August | 2006 | Bryan Clark

Damn it feels good to be in Cambridge

Just woke up 5 gunshots somewhere outside my window and tires screeching, some kind of drive by? Every time a gun goes off around here you can hear the police cars all converging on my neighborhood. From almost a mile away the sirens go on and you can see the lights flashing as they twist and turn their way to Area 4 (aka gansta’s paradise).

Reading up on the situation this weekend I found that there is possibly a gang of the infamous Bloods [w] who have moved into my neighborhood. Well they’ve actually always been here, but got along nicely until a recent war started with other gangs across the river. The Mayor Kenneth Reeves decided to call these gangs wusses as there is obviously no way harvard and MIT educated gangs could stack up to his old detroit gangs.

So there’s been a curfew on the nearby park where I walk my dog, which just means if I’m late to take my dog out I have to walk down to the other dog park off sidney street instead of the one close by. More jobs, less gangs; I’m not really sure how that’s going to work but something is better than useless debate over what city cambridge is more like.

I’m really hoping that walking a bad ass looking pitt bull with clipped ears will make anyone think twice about shooting me (knock on wood) in my park even though my dog in all reality is a big baby in a mean looking body. Perhaps this should be my last year in this apartment…

Where Mugshot is At

Since the last time I blogged about Mugshot we’ve had a bunch of changes going on and are continuing to improve existing systems while also doing research into new stuff.

One of the latest changes we’ve pushed is a first version of the Where I’m at section. Currently this allows you to take a position on existing services by setting your account name (and thus setting up some public services for that account) or telling people how you think it sucks.

The where I’m at in it’s current state is only displaying this account information, we selected a small but diverse set of initial accounts to experiment with so we can get an understanding of how to display and access the accounts. As we’re learning more about displaying and accessing these accounts we’re moving towards the next stages of the system.

The next push of Where I’m at should include not only more accounts to relate to, but also subscription to those accounts. The goal is to make friend relationships on the mugshot system the same as a subscription to their friends activities on various sites and systems they entered. So when you set your digg account on Mugshot anyone who adds you as a friend will get notified when you digg something, likewise if your friend uses reddit you’ll be notified what links they like and dislike so you can take part in that as well.

So there are a couple cool things you get when doing this, one is that you can keep up with your friends and what they’re checking out on the web. Another is the simple and disconnected re-experiencing of events. Take this example, when you use evite to setup a party or event the evite system emails everyone after the event asking them to post their pictures and thoughts to the evite site so you can share with your friends. This re-experiencing is a very common activity, however what’s uncommon is for people to continuously use new systems (like evite) to post their photos and thoughts for this re-experiencing. Many people already have a place where they upload their photos, flickr, shutterfly, or picasa; yet new services spring up all the time trying to get people to use exclusively their system.

On the Horizon

Last week I observed more people watching TV, this time we watched Project Runway together and I have to admit it’s a pretty good show. Also we’ve got some great ideas for the client and will be looking for comments soon. Will write about all that later.