I have been busy, busy with my Crestron Social Media duties with 3 tradeshows falling back to back to back.
Fear not I have several posts near completion and will update this week
you can always find me in the persona of http://twitter.com/CrestronHQ and http://twitter.com/tuckertues
Why did the allies win? For a good deal of WWII the allies were on their heels, fortress Europe appeared to be lost. A good many fine men and women gave the ultimate sacrifice, meeting their end by a bullet. The bravery and ultimate good of these soldiers in defeating the German and Japanese threat is well know and unquestioned. What many people do not realize is just how important the code breakers of Bletchley Park were to the success of the allied effort.
Bletchley Park and its main mathematician-Alan Turning- figured out methods to decode the NaziEnigma machine and later other high level Nazi and Japanese codes. Early on the codes were decoded by the brute force method of hundreds of ‘decoders’ working of every possible variation. While this worked it was hardly ‘real time’ and the information could be irrelevant by the time it was fully decoded. The site received thousands of coded messages a day. Imagine trying to find what was important and what was old news!
Alan Turning designed a machine to decode the messages in ¼ the time. Bombe was something of a difference engine- only its purpose was the salvation of the world.
President Obama has asked (we Americans anyway) to thank a soldier, I have done so at today’s Hastings on the Hudson memorial day parade, I also plan on a moment of silence for the code breakers of Bletchley Park- for without them it would be uber alles, uber alles.
Paul Sidney died a few weeks ago, in all likelihood you have never heard of him but if you are in anyway involved in community building, you need know about him. Paul Sidney ran and was the voice of WLNG radio out of Sag Harbor Long Island. WLNG is local as local radio can get. The station is a throwback to late 50’s style of operation where announcers add echo and heavy bottom EQ to their voices and the News is local, local and local. Growing up in the Hamptons of Long Island it was it was impossible to not be influenced by the sound and programming of WLNG as it was everywhere and literally at every event.
You can read Paul's obituary here, it tells the tale of his coming over to WLNG, becoming its driving force and cult of personality. What it will not tell you is just how deeply he ingratiated himself and the radio station into the very fabric of the lives of those who listened to ‘LNG and even those who did not. The comments section of the article will do that well enough.
In addition to music and local news WLNG features live call in shows such as "Swap n' Shop" -where people call in to trade a 1940’s fly wheel for a couch or someone looking to buy or swap for a full set of tools and toolbox. While at times it can be nap inducing it also is a window into people’s lives, needs and character. Paul would not just help the caller to describe what they wanted to trade or relive themselves of but also would check on their status – he engaged them in conversation about the news of their neighborhood. It was not radio it was community.
The radio station was among the first to have merchants record their own commercials, clearly not professional actors but direct and personal. The ads could be grating and awkward but then so were all the rest and yes, it was the person who owned the store. The ads always left you feeling – ‘that’s Jim’s place, I should stop by and see how things are doing.
Having the mission to be local as local radio gets WLNG and Paul would travel to every possible event occurring on the east end of Long Island, eventually using two fully equipped remote trucks . The remotes were Mr. Sidney’s glory and crowning achievement. These over-sized airstream RV’s were literally at every store opening, town parade, fund raiser and carnival. The draw an ‘LNG remote could –(and still does I am told)- muster was phenomenal. It was not an event of note if the remote trucks were missing. Paul knew how to work a crowd, how to detail just enough to give listeners a good picture- keep them listening AND to attend the event.
In my mid to late teens I developed an overly impressive angst about my surroundings and began a lifelong quest to find new, interesting and thought provoking music and media. This local radio station was the epitome of all I wanted to get away from. In my rush to find something else, the remarkableness of Paul Sidney and WLNG was ignored. As a young person, grappling with defining a personal identity, you grew to loathe when parents put WLNG on, pronouncing it one of the seven signs of local lameness. Yet hearing the station was always comfortable, like going to the carnival with your younger brother- you would rather go alone, check out the girls and hang with friends. But he’s your brother and its okay.
I left for NYC and its heady world of aggregating cultures and slick production values leaving the ‘farm report’ station behind me. Imagine my shock when I attended an NAB (National Association of Broadcasters) tradeshow and one of the first things I see upon stepping on to the exhibit floor is Paul surrounded by a flock of people. I nearly retained my youthful arrogance and rushed by thinking ‘what’s this goat doing here, intruding on my sanctuary? Instead I stopped to see just what everyone was doing around Paul Sidney. The questions were eager often hyperactive, asking just how such a small station could grab such large shares in the face of the conglomerates and city backed stations. Paul Sidney’s answers stuck me and started to chip away at my preconceived notions.
My thoughts wandered back to WLNG and Mr. Sidney as I started to get involved in hosting bulletin boards on BBS, AOL and later a few web communities in the early to mid 90s. It always struck me that group chat rooms were, in effect, community halls- only broadcast. Many compared and still compare them to the days of CB radio popularity, complete with the snide disregard for the value of conversations it generated. The online community often overtly revels in the fact that they are community, ideas are shared and bonds forged. More often than not individuals or groups talk just to hear themselves but in the end fundamental value is created– community radio. Social media now is, in part, the largest community radio project only the community is not a location but global and based on common interest.
Next time you tweet an event, start a rolling discussion on FriendFreed or post ‘real-time’ photos to facebook, remember that you are utilizing a form once dominated by people who used radio to build and keep communities talking. We owe our current mass media social networking to men like Paul Sidney, they may not have fully understood the import and impact , they provided the framework for it to be successful.
Paul Sidney’s Über local radio is the model social media should pay attention to, all media is local, regardless of the physical location of the community. Those of us who take forward positions in the creation and application of social media groups need to remember the passion, investment and yes, love of the community Mr. Sidney exhibited. I for one will miss his voice and although I rarely venture back to the Hamptons he and WLNG will always be the sound of The sound in my head.
Edit: *added August 9, 2013 - Inspired by a Post on the 50th anniversary of WLNG in the Sag Harbor Experess
As a Co-Founder and producer for the Pro Audio Visual community podcasting network AVNation.tv I find that I take Mr. Sidney's leadership and example to heart with every show and every episode we produce. Love the medium, love the community - revel in every nuance.
Lightfair was 09 was held at the Jacob Javits Center and with Crestron showing I had and opportunity to attend and get a good overview of the lighting industry.
For the uninitiated Lightfair is a trade show where the main manufactures and suppliers of everything from ballasts to building management systems show off their fixtures, tools and systems.
While I consider myself a veteran of over 1000 tradeshows as both presenter and (for the majority) as a behind the scenes technician, Lightfair was illuminating to me. (Sorry, I just could not resist). As I have just begun my tenure in the new position of marketing writer, specifically in support of the lighting division, the show was a good place to acquire marketing material and an education on products and technologies similar to ours. I also reveled in the general easy tenor of the show; it was a simple task to get around, lacking the press of bodies moving you in directions unintended. Tradeshows like Infocomm, where the attendees are literally banging at the doors to get in each morning, the pathways can be like a roiling stream of class 4 rapids. This “benefit” was certainly a worry for the Lightfair sponsors who sent out missives to proclaim 20K registered attendees and the exhibitors could be overheard worrying that they overstaffed their booths. Day 2 on the other hand was much more to the hopes of the sponsors.
Both days I attended it was decent enough out to walk from Grand Central to the Javits, as I used to work on 45th and 11th for a number of years the walk was a bit of nostalgia. Since I started working in New Jersey and therefore becoming a driving commuter I rarely get to the city and when I do it is to bring the kids to a museum. I evidently no longer have the native Manhattanite walking pace of my days living on the east side –( I skated everywhere anyway back then). The slower pace was, at first, disconcerting but I found it gave me the opportunity to walk with my head facing forward not down –(in the bull mode). In addition to noticing the changes my old work neighborhoods had undergone my NYC-sense started to come back and I could start to identify who was Javits bound. It did not hurt that many had on what I call the tradeshow targets on, those access badges that so many people seem to want to wear outside an event. In many of the sections of the city directly adjacent to the convention center these badges say one thing- ‘target’.
When the Democratic National Convention came to town in the 90’s I spotted a 20 something woman at the intersection of 42 and 7th looking very confused and harried. In addition to the large parcel she was struggling to keep hold of and the 4 inch heels she had a large convention badge with her name, home town and the word DELEGATE. Around the time of the DNC Times Square was in transition with the seedy side still being pushed out and it was very irritated by the Disneyfication of the area. Angry wolves were still trolling the late dusk afternoons despite the heavy police presence. Typical New Yorker I rushed past her making it a full half block (cross town) before my brain registered what I saw and how bad it could go. I doubled back to her let her know that the cabs with three lights lit on the top were off duty and being 3:30 it was shift transfer time-(90% of the cabs were heading back to the garage). I hailed an available cab and got her inside, offered her my business card, and informed her that the heels and event badge was not a good combo. Julie – her name- looked at me wide eyed as I leaned into the driver’s window addressing him by the name on the license-(back then they were mounted in the front passenger side) telling him how to take Julie to her destination. I corresponded with Julie for a few months after and she shared some stories of her associates being bothered during the event but once they removed the badges whilst walking the harassment was reduced.
I relate this tale to mark
1. Just how much the city has changed, most people walk around in a manner that would have made me cringe, scream and consider taking up a life of crime.
2. The New New York has reduced the potential for petty crimes and thus more people walk around broadcasting their participation and destination. Because of this it was quite evident that Wednesday had far more people attending Lightfair. My zigzag path allowed me to see that the mass of humanity was not just random but was migrating toward a common destination. By 11 am the exhibitors had the mixed expression of happy relief and harried eyes at the preoccupation of talking to multiple people at once.
A good number of the discussions about LED’s centered on CRI, dimming and availability. The CRI, specifically the level of white had many set into two camps, the first stating that the obsession with the white level was much ado about too little and the second group claiming this was task one –(followed closely by the need for dimming).
Phillips made its dominant presence well felt by not having just a booth but something more akin to a city consisting of 9 or 10 interconnected booths. The Phillips people all appeared to be dressed very corporate, the Men in dark grey suits with Phillips stripped blue ties, the women in late 80’s suits with matching blue striped scarves-(both reminded me of stewardesses, er..flight attendants). I call this out as it was in stark contrast to the rest (besides Lutron) of the exhibitors and as there was an accessories show on the floor below, I at first took them to be part of the latter show when I saw them in the lobby.
The show had a sizable section in the back which appeared to be a collective of Chinese manufacturers of everything lighting. The booth was constructed, intentionally – I think, as if part of an open air or Hong Kong alley way market place. A quick click pipe frame covered by an orange tarp created a large rectangular booth which was divided up into smaller square ‘booth-ettes’ where exhibitors had product hung from the frame and on white peg boards in the back. The offerings were your standard low cost products but a few were showing LED lights as well.
What’s the next show I am attending?
INFOCOMM Orlando baby! If you are planning to attend let me know, we can share ideas and make time to meet up.
Design, the facet of presentation which attracts the eye and stirs thelittle grey cells into action. I have long understood that I have an aesthetic which is somewhat off center with most of those around me. Yet, If I were to invite you to my second life abode the chill would soon settle into a yet unrecognized comfort; like sinking into the plush furniture of proper Victorian drawing room.
I bring this subject up from a find whilst I scrolled through my 300 news feeds in my Google reader, (love google reader), and came across a metal skull lamp in an article in Gizmodo. The writer of the article calls it “..the most terrifying table lamp…”.I call it beautiful. I want it, crave it.
If I could have my druthers I would have a ‘den’ which looked much like the ‘Closer’ video by NIN, this is what I would do if means were no object.
Growing up in Sag Harbor I was fascinated by the Victorian aesthetic and had ample opportunity to explore show homes which reproduced this, but it was too soft, too tranquil. Where, I asked were the drawing rooms of great explorers, whalers, and botanists?-(think about it, in order for someone to see and study a rare plant he would have to travel in harsh accommodations and face death by nature every moment. No rescue by GPS here. Darwin was a tough mother!). Everything had been sanitized by the local historical revisionists.
I left the semi isolated Sag Harbor to shack up with an artsy hipster in downtown NYC and found a world I only previously dreamed I could be part of. The girl and I soon parted but the stamp of what I was introduced to struck home, THIS is where I was supposed to be, this is what I had been searching for.
Concurrently I had just begun to understand and appreciate the Punk and hardcore movement in music when I met Pam and Marc. The Koch’s were uber NYC downtown rock hipsters via Buffalo and close friends with one of the great unknown bands of the early 80s, The Splat Cats. Marc collected the ephemera of kitsch gothic ghoulishness. Their Ludlow street apartment was filled to the brim with records, comic books, videos, pop culture models, books of suspicious origins and early 19th century coffins-the ones with viewing windows on the cover. I still have several of the birthday cards given to me which consisted of heavily gilded photos of a specific coffin or groups of coffins. One birthday I was given the book Wisconsin Death Trip, a book I read nearly as often as I do Cyrano de Bergerac or Foucault's Pendulum. The Koch’s home was not so much an education as a revelation, that central aesthetic which I had been searching now surrounded me each time I entered their home. I was introduced to the art of Joe Coleman, Joel Peter Witkin and innumerable bands of nearly every genre. It was a cross between Maxilla and Mandible and the Rembrant room at the Met.
Around the same time I chanced to meet Robin Ludwig, an artisan for whom the word itself is his being. I met Robin through his daughter when I was in an Aveda show, I had very famous scissor hands cut my, then looong, hair and got a few products and bucks to boot. Robin played gritty guitar, growled when he sang and created works of art out of metal with skilled delicate hands. Watching him work was nearly as intoxicating as the mead wine he brewed in the loft apartment they occupied smack dab in the heart of Chinatown.
This combination of old world craftsmanship and a full involvement of the modern drew me into a local high end audio store to drool over an early 80's retro tube amp placed in the front window, and to be promptly be escorted out by staff – “come back when you have money to spend kid!”. The amp itself was evidently very good but the cost was for the art of the product, it called out and pulled you in with how it played with the light, its warmth and visual shimmer.
While I worked in recording studio and learned the in n’ outs of the main gear I was constantly drawn to theFocusrites, Joe Meek gear and theUREI LA-2A’s . The fascination was not just as moth to flame but a concerted study of the device and the names behind it. The boxes spoke to me, called me in to learn not just about compression or EQ but about the early days of audio and the men who made or inspired these gleaming boxes; I also found out about their inspiration and obsessions.
So, you’ll excuse me as I mount this “…most terrifying…” lamp to a brushed aluminum stand shaped like a gothic fence rail and revel in its lineage of history, artisanal heritage and learning it encapsulates for me.
Every couple of years someone comes up with a daring plan to have one system take over and become the ubiquitous backbone of a market or function. MIDI laid claim to something like this for several years in music and interface automation. Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) has continued to fight for complete dominance of the device configuration arena, despite several Bill Gates Blue Screen failuresat live events. IEEE recently announced the formation of working committees to formulate content over CAT 5 standard.
HDMI has announced – (admittedly, this was announced in January but it is still relevant and moving forward) plans to present HDMI not just for content delivery of video and audio but to act as the data backbone as well. It is an interesting attempt to grow the usefulness of HDMI and insure its necessity in any wired home; and, of course, fulfill their plans to take over the world!
The pursuit of one system that does-it-all over a single cable or methodology can be almost spiritual in function, acting as if in recursion, much like the mythical Ouroboros, forming a constant state of eternal return. In such cases the apparent limitation and exclusivity are, in actuality, inspiration to development and open new pathways of innovation.
There is also a danger in allowing a single technology to be the medium for all content. Kevin Kelly recently wrote a fascinating and captivating commentary on the Ted Kaczynski\ Unabomber treatise. In life as well as technology there always exists the danger of over reaching the purpose and function of a topology or medium, winding up like Bellerophon , wandering alone.
At its barest form the concern stems from the debate of centralized vs. distributed control and memory. Is it best to store values in the processor – (centralized) or to store them in individual units being controlled? The arguments on both sides carry a great deal of validity and detriment in application.
In the Case of HDMI, One has to question if it has the data rate room for 1080p Deep Color (which requires a data rate of 6.7Gbps) and full Ethernet data? The better question is just what would have to be given up to accommodate the addition of Ethernet backbone topology? Would CEC have to go away? This would not be such a bad thing as nearly no one actually uses it those who do appear to have only conceived of this as a single source to display concept. I am unclear, and the press releases does not attempt to answer, just what would have to give, (if anything), In order for this to be accomplished.
Given HDMi’s severe limitations on cable distance one would have to presume that some manner of CAT 5 solution or converter will be necessary, especially if it is intended for retrofits. The proposition leaves many who are building HDMI distribution products without an eye towards this latent but present capability suddenly tagged as legacy. For those who designed with an understanding of just what HDMI is, and will be, capable of the world just may be their oyster.
Update: 2-25-09
Ah, the things twitter can show you. This morning I opened up my twitter account ,my http://twitter.com/TuckerTues and not the http://twitter.com/CresrtronHQ , and find an endgadget article on the DiiVa connector which claims
"Forward channel video speeds of 13.6 Gbps provide plenty of room for 1080p and higher resolutions with Deep Color, plus the two-way connection at up to 2.25Gbps that can simultaneously handle multichannel audio, control or other data"
This was originally posted on my Tumblr site: see the video at http://tuckertuesday.tumblr.com/
In my time supporting automation systems I often have had the compliant come back that the interfaces are too daunting, confusing. Such complaints are so common that ICIA published a paper “Dashboard for Control’ to act as a template for interface design. The documents are more ‘like guidelines then actual rules..” as Barbossa would say. My current interface uses the System Builder template which as Dashboard concepts built right in.
Still I get people who are either taken back by a touch screen just at the concept or cannot make sense of ‘all the buttons’. To prove that it can be intuitive, I showed my 3 yr old twice how to turn the system on and find ‘his’ page. All the icons are graphical. As you can see my 3 yr old can easily navigate the touchpanel. He is so comfortable with the interface that he has begun to teach my 1 year old.
That is fine enough, you may say, but it is like the old joke: the package said ‘so easy a 5 year old can assemble it’, so would someone get me a 5 year old to put this together?! Granted children absorb new concepts, just look at how all the kids who watch ‘ni hao kai lan’ can recite the colors in Chinese. But, it does not have to be that difficult. Simple straight forward concepts make the transition from one form factor to another more about getting a task done than the bells and whistles.
About 6 months ago my wife’s mother watched the kids for us, when asked by my son if he could watch TV grandma took one look and said she did not know how. “oh, I so you” was his response and he promptly turned on the AV system and choose Disney. Once he taught the grandma, the device was not so fearful. Now, partly based on her comfort level with our home system grandma has downloaded her first songs from the itunes store and connected her Nano to her car’s in board connector. ‘It’s so cool and easy’ she recently told me. Custom design is a wonderful thing but if it is complicated no one but the person who created will use it. I would love to spend hour’s custom designing a touch screen theme but if I uploaded it to the panel I would have my wife calling me all day asking where to find this or that function. KISS rule applies to all our designs.
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