augiemania ORLY?

You can keep up with my trip via the following: twitter or facebook

I just sent this email out, but figured the news in it should be mentioned here. So I copy/pasted it all for you to read.
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[This is a mass email, heads up.]

Hey everyone,
I have some very exciting news about this summer.
I have been accepted for a residency at The Banff Center in Alberta, Canada. (http://www.banffcentre.ca/programs/program.aspx?id=850) What this means is that I will be living on campus there for the month of June. (June 4th-ish to July 4th).

This is HUGE for me and I am SUPER FUCKING EXCITED.

What the hell are you doing in Canada?
The project I will be working on is a twitter (http://twitter.com)/loopt (http://loopt.com) type website that will display population density trends.

How does it work?
Users will load the page and see a map of themselves and other users within a small radius. They will then click a button to “Shout” (similar to a status update) that will get sent to everyone in their physical vicinity. The next part is the magic. These recipients will acts as transmitters resending the message to people in their own small radius and so on…

Along with the website, I will creating an iPhone application on the new OS to also interact with the service.

What the fuck are you talking about?
If I am downtown, and “shout” it should conceivably get to Harlem and potentially hit every user in Manhattan. Should there be enough users, this “chain reaction” could potentially travel even greater distances. Obviously, the more remote areas will have less interaction with the service. (which is the whole “display population density trends”)

Why?
Because I want to show the internet in direct correlation to the physical world. We can all join “New York City” networks on Facebook, but that has no real bearing on real world location.
From the proposal:

This project is an attempt to de-democratize the concept of social networking with the bias being location. The internet, and more specifically social networking sites, connect users from around the world to one another. Users often share many aspects of theirs lives with whomever is willing to look at their profile page. With this project, if a user is geographically isolated, they are equally isolated within the service. This model also allows for small groups of individuals to exist within the system but completely outside of any other network. There is no search functionality, isolated users are essentially invisible to other users. The use of real life geography as the bias creates many parallels between reality and the service, emphasizing the role that geography still plays in our every day lives.

You can follow my progress by periodically checking out the site (in progress) at http://shout.carlomontagnino.com/ I will also be blogging extensively about the experience on http://augiemania.com

***********
My job was EXTREMELY generous in not firing me over this. The one stipulation that stands in my way is that I finish all of my job-related duties before June.

What does that mean?
Much longer work days, busier weekends, and overall less free time. May is going to be very hectic for me, and I ask for your understanding and patience. I will be working extra hard to tie up all of my loose ends before June comes around.

I love you all and thank you all for everything.

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- carlo

…at the Perugia Science festival. For those who don’t know what the fuck I’m taking about, here is a link to the wiki page.

It was pretty difficult at first, but after about 3 minutes, I was playing the trumpet part from Craig Mack’s “Flavor in ya Ear” and jamming out pretty hard. It’s more annoying than nice sounding i think, but whatever, it’s a cool toy thing that makes noise.

In Italy, the only thing worse than not being born there is not speaking the language. Seriously, they need to get over themselves, LOL.

But seriously, English is better because it’s what I know.

Anyway, after like 3 days I started understanding what everyone was saying, whch is a crazy ass feeling. It also affords me to shoot people dirty looks when they talk shit about me because I’m an American tourist. And they do talk shit. Especially shop keepers and people at the next table over.

These people are stupid greaseballs. I can say it, because I’m Italian. LOL.

I’m on a plane back right now from Italy. I’m at the half way point (about 5 hours) on my flight after a 3 hour bus ride. I’m exhausted and need a cigarette. I really hate flying.

I flew in and out of Rome, but the trip was centered around a wedding just outside of Perugia in Umbria. Kristin’s Mothers family lives out in Perugia, so there was a lot of that that going on, but we had a great time.

I noted some of the things to share and they are after the jump.

Sadly I didn’t take many pictures… Sorry.

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On the 27th i’ll be headed to italy untill the 4th of september.

I plan on taking some pics and just relaxing (lord knows i need it).

As far as posting is concerned, i’ll post pics when i get back because i am not bringing my laptop. But i can post cell phone pics and text based posts. Gotta love ipod touch!

Ciao!

Kristin and I went to New Hope Pennsylvania today. Now as a standard I love north eastern “small towns” and New Hope is no exception.

It’s about an hour south-west of our place in Staten Island right off of the 202.

The town is an artist/artisan town with no sign of commercialization. Well, not counting the one Starbucks we saw. The main strip holds countless small boutiques and restaurants. (we ate at the mansion inn which was pretty good.)

The main attraction for kristin and I was the historic train ride which lasted about 25 minutes. On the trip we saw Warhol’s cottage. Which explains a lot about the towns fascination with him.

We didn’t buy any souvenirs because the shops were pretty expencive ($600 for a blouse? Seriously?) but we did enjoy ourselves.

Below are some pics from the day.

Well I’m home. I will be posting more photos and vids from the second half of my trip soon.

LA isn’t bad, it’s just very very different. here’s a perfect example of the way LA is.

My gf and I are in some italian joint and we mention to the waiter that we are going to see the “Hollywood” sign the next day. he tell us to go to universal studios because they have an excellent backdrop of it, the photos come out better!

Image is everything my friends.

Celebrity sightings: Paris Hilton on Rodeo Drive (unconfirmed but I want to believe it.), David Lynch (got his autograph at a barnes and noble dvd signing for INLAND EMPIRE [which is really great]), and Missy Elliot at LAX.

MADNESS!!!

San Fransisco ruled, but so far LA sucks. It’s like New Jersey, but full of itself. Anyway, Here are a bunch of my fav pics and vids from the San Fran/Drive to LA. (We decided to take 580 to 5 instead of taking 1 all the way down.)

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