Bloggers on Ringleader of the Tormentors

• Permanent Records: I Just Want To See The Boy Happy
  from Confessions of a Pop Fan
  
  
• Defending Morrissey (although he scarcely needs it)
  from tired of london

 

The House Next Door

A great friend of mine has kicked off his own blog.

The House Next Door

He is a film and television critic for the NY Press and the New Jersey Star-Ledger. More importantly, he can write about any topic with a clear voice and mind.

This may be enough of a catalyst to get me kick-started with Elliptic again.

Don't call it a comeback...

Well,

I have not followed through on my promise to revive this place, but it is time to make ammends. The blog has been a bit barren these past few months because I have been pulled in by some other interests -- some worthwhile, some not so much.

Information Architecture Summit 2005
I attended this summit in Montreal recently. The bulk of the presentations were, either, focused on covering some of the fundamentals that I already had a strong background in or served to confirm that some of my undertakings at the hospital are in the right path.  There were, however, three excellent sessions:

Sorting out Social Classification
A traditional task for people working in any mode of content cataloguing, indexing and retrieval involves creating a categorization scheme and labels designed to assist the task of finding the relevant content as quickly as possible. This involved the usage of controlled vocabularies and hierarchical structures that, either, relied on existing standards or were created to address internal needs (taxonomies).

As the amount and availability of content (especially digital content) has increased dramatically, the job of cataloguing, indexing and retrieving has increased in complexity. In addition to this, a wider range of people now have the tools to search for content readily available. This has spawned the creation of tools allowing anyone to tag, label and organize content they find with their own vocabulary and organization scheme. In essence, these tools allow people to create their own "folksonomies" in order to catalog, index and retrieve according to their own individual needs.

The current debate in the field has to do with the expected tension that ensues -- identifying what is gained when you allow organic classification and tagging of content and what is lost when you allow too much of this organic growth to occur without appropriate control. The field is trying to find the appropriate balance.

For an example of an application allowing its users to tag, index and categorize freely, take a look at Flickr.

Content Packaging and Metadata: A Change in the Approach to Content Production
This presentation by the BBC gave us a preview of how the application of metadata on digital television and radio programming will alter the ways we interact with such multimedia programming. In essence, the BBC is working to create a granular metadata system that would allow users greater control over the choice and access of programming.

If you are not too crazy about a certain television program that includes several narrative threads within it but are intrigued by one of those threads, you could, under this proposed system, search and isolate the characters and narrative threads you are interested in and simply access those. So, if you hate Saturday Night Live, for instance, but have a predilection for Will Ferrell characters, you could simply separate the wheat from the chaff and extract what you need, on-demand. TiVo on crack.

Traversing the Corporate Web: IA and Taxonomy at IBM
The rare thing: a presentation that demonstrates how the relatively academic concepts of a controlled vocabulary, taxonomy and metadata have been applied and produced tangible results for a sizeable group of users. The panel was not stingy or reticent showing details of their implementation -- a rare peek behind the curtain. You can find this presentation at Subway Love.

What does a gaggle of information architects look like? A sampling can be seen here.

World of Warcraft
It seems that there is one game every year that sticks its hooks into me and won't let go until it drains out of my system. This year's winner is World of Warcraft. If you play this game, why don't you drop by, say "hi" and try an intervention?

Character:  Morrissey
Race:  Night Elf
Class: Druid
Level: 57
Guild: Gnomeland Security
Server: Eonar

Help me....

Philadelphia Bloggers cont.

Since I have been such a slacker at keeping the blog updated, I though I'd post a fresh list of Philadelphia bloggers to keep you occupied until I get my act together.

• A Smoke-Filled Room
  
• Fables of the Reconstruction
• artblog
• Blankbaby
• PhillyLunchBox

Not too sound completely self-obsessed, but I promise to spark this blog up a bit in the near future.

Second Life economy

I had not logged in to Second Life in about six months or so and I recently came back to see what was going on. I ended up buying new land near the waterfront, building a home on it, being seduced by the recently opened "snowy sims" a week later, buying snowy land, building another house there and selling the initial waterfront land.

The interesting aspect of all this activity is that:

• Given the accumulation of a weekly stipend over six months,
• Given that I sold the land I bought for a 20% markup, and
• Given that the currency exchange rate for Lindens has been skyrocketing,

it looks as if I have made a real world profit from playing the game.

I did not intend to join this game with an eye toward real world profiteering, but it has happened that way. Well, at least until this point. As quarterly fees and monthly land-use fees kick in, I will probably break even within the next three months or so unless I engage in additional commercial / financial operations.

| New World Notes |
| Second Edition |
| "The Philosophy of Second Life: The Bodega Dialogues" |
| USA Today on Second Life |

Philadelphia Bloggers

Though I'd like to think that Elliptic Blog is at the center of the universe, it is good to take note of other blogs and forums that are also concerned with living in Philadelphia. Here are a few to take note of:

Good Grief!: A blog from "a 'senior business intelligence analyst' who works at a Philadelphia-area academic hospital."

Phillyblog.com: Though it hosts multiple blogs, the current and interesting activity happens in the Forum.

Philly Future: A blog that compiles and presents headlines and links from blogs and sites that deal with Philadelphia.

If you are familiar with other ones I should know about, please drop a comment about it.

Blogs and Sites

Some blogs and sites of note:

• Noam Chomsky's newly-begun blog: Turning the Tide.
• D. Keith Robinson's Asterisk*: a blog about web design and architecture.
• Adbusters' site: with a fun Flash guide to the media landscape.
• Donald Rumsfeld video at MoveOn.org.

Stick it to the Hipster!

| Ikeaphobia and its discontents |

Say It Ain't So!

Joe K. at OrangeCone.com, has put up a post about where the next "cool place" will emerge. Examples of previous cool places are: "Picasso's Paris, Weimar Berlin, Beatnick San Francisco, Swinging London, Post-Wall Berlin and dotcom San Francisco."

So what happens next? I'm betting that the movement moves back out to the suburbs. New Urbanism, which has been simmering for 20 years, seems to be gathering steam and, frankly, it's not because people are suddenly realizing how much more sense it makes; I think developers are realizing that there's a growing market for a new suburban Bohemia, a brand new, prefab, simulated, yet comfortable environment that symbolically links the values of the urban creative class to the manufacturing technology of the burbs.

Oh God. No. Please say it ain't so, Joe!

| Orange Cone: Manufactured Bohemia |

Is WiFi / Bandwidth Property?

Mike Kuniavsky at Orange Cone has whipped up an interesting post on bandwidth, WiFi and the concepts of ownership and property.

People don't have a framework within which to evaluate the pros and cons of sharing bandwidth with strangers--what does it mean to me if someone uses some of the bits I'm paying for? So they retreat to a concept they understand, a mapping of their relationship to their property to their bandwidth. I'm not comfortable letting someone I don't know set up their lawn chair on my front lawn, even if it doesn't hurt me or my lawn, so why should I let them freeload on my bandwidth? Or, at least, that's how I feel the thinking goes.

Take a look, leave a comment -- I did.

Fellow IAs

Here are some links to sites / blogs of other folks that practice information architecture.

Peter Merholz - information architect for Adaptive Path in San Francisco.

Orange Cone - blog kept by Mike Kuniavsky. He is also a member of Adaptive Path and author of Observing the User Experience.

InfoDesign: Understanding by Design - ''...is dedicated to the growth and improvement of the information and experience industries through the provision of a centralized online resource that serves all interested audiences. Launched in 2004, the site will continually evolve to meet the needs and desires of its participants. 'InfoDesign: Understanding by Design' is a non-profit informational resource." A site maintained by Peter J. Bogaards.

Noise Between Stations - Victor Lombardi's personal weblog. He is an information architect in NYC.

Bag Jones

I recently saw a beautifully designed briefcase from Nava Design at Fosters Urban Homeware down the street. I did a double-take, thought about getting it, and then simply moved on without it. Sure enough, it disappeared later that day and I cannot find a place on the Internet that has the exact model. Argh!

I can find the canvas versions, but not the brown "ecoleather" version that struck my fancy. Here are the blah midnight blue versions of the Cube Box and the Cube Brief -- not sure which one to get yet.

Here are some links to slake your thirst:

City Comforts Blog - A blog about "cities, architecture, the 'new urbanism,' real estate, historic preservation, urban design, land use law, landscape, transport etc etc from a mildly libertarian stance."

Zach Korb's "an affair with urban policy" - Excellent blog about urban affairs. Don't ignore the Photography section.

Walnut Street (between Front and 2nd St.) - A couple of developments are in the works in this block: the Bookbinders renovation and a residential condominium building at 101 Walnut.

What to do about links?

I've been debating what to do with the list of sites and blogs that I tend to visit often. Should I...

(a) add a sidebar element with a semi-permanent list that changes every so often, or
(b) post entries with links that I discover every so often?

Well, since none of you drop comments in here and offer your views, I have decided to opt for (b) and that's that. With that out of the way....

Gizmodo - Gizmodo is an online review dedicated to gadgets, gizmos, and cutting-edge consumer electronics.

purse lip square jaw - Blog written by a technology researcher, ethnographer & designer, inhabitant of Ottawa in the Land of Ice & Snow, lover of eggplant and asparagus, the music of Godspeed You Black Emperor! and Mogwai, strange places, brilliant & otherwise hardcore people.

IAMScruelty.com - Great. Now I have to wean Bogie and Squid to some other brand and once they get used to it and grow to tolerate it -- a new cruelty scandal will crop up with that brand...sigh.

Boxes and Arrows - Should give you a sense of the kinds of issues and projects I'm involved with as an Information Architect.

Until the next installment!

longpauses.com

One of these days, I'll spend enough time to produce something as nice as longpauses.com. Until then, you folks will have to deal with this, somewhat skeletal, template-reliant interface.

It's a good place -- especially the "films" area.

Catching up...

It's been a while, I know. Let's catch up:

Philadelphia
I've lived here for 5 years now and my internal debate between the "keep-on-renting" and "time-to-buy" sides has intensified. A few years back, I was not sure whether I would commit to a long-term span of living in this city, but through a combination of inertia and some conscious decision-making, it seems that a long-term stay is not in the realm of the fantastic anymore.

Still am not sold on the so-called benefits of ownership -- though the strongest argument I heard is that paying a mortgage should be seen as paying for the right to make a future profit (assuming house prices go up, of course). I've decided to give it one more year and then I'll make the decision.

The city feels like a well-kept secret -- affordable, intriguing, gritty and buzzing with potential future development. Let's see.

Philadelphia 76ers
Well, if I can't commit to home ownership, at least I can commit to a season ticket for the Sixers' 2003-2004 season. New coach (Randy Ayers) and a new offensive threat (Glenn Robinson). I feel optimistic about the upcoming season -- Ayers will allow players to follow their natural tendencies and run the floor and Robinson may be that legitimate 2nd scoring option (finally!). Then again, optimism about a sports team that ends up being misguided is far too common in this town.

EllipticBlog
This has been dormant for a while. I think I need to change its tone and purpose. Instead of only being a collection of relatively serious ruminations, I will open it up and allow shorter, more frequent entries. Open it up to some friends and let them post comments. Make it a more dynamic place. Let's see.

Also, I want to add more photography into the Blog. Will need to carry the Nikon CoolPix 4500 with me often.