2 Wheel Motion

The warmer weather's got me thinking about getting my bicycle out of the garage.  And while the $100 I spent on my budget Huffy still ranks as one of my best investments ever, I sure wish I was riding this electric piece of beauty.  Word from Engadget is the frame is "composed completely of a conductive carbon fiber weave that allows the bike's body to not just pass electricity to the motors, but actually store it like a giant capacitor."  I want.

More on the HMK 561 electric bicycle concept @Engadget

3 Titans "The Life of a Scholar" (feat. Menahan St. Band)

Radiohead Audio Videos

A while back on the blog I mentioned Radiohead and their 'pay-what-you-feel' pricing structure for In Rainbows.  Along with their "open source pricing" they also let loose the wisdom of the crowds by releasing each songs unmixed stems allowing fans to remix each of the albums songs, as well as asking fans to create and upload their own album covers.

They also did some great stuff with their music videos.  This first was created and submitted by a fan, winning the Aniboom In Rainbows Animated Music Video Contest.  Fantastic animation and a great concept.


This 2nd video was created by a favorite digital artist of mine, Aaron Koblin, using the Processing program.

They also released the code used to create this video, allowing people to create their own animated versions, two favorites here and here.

Good ad

It's not often I post commercials, but this one kinda worked on me. Nice looking car too.

Social Media Week: Social Media & The Haiti Disaster

Live Blog

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5:54: ===END=== Time for dinner and a drink!
5:53: Wrapping up

5:46: RT @rachellehoude: Twitter and YouTube are removing the financial value of information and its control through citizen sharing. Awesome & responsible. #smwnyc

5:45: AC: My father told me "What is true is not always fair."

5:41: More Q&A from the audience.

5:36: EP: Tweeting info while others weren't able to 'file stories' because of electricity outages.

5:32: "Take this, in case I don't live through this shit" EP as he hands over iPhone before climbing into rubble of a building.

5:31: Watching EP video from the first minutes after quake. Powerful.

5:28: First hand account from Rob Mackey Erik Parker who was in Haiti at time.

5:26: AR: Haiti may be tipping point of using social media to save lives.

5:26: First use of "tipping point"

5:25: DWB: Use social media/crowd sourcing to pinpoint where needs are

5:18: AC has become "gatekeeper" with what she retweets... AC: "Everyone wants to use you"

5:16: AR: "global consciousness"

5:15: AC: Reporting has gone from "look how terrible this is" to "look how terrible, now do something!"

5:14: AC: Group of people with niche knowledge will drive interest from old media.

5:14: AC: "Niche knowledge"

5:13: AC Twitter joined broader community in raising and capitalizing awareness on a way that's useful. Sms donations

5:11: AC: How do we get people to know/care about stories that aren't "trending"?

5:10: Personally, I'd like to hit pause and explore "narrative arc" more.

5:09: AR: create hashtag #dontforgethaiti

5:09: "Narrative arc" - Insightful!

5:08: Create narrative arc via social media - to keep new audience engaged. Use 'grounds' to keep telling people what is actually happening ie: post-op care, surgery still needed, etc. Stories that effect people's lives long term.

5:07: DWB: Definitely going to leverage social channels to maintain support.

5:06: Yes, can exert pressure on government.

5:05: Ras: Can we use social media to keep attention / maintain support on Haiti?

5:04: Ras: Wikipedia page became 'hub' of Haitian Earthquake information, communication

5:04: AC: give people information and you give them power.

5:03: Rasiej: Most journalists describe themselves as journalists, not 'information hounds' - not in the information business, in the journalism business

5:00: Just thought of the web of communication used within minutes of the crane collapse in 2008. No Twitter, but SMS, email, phone to reporter, reporter to web - all within first hour.

4:58: AC: Many people in journalism have misunderstood the power of Twitter. "Why would you limit any opportunity to convey information to people directly?"

4:58: First use of "top-down hierarchy." Regarding 'old media' dismissing Twitter.

4:56: AC: Twitter needs to be used how "people who use Twitter want it to be." BF: There was a Wired article on this recently...

4:54: Rasiej "Can we look forward to the potential of "Twitter Pulse"?

4:53: AC: What happens when 9/11 type event is tweeted? Reading people's last words via a public forum. MAybe help investigators.

4:52 AC: with Iran images "really thought we crossed a line" No news organization would have run images that were tweeted.

4:47: AC: Twitter contacts became "overwhelming" and "very difficult" when Tweets started becoming personal ie: Need water __here__. "Wall" between reporter, audience broken down

4:46: AC: Twitter added "another layer" to reach out and connect in 'real world'

4:44: AC: dig at AT&T service in Haiti - inadvertent? Who knows, crowd laughed.

4:43: AC: "Road paved" "connections made" w Twitter contacts

4:41: DWB: Turned to Haitian radio to get message out to Haiti public, to dispel rumors. Old models still apply - must be evaluated in case by case basis.

4:40: DWB: Able to maintain a dialogue when they otherwise wouldn't have.

4:40: DWB: Chaos allowed more freedom to the information they were putting out

4:39: Also annoying, baseball people using the term "lights out" when describing a pitcher.

4:38: Personal question "Is there a better term than twittersphere or Blogsphere? Those annoy me like "Redzone" annoys John Madden.

4:37: On the projection screen www.tweetgrid.com - "Whoa, that's a lot of info!"

4:36: Rob Mackey/NYT: Iranian protest brought the "verification & identification" issue to the forefront

4:34: Andrew Rasiej - "Readers, I like to call them partners" reader/partner interaction

4:33: Network can verify

4:32: Twitter more so than web has 'degree of trust'

4:30: Does this change the news media ecology?

4:29: AC: "Twitter is teaching people the power of information" "positively as well as negatively"

4:25: Ann Curry: Twitter contact -> Phone Call -> Phone Interview on NBC Nightly News

4:22: Users starting to understand diff between 1st person and "hearsay" - location feature becoming valuable for verification.

4:21: How to filter through all the information, "remove all the chaff"?

4:20: Doctors were going to Haitian markets to purchase saws for amputation!

4:17: DWB -> NBC's Ann Curry -> US Airforce via Twitter in matter of minutes.

4:15: DWB and Haiti airport conversing via Twitter feeds

4:15: Cone: For us it's really changed the way we think about social media - 7,000 FB fans to 20k since disaster. Most important place to interact w public"

4:13: Twitter instead of press release to publicize obstacles DWB encountered - able to make noise about difficulties of plane landing, stir up support.

4:10: Comm. Director for Doctors w/o Borders is on the panel - Jason Cone. Let's make it good.

4:08: Follow this on twitter: #smwnythaiti

4:05: 15th Floor of the NY Times building, a hush has fallen over the crowd composed of internet geeks like myself.

Audio / video

I've mentioned the Decode: Digital Design exhibition I saw in london previously.  Here's another piece that was featured focusing on audio-response, entitled Solar Rework, designed by Robert Hodgin.  You can read about how it was built, here.


Solar rework from flight404 on Vimeo.

Dear Google,

Dear Google,
Now that I've condensed my mail, docs, photos, videos, bookmarks and blog onto your servers, please don't be evil with my data.
Thanks, Ben.

PS. Way to go re: China's censorship.

Data Privacy Day is an international celebration of the dignity of the individual expressed through personal information. In this networked world, in which we are thoroughly digitized, individuals are asking ‘How can I protect my information from being misused?’ Read more.

Social Media Week

Social Media Week conferences take place simultaneously in multiple cities around the world. The aim of each event is to advance the use and understanding of social media in the corporate, public and non-profit sectors.

The second annual conference will take place between February 1st – 5th, 2010 simultaneously in New York City, Berlin, London, San Francisco, Toronto and São Paulo. The five day conference will explore the profound impact that social media has on culture, business communications and society at large. LEARN MORE.

I'll be attending Social Media & the Haiti Disaster, should be interesting and hopefully insightful.

DJ Shadow - 6 Days

Six Days by DJ Shadow from 'The Private Press' LP. Video directed by Wong Kar-Wai, available on Vimeo.

www.djshadow.com

Design by Numbers

On my latest quick trip to London, I made some time to head to the Vitoria & Albert museum to see a new exhibit entitled Decode: Digital Design Sensations, produced in conjunction with onedotzero, a digital arts organization.  Touted as "the latest developments in digital and interactive design, from small, screen-based, graphics to large-scale interactive installations."

It was a very interesting combination of a number of different art/technology mediums, using computers to collect, react and interpret collections of data.  Along with the interactive pieces which allowed for immediate interaction, my favorite piece was a digital interpretation of flight patterns by Aaron Koblin "an artist specializing in data visualization. His work takes social and infrastructural data and uses it to depict cultural trends and emergent patterns."

Using a program called Processing - available via open source distribution - Koblin took FAA data of flight plans to produce a 24 hour time lapse map of flights over North America.  The final product is a visually stunning piece of art you can view below.


I highly recommend clicking here to view it in full screen.

When you start digging deep enough, there are all sorts of little treasures on the web, like Kobin/Processing produced Radiohead video for 'House of Cards' or the hundreds of videos in the Processing group on YouTube.  Watching these made me think of an earlier post featuring a Jay-Z video.

Atleti, Atleti...

My new favorite team on the continent:

But how long until I can meet the Mets?