:
while (Serial.available() > 0) {
// if you get a 'D', it's from the Lantronix device,
// telling you that it lost the connection:
if (Serial.read() == 'D') {
status = disconnected;
}
}

// if there's a paddle message to send, send it:
if (paddleMessage != 0) {
Serial.print(paddleMessage);
// reset paddleMessage to 0 once you've sent the message:
paddleMessage = 0;
}
// if there's a connect message to send, send it:
if (connectMessage != 0) {
// if you're connected, disconnect:
Serial.print(connectMessage);
// reset connectMessage to 0 once you've sent the message:
connectMessage = 0;
}
break;

case disconnected:
// if there's a connect message, try to connect:
if (connectMessage !=0 ) {
deviceConnect();
// reset connectMessage to 0 once you've sent the message:
connectMessage = 0;
}
break;
// if you sent a connect message but haven't connected yet,
// keep trying:
case connecting:
// read the serial port:
if (Serial.available()) {
inByte = Serial.read();
// if you get a 'C' from the Lantronix device,
// then you're connected to the server:
if (inByte == 'C') {
status = connected;
}
else {
// if you got anything other than a C, try again:
deviceConnect();
}
}
break;
}
}

void deviceConnect() {
/*
send out the server address and
wait for a "C" byte to come back.
fill in your personal computer's numerical address below:
*/
Serial.print("C128.122.151.168/8080\n\r");
status = connecting;
}

// Take the Lantronix device's reset pin low to reset it:
void resetDevice() {
digitalWrite(deviceResetPin, LOW);
delay(50);
digitalWrite(deviceResetPin, HIGH);
// pause to let Lantronix device boot up:
delay(2000);
}

// Blink the connect button LED:
void blink(int howManyTimes) {
for (int i=0; i< howManyTimes; i++) {
digitalWrite(connectButtonLED, HIGH);
delay(200);
digitalWrite(connectButtonLED, LOW);
delay(200);
}
}

tickle me!

2008-09-16T09:54:00.002-04:00

code in arduino:

int switchPin = 3; // assign a pin for the switch
int LEDPin = 13; // select the LED pin
int state = 0;

void setup() {
//initialize the serial
Serial.begin(9600);
pinMode(switchPin, INPUT); // declare the switchPin as an INTPUT
pinMode(LEDPin, OUTPUT); // declare the ledPin as an OUTPUT
}

void loop() {
state = digitalRead(switchPin);
digitalWrite(LEDPin,state);
Serial.print(state,BYTE);
}

code in processing:
import processing.serial.*;
import pitaru.sonia_v2_9.*;

Sample mySample;
Serial myPort;
int inByte;

void setup(){
println(Serial.list());
myPort = new Serial(this, Serial.list()[1], 9600);
// size(50,50);
Sonia.start(this); // Start Sonia engine.
mySample = new Sample("giggle.wav");

//inByte=1;
}

void draw(){
if(inByte==1){

println(" playing");
if(!mySample.isPlaying()){
mySample.setVolume(20);
mySample.repeat();

}
}
else{
println("no playing");
// if(mySample.isPlaying()){
mySample.stop();
// }
}

}

// background(255);
/*
if(mySample.isPlaying()){
background(0,40,0);
}
*/

void serialEvent(Serial myPort){
// while(myPort.available()>0){
inByte = myPort.read();
println(inByte);
}

// Safely close the sound engine upon Browser shutdown.

public void stop(){
//Sonia.stop();
myPort.stop();
super.stop();

}

Actions Events Filtering

2008-04-23T14:26:00.004-04:00

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);
}

why projects form artists and designers are important

2008-04-20T23:57:00.002-04:00

this presentation went through 7 reasons why projects form artists and designers are important, especially for academic researchers and engineers:

"(1) avantgarde: as they can announce things to come (new practices, new artifacts)
(2) challenge existing practices (for example by highlight new interaction partners beyond the classical and canonical “human computer interaction”: blogjects, animal-controlled video games)
(3) criticize the state of the world by making explicit invisible/implicit phenomena or certain aspects that are hidden (like pollution mapped on cityscape)
(4) address issues in novel way that are not possible in academia or in private R&D: by using fakes, humor or non-utilitarian perspectices.
(5) “breaching experiment”: When trying to predict or design the future of technologies, you can’t just rely on what exist today… you want “disruptions” as the literature about innovation states. So technologies developed in new media art / device art contexts are often DISRUPTIVE platforms that allow to investigate what changes.
(6) arts+design do better to convey desire and emotions (and less mechanistic vision of humans who do not always want automation in their lives for example)
(7) the design process: something is investigated in the construction of hypothetical artifacts, the design process itself is important and bring lessons. A totally different approach than engineering and academic research."

"we are boycotting your party"

2008-04-16T18:34:00.007-04:00

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

2008-04-13T15:46:00.013-04:00

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

2008-04-05T15:23:00.003-04:00

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

2008-04-03T21:34:00.000-04:00

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)
Prisoner B	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)
Prisoner B	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

2008-04-03T21:05:00.004-04:00

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

2008-04-01T19:38:00.003-04:00

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~~

2008-03-29T22:46:00.003-04:00

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

2008-03-27T14:18:00.005-04:00

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

2008-03-15T23:33:00.004-04:00

"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

2008-03-15T11:40:00.004-04:00

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

2008-03-15T11:21:00.006-04:00

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

2008-03-15T11:14:00.006-04:00

"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

2008-03-10T13:12:00.002-04:00

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

2008-03-09T19:31:00.000-04:00

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.

strangers on street

2008-03-05T15:15:00.006-05:00

Sophie calle and vito acconci, both artists followed their strangers on streets until the strangers they followed entered into private spaces. Sophie was more obsessed into the stranger she followed and even shadowed him from Paris to Venice, even fell in love with him. Shadowing strangers on street is a non-obtrusive way of learning about the stranger, his/her behavior, his/her everyday life, his/her personality, sometimes, even very private and personal things, since streets are public places, and everyone acts as a single himself/herself, having nothing to do with others on the street, without bothering how others judge them, coz they are strangers. So those activities such as, eating junk food, going to buy a porn, calling people loudly by cell phone, etc, they could all be captured by the stranger follower on street.

But on the other hand, especially for some cultures, though everyone acts as a single person, people still face the question, whether or not, or how much, do they follow the social norm on street, since it's the public places. I did a shadow project with my classmates before coming to ITP, on bus, and we found many interesting things going on, e.g. where to seat himself, what did he do to kill the time on the bus, what triggered him noticing he got the wrong bus, how did he react to it, how did he interact with the driver, etc. I'd love to do a similar project see "How people react when they realized they get on a wrong subway/bus" in NY, to compare the two different cultures.

Then of course, we come to the topic of street, I can't help picking up a topic: "familiar strangers." The term comes from Stanley Milgram, and it refers to the people that we see regularly in a non-intimate fashion, like subway, broadway in front of Tisch, bus stop, etc. We develop a sense that we know each other, that's a familiar face, but we never directly interact with each other. But when the setting is changed to an unexpected context, say, same person showed up in our urban computing class, or in a gallery, or in China and we encountered again, then there probably will be direct interactions.

Then I remember a Seattle based weekly :"stranger". Such a good name. We readers are all strangers, but we actually are familiar in the sense of we are reading the same newspapers. So the "stranger" weekly is like the street where we encounter strangers but never interact with them directly. But actually, we experience a lot similar things, e.g. the articles or comments in the newspaper, similar to the shops along the street.

take my odor to wherever you go

2008-03-04T22:58:00.007-05:00

The magic thing about relationship is odor. I read an article, saying a girl always wears a huge tshirt which obviously doesn't fit her. She even always show off her t-shirt to others, let other smell it. In fact, that's her boyfriend's t-shirt with his odor. Same thing with woman's odor. I'm thinking of ways to make the significant other smell you except sending your t-shirt or underwear to her or him. It would also be interesting to keep and store the odor of your ex boy/girl friend, just as you shoot erotic video to keep the memory.

Need to do some research on it... One interesting industrial design I came across, but has nothing to do with odor, http://zinoopark.com/ check the project: erotic dish.

Addiction to camera, internet radio and porn

2008-03-04T22:56:00.002-05:00

When Steve Mann took off his wearable camera to go swim, he felt uncomfortable. When one day in the summer 2007 when I came to my special intern office, as usual, turned on the computer, the first thing, typed "pandora.com" in my browser to listen to the web radio, it was shown that "please support internet radio and prevent it from being banned, so today, we don't have internet radio all over the country" something like that. Then I even didn't know how to do my work!! I can't sit in the office without internet radio, I suddenly realized. Same thing with technology mediated sex. Imagine, one day, people get used to internet porn websites, coz it's like internet radio, a lot, you can simply switch if you don't like, you can replay if you like that, no risk, no cost, keep it secret… so many good things. It's very understandable that certain type of people(long distance, senior people, disabled people, etc.) will not only like it, but may get addict to it. Addiction is interesting. People sometimes feel guilty about their addiction, but still can't help doing it. Then, there was a project coming to my mind, gallery based, a TV with porn and a seat where people sit on to watch TV, the longer you are sitting on the seat, the blur the porn is. (I've searched for a long time, but failed, will add the link later if it's lucky to hit my face again). It's hard to imagine if we stop porn website one day, what will happen?

sensor and time

2008-02-29T03:13:00.010-05:00

I used pot, IR detector/emitter and photo resister to do the sensor and time experiment.

here is the circuit:

here is the graph:
the yellow represents: photo cell value
the red represents: IR signal
the blue represents: pot value

here is the codes:

arduino:

int an1, an2, an3 = 0;

void setup() {
Serial.begin(9600);
}

void loop() {
an1 = analogRead(3);
delay(5);
an2 = analogRead(0);
delay(5);
an3 = analogRead(5);
Serial.print("X");
Serial.println(an1,DEC);
Serial.print("Y");
Serial.println(an2,DEC);
Serial.print("Z");
Serial.println(an3,DEC);
delay(15);
}

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

print("C"); //header variable, so we know which sensor value is which
println(an3); //send as a ascii encoded number - we'll turn it back into a number at the other end

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

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

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

sensorTic1(xPos,an1/2);
}
if(curY >=0){
String val = buff.substring(curY+1);
an2 = Integer.parseInt(val.trim());

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

sensorTic2(yPos,an2);
}
if(curZ >=0){
String val = buff.substring(curZ+1);
an3 = Integer.parseInt(val.trim());

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

sensorTic3(zPos,an3);
}

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

void sensorTic1(int x, int y){
stroke(0,0,255);
fill(0,0,255);
ellipse(x,y,displaySize*3,displaySize*3);
}

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

void sensorTic3(int x, int y){
stroke(255,255,0);
fill(255,255,0);
ellipse(x,y,displaySize*5,displaySize*5);
}

people missing ...

2008-02-28T11:43:00.027-05:00

how many of your anonymous familiar strangers have disappeared in cyberspace? second life, qq, msn, facebook, etc...

tele-bench

2008-02-26T10:59:00.007-05:00

This project is collaborated with Jae Yoon.

We know in public places, people tend to keep a distance with others and set a social border for themselves. For instance, when there's a 3 seat bench, the first place to be occupied, normally, is always on one end; then if the second person is coming and he/she is a stranger to the first one, he/she probably will take the seat on the other end.

That may be because of the physical reason: we want a bigger space to seat ourselves to feel comfortable; but more important, that's because of the social reason: people want to act normal. Seating next to the stranger if there's still space unoccupied is not being regard as normal act in our society.

But how about if the seat is not occupied by a physical person, but by his shadow which corresponds to and reflects his presence in another place, say one bench is at the subway station of W4, the other at Cannel street ; or even both benches are situated at the two end of one subway station. When I find an empty bench, I seat myself on one spot, while my shadow is reflected on the same position on the other bench; then if you also want to seat yourself over there, will my shadow bother you? Will you avoid seating on my shadow? Will you keep a distance with my shadow which is the tele-presence of me? Will you feel your space is invaded by my shadow or by me if we are on the same seat position in different bench? Or will you ignore it? How my tele-shadow is gonna affect your behavior of sitting on a bench?

Our project is about to do an experiment with people, especially the strangers in public setting.

So technically, the project is setting in this way:

We tried using recorded video, or animation, to create the telepresence at the beginning, but we feel to make the telepresence real is a key, so we turn to use cameras. When using cameras, there's also some challenges: to avoid the shadow which is projected on to the bench, being recorded back into the camera. So we applied a black mask whenever there's a physical person sitting on the seat (and press down the button basically in microcontroller).

final video is going to be uploaded:

how we see the world when we were little?

2008-02-25T23:12:00.001-05:00

Last year when I was in seattle, I went hiking with my friends. When I was tired, I started with both feet and hands touching the ground and crawling. After being laughed at for a while, I started feeling that must be the way how I see the world, the grass, the earth, the tree, the insects, and the people, when I was little, that tall.

Another thing is I always enjoy my parents telling me my scary experience when I was 1 years old: living in the hospital as a little patient and dragging away the transfusion wire and throwing the bottle to the ground, for some reason. Is that me? I really wish I could have good memory of my baby time.

Also interesting when I was doing my shopping in the mall, being stared by a baby in his/her (not sure) baby cart for 2 min and 3 times. We always encountered and the baby always looked at me, no distraction.

So having experienced these things, I want to make a baby-Eye: to track what a baby sees by having the baby wearing a camera hat.

First of all, it's really interesting to learn from baby as an adult, see how the baby see the world. Even though parents and baby are always together, the thing parents see is different from their baby.

I want it to help parents know how the baby see the world, what they may be more interested in, what they may be more focusing on, baby likes to imitate other's behavior, so it would also be nice to get the source why they behave in certain way if we could follow baby's eyes.

It's also be good to leave a memory or evidence for the baby him/herself, so that when they grow up, they could be reminded what great things they've done when just came into the world.

sounds good!

2008-02-21T14:19:00.014-05:00

public restroom is such an interesting place. it's where the most private and personal act happens, but it's also where we have to put ourselves in a public space, sharing the space, the facility, and the experience with strangers. the wall inside effectively keeps our privacy, visually, while ironically, makes our ears more sensitive. but unfortunately, the wall can't help blocking the sound.

a mask too true or false to keep

2008-02-18T12:38:00.004-05:00

If many masks are being presented together, then a well-rounded, sometimes, controversial personality could be revealed. Like gtalk or aim or msn. There's an icon place for you to show yourself, you can name your name, your feeling now, your statues now, sometimes even what music / game you're playing now. The "me" is presented to my friends, to my parents, to my students, to my boss, even to semi stranger who knows you, while I don't know him/her. All happen at the same time. Sometimes, I started struggling which mask am I going to wear? Which part of me am I going to present to such diverse audience? Which picture icon?

Then sometimes, in such a messy situation with all diverse audience being in one IM, some IM is being abandoned. And their friends, business contacts, relatives, students, schoolmates, who are important to them are being transported to other places.

In China, QQ probably is the IM with the largest number of users in the world. It's very early to come into people's life, especially teens, around 1997 or even earlier, and it's also so different than telephone which could easily be mapped to the real person, and there were also a lot of chatting room for strangers to meet. So later on, it's very well known for meeting strangers or semi strangers in QQ. But of course, friends, relatives also use that. So QQ number used to be very hot and you had to pay for that and it was also harder and harder to get new numbers later in 2004 or 2005. But at that time, to those people who adopted it earlier, they started abandon QQ number, because the mask was too true to some of their contacts, and too false to some others. (In fact, people filter their contacts, and if possible, transferred their valuable contacts to other IMs.)

It's such an interesting phenomenon and I want to collect abandoned QQ/MSN/AIM number and find the stories about them. anyone who's interested in it, we can talk!!

do u like to eat soft rice?

2008-02-16T14:32:00.004-05:00

soft rice = ruan fan = 软饭
are you artists?
i remember when HP people heart about we were from nyu's tisch school of the arts, they asked, "are you artists?" then dano turned to us " are you artists?" then we all laughed.
i don't know though i really wish i could answer yes.
same question also been asked by tom igoe in last semester's p-com intro class, a short discussion about designer and artists. then such a simple question evoked tons of complicated responses.

so are you an artist?
btw, my mom asked me if i like to add more water and less rice into the rice cooker so that rice could be soft. i thought for a while, in fact, she asked me if i like to eat “软饭“ :D

Door

2008-02-13T16:45:00.001-05:00

I can't help comparing the door with the wall and the window. Say, it's a stranger's house. The wall separates the outsiders from the inside and makes them wonder what’s inside. The window satisfies the curiosity of these outsiders, but the outsiders are still outside, it's the state "I'm exploring the uncertainty with full confidence and sense of security since I'm still outside of the uncertainty, if it's not the uncertainty you want, you can just move your eyesight out of the window". Then here comes the door. It could reveal more secrets of the room since it invites outsiders to step into the room. But you'll get yourself into the unfamiliar situation, immersed into it, and prepared facing whatever uncertainty the place may bring to you.

Why the menu is always outside the door of the restaurant ? Once entering into the door of a luxurious restaurant, people feel embarrassed turning back and leaving after realizing the price is too high and the place is not suitable. Before stepping into the unfamiliar door, we want to get at least a little bit sense of certainty and courage.

When there's no window, no other cues what's inside the door, do you feel comfortable to open it? Because of the uncertainty given by the "door", the number/label/sign on the door plays an important and interesting role. I remember in a movie, a guy mistakenly entered into the female bathroom because the hanging plate on which writes "female" and "male" on each side, turns accidentally from "female" to the backside "male". People need the sign to expect what's inside and decide whether to step in.

Like entering into the wrong restaurant or bathroom, same thing happens to a lot of different types of "explorers": people wondering whether to immigrant, people tending to change their career, couples about to getting married. . . Those who face a choice, to act ?or to stay and watch without action.

Same thing also happens when clicking into the link in internet. We feel we'll get to what we want by the label. What if it's a link without label? Or the whole website with labels of links, but no word to say where it leads to?

Is there also the fear to knock the door and enter into it in virtual world? Clicking into the wrong webpage may get my computer infect in my real life. That's the fear in front of the door, so, to enter in or not, to click into or not?

While though those things happened, internet, most of the time, showing the scene inside the window-- screen, we always actually keep a distance with whatever inside the screen. we feel safe to be an internet explorer since we are not in the uncertain environment, but a familiar home, office, school, etc, looking through the screen into the virtual world. So from this perspective, there's no door in the internet. All of them, no matter how unexpected may be to enter in, are all windows.

So, if there's a door in internet, where's the door ?

window

2008-02-06T10:52:00.000-05:00

When I'm looking into the window, If the outside where I'm is much brighter than the inside, what I'm doing is actually exposing myself to the person inside and what he/she could see is me and my outside environment, while what I could see is myself and my environment. If the outside is much dimmer than the inside, it seems I'm hiding myself to watch the inside. But I lost the ability to see myself. What I see is totally the inside.

It interests to me how the change of the light environment changes the function of the window: switching between reflection mirror and one direction glass. And the switch of the function to me also changes my role from an exposer to a peeper; or we could also say: from focusing and immerging into myself regardless of what's going on inside the window, to ignoring myself and merely concentrating on the person and the thing inside.

I'd love to do a project around this idea, to play with the "one direction" window.

The sacrifice because of the wall

2008-01-31T09:58:00.001-05:00

While when we started talking about the invisible walls, like the wall to block or affect the free flow, e.g. the policy for restricting entering into US, especially the one or two years after 911, no matter whether you are students, or capitalists, or professors, or terrorists, you guys will end up with the same result: being rejected by US. embassy . It's reasonable because of lots of immigration problems, but it ended up with blocking the "useful" people, idea, capital, merchandise, etc into US at the same time.

In addition to the sacrifice above, which is relatively less intense, the wall, which blocks the natural flow, also gets itself being pressed and pushed continuously, with the flow's getting stronger and stronger. Then there are holes , there are people jumping across it, there are people destroying the wall, there are strong forces pushing the wall. For instance, there are illegal immigrates, there are tragedies due to the tense between US government and some other countries. The wall may collapse in the end.

Same thing about China's firewall. Before Google's Chinese R&D branch came into China, Google was always blocked by Chinese government's firewall, let along other "harmful" websites, e.g. Berkeley's homepage, which central government found intimidated.

The sacrifice was huge day by day, year by year,
since researchers may lose chance to catch up with the most advances technology, students may lose chance to study, fresh and different ideas may not reach Chinese net citizens, and government may not be supervised and challenged effectively by people. The system will become weaker and weaker.

However, same thing, wherever there's a block, there's anti-block, same to physical walls which block flood, wind, various forms of natural forces etc. Those net citizens researched and came up with many solutions to cross the firewalls or dig holes. Moreover, activists also act to challenge those "wall" policies and decisions by governments.

Different from thousands of years ago, when our ancestors needed to use cold weapons, e.g. swords, knife, anchor, shield to attack a town and cross the wall, now there are more and more tools to empower people to fight against or walk around the walls, like internet, phone, network objects, telepresence, :) , airplane, boat…

So when to build the wall, where, how tall, and for how long to keep the wall, when to push the wall down… walls could be used tactically at the right time in the right place, but if strategically, that would be dangerous.

your presence is not only for me, but the driver

2008-01-30T21:36:00.002-05:00

There are many reasons we need to interact with another human being.

Why introduce another person's presence? Why interact?
Here is some scenarios I tend to bring in others' presence.

Walking alone on street in NY around 2 o'clock.
When travelling, being in the cab, alone, in a new city.
Just had a nightmare and woke up.
Got a great news or ideas to share.
30 min everyday jogging in the gym.
Miss someone, wants to talk.
…
The reason varies from sharing ideas, passing meme, like sharing news and ideas, to trying to maximize the efficiency within the limited time, like jogging while chatting with friends; from trying to find oneself by comparing with others, interacting with others, to pursuing the sense of "real" by seeing,touching, hearing, etc; to the most basic thing: sense of safety and certainty.

I want to address the very basic reason for why interact, why need presence by focusing on safety.

When in the cab, in a strange city, for instance, the first time I went to San Jose, alone. I had no idea where the hotel was and it was dark outside, with few people on the street. When I got in the cab, I started dialing my friends' phone number, and started the conversation, and try to let the driver hear what I was talking about with my friend, such as where I was right now, in a cab, blah blah ...

I introduced my friend to be present, not only for me, to accompany myself, but also for the driver, who I was not trusting while I was struggling also in my little universe whether this man was good or bad, since I didn't have another other way if this guy was bad. Though the driver may 99% not be the bad man; and though even the driver was a bad man and was listening to my chatting with my friend in phone, he still may ignore that and be as bad as he was. even I totally understood that, I still can't help calling my friend, speaking loudly. The content is not important, the person who he/she is is also not that important. The difference between "there's someone else here", either in person or in voice , and "no one else here" matters. All is because that makes me feel safe.

sousveillance

2008-01-29T10:49:00.002-05:00

A goal of sousveillance is to bring back that sense of small town community, in contrast to profiling and surveillance. Sousveillance (cyborglogging, etc.) tends to be distributed and less organized, or at least less hierarchical, and thus conducive to a small community in which individuals trust one another. Surveillance, on the other hand, as with profiling, often operates in secret, in the context of larger peer-anonymous communities, thus breeding mistrust, which itself breeds more surveillance, as a vicious cycle. Not to forget, of course, the lack of inverse visibility that can lead to corruption of politicians who use secrecy to hide theft of public monies, and the like, in a surveillance-only society.

Understanding inequiveillance requires us to understand and appreciate that notions of secrecy are very different from notions of privacy, and that if we are to give up privacy, then we must and should also give up secrecy. Conversely as long as secrecy exists, so too should privacy.

http://wearcam.org/anonequity.htm

Wildlife versus Livestock across border

2008-01-29T10:33:00.001-05:00

Wildlife versus Livestock
Wildlife is free to pass through borders without authentication. Birds can fly from one country to another without a passport.

Lifestock must bear the Mark of Authentication in order to pass through borders. Cattle and sheep must be branded, marked, or submit to a biometric database before they are allowed to pass across a border.

Members of the wildlife community are free to help each other, and to form mutually beneficial relationships.

Members of the livestock community are only free to help each other but only if they also offer a portion of that help to their master. In order to facilitate the aforementioned "only if", all manner of help shall be quantized through an organizational mechanism known as "commerce".

mental viruses

2008-01-24T10:42:00.001-05:00

http://www.amazon.com/Meme-Machine-Susan-Blackmore/dp/019286212X/ref=si3_rdr_bb_product

"Just as genetics focuses on the gene, memetics centers around the "meme," which can be thought of as a unit of information. Examples of memes can include stone tool-making, language, the song "Happy Birthday," democracy, or last year's out-of-nowhere "all your base are belong to us." What matters is not the content of the meme per se, but how effectively the meme can get itself copied. Just like a gene can only survive by putting itself into a new generation, a meme can only prosper by squeezing itself in new brains. In that way, memes are like mental viruses, but without necessarily negative effects." by John August

to tell you the truth

2008-01-14T16:25:00.000-05:00

whenever the chinese film tells truth, no matter whether it's well filmed, it will be a super star in international film festivals, just simply because they tell truth, no matter whether the truth matters, at least, they tell truth. that's so different from the 5th generation directors.
whenever they thell truth, they will be simply banned by government, no matter whether it's well filmed.
whenever it's banned by the central government, it will be growing dramatically underground through internet.
whenever it's banned by government, it'll extremely welcomed by the other government holding the other ideology.
but anyway, that's the 6th/7th generation film directors in China: tellking truth. so how about our 8th generation?

google owns you and me, and nyt money?

2008-01-14T16:07:00.000-05:00

From what Sam talked about the music industry, copyright, author, public amatual vs. professional producer, and a short talk by the CEO of New York Times online, and some articles I read recently, I started understanding the tough situation of New York Times in the free culture culture, the value of the intellectual property, and the issue of how Times positions itself. But still have a lot questions about the relationship: (competing and / or cooperating) between traditional news giants and news online aggragators, e.g. google news. What I wrote here was more about raising a series of questions than answering them.

New york times, the paper, used to playing the role of content producer, with the notion that content is the key. Money is spent on sending "brains" , I mean, journalists, :), out to collect useful information and bring reports and insights back, like how bees work. The value is the information, such as the best restaurants those journalists found, the movie rate and critique those journalists gave, and of course, the fresh news. More importantly, the value comes from the insightful insights, critiques and thoughts triggered from those news facts, which other small news publishers, amateurs or even word of mouths can't achieve, which is the intellectual property.

Readers spent money on the quality of intellectual property which carries by the news, and/or spent money on the news, the information, such as the classification advertisements, the rate, the weather report, etc.

But while things are moving to internet world, information itself, such as those news, weather reports, etc, is not that valuable. Because there are so many news from news aggregators, such as Google news, which has no editor, but computers; no human intellectual property coming out of the head quarters, but an algorithm that crawls through news sources, such as CNN, NEW YORK TIMES, and more important, those are free. Some people stopped subscribing NYT anymore and switched to Google News.

What's the strength of NYT, a news giant, which has its own traditional business model? Content is not that valuable? True, since there's no way to compete with free stuff which has the same quality. NYT needs to pay money to those wandering brains, going out of the office, collecting information traditionally. But content, which is the key of NYT, could still be quite valuable to a lot readers, who seeks authority.

How can NYT compete with such kind of news aggregators, who could keep the cost much lower than NYT, but could gain revenue by its new business model: providing short & free news, which have already satisfied some readers and linking to other websites, which gave readers more access.

As to the revenue model, I still need to do more research: if google crawls over those news websites and gets links from them, and google didn't spend any money on journalists or editors, but google rely on those news companies to provide really good content, then shouldn't google give money or benefit to CNN, NYT online, etc ? how much money should google give? If we say the traditional news giant has to rely on google to bring readers to their websites, should they pay money to google? It seems NYT is losing its readers to google news, but it's also getting readers from google news, its competitor.

for our dear husbands :D ------ physical computing final

2007-11-28T00:57:00.000-05:00

though Sandra and I, we didn't have husbands, we've heart a lot of interesting stories between couples: how much headache the poor husbands had in terms of dealing with their emotional (or super emotional) wives, how hard wives could control themselves, how careless couples deal with issues of period and the effects of period and physical and psyclogical cycles, and also how difficult to let our dear husbands remember their wives' period cycle, and how poor they could smell whether their wives are in the mood of sex or not... in the mood of choclate, or in the mood of fighting ... :D

so we decided to build a magic clock for them.

for more information: this is our final project blog, a collaborative blog with Sandra .

1, getting motors from a typewriter. that's where our motors come.

2, wiring the 2 stepper motors. Both of them areunipolar.

The unipolar stepper motor has five or six wires and four coils (actually two coils divided by center connections on each coil). The center connections of the coils are tied together and used as the power connection. They are called unipolar steppers because power always comes in on this one pole. (source: http://www.tigoe.net/pcomp/code/category/code/arduinowiring/51 )

3, connecting the encoder

http://www.nubotics.com/support/index.html

4, soldering onto little piece of perfboard to make the plug-in modula on arduino

5, test the encoder, and we got accurate readings: every rotation of the steppers, the encoder increments "62"

6, first version of housing gears, motors and encoder.

6, final version of housing

7, standing up (here is the tricky thing.the gravity made the gears works a little bit different, when moving towards up, like 9 o clock, the pointer stepping may loose steps, so we did re-housing, making it more secure and stable, and checking motors again)

8, spray the face and mount onto the clock.

http://flickr.com/photos/beyondmeng/tags/final/

this is the final code in arduino
// Variables for calculating PERIOD and SEX pointers
//float speedPointer();

int encoder[108];
//PROGMEM prog_uchar encoder[106];
//prog_uchar encoder[106] PROGMEM;
//unsigned char lastEncoder0Pos;
int displayRead;
int lastEncoder0Pos;
unsigned char encoder0Pos;
int steps;

int timePeriod=60;
int passedDays=15;
int cycleCount;
int gear20=18;
int gear24=96;
int delayRate;
int pointerPos=0;
//int sexPoint=0;
//int reading[107];
int initialSteps;
int delayMillis;
int savedMillis;
int ellapsedMillis;
int displayEncoder;
//int lastEncoder0Pos;
int lastChange;

//Variables for communicating to Processing
int firstByte; // value for Period
int secondByte; // value for Initial Date
int serialInArray[3]; // array for storing 3 bytes as they arrive from processing
int serialCount = 0; // for counting the number of bytes received

// ENCODER Variables
#define encoder0PinA 2
#define encoder0PinB 3
//volatile int encoder0Pos = 0;

// Stepper Motor Variables
int counter=0;
#include
//Motor Steps for Motor 1
#define motor1Steps 24 // change this depending on the number of steps
// Steps fo motor 2
#define motor2Steps 20 // per revolution of your motor
// Pins 4 to 7 for Motor 1
#define motorPin1 8
#define motorPin2 9
#define motorPin3 10
#define motorPin4 11
//Pins 8-11 for Motor 2
#define motorPin5 4
#define motorPin6 5
#define motorPin7 6
#define motorPin8 7
// initialize of the Stepper library:
Stepper myStepper(motor1Steps, motorPin1,motorPin2,motorPin3,motorPin4);
Stepper myStepper2(motor2Steps,motorPin5,motorPin6,motorPin7,motorPin8);

void setup() {
// set the motor speed at 60 RPMS:
myStepper.setSpeed(10);
myStepper2.setSpeed(60);

// Initialize the Serial port:
Serial.begin(9600);
// myStepper.step(10);

//SETUP FOR ENCODER
pinMode(encoder0PinA, INPUT);
digitalWrite(encoder0PinA, HIGH); // turn on pullup resistor
pinMode(encoder0PinB, INPUT);
digitalWrite(encoder0PinB, HIGH); // turn on pullup resistor
attachInterrupt(0, doEncoder, CHANGE); // encoder pin on interrupt 0 - pin 2
Serial.begin (9600);
Serial.println(”start”); // a personal quirk
savedMillis=millis();
initialSteps=-106.67*passedDays/timePeriod;
delayMillis=9.375*timePeriod;
myStepper2.step(int(initialSteps));
Serial.println(initialSteps);
}

void loop() {

/*
if (Serial.available() > 0) {
// read the most recent byte (which will be from 0 to 255)
if(Serial.read()==65){
timePeriod = Serial.read();
passedDays = Serial.read();
}
}
*/
/*
serialInArray[serialCount] = Serial.read(); // read a byte sent by processing
serialCount++; // increment number of bytes received
if (serialCount > 2 ) { // when 3 bytes received
firstByte = serialInArray[1]; // get value for PERIOD
secondByte = serialInArray[2]; // get value for INITIAL DATE
serialCount = 0;
}
*/

// delayMillis=0;
// Serial.println(delayMillis);

ellapsedMillis=millis()-savedMillis;
// Serial.println(ellapsedMillis);
if(ellapsedMillis>=delayMillis){
// save the reading
encoder[pointerPos]=encoder0Pos;
Serial.println(”writingwhenmillis-lastChange>=delayMillis”);
Serial.println(pointerPos);
Serial.println(encoder0Pos, DEC);
//Serial.println(ellapsedMillis);
myStepper2.step(-1);
savedMillis=millis();
pointerPos+=1;
// lastChange = millis();
// if (encoder[pointerPos]>0) {
if(cycleCount>0){
Serial.println(”encoder[pointerPos]”);
Serial.println(encoder[pointerPos],DEC);
Serial.println(encoder0Pos, DEC);

steps=int(0.375*encoder[pointerPos]-0.375*encoder0Pos);
Serial.println(steps);
myStepper.step(steps);
}
/*
// if (millis() - lastChange >= delayMillis*0.8) {
if (millis() - savedMillis >= delayMillis*0.8) {
// save the reading
encoder[pointerPos]=encoder0Pos;
Serial.println(”writingwhenmillis-lastChange>=delayMillis”);
Serial.println(pointerPos);
Serial.println(encoder0Pos, DEC);
//prog_uchar encoder[pointerPos]=lastEncoder0Pos;
}
}
*/
if (pointerPos == 106){
cycleCount+=1;
pointerPos=0;
if (cycleCount==3){
myStepper2.step(3);
}
Serial.println(”cycleCount”);
}
}

}

void doEncoder(){
if (digitalRead(encoder0PinA) == HIGH) { // found a low-to-high on channel A
if (digitalRead(encoder0PinB) == LOW) { // check channel B to see which way
// encoder is turning
encoder0Pos = encoder0Pos - 1; // CCW
}
else {
encoder0Pos = encoder0Pos + 1; // CW
}
}
else // found a high-to-low on channel A
{
if (digitalRead(encoder0PinB) == LOW) { // check channel B to see which way
// encoder is turning
encoder0Pos = encoder0Pos + 1; // CW
}
else {
encoder0Pos = encoder0Pos - 1; // CCW
}
}

if(encoder0Pos>64){
encoder0Pos=1;
}
if(encoder0Pos<1){
encoder0Pos=64;
}
// Serial.println (encoder0Pos, DEC); // debug - remember to comment out
}

for more information: this is our final project blog, a collaborative blog with Sandra .

party box midterm p-com project with anderson miller and alberto tafoya

2007-10-14T10:03:00.000-04:00

our midterm p-com project is about folding. originally, we want to use sensors and what we learnt to enrich a simple and common action- folding. we tried paper, soft cloth and then end up with cardboard box.

we observed how people fold labcoat and it was very fun to watch different behaviors and each person could show their personality based on how they fold the coat. there are many places where we can use our sensors: shaking, folding, stretching...

i've learnt a lot from andy and albterto. exp. the bluetooth communication, the generic thing to make our dimmer, and our lab coat talk with arduino wirelessly.

we had problem dealing with the coat. though i really want to play with the conductive fabric, thread and lili pad, we decided not to go for the coat this time, but cardboard.

the final thing we ended up with is a party box. the user scenario is when we open the box, it will trigger music coming out and also light brightening. when we fold them piece by piece, the music and lights will be dimmer based on which part you are folding up.

tnhe documentation is weak in this project, we tried and explored a lot. it's more about preparing for the next project. also, it teaches me to keep the blog from the very beginning, will be a good idea for both communication and documentation. part of the documentation photos are in the p-com set here

other p-com pictures are here:

you are riding my bus, while i’m riding your car

2007-10-05T22:22:00.001-04:00

THE THIRD LAYER

When I was sitting inside the bus, no newspaper in my hand, no camera in my hand, no map in my hand, fully relying on the bus, following where it took me to, following the tempo, following the time flow, following everything, I started seeing something I can’t see when rushing everyday and squeezing time even on the bus in my week days. The status in others’ eyes would be I was idling.
I look around, seeing many people idling in the moving bus. Following their eyebeams, I could see there’s one layer. That’s the scene outside the bus: could be the splendid high buildings in mid town, the fast moving pedestrians, the laid back coffee drinkers sitting in the sun, the cool posters outside the fashion store, or the green lands for families, next to the river or in the central park.

The second layer is the window of the bus. This layer is not a liar. It’s really loyal to the real life: the first layer. It shows what they should be .

So far, everything is the same in different people’s eyes.

What appears as the third layer is posted on top of the bus window? That’s invisible to other people, but clear to me. I can see what others can’t. e.g. the high rise in Chicago, the shopping center in Beijing City, the Huangpu Bridge in Shanghai, the green land with families sitting on the beaches or making B.B.Q.s, close to the Lake Washington and Lake Sammamish in Kirkland and Redmond at Seattle. The Washington Height part recalled my memory in Beijing, as if I'm hearing the people bargaining the price for apples, oranges and onions. The several starbucks also made me think about those in Beijing, Chicago, Seattle, Shanghai, San Francisco, and Bloomington…

Same thing, she can see what I can’t see. So did he, she, he ,she… There are so many people idling on bus, looking at the first layer through the second layer, and they see their own world after filtering their third layer.

What if the third layer is physical, like a magic piece of glass, or some transparent stick-it, so that I could show others my third layer and they could see my third layer filtered world. Meanwhile, they could show me their own third layers.

IS NEW YORK REALLY UNIQUE? YES. IT’S UNIQUE BECAUSE IT’S SIMILAR TO THE MIXTURE OF SO MANY UNIQUE PLACES.

Yes, New York is amazing because it's unique. But from those several moments on the bus, from my third layer filter, I found something other than the uniqueness. That's the similarity. Among different cities in US, or even between cities and towns, or even between US and Asian countries, similarities are shared in many details. That similarities made the city so familiar to me, and full of memories and pre-experience, even I had no real experience here.

Yes, there’s only one Broadway in Manhattan, but I can see the similar advertisement , the same store, the same starbucks, and the same looking people taking the same dogs on Chang’an Ave in XiDan dist. in Beijing, on Maoming Rd in Shanghai, on Pike Ave and Pike Market in Seattle, on 8th st. in Bellevue.

I can’t help mapping different experience I had in different places in the world to this tiny bus trip view. The amazing things are: those views are matches regardless of where you are, as long as you are in the planet called earth. Also, you can match so many places to one place, even one trip in New York, that’s the cool thing also.

The trip was rich since I saw different neighbors from the colorful Houston avenue with various of stores along the road; to the aggressive mid town high rise buildings with huge advertisement boards, digital or in paper, using high technology with a large amount of information pushing towards people, coming and going, back and force; to central park, green and lovely, with the bicycle almost exactly the same in Beijing Hutong ( tiny street in cultural heritage area in Houhai); to the comfortable living area in the green lined road next to the water; to Washington Height, with island culture and their small groceries full of fresh fruits and vegetables.

LET’S BE IN THE SAME PLACE AT THE SAME TIME

Almost at the beginning of the back trip, I got a phone call from my boyfriend in Seattle 3 hours later than my east time in New York. They are far away from New York, not only in location, but also in time. But the time difference could be conquered by such kind of real time phone call or other communication tools, but we are still in different places, physically. I hate the feeling of physically separated, but…

What if he could know where I'm now. What if he could see the buildings I'm seeing now. What if he could hear the "noise" : car's ringing, seller's yelling “fresh Asian pears, crunchy, juicy, sweet…”, the driver's announcing the stops, the cell phone ringing from the fashionable young lady sitting behind, etc. what if he could feel the bus stops, and then starts moving again, slowly? Or fast? What if he could see what I'm seeing now, e.g. a family is B.B.Q. on the grass in the park, the dog is leading the guy running along the river…

The back trip was not that fresh. Same feeling happened when I had to take the same route 6 from fountain park apartment to my dept at indiana university every day. I started feeling boring by the constrained space and repeated scenes. Even though different pedestrians acting different plays each time I passed the same building with the same doorman on same road, next to the same store, I still feel not that fresh and good. I hate constrains.

Though I was physically in, my mind could be out. In fact, something could be brought in to enrich the experience and break the physical constrain, coz after all, the bus was mobile, so it was much better than being locked in the jail.

How about the trip my boyfriend was having? I wanted to be in that trip. He was driving on the I-90 highway towards downtown Seattle. I did want to see the green trees there, the boats on the Lake Washington. I also wanted to smell the Lake Washington, and smell the rainy soil since it was just rained.

Can we make the communication through the technology richer and make the world even smaller?

A FAMILIAR STRANGER: YOU ARE RIDING MY BUS, WHILE I’M RIDING YOUR CAR.

Even he is not my boyfriend, what if he is just a person doing the boring trip, trying to find what’s going on in New York Broadway? And I’m not her girlfriend, but a stranger randomly searching for some trip exchange in Seattle, coz I have never been there before. Then that would be cool. We could be familiar strangers, experiencing in his/her trip, while being in the other end.
That’s cool. Stick the transparent paper on to the bus window, I see what’s going on on his stick-it on his car running in Seattle I-90, I can also smell something Seattle. He is also happy to see everything in New York through my stick-it on M5 bus window. He is riding my bus, while I’m riding his car.

classification & hybridization, and not just happens to geographical culture, but every culture

2007-10-05T19:19:00.000-04:00

Classification comes from the increasing complexity in our life, the more complex, the more need to break into groups, classify and define them into. Thus, in the post modern time, there are so many classifications under so many categories: art, technology, education; east culture, west culture; thinking, making; etc.

Same as thousands of years ago, our ancestors started making classifications on their roles, such as fishers, hunters, wood cutters, rice growers, then started exchange and communication.

If we say classification is the necessary step in the complex system being explored and discovered, then the next step after classification: "post-classification" will be the "speaking and listening" between different classes, the tangible goods exchange as well as the intangible things, such as ideas, ideologies, cultural capitical, etc. Here comes the hybridization, which is not just from geographical difference: different nationalities, different areas, but also from organizational differences: different classes, different majors (HCI is a product of hybridization after the clear classification between art and technology for so long time ).

See it's so natural to end up with hybridization. But what's the result of those necessary hybridization?

i hope you dance (quick sketch prototype)

2007-10-03T12:56:00.001-04:00

using servo-motor to make him dance!
will continue...

code is here:
int servoPin = 13; // Control pin for servo motor
int minPulse = 500; // Minimum servo position
int maxPulse = 2500; // Maximum servo position
int pulse = 0; // Amount to pulse the servo

long lastPulse = 0; // the time in milliseconds of the last pulse
int refreshTime = 20; // the time needed in between pulses

//int analogValue = 0; // the value returned from the analog sensor
int analogPin = 0; // the analog pin that the sensor's on
int val;
void setup() {
pinMode(servoPin, OUTPUT); // Set servo pin as an output pin
pulse = minPulse; // Set the motor position value to the minimum
Serial.begin(9600);
}

void loop() {
if(Serial.available())
{
val = Serial.read();
}
//analogWrite(servoPin, val);

//}
//analogValue = analogRead(analogPin); // read the analog input
pulse = val * 30 + minPulse; // convert the analog value
// to a range between minPulse
// and maxPulse.
Serial.println(millis() - lastPulse);

// pulse the servo again if rhe refresh time (20 ms) have passed:
if (millis() - lastPulse >= refreshTime) {
digitalWrite(servoPin, HIGH); // Turn the motor on
delayMicroseconds(pulse); // Length of the pulse sets the motor position
digitalWrite(servoPin, LOW); // Turn the motor off
lastPulse = millis(); // save the time of the last pulse
}

Serial.println(pulse);
//Serial.println(lastPulse);
}

run run run

2007-09-30T20:39:00.000-04:00

hey, the guy behind me! did you catch my smile?

2007-09-28T23:48:00.001-04:00

code:
// declare variables:
int potPin=0;
int potValue=0;
int led2=5;
int led3=6;
int led4=9;
int led5=10;
int led6=11;
int test=13;
int state = 0;
int counter=0;

void setup() {
Serial.begin(9600);
}

void loop() {
digitalWrite(test,HIGH);
potValue=analogRead(potPin);
if(potValue>100){
analogWrite(led1,(potValue/2));
analogWrite(led2,(potValue/2));
analogWrite(led3,(potValue/2));
analogWrite(led4,(potValue/2));
analogWrite(led5,(potValue/2));
analogWrite(led6,(potValue/2));
}
else {
analogWrite(led1,0);
analogWrite(led2,0);
analogWrite(led3,0);
analogWrite(led4,0);
analogWrite(led5,0);
analogWrite(led6,0);
}
delay(30);
Serial.println(potValue);
}

street vendors are a group of cute people

2007-09-28T14:41:00.000-04:00

"There are more than 10,000 street vendors in New York City -- hot dog vendors, flower vendors, book vendors, shoe shiners, street artists, and many others. They are small businesspeople struggling to make ends meet. Most are recent immigrants and people of color. They work long hours under harsh conditions, asking for nothing more than a chance to sell their goods and services on the public sidewalk.

sYet, in recent years, vendors have been victims of New York’s aggressive “quality of life” crackdown. They have been denied access to vending licenses. They have been swept from the streets by powerful business groups. They have been unjustly harassed, and their property has been illegally seized.

The Street Vendor Project works to correct the social and economic injustice faced by these hardworking entrepreneurs. Reaching out to vendors on the street, we hold clinics to educate vendors about their legal rights. Working to support a local vendors’ rights movement, we organize vendors to participate in the political process that determines their fate. Finally, we engage in systemic advocacy to help policy makers and the public understand the important role street vendors play in the life of our city.

The Urban Justice Center serves low-income and marginalized New Yorkers through a unique combination of direct legal services, systemic advocacy, community education, and political organizing. For information about the UJC's work, visit www.urbanjustice.org. The Street Vendor Project, one of the UJC's programs, maintains this website to provide additional resources and information specifically about and for our vending community."

source from: http://streetvendor.netfirms.com/public_html/staticpages/index.php?page=20040616184504992

another interesting page:
http://www.urbanjustice.org/

the war of ants

2007-09-28T14:39:00.001-04:00

i love shampoo :D

2007-09-23T23:05:00.000-04:00

code:

// declare variables:
int switchPin = 2; // digital input pin for a switch
int redsLedPin = 3; // digital output pin for an LED
int greenLedPin = 4; // digital output pin for an LED
int whiteLedPin = 5; // digital output pin for an LED
int testLedPin = 13; // digital output pin for an LED
int switchState = 0; // the state of the switch
int counter=0;
int previousSwitchState;

void setup() {
pinMode(switchPin, INPUT); // set the switch pin to be an input
pinMode(greenLedPin, OUTPUT); // set the green LED pin to be an output
pinMode(redsLedPin, OUTPUT); // set the reds LED pin to be an output
pinMode(whiteLedPin, OUTPUT); // set the white LED pin to be an output
pinMode(testLedPin, OUTPUT);
}

void loop() {
// read the switch input:
digitalWrite(testLedPin,HIGH);
switchState = digitalRead(switchPin);
if (previousSwitchState>=switchState){
counter=counter;
}
else {
counter=counter+1;
}

if (counter==1){
digitalWrite(redsLedPin, HIGH);
digitalWrite(greenLedPin, LOW); // turn off the green LED
digitalWrite(whiteLedPin, LOW); // turn off the white LED
}
else if(counter==2){
digitalWrite(greenLedPin, HIGH);
digitalWrite(redsLedPin, HIGH); // turn off the red LED
digitalWrite(whiteLedPin, LOW); // turn on the white LED}
}
else if(counter==3){
digitalWrite(greenLedPin, HIGH);
digitalWrite(redsLedPin, HIGH); // turn off the red LED
digitalWrite(whiteLedPin, HIGH); // turn on the white LED
}
else {
digitalWrite(redsLedPin, LOW);
digitalWrite(greenLedPin, LOW); // turn off the green LED
digitalWrite(whiteLedPin, LOW); // turn off the white LED
delay(30);

}

previousSwitchState = switchState;
}

hair clipper

2007-09-22T11:56:00.000-04:00

1, Take out the longest comb attachments
2, Attach it to the blade
3, Keep a distance from the child's head
4, Use the thumb to push the switch to the first level -> the clipper starts buzzing
5, Push to the second level -> the clipper starts buzzing loudly
6, Go back to the stop and skip the fist level -> the clipper stops buzzing
7, Restart to push to the first level
8, Hold tightly
9, Move towards to the child's head
10,Thumb prepared to push back the switch
11,Sweep on the very surface level of the hair slowly -> Several hairs drop
12,The clipper moves away from the head -> The hair stops dropping
13,Hold the clipper and scoop it deeper into the hair
14,sweep again -> more longer hairs drop

my favorite design so far~

2007-09-21T22:39:00.000-04:00

it's amazing how well the structure and function melted and relied on each other, it's also amazing that it's designed in US.

http://www.joshjakus.com/feltum/feltum.html

what's the post-online?

2007-09-20T14:05:00.000-04:00

Technology brings internet, and brings strangers together on line. online, from physical world to virtual world... right we are experiencing the online life now. We, a specific group of people, this generation in this part of the world at this time period.

Then what's the next after the online period? human beings are funny and can't stop changing the current situation, and jumping back to the old good days or jumping out to the rest of the world. But the good thing is those jumps are not silly actions and simply going back. Those jumps are critical and creative jump. That reminds me of the spiral evolution theory.

Now, online, then, post-online... so what is post-online time? Questioning, and de-constructing the online structure by changing the form? How about the core?
what's still there? the basic original human needs... both material and spiritual, e.g. communication, expression, knowing who I am, who he is...

variables re-present the real mAGic woRld

2007-09-20T13:05:00.001-04:00

modernization =? "westernization"?

2007-09-20T12:21:00.000-04:00

I can't help associating everything we talked about last hybridization and globalization class, "modernity, rationalism, post-modernity…" with Chinese history and society. :) So I got a lot confusions from comparing Chinese and western modernity, since I can't find the corresponding "original Chinese modernity", both the spiritual level and the material level, both the economical structure or the political environment, both the art or the science, etc.

Modernity looks like a notion about time, actually, I thought it's more about space and location. Because there's no oriental modernity. Or if there's something that could be seen as some sort of oriental modernity, then it must be the influenced modernity by western society. So that's why I think it actually should be called western modernity.

Before western society experienced the modernization, China and western society was extremely independent from each other, geographically, spiritually and culturally. Each had its own cultural background, different from each other. While modernism turned to the main stream in western world, China was still running in a huge feudal system, no science in 19th and earlier 20th century and no rationalism has been raised. The philosophical root was Taoism, Confucianism, which gave birth to the socioeconomical structure in China: ethics and morality were stronger than rules to keep society organized, relationship was stronger than laws also, and how to solve problems was flexible, according to the time, the person, and the place. This environment itself was well cycled, generation after generation, until something from western world came into China to trigger the change.

That was modernism, from the industrialized mass production, to literature, paintings, society structure, to spiritual value system. So modernization in China was after the whole process in western world. That's why I think modernity is not a notion about time, but about space and location, it's the western's modernity, or at least, it's originated from the root in western system.

So after year 1949, more and more influence from western came into China and from then, the change started dramatically. E.g. in the economical system, around year 1978, the commercial market replacing the government planned market was an example to use the scientific and rational ways to organize the economic system . That was the modernity of China. The interesting thing is that was a mixture of both westernization and modernization.

Then post-modernity was even more interesting. Since China has no original modernity, which was the root for post-modernity. So in western society, when post-modernity tried to break the rules, the structures, the notions from the modernity period, pose-modernity grew up. I didn't see there was any reason post-modernity should grow from the modernity in China, since the modernity in China is not authentic. But a lot of features in post-modernity did happen in China, and some of them were actually part of the Chinese history and philosophy before the trend of post-modernity happened in the western. e.g. de-construction was part of the traditional philosophy, same thing like the naturalism and anti-mass production, the Marxism...

color candle - 1st encounter with arduino

2007-09-18T12:19:00.000-04:00

using processing to control interaction quality

2007-09-15T10:45:00.000-04:00

SIZE:
strokeWeight
e.g. shape, line
shape width/height
e.g. rect, ellipse
shape end points
e.g. rect, triangle

POSITION:
shape start point/center
e.g. rect, ellipse
dot lines

MOVEMENT:
relationship between mouseX/Y

SPEED:
abs(mouseX-pmouseX)...

COLOR:
alpha,grey
background
fill
stroke