Touch the Felt
Beck, the ultimate epic genius freak, dropped in for a show on the downlow at Yahoo!’s campus in Sunnyvale on Friday to kick off Yahoo Hack Day. Check out this video of Beck puppet haxx0ring into Yahoo. Freaking hilarious.
This town rawks! I take it for granted some times, but San Francisco really is the center of the universe. Those who don’t live here, just don’t realize it. Friday night, Marc tipped me off to a VIP reception shmoozie thing for Wired magazine’s NextFest event. Jedi mind tricked my way in and immediately was greeted with a martini. Wandered around amongst the futurist tech, taking in the shiny sites and think to myself how this all reminded me of dot-com irrational exuberance. I remember fondly the days of weekly launch parties greased with free flowing alcohol and endless hype. Thanks for the memories, Wired!
The next day, I returned to NextFest to take in most of what I had missed the night before. Unfortunately, the mass of humanity flooding the hall made it next to impossible to get a good look at anything clearly. The demo for ASIMO was impossible as everyone and their kids wanted in to see the humanoid robot walk up and down stairs. I queued up for the robotics panel discussion after, which was moderately interesting despite the obvious shilling for robotic products made by the moderator Colin Angle’s company. Stories of war profiteering by this same moderator by his same company elicited several boos from the audience. The most interesting points were brought up by Rodney Brooks director of MIT’s CS and AI lab and Ken Goldberg, professor and researcher at UC Berkeley. Brooks said that the Jetsonian dream of Rosie the robot is still at least 20-25 years off. Goldberg was the only panelist to give props to robotics as an art form, rather than pure market commodification as others seemed pre-occupied with.
Other highlights of NextFest were this 3D printer which I witnessed creating skulls, the K-bot which is a robotic head that emulates human facial expressions, the Moller Skycar and the directed sound of HyperSonic Sound technology.
Later that night was the Cloud Factory Design Collective’s 6th annual fashion show. Fucking amazing! Ravers can make hella cool threads and show them off in the most creative of ways. More on this once some pix become available. Like I said, this town rawks!
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It’s rare that I come across a site or tool that just sucks me in. Now is one of those rare times. Flickr has the right mix of visual voyeur curiosity and show-and-tell community that it’s got me clocking up the hours. I discovered flickr a year ago when it first launched, but it was a different animal then. You know you’ve come along way when Yahoo and Google buyout rumors spread like wildfire. I’d love to see Flickr buyout Yahoo. Yeah, I think they’re ready.
Oh, why is Flickr so cool you ask? It gives you the tools to upload, archive, organize, annotate and share your pictures with your friends and soon-to-be friends in a way no other site or tool has before. Awesome, easy to use viral features with a social networking core that encourages community and sharing. Also it’s really encouraged me to take my camera with me and snap pix of pretty much every god damn thing. Check out my Flickr and leave some comments!
I met Pam Pam around the old Progressive Nerve Center sometime last year while she was working for Dennis Kucinich’s presidential campaign. She’s an amazing human being that brings SF Peacemakers to life. She and friends and neighbors take back the corner of Sunnydale and Hahn every Friday night. It’s the most notorious block in San Francisco where frequent but little known stories of dead black men are made. Pam Pam brings a moment of peace to where much violence and blood have flowed. This 60 minute video (144MB QT) is Pam Pam’s story of what goes on down there. Get ready, it’s damn powerful. Btw, I didn’t create this video. This is a rip of a DVD that Pam Pam asked me to make available on the ‘net. I just ripped it and uploaded it to the Internet Archive.
If you live in SF and care about democratizing Internet access, you should attend this free event. Media Alliance is making it happen and Lawrence Lessig is gonna throw down a few words. And check out Awesometown, funny as fuck.
Lawrence Lessig on Wireless in SF: Digital City or Divided City?
When: Monday, October 10 2005 @ 07:00 PM PDT – 10:00PM
Where: 111 Minna Gallery
111 Minna Street
between 2nd and New Montgomery
San Francisco
Description: Join Media Alliance for this dynamic panel discussion on creating universal, affordable Internet access through municipal broadband utilities. Featuring a presentation by Professor Lawrence Lessig and a panel of local community Internet experts, the evening will include Q&A with the audience.
After years of advocacy by MA and other groups, Mayor Newsom announced earlier this year his goal of free wireless Internet access for all San Franciscans. Cities across the country are implementing municipal projects, though with varying degrees of commitment to bridging the digital divide.
This evening will explore the significant opportunities for city-run projects to expand Internet access and usage by under-served communities, and improve cost, service and consumer choice for everyone.
The talk will be followed at 9pm by music from DJ’s Kid Kameleon and Ripley.
Cost: $5, Free for Media Alliance and EFF members
7-9 pm Discussion: Lessig, Panel, Q&A
9-10pm DJ’s Kid Kameleon and Ripley
Monday night was rad. Media Alliance did an informative thing at 111 Minna on wifi in San Francisco. Larry Lessig did an incitement and wry presentation and slideshow on the history of communication monopoly, specifically touching on how AT&T stifled any sort of creativity when they felt the least bit threatened. One example of this is being the Hush-a-Phone case. With the FCC in their pocket for many decades, AT&T got their way until they were finally broken up in the 80’s. After Larry, a panel discussion followed by three people representing communities that have stakes in wifi access. A reoccurring point of the evening was that whatever gets deployed in San Francisco, should be ‘network neutral’ and ‘platform neutral’ meaning that the city and the provider don’t get to decide who does and does not have access to the network. Neutrality being the key concept here.
After the intellectual fun, a bunch of us headed across the street to a Thai restaurant to munch and shoot the shit. It was cool meeting Jimmy Wales, the genius behind Wikipedia, one of the best things about an open Internet. Rene shot some video of Irene interviewing Jimmy and Irene interviewing Craig Newmark (yes, THAT Craig).