January 2012
5 posts
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State of the Thesis
Fitting, that the day after the POS gave his State of the Union, we were asked to deliver a similar speech, albeit much shorter, about the current state of our thesis. It felt good to put this on paper and feel such a coherence of thought, but I’ve still got a long way to go.
My thesis began with an observation - today, we’re more likely to root for our fantasy team than our hometown...
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WatchIn which I realize that my thesis is directly related to the opening scene from one of my favorite movies, BASEketball.
“The Minnesotta Lakers moved to Los Angeles, where there are no lakes. The Oilers moved to Tennessee, where there is no oil. And the Jazz moved to Salt Lake City, where they don’t allow music.”
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“I learned that money can be a lot of things. It can be something that is...”
– Louis CK recently explored a new model of fans supporting artists. Rather than distribute a DVD of a live performance via the traditional model, one that involves countless hands in the pot that raises the prices for customers while simultaneoulsy limiting his creative input, Louis CK distributed...
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December 2011
5 posts
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WatchWhen BERG announced the Little Printer, for the first 10 minutes I was completely obsessed. But that quickly gave way to me dismissing it as “hipster design”, that is, us being nostalgic for impractical mediums, lamenting their death, and attempting to resurrect them. IE, vinyl for music, film for cameras, and paper for books, news, etc. (the latter of which is still being lowered...
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“Side projects are important. They’re recognized especially in the software...”
– Allison Shaw’s Whiteboard: My “thesis” is now officially known as my “side project.”
+1
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WatchKeynote prototyping > Flash Prototyping
November 2011
12 posts
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“Relationships between people
TIme based, co created, flexible transactions...”
– Rachel Abram’s definition of service design.
Its time for me to start thinking about baseball as a “service.”
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“Social objects are the engines of socially networked experiences, the content...”
– This is incredibly obvious, but something worth noting. Sports are a social object. Whether its gathering to watch a live event, talking to friends over Twitter/Text from afar, talking to coworkers the next day, or even breaking the ice with a stranger (“so….Tim Tebow…who saw that...
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“The significance of baseball, more than other sports, lies in the very nature of...”
– Don DeLillo, as interviewed by Rafe Bartholomew in Grantland (via fwriction)
Hey self. Keep going. You’re hunch is on to something great.
“loving sports is – of course – fundamentally ridiculous, but it’s fine to love...”
– freedarko.com
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October 2011
20 posts
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“Winning lets you play with the game a little, smiling at your goofs and gaffes:...”
– In direct opposition to Roger Angell’s scorecard in the New Yorker is his accompanying column, in which he describes many of the same plays on his scorecard, in a way that could never be reproduced through data. What’s the difference between a tiny error and a significant error? (besides...
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World Series, Game 6
Two nights ago, I returned home from a school event just in time to flip on the World Series in the 9th inning. I had been checking the score on my way home, and just wanted get home in enough time to see the Texas Rangers celebrate their first World Series victory. I flipped on the TV, poured myself a nice glass of whiskey, and sat down in my favorite chair, expecting to be in bed in the next...
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WatchIts no secret I’m jealous of the first years and their “coding slowly” course with Amit Pitaru, who, from the brief conversations I’ve had with him, has the ability to break code down to the level anybody can understand. While I might not be able to sit in every class, I can reap a few benefits, such as the drivers and Processing code he recently shared with his class to...
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WatchAs I mentioned in my previous post, there is a bit of a dead space in Babe Ruth Plaza created by the staircase that forks in two directions, sending fans to opposite gates. While a fair amount of people cross through it, I never saw it get anywhere close to packed, as opposed to the areas closer to the gates and between the Subway and Stadium. It serves as a great place for people to wait for the...
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“Where as the Mets moved out of a studio apartment to an eight bedroom shore...”
– For my Public Interfaces project, I’m attempting to create an interface within the stadium that helps people feel more connected to the team, the stadium, and their fellow fans. On a hunch, I googled “Hate New Yankee Stadium” and instantly found a quote that that perfectly...
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“If you do not work on an important problem, it’s unlikely you’ll do...”
– Dr. Richard W. Hamming
Sent to us this morning by Jake Barton, and undoubtedly going up on everyone’s thesis process blogs as we speak
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Thesis Thoughts 10.4.11
I hesitate to call these “proposals.” They’re more two directions that I’ll be exploring over the next week to decide where to go next.
Direction 1
Last week, I proposed that sports fans in the 21st century have become paradoxically more disconnected from the fundamentals of fandom as they connect more to their teams through new technology such as push notifications and...
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Yankee Stadium
For our Public Interfaces project, we’ve been asked to work within our thesis area. I’ve decided to build a public interface for Yankee Stadium. In doing some initial research, and working off of my past experiences, I’ve identified the following ::
Problem
While the New Yankee Stadium does a great job of acknowledging the history of the Yankees, it does very little to tie this...
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September 2011
4 posts
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Thesis Proposal 9.26.11
Sports have always reflected larger trends and conditions in society, from wars and conflicts to the breaking of color barriers. One particular area that sports have evolved is in parallel to the evolution of media. A century ago, sports were consumed in one of two ways. A fan could either purchase a ticket and watch the game in person, or, read a recap the next day in the newspaper. The invention...
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“If you’re in San Francisco, and you are deciding to go to Boston or...”
– I’ve talked to Frank Chimero for a grand total of 7 minutes about my thesis, but I already like his way of thinking. Here he helps chill me out over my two possible thesis topics.
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What Makes Me Tick
In our first Thesis Development class today, Frank Chimero urged us to index what we like and our passionate about in a way to start thinking about thesis. He stressed that the difference of work vs labor is that work takes our energy, while labor gives us energy. The only way to achieve this is to work on something that we truly self identify with, and are truly passionate about.
Luckily, I’d...
August 2011
3 posts
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“The thing about thesis is not to focus on something thats cutting edge, but...”
– Justin Fraga, fellow Nike DS intern, in one of our countless conversations about our upcoming thesis’
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July 2011
2 posts
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