Staticfree Blog

I went to a free show (a monthly "cirque du singe brise") at the Zeitgeist Gallery last night with David. A bunch of local Boston musicians played short sets for a few hours. I primarily went to see James O'Brien and Ari, but left needing to check out Lisa Bastoni, Anna Freitas, and The Kieran Ridge Band.

In addition, Joseph Fogarazzo played some nice Renaissance and Bach guitar solos and Rod Webber shook the stage a bit with his energetic pieces. Joe Bellamy, one of the coordinators for the show, performed some entertaining spoken word. Overall, it was a good show and worth the trudge through the snow.

So, I did an experiment with my dad's shiny, new television: I turned on the V-Chip blocking for all ratings, G, PG-13, X. Now the television only displays ads (and the occasional sports game). I can now understand exactly how the system got in place: who could say no to something that would let the hooks be displayed, but hide all the meat?

With this on, you can't watch a TV-PG PBS special, but you can watch football, the home shopping network, ads, and infomercials.

Liz has officially announced the new Lab for Social Computing over at many-to-many. Starting this quarter, I'll be working at the lab in addition to running the Social Computing Club. The lab and the club should be a great way to help get RIT on the map with social computing.

Currently, I'm one of two undergraduate researchers who will be working there. As of now, our main efforts lie in helping get the lab on its feet (website work, wiki work, etc.). Once that's more stationary, it'll be interesting to see what direction we start going. I'm really looking forward to diving into some code again.