Recycling Van
The Moon
Cultures of Use
In my current profession I lead research for varied design projects. Most of this research is user-centered in terms of feedback and inspiration. Throughout the years and around the world I've engaged with thousands of people concerning a diverse set of design problems. In these engagements, or what I would call collaborations to a large extent, I've asked people to engage in fairly sophisticated creative activities. In these activities I've witnessed an ability in people to fluidly be a part (participant) of the design issue at hand and give meaningful inputs, as if they were trained in art of quick hit creativity. This got me thinking. In design Research do we create cultures of use by identifying segments of people (end-users) and then ask them to participate in the innovation of that cultural domain? It's a positive reinforcement of Heisenberg's uncertainty principle.
Pixeldust
After reading this article this all came to me. I suddenly feel very old. For some reason I was under the illusion that 33 is young. LOL, I’m extinct. Peeking into the worldview of individuals all born after 1989, there is a sense of being left behind in a haze of pixeldust. Oh well, whatever. I can deal with the dust. Acceptance to complacency will not be my path. I will participate. I want to participate as much is possible in the web generation.
Up till now I have participated.You could even say as a part of the bubble and working as a post-bubble consultant I’m an active agent in designing the spaces that shape webgen behaviors and communities. But my participation in the digital domain (I help shape and design) is limited by webgen standards. I was there when there was no such thing as ubiquitous cable and satellite connections. Growing up in a lower middle class family I remember getting our first color TV. I had a B/W (with no coax input) in my room until I was 15. A Saturday trip to the arcade was my computer culture and social networking site.
Night Trees
Berkshires Fall 2006
This weekend in the Berhshires I captured some photographs of trees at night. These images were adjusted using on Auto Levels in Photoshop. Natural contrasts emerged from the original data to reveal almost impressionistic facets of light.
IDEA: The Death Machine
Summary
An application removes all interface from your computer except for one mode, a repeated keyboard or voice event is required from the user to keep the application from erasing and reformatting the users' volume.
Abstract
If so much of our current mental state (i.e., what in actuality constitutes our worlds) is about constant distractions and just simply not being able to slow down, then how about finding more drastic measures for slowing the world down? A mental space must be created to allow for slowing down time to focus the thoughts. In meditation the general idea is to fine one thought (mantra) and repeat it continuously to induce a state of detachment from mind, really the "thinking" process.
The things that hold our attentions and create our distractions are the things that we hold so dear and we interface with those things through the screen. This is our window into knowledge of information "in the world". Our memory, even with sufficient training, could not possibly retain The reason this information is so crucial to us as knowledge of the worldThe Death Machine takes advantage of this relationship by creating a barrier between you and this precious information.
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