fisharepeopletoo

One For Sorrow

Keep It Decent

A lot of drab written posts recently, and what I really need here is a nice camera phone photo to make this page a bit easier on the eye.

Unfortunately my moblogging super powers have been a bit weak recently.

So until I come across some "fleeting and unexpected moments of surprise, beauty and adoration in the everyday" please use this space to imagine whatever you'd like.

Walk The Walk

The Stadschromosomen book is available to download in English from here.

It's a really enjoyable and easy to read stroll around Antwerp, through dozens of SMS "geo-annotations" sent to Stadschromosomen this summer by the people of the city.

The book was marvelously "written" by Han Van der Vegt, who pulls the individual messages together to make a story-a-city-wrote-to-itself.

Again, the Stadschromosomen book shows how important it is to remember that what we're trying to do is design systems that allow a process of creation.

Why Are del.icio.us Tags So Boring?

Love-in-idleness is a folk name for a European herb from which pansies are derived.

It is also known as Jack-jump-up-and-kiss-me, heart's-ease, cuddle me, kiss-her-in-the-buttery, and meet-me-in-the-entry.

Across Europe it probably has dozens of other local names.

I came across it in Edward Thomas's 1917 poem Lob, but Shakespeare mentions it in Midsummer Night's Dream and before that it's in A New Herball, or Historie of Plants: Wherein is contained the whole discourse and perfect description of all sorts of Herbes and Plants, here.

In contrast to such poetic names for a common flower, the names of the popular del.icio.us tags are functional and boring.

Why? (And this isn't a criticism of del.icio.us)

Maybe because folk names like love-in-idleness are local, whereas del.icio.us tags are global?

I Heart GeoNotes

For those of us in the Official GeoNotes Fan Club, here's Petra Fagerberg's page.

*Swoon*

"What is a place? Allowing users to name and define places." looks interesting.

I found the link on Networked_Performance.

Paper Planes

I wrote a position paper for an International Workshop Series on RFID.

In Tokyo.

It got accepted, and I nearly managed to wangle enough money to go and present it.

If anyone is interested in the slightly odd subject of RFID, "peer to peer surveillance" and Common Pool Resources, the paper is on the workshop website here.

Down at the bottom under "Special Contribution".

"Special" as in stuck-at-home-and-not-effing-well-in-Tokyo.

Geez Louise

I really like GeoNotes, which I found on Mauro Cherubini's Weblog, and read about in detail here.

It's got so much good stuff. It lets users name places, it uses conversation and noticeboard metaphors, and not a map to be seen.

They also make what I think is a very good and very useful decision, which is to put a spatial restriction on posting and reading - you can only post and read when you're in a place, not remotely online.

Even in their little trial, something great happened. People started naming imaginary places in real locations - "Floor 42" in a ten story building - in order to put in messages for their own group of friends.

Isn't that wonderful. It seems so obvious after the fact, but you would never have been able to think that up beforehand. It emerged because their system is so good, it allows for creation.

Toe To Toe

"Dreyfus emphasises risk and challenge as being fundamental to presence, and lacking in telepresence."

From a summary of a book called On The Internet by Hubert Dreyfus which I found on the Random Etc weblog.

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