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IN THE NATURE OF THE EXPERIMENT from srishti on Vimeo.

This is a short (10 minute) documentary that captures the spirit of the CEMA lab at Srishti with one school year under our belt. Thanks to Ayisha, Ulrike and Smriti for their hard work on it.

From 2001 - 2005 I was in a rock and roll band called Hijack Jupiter with Scott Wiener. (He now has a really amazing indie rock band called the Bikini Carwash Company. BCC for those in the know.)

Scott’s the one on far left.

Eating well while touring in a big white van named “Sprinkles” and getting paid mostly in free beer is quite a challenge as you can imagine. I could tell you about how I got laughed at in Atlanta for asking for a vegetarian meal at BBQ place, or how I was served cheese steak with whiz and mushrooms and meat at Jim’s in Philly even though I asked for no meat, but our band’s true passion, with Scott’s encouragement became sampling Pizza in every city we visited.

I was amazed by how many meals in a row Scott could happily eat only Pizza. At one count I saw him eat only pizza for nine meals in a row. Breakfast, lunch and dinner, a snack at the bar, or after the show. At times I thought the pizza obsession was some kind of strange act or put on, in the way that I was “obsessed” with collecting obscure Jim O’Rourke albums while on tour. But now I realize that Scott is the most serious pizza psychogeographer in the world:

Scott is making his pizza eating passion to the people. He is now an official tour guide in New York City and is offering walking and bus tours of NYC pizza outlets.

His tour sounds like an amazing way to get to know the history, sights, smells, and tastes of the city with pizza as the vehicle. I am very impressed that each bus tour is different, drawing from a database of pizza places. Scott has created a nice little random walk generator. I hope everyone takes this tour in NYC. I will most definitely be on a tour sometime in June or July.

Sign up at his site: Scott’s Pizza Tours.

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I just got this link from a friend this morning. Need to find out more about the cities actual request, but how is this anything other than an insane invasion of privacy, and an authoritarian reaction to citizen run media?

From ZDnet. (Oringinally appeared here in the NYTimes)

“….Although the service, called TXTmob, was widely used by demonstrators, reporters, and possibly even police officers, little was known about its inventors. Last month, however, the New York City Law Department issued a subpoena to Tad Hirsch, a doctoral candidate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who wrote the code that created TXTmob.

Lawyers representing the city in lawsuits filed by hundreds of people arrested during the convention asked Hirsch to hand over voluminous records revealing the content of messages exchanged on his service and identifying people who sent and received messages. Hirsch says that some of the subpoenaed material no longer exists and that he believes he has the right to keep other information secret.

“There’s a principle at stake here,” he said recently by telephone. “I think I have a moral responsibility to the people who use my service to protect their privacy.”

The subpoena, which was issued February 4, instructed Hirsch, who is completing his dissertation at MIT, to produce a wide range of material, including all text messages sent via TXTmob during the convention, the date and time of the messages, information about people who sent and received messages, and lists of people who used the service.”

Art By: Henning Wagenbreth from the NYT.

In a related article of New York City government infringing on the rights of citizens, from January 2008 in the New York Times:

“AT the suggestion of the federal Department of Homeland Security, New York City Council members have drafted legislation requiring anyone who has or uses a detector that measures chemical, biological or radioactive agents to get a license from the Police Department.”