Back here I mentioned I’m “Ne-dominant”. Ne is shorthand for the cognitive function of extraverted iNtuition. Too many ideas, not enough time!
Were I to fully embrace the categorical identity of an “ENFP”, that would make my least powerful cognitive function my Si, aka my introverted Sensing.
It’s my least powerful function, but it’s important to pay attention to it, to remember my history and let it guide my future (and yes I keep a lot of journals).
Wednesday September 29th, 2021. I walk into a Pittsburgh coffee shop. The environment evokes a memory or two. I get my coffee, sit at a table outside and start writing. From there, more memories flow.
May 2019. San Diego. A coffee shop by the beach. I’m prepping for the XPrize awards ceremony. I’m updating my website. I’ve already made custom business cards with blank spaces for re-paste-able hyperlinks. Why do business cards only link to one single website? And why does everyone receive the same business card? We’re living in the age of machine-learning personalized recommendations, and the analog space should reflect that.
Unknown Date. Pittsburgh. Coffee Tree Roasters. I’m experimenting with SVG manipulation. I’m working with the same analog dots I used to make the heartbeat here. I take these dots code them to move along a river, with some colors. It kinda looks like shit, but it’s interesting.
September 2019. New York City. The lobby of a complimentary hotel after a cancelled flight. I’m modifying some open source code from one of the XPrize winners. I make a drawing tool to draw radial lines, allowing the user to draw flowers.
October 2019. Pittsburgh. Artisan Cafe on Penn Ave (RIP). After a lunch of beans, I’m experimenting with more drawing tools. I add an Undo button, and a feature where you can draw the same pattern from many sources at once.
October 2019. Amsterdam Airport. The robotic voice of the moving sidewalk tells travelers “Mind Your Step” as they step onto it. I record this audio and use Audacity to pitch-shift it, then replace the audio in a digital marimba with these samples. There is a Grand Piano in this waiting area. A man plays it quite expertly and people sit around to listen. I can’t help but think that what I’m doing is 100x more interesting, but perhaps more difficult to convey why it’s interesting.
October 2019. A village in Tanzania. It’s night time and pitch black outside. I hear a chorus of funny-sounding frogs. Their “croaks” are like a sound effect you might hear in a smartphone game. I record this audio, thinking of the possibilities for me or for future tablet users to remix it.
If “The Medium is the Message”, some have speculated that the true nature/message of the medium of the computer is that of memory. The storage and recall of memory.
A world of thoughts, memories, and experiences, waiting to be captured and recalled at a later date. Reused, Remixed, Repurposed.
I like how the collage of cafe/journal/audio examples builds to the final thought: "If The Medium is the Message, some have speculated that the true nature/message of the medium of the computer is that of memory. The storage and recall of memory. A world of thoughts, memories, and experiences, waiting to be captured and recalled at a later date. Reused, Remixed, Repurposed."