[wsfii-discuss] hacking the built city

Wed Nov 2 12:35:54 UTC 2005

On 11/2/05, Karel Kulhavy <clock at twibright.com> wrote:
> On Tue, Nov 01, 2005 at 11:09:22PM -0500, Michael Lenczner wrote:
> > this smells of ego-posting.  sorry -  but I really want to make sure
> > that the wireless community is exposed to this idea.  If i'm wrong - i
> > would rather know sooner rather than later.
> >
> > http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/003701.html
> >
> > Michael Lenczner wrote to me suggesting that I check out a recent post
> > on his weblog about some of the larger issues raised by his work at
> > Ile Sans Fil, a Montreal community wireless project. It's a
>
> "that we have 55 hotspots and 9000 users"
>
> Prague is said to have 2500 hotspots and 15000 users
>
> There is somewhere a layer for GRASS GIS published with the network link data
> I saw it but I can't now find the link... If anyone wants to verify
> the number, I can try to find it...
>
> >     This statement is based on the idea that as wireless devices and
> > services proliferate and ubiquitous computing becomes a reality, the
> > physical environment (especially the built city) is rapidly becoming
>
> ...as wireless devices and services proliferate and ubiquitous computing
> becomes a reality, the physical environment (especially the radio
> spectrum) becomes one chunk of white noise and the wireless network
> starts to be unusable. At least this was the situation in Prague.
>
> Ile Sans Fill can see what it's future is ;-) Radio networks are not
> scalable.
>
> > enhanced space or mixed-reality. The supposedly seperate existences of
> > off-line and on-line are intersecting and overlapping - most rapidly
> > in cities. [...]
> >
> >     To be sure, we have constraints on how much we can hack the city -
> > it's not as if we can easily directly confront the power of the the
> > police or building developpers. But we can work to allow spaces to
> > better retain memories, to promote both stronger and a larger number
>
> example?
>
 - if you're talking about memories - the only example we have right
now is allowing users to place flickr photo's on the portal page.  But
london's place-based wiki pages are another example.  Both of these
let people attach artefacts to public places which are discoverable to
other users of that public space.  But there's *lots* of other
examples of people doing that.

(this is all through the ISF portal page - go here for cafe laika's:
http://auth.ilesansfil.org/portal/index.php?gw_id=19 )
> > of looser associations between individual, to increase valuing of art
> > and artists, or to help people get laid (more) on the basis of shared
>
> example?
>

An example of people getting laid more through wireless networks? 
Still working on that.  ;-)

Increasing associations - let's see - once we have (opt-in) profiles
attached to our users there should be a lot more of that.  Also
sharing playlists via iTunes over the local network would do that
(kind of like seeing what book the person next to you is reading).

> > This is a fascinating transformation to watch. When public wireless
> > Internet spots first popped up, there was a distinct geeky edge to
> > them, which soon broadened into the perception that they were really
> > only for students and knowledge workers still on the clock on
> > weekends. But while this latter concept remains the dominant one in
> > mainstream advertising and news reports, the growing integration of
> > wireless tools into the every day lives of creative communities means
> > that these networks are no longer just the province of people who
> > "have to" be online. Projects such as Dencity, Neighborhood
> > Satellites, and other smart environment efforts are only possible when
> > a wireless infrastructure is not just present, but expected.
> >
> > This is already true, to an extent, with mobile phone networks,
> > although in this case the carrier-driven limitations of the services
> > militate against taking full advantage of their potential. Projects
>
> I think it's rather technical limitation of the network itself. Try
> GPRS and you'll understand ;-)
>
> > like a Placeopedia/Location-based Wikipedia mashup are really only
> > possible with an open Internet connection.
>
> I would add "broadband and reliable" to prevent disappointment of the
> users in the future. It's nice if it's open but it's useless when it has
> throughput in orders of tens kbps, 15% packet loss, 3000ms roundtrip and
> MTBF of 5 minutes (a situation common in CZFree.NET Prague)
>
> CL<
> > When the mass of people come to expect the presence of open wireless
> > networks, and are willing to participate in both the creation and the
> > use of information that is only relevant in the context of physical
> > location, the transformation will be compete. The overlay of
> > information and connection the technology enables will no longer have
> > to suffer geeky labels like "augmented reality." Instead, we'll just
> > call it community
> >
> > _______________________________________________
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>
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