Today Hal touched a Lobster

Hal loves this bead center and sees this as the reason for checking out the Aquarium. Luckily, he was able to take some time away from the table to touch the presentation Lobster. The volunteer brought the lobster in a white tupperware bin, along with a bubbler. It was cool (literally, there was a blue ice pack floating in the same water). He did it twice.  Hal liked to touch the bubbles even more than the lobster. Today we also saw jellies (blue ones are his favorite), and touched the stingrays.  I think Hal touched one stingray, but I couldn't be sure. After he touched it, he said "You don't like this." So we left to go back to the beads. He is so focused...

Hooding and Graduation with Family

 

Hal exploring colors and architecture

I was cleaning off old photos from my phone, and realized I had taken a bunch of Hal at different art events. Here's the link to Hal surrounded by RGB lights, balloons, and inside a cardboard tent fort.

Workshop on Technology and Change in Developing Countries

Next week,  I'll be giving a talk at the media lab for the developing countries workshop based on my research. I'm really looking forward to presenting my work alongside my colleagues Rich and Leo, who have also done some pretty cool things in remote places.

The workshop was one of the first to fill up, but here's the abstract:
 "Inside-Out: How Developing Countries are Pioneering New Technologies in Health, Education and Civic Media"

While new technology is often associated with developed countries, the most radically innovative ideas are often deployed first in developing countries, where the need is greatest and out-of-the-box thinking is plentiful.  The most creative technologies, business models, and emerging trends can be seen in developing countries often years before they take root in countries like the USA.  In this workshop, we will briefly review a few of the developing country projects the Media Lab has spearheaded over the past 20 years and point to disruptive emerging tends in Healthcare, Education, and Civic Media that are currently transforming the world.  Many examples will be given, followed by open discussion with participants.  1-hour session, repeated twice.

Presenters:
Dr. Rich Fletcher -- Mobile Tools for Health Care
Dr. Angela Chang -- New tools for Education
Dr. Leo Burd -- New Tools for Civic Media 

Bios:
Rich Fletcher teaches the MIT class "Technologies for Developing Countries," and is currently Assistant Prof at UMass Med School, Director of Mobile Technologies, Dept of Psychiatry; and is also Research Scientist at Mass General Hospital, Department of Pediatrics, Global Health Division.

Angela Chang is a post-doc specializing in new technologies for literacy and is currently part of the research team creating and testing new scalable approaches to literacy in remote parts of the world.

Leo Burd is Research Scientist in the Center for Civic Media and has devoted the past 15 years to developing new communication and social media tools for use by communities and children around the world. 

Hal in Miami, Ft Lauderdale Museum of Discovery

Hal in Miami, Ft Lauderdale Museum of Discovery, a set on Flickr.

Finally uploaded some pix from Hal's trip to Ft Lauderdale Museum of Science and Discovery. He had a great time driving a car, flying a plane and running around causing a riot.

First day of Dangerous Readings

Today was my first "unConference" at the Dangerous Readings Conference. It was so much fun, can't wait to go back tomorrow. Made me think about how expressive the form of digital media is, and there is so much creativity out there. Electronic literature can be as wordy as a novel, as deep as generations of time, or as fleeting as a dramatic reading. I saw some cool stuff to check out, like "We Descend" and "Emberlight". Inspiring.

Linked to Galileo

My colleague Adam S. sent an email saying "I began following our academic ancestry. Here's what I found."
Cynthia Lynn Breazeal
Rodney Allen Brooks
Thomas Oriel Binford
Myron Lindsay Good
Henry Winston Newson
William Draper Harkins
Robert Eccles Swain
Lafayette Benedict Mendel
Russell Henry Chittenden
Wilhelm Friedrich Kühne
Rudolph Wagner
Johann Lukas Schönlein
Ignaz Döllinger
Antonio Scarpa
Giovan Battista Morgagni
Antonio Valsalva
Marcello Malpighi
Giovanni Alfonso Borelli
Benedetto Castelli
Galileo Galilei

I stopped there, because my head nearly exploded from being so excited.

Source: Mathematics Geneology Project: http://genealogy.math.ndsu.nodak.edu/index.php

WHOAAA!

Congratulations Mr. Koski!

Just went down to see some very important people. My family (mom & dad) and my cousin, Joyce (and Dan) and her new baby Andrea. It was fantastic. I also got to see my high school teacher, Mr. Sam Koski, receive an award for his inspirational teaching.

What a terrific surprise that the essay I wrote is the essay that got him the award. It was terrific to meet his new students, too. Then I got to give a speech on my work at the Media Lab, and also to help FIRST robotics kickoff in South Florida! Here are links to my slides:

my life in robots on Prezi

Dangerous Readings

I'm going to be attending an unconference on hypertext hosted by Eastgate Systems called Dangerous Readings. Looks like it will be awesome!

Shah returns to CSAIL

Welcome back Julie Shah!

My Dot Tour - Explore Fields Corner's Past, Present, and Future

Congrats to Leo Burd, who worked on My Dot Tour. This is a youth-led walking tour of Fields Corner in Dorchester that presents a narrative of their neighborhood. It is great to see communities telling their stories and learning about their history, value and residents.

Propellers and Hong Kong 2004 pix

Recently uploaded some new pix of Hal and the propellers
He's also a pretty fast walker now.

Running out of space on my HD and noticed I never uploaded my China 04 trip pix. First one is my favorite place: Hong Kong
 We visited my gunma and had awesome food,  encountering with towers of bao. We visited Lantau island and got invited to march and pray with the monks. My favorite was visiting the Star Ferry and taking the bus to see the floating restaurants.

If you meet the right one...

My family friend R just got engaged to the love of his life, J! They are getting married soon, and I am very happy for them. My brother was very lucky to have R as his best friend while we were growing up. R and J- here's to you. R knew me since I was a little kid, and I am going to give them the biggest hug when I do get to go down to Miami. R always made things fun and exciting, and was hilarious to boot.

My heat-and-mass transfer class professor, Prof. G., once took his two undergraduates (it was a graduate level class), to lunch. He said, "Forget all this Heat and Mass Transfer stuff, its not important. Its my job, and I love it, and I am very good at it. In the long run however, what's important is this: If you meet the right one, you'll know."

I followed his advice to stay close to that "right one" and I am very happy. There were so many forces that could have pulled us apart (job offers across the world, different career paths)... Life is miraculous sometimes, you think that you're going to be fine alone, that you prefer it alone and then-- you meet the right one and the future is not complete without that person. You can't even remember life without that person. I feel this way now after 15 years with him, and even more strongly now with my son. I know that I had a life before him, but I can't remember anything really important about it other than the first time I saw him.

For Sarah

The Loving Mother

A whisper in the wind,
though the night was silent.
Her breast is radiating warmth
touching every moment
Of a bittersweet melody
from an unreturned caress.
Although the rains may come,
The dandelions grow,
The winds blow gently,
sighing what they know.
Motherhood is forever
ever through sunrise and sunset.

Hal's Walking!

Hal is now walking solidly and getting faster and quicker at it each day! Here he's blessing objects with his star wand as he gets to his lego box.

For mother's day, we had irises picked by Hal, a relaxing spa visit with gal pals,and the most awesome homemade dinner! Thank you for the card and calls from my family! What a treat, and here's to feeling special!

Also, this weekend was the celebration of MIT's 150th Anniversary. We saw the many beautiful projects around campus (like the Biblioptera), and enjoyed the walking around in the sunshine together. At FASTLIGHT, we really enjoyed experiencing the LightBridge and Light Drift. The highlight for us was the Liquid Archive, giant MIT letters floating on the Charles. Our lab also had an open house last week, and it was great to see so many families wandering around MIT.

Dan Paluska at the Stata Center

Random sighting of artist Dan Paluska at the Stata center the other day. I finally got a chance to check out his work on The Brooklyn Mobile project. He built a mobile video phone booth to allow people who ordinarily do not use video messaging to send a video message to anyone. I was touched by how many people wanted to communicate, and the wide array of people who participated. People were eager, and also excited by the opportunity to share their message. There are over 1,000 videos of regular folks saying "hello"!
People are natural communicators. Communication is in our nature, and things that facilitate communication can only help the world become a better place.

Reunions

Last month was a great time for reuniting with old friends at the Media Lab's 25th anniversary. I was pleasantly surprised by how productive everyone had been. I received one book from Kevin Brooks, "Storytelling for User Experience" and will read it soon. I also learned that many of the alumni have been busy with their art projects, consulting, and doing cool stuff like traveling, entrepreneurship, and volunteering. In general, I would say that ML alumni have a positive impact on the world by helping people with technology, whether its solving problems for one person, crafting art to inspire people about science, or designing whole infrastructure systems for power outages.

I also got to fly home to see my family and cousins. It was a wonderful reunion, and I was also struck by how productive my family had been. Old faces seemed new, as it had been so very long since I'd seen everyone. I was even happy to hear the noisy traffic outside, or the cats mewling in the middle of the night at home. There were new homes being nested, new jobs being performed, and little kids who have gotten bigger. It was terrific, and our own Hal was happy to meet everyone. So here's to growth and reunion, as we remember how far we've come!

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Here the Nothing by gloobic

Here the Nothing from gloobic on Vimeo.

a beautiful integration of movement, sound, and visual photography juxtaposed atop a semi-aware city. Gloobic is a collaboration by my friend eric gunther (dancer), and jeff lieberman. Visit Gloobic.

Jonah in the Art Asia Pacific

I just heard that Jonah of Coin-Operated took some time off from running Scrapyard challenge workshops all over the world to write a piece for Art Asia Pacific magazine issue #64 and an article in a brazilian magazine about his WiFi Hog(21mb)
I definitely look forward to checking it out on my next foray to Barnes and Nobles.
In his copious spare time, he's been writing iPhone art apps (photo src: coin-operated.com).