Group Model Tasks

Following our studio meeting today, here are the task assignments:

Jacob: Boundary map, contours, roads & footpaths
Kimberley: The stack vent & the Eastern Distributor tunnel
Jules: Vegetation, street furniture/power lines, solar data
Jodi: Terraces adjacent to the southern boundary, Russell's building
Vinh: Palace Hotel, Moore Park "pointy bit" on southern side of intersection
Noa: Purple building
Jason & Dennis: Buildings on the western side of the laneway (split this between yourselves)
Fruz: Antique shop & other buildings on eastern side of intersection, photography

Make sure you've got your information before next Thursday, as that's when we'll be meeting to do the modelling. Also, if you still aren't acquainted with Solid Works, make sure you get some time in with the tutorials before Thursday so you don't run out of time and let the team down.

We'll have the laptops booked for Thursday, and on Friday we'll be putting the model together first thing. I'll make sure I've got mine done before Thursday, so that you can all work off a common base map in Solid Works. Post any questions or issues as comments for this post.

More signs of WoW culture

The Sydney Morning Herald is picking up a story written by the New York Times, that compares World of Warcraft to Star Trek in terms of cultural impact. wow.

I think WoW is fundamentally different to Star Trek, in terms of fan culture. For one, WoW is more about team and character building than it is about collectables and idolisation. As with all computer systems however, the fundamental problem is that most people have to sit at a computer to take part. What if WoW could enrich going to the shop, or going to school? I'm not talking about home schooling here - I'm talking about transfer of culture. We all use social networking websites, they add a rich layer of communication to the social networks we have in the physical world. Why can't games like WoW add a rich layer to our physical lives too? Why can't we benefit more from the things gained in games?

EDIT: Maybe telectroscopes can be used to connect the physical and game world.

"When the sun illuminated the lens of the Telectroscope next to the Thames, it was, of course, still nighttime in New York. So the screen inside the scope broadcast back only an empty sidewalk silently framed by the Brooklyn Bridge and the Manhattan skyline.

But then something miraculous occurred.

A police officer and a street cleaner walked into the frame. Stopped. And waved."

EDIT: This youTube clip shows that you can play virtual soccer without sitting at a console. Maybe you can play WoW similarly without sitting at a console...



EDIT: Other directions for enriching reality with digitality include the new IPhone, and CitySense. The IPhone incorporates a good interface, can sense which way you're pointing it, has GPS, fast internet and an ever-increasing amount of grunt for games. Most of all, like the IPod it will probably attract the whole range of community. CitySense takes that platform to another level, effectively turning real life activities of the mobile phone toting masses into an intelligent "discovery application" capable of leading us to what we want to do, rather than where we want to go.


Blackberries tell us things [DMNews]
IPhones are only going to get more awesome [BusinessWeek]
Telectroscopes: telescopes through the world [CNN]
How some guy kicked the WoW habit [SMH]

Health Is Not Lonely

I think we mostly knew this already. Pretty much everything we do fits into our social sphere, and any addictions we have are likely to be found in our friends too. This can be a good thing and a bad thing, and it depends entirely on the mentality of your social setting. If your friends are gun ho on doing crazy shit, you're probably going to want to go along with them or get new friends. Alternately, if your friends all decide they all want to fix something in their lives, and make a go of it as a group, you have a greater support structure in place if you decide to be part of that effort to (for instance) quit smoking.

Yes, according to the New York Times (so you know it's true)

"Smokers tend to quit in groups... which means smoking cessation programs should work best if they focus on groups rather than individuals. It also means that people may help many more than just themselves by quitting: quitting can have a ripple effect prompting an entire social network to break the habit."

I suspect that this principle applies to almost any aspect of human health. This links into Fruzi's post about community health clubs. In this context, Christopher Alexander's model can be broadened to deal with any addiction or trend we see as negative in the community, and possibly even to detect illnesses lurking beneath the surface. We've become a very transient people, and the neighbourhood we grew up in may not be the one we will spend even the next 10 years in. As such, local issues change too quickly to relocate specialised healthcare whenever the community demographic changes.

A community health club should be a platform for self directed health rather than a static formula. It should enable people to address things in their lives, bring their friends along (maybe make new friends), and to do so in a setting where support and consultation is available from people who are experienced or qualified to give good advice. It should encourage participants to bring their own time and effort into the arena, so that we can have a Wikipedia/Facebook/Flickr solution rather than a Britannica solution.


Big Social Factor in Quitting Smoking [New York Times]