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Best Press Conference Ever

After the ridiculous overreaction by the Boston authorities over the Aqua Teen Hunger Force LED lightboard graffiti campaign, the two guys behind the Boston pieces held this most awesome press conference.

In this whole debacle, the media keeps calling these LED ads “hoax devices” which is complete bullshit. This implies that the creators intended to make people think they were bombs to cause fear and hysteria. Listen up Boston! It’s a friggin’ ad campaign! The fear and hysteria came from your overreaction to this whole thing, not Turner Broadcasting or the guys who made the harmless lightboards. 9 other cities didn’t freak out, why did Boston? Btw, Aqua Teen Hunger Force is a damn funny show.

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I’m Rocketboomed and Other Media Madness

Me boomedWow, crazy media week it has been. I woke Monday morning to find myself in a Rocketboom segment (that’s me on the far left rocking the Ask a Ninja shirt). Rocketboom field correspondent and friend Bre Pettis was interviewing a guy at RoboGames who made a steambot and I just happened to be hanging out in the background. Violet and I were there doing our own videos for GETV which you can see here and here. Bre also interviews CTP on his Arca Musarithmica. Along with presenting crazy interactive musical robotic contraptions at RoboGames, CTP also officiated my best friend Jay’s wedding that weekend. It was a busy weekend for sure. Oh yeah, my best friend Jay got married. Big ups to him and Shiho on a happy future.

Then there’s all the craziness around digg. Digg 3.0 was released this week and to create some media buzz, Kevin Rose and the digg team had a launch party last week at a dark and hot (as in heat not as in the shit, though it was kinda nice) bar to show off the new and upcoming features. Irina and I were there doing our GETV thing, getting interviews with Kevin & the Stamen kids who are responsible for the brilliant visualizations you’ll see next month. So of course, our GETV episode gets dugg as does the bonus footage and we put blip.tv, our awesome hosting provider, through the digg test. Twice. They rocked it of course and the result is tons of new people know about GETV. Of course the digg crowd is damn fickle and despite their harsh words for Irina, I know they’ll be back.

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Flocking for the Winter

FlockAs the rainy winter sets in here in San Francisco, two birds of a feather spread their wings. Last week, the much anticipated social browser Flock made it’s debut. This is my first post using Flock to see how she flys. So far, she’s airborne.

The other Flock coming to San Francisco is the beautiful metal sculpture piece pictured here from Burning Man 2001, by longtime artist Michael Christian. Flock (the sculpture) will be coming to the plaza in front of City Hall in mid-November, assuming the Black Rock Arts Foundation can raise enough dinero. You should donate, hint hint. Flock is one of my favorite pieces from all of Burning Man. The legs that rise up from the ground are organic and vine like slowly transforming to an animal shape as it reaches the headless mammalian torso. Possibly a glimpse into our own genetic future?

Hey Scott, so I think Flock officially bridges the gap between the SF Burning Man art scene and the new generation of open source geekdom. Your perception was spot on.

UPDATE: The San Francisco Examiner did a story on Flock coming to SF. I’m happy they chose to use my photo, despite not giving me a credit.

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SF History Podcast

Sparkletack.com
The world needs to know that Sparkletack is officially my favorite podcast of the moment. If you live in San Francisco and have wondered about the strange origins of the many things that makes our home quaint, cozy and just weird then listen up. Sparkletack tackles everything you could ever want to know about the origins of SF street names, the Golden Fire Hydrant, the great Emperor Norton, Patty Hearst, the infamous stagecoach robber Black Bart and of course, the Mission Burrito. The cool voice behind Sparkletack very succinctly covers a subject in a gripping storytelling style steeped in mystery and well researched history. Each episode is easy to devour in 20 minutes or less usually and will leave you wondering what will appear on your ipod next week. Give a listen before Sparkletack gets a deal with the History channel or something. It’s that good.

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Monday brain food

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).

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Recent photos



Pitching Machine has a face
Originally uploaded by ekai.

Finally put my photos up from LA. They’re mostly pre and post show as I was otherwise occupied trying not to get fried in the frenzy.

Also, some pix from Tuesday night’s protest of the Shar-Pei skinned Governator‘s plan to privatize pensions for nurses, firefighters, police and teachers. Not your average San Francisco protest. Lots of middle age nurses, firefighters police and teachers turned out. And Frank Chu of course. Coincidentally, Ah-nawld today chose to drop the privatizing idea, at least for the time being.