Future Salon

From You to I. Notes from the Digital Be-In

I was there early enough to see Marc Canter in all his glory and he did very briefly intone: "Der Vogelfaenger", but he said it isn't German Opera as I linked in my Pre-Be-In post. I wanted to write a "sorry I didn't realize" post, but checking online sources, it was written in "Teutsch" as Mozart used to say. First Italian and then translated to German may be true for most of the other Mozart Operas, but not for "Die Zauberfloete". He was living in Vienna, so let's just settle for Austrian Opera.

New Insights on Games and Why We Play Them

I am a bit behind my Future Salon postings lately.

It was a great event with Nicole Lazzaro presenting her game research at Swissnex in San Francisco. I hope we behaved well enough to be allowed back again one of these months :-)

I loved Nicole's slide to the left, were she is talking about Flow a concept introduced by a professor who's name I can't spell and even less pronounce: Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. Flow as the state of mind, when you are so involved in what you are doing at the moment, that you forget time and the thing you do gets effortless. As kids when we are playing games, we have no problem to fall into this state. The slide shows, that the trick is something that is not too easy, but also not too hard.

Disruptive Technology: Linksys WRT54G Linux Router

Wireless ISP anyone? Robert X. Cringely writes in his latest column:

WRT54G with Sveasoft firmware is all you need to become your cul de sac's wireless ISP. Going further, if a bunch of your friends in town had similarly configured WRT54Gs, they could seamlessly work together and put out of business your local telephone company.

PhysicsWeb - Single-electron transistor goes mechanical

PhysicsWeb - Single-electron transistor goes mechanical

Physicists in Germany and the US have made a single-electron transistor that operates using a nanometre-scale vibrating arm.

and it works in room temperature. End of Moore's low not in sight.

Be 13 again?

Ahem, may be not, but tonight the Digital Be-In is happening for the thirteenth time. San Francisco’s original socially-conscious cyberculture happening! they call themselves.

Check out the list of artists and speakers. Marc Canter for sure is always entertaining and alone worth the trip. If we are lucky, he may burst into German Opera.

See you tonight: May 29, 2004 7PM - 4AM @ SOMARTS 934 Brannan Street.
(If you want to save some money on the ticket, you join the Digital Be-In Tribe)

Let's do it: "Passion-ing" the Day After Tomorrow

As we wrote before, let's all come out and bring the issue of Global Warming into the minds of the people by making the opening weekend of The Day after Tomorrow a success. It is a bit unfortunately that the vehicle is an action thriller that isn't scientifically precise, but we take what we can can get and have fun doing it.

After Worldchanging kicked it off [more today]and us joining, now even MoveOn jumped on the Bandwagon :-)

Future Saloners come on out this Friday 5:30 Metreon San Francisco (buy tickets now).

We meet 5:15 at the Reactrix interactive video projection on the ground floor in the middle of the Metreon. May be Matt can tell us a couple of things about his creation, if he comes.

(More about the next Future Salon soon too, promise.)

Where Are We Now?

I wanted to tell you all about this article: From the ashes: The next stage of EDA". I know it's a bit technical for some of you, but I think it's worth reading carefully anyway, because it gives a good overview of "Where we are now" -- where we are in the ongoing Moore's Law saga, the current problems facing the semiconductor industry, and the surprising ways people are changing what they are doing in response. (The figures are in annoying PDF files, but still worth checking out.)

Reminder Tomorrow Future Salon: Why We Play Games: Gaming Beyond Games

Not all is fun and games ...

There are also the darker sides of more and more people playing more and more online games. Everquest Daily Grind is a blog with personal accounts of people with partners or parents that are addicted to Multi Player Online Games. These tails are quite chilling:

For 2 months now my fiance has not stopped playing EQ for more than 10 minutes unless he is sleeping or at work! And he only stops playing to sleep for a couple hours. So he plays at the very least 8 hours through the week and ALL weekend. We have 4 kids (3 are his, 1 is mine) and are having another in less than 2 weeks. I am the ONLY one who has done EVERYTHING that needs done around the house and for the kids! He doesn't usually even answer when any of us speak to him!

Tomorrow mainly the sunny sides of "Why We Play Games: Gaming Beyond Games" at the Future Salon: Friday the 21st of May from 7-9pm (Join us for dinner afterwards too.)

Attention: Because swissnex is connected to the Swiss Consulate you need to Register for the event. They promised to only use this information for security.

Location: 730 Montgomery Street, San Francisco, CA 94105 [map] T: (415) 912-5901

More details to the content of this week's Future Salon in this post.

Dan Gillmor on the Collision of Journalism and Technology

In the past year, the Future Salon has focused on the web quite a bit. From Dave Sifry talking about Technorati to the folks at Worldchanging talking about their weblog to Lisa Rein's discussion of the future of democracy, a major theme has been the changing nature of communication. What it means, where's it going, how to use the trend to make the world a better place, that sort of thing.

This Thursday, another organization I volunteer with, SDForum, is picking up the theme. Dan Gillmor, columnist for the San Jose Mercury News and technology commentator extraordinare, will be speaking about "We the Media" as part of SDForum's Distinguished Speaker Series.

Here's the abstract:

What happens when anyone can make and distribute news to the whole world? In this talk, columnist Dan Gillmor previews a central theme from his upcoming book. The collision of journalism and technology is transforming the roles of newsmakers, reporters, editors, and readers, as the audience becomes an active participant in the newsmaking process.

To find out more about the event, click here

Americans Playing More Games, Watching Less Television

Americans Playing More Games, Watching Less Television

Specifically, 52 percent of gamers who are spending more time playing games report watching less television as a result, 47 percent go to movies less, and 41 percent watch movies at home less often.

"What we’re seeing is that consumers are choosing video and computer games as their choice of entertainment for the 21st century," said Douglas Lowenstein, president of the ESA

Stumbled over these statistics by visiting the collaborative virtual world analyst blog Terra Nova.

There are some really interesting stories out there. It is a good preparation for our Friday Future Salon: Why We Play Games: Gaming Beyond Games