Posts Tagged ‘CMU’

A camera am I

Thursday, April 8th, 2010

The cameras would operate on a wireless network and “dramatically enhance the city’s public safety and homeland security capabilities” Mayor Luke Ravenstahl said in a statement.

The city, CMU, and CCAC are hoping to tap part of the $2.6 billion available in the second round of the broadband technology opportunities program. Applications were due March 26. The grant program is administered by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration.

Some of the cameras would be used to enhance security on the CCAC campus. No cameras would be placed on the CMU campus. Researchers there would develop programs for using data captured by the cameras, Howard Stern, the city’s chief information officer, said.

Eventually, Dr. Stern said, the network might be tapped for wider uses such as providing residents with free internet access at libraries.

If yinz’ire good and help stop Crime and Terrr, maybe we’ll see about getting yinz some innernet ‘n’at, if we feel like it.

It was fortuitous for Mayor Luke Ravenstahl that on the day he made a pitch for 220 more security cameras around the city, a set of four such devices proved instrumental in solving the killing of a retired firefighter.

The arrest of two young men in the March 14 killing of Mark Barry was not the first time that security cameras have aided city police in solving crimes. In this case, the cameras are owned by the Brightwood Civic Group on the North Side, just as numerous organizations and businesses operate electronic monitors to protect their own interests.

The city itself has installed 20, and another 40 to 50 devices should be in place by June, all connected with the Port of Pittsburgh and focused on rivers and bridges, according to the city’s chief information officer, Howard Stern.

Now, the city, Community College of Allegheny County and Carnegie Mellon University are seeking $16 million in federal stimulus money, enough to pay for 220 more electronic eyes on Pittsburgh streets. The city police bureau would decide where the cameras would go, and they could be easily removed and repositioned based on patterns of criminal activity.

They can cover the world with cameras, but they can’t stop the guys in the monitor rooms from jerking off or playing the fifteenth sequel to “Doom” for the hundredth time.
Grant Morrison, The Invisibles

Have fun and smile.

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29 Chains to the Moon

Friday, September 11th, 2009

Updating Fuller’s Nine Chains to the Moon, the design exhibit “29 Chains to the Moon“, (2+9=11) at CMU’s Miller Gallery from 8/28/09 (8+2+8=18=9, 8+28=36=9, 8+28+9=45=9, 8+28+2+9=47 [the 15th prime, among other distinctions]=11, 8+2+8+2+9=29=11, etc.) through 12/6/09 (1+2+6=9, 12+6=18=9, 12+6+9=27=9, 12+6+2+9=11, etc.) is pretty rad.  Two folks from Open Sailing were there today, 9/11/09, to chat about seasteading and tour the gallery.

Mitchell Joachim of Terreform‘s stuff stole the show for me, though.

Hope yinz all had a fun 9-11.

Play and cuídate.

UPDATE 9-14-09

Globot Al Noah’s ACP climate concert will occupy Point State Park on 9-23-09.

A political and legal tussle has broken out in Pittsburgh involving the city, the Secret Service, and groups hoping to protest the G-20 economic summit President Barack Obama is hosting there next week.

On Friday, several groups, including Codepink Women for Peace and the Three River Climate convergence, filed suit against the city and the Secret Service, claiming First Amendment violations. They claim the city is stonewalling their requesting to host events and to set up encampments in city parks.

Some groups are also grumbling that the United Steel Workers union and former Vice President Al Gore’s Alliance for Climate Protection got a go-ahead from the city to stage a clean energy jobs rally and concert in the city’s Point Square Park on September 23 even though other groups were told the park was closed as a staging ground for law enforcement.

“It would be a little disheartening if that event was approved and people who put in for permits long before them were denied permission to use the same space,” said Melissa Minnich of the Thomas Merton Center, which supports local activist groups.

“The emerging storyline is that if you’re politically influential and connected to the powers that be…your rights can be accommodated,” said Vic Walczak, the American Civil Liberties Union lawyer who filed the suit on Friday. “If you’re a small local group that is more critical of Obama and G20 and have no big-name contact…you get the shaft. Under the First Amendment, the big, powerful guy doesn’t trump the rights of the little guy.”

On Friday, the Steelworkers moved to formally intervene in the First Amendment lawsuit, expressing support for the smaller groups’ rights but also expressing “concerns” about allowing them into the park on September 22 when set up for the rally and concert may be underway.

“Obviously, we support everyone’s right to free speech. We’re just raising concerns about being able to safely prepare to do our event without incurring unnecessary risk and liability,” USW spokesman Wayne Ranick said. “We’ve been trying to work with everybody.”

Other groups planning events related to the G-20 have been urged to schedule around what activists are calling the “Gore/U2″ concert, a source told POLITICO. Ranick said he hadn’t heard anything about U2 performing, but that “nationally known speakers and entertainers” are expected. A performance by U2 frontman and global anti-poverty activist Bono would not be unprecedented. He staged a surprise performance with Pearl Jam at a G-20 summit in Australia in 2006.

Ranick said Gore’s “intention is to be here,” but a spokeswoman for Gore said she was unaware of any U2 concert and that Gore’s schedule for next week had not yet been finalized.

“Union, Gore group, war foes jockey over G-20 demos” by Josh Gerstein, Politico 9-14-09

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Chemtrails en el Aire

Wednesday, April 29th, 2009

WASHINGTON (AP) — The president’s new science adviser said Wednesday that global warming is so dire, the Obama administration is discussing radical technologies to cool Earth’s air.

John Holdren told The Associated Press in his first interview since being confirmed last month that the idea of geoengineering the climate is being discussed. One such extreme option includes shooting pollution particles into the upper atmosphere to reflect the sun’s rays. Holdren said such an experimental measure would only be used as a last resort.

“It’s got to be looked at,” he said. “We don’t have the luxury of taking any approach off the table.”

***

But Holdren noted that shooting particles into the air — making an artificial volcano as one Nobel laureate has suggested — could have grave side effects and would not completely solve all the problems from soaring greenhouse gas emissions. So such actions could not be taken lightly, he said.

Still, “we might get desperate enough to want to use it,” he added.

AP 4/8/09

After Holdren’s comments hit the net, he was quick to clarify, “Relax, dudes, it was just, like, an idea, okay?“  Nearly a year ago, the CFR brought in CMU’s Jay Apt and M. Granger Morgan for a Workshop on Unilateral Planetary Scale Geoengineering to discuss such ideas; last month, Granger also contributed to this Foreign Affairs article, which concludes, “It is time to take geoengineering out of the closet-to better control the risk of unilateral action and also to know the costs and consequences of its use so that the nations of the world can collectively decide whether to raise the shield if they think the planet needs it.”

If this tech is just “on the table” being debated by think tankers, that’s one thing; but if, rather, it’s in the sky being sprayed by tankers, I’d say that’s a whole different bucket of spiders.  As for the nations of the world collectively deciding stuff, this tends to happen clandestinely.  Maybe what Morgan is getting at is some kind of digital open global referendum…

_ Geoengineer my ass (the planet needs it)!

_ Don’t chemtrail me, bro!

Then Al Gore or whoever can declare that more people picked “Geoengineer my ass”, so “the shield” shall be raised by popular mandate… even though it appears it already has been.


“It’s a nuisance to you and I to determine what’s real and what’s not.”

Innit, though?

Thanks We Are Change Pittsburgh and Your Inner Vagabond for the free public screening of Aerosol Crimes yesterday.  The next movie night is May 27, so check their calendar in few weeks to find out what’s playing.

CHEMICAL CHORDS

There’s still no official video for Beck’s track “Chemtrails“, but there is one by Luca Maximilian for Iris Aneas‘ “Chemtrails en el Aire” which I really like.

Here’s a provisional translation of Aneas’ lyrics:

So much time believing that what we see

is composed of water and steam,

but perhaps it is not true

and there is something hidden,

some lines that could be deadly

in the sky/heaven and diagonally,

a network that expands through the air

and kills the sun in the end.

Today I am sad because

there are chemtrails in the air

and I think on my balcony,

Where is the blue sky?

Is it not depraved what is made

before us in broad daylight?

It isn’t all the same to me

to watch it in my city.

Look and verify it,

look and verify it,

some lines that could be deadly

in the sky/heaven and diagonally.

Above they say

they are testing the aerosol

but it kills the sun in the end.

I believed it was a simple plane

like a naïve fish in the sea

that found a shark

and the naïve one has been me.

Today I am sad because

there are chemtrails in the air

and nobody knows it

and I cry from my balcony,

Where is the blue sky?

Something like that.

The Calderón quip at the end of the video (A quién le daña el saber, homicida es de si mismo.) translates to something like, “One who harms knowledge is the same as a murderer.”

Cheers, Iris!

¡Cuídate!

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Searchable Riches, Virtual Worlds

Wednesday, December 3rd, 2008

Yesterday, my pal Josh told me about Jonathan Lee Riches and the wonderful lawsuits he’s brought against people, organizations, stuff, and ideas.  Justia’s archive delivers Riches’ gems in abundance, including this one filed on 11/24/07.

Plaintiff charges that defendant Theodore John Kaczynski is trying to unabomb his life because plaintiff won’t return his manuscript that he received from the Washington Post. Plaintiff also alleges that defendant is rounding up all the Teds in the world to hurt him, including Ted Kennedy, Ted Bundy, Ted Turner, Bill and Ted, Ted Nugent, Teddy Bears, and Teddy Rumpskin.

link

Here’s Riches’ latest motion, filed on 11/3/08 against Blizzard Entertainment.

World of Warcraft caused Riches mind to live in a virtual universe, where Riches explored the landscape committing Identity theft and fighting cybermonster rival hackergangs.  Riches was addicted to video games and lost touch with Reality because of defendants.  This caused Riches to commit fraud to buy defendants video games.  Riches chose World of Warcraft over working a legit job.  Riches mind became a living video game.  I hold defendants liable and support Plaintiffs.  I move for Amicus Cuaie, I can provide this court with my medical charts, credit and receipts of buying their video games with fraud.  I have newly discovered evidence.  I pray this court will grant Intervenors motions for relief.

link

With that, I’m off to the Building Virtual Worlds Show at CMU, amped to see the next generation’s developers in action right out of the ivory gate.

Despite CMU’s well-known ties to Google, DARPA, Koopa, Count Dracula, and so forth, I promise not to sue the venerable institution for mind rape… at least, not until after I’ve eaten dinner.

UPDATE, 9:43 pm

BVW kicked off with a slew of uninspired, dialogue-free short films accompanied by grating electropop, followed by a primer on the Entertainment Technology Center and how important and awesome it is.  Conceived by Last Lecturer Randy Pausch, the ETC’s mission statement does make it sound cool.

We do not intend to take artists and turn them into engineers, or vice-versa.  While some students will be able to achieve mastery in both areas, it is not our intention to have our students master “the other side.”  Instead, we intend for a typical student in this program to enter with mastery/training in a specific area and spend his or her two years at Carnegie Mellon learning the vocabulary, values, and working patterns of the other culture.

link

In the main, I was underwhelmed by the BVW students’ projects, though, to be fair, they had only two weeks to put them together, and there were numerous crashes and hardware issues unrelated to the conceptual/creative aspects of the projects.  One dingus which could be developed interestingly, but which worked wonkily at the show, was the shadow-sensitive PlayMotion.  Here’s a video of PlayMotion actually working like its supposed to.

The piece that came off best for me (which had folks interacting with rendered stuff but which wisely relied on timing instead of on the uncooperative PlayMotion) was based on a Chinese myth about a princess who destroys her kingdom’s “guardian drum” so that an invading army, led by her beloved prince, can attack without warning.  Anyhow, dropped in the midst of the cutesy stuff, like Kirby in Candyland and the Nacho Brothers’ Vacation Machine and this thing about a grumpy cloud you sing to to cheer it up, was an ultra-brief mention of a mysterious project commissioned by Lockheed Martin, with whom CMU and the ETC are under a non-disclosure agreement, called “Omega.”

No joke.

The student biography of Devdatta Nerurkar, who’s working on it, yields very little in the way of information regarding what the heck it is.

The Omega project is comprised of a group of 4 individuals of various backgrounds and disciplines. Working with Lockheed Martin, the team will be experimenting with various guest experiences, identifying some of the most cutting edge technologies, while developing new interactive programs according to our client’s specifications.

link

I suspect Omega is software for killer/vendor drones to distinguish targets from potential customers using advanced shadow-recognition algorithms.  Once, some sunny day, all humanoid bioforms in a given battlefield/market have been indexed according to shadow type, geoengineering goo could be sprayed causing grumpy clouds to coalesce, scrambling the shadow analysis of enemy/competitor dronecraft.

Time to build some virtual worlds in my dreams.

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