Making a Toaster from Scratch

Something I found while watching the Colbert Report.

Maybe with all of the unrecycled electronic material we have piling in landfills in foreign countries like the Philippines, India, or China for example, there's a possibility to create any sort of common household product found in an American home.

The Sun Shines West on My Mark

Listening to shuffled music on BART

November 10, 2011

BART has its destination planned for me and everyone else, where everyone and I didn't need to move in order to drift to our destination, rather the train makes planned stops only this 710 foot snake can.[1] Whenever I get on the train, I usually take the end cars, which are either the A2, C1, or C2 vehicles. They're the cars that likely have the hard ground floors and visually appealing seats compared to the ones with the black streaks on the top of the seats. They are also the vehicles that operate as leader and trail cars, however the way the consist is in or outbound.

On this commute, I prepared my experiment and journey by putting on my headphones without starting the music player. I recorded a portion of my journey, although I didn't actually record the whole trip because recording time was limited, including battery life, I started recording when I was coming up to the Pleasant Hill BART station and going from thereon. I recorded the video with my Black Flip UltraHD video camera and in order to get the audio, I placed the left side of my headphone onto the microphone receiver, giving some feedback on what I'm currently listening to. In theory, I thought the microphone would perfectly pick up what's being outputted in the headphones and nothing else. Stupid me, the amplitude is much higher and expanded than my headphones.

The first song is an intelligible titled song, as punctuations translated the Japanese characters that the computer from the movie soundtrack to Ponyo. As the first song began, I pressed the shuffle button, leading to the random play of other songs. An audiobook of David Foster Wallace's The Broom of the System comes next. Out of lite bewilderment, I forgot that the majority of the music I put in my smartphone is filled with the whole DFW audiobook. It's rewarding to hear the book, but not in this particular fashion. I stopped recording, but I kept the audio playing, hoping to hear an actual song, but I was pretty disappointed in not making an appropriate playlist excluding non-music audio.

I'm starting to love riding the BART train every chance I get because it helps me relax and think before I go out in the world, where I begin my daily regimen of school lectures, buying lunch with whatever money I have in my wallet, walking around campus, drifting, or just relaxing in the lounge, especially when no one is taking space on the couch[2]. I thank Yellow BART Snake whenever I get off at Daly City, knowing that I'll be traveling with Mr. Snake back to where I start my commute every morning[3].

Marking my Territory
Another mini-experiment I took on was to mark my territory everywhere I walked for every minute that passed. The basic premise is that I walked around a certain location, (this time, it was around the SF campus) and for every minute that passed, I would write the time, with chalk on the outside pavement (or anything writable on chalk). One exception where I didn't write was when I was inside the building or near by the side of them. I didn't want to vandalize buildings that was owned by the state. And as for the last project, I simply did not want to get caught, basically going incognito in a public environment, which is certainly why some minutes I skipped through.

I had no principle in direction, but rather it was the familiarity of my surroundings and the playfulness of tagging your mark with the box of colorful chalk I had in my left hand and pulling my phone out of my right rocket to check whether a minute has passed.
Michael was here at 12:53, this is where I started drifting around the campus.
M was here at 12:54, I started to walk down the stairs, leading to the Humanities building.
Michael was here at 12:55, I walked up towards the path of the Humanities building.
Michael was here at 12:56Michael was here at 12:57, the ground didn't seem to be writable with my chalk, so I wrote on the bench instead. It was petty tough to write the letters as fast as possible. I believe it took me an estimated 55 seconds before another minute passed. As my hands became more chalkier, the screen as well.12:58, as I finished writing on the bench at 12:57, another minute passed by, so I immediately wrote to the nearest concrete ground that looked writable.Michael was here at 12:59; I had an urge to walk up the long concrete stairs leading to the exits of the third floor, but I also knew there would be writable walls on the side of the stairs. Now I skipped two minutes because I was in the Student Union, finding my way out and hopefully finding a seclusive spot to write the next time, which can be seen below. Michael was here at 1:02; I always came to this spot hidden behind trees and bushes that's near the GYM and right across the ATM machines. This area includes a water/bird? fountain, carved wooden benches without removing its bark, and a chair that looks fit for a king. Michael was here at 1:03
Michael stops at 1:06 :). Now the fun part started where I traced all of my marks, starting from the 1:05 mark and going backwards to the start. It felt like a scavenger hunt, trying to remember back my past footsteps.

And a little bonus...

I honestly had no idea what I was going to do after I drew what is now a grid. Something in my mind wondered if this looks like a game of 5x5 Tic-Tac-Toe or Dots and Boxes, which unfortunately, should not have its lines drawn. Maybe I'm used to seeing the checkerboard pattern whenever I enter one of the school buildings and I tend to think I'm playing the horse in chess, making 'L' patterns whenever I'm walking over the tiles.

Something in me always wanted to skip and hop on tile flooring, especially ones designed to form check board patterns. For many years, I've always been conscious of never stepping on the cracks of pavements because I feel like the cracks will open up and eat me alive; only to bring myself back to reality, that I'm walking on nothing else than concrete, nothing is going to eat me alive, and the only thing I need to worry about is finding time to think about how to present my work orally.

Footnotes:

[1] - This is according to Wikipedia, where the longest BART trains stretches to 710 feet on the 700 foot platform(s), giving people seconds to welcome themselves into the void of empty seats that one can choose to sit or to a plethora of the deadpan to sleepy faces of rush hour morning, filling most of the seating and you, the commuter have to find a seat before you have to suffer the consequences of standing for almost an hour, while you try to hold onto railing that you can't reach for an hour's sake until the Embarcadero station comes and the masses of East Bay commuters trample on the streets of downtown San Francisco. I just lay in wait, until its my turn to stomp on San Francisco concrete, as my shoes nap on the hard ground or soft, yet dirty-looking carpet and wake up when I get up.

[2] - Thank goodness there's a couch in the CIA lounge. It's nice that I can walk in, simply crash and take a quick nap if I only slept for three or four hours in bed or an hour, when I rarely sleep on the floor in my computer room because I'm procrastinating on my essay. I'm hoping this won't happen again when I do my final essay for this class.

[3] - Although the train is not yellow nor it's not an actual snake as I like to NOT imagine,. It's that I associate the trains in-name-only due to the BART maps showing the Pittsburg/Bay Point line being that color. If you check the map with the colorful lines connecting and bending around cities and towns densely populated above this footnote, it's the trail that snakes go back and forth to pick up and drop off people.

As for giving the train a personal name (Yellow BART Snake), it's just a pun of identifying intimate objects as people. Yellow being the first name, BART is the middle, and Snake is its last name. I might even go a bit far as to say that they are like my transitional objects, or security blankets whenever I come to the drudgery of what is commuting to the shuttle or bus in order to get on campus. I'm glad that commuters can at least get comfortable to experience the trauma of commuting to work and doing what is essentially nothing pleasing in your own blue/white collar jobs, something I will have to face when I graduate school.

I had this dream where psychogeography was dogging me and I flew up in the air in my car, looking down on Interstate 80, but man, that pizza is whack!

Every time I get into a discussion with someone at SF State about why I need to get home as soon as possible whenever it dawns or I look at the clock behind the room, with a worried face, turning my head back and forth, I always tell them I live in Martinez. If they don't know where Martinez is, I tell them it's in the East Bay. When one person I spoke to didn't know where the East Bay was, I told him it was on the eastern side of San Francisco, but then again, he was from New York and never ventured out of SF. Well I can't blame the kid, since he moved out from the Midwest and wanted to study in New York. He did like the SFSU website compared to the one he was applying for.

There are times when I'm not aware of the time that passes by when I start my commute from the North Concord/Martinez BART station and end at Daly City station. I pass the time by reading any textbooks or novels at my leisure, but recently, I've been carrying headphones with me, since I'm utilizing the MP3 feature on my smartphone, listening to list of songs multiple hours, it's fun. Whenever a sun refracts on the window across the seat adjacent to the doors, I quickly scroll the list to a cello piece that represents a soothing start to my day, waiting patiently to get out of the train and into my mediated life.

I recall my first time ever[1] taking BART to get to school. I was so nervous of riding alone, that having no one else watch you, instead of watching yourself from child nappers or people who are thinking of stealing your backpack, started to make my stomach churn, especially when I didn't eat breakfast at all. I would do that every morning, but that time, it got much worse as the day went by.

The only thing I did to entertain myself was looking outside of the window. Cars and a multitude of foliage and shrubs whiz pass the speed of the train, making our surroundings like peering inside a paper green snake lantern, the sun trying to make its way to shine out of the tunnel that goes to the underground railroad to San Francisco.

Urban Dreamscape: SF

Footnotes

[1] - It was also my first time ever being all alone taking BART. It would usually be my family or rarely, a friend taking BART with me because when I was 19, my mom would be very cautious of my safety whenever I'm outside the house without being with her. Hearing experiences from my mom about taking BART, she told stories about her sitting next to a bum who probably was digging in a trash can, looking for food, with the likely chance of using the BART ride as an excuse to take a long nap. I'm hoping that she didn't encounter the guy/girl leaning her head on her shoulder, as she would probably be weirded out and getting out of her seat that's stained as a shade of gray according to the average curvature of a person's body in the San Francisco Bay Area, which they should be considering replacing the seats as soon as possible, for the fact some fecal matter and skin-borne bacteria is on those cloth seats.

Added Reality Interface in real life?

[To set up the scene here]: Norman Jayden, an FBI agent is sent to investigate a string of murders of young children, all of them drowned in rainwater. Jayden here is using Added Reality Interface (ARI) glasses, which uses physical space (i.e. the real world) and augmented space (within it's technological boundaries that's inside the glasses and ARI). What appears to be that he's outside atop of the high mountain, his actual spaces are within a small, somewhat unused desk room, with his desk coming along in the AR space, without any of the file cabinets, posters, or window in the physical office.

ARI (Added Reality Interface)

My inquiry into virtual reality is that whether or not this type of technology is possible in terms of virtual reality creating synthetic environments within my years of existence. How can certain cues in physical space activate augments in virtual space in relation to our limiting senses and technology?

Could I use my ARI glasses, take them outside public space and use it as a means of being socially aware of other people combining social networking and electronic devices (e.g. Facebook connected to your phone with the ARI glasses).

[From 11-2-11] Maybe something like this, but in the form of a phone:

Something like this, without the usage of a phone because holding a phone up to your face[1] would be grievous to your wrists, as you hold the phone steady for long periods of time.

Footnote:

[1] - You probably would look like a weirdo if an app like that exists and as you walk past by strangers, holding your phone as if you're video recording because you have a lens at the back, a sign to others to believe that you're recording them. This would cause people to look at you weirdly, but rather the glasses would give you a form of disguise that you're not in a way, looking at their augmented profiles while they whiz by you, some may be holding their [boy/girl]friend's hand.

Just be careful when the other person looks at you weirdly. If they do, just look straight forward, since the augment will probably be visible of range, like a comment bubble on a Youtube video.

Layar, Hoppala, and What Else...

On October 25, our class took a small walk around the campus to check out all of our augments coming from physical space within our electronic devices (e.g. smartphones). Here are some pics from our walk.

Then I had a rainbow following me everywhere. Maybe it's telling me something...

So from our walk, I had trouble with my phone uploading all of the augments that were posted on one layer, which as you can see in the last photo, a majority of spinning loading circles surrounded my phone screen and the only image (for some reason likes me), is the rainbow. My speculation is that the rest of the images were the size of 400[+]x400[+].

I'm in hope that there is a ton of potential in augmented reality where the possibilities of physically interacting with augmented objects within the GPS-controlled application.

Intro to Layar+Psychogeography

First off, I'm not sure whether we have discussed about psychogeography in class, which according to Guy Debord, a founding member of Situtationist International, is "the study of the precise laws and specific effects of the geographical environment, consciously organized or not, on the emotions and behavior of individuals."

Now the task of the activity of the map is to imagine that you are running with an unlit Olympic torch at the start [1]. You then run to some fire [2], which leads you to a lit Olympic torch [3], and finally, you must make your way to the grass area within the concave boundaries of the outside Burk Hall building. You are running on a track [4] and you have to reach the rock, which you will stand up and bestow upon your torch with your phone.

It's an experiment within virtual space and psychogeography, to which your imagination will be dependent upon something that doesn't exist in a physical context, rather virtual.

My funny, yet subtle tale of my GoCar experience

October 13, 2011 was the day when our class (although it was an option for anyone to have a chance at the GoCar) got the chance to drive around the GoCars for our locative media class. I was pretty excited, but nervous at the fact that it was gonna be my first time driving around San Francisco, considering the fact that I was a bit paranoid of traffic over there (or overall paranoid of everything) but then again, it seemed like a great chance to experience the other parts of the city I have yet to explore. There were a couple of locations and attractions that I've always wanted to explore, like Ocean Beach, the windmills in Golden Gate Park, and most of SF that tourists don't frequent, or places that doesn't smell or look like downtown. It's quite a tale, with some antics and quirks that went along and a bit of incompetency, so here's my journey:

First up, I decided to ride a cable car, which was my first time riding in one. It was a sunny, hot day and I wanted to become a tourist for a day. The line got pretty long, where the line started close by the ticket booth. I got to ride on the cable car by hopping onto the side, which was a bit fun, but quite expensive ($6.00 for a one-way trip). I pulled out my Android phone to check out Google Maps and found the location of the GoCars station, to which the address I typed in was '2175 Hyde St.', according to the schedule posted on the class website. Now this is where some things went a bit wrong that day.

Now I thought the cable car would take me directly or close by the GoCars station, where our class was meeting, but I actually took the cable car that was going to Powell & Mason. I panicked for a bit, but didn't worry as much to see that according to my GPS, the address wasn't far from where the cable car took it's last stop. The consequence for that was that I had to walk up some steep hills to get to Hyde St.. It was a brutal walk, because for one, I was going to be late, since the time was around 2:10 and we were suppose to meet at 2:30, and two, I was carrying a heavy bag on my shoulder. So yeah, think about that and always remember to bring a water bottle with you.

I finally got up the hill and was on Hyde St.. Now all I had to do was simply find '2175 Hyde St.' and starting riding around SF. But there was just one strange thing about the address that I took from the website; when I got to the 2100 Hyde street sign, '2175' doesn't exist. So that was when I called Paula and told her that I was lost, but never questioned the fact that the number might have been wrong or not, but I didn't fret, only to walk back and forth for almost 30 minutes, until I did something else that changed my perspective on where the station was: I googled GoCars and saw that the address number was 2715, not 2175. Oops.

All of sudden, I put my phone in my bag and ran for it. I almost rolled down the hill when I got to 2300 because of the sudden incline. I became a bit haughty, after seeing that I was getting closer to 2700, where we were suppose to meet up, to the fact that I was starting to have this manic laugh, like when Dr. Evil laughs when he wants to rule the world by holding the world ransom world for a billion dollars, only that I was gonna rule the streets of San Francisco for one or two hours.

So forward to testing the car, I finally got on the road with the GoCar. It was a thrill to drive on a not-so-busy Beach St., which was fantastic to see tourists and locations that I've never been to before. The audio navigator was pretty good in giving me a historical tour of the places I was driving on and to my destination. What was exciting about the navigation was that it gave a choice to go to certain locations, like whether I wanted to check out the recreational areas, the restaurants, or simply go back to where I started and finish my tour immediately (no way I would do that, yet).

My first major drive was going through Beach St., then I made my way by going to Bay St., which I came to see Fort Mason Green, a park that is part of Fort Mason Center. I then took a turn at Laguana St. in order to drive through Marina Blvd. I then took Mason St., to which I was led to one of the panoramic views of the Golden Gate Bridge. The tour guide gave me an option to park my car to check out the Farallones Marine Sanctuary, or take a stroll around the Golden Gate Promenade and its beach. I had to take all of my stuff with me everywhere whenever I would park my car because the trunk didn't have a proper key to lock my stuff, so I couldn't frolic around the beach, playing in the sand or run around and the fact that I had class at around 5:00, I needed to limit my time with the tour.

On my trip to the beach, I found these strange, geometric bedrocks, spread with seaweed on it. Every time the waves would recede back to the sea, the water that is engulfed into the spacing of the rocks was a beauty to look at.

I got back on my car, but had a bit of trouble getting the car started, not knowing where to start the engine at all. It was troubling for me because cars were coming and going, delaying their parking time and my useful incompetence, which will be explained later on. I was then told to go to Crissy Field Ave., make my way towards Long Ave, and then drive to Marine Dr, which headed towards Fort Point and a much closer view of the bridge. I got to the location, only to sit in my car, as if I was watching a drive-in move, at the same time, looking at the back of my trunk because there was no lock to it.

Looking at the waves with the cool, breezy wind and city buildings in the background made the viewing almost movie-like, where the static buildings and movement in the area was a canvas, already painted by architects, but is continued by the inhabitants of the city. I move on to Lincoln Blvd and led on get up and close to the toll booth of the bridge via parking lot. I thought I was going to be led to drive on the bridge a couple of times during the whole trip, but nevertheless, it was quite a sight to be near the bridge without paying a toll. I quickly drove around the lot and as I about to head back on the road, a couple was dancing to some swing music, people were viewing the spectacle, I was slowly driving to check out the scene, only because there was a police car in front of me. I yelled out for an encore, but never got one.

I went back on the road, heading towards the Presidio. I come towards Baker Beach, my second stop to another beach area. I recall that this was a nude beach, but luckily, none were to be found. I remember seeing this beach on television a couple of times, where most of the time, the beach was used as a background drop for nude models to pose for a calendar being sold for AIDS or cancer charities.

I carry on my destination back to the road and head onto El Camino Del Mar for a while, leading me to a location where I recall coming to a couple of times. It's one of the most beautiful spots to look upon that I have become fond of. I come across Lincoln Park, an 18-hole golf course and the California Palace of the Legion of Honor, one of my favorite that houses classical works of art, from Monet (Water Lilies) to El Greco (St. John the Baptist). I had a bit of fun driving around the fountain twice, which almost made me a bit dizzy after the second time.

I made my way back on to El Camino Del Mar and continued to explore the richness of the forestry, taking a break from the concrete and buildings that flood people's minds when they think of SF man-made buildings/structures (Transamerica Pyramid, Bank of America Center, City Hall, Fisherman's Wharf). I make my way to Point Lobos Ave and head on to the Great Highway, leading to one of the most longest beaches I've seen so far in my life, Ocean Beach. I've always wanted to check out the place before, but never got to because it always started to turn to dusk when the bus would reach my would-be destination.

I then head towards to Golden Gate Park, which lead me to see the two Dutch Windmills. As I go through the park, I keep on driving in John F. Kennedy Drive, where I saw the Bison Paddock (unfortunately, all of the Bison were in their cages by then), a somewhat hidden, beautiful, small waterfall situated around Lloyd Lake (if I recall). I made a turn at Transverse Dr. and was told to keep driving towards Martin Luther King Jr. Drive, but another part of that road was closed, so I made a turn to Crossover Dr and that's where I get lost at one point of the trip.

After some confusion, I made my way back to the "right" streets when the navigator finally speaks up and tells me that I'm at the Haight-Asbury district, a street well known for it's upbringing on hippie culture. After leaving the Haight, I got caught up in traffic. This is where my trip started to get much worse. At one point, while sitting on a red light, having a bunch of cars right behind me, I thought to myself, "I wonder what this switch does...". 

The engine stops. The light turns to green. Why was I such a dope to follow my impulses? I was so terrified, that I got out of my car immediately, pushed my car to the side and tired to start the engine again. As I got it to work, I get closer to a fire hydrant, which I lost my grip with the hand brakes, twisting the engine throttle forward, thus crashing into the hydrant. Fortunately, the crash created a dent in the middle of the car; I'm just reluctant that it wasn't my first time crashing a vehicle (my first time crashing a car that I drove was the first time I ever drove a car myself; my Nissan Xterra. I was trying to clean the garage one summer day and I happen to hit one of the pillars on the front of the house. It made a huger dent on the side of the SUV, but was fixed later on.)

As time was passing by, I got more bored and worrisome that I was going to be late for my class that already started. I was waiting for the navigation to speak up to where I was going, but I just drove endlessly around random streets that I tried to correlate the street names I recognized that was likely close to downtown. But after ten or so minutes, I finally found Hyde St., and that's where my haptic trip ended.

So that was my experience with the GoCar Tours. I had the most fun exploring San Francisco this way and would genuinely love to have a friend join the ride with me, only on the condition that he/she share driving privileges. I would have never seen another part of the city that didn't look like old buildings, only to believe that there is a part of SF that doesn't look like downtown at all. If I was given the chance to go another go at Cocarting, I would absolutely do it. I thank Paula for giving us a chance to taking a test drive on the GoCars. It gave me a chance to explore SF like I never did before. The experience of sightseeing in an open space without the hassle of a personal motor vehicle is fantastic in that you do not have to maintain it yourself. I didn't tell the guys about the dent though, but hopefully they'll bill me for that.

Sorry guys.