Staticfree Blog

Reading this article kicked my idea-generator into gear. The technology is here already for location-based games: interactive cellphone games which use the location-sensing mechanism on the phone to move the virtual character around a virtual realm. You are both a player in the real world, as well as the virtual.

Now, expand that idea some. How about take that to cinema? Make a story out of it. Combine that with flashmobbing and a net connection... what do you get? You get a group of people, armed with camera-and-GPS devices all congregating on a single site, perhaps a stage you set up or a performance you are doing.

Set up multiple such ones around a city; turn the city into your stage. Have people register their phone numbers to receive SMS messages telling them the new location after each micro-performance is done.

Make multiple locations at the same time and give different locations to different participants. What if they follow the crowd instead of their SMSs? You have a truly interactive audience and they are lost without your electronic guidance.

Is this in our future? If so, who would like to build it?

New photos in Rochester/:

These were taken along my walk along the canal

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New photos in Penguicon/:

This collection was taken on our trip to Penguicon

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I live right where the Eerie Canal and the Genessee River meet. There's a park nearby, whose green and trees makes up for the browns and murkiness of the water. There are also some paved paths along both bodies of water, so we went exploring.

Some of the more active Rochester crew and I walked along the canal tonight. We headed northwest, racing the sun to the airport. We stopped so we could watch the sky torn with sound and metal, while changing with purporanges and fading to black. We moved on.

Darkness came, and brought from me hums and walking songs. I recorded two onto my cell phone, and hope to be redoing them in some unsucktactular format soon. I need more of my own songs to sing.

We made it all the way to 390 and some railroad tracks. We turned around, as darkness had started painting the sky with stars. Trees and decay are such beautiful things. I will post pictures soon.

If you know me, or if you don't, we should walk along the river or the canal. I love these places the same way I love programming: though it may seem complicated or dirty, there is beauty living under the surface and in a certain viewpoint; you just need to learn how to find it.

Update 2004-04-20: Photos are online.

Penguicon was good. I met Greenfly (who I had previously known of through his Lifebook page), Rob and Hemos (the Slashdot people), and a rather awesome guy named Derek of the uhacc.

I saw an excellent talk on Mozilla by Scott Collins. I was very impressed by his presentation of the subject: it generally had nothing to do with the technology itself, but moreover the overall real-world concepts invloved.

Novi, Michigan was beautiful when we were there. It was coolwarm with a tickle breeze, in a soft, hazed sky. We saw a church with an enormous (150ft) white cross near it. The cross, upon closer inspection, was a cell tower.

There was unlimited Woodchuck cider and sodas in the conroom, which made me quite happy. One of the sodas I tried tasted of red and strawberries; I'll have to hunt it down.

I spent all the money I took out of the ATM on food, but it was worth it; I had a wonderful time.

Update 2004-04-19: Photos are now online.

For those who regularly read my blog, but wish there were more bloggy/journaly things, now's your chance to get your wish! I have read a few of these and found them to be interesting, so here is mine. I upped the number to 30, 'cause.

step one: load up all your music on your mp3 player and shuffle it

step two: write the first 20 songs here, no matter how embarrassing or misrepresentative

steve@mu:~% playsong -l /music/ > /dev/null
steve@mu:~% for ((a=0;a<30;a++)); do cursong -r $a; done

1. Banco de Gaia:Last Train to Lhasa - Amber
2. Mirah Yom Tov Zeitlyn, Ginger Brooks Takahashi and Friends:Songs from the Black Mountain Music Project - interlude 9
3. Underworld:beaucoup fish - winjer
4. Mediaeval Baebes:Undrentide - Quan Vey La Lauzeta
5. Air:The Virgin Suicides (Score) - Ghost Song
6. Aphex Twin:Selected Ambient Works 85-92 - Xtal
7. pOW: - Project X 2
8. Aphex Twin:Selected Ambient Works Volume - Eleventh
9. Metallica:2-12.84 London - The Four Horsemen
10. R.E.M.:Document - Strange
11. The Cranberries:No Need to Argue - Ridiculous Thoughts
12. Aphex Twin:Selected Ambient Works 85-92 - Pulsewidth
13. AIR:moon safari - remember
14. Underworld:Live at the Riviera Theatre - Born Slippy.NUXX
15. R.E.M:Fables of the Reconstruction - Good Advices
16. Propellerheads: - on Her Majesty's Secret Servic
17. Delerium:Chimera [Bonus CD] - After All [Andrew Sega Remix]
18. R.E.M:Up - Airportman
19. Seanette Blaylock:Spammer's Paradise - Sounds of Spammage
20. Cranes:Loved - Lilies (flood mix)
21. The Cranberries:No Need to Argue - Disappointment
22. Anabolic Frolic:Happy 2b Hardcore Chapter One - Go Insane - Dj DNA
23. Kriston J. Rehberg:Spammer's Paradise - Write in C
24. Portishead:Portishead - Western Eyes
25. R.E.M:Dead Letter Office - White Tornado
26. Two Nice Girls:Lesbian Favorites- Women Like Us - I Spent My Last $10 (On Birth Control And Beer)
27. Simon & Garfunkel:Greatest Hits - Scarborough Fair
28. LioZ / Sv.index: - Enigmatic Soul
29. Infected Mushroom:The Gathering - The Gathering
30. R.E.M.:Reckoning - Time After Time (annElise)

Note: This is the exact output except for a few of the mod files which didn't show up properly in Xmms.

I'm a bit sad that none of my favorite female vocalists like Tori Amos, Poe and Ari made it to the list. Mmm, so good.

I am very picky about computers. As I use at least one, in some manner, over 90% of the time I'm awake, I figure I should have a good user interface for it; something that lets me worry about the things that matter, and let the computer sort out the things that don't. That's why I started using Ion. I have reached a form of interface zen with my computer and I'm never going back.

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New photos in silly/:

Ladybug ladybug,
what do you eat?
What do you do
that powers your feet?

Ladybug ladybug,
why are you here?
Such hostile grounds,
have you really no fear?

Ladybug ladybug,
why must you die?
You've beautiful wings,
just get up and fly.