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announce: garbagescout

created: Mon Jan 23 15:39:21 2006
last mod: Wed Apr 26 14:46:23 2006
Burning Trash Can

GarbageScout is a project that aims to catalog the stuff people throw away, and to find new homes for old stuff.

With GarbageScout, you take pictures of stuff on the street, with your phone, then:

That's it! You can visit http://garbagescout.com and see what you just posted along with what else is out there.

~ More interesting facts: ~

announce: garbagescout is filed under garbagescout (5) idealism (8) garbage (7) maps (2) .

berlin 1

created: Tue May 31 08:08:07 2005
last mod: Wed Nov 16 15:34:36 2005

Berlin is like some sort of sick dream I had about New York City.

drunk man in hawaiian shirt

There is a 6 day bike race there, sponsored by a beer company. There are abandoned buildings.

berlin 1 is filed under bicycles (29) Germany (6) new_york_city (31) idealism (8) .

Bauhaus Manifesto

created: Mon Jan 3 23:02:09 2005
last mod: Sun Nov 13 18:01:55 2005

The ultimate aim of all creative activity is a building! The decoration of buildings was once the noblest function of fine arts, and fine arts were indispensable to great architecture. Today they exist in complacent isolation, and can only be rescued by the conscious co-operation and collaboration of all craftsmen. Architects, painters, and sculptors must once again come to know and comprehend the composite character of a building, both as an entity and in terms of its various parts. Then their work will be filled with that true architectonic spirit which, as "salon art", it has lost.

The old art schools were unable to produce this unity; and how, indeed, should they have done so, since art cannot be taught? Schools must return to the workshop. The world of the pattern-designer and applied artist, consisting only of drawing and painting must become once again a world in which things are built. If the young person who rejoices in creative activity now begins his career as in the older days by learning a craft, then the unproductive "artist" will no longer be condemned to inadequate artistry, for his skills will be preserved for the crafts in which he can achieve great things.

Architects, painters, sculptors, we must all return to crafts! For there is no such thing as "professional art". There is no essential difference between the artist and the craftsman. The artist is an exalted craftsman. By the grace of Heaven and in rare moments of inspiration which transcend the will, art may unconsciously blossom from the labour of his hand, but a base in handicrafts is essential to every artist. It is there that the original source of creativity lies.

Let us therefore create a new guild of craftsmen without the class-distinctions that raise an arrogant barrier between craftsmen and artists! Let us desire, conceive, and create the new building of the future together. It will combine architecture, sculpture, and painting in a single form, and will one day rise towards the heavens from the hands of a million workers as the crystalline symbol of a new and coming faith.

WALTER GROPIUS

link

Bauhaus Manifesto is filed under art (13) design (10) Germany (6) idealism (8) philosophy (6) .

List of alternate uses for the space currently used for curbside parking

created: Sun Jan 23 14:47:13 2005
last mod: Mon Jan 31 15:12:06 2005

Thinking mainly about Manhattan, these are some uses for the public space that is somehow, without anyone questioning it, given to anyone with a car to park it in the street.

  1. Small dumpsters for household garbage, or alternately the piles of garbage that are put on the sidewalk (why the sidewalk?) on garbage pickup days
  2. A city-wide system of bike lanes and bike parking
  3. Wider sidewalks
  4. Trees
  5. Stationary or permanent buildings such as police command centers, newsstands, cafes, public restrooms
  6. Express bus lanes
  7. grass
  8. One-way streets could become two-way streets

Q: But where are those cars going to park? A: I don't care. Why is it the City's responsibility to provide free parking on public property to automobile owners?

List of alternate uses for the space currently used for curbside parking is filed under lists (1) bicycles (29) idealism (8) new_york_city (31) transportation (5) .

Jeff Harrington on new music

created: Tue Dec 14 20:45:34 2004
last mod: Tue Dec 14 20:49:44 2004

Jeff harrington is not only a great composer, he really gets the web.

So what does web recognition look like? I've noticed over the years, web pages that list my name, right underneath Beethoven and before Haydn. Are these listings incompetent? Are they a rave review of my genius? Neither - I believe. They are indicators of 'check this shit out' by amateurs; they point but do not praise. They nestle together in the Googlesphere like the crowds at a red carpet reception. Given enough of these pointers anything is possible. The real world cracks. The critics gasp at their pointlessness. And billions of friendly ears begin to listen.

(Both links via Gonze.)

Jeff Harrington on new music is filed under filesharing (5) idealism (8) music (37) web (36) .

making maps of my perambulations

created: Sun Mar 16 11:11:11 2003
last mod: Sun Nov 14 11:05:11 2004
So, the other day, Friday, I was thinking about how one would make a map of walks around teh neighbor, to determine which corners get the most traffic.

Suppose I am willing to draw my walks on a map or some sort of graph in my Palm Pilot. I'm not going to write down street names and where I turned. Input must be graphical.

Then, I want to dump that information to my computer and, over time, figure out where I walk the most.

Combine this information with others' maps and we can find ideal meeting places, or (which is what I was thinking about) I can figure out the place to leave a note for someone on a lamppost.

Anyway, the other thing about this is it's a programming problem of great complexity. 
----------------------------
May 20: John Morley writes:
i was thinking about your idea of tracking your location and finding common intersections. i'd kind of thought about doing this before to keep track of my range and distance travelled, but my idea was to get a little gps and keep it on me at all times.

i'm not sure how well this would work in a big city with lots of buildings all around though, since even trees will mess with your signals here. also, since the subway is a pretty significant form of transportation you would definatley lose all your signal any time you were underground. i'm not sure how cars and things cope with this sort of thing... tunnels and tall buildings. it seems with so many luxury cars getting navigation systems now they'd need a secondary system besides public satelites.

for work we use real time radio signals to differentially correct our satellite signals (a gps with a transmitter at a known location knows where it is so it tells you your error as you roam about based on how wrong the satellites are at transmitting its location).

this is less important than it used to be, when the government was intentionally sending out really bad location data so that it gps couldn't be used for accurate targetting unless you were american military.

anyhow, i wonder if maybe there's a system set up in new york to triangulate your position based on radio waves, since that's at least somewhat more penetrating than satellite. i bet there's a way you could do it yourself if you found out the strength and source of different radio stations in the area. then it would just be a matter of signal decay and something that would track the stations. probably a lot of work for a not very accurate product, but kind of neat.

other than that my best idea would be to get some kind of mobile g.i.s. software, throw it on your palm with a siplified map of new york, some base layers of streets and subway lines and then draw out your paths like you said. it'd be more of a hassle than just lugging a gps, but you wouldn't have to worry about a signal. there is a software called arcpad for windows ce, and it's kind of a light version of what i use at work. they even have little gps units you can use with it that just plug in to the handheld with a little cord to an antenna you clip on your hat or backpack. pretty neat if you ask me. the conference i'm going to is offering wifi enabled ipaqs with arcpad installed for like 900 bucks, and giving wifi access all over the conference. pretty cool, but i can think of a lot of other things i could spend all that money on. anyhow, back to work. -john

making maps of my perambulations is filed under friends (21) ideas (14) social_life (15) idealism (8) .

music business

created: Sat Mar 15 11:11:11 2003
last mod: Sun Nov 14 11:02:24 2004
so, this guy last night at the bar was saying that this is what's going to happen: the labels are losing money for their parent corporations. no longer will some huge company be able to sell its entire catalog en masse to another huge company. sony will be the first to dump its music division, simply on the basis of lack of profitability. the shareholders want it. it will be parcelled out to entrepreneurs who will try to squeeze bucks out of it by licensing it all over the place.

sony is just the first one that will sell. their business is electronics. they'll start making mp3 players like no tomorrow. they'll forget about DRM (Digital Rights Management).

if this guy's for real, this would mean a free-for-all in the file trading world. if the RIAA can't police file trading now, how are they going to do anything about it when there are fewer large corporations backing them? it will lessen their ability to lobby for tougher laws on piracy. probably a good idea, since these laws won't work. they'll be like the drug laws, except intellectual property doesn't kill people.

it would be nice, as the restriction on peer-to-peer file trading applications, their inability to hit the mainstream, has maybe had a chilling effect on the groupware and peer-to-peer world in general. would be cool to see some really good applications that embrace decentralized data sharing.

music business is filed under idealism (8) filesharing (5) computer (50) .

Late Comment on Paris

created: Sun Nov 14 10:17:52 2004
last mod: Sun Nov 14 10:17:52 2004

Paris H. is a sex symbol. She symbolizes sex, and money. She is the pinnacle of crappy style, where that word means buying objects symbolic of attractiveness and attaching them to onesself. She is the ideal of a type.

I kind of like her. I used to think she was the pits until I saw "Growing Up Gotti". I then awoke to the fact that she brings some pizazz to her craft, which is sorely lacking in those other heirs.

Late Comment on Paris is filed under idealism (8) our_culture (16) .