Archive for October, 2009


ICM Week 8: Midterm! My fortune telling, Magic 8 Ball calculator

Thursday, Oct 29th, 2009 by Allison Walker | 0 Comments
Filed under: Education, General Discussion, ITP, Intro to Computing Media | Tags: ,

Last week we discussed ideas for our midterm and I presented something I’d been thinking of at Week 4. My idea was to create a calculator that doesn’t work…or works more like a Magic 8 Ball than a calculator. It does actually add and subtract but what you get are strings, not numbers.
When I started [...]

Comm Lab: Audio/Sound Editing

Monday, Oct 26th, 2009 by Allison Walker | 0 Comments
Filed under: Communications Lab, Education, General Discussion, ITP | Tags: , ,

Last week or the week before, I recorded some random sounds. I live in a basement, which helped me get sound clips free of unwanted noise.
Some sounds I collected were:

A tape measure.
A jar of peanuts.
A pill bottle.
A water bottle.
A discussion between my roommates and I.
A hallway with an [...]

M5 Bus assignment

Thursday, Oct 22nd, 2009 by Allison Walker | 0 Comments
Filed under: Applications of Interactive Technology, Education, ITP | Tags: , ,

For our Applications of Interactive Technology course, we were assigned to ride the M5 bus from Houston and LaGuardia Place to the end of the ride, around 185th St in Washington Heights, then write a 5-page essay about our experience. Well, I went on the ride, I took pictures, I took notes, and I thought [...]

Signs of Life: Physical Graffiti

Wednesday, Oct 21st, 2009 by Allison Walker | 0 Comments
Filed under: Art & Culture, Creativity, Events, Urban Space | Tags: , , ,

I went to this last week. It was pretty neat. Apparently, Pam was a faculty member at ITP.

My (relatively short) response on Understanding Media, by Marshall McLuhan

Wednesday, Oct 21st, 2009 by Allison Walker | 0 Comments
Filed under: Communications Lab, Education, General Discussion, ITP | Tags: ,

Text: “Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man : Critical Edition”, by Marshall McLuhan, 2003.
In Chapter One, McLuhan points out that modern media focuses on action more than the content of the communication message. He brings up “somnambulism”, or sleepwalking, which in the context of how it’s used – i.e., “Apple pie is neither good nor [...]

Phys Comp - Week 6: Serial Communication, Part 2

Monday, Oct 19th, 2009 by Allison Walker | 0 Comments
Filed under: Education, ITP, Intro to Physical Computing | Tags: , , ,

For our second lab exercise with Serial Communication (which I’m doing early because it seems fun), I got to use an accelerometer for the first time. (Borrowed temporarily from another student.)
In the first half of the lab, I was able to get the ball to move around, and added the smooth(); command to Processing to [...]

Phys Comp - Week 6: Serial Communication, Part 1

Monday, Oct 19th, 2009 by Allison Walker | 0 Comments
Filed under: Education, General Discussion, ITP, Intro to Physical Computing, Technology | Tags: ,

This week we connected our Arduino to Processing.
When it happened, I was hoped for sparks and for everything to start moving in slow motion. Instead I got a purple graph. It was still pretty excited. I made funny noises.

Peaking, at Chez Bushwick

Sunday, Oct 18th, 2009 by Allison Walker | 0 Comments
Filed under: Art & Culture, Events | Tags: , ,

Peaking is a four-person exhibition of video by Janet Biggs, Heather Cassils, Molly Davies, and Andrew Sroka curated by Maya Ciarrocchi. I attended on October 17, 2009 at Chez Bushwick, in Brooklyn, NY.
While all the videos were impressive, my favorite was by Janet Biggs. A clip called ‘Performance of Desire’, from 2007. In this short [...]

Observation of the self-ticketing machines at the movies

Sunday, Oct 18th, 2009 by Allison Walker | 0 Comments
Filed under: Education, General Discussion, ITP, Intro to Physical Computing, Technology, UX/IA/IxD, Urban Space | Tags: , , ,

What: Self-ticketing machines at movie theaters
How they were used: I expected that people would use them to purchase their tickets. But, I also noticed that people used them to see what movies were playing. And, sometimes they tested the machines to see if they could purchase tickets for a movie that was sold [...]

Microphones

Wednesday, Oct 14th, 2009 by Allison Walker | 0 Comments
Filed under: Communications Lab, Education, General Discussion, Technology | Tags: ,

We were discussing microphones in Communications Lab today, and I saw one that looked a lot like a microphone I’d seen on the TV show “How It’s Made”.
Thought I’d share the YouTube link.

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