I’m interested in ambient interfaces, unobtrusive data, and augmented reality, which is why this video, The Ambient Life, caught my eye over at johnnyholland.org. According to the post, The Ambient Life,
… was created for Freeband, a Dutch research program in which a.o. Philips and Delft University participate. The video tries to show a glimpse of the future they want to see, a future where you are ’surrounded by “intelligent” electronic equipment that can provide almost all of your information and communication needs on demand: an ambient intelligent environment.’
“Sa-weet!” I thought, as I clicked play.
The Ambient Life - have a gander at your future.
I’m jiving along with the peacefully groovy music, ready to pine for a future that isn’t yet here, but gradually, minute by minute, I become more and more alarmed.
When I think about the benefits and possibilities for ambient technologies, I think about weaving them into a world that is safer, more equitable, and more sustainable (if I’m going to envision the future, I’m going to really go for it). I’m waiting for that critical mass at which point our crazy world shifts, hopefully faster than ‘gradually’, to a path that is less insane than the one we are on now.
But this video, this imagined future, projects along our current path with nightmarish force. Security and safety, to the point of exclusion and isolation (I’m almost more interested in what isn’t shown, what kind of world this ambient life is built upon) seem to be primary concerns, and the incident at 2:27 really should have been re-thought, if not for the wtf of it, for the unexplained circumstances and unemotional reactions (I mean, calm and cool under stress is a great quality, but to achieve this level of detachment you need either brainwashing or drugs in the water).
I swear, I’m going to corner the market for wakalixes. Anyways, now that I have an iPhone I’ve been wanting a place to aggregate visual impressions of my days as they pass by. I love the lo-fi quality of the camera and with CameraBag on board it’s like I have a magic-pocket full of toy cameras. I thought Tumblr might be something to try, with easy uploads from the iPhone and a simple interface. The one problem1 was that I didn’t like any of the free themes currently available, so I went ahead and made one.
Wakalixes is a simple, elegant theme with completely customizable colors. Seriously. Give it a whirl and see for yourself.
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Actually, there are two problems, the bigger one being data lock-in. Currently, there is no way to export your data from Tumblr, which might cause me to drop it in the future if they don’t address this issue. For the time being, the photos are dumped to my drive just in case. [↩]
Yeah, so, shortly after paying the price of a small car for the privilege of tight seating and gastrically taxing food, I kind of slipped into a coma of daily logistics and totally stopped writing, much to my own mortification. I thought it would be good to start jotting down reflections of the years in Japan, but found myself still too wrapped up in the country to reflect on much of anything.
August and September slow-poked by, and then suddenly slipped into fast-forward, an indistinguishable blur of packing, farewell parties, goodbyes, beer, and tears. The hyper-speed followed us to Vancouver even though we had a 36-hour Friday, and I barely remember the first days in the city, mostly due to excitement, beer1, and jet-lag. We saw the city on foot, slowly rambling through the characteristics of the downtown neighborhoods; Yaletown, Gastown, the West End, and all the in between parts. I ate burritos everyday, and pizza every night - pizza without corn or octopus or mayo - supplemented at times with falafel, bar food, and diner breakfasts. And then I went to the public library - seven floors of awesome, not to mention you can check out *50* items at a time (what?).
A week and a half in, I’m in love with Vancouver. I feel like I’m home.
A view of Vancouver from my office.
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The subject of beer, Canadian beer, and the concussively awesome import store down the street, is fodder for another post entirely. [↩]
I have a confession to make. It’s the kind of confession that you normally wouldn’t bring up in mixed company, or with people you don’t know very well, but the blank buffer of cyberspace gives me enough false courage that I can talk openly. The whole thing happened a number of months back, but my conscience has been dogging me ever since. I’ve tried to justify the experience by telling myself things like, “But you didn’t know!” or “You were just being polite!”, but in the end these soothing excuses amount to nothing more than a bucket of fail. No one forced me to do it, I did it of my own accord.
I ate a lobster. I ate a lobster while it was still alive.
When we first set off to live in Japan, five to ten years sounded like a good amount of time to spend battling robots and learning to be ninja. However, angry robots are a bit thin on the ground, and stealthy is hard to come by when you stick out like a sore thumb. And so, after three and a half years of ramen and karaoke, it is time to say farewell.
My mom always told me that you wake up one day and you *just know*. You know that the cycles of love-hate are no longer dialectic but circular, the horse has been beaten, the pigs are flying… whatever metaphor floats your boat. Okay, so we didn’t exactly rub the sleep from our eyes and reach for the suitcase, but close enough. Not to mention I really can’t stand Japanese beer.
And since beer (and whiskey) is the elixir of life, we’ve decided to head to Canada, land of beer, beer, and something called hockey, which must be a sport fishermen play. And while I’m excited about the beer, I’m worried about retrofitting my computer to the telegraph system used by the citizens, not to mention learning the language.
Mal was found in the garden, unhatched, and incubated by a black chicken. She1 came later than the rest, towards the end of the summer, once they had already fledged and left the hen house. It was clear she was a mallard, not a muscovy, and with that the decision was made. A week later she was standing in our kitchen, peeping and looking around curiously, the hen house replaced with a Japanese apartment. We nervously welcomed her, like new parents, attempting to erase the chicken imprint and raise her with an affinity towards people (or at least us).
Things that are bizarrely out of proportion give me the weebie-jeebies1. As a kid, weird images would pop into my head as I was drifting off to sleep, like a massively over-sized tire, and I’d go all weebie-jeebie. Usually I could counteract this by shifting position - laying with my face on the pillow and my butt in the air - which generally normalized size and stopped the spin. I’m drawn to Salvador Dali’s ‘The Elephants’ because it induces a very similar effect, and also euphoria, making me secretly want to own a copy so I can careen by it in bliss.
It’s been two years and one month (give or take) since my last blog post. I took a break for a while though I’m not exactly sure why. In retrospect it might have been the silencing effect of button-down shirts, or maybe there just wasn’t much to say. If I wanted to be really self-deprecating I’d tell you I forgot how to talk. The truth is, as always, more mundane than that: I had a bad case of tunnel vision. You know the kind, so bad that even your mind huddles to the front of your head, right behind the eyes, and you feel like you are running all the time? I don’t think I have to remind anyone of the fact that it’s damn hard to write while running, and I’m nobody to buck convention. In the meantime, two years have slipped by with nary a peep, until this spring, when I remembered how to mosey.
