natecooper.net

This article by the New York Times was on Digg’s front page and by now must be common knowledge. The sacrifice of privacy our new president-elect must make will undoubtably be difficult especially since, as this article points out, Obama is as addicted to his smart phone as the rest of modern, western civilization.

What was more astounding to me, however, was this sentence from the article:

“Mr. Obama, however, seems intent on pulling the office at least partly into the 21st century on that score; aides said he hopes to have a laptop computer on his desk in the Oval Office, making him the first American president to do so.”

Really? Really? First president to have a laptop on his desk? I can’t say I would be shocked to discover that Bush was a technophobe — I understand the luddite philosophy even if I disagree with it. But if Obama were to for some reason not use a computer I would fear for our country. So a step in the right direction but shockingly one 16 years over-due (if not more).

Check out this park and landscape in Prague. I have mixed feelings about modernist architecture. It always looks amazing in photography but often is bleak and imposing from the ground level. More recent construction like this, however, re-writes the perspective on a human scale. It looks very functional, almost inviting.

(via bad banana blog)

I read with some interest i09’s assessment of Clinton era Sci-Fi. Never really thought about it but the 90’s did have some great Sci-Fi.

The Obama election has to be hugely significant for people of my generation. Specifically those around 30 years of age. The first election I was able to vote in 2000 saw a great amount of quashed optimism. The second election in 2004 was sort of confusing and frustrating at the same time. No question we weren’t happy about Bush but at the same time there wasn’t a solid candidate to rally behind.

This year was different.

The night of the election an assembly of poor hipsters gathered at the Orphanage (our aptly named Bed-stuy home) and there were those who simply refused to believe that anything good could come of the election — even though they were fervent Obama supporters. My roommate turned to one and said “Just because we’re used to being disappointed doesn’t mean we can’t be happy for a bit.”

Indeed it is a bit bizarre to be even cautiously optimistic about politics for once. Obama is like a touchtone icon for America’s hope and promise for a better future. He also seems refreshingly (at least for now) like a unifying figure after eight years of the country within and world outside wedging itself apart. Perhaps it’s simply the fact that I’ve only ever lived in blue states but I can’t ever remember seeing pictures of our president (elect) posted up in corner stores and apartment windows. Daily online you’ll find ridiculous but hopeful headlines about the future utopia to come.

Here are a few to ponder over: Does an Obama Win Mean a Dark Knight Oscar? Can Obama Save the Auto Industry by Greening it on Day One?

The best and most all encompassing has to be Kottke’s When Obama Wins which randomizes promises of a better future with Obama.

If you find any other overly optimistic headlines about Obama’s presidency post them in the comments.

The passage of Prop 1a is a great opportunity and for me somewhat surprising given this is the first time I’ve voted in a major election outside of California. (As is of course the disappointing passage of Prop 8). The California High Speed Rail Blog has published an excellent list of Next Steps concerning where to go from here to support the High Speed Rail system. In my mind the biggest thing on that list as far as forward thinking planning has to support of current infrastructure (point 6). However, supporting existing rail infrastructure alone is simply one piece of the puzzle. A drastic restructuring of zoning and city planning must simultaneously occur to not only ensure the success of the system but to restructure California to absorb the overwhelming population growth expected in the coming decades.

To be sure, California is going to grow larger and the High Speed Rail project is a landmark affirmation for focusing that growth in existing urban centers in the state. However, the cities themselves need to act resolutely to capitalize on the significant investment to enact change. While in the past several decades urban centers across the state have been financing transit infrastructure improvements — the latest and most notable being Los Angeles county’s Measure R; what has lagged in the state is significant rewriting of archaic (more…)

One of the funniest bits I’ve seen on there in a while.

This brief post from hrrrthrrr sort of sums up my reaction to my first vote (or first three) on the east coast.

Here’s how voting in Santa Cruz works (at least for my tenure there). You get a little sheet with a tear off on it and a felt tipped marker. You go to a little table with dividers and gently mark a box next to the name. Very clean, simple and unencumbered.

Here in Brooklyn voting was like standing in front of a gigantic mechanical calculator from the 19th century. You actually pull this huge lever to switch from “normal” to “voting” and then you turn little knobs and gears. Each time you switch a lever there is a horrible Cha-chunk sound. Since this took place in a school gymnasium these sounds echoed, adding gravity to the situation as if I was in some medieval torture chamber with my own personal guillotine.

Bizarre but with sufficient benevolence-inducing goodness.

While the story in the above video is somewhat interesting, what I find more fascinating is the library workers interviewed for the piece. Seeing their meticulous organization and preservation work all while wearing fancy little doctor’s coats is kind of neat. The zeal with which they prepared the work and the giddiness I sense for their discovery of the hidden picture in the cardboard slats is very endearing.

I guess I have a soft spot for collectors. Many of my best friends (and myself) could be considered pack-rats and it makes one wonder where the line between obsessive collector and archivist really is drawn. There’s a sort of joy in seeing people who are clearly competent and really enjoy their job. The way the girl with the green hair in the video looks lovingly to the patch collector is quite nice.

(via The NY Public Library Blog)

For reasons I cannot go into at this time I have been advising over the course of the pass several weeks a person older than myself in the ways us younger people (can I still claim that?) use social networks. Most specifically we’ve been looking at Facebook and Twitter.

I’ve been hesitant in my advice for a few reasons: 1. I am basing my lessons purely on my own personal observations with no real outside citations and 2. I have had at length conversations with others my age (I’m 28) about how we don’t fully understand how people who are younger than us use these resources.

However, in thinking about these things I have just proven correct one of my tenets of social web sites. I had been telling my tutee that Facebook is more casual and merely an extension of real-world relationships and twitter is a bit edgier in that it does not rely on approval for connections to be made. Instead Twitter is less about friendship and more about reputation. Browsing around the web today I just discovered some evidence which seems to prove me correct.

I just read an article from Kottke.org about Facebook and Twitter and decided to look Jason Kottke up on both networks. Given Jason’s status as an internet celebrity it’s not surprising he has a large number of Twitter followers (nearly 10,000 as of this writing). A glance at his Facebook page is quite a contrast, however. He has a mere 13 friends. Interestingly he does have a public profile meaning that anyone can browse through a large amount of info on him — that’s something for a separate post.

This probably comes as no surprise to anyone who regularly uses both forums but given that I have been teaching someone social etiquette on these sites it’s nice to have outside verification of my assumptions. I wonder if anyone has done a comprehensive book on how people use Web 2.0. I suspect that it would be outdated shortly after writing it. Until then we’ll have to live with Internet Party as a singular source on the topic.

A compelling argument for why companies shouldn’t be avoiding social media. Statistics seem to indicate that individuals want a more open dialog but only a small number of Fortune 500 companies maintain a blog.

(via britopian.com)

Being in a somewhat captive audience on the subway it’s hard not to soak in the visual stimuli provided by advertising on the train. In between the blur of Budweiser and city services ads every so often an ad or a campaign stands out. A more recent series that has burned an image in the back of my brain is an entry from Dentyne to promote their gum. The ads play with the concept that internet technology and culture have wedged themselves in-between actual human contact. The ads use naturalistic photography juxtaposed with plain text representations of common internet phrases and communique. The implicit meaning is that these locutions are insufficient compared to their real-life counterparts and that one should reject the distance created by technology. The warmth of actual intimacy — while chewing gum — is apparently preferable to the sterile distance of online communication. I like the ads. Whenever I board the train and see one I find myself staring for lengthy periods of time but I also feel that I have a completely opposite reaction than the ads direct meaning.

One of the greatest tools several thousands dollars of debt and a film degree have given me is the ability to perform and obsession with imagery analysis. I like the idea that pictures carry a visual vocabulary of meaning. The Dentyne ads to me carry an emotional weight in that their imagery communicates feelings like love, friendship, communion, humanity. They are beautifully shot and really have a sort of aesthetics of the real kind of feel to them. For a while, the reason behind my fascination eluded me, I liked the images but felt off-put by the message. To me the internet is not a de-facto distancing technology, but quite the opposite. It can be used to extend and facilitate real human interaction. It is useful in its supplemental function as a way to find people who might otherwise slip through the cracks and its ability to communicate information like performances, parties, gatherings en masse. When used properly in fact the internet can be the means to an end for real-life human intimacy. It finally hit me when I saw the above image “Friend Request Accepted” and I realized what it was about the ad campaign that stood out.

For me, far from criticizing or commenting on the distance between what these words mean and the representative picture of the women hugging I think the emotional connection I associate with the image and the meaning of the words is one and the same. In a way “Friend Request Accepted” is a sort of virtual hug between two people. What’s bizarre for me is the way in which I realized I had associated emotional significance to such phrases in the same way I attributed the same feeling to imagery. In a way the sterile, unassuming phrases we are accustomed to seeing online become a snap-shot of an emotion that is both visceral and in a way hyperreal.

After all, how often are we conscious of the moments we become friends? I can name many people I would consider close friends but I can’t name the specific point at which that became the case for each relationship. I can think of instances, moments when that connection manifested and I became aware of the reality of our friendship. But, as with many people my day to day interactions are not so much a catalog of those moments of clarity but instead a deluge of taking life for granted. That is what really hits me about this campaign. The isolated clips provide a window into an untapped level of awareness. Whether they be generic computer phrases or beautiful photographs.