[something short that I'd like to turn into something much longer, given the time to do some research. --jet]

In the past few weeks there have been a number of news articles and at least four kerjillion blog posts regarding robots and the future of humanity. Robots that power themselves with organic matter, robots that can run like an animal, and snake robots that can hump human legs are all pretty cool, but there’s also a related narrative that we, as humans, don’t know how to deal with sentient robots.

The thing is, we’ve had unstoppable, zombie-like, intelligent actors capable of taking out a single human for at least a century. They have legal status, can own property, can file lawsuits, own weapons, have security forces, and they self-replicate based on available resources.

They’re called “corporations”.

A corporation has almost all the rights of an individual human, save for voting. But in most other ways, they’re better than any single human. They can store and process data in vast quantities and faster than a single human. They can make intelligent decisions about how they interact with you based on your purchasing history, your medical history, your entertainment preferences, and your social networking activities. A corporation can not only repair itself, it can survive financial death via various forms of bankruptcy and self-replication. If a corporation gets too big, it can split into a group of more efficiently sized corporations that can coordinate efforts with one another.

I’m not worried about a future where sentient robot dogs that feed on the dead stalk the streets at night.

I’m worried about a now where corporations trick humans into paying as much for a liter of bottled tap water as they do for a liter of milk.

Technorati Tags: future, robots, sustainability

Finally.

~4 years after deciding to go back to school and study design, I find myself in possession of a rather fancy diploma from Carnegie Mellon for the study of Master of Science in Tangible Interaction Design.   

Right now, I couldn’t tell you what that actually means. I need to wander off and do some “reflection on doing”, as the Eindhoven gang says. I’ll be wandering to Tokyo first, then back to the bay area to put in time for my employer that gave me an unpaid leave to get my degree, then, actually, I’m not sure what I’ll be doing.

If my employer and I can agree on something I can do for them using my newly-learned skills, then great. I’ve been there ~8 years and have a lot of wonderful relationships and memories that I’d hate to walk away from. On the other hand, maybe what I want to do isn’t something I can do for someone else, or isn’t something I can easily do at a public company smaller than Nokia or Microsoft or Apple.

Thus the “reflection on doing”. I just did ~4 years of design learning, and I need to think about what it means and where I want to go.

However, I’ve decided one thing already: I’m not a “foo designer”. I’m a “designer”. I’m not an “interaction designer” or an “user experience designer” or an “industrial designer” or a “whatever designer”. One of the most important things I learned in these recent years is that it’s all design. Architecture is design, industrial design is design, graphic design is design, typography is design, service design is design, etc.

Over the rest of my career I’ll design (and probably prototype) small, medium, and large things that I hope will make people’s lives better, even if it simply entertains them or amuses them. The last thing I want to do is silo myself and reduce the opportunities offered to me by defining myself in some narrow fashion.

Technorati Tags: cmu, design, done, mtid

Monday, 4 May 2009:

• finish final project for Interactive Technology and Live Performance
• prepare presentation for end-of-Masters presentation
• prepare 18″x24″ presentation board for drawing class
• remove installed “Art That Learns” project from Children’s museum
• prepare for final “Art That Learns” crit
• attend crits, give presentations, etc.

Monday, 11 May 2009:

• Start catching up on 3 year backlog of comic books
• FInally watch Farscape’s last season
• Ride bicycle someplace and back
• Get brake fluid for ‘81 R80G/S, order engine gasket rebuild kit
• Order 30# of live crawfish for post-graduation boil-n-bbq.

Technorati Tags: life, school

Heading out to CHI ‘09 soon, stop by the Carnegie Mellon tables and say “hi” should you get a chance.

Technorati Tags: chi09

I hate writing and reading blog posts that are just “hey, I found a thing!”. Write 100-200 words about why I should look at it, and maybe I will check it out. But if I’m reading your blog, I want to see completed, coherent thoughts, not follow a tiny url to a picture of a lolcat that you thought was particularly amusing for less than 5 seconds.

Twitter, however, seems to be the perfect place for those one-liners that people feel free to ignore if they’re busy.

You can follow my “look at it if you’re bored” stream at allartburns.

Technorati Tags: quickie, surfing, twitter