I’ve been really busy at work lately, feverishly working on a year-long project that is being shoe-horned into the last few weeks of my employment. We’re working with a design firm to design the interactions and visuals of the site, and I’m building it. Ugh.

One of the things the designers frequently bring up is “open source”. “There’s an open source package that does that, so it should be easy…” is often the predicate to their argument. Open source also came up during my interview with eyebeam yesterday. The director described the lab and process there as “open source”–they like to distribute information openly and freely. Sounds good!

While I agree with many of the philosophies of open source (but not the elitism), I am now starting to shudder when I hear the term. First, the designers just don’t understand how software works. They specify many rich (i.e. AJAX, confirm dialogs, visually rich UI, etc.) interactions–open source packages are usually ugly. Usually. One can *easily* spend as much time required to rewrite a piece of functionality, integrating and modifying an open source package to do the same task up to specification. Open source does not mean something’s been “done”. Open source packages are more like software libraries than finished projects–they provide handy routines/modules, but aren’t usually finished in and of themselves. Unless you are okay with the usually conservative, sometimes useless default UIs and settings they “ship” with.

Hearing the words “open source” from eyebeam made my eyes roll because it’s now also become a synonym for freely, publicly disseminated anything. And I’m not really arguing with that part of it, nor the philosophy behind it. But eyebeam doesn’t open source everything they make, as promised. Take their WaveBubble project (essentially a cellular phone jammer) for instance (here or here). I know it’s illegal, but I want to build one. Lady Ada (the author) says the project will “never be available as a kit due to FCC regulations”. Okay. But I still want to build one. Schematic, please? How about a parts list? I’m pretty technically savvy (not with electronics, granted), but I can’t get the information.

Like most “open source” projects, maybe I’m not in the “committer’s club”, but I ask, “does anybody have the ‘open source’?”

Yesterday, Alex and I went to go see B.I.K.E. at Pittsburgh Filmmakers. The night started out strangely–outside of Filmmakers, there was a hoarde of bikers. At least 30 to 40. We thought they would come into the show, and as it got closer and closer to show time, we were both sure the bikers would come in “fashionably late”. But they never came.

And the movie itself? It was pretty bad. I think my “favorite” part was when Conrad Carlson, who is the “vice president”(?) of the Black Label NYC group, got into his Range Rover to drive to Minneapolis in order to meet with the other members of Black Label at their national event. Honestly, I was waiting for them to explain that they rented a Range Rover to make a statement about waste and oil consumption (two of their “issues”). But it never came–Conrad actually owns a Range Rover. And his friend drove a Mercedes there.

Not only did the movie leave a lot to be technically desired (the cinematography was awful), but the plot was similarly poor. The movie follows the co-director as he strives to gain acceptance into Black Label after his junkie girlfriend breaks up with him for somebody she met at rehab. Now, I feel sorry for the guy in regards to his emotional pain, but I’m not worried about their well being. They all seem pretty well off: driving expensive cars, playing in a warehouse in New York City, flying to Amsterdam for jousting events, and using conventional emergency services when they get hurt doing stupid things.

I’m not sure who’s wasting more: “conventional” people who “drive and consume”, or those with financial support that allows them to “waste” their younger years falling off bikes, getting high and performing other stupid stunts that keep them in the emergency room (and from growing up).

Doyle asks in New York Times article, “Who else is going to go work out in the desert for cheap for six weeks?” Well, not me. I have one of those pesky middle-class things called a “job”.

When I started using WordPress for webopticon.com, I had a hard time finding a Flickr plugin that didn’t download all the photos onto my server, have them appear in a separate gallery, or otherwise look totally kitsch. I just wanted something simple. I wanted thumbnails to show, and I wanted to be able to put them “inline” in my posts. Keep the photos and discussion on Flickr, as far as I’m concerned. I couldn’t find anybody to share my design goals.

My solution was to write my own plugin. You can download here:

UPDATE: Please use the page on wordpress.org to download all new versions!

Example of the plugin “in action” (with my settings, anyway–yours can vary):

I’ve been reading some “critical theory” and “media studies” books while here at Banff, and yesterday I decided to do some surfing on the Intermedianetweb about critical theory and postmodernism. Honestly, I wanted to learn more about the people and language cited/used, as I found it quite cumbersome (for me) to understand what people were talking about here. Instead of finding that, however, I noticed there is a big debate on its value and legitimacy. Richard Dawkins even gets in on the debate, and quite harshly takes sides.

I have to admit, for all the talk about Marxism, hegemony and power structures, the language of theory is quite a power structure itself. I’m finding it hard to tell what people here at Banff are actually talking about–I have to frequently remind myself that I’m an intelligent person; at times I just feel so stupid here. It’s as if people are speaking another language. I wonder why we can’t just talk about our ideas in plain English, to make them accessible to the “proletariat” of people like me who are not so blessed with the “wealth” of theory.

Reading Wikipedia, I read that philosophers such as Strauss intended to write esoterically in order to cause readers to stop and think; interpreting slowly instead of jumping to action. Perhaps the same use of cumbersome language continues today in theory, but I feel the whole field could be moved along much faster if it wasn’t so damn hard to understand what people are actually arguing! This goal of obfuscation is just so different from those I was taught in management and design: considering your audience, and coming to their level…

Today, I got to see two art projects at the Banff Centre. One was called “tracklines”, a project of the mobile media lab here at Banff. The other was called, “Dead In Iraq” by Joe DeLappe (who is also my roommate)

Tracklines is a “walkumentary” (their words) of the geology of the Hoodoo trail, delivered through a cellular phone and GPS receiver pair. I thought this was clearly technology for technology’s sake–what additional value did the cellular phone bring to the equation? Why not just use a map, paper cards or a cassette tape? The added value of the GPS (not being restricted to discrete, detectable waypoints on the trail) was totally unused–the map on the phone, for instance, didn’t show you where you were on the trail. Or how to get back on the trail if you got off. Honestly, I thought the project could have made better use of the technology, and delivered a better experience to the user if they would have user-tested this. It seems there are some glaring omissions.

Joe’s work is a critique of America’s Army, the US Army produced (and taxpayer funded!) videogame, distributed free on the Intermedianetweb. Joe systematically types in the names of the soldiers killed in Iraq into the game–much to the other player’s dismay. They often insult him or ask him to stop, providing interesting insight into the psychology of the typical AA player. Some tell him to keep going or thank him; there are people who recognize the real world isn’t a game. Anyway, check out his website for more.