scot hacker's foobar blog

Loose notes from the SXSW 2011 session: Barry Diller Shares Insight on All Things Media

Barry Diller currently serves as the Chairman of Expedia and the Chairman and Senior Executive of IAC, a leading internet company that houses more than 50 businesses including Match.com, Citysearch, The Daily Beast, Vimeo, CollegeHumour, Electus and Ask.com. Prior to founding IAC, Mr. Diller served as chief executive for a number of companies engaged in media and interactivity including ABC Entertainment, Fox, Inc., QVC, Paramount Pictures Corporation and Paramount’s Entertainment and Communications Group which included such companies as Simon & Schuster, Madison Square Garden Corporation, and SEGA Enterprises, Inc.

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Loose notes from the SXSW 2011 session Does the Future Include Synthetic Life?

J. Craig Venter is a biologist most known for his contributions, in 2001, of sequencing the first draft human genome and in 2007 for the first complete diploid human genome. In 2010 he and his team announced success in constructing the first synthetic bacterial cell. He is a founder and president of the J. Craig Venter Institute (JCVI) and founder and CEO of the company, Synthetic Genomics Inc (JCVI). His present work focuses on creating synthetic biological organisms and applications of this work, and discovering genetic diversity in the world’s oceans. Dr. Venter is the 2008 National Medal of Science and is a member of the National Academy of Sciences. He is the author of A Life Decoded: My Genome: My Life (Viking, 2007).

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Creative JavaScript and HTML(5) Visual Effects

It’s time to get creative with JavaScript! Seb Lee-Delisle, Founding partner of BAFTA winning agency Plug-in Media, shows you how to create beautiful visual effects in HTML5 canvas in this 2.5 hour workshop. He’ll also demonstrate how easy it is to convert 3D points into 2D and show you how to make your very own JavaScript 3D engine. Bring a laptop and prepare to get coding!

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Loose notes from the SXSW2011 session Why Journalists Need to Think Like Geeks

Many print journalists, even those who resisted change, are trying to embrace the digital future. Twenty-year veterans take up social media after taking a buyout, and journalism programs now give aspiring reporters basic multimedia skills. But a facility with Twitter or Soundslides combined with an occupational knack for asking questions won’t always add up to the skills necessary to redesign a Web site or create an app. The truth is, journalists and programmers think in fundamentally different ways—words vs. code; stories vs. systems—and often have a hard time communicating and collaborating. And the problem is asymmetrical; most programmers can quickly grasp enough about journalism to work with journalists, but it’s much harder to get, say, a midlevel editor to understand the basics of software development or database design. I often find myself wishing I could recommend a course to that colleague or to an unemployed journalist that would teach them how the other half thinks. Most of us have had to muddle through on our own, until we have a road to Damascus moment. But there’s got to be a better way. How can we teach journalists to think about technology?

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Loose notes from the SXSW 2011 session: Christopher Poole of 4chan

Christopher “moot” Poole is the founder of 4chan.org, a simple image-based bulletin board, which has grown from a niche site targeting anime fans to one of the most influential communities on the ‘Net. With over 12 million unique visitors per month, many popular viral videos, Internet phenomena, and memes get their start on 4chan. In 2010 Poole was a featured speaker at the TED Conference, and he has been profiled by TIME, CNN, The Washington Post, and Technology Review. Recently he started a new project called Canvas, which is working on new and better ways for people to hang out and collaborate online. In addition to 4chan and Canvas, Chris advises Lerer Ventures, a seed stage venture capital fund, and hackNY, a non-profit dedicated to strengthening the New York student hacker scene. He is also a member of the Free Art and Technology Lab.

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Loose notes from SXSW 2011 session: Designing iPad Interfaces – New Navigation Schemas

With every new “form factor” comes a unique set of design conventions and interaction paradigms. The emergence of tablet interfaces such as the iPad marks a new chapter in digital design. How much of web navigation or smartphone conventions persist in this new world? And what are we seeing that’s new? Are there specific wayfinding and browsing mechanisms that make for a satisfying and productive iPad user experience? Based on an assessment of 50+ iPad applications that run the gamut from utility/transactional interfaces to comic readers and other publishing apps, this presentation provides a focused analysis and assessment of navigation methods in a distilled format. Navigation schemas will be explored by interaction design themes, supported by examples, and recommendations on when best to employ them.

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Loose notes from SXSW 2011 session: Putting the Public Back in Public Media (partial)

Think NPR and PBS are just broadcasters? Think again. Public media is no longer just a one-way street. In many towns, NPR and PBS stations are the only locally-owned broadcasters, and their mission to serve the public demands that they develop new ways of engaging and strengthening those communities. They’re convening Barcamp-like unconferences called PubCamps all over the country, allowing local techies and citizen journalists to forge collaborative projects with NPR and PBS stations, both online and offline. Public media staff work with volunteer coders, creating software for public media organizations that otherwise lack the capacity to develop it on their own. Public media engages communities in new ways that go beyond those annual pledge drives, challenging them to work together for the common good. They’re putting the public back in public media – right where it should be. This ain’t your father’s public broadcasting. Come learn how people are plugging into public media – and how you can get involved.

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Loose notes from SXSW 2011 session: All These Worlds Are Yours: Visualizing Space Data

At the intersection of video gaming technology, open government and citizen science are new applications making it easier and more fun for the public to explore space data. Get an inside look at virtual environments incorporating real-time spacecraft data and images. Become an armchair astronaut and travel through the cosmos from your personal computer. Ride along with NASA spacecraft, hazardous asteroids and distant planets, or just experience the vastness and beauty of space. All these worlds are yours… including Europa.

A truly awesome session, featuring members of NASA and the JPL, on all of the amazing data being gathered by earth’s orbiting satellites, and the powerful ways that data can be visualized, in many cases illuminating surprising realities about earth’s climate and overall health. The tools for public education coming out of this team are nothing short of stunning.
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Loose notes from SXSW 2011 session: Reality is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better

Jane McGonigal
Creative Dir
Social Chocolate

One of my favorite sessions of the week – McGonigal turns everything you thought you knew about the healthiness and benefits / downsides of video games on its head. By the end of the hour, we walked away convinced that basing our educational system more on the models of video games could be a great move for our children.
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