Rolandt

Nobody ever accused Microsoft (MSFT) of having consistent naming
 sequences. Let’s see: Windows versions have been named, in order, 1, 2, 3, 95,
 98, 2000, ME, XP, Vista, 7, 8 and 10.

And today, there’s a new version: Windows 10 Anniversary Update.
 Why use three syllables when 10 will do?

Windows 10 was already very good. Beautiful, fast, coherent,
and compatible with those 4 million Windows apps the world depends on.
 What Windows 10 AU offers, though, is mostly catchup and refinement. It’s a
 bunch of features that follow in Google’s and Apple’s footsteps (haters,
 relax — yes, we know those companies
 have also stolen from Microsoft), and a lot of fleshing-out of features that
were bare-boned in the original Windows 10.

Since Windows 10 AU is free, and since every copy of Windows 10 will soon begin auto-installing the update, you may as well know what you’re getting into. Here’s a quick rundown of what you have to look forward to.

Edge can now pass along notifications (they appear with your other notifications, in the Action Center) from websites that offer them.

You can now pin a tab in Edge (shrink it to an icon that’s anchored at the left end of the tab bar), so that you can’t close it accidentally.

Finally, Edge uses up a lot less battery power than its rivals, according to Microsoft.

Log in with your face

Already, on Microsoft tablets and laptops, you can teach the special camera (an Intel RealSense camera) to recognize you, and log you in with your face. Yes, you can unlock your tablet or laptop just by looking at it — fast, clean, foolproof. (Literally. No photo, sculpture of your head, or even twin can fool this feature.)

That face recognition, along with fingerprint recognition on appropriately equipped laptops, is part of a feature called Windows Hello — and now, Microsoft says, apps and websites can use it, too. Someday soon, you could, in theory, log into your email or bank site just by looking at it.

If it catches on, that will be a huge feature. No more passwords, no more stupid Captcha puzzles to solve. You, and only you, can log in. (Your face or fingerprint is stored only on your machine, and never transmitted.)

Ink

If you were kind enough to buy a Microsoft tablet or touchscreen laptop, the company wishes to thank you by bringing you a wagon full of gifts.

You know the pen that came with your recent Surface tablet? You can now program the clicker on the top to do some cool stuff — like opening the new Ink Workspace, a collection of pen-friendly apps like Stickies, Sketchpad (for freeform drawing, featuring a virtual ruler you can use as a straightedge), Screen Annotation (lets you draw on a screenshot), and OneNote. (There’s a taskbar icon that opens this Workspace, too.)

The new Stickies app recognizes handwritten phone numbers, stock symbols, times, and web addresses (they turn blue once recognized), and offers to dial, look up, create reminders for, or open them when you tap them. That’s neat.

The best part of all of this: You can set up the pen-clicker thing to bring up the Ink Workspace even before you’ve logged in — at the Lock screen. Finally, a tablet is as useful as a legal pad. You’re suddenly getting the phone number of somebody attractive? Click your pen and start writing it down, without first logging in like some kind of painful nerd.(All of this, Microsoft says, may also work with other companies’ Bluetooth pens.)

The Start menu

Microsoft continues to tinker with the Start menu, the all-knowing oracle that gives you access to everything useful on your PC. Now, the All Programs button is gone; instead, the left side of the Start menu is your All Programs list. (The File, Settings, Power and account buttons are now tiny icons at the even farther left of the menu).

This change makes screaming sense. Every OS includes both a master list of apps and a customizable subset of the ones you use most often — think of the Home screens in Android, or the Dock on the Mac. In Windows 10, the fly-out tiles are your custom subset; the left-hand column should display the master list. You’ll fall in love with this feature fast.Too bad you can’t type-select an app’s name once the list is open, though. (You can type-select only before you’ve opened the Start menu, using the Search box.)

Apps and web pages can be programmed to add reminders directly to your list, too. For example, you can save a Map directly into Cortana’s reminder list.

Better yet, you can use certain Cortana commands at the lock screen — before you’ve even logged in. You can ask her about the news, stocks, or weather, for example, or ask her to tell you a joke. None of this is personal information, so none of it requires signing in.

Taskbar updates

If you click the clock, you now get a pop-up mini-calendar; click a number to see your appointments for that day. And if you click the volume icon, you can switch playback sources — from speakers to headphones, for example.

The idea is that if you have an Android phone with the Cortana app (or if you’re among the six people with Windows phones), all of its notifications and even low-battery alerts can now appear on your Windows desktop, as pop-up alerts. It’s pretty crude — still in beta — and making it work involves crawling through a bunch of settings on both machines. And, of course, it’s not as slick as Apple’s; for example, you can’t use your laptop or tablet as a speakerphone, as you can on Macs and iPads. But this is a start.

Lots of misc.

• Windows 10 AU reserves more slots (10 instead of 5) for ads
  among your Start-menu tiles (though you can remove them).
• Your email address no longer appears on the Lock screen.
• You can four-finger swipe between virtual desktops.
• You can now use both Microsoft’s free antivirus program
  (Windows Defender) and one that
  you’ve bought. Defender acts like a second opinion.
• New emoji symbols, including bacon and various skin shades.
• Lots of the basic starter apps have sprouted new refinements
  of their own.

Get it?

Windows 10 AU will probably install itself onto your Windows 10 machine this week, or soon; only the subtle Start menu and taskbar changes will alert you that something has changed.

Fortunately, there’s very little to dislike in the Anniversary Update. There are very few changes that make you slap your forehead and say, “Why did they DO that?!”

According to the company, 350 million people are already happily using Windows 10. And with the Anniversary Update, most of them will be even happier.

David Pogue is the founder of Yahoo Tech; here’s how to get his columns by email. On the Web, he’s davidpogue.com. On Twitter, he’s @pogue. On email, he’s poguester@yahoo.com. He welcomes non-toxic comments in the Comments below.

For the last 15 years, the population of Vancouver’s historic Grandview-Woodland neighbourhood has shrunk. 

Recent census data shows that the neighbourhood’s population has decreased by about 1,900 people (or ‐6.5%). Meanwhile over the past forty years, the population of Vancouver has grown by 42% and all of the city’s other midtown communities – Kitsilano, Fairview, Strathcona, Mount Pleasant, Kensington‐Cedar Cottage, and Hasting‐Sunrise - have seen a population increase of 34%.

How did this happen?

Grandview-Woodland is very walkable, desirable neighbourhood with an eclectic mix of old Italians, bohemian artists, First Nations, lesbians and families (to name a few). It is easily connected to rapid transit and centres around the bustling Commercial Drive - home to many parks, “Mom and Pop” cafes, restaurants, green grocers and retail stores. 

I have lived in the neighbourhood for eight years and am fortunate to own a home here, where I plan on staying to raise my family. Grandview-Woodland should be attracting people like me in droves, but it is not.  

I can tell you from personal experience, that my son is the only kid under 12 on my block. There are three other teenagers. The rest of the street is made up of people over the age of 55 living by themselves, or with a partner, in large, single family homes. 

Meanwhile, schools in the area are threatening to shut down due to declining enrollment and older homeowners, who are well-represented by the Grandview Woodlands Area Council, are up in arms about any increased density that could bring in new families and renters (and I mean ANY, they wouldn’t even support a five-storey building in a former parking lot on a retail street).

We can do better than this. We need a plan that will allow the neighbourhood to grow and thrive. 

Thankfully, we now have one.  The City of Vancouver has been working with the community for the past five years to create a new plan for Grandview-Woodland (also known as Commercial Drive). The community planning process stirred up some controversy a few years ago when the “Emerging Directions” revealed a proposed 41-storey tower and higher density towers near Broadway Skytrain station in this mostly low-rise neighbourhood. 

Following uproar from local residents (myself included), a Citizens Assembly was formed to refine the plan, which was approved last week by Vancouver City Council. It promises to add affordable housing in a sky-rocketing real estate market, protect and increase rental homes, improve community amenities, and preserve the unique vibe of Commercial Drive. When I asked Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson about how the Grandview-Woodland Community Plan would how benefit families, he provided the following response:

“Very little new housing geared to families was built in the neighbourhood over the last 30 years. If you’re someone who was fortunate enough to buy a single family house in the neighbourhood, or find a 3 bedroom apartment, then you’re probably doing ok. But if you’re in a basement suite, 1 bedroom, or an attic suite, where are you going to go if you want to raise a family? Housing prices spiked so much that you can’t buy. And if you want to rent, the vacancy rate is near zero, and a lot of the rental is old and needs significant improvement. So either you cram into a smaller space or are forced to move out to the suburbs. Neither of these is an acceptable option if we want to be a healthy city that is inclusive for families.

The best way we can make sure that more families can live in Grandview Woodland is to add new family housing along with the amenities that support raising a family in the neighbourhood. That’s why the plan that staff developed with the community really focuses on 2 and 3 bedroom units, especially rental, and that a big part of the community benefits strategy is to add 430 new child care spaces and renew Britannia. If you go through the plan, you’ll also see a big emphasis on duplexes, townhouses, rowhousing and co-ops. That’s the type of housing we hear over and over from people that they want. There are some people who don’t want to see any change – they want just single family homes – but I think adding modest density like townhouses is something most people see the value of. And for the long-term health of our city, we can’t ignore the fact that too many young families are being forced out because they can’t find a decent place to live. This plan is a step towards changing that.”

I also spoke with City of Vancouver staff about the Grandview-Woodland Community Plan to learn about how it will accommodate growth and welcome new families and young people.

Photo: Eastside Family Place

Grandview-Woodland has not experienced any population growth - why do you think this is and what can we do to welcome more people to the neighbourhood?

Planning policies for Grandview-Woodland were developed more than 30 years ago when Vancouver was a much different place.  That was even before the city’s first Sky Train was built!  In the intervening years, the city has been facing challenges such as constrained rental housing supply, affordability and opportunities for families to find homes in the city.  

With an outdated community plan, layered with the housing challenges that cities face today, there has been little development in Grandview-Woodland in recent years. Limited physical change in the community means very few opportunities for newcomers to move into this great neighbourhood.  The update to the community plan seeks to remedy this.  A key objective of the updated community plan is to ensure that, going forward, there will be new housing opportunities at all levels of affordability for a broad spectrum of people – whether they are families, singles, students, or seniors – in a vibrant and accommodating place.

- Kent Munro, Assistant Director of Planning

What aspects of the Grandview-Woodland plan will benefit families?

The new community plan will guide the incremental development of many new housing opportunities.  Policies will require that one-third of all new homes will have two- or three-bedrooms.  The plan’s strategy to provide new or renewed public amenities includes significant new investment in the Britannia Community Centre which is a vital hub of recreational, social, cultural and educational activity in the community.  Its swimming pool, ice rink, library and cultural spaces will all see new investment.  Of particular note is the plan’s delivery of 430 new childcare spaces as well as renewal of many existing spaces.  Additionally, local parks and public spaces around the community will continue to be upgraded.

- Andrew Pask, Community Planner

What was it like working with the Citizen’s Assembly?  

It appears that the City of Vancouver’s approach in Grandview-Woodland is the first time that a Citizens’ Assembly model has been used in a community planning process.  One of the primary advantages of a Citizens’ Assembly model is that the randomly selected membership is a far more representative body  – in that demographic sense – than local governments see in more conventional consultation processes (e.g. open houses, workshops, questionnaires).  The GW Assembly was comprised of a proportional number of men and women, renters and owners, different age cohorts, and so on.  The Assembly looked and sounded like a cross-section of GW residents! Having a relatively small group meant that time could be spent delving deeply into issues.  

- Kent Munro, Assistant Director of Planning

Learn more about the Grandview-Woodland Community Plan here.

mkalus shared this story from Colossal.

Wading calf-deep into what looks like an infinite pool of water, visitors to Tokyo’s Odaiba Minna no YUME-TAIRIKU 2016 festival walk slowly through teamLab‘s (previously) latest light mapping installation. A shallow pool of water is completely surrounded by mirrored ceiling and walls, highlighting the psychedelic nature of the thousands of computer generated koi fish that are projected around the viewer’s audience’s feet. The fish change speeds as they navigate the waters, often crashing into observers and bursting into scattered flowers upon contact.

The interactive installation is one of four large-scale immersive experiences produced by the Japanese art collective for the festival which is on view through August 31, 2016. You can see images of the other installations on the festival’s website and watch the koi fish in action in a video produced by teamLab below. (via Culture N Lifestyle)

I can't comprehend the everyday niggles I continue to routinely encounter on Windows 10 when I consider it just celebrated its an Anniversary Update. Here's one that still gets me even though I should be used to it by now: whenever I tap on a link on the excellent Quartz Daily Brief in Mail, the scrollbar resets to the top. This seems to be happening with links in other emails too but weirdly not all. And what's even more weird is this doesn't happen when I click on the link using my trackpad - seems to be an issue when touching on links only. For an OS now 1 year old and with a core app that to be fair has been regularly updated during this time, the overall experience remains bereft of polish.

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Samsung’s cycle still has some distance to run. 

• Although Samsung appears to have recovered its mojo, I think that it is merely enjoying a product cycle which at some point will come to an end.
• This mojo was underscored by a successful launch event for the Galaxy Note 7 that went hand in hand with an improved Gear VR and a sales promotion that should help consumers to swallow the blistering $850 price tag.
• The most notable upgrade was the inclusion of an iris scanner that makes unlocking the device very simple and fun.
• This successful event comes on the back of two excellent quarters where margins in handsets have rallied to 16.3% in Q2 16A from 10.9% in Q2 15A and a 20% rally in the share price so far this year.
• However, the big question is where does it go from here.
• The good news is that I think that current cycle has some distance to run but the bad news is that all cycles come to an end.
• I am convinced that there is nothing special (other than its price) about the Galaxy s7 that has made it a success.
• Instead a confluence of events and good management by Samsung have meant that the Galaxy s7 is doing far better than Samsung could have hoped.
• I do not think that iPhone users are switching to Android.
• Instead those who currently own an S4 or an S5 are taking advantage of attractive pricing on a great product to replace their devices sooner than they normally would have done.
• This results in a classic product cycle where sales rally for a period of 6-12 months while users upgrade and then return to baseline.
• This is exactly happened to Apple with the iPhone 6 and is now happening to Samsung with the s7, albeit to a lesser degree.
• This cycle has led to Samsung shipping large numbers of the s7 which has also had the effect of consolidating unit volumes into fewer numbers of models.
• This always leads to better margins because components can be acquired in greater volumes and development only has to be done once.
• Samsung has also been very efficient at cutting its cost base and is being far more cautious with costs than when Galaxy ruled the Android world.
• Hence, I think that Samsung’s handset margins will stay strong for the balance of 2016 and then return to 9-11% which is I think is sustainable long term.
• However, analysts like straight lines and I suspect that many will now be forecasting that 16% is the new normal for Samsung.
• As a result, I suspect that by the end of this year 2017 estimates will be much too high.
• Consequently, I see disappointment in Q2 17 next year but until then, I think Samsung’s rally can continue.
• Even including a 20% discount for inferior corporate governance, I can still comfortably value Samsung at KTW1.9m some 23% higher than the shares are today.
• Hence Samsung remains with Baidu and Microsoft in my top 3 for 2016.

Gestern also wieder einer dieser Unpacked Events, die immer noch dem gleichen Schema ablaufen. Ein pompöser Anfang, danach eine eher peinliche Vorstellung eines wichtigen koreanischen Managers, der nur sehr schlecht englisch spricht, gefolgt von der eigentlichen Demo. Wer das aushält, kann sich hier die volle Stunde geben. Oder man schaut das auf sieben Minuten komprimiert.

Das ist ein ganz fantastisches Gerät, das mich leider nicht anspricht. Die Hardware ist sowas von perfekt, aber ich mag die Software nicht. Ich mag das TouchWiz-Design nicht, ich mag die doppelte Samsung-Software nicht. Aber das ist nur meine ganz persönliche Präferenz. Tolle Kamera, bestes Display, ein sehr brauchbarer Stift, der immer dabei ist. Jetzt auch wasserdicht und mit Speichererweiterung. Neu: ein Iris-Scanner für die Sicherheit. Die Galaxy S7-Reihe ist damit komplett.

Doug Peterson, doug — off the record, Aug 06, 2016

Doug Peterson interviews Michelle Cordy, who, as he said, appeared to many to have "burst upon the scene with her closing keynote address at the 2016 ISTE Conference." Here's the Periscope  recording of that talk; here are some sketchnotes from it; here's  an article about the talk). Titled "Show up and refuse to leave" it touched exactly the right note with the audience (and I have to admit, it's a message that resonates with me as well). It's a bit of a softball interview but I appreciate the look at the interests and activities of a classroom teacher who takes the time to share with the rest of us. "The reality is that I am a full time classroom teacher," she writes, "and I am not a professional speaker or consultant. It is very difficult for me to be away from the classroom. So, I must be very selective about the work I choose to do in addition to my classroom responsibilities. You won't see my face on too many conference flyers after ISTE." Too bad. Here's her blog, Hack the Classroom.

Anya Kamenetz, NPR, Aug 06, 2016

What bothers me most about this article is that the main premise is demonstrably false. Here is the main premise: "Three things people can do that robots can't: Tell a story. Solve a mystery. Give a hug." Now each of these is offered with a bit of description intended to make the behaviour more human. For example, "give a hug" actually means "empathy, collaboration, communication and leadership skills." But there's a bot that has  already done this. Plus, there's already a literal hug bot. There are also numerous storytelling bots, including one that  looks at a picture and tells you a story about it, an MIT storytelling companion, and robot journalists. Mystery-solving bots abound, including the diagnosis bots on WebMD, test failure analyzers, this  countdown bot, a  solver for 2048,  Minesweeper solver, and more. The lesson here is, if you're going to make claims about what technology can't do and publish it in a national newsletter, do your research.

Over the past few years, technology has put itself on first-name terms with me. Logging on to a public wi-fi provider, I receive the message “Welcome back, William!” as if it were a homecoming. “We care about your memories, William,” Facebook tells me. “Recommended for you, William” is the first thing I see when looking at Amazon. “William, William, William.” Silicon Valley appears to have imbibed Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People.

This one-to-one chumminess coming from companies that view their potential market as the entire human race is, at the very least, ironic. The rote conviviality contrasts with traditional etiquette that insists on the use of family names to demarcate degrees of familiarity, and it also departs from bureaucratic procedure, which replaces names with numbers to suggest objectivity. Instead, it makes it clear that in the digital age, it doesn’t especially matter what we want to be called or how familiar we want our technology to be with us; it can unilaterally assume a familiarity with us that is anything but objective. Amid the reams of data I leave in my daily wake, “William” is little more than my own preferred avatar.

As the reach of data analytics grows, so the ability to treat each individual uniquely and warmly grows too. The logic of data analytics is that surveillance capacity increases the potential for personalized services. In practice, this means generating more and more automated friendliness to mask tech companies’ increasing indifference to anything that would inhibit their operating at scale. Within these platforms, abstraction becomes the condition of intimacy. A superficial informality conceals the underlying mechanics of indiscriminate rationalization.

But to view platform conviviality purely as a veneer would be to miss the distinctive cultural logic at work here. Sociologists have long been fascinated by the informal etiquette of Silicon Valley. AnnaLee Saxenian’s landmark 1994 study, Regional Advantage, showed how the Valley benefited from a degree of cultural openness that Massachusetts’s more traditional Route 128 business cluster could not match. Others, like Manuel Castells and Fred Turner, have looked to the longer history of the Bay Area to show how networked computing was inflected by the ethos of West Coast counterculture from its origins in the 1960s. The informal dress codes and working environments of such companies as Google have since become a cliché, though an increasingly pernicious one, as it becomes clear how little separation this leaves between working and nonworking life. The latest utopia, as Benjamin Naddaff-Hafrey detailed in an essay for Aeon, is the “campus” workspace, which the employee need never leave.

As tech companies have become fixated on constituting and exploiting social networks, cultural diversity and informal sociability are increasingly regarded as crucial sources of competitive advantage. The conviviality of smart devices and platforms is consistent with this ethos. If the function of informality is to erode the distinction between work and leisure, then informal rhetoric is a necessary feature of platforms that want to mediate and capitalize on all aspects of our lives, including work, family, and social life. The great promise — and threat — underpinning this is that we will never have to “take off one hat and put on another” but will have a single casual identity that is recognized in every institution we enter. When a device or platform addresses me as “William,” it is offering to support (and exploit) the identity that I carry into work, leisure, family life, and anywhere else, insisting that it be the same wherever I go. But if informal networks don’t allow the possibility of legitimate escape, they can become suffocating.

As feminist scholar and activist Jo Freeman argued in “The Tyranny of Structurelessness” in the early 1970s, a dogmatic faith in informal networks shrouds unspoken power dynamics: “When informal elites are combined with a myth of ‘structurelessness,’ there can be no attempt to put limits on the use of power. It becomes capricious.” Freeman was challenging her contemporaries in the New Left, but her article can be read as a prophecy of the new style of flexible management that would become known as post-Fordism. From the 1980s onward, workplace practices were redesigned to depend less on explicit hierarchies, in which instructions and rules were imposed on employees from above, and more on the ability of individuals and teams to adapt to clients’ demands. Work became more varied and individuals assumed greater responsibility, but only rarely with commensurately greater reward. Managerial authority became internalized within the anxious, sometimes precarious, worker. The informality of digital platforms serves this ongoing process of nudging users into relentlessly administering themselves.

If familiar modes of address help users over work-life boundaries, the way platforms pose questions further fosters a spirit of voluntarism. Totalitarian regimes have often been depicted through chilling scenes of bureaucracy run amok, with officials requesting information in dispassionate, almost inhuman tones. But tech companies have discovered that minor rhetorical adjustments can yield significant expansions in data collection, facilitating what Shoshana Zuboff has described as surveillance capitalism. Rather than ask coldly, “What is your date of birth?” platforms simply offer to help “celebrate your birthday!” Rather than demand “your full address,” they invite you to identify a certain location as “home.”

It is no wonder that data collection now far outstrips what the 20th century bureaucratic state was capable of. Often this expansion is explained merely as a matter of ubiquitous digitization — now dubbed the “internet of things” — and endlessly rising processing power. But the rhetorical turn toward conviviality has also played a critical role, allowing surveillance to be administered and experienced as a form of care.

For this reason, it’s important to reflect on how this rhetorical turn actually works to engage us. When Facebook and Twitter ask, “How are you?” or “What’s on your mind?” what is really going on? Taken literally, these questions seem to demand some sort of empirical report or fact. “What’s on your mind?” could in theory be heard as a request for specific, concrete information, just like the question “What’s your date of birth?” Contemporary neuroscience might respond to “What’s on your mind” with a brain-scan chart.

But this would not be a normal social response. Someone who replies to “How are you?” with a data-driven answer like “7 out of 10” or “23 percent better than Thursday” would not seem to have understood the question, despite those answers being empirically more detailed than socially appropriate answers like “Fine, thanks,” or “Not bad.” In social life, thoughts and feelings are not usually represented as facts but performed in various verbal and nonverbal ways. The language of psychology, Wittgenstein claimed, could never be scientific in the manner that, say, medicine was scientific: “What’s on your mind?” is a categorically different sort of question than “What is your blood pressure?” It is primarily relational, not empirical. Such questions, Wittgenstein argued, should he considered in terms of what they do socially, not what they seek to represent scientifically.

That empty status box that greets the social media user might equally (and perhaps more literally) be accompanied by the injunction please express yourself now. But the way Facebook puts it — “What’s on your mind?” — tries to suggest sociality, a connection. It is an attempt to make the question actually convey “I care about you” or “Just be yourself.”

Sociologists, following the early 20th century work of Max Weber, sometimes assume the world is becoming increasingly “disenchanted” by a scientific, bureaucratic logic that privileges quantities over qualities, calculation over feeling. The vast new calculative capacities of data analytics seems to confirm this view that everything is ultimately measurable. But this overlooks how platforms strive to sustain convivial codes and conventions of self-expression while making numerical calculations retreat from view. One of the central questions of post-Fordism is how to weld together the quantitative mechanics of business with the emotional enthusiasm that produces engaged employees and satisfied customers. Since Weber’s day, sociologists like Eva Illouz have looked at how capitalism has come to employ more emotional tactics to regulate human behavior through advertising and cultural cues. Arlie Hochschild’s classic 1979 work, The Managed Heart, looked at how flight attendants use friendliness and care as part of their work. Platform conviviality plays a similar role.

Unlike the expert yet clunky affect scales employed by psychiatrists and clinical psychologists, when a digital platform asks you “How are you feeling?” it specifically doesn’t want a number by way of response. The convivial approach is a means of getting around our defenses, to get at data that might be sold as more accurate and more revealing. In that respect, questions such as “How are you?” perform a methodological function analogous to the one-way mirror used to observe focus groups. To users interacting in real time, the question sounds like an opportunity for dialogue, just as Wittgenstein argued. But to the owner and controller of the platform, it generates data — perhaps not of the brain-scan variety but still of a sort that can be studied, analyzed, and evaluated. When we express how we are, platforms hear this as a statement of what we are.

Despite the concern about Big Data and the “quantified self,” it bears remembering that for the majority of us, our orientation toward the world is becoming less empirical, not more. We have less need to be preoccupied with details: We no longer need to know how to get to a restaurant but merely how to have a conversation with Google Maps or Yelp — platforms that are already deeply familiar with us, our habits, and our tastes. We express a desire for a given experience — in this case, a meal — but we no longer need develop our own rational approach to accomplishing it.

Without an empirical, outside view of the logistics it takes to procure our meal, we are less likely to be able to provide a critical evaluation of it afterward. Instead, in keeping with the on-demand promises of apps, we are more likely to express how we’re feeling as we eat it or to share a photo of it in real time. The user is becoming submerged in the constant ebbs and flows of experience, expressing feelings as they go, but scarcely worrying about the facts and figures.

Likewise, when social media offer nonverbal means of responding to their questions about how we feel — memes, emojis, emoticons, Facebook reactions, reaction GIFs, etc. — they keep us closer to immediacy, to real time. They are an efficient, impulsive alternative to the old standards of customer feedback, foreclosing on the time in which a user developed critical distance and a more deliberate response.

Social media’s new forms of emotional language can save the user from having to find a more objective or dispassionate perspective. They work similarly to mood-tracking apps like Moodnotes and Gottafeeling, which randomly and colloquially interrupt users (“Just checking in, how are you feeling?”) in hopes of getting spontaneous data on their emotions. Such methods are leaking from digital spaces into cafes, restrooms, and waiting areas where we can press a smiley, a neutral, or a frowning-face button to log feelings about our “experience” as it is happening. The government of Dubai is rolling out such physical interfaces across the city, creating what it calls “the world’s first, city-wide, live sentiment capture engine.”

This is wholly unlike post hoc numerical evaluations, like customer satisfaction surveys. With “sentiment-capture engines,” an experience does not garner evaluative feedback after the fact but is instead “fed forward” (to use Mark Hansen’s suggestive phrase) for future analysis. This points to a clear divide between two different types of social and commercial knowledge: one views individuals as trusted reporters and critics of an objective reality; the other treats them as leaving a data trail of subjective feelings, which becomes the objective reality that only machines can grapple with.

The second kind of data is integral to businesses that trade in “moments,” whether they are algorithmically driven social media or any of the other companies that hope to operate in the “experience economy,” selling real-time feelings and mood adjustment as the product itself. And it is not merely companies that want this data. Academics have gotten in on it as well, with the rise of “digital methods” in social research, such as data mining Twitter’s public APIs. The scale and secrecy that surrounds much large-scale corporate data analytics represents a major threat to the public vocation of social research; this “crisis of empirical sociology,” as it has been dubbed, will be exacerbated as more academic researchers are drawn to the private sector, either for financial reasons or because they are attracted by the unprecedented quantities of data that platforms have to offer. Companies like Facebook have been courting data scientists for some time.

With the rise of sentiment capture, the users doing and feeling things, and the analysts processing what those users do and feel, increasingly dwell in different worlds, with diminishing overlap or friction between the two. Wittgenstein wrote that “every game has not only rules but also a point.” Platforms are able to express one point for their users, which is convivial, and another point for their owners, which is empirical. On one side, the sharing and expression of experience is, as Wittgenstein described, a relational phenomenon completely understood only by those who participate in it. On the other, it is an empirical phenomenon known only to the person — or algorithmic interpretive system — who does not participate in it.

The conviviality of the focus group is achieved through comfortable chairs and maybe alcohol. As the mood in the group becomes lighter, more sociable, it generates ever greater insights to those who are watching. But what’s most interesting about this methodology is this: The more decisively the mirror divides observer from observed, the more seemingly authentic is the knowledge that results. Digital platforms, likewise, produce this sharp divide, extending what focus-group marketers (and behavioral scientists) began but 20th century bureaucracies, typically operating by a panoptic logic of enforcing discipline through overt surveillance, largely missed.

One of the defining features of traditional bureaucracies, as Weber saw it, was that they seek to monopolize the information they accrue to secure their power and authority. In the early years of the 21st century, there was some hype emanating from business schools about a “post-bureaucratic” age, in which “open data” platforms would release government data to the public, granting them a view inside administrative functions. New forms of accountability would arise, thanks to the radical transparency made possible by digitization. The idea exerted particular sway over David Cameron’s U.K. government from 2010 onward, resulting in a wide-ranging “open data” initiative meant to transfer power from civil servants to citizens.

This optimistic vision rested on the assumption that individuals — especially when acting as citizens — have a primarily empirical orientation toward the world. It assumed that people want to know what is going on, they want data about performance, they demand the numbers from inside the belly of the beast.

For those who do adopt this stance — because they are investigative journalists or activists or professional skeptics — this post-bureaucratic turn indeed represents new possibilities for transparency. But for most of us, the era of platform-based surveillance represents a marked decrease in transparency, when compared with 20th century state bureaucracy.

The grammar of the old bureaucracy is transparent — “Tell me your full name” — even if the records are not. You know what it wants to know. The convivial alternative — “Hey, William, what’s going on?” — represents a new opacity, where everything feels relational and immediate but becomes the object of knowledge for someone else or something else. In the post-bureaucracy, we don’t know what they want to know, or when we’ve finally told them everything.

Fantastic update to my iOS text editor of choice, Ulysses, released today on the App Store. Version 2.6 adds native WordPress publishing, support for external Dropbox folders, and typewriter/focus mode in the editor, among other features.

I haven't had enough time to test the beta of Ulysses 2.6 (I'm busy working on a big project in Scrivener), but I want to point out that I'm not going to be switching to Dropbox sync again. Ulysses' iCloud sync has been rock-solid – I haven't run into a single data loss/conflict once – and it has the added benefit of supporting notes and images attached to sheets. Dropbox only works with text sheets, and I've been relying to the ability to save images inside my text documents for Club MacStories and other app reviews at MacStories. Having image attachments live alongside sheets is what sets Ulysses apart from text editors I've used before, and it's only possible with iCloud.

I'm also going to consider Ulysses' WordPress publishing instead of my workflow. I like how Ulysses lets me preview a post with custom CSS, and there's even a way to create linked posts by setting the title at the top of a sheet to a link (it automatically applies a custom field under the hood). It's incredibly clever, with just the right amount of options to check before publishing.

Ulysses 2.6 is available on the App Store.

→ Source: itunes.apple.com

Whimsical cherry blossoms.  At Drake and Howe.

“Wish You Were Here”, Warren Langley, 2014

One of the more eye-rolling sentiments in tech — thankfully fading — is that every rectangular device with a touchscreen is a rip-off of the iPhone. Well duh! How else would you make a phone post 2007?

That’s why I’ve always had more respect for Samsung than most; I wrote in 2013 in an article called Shameless Samsung:

Every pre-iPhone phone maker is irrelevant, if they even exist, except for Samsung, who is thriving.¹ Samsung the copycat was smart enough to realize they needed to change, and quickly, and so they did.

Or maybe it wasn’t being smart. Maybe it was simply not caring what anyone else thought about them, their strategy, or their inspiration. Most successful companies, including Apple, including Google, seem remarkably capable of ignoring the naysayers and simply doing what is right for their company. In the case of smartphones, why wouldn’t you copy the iPhone? Nokia refused and look where that got them!

To be sure, the physical constraints of hardware lead much more quickly to one ideal solution; the infinite malleability of software seems to give a much more expansive canvas for doing something original. And yet, even if it is possible to build just about anything, the ultimate constraint is the attention of the end user: what do they actually want to do, and does your product help them do it?

Instagram’s Complementarity

Snapchat is hardly the first threat Facebook has faced. While the social network got its start by digitizing offline relationships, implicitly encouraging its users to take care to post the best representation of themselves, usage of the service was fueled by photo sharing. And so, when a new social network built entirely around photo sharing started to explode in popularity, Facebook snapped up Instagram for a mere $1 billion.

Instagram has always been a very different product from Facebook: it is photos only, there are no links or text updates (other than textshots), and while the service has added direct messaging and videos, its primary use case of beautiful images and stylized selfies has been largely complementary to Facebook’s albums and status updates.

Still, while the sort of content shared on Instagram has always been a bit different than that shared on Facebook, the job it does for the user is similar in one crucial regard: Instagram is an opportunity to put forward the best representation of yourself, complete with a feedback loop driven by likes.

The Snapchat Threat

What makes the Snapchat threat to Facebook unique is that it does a fundamentally different job: by starting with ephemerality Snapchat gave its users, initially teens eternally eager to escape adults’ prying eyes, permission to be themselves. And so while Snapchat has photos and videos and messaging — just like Facebook and Instagram — it is not complementary but orthogonal.

In a vacuum this is fine: by virtue of doing a different job Snapchat is not really a threat to Facebook’s (or Instagram’s) core use case or primary value proposition, which is owning identity. Advertising-based consumer products don’t live in a vacuum though, because attention is a zero-sum game: as Snapchat gobbles up more and more attention Facebook’s addressable market for advertising is by definition shrinking.

Small wonder Facebook in 2012 released a clone called Poke soon after Snapchat showed initial traction after its 2011 release. Poke was a separate app that let you send expiring text, photo, or video messages to people in your Facebook network, and predictably it failed: the most important feature of any social network app is how many of your friends are using it, and no one used Poke.

A year later Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg did what he should have done instead of releasing Poke, offering $3 billion to buy Snapchat outright, but it was already too late: Snapchat founder and CEO Evan Spiegel, perhaps emboldened by the then-widespread realization that Instagram had sold too early, turned the offer down, leaving Facebook to try its hand at Slingshot, another Snapchat clone; that failed too.

Meanwhile, Snapchat was laddering up: just before Facebook’s offer the network added Stories, adding the ability to broadcast (still ephemeral) collections of photos and videos to its core messaging product. It was and remains a killer concept: television for mobile in which users are the star of their own show, and the lack of an explicit “like” feedback loop was a feature, not a bug. Post whatever you like, don’t worry if anyone else agrees, and besides, it will all disappear tomorrow.

Instagram Stories

Yesterday Facebook took their third swing at Snapchat; from the New York Times:

On Tuesday, Instagram introduced Instagram Stories, which lets people share photos and videos that have a life span of no more than 24 hours with friends who follow them. The service bears a striking resemblance — some might say it is a carbon copy — to Snapchat Stories, a photo- and video-sharing format where the stories also disappear after no more than 24 hours.

The similarities go beyond ephemerality: Instagram Stories are most easily accessed by a swipe, you can decorate your snaps with text or drawings, and it’s almost certainly only a matter of time before the technology from Facebook’s recent purchase MSQRD is incorporated to add filters. Instagram Stories are absolutely a rip-off — and that’s the first big reason they might succeed where Facebook’s other Snapchat competitors have failed.

Copying Done Right

The first mistake most incumbents make when building new products in response to threatening new competitors is to attempt to win on features. To return to the phone example, Nokia and Microsoft tried to build something distinctly different from the iPhone, with a completely different user interface, features like Live Tiles, and various content hubs. The effort earned plenty of plaudits from the press and pundits eager for something new, but in practice made it far more difficult to secure the apps that actually mattered for becoming a viable platform.

A more pertinent example for this article is Google+. When Google launched their Facebook competitor in 2011 they touted features like Circles to organize your friends, Sparks to find content to share, and Hangouts to video chat. These made Google+ “better” and “differentiated”, which is another way of saying more complicated; meanwhile the most important feature — your friends — was nowhere to be found.

The problem with focusing on features as a means of differentiation is that nothing happens in a vacuum: category-defining products by definition get a lot of the user experience right from the beginning, and the parts that aren’t perfect — like Facebook’s sharing settings or the iPhone’s icon-based UI — become the standard anyways simply because everyone gets used to them.

So good for Instagram: Snapchat’s Stories is a great product that has already gone through years of iterations; why, but for pride, would you build something different?

Still, cloning isn’t enough. The fact features don’t offer useful differentiation does not remove the need for differentiation: the key is figuring out what else can be leveraged. Google, for example, may have largely copied the iPhone’s UI, but the key to Android’s success was the search company’s ability to leverage their advertising-based business model to offer it for free. On the hardware side Samsung leveraged their manufacturing might and long-established distribution channels to dominate the otherwise undifferentiated Android market, at least for a time. And, in perhaps the most famous example of this strategy, Microsoft embraced web standards with Internet Explorer, extended their browser’s capabilities with features like ActiveX, eventually extinguishing the threat when Netscape couldn’t keep up.

Leveraging Instagram

This is why it is so fascinating that Facebook is leveraging Instagram in this way. For all of Snapchat’s explosive growth, Instagram is still more than double the size,² with far more penetration across multiple demographics and international users. Rather than launch a “Stories” app without the network that is the most fundamental feature of any app built on sharing, Facebook is leveraging one of their most valuable assets: Instagram’s 500 million users.

The results, at least anecdotally, speak for themselves: I’ve seen more Instagram stories in the last 24 hours than I have Snapchat ones. Of course a big part of this is the novelty aspect, which will fade,³ and I follow a lot more people on Instagram than I do on Snapchat. That last point, though, is, well, the point: I and my friends are not exactly Snapchat’s target demographic today, but for the service to reach its potential we will be eventually. Unless, of course, Instagram Stories ends up being good enough.

To that end, kudos to Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom for not only explicitly admitting to TechCrunch that Instagram is copying Snapchat, but also being clear about exactly what he and Zuckerberg are trying to accomplish:

You can’t just recreate another product. But you can say ‘what’s really awesome about a format? And does it apply to our network?’

[…]

You have a completely different audience. If you’re a business, if you’re a celebrity, if you’re an interest-based account, you can have a giant audience. It’s going to feel very different. I don’t believe these two things are substitutes, and that’s okay.

That right there is the tell: Instagram and Facebook are smart enough to know that Instagram Stories are not going to displace Snapchat’s place in its users lives. What Instagram Stories can do, though, is remove the motivation for the hundreds of millions of users on Instagram to even give Snapchat a shot.

Getting consumer adoption of new products is hard; when that adoption requires a network, it’s harder still, at least if most of your network is not using said product; on the flipside, those same difficulties become massive accelerants once the product passes a certain threshold of your friends. Snapchat has passed that threshold amongst teenagers and increasingly young adults in the United States, and every day gets closer with other demographics and geographies.

Instagram, though, is already there, but with a product that does Facebook’s job of presenting your best self. What makes this move so audacious is Zuckerberg and Systrom’s bet that they can refashion Instagram into a product for being yourself, at least to a sufficient degree to hold off Snapchat’s ongoing suction of attention.

It’s not certain Facebook and Instagram will succeed, and the risk is significant: the only thing harder than rewiring users’ expectations for a massively successful product is ensuring said rewiring doesn’t turn them off from the app entirely, destroying the very value you are trying to leverage (and, frankly, it may be too late).

You can see this tension in yesterday’s update: while Instagram Stories demonstrates the company’s excellent engineering and attention to detail, the overall experience is of two completely separate apps combined into one. To take just one example, a photo taken from Instagram’s photo tab can’t be added to a story (although a photo from your story can be added to your Instagram feed⁴).

That may be intentional: remember, the entire point of Stories is to deliver the exact opposite experience as your Instagram feed — ephemerality and authenticity, not permanence and perfection — but even that justification elucidates how difficult the task will be. If you want something different, why not use a different app?

Oh right, because of your friends. They’re already on Instagram, and that fact isn’t so easily copied.

1. I had already noted that Samsung would soon face challenges due to the lack of software differentiation entailed in depending on Android
2. This originally said five times, which according to this Bloomberg article is out of date
3. I do think Instagram erred by not including MSQRD filters from the start, even if it meant a slight delay in launch; they, like Snapchat’s filters, are simply fun
4. This originally mistakenly said the opposite

CNN host Fareed Zakaria took the feud between CNN and Donald Trump to a new level yesterday, describing Trump as a “bullshit artist.” I’ve reviewed the literature on bullshit, including my own past analysis, and I agree. Trump’s bullshit passes (or perhaps, fails) the sniff test. Here’s the clip: What is bullshit? I’ve tried to be … Continue reading Fareed Zakaria says that Donald Trump is a bullshitter. Is he? →

The post Fareed Zakaria says that Donald Trump is a bullshitter. Is he? appeared first on without bullshit.

All images courtesy Lehi Thunder Voice Eagle Sanchez, unless otherwise noted.

The Navajo, like many Native American tribes, have a rich cultural history. One great expression of the Southwestern native culture comes through the visual arts. The Navajo or Diné, as they are also known, have always been makers of mesmerizingly geometric blankets and rugs, with a great talent for silversmithy, particularly when it comes to jewelry.

So that when Urban Outfitters used the Navajo name and patterns in 2001 for a line of underwear, not to mention other products like flasks and jewelry, the Navajo were understandably upset. For the tribe, it was cultural appropriation of the most unethical, or at least the most disrespectful, sort. The Navajo, who hold trademarks on the "Navajo" name, filed a federal lawsuit in 2012, arguing that Urban Outfitters violated trademarks and the Indian Arts and Crafts Act, which makes it illegal for any individual or company to falsely imply that goods have been made by the Navajo.

Digital Man sketch by Lehi Thunder Voice Eagle Sanchez. All images courtesy the artist unless otherwise specified.

In December 2015, a federal judge allowed the Navajo lawsuit to proceed. The lawsuit took a bit of a hit this past April when New Mexico district court judge Bruce D. Black dismissed tribe’s trademark dilutions claims when the tribe’s lawyers were not able to prove the Navajo name was “famous.” But Urban Outfitters and subsidiaries Anthropologie and Free People still face six other counts, including false advertising, trademark infringement, and unfair competition.

Navajo artist Lehi Thunder Voice Eagle Sanchez is one of the Diné watching this case closely. Sanchez isn’t just watching as a concerned member of the tribe, but as an artist very much invested in the Navajo’s visual arts legacy, and that of the wider Native American peoples.

Lehi Thunder Voice Eagle Sanchez, courtesy the artist.

Sanchez, a multimedia artist recognized for his work with digital designs, oil paintings, sketches and photography, says a lot of his artistic influence comes from his parents. His mother hails from the Navajo reservation, while his father is a Totonac, a tribe just south of the US-Mexico border. (Sanchez and his father Ezekial Sanchez run the wilderness therapy program Anasazi, where they teach at-risk youth wilderness survival skills.)

Growing up, Sanchez’ family always had beads, jewelry, and beautiful textiles in their home. On their walls hung paintings made by native people, both from the Navajo and other tribes. Though born on the Navajo reservation, his parents moved the family off reservation for his father’s job when he was two years. Even so, they visited the reservation often, which allowed Sanchez to be raised in both worlds, thus shaping his artistic approach.

“Within the culture, my mom has taught me about certain patterns and symbols that have specific meaning,” Sanchez says. “Some of these symbols can be sacred and done as a ceremony, while others are to keep records or tell stories. I know there is big concern on what is being used from our culture and how it is being used by those outside of our culture. Regardless of one’s opinion, I feel communication between Native Americans and those using Native American cultural elements is paramount.”

“Many people will look at a Navajo Rug and only see patterns,” he adds. “For the Navajos they see mountains, birds, plants, animals, even the traditional Navajo bun. In the old ways, creating a rug started with a prayer and each piece was given a meaning.”

Sanchez points to sand paintings, an ephemeral type of art, to emphasize how much Navajo art is imbued with symbolic meaning. At ceremonies, intricate sand paintings are created that Sanchez says might take days to complete. And once the ceremony is over the Navajo wipe the sand paintings away.

“The art created is not intended to be shared outside of that particular ceremony,” Sanchez explains. “Rather, it is used to symbolize the journey and represent the uniqueness of that present moment. When a sand painting is wiped away, it is gone, but what it represents is meant to be kept and reserved for those that were in attendance. The sacredness comes in the feeling provoked in the heart at the time of its creation.”

Urban Outfitters obviously had no understanding of this approach to the arts when creating a line of Navajo products. They simply did it, then stamped the tribe’s name on it. There was, as Sanchez notes, no real consideration for the “copious amounts of tragedy and trauma” from past events that still hurt the Navajo.

“I will be real with you, I think sometimes our people can be overly sensitive due to triggers from our past—I have been there,” Sanchez says. “In some ways, I am still sensitive about anything appropriating our culture. It was not too long ago that we were pushed off our land and put on reservations. It was not too long ago that we were taken from our families and forced into boarding schools where they cut our hair and gave us government clothing, and where we were beaten for talking in our language or of anything traditional.”

The Navajo, he says, are still working their way through healing. They are also trying to find a new beginning. And this process is not in any way helped by corporate branded Navajo underwear, or even football teams like the Washington Redskins, with people advising native peoples to just deal with how they are characterized and used.

“To us, it often feels like a slap in the face in the midst of trying to move forward,” Sanchez says. “Someone mentioned that that Urban Outfitters was trying to honor us. Underwear and some whisky flasks are not the way we wish to honor our elders.”

Sanchez believes that if Urban Outfitters would have named their brand “Southwestern” or even “Native-inspired” it might have eliminated many issues that arose within the ranks of the Navajo tribe. But the moment they branded those underwear “Navajo,” the Diné were tied to the product. They never asked for a co-branding opportunity, and Urban Outfitters certainly didn’t either.

“We feel as though they are trying to represent us with these underwear,” Sanchez says. “We did not create the underwear, and yet we are now associated with them. For me, it is like forging a signature on a painting.”

Urban Outfitters did not want to remove the Navajo name from the product, and though eventually they discontinued the line of products, Sanchez believes the Navajo deserved a public apology from the company.

“It definitely rubbed people the wrong way, and was not handled appropriately,” says Sanchez. “People desire to be recognized and heard, especially when they have felt otherwise since settlers landed on this continent.”

This is why the lawsuit is so important, not only for the Navajo, but for all Native American tribes. Sanchez says there is a wide awareness of this lawsuit amongst First Nation peoples. They know that the outcome will set a precedent that could come to affect all tribes.

“For a lot of other tribes, they can see where we are coming from because they share in the same past experiences and struggles,” says Sanchez, who credits the internet and social media with creating strong intra-tribal bonds. “Now with technology, all tribes are talking about issues like these. It has made it easier to keep up on events and other things going on.”

Noel Bennetto, an artist and maker of Native clothing and accessories who is half Chiricahua Apache and Mexican Indian, is one such person. For her, what Urban Outfitters did is wrong on a number of levels, from the complete lack of corporate ethics to people ignorantly buying from an unethical source.

“[There is] exploitation for their benefit alone and in doing so [it] continues to dehumanize American Indians as ‘other’ or ‘something’ of the past,” Bennetto says. “This implies that it's free for the taking since they are no longer present, or somewhat fictitious, an icon of the West, not an existing culture.”

“In general I've seen Urban Outfitters and their other company Anthropologie rip off and reproduce many designs they don't have permission to use, from small independent designers to whole cultures as is such with this case,” she adds. “They are very much not alone in doing so, unfortunately.”

Ho-Chunk member and Chicago-based comedian Casey Brown says that the Navajo lawsuit will legally reinforce the Indian Arts and Crafts Act of 1990. This, he says, will protect every tribe and their own traditional artistic expression.

“I’m a member of the Ho-Chunk Nation of Wisconsin and we have a particular design of appliqué that is distinctly ours,” he says. “Artisans from other tribes do not make Ho-Chunk appliqué and sell it as authentic. Just as a Ho-Chunk artist would never make a Pueblo kachina doll—you’d get run off the pow-wow vendors circuit. To see your tribe’s name and designs on a flask or a pair of panties sold by a non-native source is not only offensive but illegal.”  

“For many Native American artisans, it’s not just a way to express and pass on their culture but their livelihood,” Brown adds. “Providing cheaper mass-produced versions of handmade pieces of that take countless hours to create cheapens the genuine product. For Urban Outfitters to sell Navajo designs under the moniker of Navajo shows colonization still exists. Many people think of colonization as dominant forces taking over indigenous land for their own use. But intellectual colonialism is the modern manifest destiny.”

For Sanchez as well as Bennetto and Brown, there is a proper way to find and purchase Native goods. Sanchez points to the Indian Market in Sante Fe, New Mexico, where over 4,000 vendors from all over the country sell a wide assortment of amazing arts and crafts. “The first time I went, I was blown away by how many artists were still making textiles, jewelry, and art and doing it the old way and others that were adding their own flare with a modern twist,” Sanchez says.

If people are looking for clothing, Sanchez suggests people check out the work of native artist Bethany Yellowtail. Sanchez calls Yellowtail’s traditional Native designs exquisite, while also offering praise for her efforts in speaking out on cultural appropriation.

“Sho Sho Esquiro is another clothing designer, who I have become friends with, and am highly in support of,” says Sanchez. “Her high-end pieces incorporate traditional designs with her own modern styles, all inspired by her cultural background.”

“Other designers such as Orlando Dugi are making an impact in the Native community,” he adds. “DesignHouse of Darylene is a new upcoming collective that spans from traditional roots to urban native punk vibes. Yazzi is another friend of mine who designs t-shirts (OXDX), and NTVS Clothing. He shares his messages with what he prints onto the clothing. I have a shirt of his that says ‘Native Americans discovered Columbus,’ giving another perspective on the Columbus story.”

For his part, Brown suggests people go to a pow-wow. They are open to everyone, Native and non-Native alike. He says it’s a great way to meet people who create art and crafts.

“Indian Country Today puts out an annual pow-wow guide for North America,” Brown says. “Pow-wow happens all year long but Memorial Day to Labor Day is when the biggest ones happen throughout the country and even close or in most urban areas. Beyond Buckskin has the best database of legit artists, including more contemporary designers, a blog about Native fashion, and an online store.”

Bennetto says that those interested in tribal artworks should look up the local tribal office, then either call or write them asking about Native American makers. Sanchez suggests those interested in Native visual arts and goods visit the Facebook page Natives United.

“Skip the cheesy trading post or fake replica crap,” Bennetto says. “Don't wear headdresses to music festivals (or ever) or offensive stereotypes of American Indians and say you're being respectful or think it's okay because ‘it's vintage.’”

The group posts upcoming events and featured artists that are worth checking out. Sanchez says that it wouldn’t hurt to acquaint one’s self with the repercussions triggered by America’s history of colonization, genocide and forced removal (signed into law by President Andrew Jackson) visited upon Native peoples.

“No one hears the stories of native children loaded into vehicles like cattle and carted to concrete building where their hair was cut and took away their traditional wear,” Sanchez says.

“My people and I have seen and experienced the repercussions,” Sanchez says. “Because of this, some of our communication might come across as hostile or angry. We have been through a lot; so much has been taken from us. We are passionate about our culture and are trying to protect what pieces we have left.”

Click here to see more of Lehi Thunder Voice Eagle Sanchez’s work, and here for Noel Bennetto’s clothing and accessories.

At the time of publication, The Creators Project has reached out to Urban Outfitters for comment. 

Related:

Stunning Photos Show the Disappearing Remains of Navajo History

An Indigenous Art Exhibition Examines America's Roots

Kiki Smith's Massive, Electronically-Woven Tapestries Touch Down in Santa Fe

From Nathan Pachal’s South Fraser Blog:

Province’s own numbers show Massey Bridge unneeded

As can be seen on the Port Mann Bridge, there is less traffic on the bridge today than went across the old bridge in the past. There has only been a jump in traffic over the Port Mann this May and June likely due to the Pattullo Bridge being virtually closed due to rehabilitation.

The environmental assessment for the proposed George Massey Tunnel replacement bridge is currently in progress. 145 pages of the material submitted by the province for the environmental assessment deals with traffic.

Here’s some facts:

Average traffic volumes across the George Massey Tunnel and Alex Fraser Bridge since 2005. Select table to enlarge.

Traffic volume through the Massey Tunnel has been declining over the last decade. There was less traffic going through the Massey Tunnel in 2014 on average than in 2003.

The Ministry of Transportation’s “independent” traffic model shows that a tolled crossing would drop traffic to a level not seen since the 1980s. TransLink numbers show an even stepper decline in traffic.

Traffic forecasts. TransLink’s tolled traffic forecast: TL-RTM Tolled. Independent traffic forecast: SDG Independent. Select chart to enlarge.

The Alex Fraser Bridge has seen an increase in traffic. If the provincial government was serious about reducing congestion, it would toll all river crossings to reduce congestion, using the revenue to invent in keeping the current road network in a state of good repair, and investing the remainder into transit and the regional transportation vision.

If the province invested the money it spent on the Port Mann Bridge and soon-to-be George Massey Bridge instead on the regional transportation vision, we would have world-leading bus service and rail rapid transit along Broadway, King George, 104th Avenue, and Fraser Highway to Langley today.

Tuesday, Snapchat announced the launch of location-based stickers called Geostickers.

Respective city stickers can only be activated while in various cities, which can be added to Snaps and sent to other users.

This news comes shortly after Snapchat announced its integration with Bitmoji, a platform that allows users to create customized emojis that actually look like them.

Geostickers can also be used in chat, and have been designed for some of the biggest cities in the world. At the moment, Geostickers will be available in Los Angeles, New York City, San Francisco, Washington DC, Honolulu, London, Sydney, São Paulo, Paris, and Riyadh.

Furthermore, this announcement came just hours after Instagram unveiled its own stories feature, which has already been hailed as an attempt to engage Snapchat enthusiasts.

Snapchat wrote about Geostickers in a blog post, describing their purpose and availability.

“Today we’re excited to introduce Geostickers! Geostickers are special stickers available in some of the biggest cities around the world — send them in Chat or stick them on Snaps! Geostickers are available now in Los Angeles, New York City, San Francisco, Washington DC, Honolulu, London, Sydney, São Paulo, Paris, and Riyadh. You’ll need to have your location services enabled to see them!”

Related: Instagram launches a Snapchat clone feature called Stories

Twitter has always faced a certain level of criticism over a lack of response to harassment and abuse on the platform, and highly publicized incidents continue to discourage users of popular accounts from wanting to use the social media platform.

At the beginning of July, the Transit Union representing Toronto Transit Commission employees in Toronto tried to shut down the @TTChelps Twitter account after a series of abusive tweets were sent to employees running the account. The case went to arbitration, and while the account remains open, the arbitration found that the TTC did not do enough to protect its employees from harassment.

As many of Canada’s biggest brands move their customer service departments to Facebook and Twitter, more of these harassment complaints will doubtlessly also move online. Most times, a complaint is directed at a company account without considering a person must be running it, but sometimes attacks can also get personal.

The arbitrator decided that closing the Twitter account in question was not a useful outcome of the case. He did recommend that responses to this kind of personal abuse is to request that users delete offensive tweets, and to report those tweets to Twitter.

Twitter’s terms of service say that direct threats of violence or targeted abuse and harassment will not be tolerated. Though Twitter did not comment on this case in particular, the company did recently ban Breitbart writer Milo Yiannopoulos for this kind of behaviour, so perhaps the media company will start to take these incidents more seriously.

Quiz: can you identify the world cities from their running heatmaps?

I could be wrong, but I’m pretty sure I recognize number 1. (Incidentally, as a planning device, I think heat maps like this are used far too little … They show the desire lines for an entire city, and are a great source of data on how people want to use their city)

From The Guardian:

They’re not all that easy: Glasgow, Gdansk or Gothenburg:

Ljubljana, Lanzhou or Liverpool:

Take the test here.

By: Derek Rayside

Cycling is fun. But not everyone is able to get in on the fun with a traditional bicycle. There is an exciting range of new inventions that make cycling accessible to everyone. In this article we'll discuss some independent options, and next time we'll see some options with a partner.

The Alinker is a walking bike designed by Barbara Alink in Vancouver that is just coming to market now. It is intended as an alternative to a rollator/walker. It keeps your eyes at level with people standing, and makes it easier to shake hands and hug --- in addition to being fun and (relatively) fast. The Alinker folds for storage.

Photo credit RTV Oost / Mark Bakker 
Batec Mobility (Spain) makes exciting bike front-ends for wheelchairs. They have both hand-crank and e-bike versions. These connect to any wheelchair, and are easy to detach. For example, you could cycle to the store, lock the front-end on the bike rack outside, and wheel inside with just your wheelchair. I met a group of people gleefully riding around the fields on the island with these the other weekend. Helena told me how liberating it was to be able to get off the sidewalk and go through the fields again after twenty years in her wheelchair. Available in Toronto at www.49bespoke.ca.

Photo credit Derek Rayside

Tricycles are also a great option. There are three main kinds of adult tricycles: conventional, recumbent, and family/cargo. Conventional tricycles look as you would expect: one wheel in the front, two in the back. These usually have a regular bicycle saddle, although some come with a cushioned chair seat instead, potentially with a back. One of my neighbours has been using a conventional adult tricycle as her main means of transportation around the city for years, and she recommends the Norco brand. Many shops carry Norco bikes, and they can special order the tricycle for you.

Recumbent tricycles (or bicycles) have a reclined lounge-chair like seat. They might have the two wheels in the front or the back. Urbane Cyclist  (formerly on John St, now at 280 College St) carries four different brands of recumbent trikes: Hase (Germany), HP Velotechnik (Germany), ICE (UK), and Catrike (USA). They typically have a handful of different models in the shop, selected from over a dozen different options on their website. Urbane can work with you to customize the trike for your specific needs. For example, they adapted a trike for a customer who could use only one side of his body. They carry both pedal-powered and hand-crank recumbent trikes.

 Photo credit HASE Bikes

You can go just as far on a hand-crank trike as someone pedalling with their legs. One beautiful Sunday afternoon I met Mike in the bike lanes riding his hand-crank tricycle home from Tommy Thompson Park on the Leslie Street Spit. Based on where I met him and where the park is, I reckon that he cycled about 20km that day.

 Photo credit Derek Rayside

There are two tricycle distributors in Canada with consumer-facing websites: www.FreedomTrikeNBike.ca (Toronto) and www.BelizeBike.com (Montreal). They both have a wide range of trikes, in traditional and recumbent styles, including ones suitable for a variety of special needs. They also carry kits to convert your bike into a trike, as well as adult training wheels. Smaller tricycle businesses include: Freedex (Toronto, 416-742-2310), SpecialtyDesigns.ca (Alberta), and Trivel.com (Quebec). Ron McCurdy from Freedex describes how his uncle kept riding his trike into his 90's, even after he could no longer use his walker.

Laura Hunter (StepsPrograms.com, Toronto) teaches cycling to children and youth facing unconventional challenges. Her staff develops customized training plans and equipment recommendations for each rider. She has a wide variety of equipment available to train on. The Holland Bloorview Rehabilitation Hospital also provides some training and has loaner equipment available for their patients.

If you need to transport children or cargo, there are great family/cargo tricycles from Wike (Canada), Babboe (Holland), Bakfiets (Holland), Nihola (Denmark), Triobike (Denmark), and Butchers & Bicycles (Denmark). These tricycles all have the two wheels in the front, with a large box in between that can seat multiple children with groceries. There is a wide price range among these tricycles, with higher-priced models having more sophisticated steering mechanisms, better gearing, and electric assist. Stores that carry these trikes and deliver to Toronto include CurbsideCycle.com (412 Bloor St. W.), Wicycle.com (Guelph), Urkai.com (Burlington), and Allo Vélo (Montréal).

Photo credit Babboe

Some funding is available for some individuals in some circumstances to assist with these kinds of purchases, via OHIP or private foundations. Talk to your doctor or physiotherapist to find out what is best for you.

There is such an amazing range of new bikes on the market now that everyone can enjoy the wind in their hair. See you on the island, in the fields, and in the bike lanes!

Derek is having an adult tricycle custom built for his family by Malcolm Munro at Biseagal on Carlaw.

Images courtesy of the artist

With their classic looks, granular characters, and highly curated soundtracks, the gritty retro animations of Giles Pates could have been Adult Swim bumps, but I found them on Instagram. First, the New York City native animator wrote a 52-page novella entitled Quincy And The Delicate Dandelions, a sort-of memoir that chronicles a string of his own failed relationships over a span of seven years. The story is filled with drug trips and awkward sexual encounters, and is written in a vulnerable and authentic voice that should make it accessible to all kinds of viewers. For the sake of anonymity, he uses names that reflect his characters' geographic origins, as well as elements of their personalities—The Minnesota Monarch, The Polish Paper Wasp, to name a few. The sentiments are real, neither overtly romantic nor whimsical like too many love stories today, and every now and then they contain profound existential observations about love, life, and relationships.

Pates then turned his novella into a five-minute, dialogue-free short film, AOMI, which he wrote, directed, and stars in. Although the movie is based on the written story, Pates doesn't hit you over the head with references to his novella. Instead, he instead leaves it up to the viewer to find visual associations with the writing. Though it's a small production, with its fantastic score, and beautiful shooting, it perfectly captures scenes any young person living and loving in the Big City will recognize. 

Despite his background in animation, Pates chose to insert his graphics sparingly, as if they were reminders of their author's origins. The subtle cartoonish markers work as clues to the storyline, guide the viewer’s eye and forcing it to focus in on certain areas of the frame. 

It’s important to note that this story is entirely autobiographical. Pates makes this a point in the creative scrapbook he shares with the project: featuring different mementos and trinkets in the story, it almost feels like evidence. Pates also attached a color key card inside the book to assist viewers in discovering different things about the women in the story, like their ages, levels of intoxication, and whether or not they were smokers, drug lovers, or even American citizens. In addition, Pates and his production team put together a process book that follows the making of the film, from open call Facebook posts, to crumpled up screen directions.

Interested in digging deeper, The Creators Project spoke to Giles Pates about his works. Watch AOMI in full, then check out our interview, below: 

•AOMI• from Giles Pates on Vimeo.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity. 

The Creators Project: What inspired you to write something in the first person? / Did it start as a sort of diary?

Giles Pates: This story is 100% autobiographical. In regard to any art form, I always find that fiction is never as powerful as something truly experienced.  We live in a society of constant oversharing but its rare to see someone share the nitty gritty dark crunchy parts. There's always embellishments or abstractions. I lived this story and it became a part of me. I figured if I was going to tell my story I would leave no stone unturned. People might find this project to be slanderous, thinking to themselves “OOOOO the boy got burned and now he’s out for revenge.” This was never my intention and those who consume the project in its entirety will see it for what it is; a keepsake.

One of the main reasons I did the project was to remember things soon forgot. All of us have experienced love in one way or another. We all speak on love and infatuation but we rarely pay homage or even notice to the loves of our past as if we never knew them at all. I personally didn’t want to forget the loves of my past or the lessons I learned from them. I didn’t want them to be a passing mention in a much larger conversation. I wanted to remember those from my past and who I was with them, both the salty underbelly and the warm gooey times.

How do you think music contributes to the experience?

I think that it is the backbone of the project. It is the glue that holds it all together, making seven years of my life feel like one moment. A little less than a year ago today, I was sitting on the windowsill of a Bed-Stuy apartment watching the rain fall onto a street I was all too familiar with. While contemplating my next creative endeavor, the song "Solace" by Earl Sweatshirt began to play in the background. "Solace" is a 10-minute experimental piece about the trials and tribulations of Earl's past, present, and future. It's essentially a collage of samples and feelings. Earl composed the track to speak more through the sound than the words themselves, so when I began this project I wanted to use the same approach—using samples and moving compositions to fill in the blanks.

In regard to the film, I deliberately wrote the script without dialogue. I wanted the samples and the film to say something deeper than dialogue ever could. This also allows the audience to place themselves within the story and come to their own conclusions. The musical selections for the novella were tools to help the audience get closer to the way I intended the book to be read. In the Scrapbook, the music was a window into the essence of who these women where and how I saw them. Having synesthesia gives me great insight into describing the embodiment of these women without words or pretty pictures. In short, I wanted my audience to be as close to the project as I was. I wanted them to feel what I have felt, also leaving room for them to include themselves and their experiences as well. The only conceivable way being music.

How do you see the city’s role in this story?

I believe that the three cities in which my story takes place play a more vital role. Our surroundings are everything. They dictate how we feel and how we react at certain moments in our lives. My novella takes place in Chicago, New York City, and Paris. Each city changed my perspective on life and those I share it with. Ive always remembered Chicago for its nights. For its contrasting architecture, its light, the looming danger around every corner and its introspective quality.

I've always seen New York for its early mornings and late evenings. Its always been a place of solace and reflection. A place for me to lay my head and bring life to the things I have seen. When thinking of Paris, I see natural light and romance. It's a place of history that brings about perspective. A perspective that reminds you that yourself and everyone around you will be just another blip in time and that the most important thing in this world is the people in it. Things may come and go, but usually the thing that will make you whole is a soft smile and good conversation. All of these perspectives blend together to create the highs and lows of this project. They all bring clarity to the complex and often convoluted nature of one's own story.

You use the word sin a lot in your writing. What does that word mean to you?

I find inspiration in sin. When looking back at my life, I always find moments of sin to be some of my clearest memories. I find solace in sin because oftentimes I learn so much from it. For me, sin isn’t a singular act but many in a short period of time. When I find myself in moments of sin I let it engulf me, it's not just one act or moment, but a tidal wave of it. Allowing it to highlight some of my best and worst qualities. I've learned from sin, learned about love, hate, fear and doubt. I let my most animalistic of tendencies break free and when the storm is over I see myself clearly. I think thats why I am so drawn to it, it strips me of the bullshit and shows me who I really am.

You used your animations sparingly in the film, why? How do you think the subtle animated graphics enhance the film?

In the start of the process, I wanted the animations to be loud. I wanted the project to be equal parts film to equal part animation. Day after day I slowly whittled it down. After finishing the entirety of the project I had drawn over 200,000 frames but only used 5,110. I realized too much animation completely detracts from the story I wrote and was a dishonest approach to my vision. I wanted people to see how we remember our feelings. In the moment, as we experience happiness or pain it consumes us. But as time goes on you can only faintly remember the feeling, Distant and yet so close. Its more about the wild actions you took because of those feelings. I knew that the best approach to telling the story I lived was to approach the animation side of the project honestly without detracting form the story I wanted to tell.

You can check out more of Giles Pates’ work on his website or Instagram.

Related:

Minimalist Animation Pays Homage to Great 90s Pinball Machines

Get Down with Cookie-Headed Dancers and a Rapper'sCartoon Belly

Dark Political Cartoons Show How Technology Is Our New Master

British Columbia’s provincial government on Tuesday imposed its bombshell 15 per cent tax on foreign buyers in Vancouver, and the real estate industry is in a state of apoplexy.

We have a fair number of students on campus outside of CS who want to become web designers, but few of them think they should learn to program. Some give it a try when one of our communications profs tells them how exciting and liberating it can be. In general, though, it's a hard sell. Programming sounds boring to them, full of low-level details better left to techies over in computer science.

This issue pervades the web design community. In The Bomb in the Garden, Matthew Butterick does a great job of explaining why the web as a design medium is worth saving, and pointing to ways in which programming can release the creativity we need to keep it alive.

Which brings me to my next topic--what should designers know about programming?

And I know that some of you will think this is beating a dead horse. But when we talk about restoring creativity to the web, and expanding possibilities, we can't avoid the fact that just like the web is a typographic medium, it's also a programmable medium.

And I'm a designer who actually does a lot of programming in my work. So I read the other 322,000 comments about this on the web. I still think there's a simple and non-dogmatic answer, which is this:

You don't have to learn programming, but don't knock it till you try it.

It's fun for me when one of the web design students majoring in another department takes his or her first programming class and is sparked by the possibilities that writing a program opens up. And we in CS are happy to help them go deeper into the magic.

Butterick speaks truth when he says he's a designer who does a lot of programming in his work. Check out Pollen, the publishing system he created to write web-based books. Pollen's documentation says that it "helps authors make functional and beautiful digital books". That's true. It's a very nice package.

According to a recent Tweet, Tim Cook says that Apple’s App Store has experienced paid out the most money ever to developers in July. However, in an uncharacteristic move, Cook did not release specific numbers or attribute the increase specifically to Niantic’s Pokémon Go.

.@AppStore developers have now earned over $50 billion! Congratulations on your success and such inspired creativity.

— Tim Cook (@tim_cook) August 3, 2016

In total, Cook also says developers have earned over $50 billion though the App Store since its launch in the mid 2000s.

Apple’s CEO also cited this number back in June during the company’s WWDC 2016 conference.

July was a record-breaker for the @AppStore! Highest-ever monthly billings and money paid to developers.

— Tim Cook (@tim_cook) August 3, 2016

MIT Media Lab, Aug 05, 2016

Seymour Papert passed away on Sunday and the web is - not surprisingly - full of tributes. I remember him most as an artificial intelligence researcher, and colleague of Marvin Minsky, but he is more widely recognized as an education innovator and theorist. I met him only once, back in 2003 or so, at a conference in Quebec City. These last few days the web has been full of tributes, not surprisingly.

From Paulo Blikstein, some links:

• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/seymourpapert/
• This is the video of a tribute to him in 2013: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=588Tyv827b4
• And the introduction to the tribute, “ You cannot think about thinking without thinking about what Seymour Papert would think:” http://bit.ly/2aqiJkJ
• http://papert.org
• http://dailypapert.com
• His collected works: http://dailypapert.com/the-collected-writings-of-seymour-p… /
• An amazing debate with Paulo Freire: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4V-0KfBdWao
• A great talk by Gary S. Stager about Seymour: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-dFTmdX1kU
• Logo Foundation

Tributes and such:

• Will Richardson, RIP Seymour Papert
• Steve Wheeler - Papert - in his own words
• Philip Greenspun - Remembering Seymour Papert, Pilot
• Audrey Watters - Photos
• Donald Clark - Seymour  Papert – Logo, Lego and constructionism - RIP
• Derek Wenmoth - RIP Seymour Papert
• Mark Guzdial - Seymour  Papert has died and leaves a lasting legacy
• New York Times - Seymour Papert, 88, Dies; Saw Education’ s Future in Computers
• Educating Alice - R.I.P. Father of Kids’ Coding, Seymour  Papert
• Hacker News - Seymour Papert has died
• Fortune -  AI and Computer Learning Lion Seymour Papert Dies at 88
• Motherboard -  Seymour Papert, a Pioneer of Artificial Intelligence and Kids Coding, Has Died
• Ars Technica -  Seymour Papert, theorist behind One Laptop Per Child, dies at 88

Apple has introduced new Smart Keyboards for the iPad Pro with localized layouts for several languages. According to 9to5Mac, the localized Smart Keyboards include British English, French, Spanish, Italian, Arabic, and others. The keyboards are available to fit both the 9.7 and 12.9 inch models of the iPad Pro and are available from Apple’s websites in the countries where the applicable languages are spoken, along with the existing US English version of the keyboards.

→ Source: 9to5mac.com

Following the examples set by the Central Valley Greenway and the Seaside (Point Grey Road) Greenway, here comes the Arbutus Greenway.  A safe and delightful way for people on foot and on bike to get somewhere and enjoy their trip and the city.

Thanks to the Courier and Naoibh O’Connor: City crews have already laid asphalt down on a chunk of the Arbutus Greenway — from 16th to about 25th.

The next goal is to pave the segment up to 41st over the next few weeks, and ultimately the whole nine-kilometre route from False Creek to the Fraser River.

Jerry Dobrovolny, the city’s general manager of engineering, said the temporary path is meant to encourage the public to travel along the route in preparation for the launch of the visioning process this fall, which will examine what the corridor can become. “The goal is to get people using more of the corridor. We’ve heard from people who’ve lived next to the corridor for decades, but still may have walked only one or two blocks,” said Dobrovolny during a Tuesday press conference at the portion by Fir and West Fifth.

He noted Canadian Pacific contractors finished removing the track ahead of schedule and the asphalt is being put down where the rail used to be. It will be open for public use as each section is completed.

“Our goal is to get people walking much more of it. If you’ve walked two blocks, walk two kilometres. If you’ve walked two kilometres, walk eight kilometres. Experience it, see it and use it. And use that experience when you come to our open houses and involve yourself in our consultation process to design what will be a spectacular facility for the City of Vancouver.”

The article touches on the breadth of issues and the varying constituencies that will form part of the consultation and decision-making process. It’s a daunting task for City staff. Dare I say that not everyone will be happy, no matter what the outcome and final design will be?

This just out from the city.

City appoints Gil Kelley as the General Manager of Planning, Urban Design and Sustainability

Today, the City is announcing that Gil Kelley will serve as Vancouver’s new Chief Planner and General Manager of the newly created Department of Planning, Urban Design and Sustainability.

Gil has been appointed by City Council to fulfill statutory responsibilities of the Director of Planning under the Vancouver Charter and will lead the City’s work on all city planning visioning, policy, urban design, and major development negotiations. He will be a voting member of the Development Permit Board and a member of the Corporate Management Team.

 

The newly created department of Planning, Urban Design and Sustainability will also have the City’s Sustainability Group integrated within its mandate, which will support the effective implementation of the City’s Greenest City Action Plan (GCAP), Renewable City Strategy and green building initiatives.

“Vancouver is known throughout the world as a leader in urban planning and design, and being a sustainable, livable and inclusive city,” says Mayor Gregor Robertson. “As Chief Planner now responsible for Planning, Urban Design and Sustainability, Gil will help take Vancouver to the next level in becoming a greener, more affordable and inclusive city. Gil’s extensive experience in cities like San Francisco and Portland is highly valuable at a time when Vancouver is facing an affordability challenge like never before, and we are thrilled to have him join our team at City Hall.”

“Vancouver’s Chief Planner has long been one of most challenging and important positions in our city. Vancouver has a global reputation for world class urban planning,” said City Manager Sadhu Johnston. “Gil will be charged with rejuvenating that legacy and ensuring that Vancouver is a livable, green, equitable and more affordable community as we continue to grow and evolve. Gil’s experience supporting affordability will be a great addition to the City’s efforts to be a more affordable city.”

Gil assumes leadership of the City’s efforts to address public policy issues related to land use and city planning. Gil will be charged with charting a course for a proactive planning program for Vancouver, including:
* Supporting work underway to update the City’s 10-year Affordable Housing Strategy;

* Implementing policy work completed on the removal of the Georgia and Dunsmuir viaducts, False Creek Flats, Northeast False Creek and South False Creek plans;

* Renewing the planning and urban design framework for Vancouver’s City Core; including transit-oriented development with a focus on the Broadway corridor;

* Completing recommendations on the City’s new Heritage Action Plan;

* Implementing the city’s climate adaptation plan, zero emission new buildings strategy, greenest city action plan and 100% renewable strategy;

* Supporting key Council priorities, including housing affordability, City of Reconciliation, the Health City Strategy, and working with the Vancouver Economic Commission and other partners to optimize and grow Vancouver’s nation leading economy

With extensive experience in city planning work, Gil was recently Director of City-wide Planning for the City of San Francisco. In that role, Gil’s projects have included preparation of a new City-wide Transportation Plan, development of policies and strategies to advance affordable housing preservation and development, a waterfront plan that includes a long-term strategy for addressing sea level rise and public access, several plans for developing or redevelopment of major transit corridors, and alternative strategies to best accommodate introduction of California High-speed Rail into San Francisco.

Gil also created and has overseen a new community development function focused primarily on stabilization strategies for neighbourhoods in extreme tension (gentrification and displacement), as well as underserved communities. During his tenure with the City of San Francisco, Gil’s urban design studio focused on radically improving the City’s public realm through both tactical urbanism and permanent designs for streets, plazas and social spaces.

Gil also spent ten years as the Director of Planning for the City of Portland where he was appointed by the mayor to coordinate key development initiatives and to oversee the city’s planning functions. Major projects under Gil’s tenure include the River Renaissance Initiative, Mayor’s Urban Design Initiative, City-wide Permit Improvement Project, Comprehensive Plan and Centre City Plan Update Frameworks, Industrial Lands Policy, and the Airport Master Plan.

Gil’s first Director of Planning role was with the City of Berkeley in California where he directed most of the City’s community development functions including the Economic Development Office, Redevelopment Agency, Planning Department, Building Department (“Codes and Inspections”), and a consolidated Permit Centre.

Gil is an alumnus of the prestigious Loeb Fellowship program at Harvard University Graduate School of Design and held an appointment as Practitioner-in-Residence on the faculty of Portland State University’s Toulan School of Urban Studies and Planning for several years. He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in political economy from the Evergreen State College in Washington and is a graduate candidate for a Master of Science degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Urban Studies and Planning. Gil has also received a certificate in Advanced Environmental Studies from Harvard University.

Gil has contributed to several published reports, studies and books, including a book on Urban Manufacturing tentatively scheduled for release later this year.

“I am pleased and honoured to be taking the helm of Planning in Vancouver, one of the most vibrant, livable and sustainable cities in the world,” says Gil Kelley, Chief Planner and General Manager of Planning, Urban Design and Sustainability for the City of Vancouver. “It’s a good moment in the city’s history to ‘double down’ on the those qualities and aspirations and take them to the next level, as Vancouver grows and prospers.”

Gil will start in his position on September 15, 2016.

In addition to the role that will be filled by Gil Kelley, the City recently appointed Kaye Matheny-Krishna as the new General Manager, for the Development Services, Building and Licensing Department. Kaye assume leadership of the City’s efforts to transform its permitting and licensing processes and improve service and turnaround times for applicants.

Screencaps by the author

Despite being around for a few years now, Tilt Brush is only just starting to wow the masses. Now, Google has equipped the tool with audio-responsive brushes, allowing users to effectively paint sound. What does this mean for would-be virtual reality artists? The possibilities are pretty endless from a synesthetic perspective, but a quick impression of the video suggests that in the immediate term, VR artists could create audiovisual experiences for musical performances.

In the newly released video, various brush strokes oscillate like sound system speakers, while other times the lines resemble the waveform patterns of oscilloscopes. But these are only the more basic audio-reactive works—the demo also shows far more complex audiovisual combinations, where the artists are really exploiting the 360 VR environment, and making many layers of audio-reactive brushstrokes.

Tilt Brush is a very personally immersive experience, but the audio-reactive brush feature could bring a more communal immersion to VR, not to mention a fresh form of psychedelic sensory overload. And, sure, the video demo seems like they’re pitching it to EDM festivalgoers, but the feature definitely has potential, which artists and musicians alike are bound to explore. See it in action below: 

Click here to learn more about Tilt Brush.

Related:

Play a Virtual Reality Synthesizer With Your Real Hands

Watch a Disney Animator Sketch Classic Characters in Thin Air

Now You Can Make Beats in Virtual Reality

Thanks to Frances Bula for the heads-up. We wish Mr. Kelley all the best as Vancouver continues to grow and change.

Video interview (from June 29, 2016).

City of Vancouver release:

“Gil’s extensive experience in cities like San Francisco and Portland is highly valuable at a time when Vancouver is facing an affordability challenge like never before, and we are thrilled to have him join our team at City Hall,” said Mayor Robertson.

Today, the City is announcing that Gil Kelley will serve as Vancouver’s new chief planner and general manager of the newly-created department of Planning, Urban Design, and Sustainability.

Gil has been appointed by City Council to fulfill statutory responsibilities of the director of planning under the Vancouver Charter and will lead the City’s work on all city planning visioning, policy, urban design, and major development negotiations. He will be a voting member of the Development Permit Board and a member of the Corporate Management Team.

The newly created department of Planning, Urban Design, and Sustainability will also have our Sustainability Group integrated within its mandate, which will support the effective implementation of our Greenest City Action Plan, Renewable City Strategy, and green building initiatives.