stuff I see all day long (by jay silver)

mealy bug destroyers

2008-04-04T11:44:00.005-04:00

Here's my Cambridge, MA dorm living room.

Whenever possible I try to increase the jungle-ness of it. Over the last year I've been doing battle with mealy bugs. Mealy bugs eat your plants at the joints between leaf and stem, at the main arteries, or just about anywhere else until the plant dies. I've tried everything from soaps to oils to alcohols. I even tried a test spot of systemic pesticides (this is disgusting never try this!).

The other day I ordered some mealy bug destroyers. That's what everyone calls them. They're beetles. They are so cool: they only and always eat mealy bugs. they'll eat aphids if they absolutely have to. they even eat mealy bug honey dew so not only do they eat the bugs but they clean up their mess too. they lay their larvae in mealy bug nests, and the larvae actually look like mealy bugs themselves! Here they are going head-to-head on my palm tree

That mealy bug is in the proces of getting eaten.

Here's a couple more of the destroyers roaming around

thank you Mother Nature

Creating Your Own World

2008-03-28T15:38:00.002-04:00

This has been a theme with me for a while now: the idea that you can create your own world. The idea that your sphere of influence affects not only how you respond to things that happen, but it also affects how people approach you and interact with you. Here's a recent NPR story (3 minute listen) that illustrates a tiny little example of how you can create experiences with what you bring to the situation. It's a story about how a victim befriended a mugger.

I first concretely verbalized the idea that you can create your own world when I was talking to a friend who took me urban harvesting. He told me that before he had ridden trains he had never heard of anyone who jumped a train and wouldn't assume anyone would do that. But after he started jumping trains it almost started to seem that everyone might be a train jumper. He created a new world for himself in a way where he saw everything in terms of this mode of living. And he posed a question to me: "What other worlds exist out there that I just don't know about yet cause I haven't met the right person yet?"

I too wonder what worlds I have yet to create for myself... And I've found many successes in experimenting with making my world more how I dream it could be. Now I'm off to create!

ok2touch in "2nd Skin" Exploratorium

2008-03-26T11:41:00.007-04:00

ok2touch is designed around human-human contact with a special skin-to-skin on-switch. It turns your entire body into a musical instrument -- as well as the body of anyone who touches you. It's also now taken the form of a sling so that the interaction is designed to help people heal through human touch.

2nd Skin is a fashion exhibition at the Exploratorium in San Francisco:
An evening fusing fashion, technology, and art. It takes place on Friday, April 25, 2008 from 7:00-11:00 p.m. at the Exploratorium. Select works on exhibit through September 7, 2008

Come see me in "Seamless" Fashion Show

2008-01-25T18:16:00.000-05:00

This Wednesday at the Boston Museum of Science is the Seamless Fashion Show. Here is the press release. My piece is ok2touch. It is all about appropriate physical contact in a day and age where inappropriate physical contact is heavily discouraged, but appropriate and indeed necessary skin-to-skin physical contact between people isn't championed. In India it's normal to see two heterosexual males walking down the street holding hands. On a Boston playground, two children stand face-to-face swinging hands discussing a play-plan. ok2touch allows people to playfully compose music on eachother's skin when one person touches the other person's jacket in an appropriate place such as the arm. The skin-to-skin contact is the magic "on switch".

Urban Explorers - A Case Study

2007-12-17T13:19:00.001-05:00

I tease no longer... The case study is now released:

Exploring Urban Nature: Learning to See the Invisible

Here's a sampling/trailer of some of the interviews

I'm really trying to figure out how one becomes a Native in an urban landscape, and how to scaffold people learning to observe, explore, and ultimately "see" the invisible. I'd like to engender an environment where empathy for the landscape (including the people that make up the landscape) can be discovered even in the city. Consider this the start of a dialog, and tell me what you do and don't like about it.

Violent Nature

2007-11-30T00:36:00.001-05:00

One of my professors, Chris Csikszentmihalyi, has an art piece showing in L.A. during December. It really inspires me. If you're in the area check it out. Here's more info:
Violent Nature on the Fringe

Novartis Protest Press

2007-11-02T10:26:00.000-04:00

The Novartis story has been getting a lot of press lately. For example Dan Rather Reports recently included this video to consider for their report, as well as WLNY-TV55 for their segment called "Changing the World". If you are a member of the press and are looking to remix this video

Then here is the original at high quality with no subtitles:
novartis-protest-video.wmv

Here is a press image pack:
novartis-images.zip

And here is the original video with subtitles (at higher quality than the youtube video):
novartis_subtitles.wmv

Please distribute. I am the original author: No copyright, no DRM, yes freedom.

Do-Good-ism, rebranding capitalism

2007-10-30T23:16:00.001-04:00

I have been reminiscing about the word capitalism lately.

Let me break down the word capitalism to the best of my understanding. Not the concept but the word itself. Doesn't -ism mean "we believe in this above all else" or "the root word preceding myself is my doctrine or ideology"? So then capital is the doctrine, ideology, or that which is most important? But capital to my understanding means goods, or to use a less loaded word (perhaps bads?) let's call them things or stuff or items. So then things are my doctrine, or I believe in things above all else? Hmmmmmfffff! *My* world certainly isn't a capitalist one.

Well I have heard our "economy" is turning into a "service economy" (is that true?), so we are transitioning out of an industrial mode of producing goods into a mode of service. Service above all else then? Servicism... like goods but in action. Like doing good. I propose to rebrand capitalism. Isn't that a capitalist style idea?

Let it be heard across the hilltops: servicism and do-good-ism is the new ideology and the new economic mode of functioning.

After all, it's a do-good world
:oP

Drawdio - a video

2007-10-23T23:21:00.000-04:00

And soon to come:
Drawdio.com

I've been taking video of people using drawdio for the last few weeks. Here's the compilation. I still don't have video of someone playing a song really well on it, though I've seen it happen. All in good time though.

A song my brother wrote about me

2007-09-29T18:39:00.000-04:00

Check out This song that my brother wrote for me:

Variation on a Theme: Progression of a Life

Each part of it is supposed to represent a part of my life. I LOVE IT!!! Enjoy

Life Long Kindergarten...

2007-09-15T23:56:00.001-04:00

This year's group looks like this (see photos)

LLK Homepage

"Ain't Got Time for Problems"

2007-07-20T09:15:00.000-04:00

T.F.Willie wrote a new song, so I got together with him to do a music video. We generally operate on one principal -- try to do your videos in one take and on the first try. This way they feel more raw "as if" they're unpolished and real like a live performance. We can't always do it on the first try but this time we did.

Jodi's kindergarten party (for graduation)

2007-06-05T09:34:00.000-04:00

(pic taken just after setting up the 4 "stations")

More Pix: Snack Station - Math Station - Reading Station

Jodi just graduated, and as much as she'd love to have an "Engineering PhD" themed party I talked her into a "Kindergarten" party. We will bring sipups and juice boxes. And there were plenty of fun activities.

THE SETUP

Everyone brought
- Their favorite kindergarten snack
- Their favorite book (other toys are allowed too)
- (at the most) ONE stuffy (stuffed animal)

The location was secret, and could only be uncovered by following Jodi in this interactive adventure
http://scratch.mit.edu/projects/jay/8453

THE HAPPS

Seth Frey brought a stuffy that was two stuffies in one, so he kind of cheated but Jodi said it was allowed. Romie didn't get invited (on accident) but he still came (kind of rude no?). Lieb was talking about some philisophical stuff that got Frey to read the Dr. Seuss book to everyone "Did I ever tell you how lucky you are?" Then Frey climbed some trees, shot almonds at people with his sling shot and hid in the bushes. We tried to lure kids over to paint pictures with us. They lingered by the sidewalk chalk and then Mikey said "I don't know what to draw next on my horsee, will you help me? And then they came over only to be called away to a Barmitzfah minutes later. Romie brought the best snack ever - the handisnack pretzel with cheese dip. There were also yogurts, cupcakes, honey cashews, and more sipups than you could ever drink. Romie made an iguana from some new-age extra light clay stuff, and Magic Seth and Cullen came early and read and played "set" at the math station with Pablo. Everyone passed, even the people I didn't mention by name. Check out the snack station picture linked above to see Mikey's over-the-top peanutbutter apple extravaganza

I have a new sister

2007-05-03T12:26:00.000-04:00

My brother got married on Sunday. The ceremony was a few minutes long. The whole party/ceremony was awesome right in my dad's back yard.

Yogaville

2007-05-02T09:33:00.001-04:00

I went to Yogaville a couple of years ago, and I just read my journal again today. After reading and reflecting on how my life has changed since then, I can see how big of an impact it had on me.

Read Yogaville Journal

I also went to Yogaville a second time for a farm internship, so I hope to write about that sometime soon too.

Logan's Birthday

2007-04-20T04:19:00.000-04:00

Today is Logan's Birthday, and I'm missing him a lot. Try to help him get his birthday cake and dodge the tacos in

the Logan Birthday Game:

The new guestbook on Logan's website is now up and running too.

1 Million Feet Under

2007-03-30T10:08:00.000-04:00

Here is a perspective on the casualties in the Iraq war. It's in the form of a virtual fishtank.
It is my latest Scratch project.

Click on fish to find out what they represent.

INSPIRATION
This project was inspired by a few things. First, I was reading online about how many casualties there were in the war between USA and Iraq and I was really shocked at how many people had died. Then, a fellow student of mine, Alyssa, made a project called Cherry Blossoms about civilian casualties in Iraq. Also, it's almost tax day in the USA.

EXPLANATION
Each black, white and red fish represents about 30,000 Iraqi casualties. Each red, white, and blue fish represents about 3,000 USA casualties. The numbers are counting from March 2003 to March 2007. The numbers aren't exact, but it gives you the idea.

Scratch is available for you to try

MO-blog MO-daily thoughts

2007-03-01T08:36:00.000-05:00

I started off this blog with tons of pictures uploaded from my cellphone. This gave me a chance to organize my daily thoughts, or at least a part of them. But slowly I changed the way I felt about making random comments to myself and my friends. When I posted an important article or update, it didn't seem right to drown it out with a picture of a building. So now there will be two seperate tracks.

MO-blog MO-daily thoughts (jaysmoblog.blogspot.com) will have its own place, and will consist mostly of me uploading photos and videos from my mobile phone.

While this blog will remain the same for more important updates.

7 people, 1 car, 10^23 ice particles

2007-02-19T14:02:00.000-05:00

We used the local wild life as indicators for where the good sledding hills were -- we followed some naive looking kids with their sleds. We tested to see if the "snowball effect" really works, and we had a round of sled jousting between me and Romie.

See all the sledding pictures

Participants: Jay, Jodi, Seth, Romie (aka Ryan), Maya, Nadav, Hui

Novartis, Stop It

2007-02-14T16:45:00.000-05:00

Today, valentine's day, we presented the CEO of Novartis with the Broken Heart Award for greed in response to Novartis' legal move to stop Indians from getting AIDS medicine. The legal issue involves a patent, but practically speaking it's an issue of life versus corporate profit. Check out the video.

Flickr photos are posted here

After we got home from the demonstration, I immediately edited the video and posted it on You Tube. An organizer from Philadelphia called me and helped me revise the video. Same day I posted a second version, and this version, along with the still photos, went out to press right away. So far I only know of one site that has reposted the video, fightglobalaids.org. Some people were pretty surprised to learn that I filmed it on a Canon digital still camera and edited it in Movie Maker. I don't like to use fancy tools if they slow me down. Gotta get the video up and running.

Workshops in Guadalajara

2007-01-14T21:14:00.000-05:00

I've been facilitating some workshops using digital building blocks as well as a new programming language that lets you create interactive art, stories, and games by snapping together lego-like bricks on screen. I just finished documenting the workshops in Guadalajara in video format. In just a few hours the participants created some pretty awesome projects.

Here's the Videos I made

Pico Crickets day 2:
Download High Quality

Scratch day 2:
Download High Quality

Pico Crickets day 1:
Download High Quality

A Dystopic Technology for TISC

2006-12-09T00:07:00.001-05:00

TISC is a class I'm taking and stands for Technology Information and Social Control. I was assigned to create a dystopic technology. This was really challenging for me. I started to think about it and it felt like even the brainstorming process was manifesting negativity concretely. I didn't want to be a part of the assignment. In the end I compromised the reality of the assignment by making a bit of a gag game. I learned a lot about the relationships between dystopia and the world I live in.

How I Feel When I Drive

2006-12-01T14:09:00.000-05:00

How do you feel when you drive?

Moon-Lapse

2006-11-29T21:28:00.000-05:00

I am taking this class where we are assigned to observe the moon. Very intersting class that I call "The Having of Wonderful Ideas." It's the first class I ever took at Harvard, and it's by Eleanor Duckworth who is roughly of the Piaget lineage. I decided to turn the lens on the moon since I can't draw so well.

See Moon-Lapse Sequences Here

The world is a triangle

2006-11-19T09:27:00.000-05:00

The world may be flatter than it used to be in terms of business or travel, but I still see it as round. Whenever I talk to tech support on the phone I always wonder where they are from and what their lives are like (and I ask them) since most companies outsource to countries far away. I was getting help from an AOL tech online for my dad's computer, and the guy was using a curious form of English so I asked where he was from and the answer was terrifying:
-----------
9:14:40 AM Tofueater - may i inquire as to where you are from?

9:15:13 AM AOLTechMPS - When you initiate a Live Help session with the Technical Department, you are connected to a consultant working in one of several locations. This process allows us to minimize delays in responding to your needs and allows us to work around the clock.

9:15:23 AM AOLTechMPS For security reasons, AOL has a policy of not disclosing our member support locations. Thank you for your understanding that I cannot release that information.

9:15:30 AM AOLTechMPS - Is there anything else I can assist you with at this time?

9:15:41 AM Tofueater - you mean you can't even tell me what half of the globe you are on?

9:16:40 AM AOLTechMPS - For security reasons, I am unable to disclose the information. I hope you understand :)
------------------------
Not only is she dehumanized in name, but it would seem that she is unable to discuss anything remotely personal at all. Perhaps I should have asked what types of books she liked or whether she supported the war on terror.