I have been playing around with some augmented reality apps recently, including the Layar AR system, one of the most popular ones out there today. Layar provides a common platform for developers to share their augmented reality data using common standards, and then share them with a global community of users. There are currently more…
Category: SF Bay Area
Virtual Worlds, Transgender Photos, and My Life as a Dancing Cyborg
Last Saturday I was involved in a really interesting conversation on the subject of "The Customizable Body: The Present / Future of Identity" at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. The featured speakers were Second Life founder Philip Rosedale and photographer Amos Mac, documents trans male lifestyles in his zine Original Plumbing. I love…
Easter with the Santos Clan (pics, video)
Easter with the Santos clan was a very festive affair this year, hosted by the Martin family in their lovely house in Hercules, CA. I had a great time hanging out with the fam, eating a ridiculous amount of amazing food, playing with my littlest cousins, and just relaxing on a gorgeous Easter sunday. Check…
Gauchos bring Gypsy Jazz to the Mission
On Wednesday night I had the pleasure of catching the Gauchos jazz sextet perform at the delightfully divey Amnesia Bar in the Mission District. The Gauchos play mostly gypsy jazz, ala Django Rheinhart, throwing in some other tango and New Orleans street jazz for good measure. They got some serious chops, tight grooves, and…
LookBack Maps: Bringing the Past to the Present with Augmented Reality
I have been playing around with augmented reality apps lately, seeing how they might be used for education and civic engagement. The field is still in its beginning stages, but we are already starting to see some interesting applications of AR. Of course, augmented reality applications have been around since the early 1990s. But it…
A San Francisco Monday: Bayside Jog, Coffee Snobbery, Food Truckin, and Swank Swing
I had a fantastic Monday in San Francisco that reminds me of why I'm so excited about living here. I woke up early, threw on my sneaks and headed out from the pad I'm crashing at in Mission Bay. Then I went for an energizing 2 mile run by the waterside through the Embaracadero and…
Hiking with the Familia in the Oakland Hills
Yesterday I had a fantastic time stomping around the Redwood Regional Park in the Oakland Hills with a bunch of my cousins. I had no idea that such a dense, beautiful redwood forest was so close to downtown Oakland! The occasion was the birthday of my cousin Mel. So a bunch of the cousins (and…
Shredding for Science at the Exploratorium
Yesterday evening, I had the opportunity (thanks Alex!) to go to a really fun event called "Skateboard Science" at the amazing Exploratorium museum in San Francisco. I love museums after hours, and skateboard culture is so interesting, I knew it was going to be a cool evening. The main event for the evening was a…
920 Special Open House Recap: Awesome Performances, Hundreds of New Dancers
Last Thursday was the "Open House" at the 9:20 Special dance in San Francisco. This is when the 9:20 organizers throw open the doors to the community and allow anyone to come in for a free swing dance lesson and enjoy dancing to the music in the huge dancehall of the Russian Center on…
The Zeum: San Francisco’s Amazing Children’s Art & Tech Museum
Recently, I met up with a friend who works at the Zeum, the Children's Museum of San Francisco, in the lovely Yerba Buena Gardens. The Zeum is a "21st century multimedia arts and technology center for children," as the website states. But what it really is is a huge playground for kids to let…