I was in total agreement when I first read this post; for some reason I came back around to it (because you've been too quiet--too busy I bet) and now I have an additional thought about all this twitter-handle-as-identity. There is a weird paradox about twitter in that I can learn the most about you, and the least about you, over twitter.

If you are a stranger I can learn that "Oh, I'm really interested in you!" or "Oh, I'm not really that interested in you."

If you are a friend, I can learn "Oh, you like asparagus too?!" or, "You're at the hospital? What can I do to help?"

It comes back to the low threshold of the information, its ambient nature. I can choose to ignore it quickly, or retain it and take action on it equally as fast.

Back to your original point, it is the stranger case. I meet some people at a conference, I follow them on twitter. Within a few hours or days I have an idea if this is going to go anywhere. While going to their site and emailing them or subscribing to their blog's RSS feed might have taken a significant amount of attention and energy, a quick "follow brianoberkirch" sent from my phone is low cost and allows me to quickly start making very small decisions about what the future might hold for this initial, awkward, short social transaction.

Wes Anderson Trailer from Alex Cornell on Vimeo.

nonlinear
Originally uploaded by dealingwith

I designed Bagarozz (this is version 2.0) to study possibilities offered by ordinary fonts to create illustrations in a simple way through combination / processing of some preset shapes (keys).

In the last few decades, technology has encouraged our fascination with perfection — whether it's six sigma manufacturing, the zero-contaminant clean room, or in its simplest form, "2.0." Given the new uncertainty in the world however, I can see that it is time to question this approach — of over-technologized, over-leveraged, over-advanced living. The next big thing? Dirty hands...

Geekhouse Movie from Geekhouse Bikes on Vimeo.

street poems :: dublin 2009 from ze frank on Vimeo.

It was so 13 year old angst and the tears and the shaky voice just leapt up and out, and the grown ass man hiding inside my brain was like, "Holy shit, you are losing it crybaby."

Notably, Pine Sticks and Phosphorous is the first of Gomez's LPs to be recorded almost entirely in a professional studio. Though Gomez is technically a "solo artist" and writes the songs, parts, and arrangements on his own, a number of talented musicians join him on the record, including Sarah Jaffe, and members of The Polyphonic Spree, Midlake, and Postmarks, giving Pine Sticks and Phosphorous an impressive, full band sound.

...Tweenbots are human-dependent robots that navigate the city with the help of pedestrians they encounter. Rolling at a constant speed, in a straight line, Tweenbots have a destination displayed on a flag, and rely on people they meet to read this flag and to aim them in the right direction to reach their goal.

Given their extreme vulnerability, the vastness of city space, the dangers posed by traffic, suspicion of terrorism, and the possibility that no one would be interested in helping a lost little robot, I initially conceived the Tweenbots as disposable creatures which were more likely to struggle and die in the city than to reach their destination.

...The results were unexpected. Over the course of the following months, throughout numerous missions, the Tweenbots were successful in rolling from their start point to their far-away destination assisted only by strangers. Every time the robot got caught under a park bench, ground futilely against a curb, or became trapped in a pothole, some passerby would always rescue it and send it toward its goal. Never once was a Tweenbot lost or damaged.

...The Tweenbot's unexpected presence in the city created an unfolding narrative that spoke not simply to the vastness of city space and to the journey of a human-assisted robot, but also to the power of a simple technological object to create a complex network powered by human intelligence and asynchronous interactions.

First on Saturday we trained it downtown for our customary bacon and pancakes at Cindi's.

Then on Sunday we had french toast at home, then drove down to Deep Ellum with friends for the arts festival there.

Thanks to everyone who hung out and had so much fun with us!

Cast: Daniel Miller

The foundational basis for the project goes well beyond replacing real graffiti as an art form. Moreover, WiiSpray
is to be seen as an interface to give graffiti a new virtual level surpassing tactile boundaries of the tangible world.

Synonym Search: If you want to search not only for your search term but also for its synonyms, place the tilde sign (~) immediately in front of your search term.

Fill in the Blank: Sometimes the best way to ask a question is to get Google to ‘fill in the blank’ by adding an asterisk (*) at the part of the sentence or question that you want finished into the Google search box.

I'm typing this in Suggest-o-matic (SOM), the very simplified culmination of many years of thinking about content management, or what I refer to as "creative management", that is, how we store and reference all the content we create over the course of a life.

Right now, SOM is mostly like an automated reference librarian, who looks over your shoulder as you're writing your paper and suggests things out on the interwebs that might have to do with what you're writing about.

This is its very first iteration, what I am calling a 0.1 protoype ...my intentions for the future are:

• create multiple links for any given query (right now it can only automatically create one link based on what you've clipped from your query)


• improving on the UI


• ability to favor any number of site searches (I'm most interested in searching my old content for articles, images, etc. that I might have already created on the subjects)


• an automatic post-to-my-blog-or-whatever dealio


• a run-on-any-page, white box + selected text Suggest-o-matic


• serious natural language chops, so that special syntax is no longer needed to fire off a suggestion


• serious AI on results, so that SOM can sort and manage the relative links automatically for you

My former boss, Jim Fawcette, used to say that if you asked a group of Porsche owners what they wanted they’d tell you things like “smoother ride, more trunk space, more leg room, etc.” He’d then say “well, they just designed a Volvo.”

Tim Berners-Lee returned to the birthplace of his invention today, 20 years after submitting his paper ‘Information Management: A Proposal’ to his boss Mike Sendall. By writing the words ‘Vague, but exciting’ on the document’s cover, and giving Berners-Lee the go-ahead to continue, Sendall was signing into existence the information revolution of our times: the World Wide Web. In September of the following year, Berners-Lee took delivery of a computer called a NeXT cube, and by December the Web was up and running

The web site of Branislav Kropilak now features larger scale images of the beautiful parking garages series, and the stunning billboards series of photographs.

...I am increasingly becoming convinced that there is more truth in these 'found' architectures than any of the works that feature in contemporary architectural magazines...these images invite us to consider the signs themselves as pure structure, signifying nothing but themselves.

Cast: Daniel Miller

Cast: Daniel Miller

Yes it's true, the new EP is (mostly) a lot more happy and positive than what you might be used to from the Daniel Miller / Johnny Citizen camp!

The tune providing the soundtrack here is called "What Am I Supposed to Do?"

Cast: Daniel Miller

The new digital EP from Daniel Miller aka Johnny Citizen is coming, March of 2009.

"l'objet petit a"

Look for it available for download on a website near a browser near you.

stay tuned here, or johnnycitizen.com, or danielsjourney.com

a-bomb footage PD from gutenberg.org

(The song is called "4 a.m. at Charles de Gaulle (Airport)" and this is the pre-mastered version...)

Cast: Daniel Miller

• Edward Tufte ...the guru of Information Design
• Data Visualization: Modern Approaches on Smashing Magazine
• flowingdata.com ..."FlowingData explores how designers, statisticians, and computer scientists are using data to understand ourselves better – mainly through data visualization."
• A friend pointed me to this portfolio (Scroll down to "experimental".)
• This guy is getting a lot of press lately
• and of course don’t forget about indexed
• via one of the above: these look yummy
• BIG tree maps

These all came across my desk in the last week—something about attention and having attended the Tufte seminar Monday—and I thought I would catalog them here and share…

Brothers and sisters, we are gathered here today to mourn the death of Story. As you may have heard, it's kaput—or, at the very least, terminally ill, wracked by videogames, wikis, recaps, talkbacks, YouTube, ADD, and the rise of a multiplatform, multipolar, mashup-media culture. Hollywood, vendor of Story in its most denatured form, is most at risk: The film industry is slowly but steadily being forced to part with quaint artifacts like the "hero's journey," Joseph Campbell's so-called Monomyth. (Which is just so ... well ... mono.)

Last night I promised a trip on the train to Plano (a huge hit the last time we did the same thing a couple months ago), and so after coffee and train schedule checking, off we went. I had more/better footage from the playground (the kid is athletic and fearless) but apparently the wind was making me shake like an addict or something. I was a little disappointed.

Music is She & Him, "Why Do You Let Me Stay Here?" not so much for the lyrics as the music, and it happened to be the same length as the (already edited) video

Cast: Daniel Miller

Happy New Year. We have a surprise.

Cast: Daniel Miller

Fanny be tender with my love

Cast: Daniel Miller

I scored it with the song that was playing in the background, "Black Like Me" by Spoon

Cast: Daniel Miller

trying out the new Flip I got for Christmas

Cast: Daniel Miller

When you download the app you can play one of three games (YouCatch, Roads of San Francisco, City Race Munich) or design your own. In Roads of San Francisco, for instance, you have to go around the city picking up clues. When you get to a destination, a text or picture message tells you where to go next. It is a Scavenger Hunt with a story line. You can also design your own Scavenger Hunt games and play them with large groups of people.

Another game that comes with JOYity, YouCatch, is a version of Manhunt. Players in the same city sign up for a game. Everyone acts as both hunter and hunted at the same time. The game assigns you a player that you are hunting, while assigning you to someone else as a victim. Everyone’s location is periodically flashed on the map. When you get within 25 feet of your victim, you press the scrollball on the phone for the kill. But every time you press the button, your location is shown to all the other players as well. The last person standing wins.

As you might imagine, it is hard to keep the 4-year-old away when trying to do stuff on the computer, and the we-can-record-stuff precedent has been set already. :)

Cast: Daniel Miller

This one was a little bit longer in the writing, but shorter in the making (the TAG made me record it, again just on the iSight {in case that wasn't obvious}, while she sleeps on the couch). Partly written with the help of my Twitter community, finished just before recording. The "Peanut Butter Game" is a nightly ritual in our house, where we see what gross things we can pair with peanut butter. The lists are endless, the song only touches on a couple in the second verse (anyone who knows about my band-aid phobia knows how hard it was for me to sing that line)! The song came about at the genesis of the game, and primarily consisted of the last verse, as we tried to get the kid to go to sleep.

Cast: Daniel Miller

Penn (penn.carissabyers.com/) is 4 years old. A girl at his school, Perla, makes fun of him. Written and recorded on the iSight in about 5 minutes.

Cast: Daniel Miller

Seeing how the lip syncing might work. He was too preoccupied with seeing himself on screen... :)

Cast: Daniel Miller

Cast: Daniel Miller

Quick promo video for Sugarfilled, the new Dallas-based identity, design, photography, and web production house.

Cast: Daniel Miller

What we do when we're unemployed

Cast: Daniel Miller

Tom Conlon performing "Birds Fly" live in College Station, Texas, and talking about the making of Monster With Flower (the record with "Birds Fly"), living in Nashville, and moving back Massachusetts.

Cast: Daniel Miller

Footage from Drew Cavin. Audio from performance and interview from later that evening.

Cast: Daniel Miller

Video by Sherry Smith
Editing by Daniel Miller

Cast: Daniel Miller

Video by Sherry Smith
Editing by Daniel Miller

Cast: Daniel Miller

Video by Sherry Smith
Editing by Daniel Miller

Cast: Daniel Miller

A short story from Tom Conlon about how his dog Roadie once posed as a seeing-eye dog.

Cast: Daniel Miller

Tom Conlon live in College Station, TX, October 2007.

Cast: Daniel Miller

Tom Conlon live in College Station, TX, October 2007. For the full audio from this show visit dealingwith.livejournal.com/645122.html

Cast: Daniel Miller