Some of my favorite sites — like Instructables, xkcd and Boing Boing — and others I use all the time — like YouTube and Wikipedia — are a product of and are only possible in an open internet that promotes the free exchange of knowledge.

Even a tiny site like mine is only possible in a world where I’m not in legal jeopardy if I link to a site anywhere online that has any links to copyright infringement (how could I possibly police that?).

Legislation currently pending in the US congress — H.R.3261 “Stop Online Piracy Act” (SOPA) and S.968 “PROTECT IP” (PIPA) — threaten, at a minimum, to significantly undermine our (that’s all of us on the web, people) ability to communicate with each other and encourage collaborative learning through linking to and direct sharing of resources and ideas. At worst, some of our favorite websites could disappear from the web without warning, and without due process of law.

So PLEASE take just a minute to contact your representatives in congress. For more information about what these bills could mean for the internet, there are more resources over at the EFF.

Thanks!

Amanda Hocking is that girl you’ve heard about, that 26-year-old who’s made about $2 million selling her self-published books on Amazon. She also recently signed a four-book deal with St. Martin’s Press for another $2 million (reportedly), which is why she was interviewed in NYTimes Magazine last week. (I’m not going to bother with a link to that story because it’s behind the paywall — I read it in hardcopy.)

So the most interesting piece of the interview were her comments about literary versus pop writing. Hocking greatly respects literary writers and used to try to write in that genre (and yes, I’m calling it a genre), until her friend/assistant Eric told her “these books you’re writing aren’t you.”She then began writing the more light-hearted , action-packed, romance-laced novels that have been so popular. This is the interesting comment she makes about the difference between this (her) sort of writing and literary work:

Theirs [e.g., Vonnegut] are not actually character-driven, they’re not books about people. People are just used to explain an idea. And my books are about people — who might happen to have ideas.

How many times have you heard/read/said that the difference between literary and pop fiction is that the former are character-driven and the latter are plot-driven? And yet she’s absolutely right, isn’t she? You might disagree with me, arguing that theme/idea is secondary and character primary in so-called literature, but I think the best you’d be able to prove is equality.

Now, I don’t have a problem with this because I like to read fiction that presents complex ideas through the mouths of interesting characters living difficult lives. But I also enjoy fiction about interesting characters thrown into difficult situations requiring dramatic reaction without any greater theme presented than love conquers all or friends forever whatever. And okay, yes, those are themes/ideas, but you have to admit they’re general and common enough that they’re playing a flat third fiddle to character and plot.

What’s the point here? I have a strong tendency to think of an idea first, then the characters come to me with plot arriving late to the party like it’s some kind of diva. But I’m working on a book now where it’s very much the other way around — the main character and her voice came first, very strongly, with plot galloping in right behind her. But because I’m so used to working the first way, I’ve been slowing myself down, backstepping, trying to cram in some big ideas. Hocking’s comment made me realize that I need to go back to what I was doing initially; I need to let go of the big themes and let the story spool out. The big themes will show themselves. And if they don’t? That’s what revision’s for, right?

Actually, first I was upset that I didn’t already know — it’s Thursday, which means the week is almost over — and then I got excited. I went to several robot sites and read about the latest advances, watched a number of videos, and it wasn’t until about 6pm that I discovered it’s NOT National Robotics Week. In fact, the second annual National Robotics Week doesn’t happen until April 9-17.

Am I too dumb to be interested in robotics? I think we should ask Watson because there’s no way he has enough data to draw a conclusion. Otherwise the verdict might be highly unflattering for me.

At least I spent some time today looking at robotics. And in honor of the impending fun-osity of all things artificially intelligent and robotical — humanoid, industrial, medical, even military — here are a few links: Instructables Robot Contest; IEEE Spectrum – Robotics; and Crabfu, my absolute favorite site today. This video is why…

Bend over, come closer… is there a cool breeze whistling down your butt crack? Is the world jingling its pockets for change to stick in your coin slot? Then I have the Instructable for you: the coin slot detector.

Multimedia artist Amy Khoshbin has combined a Lilypad Arduino, vibrating motor and photoresistor to solve the (hopefully not sticky) problem of plumbercrackitis. The photoresistor measures the amount of light beaming down your foul line. If there’s light, we’ve got visual contact and the vibrating motor is triggered. Time to pull it up, baby!

Unnecessary you say? Just plain silly? The waste of a perfectly good microcontroller which ought better expend its cleverness to flash a cheerful sorority of bright whites?

Oh, I beg to disagree, my friends, lest you find a photo of your broad smile Flickring for all to see.

NOTE: I switched out computers this weekend and Adobe is not allowing me to reinstall CS2 (yes, I’m still using 2). So no pics this week because I’m Photoshop-less.

It’s now been an entire week away from TEI and I must admit the glow is starting to fade as the day-to-day toils of life clog my mind. But here are some great links to take me back to it all:

TUI Blog by form+zweck
Written mainly by Christian Zöllner, one of the creators of the SMSlingshot which was demoed at TEI (it allows you to type in a message then slingshot it onto a wall).

Groove Mechanic: TEI Demo Roundup
This blog by Abel Allison, one of the creators of the TessalTable, offers another nice roundup of the demos.

Technology Review: Malleable Maps, Artistic Robots and Bubble Interfaces
Videos of five of the demos — 3-D Responsive Map, Interactive Art Cobots, Tangible Jukebox (very cool), Augmented Reality Pattern Table (very very cool), Soap Bubble Interface (see my video from last week). Unfortunately, the vids are narrated (oddly) by a monotone voice that makes what’s being described sound almost boring.

Humanism at the MIT Media Lab’s TEI Conference??!
Last but not least, Jon Kolko looks back at the conference and comes up with the conclusion that “the geeks are begging for design.”

KITS

Below are a few kits available from people who gave related workshops at TEI. I would have loved to have taken these workshops, but we could choose only one. Oh well, at least I can pretend to conduct my own pseudo-workshop at home. And you can, too.

Fabric Sensor Kits
Hannah Perner-Wilson is currently a grad student in MIT’s High-Low Tech group (read this interview with Hannah from Fashioning Technology). She held a workshop at TEI on making textile sensors from scratch.

Fritzing
Sounds like fun, doesn’t it? Fritzing is open source software that helps non-technical designers move from physical prototype to actual product: creating a printed circuit board with the appropriate circuit and desired shape.

Vital Threads Biofeedback Apparel
Sean Montgomery is a recent neuroscience PhD who likes to stand out in a crowd. I had a blast meeting him at TEI and seeing his devices in person. On this site, you can get kits for his Truth Wristband (turns from blue to red as the wearer becomes aroused) and Heart-felt Apparel (detects your heart beat and displays it as a pulsing LED heart on your t-shirt).

Top 30 Wiimote Hacks
I also missed the Wiimote Hackery workshop and the presenters — Amanda Wiiliams and Daniela Rosner — don’t have any kits. But Wiimotes are crazy-easy to hack, so here are Hack N Mod‘s top 30 Wiimote hacks (my favorite is #2 Wiimote Controlled Lawn Mower).

Have fun hacking and don’t forget — if you’re not pulling your hair out at some point in the making, you must be doing too many things right.

TEI Studios from jay silver on Vimeo.

So I went to the TEI Conference last week and had a fantastic time — learning, meeting people, having braingasmic fun. This conference concerns itself with the interlinking of the digital and physical worlds through tangible interfaces, whole-body interaction and interactive surfaces.

There were about 230 attendees from around the world and everyone was brilliant, accomplished and collaborative. Although English was the lingua franca, people were gabbing in German, Japanese, Portuguese, Swedish, Chinese (just to name a few) — a refreshing breeze through my Brocas since I live in very white Vermont.

Of course, right off the bat, I went to the wrong building. Somehow I didn’t know that MIT has built a brand new Media Lab building, a cross between an Apple store and Kubrick’s 2001 — very white with lots of glass, a floor-to-ceiling central atrium with wrap-around labs and walkways criss-crossing from one side to the other. Apparently I have no sense of direction at all whatsoever, because the second I was off the conference floor I was lost. (Though quite happily so.)

I had planned to tweet during the papers, but I couldn’t get past the rudeness of having a computer in my lap while someone’s presenting. I know from first-hand experience that it’s awful to look out at an audience and not find anyone looking back at you. And I didn’t tweet from the hotel because you had to pay for wifi, which I refused to do (yes, I’m cheap).

However, I did shoot a few videos, and this week’s Geek includes a couple that describe the breadth of the work shown at the conference.

The Soft and the Hard

We all use interfaces every day — our phones, microwaves, light switches, cars. We push a button, click a mouse, swipe a finger. We expect them to be where they always are which is, in fact, considered to be good design.

However, what if an interface is temporary, ephemeral? Do we really need to know where it is all the time if we know what it is? And what if the interface requires great care in its handling? Does this make it more precious or the work it accomplishes more dear? These are just a few of the questions that come to mind with the work of Tanja Doring, an integration of art and technology:

With Soumitra Bhat, however, we have a lovely synthesis of music, technology and social impact. He has created TouchTone, an electronic musical instrument for children with cerebral palsy. It’s a clever way of giving these children access to the joy and therapeutic benefits of making music. Normally, their limited physical abilities make it impossible for them to play a musical instrument.

These two innovations describe the breadth of work presented at the conference — from concrete applications of interaction design to more abstract ideas of how we might use the various properties of physical objects in combination with either current or projected computational and/or electronic capabilities.

Stay tuned for more next week — workshops (and kits). The video at the top is just a tease of how cool they were.

Check out her interview with the band Care Bears on Fire, three twelve year olds who rock it out.

LINKS:
- Smart Girls at the Party