I feel like I’m at low tide of the day.
Usually I get up pretty energized in the morning. Today I’m not. My back is sore, sinuses hurt, and my body is pinging me regularly for caffiene.
Last night I went to bed at 10:15. That’s about 3 hours early compared to my normal schedule. I think I am suffering from too-much-sleep syndrome. It’s the only answer.
Four meetings today at the office. Joy.
There are plenty of things I’d like to be doing like sorting the pictures from SXSW, clearing up my desk, and going through my mail, but it will have to wait.
Hopefully the drive to work will wake me up a get me rolling for the day.
Have a good day.
Sunday Sitting
I’m sitting on the couch with the laptop. Zoe is playing a game on the gamecube and Mira is playing with paper & scissors.
I’m feeling more together today than yesterday. Yesterday, my eyes were bothering me quite a bit and I had to take out my contacts. We went over to the Diggs for Audrey’s 1st birthday party. It was one of the first time I’ve worn my glasses out in public in recent years.
Thanks to the Andersens, we had a bottle of Bushmill’s Irish Whiskey to celebrate S. Patrick’s day with group shots. Between the glasses giving me a headache, the 4 shots of whiskey and the slices of pizza, I was hardly the energetic life of the party.
After we got home and put the kids to bed, I tried to watch some TV. The rain was so intense that the signal from DirecTV was blocked. I went to bed to get some sleep, hoping that the signal would clear up later and Ali G would get Tivoed.
Today I’m feeling better and having fun with the girls. Michele is off to do some knitting thing somewhere. We are watching the Inspector Gadget 2 movie for the 5th time in four days.
Politics
We saw the President speak from the Azores. It looks like we will be at war soon. Nothing will convince him to wait on the attack. Everything is in place and ready to move out.
I predict that he will attack tomorrow. Probably around 3PM Pacific. That’s 2 AM in Baghdad. They will launch the attack in the middle of the night.
I hope as few people as possible will die as a result. Unfortunately I fear that many, many people will die.
We need to remember this when it comes time to vote for President in another year. Our President is shredding the Constitution, ignoring America’s problems, and going to war without the support of the American people or the rest of the world. We can do better than this. We need a President who believes in the values in our Constitution, not in the words of chickenhawks looking at the world as a game of Risk.
Tomorrow Now
[Forgot to post this earlier. It was in Draft limbo….]
This panel is with Bruce Sterling & Derek Woodgate.
Brief notes:
Open Spectrum – Sterling -> Coming on strong. Symptomatic of the social struggle between law & order and the multitudes. The people who are running the spectrum allocation are concerned. Motorola Canopy, a tower spewing radio over an area. (not sure of the point here) If wireless data people could get access to the good spectrum, they could do wonders.
Woodgate -> The tipping point is the car. Hard drives in the car standard in 2007. Satellite radio is dying. More work in the wide area.
Sterling asks ‘Where’s the business model?’ There is no model. Death of ISPs & portals are a problem. Traditional media & business is clueless . ‘How many times to these guys get punished?’
Round of applause about Americans reading other countries news to learn about what’s happening in America.
There may permanently be no business model. Everything (news/information) may be free, but it may be incorrect/bad.
Woodgate -> Look at drivers. Entertainment is still a valid driver. Moeny will flow to entertainment. Money will also flow into security.
(running out of battery…)
Ubiquitous Computation – Sterling -> Example is traffic monitoring. In London put video cams in town to enforce the permitting. The problem is mission creep. If the ‘security people’ can use this system, it’s a problem. Privacy suffers from so much technology.
Woodgate -> Positive aspects. The everywhere aspect and the invisible aspect. Wearable & wireless computing is coming. Materials Connection, some cool company. They travel the world looking for new physical materiels.
Technology needs to be invisible for people expect it to do something for them.
UviJunk – Embedded technology that does’t work or is outdated, in things that are being used. Tech in a chair or room. What happens when you have an outdated intelligent car?
Open source in manufacturing – Sterling -> What happens when you can get foamed aluminum at Home Depot? What happens to GM is people can make their own cars? Would a $400 car wreck the car industry? What are we going to do when hackers can build ‘stuff’ and not just DVD ripping software.
Woodgate -> Yes, it is concerning. Community structures are place this will change. A break down of traditional centers, an increase of the connection between individuals. A different attitude toward work & play. People want more
(Out of batteries – sorry)
A letter from my Congressman
I wrote to my congressman, Adam Schiff, about my concerns about electronic civil liberties several weeks ago. While I was at SXSW, I received this reply:
| —–Original Message—– From: Congressman Adam B. Sent: Friday, March 07, 2003 2:01 PM To: michael@pusateri.org Subject: Reply from Congressman Schiff February 20, 2003 Mr. Michael A. Pusateri Thank you for contacting me regarding some of The first issue you brought up was the You also mentioned your opposition to the Finally, you mentioned your opposition to the An on-going job of a Representative in www.house.gov/schiff which includes an electronic version of the guide. Again, thank you for your input. If I can be
|
I was suprised to see that it’s not a complete form letter and does state the Congressman’s position on the issues. I am hopeful that not everyone in congress is oblivious to the issues. I wonder what Howard Dean & John Edwards thoughts are on these issues…
I suggest you contact your Representative too.
Test Entry
Test Entry – Please ignore.
Notes from SXSW 2003
I’ll go over a few things I observed at
SXSW. This was
my first time attending and I was a complete outsider. Despite all my attempts
to recruit a friend to go with me, I arrived in Austin alone and did not know
a single person at the event. During the event, learned a ton, met a bunch of
people and understood some of the etiquette. By next year, I will be an insider
somewhat and my views will be tainted.
I’m going to use the term blogger interchangeably with SXSW
attendee. It’s not completely accurate, but it’s a fairly reasonable
compromise. One of the first things I noticed was about the net ‘celebrities’.
In the realm of ‘blogging’ and the bleeding edge of internet community, there
are people that have become celebrities. In some cases it’s due to their
well-considered opinions, with some due to that they have created new things, and
in some cases
due to their persona. Initially I looked forward to meeting these people
and getting a chance to shake their hands and discuss things with them. I’m an
outgoing type of person that always asks a question in groups when it’s Q&A
time. I am not shy. But not many bloggers are as extroverted as I am.
Actually, most of them seem a bit shy to me. Once they get to know you they
open up, but at first they keep their distance. It’s understandable. There are
a lot of freaks on the internet and you never know who is and isn’t a freak when
you meet them for the first time.
On the first day, I made a point to say hello to Ben & Mena
Trott and Cory Doctorow. IMHO, both the Trott‘s and Cory have done
extraordinary things that have made my life just a little bit better. They were
polite and knew who I was from previous online interaction, but I could tell
they were a little apprehensive.
With good reason.
Some guy that sent them a email once or
twice was trying to grab a slice of them. They had good friends at SXSW and if
the choice was between good friends and strangers, everyone is going to choose
friends. I gave it a little thought and decided that I wasn‘t going to be as
proactive as I usually am when I saw a ‘net celeb‘. If everyone at the show
stopped these people just for 5 minutes to shake hands and chat with them, the ‘celebs‘ would
never have a free moment. Their experience at SXSW would be endless polite but
boring conversations with strangers. I wouldn‘t want people to do that to me,
so people shouldn’t do it to them.
So, I started sitting quietly giving people around me their
own space, even when I knew who they were and wanted to chat with them. For
friends and family that know me, this is extremely un-Mike behavior. Amazingly,
once I stopped trying to meet everyone, I started meeting everyone.
People will strike up conversations about anything at SXSW
just to break down that initial barrier between strangers. Once the initial
barrier was broken, the conversation flowed easily. I was surprised to find
that some people knew who I was. Several times, people said ‘Hey, you‘re Argyle,
the geocaching guy.‘ All, because I had posted on the
sxswblog.com site about
seeing if anyone want to go geocaching. People had taken the time to read the
post, look up my picture, and remember me. Wow.
In one of the sessions, Cory Doctorow said ‘This
is my tribe.‘ He meant that the people who attend SXSW Interactive are his kind
of people. We may be scattered across the globe geographically, but in our
world view we are quite similar. He‘s right. Those people are my tribe. The
techno savvy, the web literate, those that add to the web instead of only
browsing it, those that make cool new things, those that are willing to talk to
strangers about wifi, and those that dream of the next gadget from Japan. The SXSW Tribe.
Here are my general observations about the SXSW Tribe.
They don‘t apply to everyone, but they give you basic idea of the vibe:
The SXSW Tribe like Macs
The SXSW Tribe likes to cut their hair short
The SXSW Tribe don‘t like to go more than an hour offline
The SXSW Tribe likes to smoke
The SXSW Tribe doesn’t like the war in Iraq
The SXSW Tribe likes to travel in packs
The SXSW Tribe loves to gossip about the rest of the SXSW
Tribe
Here a few things that I learned that may be useful to
others that come to SXSW for the first time:
Shiner Bock – Shiner Bock is a local Texas beer that you
find everywhere. Often referred to as simply ‘Shiner’.
ABC – Always Be Charging – If you bring a laptop, you need
to be charging it every single chance you get. No battery lasts long enough.
Sharpeners – There are no pencil sharpeners at SXSW.
People think writing on a pad of paper with a wooden pencil is a bit strange.
Secure connections – Wifi traffic is in the clear and
people are sniffing packets all the time. Arrange for secure email, FTP, and if
possible, secure browsing while at SXSW. It’s unlikely that a malicious hacker
is gunna do bad things, but it’s best to be prepared.
Street Signs – For some reason, downtown Austin has few
street signs. Get a map and study it before venturing out.
The Omni – The Omni hotel bar is a late night hangout for SXSW people.
Hotels – Stay at a hotel in easy walking distance of the
convention center. You don ‘t want to drive anywhere after a long night of
partying. The word was that the Hampton was the best place to stay due to
proximity and internet access. But since the Hampton lacks a bar, there is
debate if ‘The Hampton‘ is ‘the new Omni ‘.
Night Events – The best night events are the Fray Cafe,
20×2, and (so I’m told) Bruce Sterling ‘s party. Make time for these events.
Personal cards – Make up business cards with your name,
email, and website info on them to hand out. Bring your regular business cards
if you want, but what people really want is a card that ties you to your online
persona so they can find you after SXSW.
Food – Eat food. Austin has a great bar scene. You will
be drinking. Don‘t drink on an empty stomach.
Texas BBQ – IMHO, Texas BBQ pales in comparison to BBQ in other areas
like Kansas City and Carolina. That chopped beef sandwich stuff just
doesn’t cut it…
Sound People – The people who run sound for the sessions
won ‘t leave the sound alone. They love to walk up while people are speaking,
twiddle with knobs, and make the room go silent.
Fray Cafe – If you are going to perform, practice beforehand.
Favorite quotes:
‘Stop solving for the extreme case, solve for the middle‘
– Lawrence Lessig
‘I trust Rinso because there are a reasonable amount of
spelling errors.‘ – Dave Weinerger
‘Because, you are wearing a Star Trek uniform because you
want to get stared at…‘ – Cory Doctorow, answering the question, ‘Why do
people in Star Trek uniforms get stared at?
‘We believe in the One Interface.‘ – Thomas Korte, Google
‘UO, EQ & DaoC are not games, they are fucking chatrooms’ – Warren Spector
‘If you can create this, you can fall in love with someone
online and know they are a girl’ – John Halcyon Styn, in regard to FOAF
discussions
‘Only 7% of American families consist of a father who
works and a mother who stays home with the children.‘ – Richard Florida
‘This too shall pass ‘ – Bruce Sterling
People I met and chatted with (in no particular order):
Dave Weinberger – I helped him get connected, we shared a
snack, and chatted off and on during the show. A great guy. While I had read
the Cluetrain Manifesto before, I had no idea who he was until we’d been
chatting a couple of hours.
Michael Alex Wasylik – Walked up to me and said, ‘I went
to school with your brother.‘, at the Kick event. Mike was interesting and
took the effort to include me in ‘the group ‘ until I got to know ‘the group ‘
myself. I owe him my thanks. He’s the kind of attorney whose number you keep in
your wallet ‘just in case’.
Michael/Griff from ultramicroscopic –
Poor guy won best weblog but got his bike
stolen
Christine of bigpinkcookie – Queen of the Texas bloggers.
Many thanks to Christine dragging me along as the crew wandered through Austin.
Katie –
One of the first people I met part of the Texas Blog Mafia
Ernie the
attorney – We started commiserating about
the convention staff making unplug from the power outlets and began to discuss
the issues. He and I agreed that the idealism is good, but people need to
understand the reality of negotiation to find agreement in the middle. A nice
guy to chat with, too bad he left on Saturday.
Jason Nolan – He and I
chatted about stickers on laptops and the US centric internet.
Chip – Met
Chip on the first night and although he’s with EFF Austin, he didn’t run me out
of town on a rail because I work for Disney.
Don Turnbull – part of
the EFF Austin crew
David Nunez –
another part of the EFF Austin crew
Michael Buffington – We talked about cameras and getting to
sessions on time.
Rannie – We kept
bumping into each other and chatting during the weekend.
Ernie Hsiung – It appears that Ernie and my wife are
related in the Hsiung family somehow. What a coincidence!
Alex Bischoff – We
hung out at 20×2 and drank Shiners.
Leia
Scofield – Met her in one of the many places I was with the Texas bloggers.
Rebecca Blood – Thanked her for her
book and chatted briefly.
Dan Gilmor –
We briefly discussed the impact of his breaking news
of Pyra/Google deal.
There are tons of other people I met, but I wasn’t taking notes every moment
at SXSW.
Obviously, I had a great time. I’ve already decided to return again in
2004. Of course, next time, I intend to drag others along with me, so I
never have to drive.
Quiet Afternoon
I left work early for Zoe’s Parent-Teacher Conference. As expected, Zoe’s doing great and Michele and I were all smiles.
I played with the girls a bit and checked work email from home. I think America’s productivity would be greatly enhanced if one day a week, no business email was allowed. Work Wednesday – Get your work done instead of answering email!
I forgot to mention that I finished my latest book, The Dispossessed by Ursula Le Guin, on the flight to Austin. The book is from 1974 and reflects some of the thinking on un-capitalist societies.
The story revolves around a world with an anarchtic, non-authoritarian communist society. There are no laws or government, but there is also no concept of property or ownership. Everything is shared, everything is voluntary. A member of this society visits a pure capitalist world and contrasts the two systems.
I read this at the behest of my friend Len during a night of drinking a political discussion.
While some of the concepts are interesting, the basic idea that people can conquer jealous and need to create such a society, is difficult for me to believe. I think these things are hardwired into our brains. On the other hand, there are several notable concepts such as people be willing to sacrifice more when they are not forced to sacrifice.
I see why it’s in the Sci-Fi canon of important books and won the Hugo and Nebula awards. It’s quite a social commentary wrapped into a science fiction story. The vantage point is about as opposite as you can get from Heinlein’s libertarian vision of the future as you can get.
It’s worth the read if you get a chance. At 400 pages, it will keep you occupied for a bit.
Shifting gears
Going from five days of uber-geekdom, drinking, and going out at night to sitting in my office reading emails about meetings to plan meetings is agony.
I wanna win the lottery.
Dallas
Like I have for the past few days, I am sitting on the floor with the computer plugged into a wall, stealing power. The difference is that I’m in the Dallas Airport, connected via wifi through Wayport. For $6.95 I get access. My dinner cost more than that and I was done eating in five minutes.
After 5 days, SXSW is over for me. The music and film festivals are just kicking in now. The Interactive events are over. Unbeknownst to me, Bruce Sterling (the author, one of my FAVORITE authors) invites everyone who attends his session over to his house for beers. Due to my flight I couldn’t go. I would absolutely love to go. But I can’t change my flight for a party. Perhaps next year…
The SXSW has invigorated me. Work has been in the background and cool new things have been in my mind. I met a ton of people and I can barely remember half of them. I took a ton of notes and hopfully will have a full report soon.
I need to take a break from the computer now….
Game Developers Conference Recap
A few notes from the GDC Recap at SXSW.
Warren Spector & Rich Vogel speaking. Brad King moderating.
Sequels can hurt & help. Depends if developers listen to comments it can be great. Or it can suck if the same thing is done over.
Even difficult subjects, like Scooby Doo, can be good if the gameplay and concepts are good.
Costs are spiraling, sales haven’t risen. Expectations are rising. Risk is escalating dramtically. They minimize risk by going with known quantities.
Online Gaming – What is the role of online games in consoles. Rich says that it will be the second gen consoles that will really enable it. Today it’s a little to difficult for most people. The inclusion of a keyboards is essential.
Persistent World vs. small group gaming – There’s a difference.
Disagreement over online games. Sims Online is an example of bad design, but not entirely. Warren & Rich disagree on why it’s not successful. Warren says most people don’t want to play online games to the degree hoped for. The audience is loud and excited, but it is small.
Warren wants next game to sell 5 million. Will there be enough hardware to run it? In consoles? Yes.
Mobile gaming – Lots of discussion at GDC. Phone games mainly used to kill time. Different in Japan where there is a phone gaming community. Discussed the failure of Majestic. Scary to regular people, not enough content.
“You won’t see EA or Eidos or Microsoft making phones games. Other small developers will make them.”
At GDC they discussed education. They talked about the role of games in education. In Star Wars Galaxies there will be connections to the game via phone, IM, web, etc. Many things to add access to the games.
The reason Warren hates online games is that they are not satisfying. He doesn’t want interact online, he wants real world.
Rich says they are great because you can live in the alternate universe. You can do thngs you can’t do in RL.
I just told Warren to play Neverwinter Nights.
I just thanked Rich for making Ultima Online.
Question about why dungeon master role hasn’t come to gaming. The guy doesn’t know about Neverwinter Nights.
At TSR in 1988, 15 million people ahd played D&D. Estimate 1/2 were gamemasters. 10% any good. How many could use a toolset 10%? 80,000 people worldwide? How many can make things and do a good thing?
The FPS mods are must simpler to create content/levels than roleplaying games.
Warren wants to find a way to provide episodic content. He wants to develop better methods of interaction with NPCs. The ability to interact with the AI needs to be more immersive. They both stress the importance of bots expressing emotion & mood.
The next step is probably from Valve. Halflife 2 will have very cool stuff. In Deus Ex Invisble War they have a new conversation system that will be reflected in the avatar. So will Star Wars Galaxies.
Warren speaks heresy and says framerate is not important. (OMFG. Burn him….)
There.com is a virtual world where emotions and expressions are well done.
Warren says UO, EQ & DaoC are “not games, they are fucking chatrooms”.
The importance of good writers is key to games getting better. “Writers are writing code, not prose.” Warren is finding programmers who can write. He doesn’t want to teach writers how to code anymore.
Developers need to get two hit games under their belt and then they are allowed to experiment. Creative stuff that people don’t get are hard to market.
They both seem focused on detail in the games. Things like limping in a football game are examples of good stuff. (I disagree completely)
Closing remarks – GDC this year had a theme this years. Lots of online discussion. Process of game development is an issue. Formalizing the design process. People may not like games like GTA3, but it is the best balanced game on the market. Online games allow balance and creation of new games. The GDC is getting better because it’s more aobut gamign and less about technology.
End of session.
A note on Warren Spector: Warren has been described as arrogant and offensive. I didn’t find that. He is clear in his opinions and firm in his stands. People may disagree with him (like me) but he’s not mean to simply be mean. He is simply very open with his views. Many aren’t comfortable with people that don’t hide their thoughts.