Betaville

Betaville ..."is an open-source multiplayer environment for real cities, in which ideas for new works of public art, architecture, urban design, and development can be shared, discussed, tweaked, and brought to maturity in context, and with the kind of broad participation people take for granted in open source software development..."

collaborative design, effective design before, during the design process...not just after.


Urban Omnibus interview

Power Point - shooting bullets

We Have Met the Enemy and He Is PowerPoint:
By ELISABETH BUMILLER
New York Times

 I have always been told the linearity of thought that powerpoint enforces can limit your thinking process and understanding of complex systems. This is not so reassuring that the people need the most clarity have discovered the same thing...

UPDATED: article:
"...Great presenters employ the basic narrative techniques used throughout history to connect with audiences and move them to action and new understanding. The presentations that work are not the ones with the most data or the most elaborate charts and graphs; the winners are those with the most compelling and convincing narratives.

We're a distracted, multi-tasking society. So presentations need to lure and re-lure an audience simply to keep their attention. Audiences are looking at the clock or fiddling with their handheld devices throughout a presentation. You don't connect with your audience by throwing information at them -- you do it by taking them on a journey toward your perspective..."

Excerpts: 

“PowerPoint makes us stupid,” Gen. James N. Mattis of the Marine Corps, the Joint Forces commander, said this month at a military conference in North Carolina. (He spoke without PowerPoint.) Brig. Gen. H. R. McMaster, who banned PowerPoint presentations when he led the successful effort to secure the northern Iraqi city of Tal Afar in 2005, followed up at the same conference by likening PowerPoint to an internal threat.

“It’s dangerous because it can create the illusion of understanding and the illusion of control,” General McMaster said in a telephone interview afterward. “Some problems in the world are not bullet-izable.”


In General McMaster’s view, PowerPoint’s worst offense is not a chart like the spaghetti graphic, which was first uncovered by NBC’s Richard Engel, but rigid lists of bullet points (in, say, a presentation on a conflict’s causes) that take no account of interconnected political, economic and ethnic forces. “If you divorce war from all of that, it becomes a targeting exercise,” General McMaster said.


Commanders say that behind all the PowerPoint jokes are serious concerns that the program stifles discussion, critical thinking and thoughtful decision-making. Not least, it ties up junior officers — referred to as PowerPoint Rangers — in the daily preparation of slides, be it for a Joint Staff meeting in Washington or for a platoon leader’s pre-mission combat briefing in a remote pocket of Afghanistan. 

(Thanks Lee!)

 

Cyber Nations

"Cyber Nations is the most popular free persistent browser-based nation simulation game on the Internet. Create a nation and decide how you will rule your people by choosing a government type, a national religion, tax rate and more. Build your nation by purchasing infrastructure to support your citizens, land to expand your borders, technology to increase your effectiveness, military to defend your interests, and develop national improvements and wonders to build your nation according to your choosing.."

Food Traceability

Farm 776: Linking object with landscape...connecting food with its source.

Forging a Hot Link

"Beginning this month, customers who buy its all-purpose whole wheat flour ... can go to findthefarmer .com, enter the lot code printed on the side of the bag, and visit with the company’s farmers and even ask them questions."

other sources:
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2007/04/do_you_know_whe.php

Toy... - Land

http://www.toyotawhynot.com/#/home

(Built) Environment and Landscape used as representation of values, image and business strategy.

I love how they say it all begins with you.

Google's Power Meter

Kicking the smart grid into motion perhaps is the doing of Google, which introduced new software service online that helps homeowners track their energy use. This requires additional hardware that would plug into your main circuit breaker and would "talk" with your computer, downloading your energy patterns. The Google platform would then map it, graphically showing your energy use...thus prompting many to limit and adjust their use...saving money and surges on our energy grid. Google foresees implementing this into a social network interface...your daily energy use on facebook anyone?


related articles:
New York Times
Bits

Virtual Deputies

Virtual Deputies is a new private/public program through the The Texas Border Sheriff's Coalition and BlueServo. In the past several months a network of surveillance cameras have been set up along the Texas/Mexico border. Now in the comfort of your own home, people can log in to the site and partake in the act of spotting illegal aliens with real surveillance video. Operating 24/7, the greater public can now survey and report directly to the Coalition any suspecious activies.

Groups can also form to turn the cameras on their own communities with the local Virtual Neighborhood Watches...

Tracing our Clicks

By monitoring what we google online, can we actually get a better sense of the what the general public are thinking, experiencing and doing?

Leave it to Google itself to find that out. Google Flu Trends for example, within this report taking data from the past four years to show that by identifying key search terms, Google Flu Trends can call a flu outbreak up to 10 days before the CDC an identify it.

From their site:

"Each week, millions of users around the world search for online health information. As you might expect, there are more flu-related searches during flu season, more allergy-related searches during allergy season, and more sunburn-related searches during the summer. You can explore all of these phenomena using Google Trends. But can search query trends provide an accurate, reliable model of real-world phenomena?"

..."real-world phenomena"...

How are our individual actions both virtually and physically understood within a collective?
What kind of "thinking" are we entering into a www database?
What kind of "thinking" could we begin entering into a www database to improve other social, cultural, economic functions?
What is a truly transparent city that can quantify satisfactions? dissatisfactions? qualifications?

image credit: google.org
additional article: new york times

Mapping "Real" America

image link

In this time of heightened political commentary, I never expected it to enter into a blog concerned with urban design. But as we have all come to understand, all things are political. So, it is of great interest to me hearing the Republican vice presidential candidate, Sarah Palin's comments regarding a "real America." And, daring to take it seriously, ask, what is and where is this "real America"


















here is one patch of it


In scouring the internet, I could find no "list" of Palin's speaking engagements, in seeking a literal "road map" of her "real america." The attached images are mostly cartoon satires, but, help to illustrate my inquiry.

What is this conceptual landscape of "real America?" Who or what makes up this identification? Is it based on location? urban form? density? can it be defined architecturally? Or is it census based: education, ethnicity, age, economic tier, religion...?

What images come up for us with the comment of "real America?" With red and blue states, how deep is our identification of the (new?) political landscape of the USA?

Is this "real America" an imaginary (virtual) reality?















image link

Photo City

photosynth link

Not only does the rapid presence of cell phones with camera and video technology help disclose spontaneous acts of something-whatevers occurring all over the world, but new technology's are actually conceiving of new perspectives cities created by those inhabiting them.

Geotagging uses a digital application via cellular triangulation and GPS to encode photos for unlimited possibilities in how we store and view our media. Image anyone with a camera can participate in taking a perspective (photo) of our built (and unbuilt) world, and uploading it to a database for all the world to see.

How can an open system of site positioning urban surveillance serve? How does a database for time, history and perspective of place reevaluate our understanding of identity, culture, geography? and what impact does a "virtual" database of place (accessible thru such devices as iphones and pda's) have on reality?

Additional applications:

ATP Photo Finder
HoudahGeo
Merax Photo Finder
Pharos Tip
Amod AGL3080
Flickr