Eating Club (midterm)

For the LiveWeb midterm, I had generated some vague ideas around words like playful, fun, boredom-curing. Our last class session was helpful in my brainstorming process. Hearing other people’s initial thoughts (or in some cases, finalized concepts) helped me to identify some general categories under which live applications could live: education, citizen news/journalism, exercise, games, visual/artistic. It’s been a challenge for me to perceive the future utility of the tools that we are being exposed to (i.e. streaming audio, video, chat, shared objects). Based on my read of Clay Shirky’s book and my background education, applications relating to social networking for the purpose of creating political power seem the most important. But these notions feel beyond the scope of my personal …not necessarily interests or capabilities… but maybe immediate feasibility or relevance (if that makes sense). Something with a smaller intention seems more realistic and appropriate, but in writing this entry, I feel like I’m playing myself or selling myself short. Hrmm… So anyway, I’ve forgone my initial notion of making something playful to focus on an eating club with Sanjay and Thomas. We attacked the concept yesterday and are coding probably for the rest of today. The idea seems good, as lots of people detest eating alone, and many of these people have connectivity to the internet, as well as a video camera and mic. Hopefully, we’ll get it going by the end of the night. I’m reminded of a point made in my Designing For Constraints class with Amit: ITP has a weakness in that students are often too busy building skills and getting their projects started, and therefore have little time to refine concepts and give substantial effort to the final stages of their projects…