Month: September 2008

Categories
LiveWeb

Streaming Audio with Icecast: Karaoke Battle?!

Again, Sanjay and I played with last week’s assignment involving internet radio and broadcasting audio. We used my machine as well as the streaming audio kit in the equipment room (ER). For both, we used the client for mac called Nicecast. It took us awhile to configure the client correctly with the server, because we didn’t quite understand that Icecast is a server, while Nicecast is a client, with built-in server capabilities. The advantages of using the dedicated server versus our own machine relates to bandwidth, a static ip, availability, and other things which I forget.

Our idea (implementation in progress) is to build a battle page that allows two uninterrupted streams to be available for visitors to hear and vote for. Both broadcasts would come from the same location, likely a karaoke party. It would be great, live fun! It shouldn’t be too difficult to implement. Sanjay and I just need to get better with these AJAX/PHP skills. We are thinking a message board for trash-talking might be a necessary addition as well.

ADDED: a working (non-pretty) version.

Suggested reading for the week is the Radio And Internet Newsletter.

Categories
DesignForEmergingPlatforms

CellFish: Group Update

The midterm project in short is ongoing and team-oriented, focused on developing a social, mobile, music sharing experience. Our progress at this point is viewable on our shared powerpoint presentation in progress.

Categories
DesignForEmergingPlatforms

Personas + Journeys: Reading Highlights

Long Live the User (Persona): Talking with Steve Mulder – “With personas, the right kinds of details matter, and they typically involve goals, behaviors, and attitudes…the whole point is to see real people as our users and not focus on ourselves.”
The Origin of Personas – “The users fell into three distinct groups, clearly differentiated by their goals, tasks, and skill levels. Had I been creating the software myself, I would have role-played those users as I had with Ruby and SuperProject, but in this case I had to describe those user models to the Sagent team. So I created Chuck, Cynthia, and Rob. These three were the first true, Goal-Directed, personas…design tools for me and communication tools for the entire construction team was obvious and significant…but a complete “How-to” on personas has yet to be written.”
Developing User Personas – “The intent behind a user persona is to create a shared vocabulary for yourself and your team when discussing design questions and decisions.”
An introduction to user journeys – Primary needs, need states, time-based journey with hooks (calls to action).
User Journey Mapping – “The ideal journey for each typical scenario is used to prioritise features and content on each page to assist the user in reaching their goal as quickly as possible, and these priorities are translated into the wireframes…it is important to create the ideal journeys with a multidisciplinary team to ensure all angles are covered.”

Categories
Miscellaneous

End September

So this weekend was fairly crazed, with basically three back-to-back “out nights,” including a Bulgarian bar, a connect-four /cupcake house party, and a big awesome BAMtakover event. Plus, there was the DUMBO arts festival stuff. On the upside, lots of fun was had. On the downside, several goof teenagers tried to grab miss Marlencita, and I got popped in the jaw twice for no good reason. It sucks and the po-po was of no help, but we’re safe and living. More positive news involves a job opportunity for above mentioned lady (woohoo!), school-work accomplished, and a more polished look for my blog. I’ve been experimenting with different themes and am currently satisfied with a tweaked version of Hemingwayex, which is an upgraded version of Hemingway itself. Good times overall.

cupcakes
cupcakes
bamtakeover
bamtakeover
knucklesammich
knucklesammich
Categories
CraftingWithData

Data self-portrait

“Self-Portrait: Data is factual information; science finds its story. But data isn’t only about science so we can turn that on its head. Find data for your own story. Create a self-portrait, using data.”

I recorded the time I got into and out of bed each night/morning of the week, as well as the temperature outside my window and state of the sky. The margin of error with the times is 5 or 10 minutes. For temperature, it is within 2 degrees. It might be interesting to see if there could exist a correlation between the data and my state of mind. However, since “state of mind” is seriously subjective, I guess it would be nearly impossible to disprove anything specific, and therefore difficult to use this measurement in support of drawing any type of correlation. The data can be seen on a spreadsheet here. This self-portrait mainly tells me that I may actually be getting too much sleep during these post-employment weeks (smile). I also needed some serious rest after being attacked and dancing the following night…

Following class and hearing about the ways in which some of my peers approached the assignment, I felt my approach was a bit shallow and lacked the unique quality, which self-portraits should maybe have. I realized that I chose “sleep time” because I’ve been somewhat focused on the notion of rest and dreams lately, and tracking the hours and minutes was simple and labor light. Perhaps, it’s because I am indulging in much more of this time than I previously could while working. Anyway, other data sets I could have chosen as a reflection of myself are scars/injuries timeline, vacation locations, introductions to techie devices or platforms, favorite musical artists, a visualization of my passport, a map of my calendar data, my sneaker purchases…

Categories
CraftingWithData

Readings + Mastermind

Lady Tasting Tea: The first two chapters of David Salsburg’s book about the history of statistics discuss ideas from several famous scientists including Ronald Fisher, Karl Pearson, Francis Galton and Charles Darwin. Normal distribution seems to be the most relevant piece to understand in the context of a course about data. Parameters to note are: the mean, the standard deviation, symmetry, and kurtosis.

The Function of Measurement in Modern Physical Science by Thomas Kuhn was a bit difficult to absorb — it seems that the hand-out is fractured. However, Kuhn starts with a direct, summarizing statement: “Both as an ex-physicist and as an historian of physical science I feel sure that, for at least a century and a half, quantitative methods have indeed been central to the development of the fields I study. On the other hand, I feel equally convinced that our most prevalent notions both about the function of measurement and about the source of its special efficacy are derived largely from myth.”

Another component of this week’s assignment was to play an old game called Mastermind (thanks for the new link Ryan). At first, it just made my mind ache, but after a few games, it was somewhat satisfying and kinda fun. See my progress w some images here:

Categories
CraftingWithData RestOfYou

Log Yourself: Breathing as the base

I am interested in learning more about how improved efforts toward monitoring and directing breathing can have a significant effect on our health and quality of life. The connections between daily stress, ample sleep, and the vagas nerve, have been first on my list of investigation. Lucid dreaming and posture are other pieces that feel related and I hope to tie in to this project. My inspiration mainly comes from regular observations and Linda Stone’s recent talk given here at ITP.

For the first assignment (”point the sensor at yourself”) in Rest of You, I have built a simple breath monitor with a stretch sensor and the Arduino. The code I’ve used so far is built on the code provided in the class blog, and I’m starting to gain familiarity with the Eclipse IDE. I’ve recorded my breathing in several scenarios and look forward to finding a clear project concept. Visualizing Data by Ben Fry is a text that has started to guide my process and the question I want to answer might go something like____. Sciencedaily.com is a resource that I am looking to for further knowledge as well.

In relation to the assignment for Crafting with Data, I re-logged data after enhancing the sensing mechanism, code, and measuring my breath while positioned horizontally in both states (resting and post-activity). The visualizations make more sense on one hand, but are completely strange on the other. I suppose this is proof that collecting good data is not a simple task.

My code and screen shots are below.

in eclipse: serialtofile and filegrapherscroll

on arduino: analogread

resting + activity
resting + activity
Categories
DesignForEmergingPlatforms

8tracks.com

8tracks
“On 8tracks, people can do two things: listen to a mix, or create a mix. Listeners can search for a mix by artist or genre, stream it in a legal, radio-style manner, and follow others who make compelling mixes. DJs upload MP3s or select tracks from the 8tracks library to craft a playlist, add context with description and art, and publish their mix on 8tracks.com and a personal webpage…8tracks believes handcrafted music programming trumps algorithms. Think radio in the 1970s, mixtapes in the 1980s, and DJ culture of the 1990s through today. DJs share their talent in taste making, providing exposure for artists. Listeners get a unique blend of word-of-mouth sharing and radio programming — long the trusted means for music discovery — on a global scale. Founded in 2006 by David Porter, ex-GM at Live365, 8tracks was created by a small team (CEO, designer, 5 developers) in NYC and SF.”

This site is really light and in its early stages, which I appreciate. David Porter follows popular music sharing sites and includes some nice charts and statistics on his blog. I’ve been using 8tracks for a couple days so far with no major complaints.

Categories
Miscellaneous

Hulu Wired tidbit

On the train ride home from school today, I read an article in the latest issue of Wired Magazine about Hulu. It basically gave a quick history of the change we’re experiencing in the way we watch TV shows, or rather how we watch shows. I don’t really care to share too much about the details, but it does make me a little more excited to watch another episode of Arrested Development tonight… the article giving advice to the new president to be elected in November was also interesting.

Categories
LiveWeb

Using PHP, JavaScript + AJAX

Sanjay, Alberto, and I spent a good deal of time coming up with some entertaining concepts for this week’s assignment (create an application which allows you to control and change the content that someone else is viewing on your site). Some thoughts included building a clapper sorta interaction, playing hangman, using audio clips… In the end, we decided to experiment with a live video stream, which would let viewers to type in a caption, which would appear in a comic-like conversation bubble. We used the Apple Quicktime Broadcaster. The coding was driven by Sanjay’s efforts and cleaned up with Shawn’s (Shawn Van Every, our instructor) help. Click here to give it a go. It seems to work a little better in Safari than Firefox. Also, the live stream component has been replaced by a static video with some clownish drawings…

Shawn also made a nice page for us here on the class wiki.

Thanks fellas!

See a screen shot too.

live web, shawn
live web, shawn