Dorkbot, yummy stylie



Serving up desserts to 100+
Originally uploaded by ekai.

Another great Dorkbot at RX Gallery last night. Marc Powell, hacker chef and hacker hostel hotelier extraordinaire, showed us the science behind making taste buds dance. He followed up with an awesome dessert made from liquid nitrogen and purple gloves. That’s mad skillz. Pix I took.

Marc was followed by Jennifer Granick, a Stanford Internet lawyer, who described how Bush’s overstepping of authority on wiretapping is an unprecedented erosion of our democratic system. No surprise there. The comparison of democratic principles to Star Wars was amusing.

Make your own stereo digital camera for under $25

Instructions for hacking a couple of $11 Dakota digital cameras into a stereo digital camera rig. You’ll need a couple of Dakotas, two male USB ports (salvaged from mice) and some Lego. Apparently you can get these “disposable” cameras from Wolf and Ritz Camera stores, though I haven’t tried.

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This site will be handy for figuring out the USB pinouts.

TechSoup for Your Soul

TechSoup

I’ve been asked by my good friend John Lorance to help eliminate the buzz around Web 2.0 in an online technology forum next week put on by TechSoup. I’m not quite sure how this thing will unfold, but it looks like it all takes place in virtual space in these online message boards. TechSoup does good stuff, connecting non-profit organizations with technology so non-profits can do what they do better. If there’s anyone that knows how to not make a profit, that’s me. Here’s the official announcement:

It’s happening in TechSoup, a five-day online event:

The Impact of Web 2.0 on the Nonprofit Community

Join CompuMentor’s community engagement program director John Lorance and a host of leading Web technology advocates as they demystify Web 2.0 technologies and illustrate how using new socially oriented technological innovations can help the nonprofit community. Web 2.0 technologies such as tagging, social bookmarking and online social networks, blogging, content sharing through Wikis and RSS, and new Web widgets need not only be in the hands of well-funded developers; but also can be used by organizations to further their missions.

Co-hosts include:
• Marnie Webb of CompuMentor
• Ruby Sinreich two-time winner of “Best Blog” from The Independent Weekly
• Chris Messina of Flock and SpreadFireFox fame
• Marshall Kirkpatrick, trainer and educator on Web 2.0 technologies
• Phil Klein, nonprofit technologist of Pen and Pixel
• Alexandra Samuel, online community consultant with Social Signal
• Michael Stein, nonprofit technology blogger
• Yann Toledano, nonprofit technology consultant and TechSoup forum co-host.
• Eddie Codel, online media technologist and Webzine conference organizer.

These leading voices of Web 2.0 technology will help you bring the ever-changing field of the second wave of Web applications and tools into practical focus. Event hosts will share their real-world stories, demystify the buzzwords, and provide resources. Discussion will focus on exploring the latest trends in Web publishing for all, effective online communications, emerging research and discovery methods, and collaboration tools.

This event will eliminate the buzz and bring into focus how nonprofits can use these tools to learn from other organizations’ Web travels. You will come away with practical tips, models, resources, and tools for bringing collaborative technologies and processes to your own organization.

Save the dates: October 24-October 28

Join us the week of October 24, for a free, five-day online event, in the TechSoup Emerging Technology forum www.techsoup.org/web2event as we discuss issues such as:

§ What do we mean by Web 2.0?
§ How can you use an RSS feed to get pushed information as well as to push your content to others?
§ What on earth is a Wiki? How is it better than the old-fashioned Web site?
§ What is tagging and how is it relevant? How can you learn from others’ Web searches?
§ What are widgets and how can these new tools help you solve age-old problems?
§ How can an online social network help your organization find volunteers?

Party on the VC’s dime like it’s 1998



This is what happens when you feed geeks free drinks
Originally uploaded by ekai.

Or so it felt the other night at Swig for the Colors of Web 2.0 party. The tightly packed geekerati of ’05 were sucking down from the open bar to cheesey disco while the suits exchanged buisness cards. Sponsored by our new cool web friends at del.icio.us, WordPress, Wink, Flock, Technorati, Odeo and Flickr it did indeed feel much like a bubble era dot-com launch party. The difference is that the sponsors of this party are all interesting and truely useful technologies that I actually use rather than some hair-brained VC funded idea to reinvent the selling of dogfood. That’s the best thing about the crash, it finally put all the crappy business plans out to pasture. That and the end to crappy live-work loft construction. I’m hopeful that what is transpiring now is the natural evolution of what could have happened 5 or 7 years ago if VCs actually understood the Internet and how people use it. It’s looking pretty good from where I’m sitting and it’s not just the free gin & tonics talking.

Podcast: Mission Freakshow #1

Mission Freakshow #1OK, so I decided to try and record something with some friends and call it a podcast (that’s what the little headphone dude graphic means). First one ever, comes in at 20 minutes. It’s Stefana, Darcy and I talking about some experiences we had this week. Just kinda freeform stylie. Let me know if you like. Stuff we talk about: Hello!, Fourth of July blurr, Treasure Island, dinner, anarchists & riot cops, flag burning, Darcy’s shirt, muffins, wet dreams, Andrea’s baby, whirrled peas, Utah time, frenulum. Check it: Mission Freakshow #1

UN World Environment Day



Ozomatli kick off World Environment Day
Originally uploaded by ekai.

World Environment Day is in full effect here in SF. It’s a weird mix of private and corporate dollars funding a United Nations sponsored event with 80+ mayors from cities all around the world. All I know is I spent 5 hours last night in a big ass building that had free food, drinks, music, art, friendly smart people and a panel discussion on green urban renewal and social justice. People were abuzz all night and it was like fighting gravity finally trying to leave. I think we’re onto something here.

Videos contradict cops at RNC

There’s a piece in today’s NY Times [reg required] that describes how amateur video helped get a few people off who were falsely charged during the RNC protests last year. The real story is how the cops, in at least two cases, completely lied and fabricated evidence.

“We picked him up and we carried him while he squirmed and screamed,” the officer, Matthew Wohl, testified in December. “I had one of his legs because he was kicking and refusing to walk on his own.”

…

During a recess, the defense had brought new information to the prosecutor. A videotape shot by a documentary filmmaker showed Mr. Kyne agitated but plainly walking under his own power down the library steps, contradicting the vivid account of Officer Wohl, who was nowhere to be seen in the pictures. Nor was the officer seen taking part in the arrests of four other people at the library against whom he signed complaints.

The last bit about the officer not being present to make the arrest doesn’t surprise me. When I was arrested, I was basically assigned an officer to make my arrest. There were so many of us corralled together on the sidewalk, they just peeled us off five at a time and delivered us to the next available officer for processing. For most of us, our arresting officers could not have witnessed (and therefore truthfully testify) about anything that we may or may have not done as they weren’t even present during the alleged infractions. Yay for cheap video cameras and people who aren’t afraid to use them.

Gmapping History & Future



Washington, DC 20050
Originally uploaded by ekai.

The latest example of cool emergent technology is Google Maps rendered with satellite imagery annotated with Flickr notes. Geeks and the geekly inclined are zooming in on neighborhoods where they once lived and are tagging those screen capture images with notes describing historical moments in the geography. Flickr has a group called Memory Maps dedicated to this.

Since I grew up in the DC area, I decided to look around some internationally known locations to see what they look like from the sky. Interesting to note that the White House and the neighboring Old Executive Office Building and Department of Treasury buildings are “sanitized” from the top, for national security reasons I’m sure. Their roofs are represented as blank continuous dull colors with none of the detail you’ll find on other buildings. Some areas, such as the courtyards in the Old Executive, are grossly pixelated. On the other hand, the Pentagon, looks complete with detail. This begs the question, what does it take to get a piece of property obscured from Google’s database? Can I fill out a form and demand that my house be gzapped so no one knows that the grass hasn’t been cut in 3 years or that my meth lab exploded?

As if that wasn’t enough cool, this brilliant individual figured out how to remix Craig’s List housing ads with Google Maps. This is the kind of thing that some bubbleheaded VC would have sunk $30 million into 5 years ago. And now it’s done emergent style with an idea and a little duct tape. Imagine what can happen when there is an open API for all this.