jorge.cortell.net

On Friday, at lunch time, I went to the Guggenheim to meet Susan Thompson, Curatorial Assistant, for a tour of Francesca Woodman exhibition.

Although Francesca Woodman’s photographs are undeniably subtle and portray the mind of a troubled young woman (body, space, self, disgust, identity, etc), it is a pity she took her life so early, leaving us with what is obviously a truncated body of work, one that begins, explores, promises… but never concludes because death found her first.

What really annoyed me was the curator’s unwillingness (I refuse to believe she “did not have more information” as she said) to talk about Woodman’s suicide. So I asked her directly, and she still dodged the question. Why is suicide such a taboo, even today?

So, after taking the opportunity and seeing John Chamberlain choices exhibition (walking by Natalie Portman for the second time that day, as she took a walk with a friend, stroller and baby) and enjoying more than anticipated, in sharp contrast with the apathy the Being Singular Plural exhibition provoked upon exploration, I headed to the School of Visual Arts for their MFA Computer Art Open Studios.

In short: unorganized, uncreative… not worth it.

On Tuesday I went to New York University for a nice conversation in the Inside the Internet Garage series, with journalists Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher (AllThingsDigital, Wall Street Journal, etc).

Besides the very interesting bio/background overview of them that the interviewer did, here are some quotes that caught my attention.

Walt Mossberg:

IT departments are the most regressive force in tech, blocking new tech adoption

The story goes that Larry Page asked Steve Jobs for advice, he said “Find the 5 things you do best, and focus on it”, which it’s what he’s doing

(Talking about Mark Zuckerberg) “you need some megalomania in order to execute your idea better than others”

Kara Swisher:

Sergei Brin has always been the goofy one, but Larry Page = Bill Gates. Walt Mossberg adds: … or like Thomas Jefferson

Q: Has Google lost its edge? Both answer: No.

After the event, I talked a bit with Mr. Mossberg (quite a character, very determined and smart). The funny/sad anecdote came when I told him: “I’ve been reading you for decades” and he replied: “You don’t look that old”. 2 decades and 1 year to be exact. I guess I’m old. My impression of Mrs. Swisher is someone very smart, direct, tough… but humane at the same time.

The beauty of the day? This glitter covered bike I saw walking by SoHo.

First read this post.

Then watch this South Park episode.

Now, if you are not going to cook something, get out of the kitchen (and at least start selling )

And you thought I was talking about Princess Leia?

source

After posting graphs and cold data (quite ilustrative, I believe), and the discussion it has generated (people, why don’t you use the “comment” instead all the other unstructured methods you are using?), please let me write a caveat about graphs and cold data.

In my high-tech gym, you have the option to have a lot of data collected, for your own, private and personal use. It seems like a great idea at first. For example, I can access via a secure web site real time stats of my workouts, such as the “fitness balance” (which shows my emphasis in weight lifting, and then swimming -some data greyed out for privacy purposes-):

Sounds great, doesn’t it? Not that fast.

The following graph (Workout Log) allows me to see how many times I have worked out. Since I tend to go to the gym everyday (but it is not always possible), an average of 4 times per week sounds reasonable, but what is that max. 8 times per week number? Why is there such a dip in mid February?

Data often needs to be contextualized, otherwise we might end up with the wrong conclussion (those 8 workouts per week happened to be visits to the gym to do a personal assesment and training routine design, added to my regular workouts; and the dip… just a long trip!).

But even worse things can happen:

In this case, an obviously strange abherration is showing in the graph. Somehting to be concerned about? Not at all: the scale of the axis make a slight variation (less than 1%, less than a pound) seem like a huge shift. And variables such as measurement thresholds, electronic glitches, etc must be taken into account when considering the validity and presentation of that data.

Let’s just keep in mind: however great quantification and visualization tools are (and I do like them a lot, and believe they can be very beneficial to the way we make decissions and understand the world and ourselves) they must be used with care. After all, this following map might show all the places I have traveled to… but it can not tell you about the experiences lived there…

Map + Newspapers + Translations = Simple and AWESOME!!

Newspapermap.com

Lego web design, anyone?

seen in Tumblr (user: hragv)

From the #thisIsHowItsDone (not the movie adaptations, but special events to make people go more to the movie theaters) department, here is an awesome initiative from AMC movie theaters:

Get ready to watch the greatest Marvel movie event ever held at your local AMC Theatre on May 3rd! Experience THE ULTIMATE MARVEL MARATHON with six movies on one epic day. Watch the heroes’ stories unfold as they assemble for the midnight premiere of The Avengers 3D! Here’s a list of the six movies being shown at THE ULTIMATE MARVEL MARATHON: Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, Iron Man 2, Thor in 3D, Captain America in 3D, The Avengers in 3D.

While I am preparing a loooooong post about technology and privacy (with a provocative twist, for a change ), I have decided to play with face.com‘s face recognition technology.

What do you think? On target (hint: no, not on target, I am not THAT old, and definitely I AM a male)? Scary (hint: only if we are unaware of these technologies and their uses)?…