How to make (almost) anything - Assignment 2

I made a coat hanger press-fit kit.



The project website still needs work, but here it is

NYC

Awesome weekend of Phoenix, Brooklyn, Habana Grilled Corn, Beauty Salon, Johns Pizza, Park's home, Katz's Pastrami, Caracas's Arepas, and Highline.




Werd.

Da Chip

Daft Punk x 8-bit = Many Hearts

Go Download Da Chip

Rumsey Playfield, Central Park nyc

Sweet! Phoenix concert in 5 days...

How to make (almost) anything - Assignment 1

I've decided to keep a record of my work for my 'how to make almoust anything' Media lab class this fall. I haven't set a project page up yet, but below is my 1st assignment.

http://www.erikchan.com/mas863/01.htm

Ambitious? I think so...

Update 21/11/09: The exact words of my professor when I presented my project today: "I don't think your project is ambitious enough."

I've been accused of being quick-tempered in the past.

And I don't argue with that. I have trouble interacting with a few particular types: people with broken/bad logic, conservatives, uninspired peeps, squares, narrow-minded people, shallow people, and those with double standards.

Mint.com Aaron Patzer

A few useful slides from his talk...






Seed, 10/06 - $325k
Angel, 11/06 - $750k
Series A, 4/07 - $4.7M
Series B, 3/08 - $12M
Series C, 8/09 - $14M

DJ Hero: Daft Punk

Now I have no choice but to pay attention to DJ Hero.

Hiring Flyers

Made two flyers to plaster the school announcement boards with.

Designing For Social Traction

Going to save this here until I have time for it...

Designing For Social Traction

View more documents from Joshua Porter.

EA mails journos $200 checks to promote game

What would you do if you found an unsolicited check for $200 in your mail?

That's a question that's been on the mind of a number of video games journalists this week. In the latest phase of what's rapidly becoming one of the most bizarre, imaginative, and downright troublesome marketing campaigns of recent years, publisher EA mailed out ornate -- but very real and negotiable -- checks for $200 to several notable game bloggers.

Ironically, EA may have secured a spot in the Eighth Circle themselves.

Intended to promote upcoming EA title Dante's Inferno, the checks arrived in presentation boxes accompanied by a note reading:

"In Dante's Inferno, Greed is a two-headed beast. Hoarding wealth feeds on beast and squandering it satiates the other. By cashing this check you succumb to avarice by hoarding filthy lucre, but by not cashing it, you waste it, and thereby surrender to prodigality. Make your choice and suffer the consequence for your sin. And scoff not, for consequences are imminent." - via yahoo

Short EA.

I have a gazillion things on my mind. Love, life, school, health, and entrepreneurship.

I have a tendency to simplify things to its essence; noise is well, simply noise. Simplicity is a neat trick to help us juggle our worries. Life is too short to be doing or caring about the things that don't matter.

Should Strangers Be Able To Profit From Your Death?

Widow's $56 million lawsuit imperils macabre, profitable insurance practice.
Ever been offered a STOLI? No, we're not talking vodka. We're talking about stranger-originated life insurance, which is basically a way for investors to bet on the death of a person they've never met.

Typically, the person on whom the policy is taken out receives a cash payment in exchange for promising to transfer to an investor he's never met full rights to the survivor's benefits. Then the investor pays the premiums and collects the death benefit when the original purchaser of the policy passes away. If that happens sooner than the life insurer's actuaries predicted it would, the investor stands to gain far more than he's paid out in premiums.


Because the subject of such a policy appears to be behind its creation, the investor can claim they aren't breaking decades-old laws against taking out a life policy on a perfect stranger. STOLI stands on shaky legal ground, and in the last two years 25 state legislatures have enacted anti-STOLI laws. Another 14 are considering following suit. "Life insurance is intended for protection," says Steven Brostoff, spokesman for the American Council of Life Insurers. "It's not intended to be a vehicle for speculators to wager on human life."

Brostoff says that when the time comes to pay out on policies that appear to be STOLIs, it's common for a deceased's family members to challenge in court an investor's right to claim the benefit.

That's what Alice Kramer of Stamford, Conn., the widow of a prominent New York City attorney, is doing. In play: $56 million in benefits that accrued upon the death of her husband. Last week a federal judge in Manhattan ruled Kramer's case could go forward, a decision that could become a precedent for similar cases around the country.

The reason plaintiffs like Kramer have legal grounds to challenge STOLI policies is that all U.S. states have "insurable interest" laws in effect for life insurance policies. These generally state that the only people who can take out or hold an insurance policy on the life of another person are blood or legal relatives or those with a financial interest in the survival of the policy's subject. That would appear to run counter to STOLI investors, who have a financial interest in the policyholder's passing on as quickly as possible.

via forbes

Fall 2009 Courses

So I've decided to take max out the credits (54) I'm allowed to take this semester. I hope I don't end up dropping any of them, but we'll see.

15.*** - Master thesis

15.062 - Data Mining: Finding the Data and Models that Create Value

15.399 - Entrepreneurship-lab

MAS.863 - How to make (almost) anything

MAS.761 - Common sense reasoning for interactive applications

CMS.864 - Game Design

I believe the last three classes are project classes where I'll need to turn in something for the final project... will be cool to work on some new ideas ^^


Went sailing on the Charles river yesterday. I want to try out wind surfing next time.

stuck in my head

CUT COPY - LIGHTS & MUSIC
by modularpeople

Irate Chinese gamers block re-launch of classic game by blockading the gates to its cities

Chinese gamers shut down the relaunch of "Hot Blooded Legend," a beloved, classic game, by massing their avatars at city gates and stopping others from entering. They were upset that the relaunch didn't do justice to the original.

via BoingBoing

Ebay Acqusition Map

Cut Copy - In Ghost Colors

MIT Media Lab

Yeah. I've been on about the lab non-stop lately. But I can't help it if they're conducting such awesome research. Here are a few:

Lifelong Kindergarten
How to engage people in creative learning experiences.

Affective Computing
How new technologies can help people better communicate, understand, and respond to emotion.

Tangible Media
How to design seamless interfaces between humans, digital information, and the physical environment.

Synthetic Neurobiology
How to engineer intelligent neurotechnologies to repair pathology, augment cognition, and reveal insights into the human condition.

Opera of the Future
How musical composition, performance, and instrumentation can lead to innovative forms of expression, learning, and health.

Smart Cities
How buildings and cities can become more intelligently responsive to the needs and desires of their inhabitants.

More Groups

Batman: Arkham Asylum

Best Batman game hands down. I was going to call Eidos stock until I found out that they're owned by Square Enix as of earlier this year. Shame

Cage the Elephant

Sounds like Artic Monkeys...

drool

MIT Bits and Atoms Media Lab

Kind of Bloop: An 8-Bit Tribute to Miles Davis

What would the pioneers of jazz sound like on a Nintendo Entertainment System? Coltrane on a C-64? Mingus on Amiga? For years, I've wondered what "chiptune jazz" would sound like, but there are only a tiny handful of jazz covers ever made.

To satisfy my curiosity — and commemorate the 50th anniversary of Miles Davis's "Kind of Blue" — I've asked five brilliant chiptune musicians to collaborate and reinvent the entire album in the 8-bit sound.

http://kindofbloop.com/
Now this is just awesome...