Month: November 2008

Categories
LiveWeb

2 Ideas for LiveWeb final

1. My first idea is a 2-player game. I made an initial version for the class, Designing for Constraints. The mechanics, dynamics, and aesthetics, of the game are on my blog. For Live Web, I aim to migrate it to AS3, make it playable remotely, and most importantly implement live video as part of the game-play and reward. I’ve made some progress in the last week here.

2. My second idea is an application for parents who travel a lot and their children. It would be called something like “Read Your Little One to Sleep.” It would be for education and bonding. The library would expand with time, but I think having at least two books to choose from at first would be good. Live audio, pictures, and text would be the most important elements — possibly video as well.

Categories
FlashOfFlash LiveWeb Miscellaneous RestOfYou

My last twenty hours

were kinda great — three main reason.

1. A talk on the ITP floor from…

Zoran Josipovic, Ph.D. is a research scientist and an adjunct professor at the Center for Neural Science and Psychology Dept., New York University. His main interests are the nature of consciousness and its relation to the brain, global versus local theories of consciousness, and the functioning of anti-correlated neural networks. Zoran is a long-term practitioner of meditation in the nondual traditions of Dzogchen, Mahamudra and Advaita Vedanta. He has also worked as a psychotherapist and a bodyworker and has taught meditation at Esalen Institute for many years.

2. AS3 progress for a game I’m working on for FlashOfFlash and LiveWeb. The late-night session was productive because I was alert, and all distractions from people were gone, as they were either asleep or out socializing.

3. The bomb dream, which was like a vacation to a new world:
… swimming like flight … large man-made pond with islands, pockets of people, couples, plants … warm and fluid … video game … exercise and adrenalin … strength and play … odd smelling … coaching with specific exercise advice … bday dinner with crab legs times two … gum gift wrapper with chocolate inside …

(4.) Also, a peer shared this super interesting video, which sounds like my initial thoughts for the RestOfYou final project. Thanks, Hulya.

Categories
LiveWeb

A lil’ working Whiteboard

In LiveWeb, we were introduced to the usage of Shared Objects with the Flash Media Server a couple weeks ago. I was focused on the Dating Game project, so didn’t document any work for that week. I plan to use Shared Objects to a much further extent for my final project, which I intend to be an online game to be played by two individuals. For now, here’s an example of a whiteboard, which can be drawn on by any user simultaneously. I gained an understanding of how it works, but in terms of expansion, merely changed the line style and rtmp address. The code comes from week 6.

Categories
Miscellaneous

Hiccup maybe

The past week has left me feeling unmotivated and stalled. Maybe there’s more on my plate than I’m capable or driven enough to do. I’ve kept myself fairly content in terms of getting out, resting, and doing things I enjoy, like eating good meals, playing sports, and some time with good folks, but the projects at school are lacking overall, and it’s having an effect on me. It’s thinking about the next couple months and next year that is particularly daunting, and if I could magically absorb programming languages, things would be easier. I want to be producing more and designing more, but similar to the time when I held a fullt-time job, responsibilities are fighting each other for my attention, which doesn’t seem healthy. Anyway, some more solid hours in a quiet room with this machine might be what I need. I’ll try to make it happen this week.

On a more positive note, today was voting day. The wait at the polls was almost two hours, but it provided an interesting opportunity to observe my fellow residents and press a little input into the bigger picture. My fingers are crossed for change with Obama/Biden…

Categories
LiveWeb

SMS live (a concession with TextMarks)

So for the SMS week in LiveWeb, we were exploring the usage of a web service called textmarks.com.

First, Alberto, Sanjay, and I were interested in building a simple application that would allow a user to submit a location (cross-streets) and get both the nearest train station and immediate schedule. This would help commuters to avoid missing their train, and it would make late night and solo travel a bit safer. We ran into a block and consulted both Shawn, Dennis (teaching Designing Around Place), and Robert who made something similar (muniriders.net) and provided a link to the GTFS data exchange.

Second, I thought I would just allow a user to type a word and have an image displayed on the a web page of that word, which could be sorta cool in some specific contexts, but it wasn’t working and I wasn’t too passionate about it.

So finally, I played with the provided code for week 8, and have a small application that allows a user to change the color of a web-page through SMS. See it here.

A great example of this service blown into full utility is thenewvote.com. Nice work guys!

Categories
CraftingWithData

Survey NYC Round 2 + Coin Flips

After gathering approx 45 records from the initial survey and having a brief class discussion, I’ve decided to  switch gears to obtain a different data set. I hope to get some quality feedback in class today.

The new survey structure will have four parts:

1. Current location and duration at residence.
2. Next location: Where. When. Why.
3. Previous locations and duration.
4. Suggestions.

Also, we had another reading from the Canon about probabilities, and were assigned to flip a coin or imagine to flip a coin 100 times. My results are available on google spreadsheets.