[wsfii-discuss] hacking the built city

Thu Nov 3 04:00:19 UTC 2005

yup.  and the stuff from spectropolis was a lot of the inspiration
behind wifidog (julain bleeker's stuff for example was a big
influence)

On 11/2/05, Dana Spiegel <dana at nycwireless.net> wrote:
> Much of what Michael talks about has also been seen with NYCwireless,
> especially Spectropolis (www.spectropolis.info). Hacking the city was a big
> component to a number of the art projects we hosted.
>
> And we involved all aspects of wireless technology: Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Radio,
> Audio, Cell, and GPS.
>
> One thing of note is that all of the above lend themselves to being "deeply
> hacked" except for the Cell networks. All you can do on the cell networks is
> what the providers allow you to do, which is send SMS or make voice calls.
> All of the other wireless technologies are incredibly malleable, which gave
> artists freedom to be creative and dream up concepts and works that were
> amazingly innovative and enlightening.
>
> As for the grassroots community building, we have that too, especially via
> projects like NeighborNode, which enables entire city blocks in NYC to get
> to know one another (we have examples!), and reconnect and form the human
> relationships that used to form in smaller town centers.
>
>
> Dana Spiegel
> Executive Director
> NYCwireless
> dana at NYCwireless.net
> www.NYCwireless.net
> +1 917 402 0422
> Read the Wireless Community blog:
> http://www.wirelesscommunity.info
>
>
> On Nov 2, 2005, at 7:35 AM, Michael Lenczner wrote:
>
> 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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