Image from Constant’s New Babylon: the hyper-architecture of desire [google book] By Mark Wigley¹

Expanding upon a micro-thought from a panel discussion

“#IFP09 thankyou Thomas Malaby for showing me Constant’s New Babylon: a post-monetary configurable architectural mesh http://bit.ly/2Rv1Gr” – @aquarious

The tweet above implicates multiple layers of private property that mesh the various networked but self-fashioning aspects of a typical public realtime hypertext exchange these days. The layers of exchanged property include Twitter (messaging), Bit.ly (shortlink), Facebook (social web), Google Books (content publishing) and related software (browsers, apps, OS, etc.) to render social media towards public communications.

These private and corporate accumulations of virtual cultural capital derived from user contributed content add value well beyond their physical capital which comprises the workforce, server farms, bandwidth, energy and even brand identity, all subsumed as value commodities optimized for self-fashioning and auto-meshing. The notion of this hypertext broadcast evokes the antagonism between the private property of the communication transported by publishing tools and the public nature of the participants and their expressions. The binary boundaries of labor theory models have been blurred between distinctions of…

• public/private
• property/commons
• production/consumption
• exploit/contribute
• work/play
• oligarchy/democracy
• self/group
• asymmetrical/egalitarian
• physical/virtual

Indeed, new language is required to express the hybridity and mutation invoked by the social forces of emergent design technology.

History has presented us with examples of imaginary objects and structures that prefigured our contemporary conditions. In pondering Constant Niewunhuys’ New Babylon as the ultimate imaginary object of urban architectures, there is also Bush’s Memex as the ultimate imaginary object of knowledge consoles. These future-minded design studies arrive out of creative practice and military research disciplines, respectively. But they share a common perspective on the destiny of humankind as a networked and reciprocal society.

Indeed, the Memex already serves as a de facto historical artifact of a proto-hypertext pre-digital device to foreshadow the Internet. By synthesizing the virtual of knowledge networks towards a metaphorical or rhetorical architecture eventually built as the Internet, perhaps the digital memex, maybe the virtual New Babylon, a layer of self-fashioning protocols and exchanges emerged that sit between physical transit and everyday life. Vannevar Bush imagined his Memex microfilm knowledge console as the liberation from libraries, towards exchangeable and reconfigurable knowledge media. He extended self-enrichment through participatory scholarship with the promise of technology to overcome the limitations of physical media and the requisite bureaucracy to manage it. He imagined the basis for the internet before the digital computer and the network were fully conceived and implemented. Meanwhile, before the digital network engendered hyperconnectedness and hyperfragmentation as intrinsic structures and conditions of hypertext knowledge distribution systems, Constant Niewunhuys appears to have applied a parallel idea of hyperarchitecture to the basis of a futurist society built upon a “unitary urbanism.”

The post-monetary vision of Constant’s New Babylon envisages an architectural mesh of “infinitely reconfigurable spaces”² where a post-capitalist society of self-fashioning actors thrive beyond commodity exchange in the conventional sense. We wonder if the physical architecture of humans will eventually evolve into this rhizomatic, multi-layered, multi-dimensional, network of cellular or atomic structures that represent and disseminate information or embody and interconnect human habitats across the Earth in a uniformly neural network pattern. This pattern resembles the visual forms of the digital network, our understandings of neuroscience, biochemistry and atomic physics. Is it the eventual but wholly natural state of human society?³

The cellular design affords the infinite and reconfigurable mobility of capital and commodity exchange of all sorts across the boundaries of time and place. Humans may eventually construct a habitat that resembles a web of interconnected self-regulating, post-national, post-regional communities who thrive on unfettered commodity exchange, beyond scarcity, beyond the immaterial. Labor and value creation in this kind of a post-monetary urban planning concept depends on an individual’s accumulation of knowledge credentials, artifacts of cultural production and the distributed economics of emergent peer-to-peer micro-transactions — peer production.

“After rehearsing these few salient features of today’s art criticism, I must say on the contrary that for our situationist comrades, for Constant and myself, the three-dimensional explorations in question here can in no way be an object of enthusiasm, as they are but scattered elements on the path toward a future construction of ambiences, a unitary urbanism.” – Guy Debord⁴

Leave it to Guy Debord to take all the fun out of sci-fi fantasy.

Footnotes

1. via Google Books
2. Thomas Malaby at #IPF09, The New School
3. Think Powers of 10, by Charles and Ray Eames, which illustrates a repeating pattern of nature’s architecture from atom to cosmos.
4. Constant and the Path of Unitary Urbanism on Google Books

Make me an app that would auto-sync the URLs of all my currently open tabs to a shortened URL that I could syndicate at will.

For example

http://tabs.to/mercurious would redirect to the 11 browser tabs that I have open right now, in your browser.

I suppose it could be built as a Firefox plugin and companion website that syndicates vanity URLs and offers a social API to disseminate into other services.

It would contribute towards the notion of MEMEX, by putting the live trail of my research in front of a “camera” — a social feed, in actuality.

It would serve the function and purpose of this MEMEX accessory, illustrated in the figure:

Ivan Sutherland’s Sketchpad MIT thesis was covered by Create Digital Motion after I posted the video clip from MIT’s New Media Reader featuring Dr. Alay Kay from Xerox PARC give a lecture on Sketchpad. The video clip has since garnered over 10,000 YouTube views and other “instances” of the film on video sharing sites — so appropriate given Sutherland’s contribution of the idea of a “master” and “instances.” His contributions to computer aided design history extend well into its origins and beyond its final outcome.

Peter Kirn says it best — what I think, he was able to say about this…

Additional Demonstration Footage Also Emerged

This Sketchpad film on YouTube: Part 1

The computer has been, in a sense, nothing but a very elaborate calculating machine. But, now we’re making the computer be more like, almost like a “human assistant” and the computer will seem to have some intelligence.

It doesn’t really. Only the intelligence that we put in it.

{Emphasis added.}

Professor Steven Coons
Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering at MIT
Co-Director of The Computer Aided Design Project

It was a fun ride, and we certainly garnered a small portion of the incredible Google search term traffic related to iPhone hype in 2006. I’m afraid we’ll be waiting out the dark period until February 2008, when the official SDK is released and a new generation of extensibility emerges for Touch applications. We also anticipate a significant iPhone firmware update at MacWorld 2008 in January to tide us over. Not to mention all the brouhaha that will sound out when the 3G version hits the streets.

In short, the jailbreak process became too arduous and the reliability of some common applications became dubious. Naturally, this is no surprise, given the fact that Apple had no reasons to support these endeavors. Indeed, the post-SDK era will involve mediation through digital signatures, and the indy iPhone developer market will writhe in pain. But, if it means that applications will be sturdy, well designed, and accountable to performance and efficiency standards, we have to admit that it’s probably worth it, having learned the hard way. When it comes to a mobile phone, the basic functions are more crucial than on a desktop or laptop computer. Things like basic communications capabilities really do, just have to work.

With an 1.1.3 update rumored to be hitting the servers this week sporting voice recording and disk mode storage, the jailbreak process promises only to get more arcane.

Space Time Play — Computer Games, Architecture and Urbanism: The Next Level

» Book Website (spacetimeplay.org)
» Table of Contents (PDF)
» Introduction (PDF)

Available to the US in November 2007 from Birkhäuser and edited by Friedrich von Borries, Steffen P. Walz, Matthias Böttger, Space Time Play — Computer Games, Architecture and Urbansim: The Next Level offers readers 62 concise essays and interviews interspersed between 64 game, film and science-fiction book reviews, and 48 game research projects, all brilliantly organized into 5 ascending levels, sequenced into topics that build upon the theory of the editors, that video gaming has come of age as one of society’s most crucial and influential cultural artifacts. Richly illustrated and well populated with important and influential theorists, designers and academics, Space Time Play multi-tasks as a scholarly tome, coffee table guide to gaming, and manual of pop culture memes driven by gaming industry.

Steffen Walz, friend and editor of the collection, generously sent me an advance copy, and I’m thrilled to share the news of this exciting addition the growing library of scholarly treatments of gaming on culture, art, media and urbanism. The text is especially unusual in the way it will appeal to gamers and scholars alike, exemplifying how the subject matter is no longer relegated to fringe discussions of gaming’s profound influence on contemporary humanity. Every reader will find at least one game review that resonates within him or herself, whether it’s Katie Salen’s perfectly worded analysis of Alexey Pajitnov’s timeless classic Tetris or the de-mystification of the first alternate reality games (ARGs) to emerge such as EA’s Majestic reviewed by Kurt Squire, or The Beast reviewed by Dave Szulborkski, used by Spielberg to promote A.I. Artificial Intelligence. Readers will enjoy remembering classics such as Asterioids through Jesper Juul’s reframing it as a “forgotten futurism” or considering if SimCity informs and influences notions of urban planning and governance or simply reveals itself as simulated simulation.

Levels 1 and 2 situate the history of computer games as interactive play spaces and connect these basic ideas to the framework of the Ludic Metropolis, or City of Play. Along with the physical representations of space in video gaming, the urbanist modes of exchange and social intercourse are examined with many specific game and research projects. In the end, we discover how narrative environments like World of Warcraft shape identities through an interconnection of an architecture of play, socially immersive design, and timeless storytelling.

In Level 3, Ubitquitous Games: Enchanting Places, Buildings, Cities and Landscapes, the Ludic City is crafted as an actual real-life play space, broken out of the computer console, but no doubt influenced by its tendencies, parameters and tools. Examples like geocaching, locative games, ARG advertising, augmented realities, mobile media, Parkour, and others evoke an idea of gaming within true social space, the city as a game board, and the separations between game and life fully blurred.

In Level 4, Serious Fun: Utilizing Game Elements for Architectural Design and Urban Planning, the Ludic City is envisioned as a proving ground and design tool. Architects and urban planners, embracing the organic, player driven models of gaming, employ its modes towards generative and evaluative instances of complexity management and design research. Here especially, the editors posit the newly respected role of game technologies for the social causes of urbanism and design towards the common good. Skeptics of the value of gaming will certainly be challenged in this chapter, their views perhaps not resistant to the well articulated examples of how game design and technologies have already proven their value off the living room couch.

In the final chapter, Level 5, Faites Vos Jeux: Games Between Utopia and Dystopia, the editors collect examples of how games and war play an uneasy partnership on the battlefield for hearts and minds across societies, present and future-minded. This chapter also examines virtual economies, such as the Chinese Gold Miners of World of Warcraft, and in-game advertising’s rise to importance.

The book begins and ends with references to Spacewar!, the very first recorded instance of a video game design, a creation of MIT students in 1962 for the PDP-1, the first device with a graphic monitor, instantiating the language and context of video gaming for many years to come. In reflecting upon how quickly computer games have infiltrated the collective and individualized societies of yesterday, today and tomorrow, we cannot help but imagine their inevitability in the human condition and the importance of play, time and space.

Verdict: An indispensable addition to the library of any interaction designer, game designer, social theorist, architect, urban planner, futurist, student or scholar, casual or fanatical gamer.

• Introduction↓
• Getting Started↓
• How to install NES Game ROMs↓
• How to get sound working in NES↓
• How to get PICO working in iPhone Remote Terminal↓
• How to change the SSH root password↓
• How to Remove (Uninstall) applications↓
• How to Find your iPhone’s IP Address↓

Introduction

This guide is written for Mac users who are not familiar with using UNIX, but are very interested in getting third-party applications installed into the Springboard home screen of their iPhone (not Safari web apps). There are several guides and wiki sites out there at the moment that detail this process. This guide has not yet been updated for firmware 1.1.1 and only applies to 1.0.2 and under until it is updated. In the meantime, iPhoneAlley offers one of the first step-by-step guides for the recently announced 1.1.1  third-party application installation technique. It is not meant for novices, but could  be what you’re looking for.

Since the original posting, installing native iPhone applications has become easier than ever, thanks to the amazing Nullriver software Installer. → It gives you a beautiful iPhone style multi-touch interface to install emerging 3rd party applications handling all the tricky stuff for you. Furthermore, it automatically checks for updates and makes sure you can keep up with the rapid pace of development. It is already clear that the Nullriver Installer is going to fuel the growth of this exploding scene.Nullriver has created AppTapp, a Mac and Windows graphical wizard← to get you started automated script that allows you to bypass all the instructions on this guide! You will need to issue a single command in Terminal, and so the gentle primer to using that below may no longer be required since this installer installer (I know, unfortunately, redundant, but true) handles everything and gets you started. An open source alternative to Nullriver Installer has emerged called Breezy that I’ll be testing a reviewing. Clearly, Nullriver is bound to be one of the first commercial (shareware) programs available for the native iPhone application market, eventually. Apparently, Nullriver and the PXL package development group are joining forces to bring aspects of open source to AppTapp.

This guide also addresses some of the most frequently asked questions that I’ve been seeing in the comments and threads. Most of them, I’ve also had myself at some point during this process. This guide is the result of working through these challenges, doing the research, trial-and-error. It may try your patience, but be reassured that it’s all very possible, and the hardest part is just getting set up. This guide relies on some of the excellent guides that have emerged at ModMyiPhone.com, but attempts to update, augment and clean up things.

Contributions

It is my hope that this helps out the iPhoneDevTeam by fulfilling the overwhelming need to teach so many new users basic UNIX and other tricks to get these mods working. Instead of wasting time teaching newbies the basics, these amazing folks can stay focused on delivering us amazing new tools to make the most of our beloved devices. Consider this my donation to the cause.

Disclaimer and Warning

If you run into problems during modding, such as losing sync capabilities with iTunes, you will need to go through the Restore process through iTunes, which should make your phone factory fresh, but you will lose your customizations. Hopefully, this guide will help you quickly rebuild your mods, in case that happens.Set aside several hours to go through everything in this guide. However, when you’re done, you will have a nice setup for enjoying third-party iPhone applications.

Of course, this guide is provided AS IS, and use it at your own risk. I do not condone, endorse or warrant any of the actions suggested here. You are advised that altering the software on your iPhone is consideration a violation of the legal agreement you enact with Apple, and hence, they will no longer be obligated to support you. This means that you will likely void your warranty.

Modding from iPhone 1.0.1 to 1.0.2

If you have made modifications prior to the iPhone 1.0.2 software update, it is strongly recommended that you:

1. Sync to iTunes to backup your settings
2. Choose “Download” instead of “Download and Install” when prompted to update your iPhone to 1.0.2
3. Run a restore process, which will reset your phone to factory settings. Then only things you should lose are your voicemail password and WiFi access point passwords. Everything else, including SMS and Notes should be restored and you’ll have iPhone 1.0.2
4. Re-sync to iTunes. Quit iTunes and then run the Nullriver Installer script (the included README file gets you going)
5. Install Launcher, through Installer on the iPhone
6. Proceed to install items such as BSD Subsystem and OpenSSH, and then you’ll be in good shape to get NES, Lights Off and many of the other great tools and programs emerging.

Getting Started

Refer to this handy Glossary by Erica Sadun to have some of the common terms of iPhone modding translated into plain language.

1. Get comfortable with Terminal

Open what’s called a UNIX shell by finding /Applications/Utilites/Terminal on your hard drive and practice using some basic commands. If you’ve used Terminal before, you can skip this step.You’ll need to issue lots of these commands during the process, so it’s worth understanding the relationship between the command-line actions and the equivalent familiar actions that is second nature when clicking around in the Finder.Try out these commands, hitting enter after each line. See if you can figure out what’s going on.

lscd /lscd /var/root/lscd ../../cd /usr/ls -lacd ~

cd means change directory. ls means list the files in the directory, with -la you get all the file information and show hidden files also. This is what’s happening behind the scenes when you click on icons and folders in the Finder. Note that ~ means your user’s home directory.Tip: If you’re ever lost in the Terminal file paths, you can always drag-and-drop a file from the Finder into the Terminal and it will convert the path for you.

2. Get started with iActivator

http://www.modmyiphone.com/wiki/index.php/Getting_Started_iPhone_ModdingFollow the detailed guide on this page, which includes download links. In this step, you’ll create a local “phonedmg” directory on your Mac’s user account, download the restore files from Apple, and go through the “jailbreak” process, which makes your iPhone writable. You’ll always need to go back to jail to make it work with iTunes. If you have any trouble with iActivator, or it suddenly becomes unavailable for download, you can perform a jailbreak in Terminal on the command-line.

3. Install iPHUC

http://www.modmyiphone.com/wiki/index.php/Installing_iPHUC_iPhoneThis process is complicated, requiring several programmer’s tools and libraries including XCode from Apple, the MacPorts open source kit and others. All of it is free and open source, and this tutorial does take you through each step very carefully. iPHUC is required to install SSH, which will allow you to copy and manage files on your iPhone much more elegantly. Luckily, you only have to go through this and the next step once. Seriously, this is the most elaborate step, but you’ll only have to go through it once.

4. Install SSH

http://www.modmyiphone.com/wiki/index.php/Installing_ssh_on_iPhone_using_iPHUC_in_OS_XFortunately, after completing this next step, you’ll be able to easily install a more robust version of SSH, with a better security setup, as you’ll create unique security keys for your device. In addition, it is strongly recommended that you change your root password after you’ve gotten things in order. This may help prevent an attack on your phone by a malicious program that looks for iPhones with SSH enabled on public WiFi networks. Be aware that by enabling SSH, you are making your device prone to malicious attacks by downloading software that may contain malware or worse. In other words, by enabling SSH, you open the possibility of allowing software to connect to servers behind the scenes. This could involve allowing your private data being sent to servers without your explicit knowledge, or worse. There were many reasons why Apple removed SSH from the iPhone’s UNIX system in the first place. But keep things in perspective — you probably have SSH enabled on your Mac right now and so you’ve been living with these risks all along. When you realize you can wirelessly connect to your iPhone from anywhere and transfer files and do other powerful things, you’ll appreciate the potential that you’ve unlocked.

5. Install Installer.app (aka AppTapp)

http://iphone.nullriver.com/beta/Note: Nullriver’s AppTapp no longer requires the manual command-line installation detailed below, instead offering a GUI wizard style installer for Mac and Windows. This installation occurs over the USB dock cable, so if would like to install over wireless.Once you install this, adding and updating software becomes very elegant and easy. However, the documentation for this is very poor, assuming you are already familiar installing programs manually. Unfortunately, this is probably the best app to install first if you’re a newbie! Here are detailed steps, assuming you have already completed the installation of iPHUC and SSH, above.

1. Download Installer.app ZIP file from Nullriver, unzip, and move into your local “phonedmg” folder with your usual drag-and-drop Finder interactions. Make this folder, if necessary: ~/phonedmg/Applications/
2. Shut down iTunes, and use Activity Monitor to quit iTunesHelper. (see iActivator guide for details, it should be familiar from step #2 above)
3. Open iActivator, and do a Jailbreak
4. Open Terminal on your Mac
5. Find your iPhone’s IP address↓: iPhone > Settings > WiFi > blue-arrow on current network > 10.0.1.4 (sample address)We’ll use the IP address 10.0.1.4 in this guide. Your IP will probably vary, so remember to replace it with yours each time you see in the code examples.
6. Type (replacing with your iPhone’s IP address)

ssh -l root 10.0.1.4

7. When prompted, enter default password (unless you’ve already changed it)

dottie

8. Type (hitting return after each line):

       cd /Applications    mkdir Installer.app    cd Installer.app    exit

9. Type:

       cd ~/phonedmg/Applications/Installer.app

10. Type: (replacing your IP address)

    scp * root@10.0.1.4:/Applications/Installer.app[password "dottie"]

11. Type: (replacing with your IP address)

        ssh -l root 10.0.1.4    [password "dottie"]    cd /Applications/Installer.app    chmod +x Installer    chmod +x ditto    exit

12. Hold down Sleep button and slide power off. Restart iPhone
13. The Installer widget icon should appear in the Springboard. Use it to install the available packages, especially, Launcher, BSD Subsystem and Open SSH. You’ll probably find dozens of interesting native applications to try, all of them constantly being updated and easily maintained with Installer.
14. You’ll always need to be jailbroken to allow Installer to write to the iPhone file system. Keep this in mind if you get any installation errors when using Installer.

How to install NES Game ROMs

Game ROMs are .nes files. Note: No one is going to tell you how to obtain these files. Learn about what ROMs are on NerveGas’s NES project page.

1. Make sure iPhone is jailbroken
2. Copy ROMs to ~/phonedmg/var/root/Media/ROMs/NES on your local drive. (Create directories if necessary)
3. Open Terminal and type (as always, replacing with your IP address):

        ssh -l root 10.0.1.4        [password "dottie"]        cd /var/root/Media        mkdir ROMs        cd ROMS        mkdir NES        exit        cd ~/phonedmg/var/root/Media/ROMs/NES        scp * root@10.0.1.4:/var/root/Media/ROMs/NES        [password "dottie"]

1. Restart iPhone, games should appear in NES

How to get sound working on NES

UPDATE September 1, 2007

Nervegas’ NES app no longer requires further hacking to get the sound to work as of its version 1.0 release, so you can disregard the tutorial below, as it is now obsolete.

Erica Utility Method — UPDATE August 26, 2007

If you install the Erica Utilities package with apptapp Installer from Nullriver, you already should have the command to disable and en-enabled the system sound, which allows the NES sound to work. You can also manually install the Erica command-line utilities if you don’t use apptapp. Use Mobile Terminal and type:

sound no

When you’re done playing NES, return to Mobile Terminal and re-enable the system sounds, so important things like calls will work:

sound yes

The program gives you textual confirmation of sound status. This new method is much easier than the old method

Manual Method

At the time of this writing, sound support was very glitchy, but may be improving with the rapid updates of NES.app thanks to the hard work of NerveGas. Although having sound is very appealing, if you have difficulties with this step, realize that it may not be worth the trouble.

1. Make sure iPhone is jailbroken
2. Create a text file in your local drive here: ~/phonedmg/var/root/.profileDon’t use TextEdit. Download TextWrangler or TextMate if you don’t have a true plain text editor.
3. Contents of .profile text file should be:

    # Aliases    alias pico='pico -w'    alias rm='rm -i'    alias ssh='ssh2'    alias nosound="launchctl unload /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/coreaudiod.plist"    alias sound="launchctl load /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/coreaudiod.plist"    # User specific environment    PATH=$PATH:/sbin:/usr/sbin

4. In Terminal:

       cd ~/phonedmg/var/root    scp .profile root@10.0.1.4:/var/root/.profile

5. Make sure ‘login’ is present in ‘/bin’

   cd /bincurl http://iphone.natetrue.com/login

6. Make sure you installed MobileTerminal with Installer by Nullriver
7. Restart iPhone, as needed. Unplug earbuds.
8. Open Terminal on iPhone and type:

   nosound

9. Go Home, and Launch NES. Sound should work.
10. When you’re done playing, dont’ forget to return to Terminal on iPhone and type:

sound

11. Regular sound functions should be restored

How to get pico (text editor) working on iPhone Remote Terminal:

pico is a very basic text editor that works in the Unix command line. Although it would be cool to be able to edit files in Mobile Terminal, this is actually more useful for the occasions when you have connected into your iPhone via SSH on your Mac Terminal and want to make an edit to a configuration file directly.I haven’t been able to get pico working on the Mobile Terminal, on the iPhone itself, but through an SSH session on your Mac it works well. It appears that it’s a problem with the Mobile Terminal application, rather than with the UNIX configurations. Recent updates to the Mobile Terminal native application suggest that we are very close to being able to enable pico on the iPhone directly. However, there will be tricky interface issues to contend with because the iPhone keyboard lacks essential things like arrow keys. Running on your Mac Terminal, however, is useful to cut out the step of editing the text file on your computer and then needing to copy it to the phone.

1. Make sure you’ve installed the BSD Subsystem, either with Installer.app, or manually. Using Nullriver’s Installer is by far the easiest way to get the BSD Subsystem, which in turn, help makes your iPhone work like a full-on computer.
2. Open Terminal, and type (replace with your iPhone’s IP address):

       ssh -l root 10.0.1.4    [password "dottie"]    mkdir /usr/share/terminfo    mkdir /usr/share/terminfo/76    exit    cd /usr/share/terminfo/76    scp vt100 root@10.0.1.4:/usr/share/terminfo/76/vt100    [password "dottie"]    ssh -l root 10.0.1.4    [password "dottie"]    csh    set term=vt100

How to change the SSH root password:

Since the root password “dottie” is now very public knowledge, it’s a security hazard to be walking around with SSH enabled on your iPhone, roaming around on public WiFi networks. You should change your root password once you’ve got the basics installed.

1. Visit this site to get your new root password encryptedhttp://iphone.simbunch.com/crypt.php
2. Make a backup of your original master password. In Mac Terminal, type:

   ssh -l root 10.0.1.4[password "dottie"]cp /etc/master.passwd /etc/master.passwd.bakexit

3. Optional: While you’re in there, consider changing your default shell to ‘bash’ from ’sh’ which will do a better job of honoring the changes to your .profile and other nice things. See this tutorial on the iPhoneDevWiki to change your default shell.
4. Copy the contents of the result of the password form on the above page into a new blank text file. Save it to your local drive at ~/phonedmg/etc/master.passwd
5. Upload it your iPhone. In Mac Terminal type:

       cd ~/phonedmg/etc    scp master.passwd root@10.0.1.4:/etc/master.passwd    [password "dottie"]

6. Restart your iPhone
7. In Mac Terminal, test the new password:

   ssh -l root 10.0.1.4

8. Enter your new password at prompt

How to Remove, (Uninstall) applications:

If you’ve installed a 3rd party application with Nullriver’s Installer, just use its Uninstall feature.If you need to uninstall by the command-line, follow this example where we’ll delete an installed application called Tetris.appThe trick is to go into the .app directory, and delete the files first, then go up, and delete the enclosing .app directory.

1. In Mac Terminal, SSH into your iPhone

       ssh -l root 10.0.1.4    [password]    cd /Applications/Tetris.app    rm *.*    cd ../    rmdir Tetris.app    exit

2. Restart iPhone. Application widget should be gone, no longer appearing on the Springboard.

How to Find your iPhone’s IP Address:

You need to be connected to a WiFi network.

1. At the Home screen…
2. Click Settings
3. Click WiFi
4. Click the blue arrow of the network you’re connected to
5. IP address is displayed

As companies embed full-fledged computers into consumer entertainment products, such as Sony PSP, Apple TV, and iPhone, and then proceed to lock them down to restrict their functionality in the name of stability and security, legions of enthusiasts heed the call to open them up again, to enjoy the computer hidden within.

At the time of this posting, iPhone Modding is very difficult for the inexperienced — not for the faint-of-heart or command-line averse. After a lot of trial-and-error and hours of research, we have installed some third-party standalone applications into the Spring Board (iPhone Home Screen). We can only assume that as modders enjoy more success, and more true third-party programs are written, more user-friendly applications will be released to streamline and simplify the process. That said, crude, but essential tools are starting to appear that allow a patient, persistent and somewhat fearless enthusiast to get started modding.

As you can see from the screenshot, the highlight of the modding is the installation of a Nintendo NES emulator which can put hundreds of games at your fingertips. Although, obtaining the game ROMs is of dubious legality, and the games lack sound and many have buggy graphics. The real lesson learned in this exercise is that there’s probably a very good reason why iPhone didn’t launch with any games — the multi-touch interface truly requires a comprehensive rethinking of game design and controls.

A Do-It-Yourself Work Ethic Required

Only recently, a step-by-step iPhone modification guide suitable for beginners→ emerged for getting started. Since, then, we’ve written our own guide← that consolidates and adds detail, especially for beginners. By far, most articles out there at the moment, assume you are familiar with UNIX and know about toolchains.→

At posting, the modding possibilities are nascent, including adding the following new applications and features into an iPhone:

• Custom ring tones
• Custom graphics and skins
• Screenshot tool →
• Sound recording application →
  
• Tetris →
• TicTacToe →
• Nintendo NES Emulator →

Where To Begin

The iFuntastic↓tool, while crude, is a good place to get started and become familiar with the Jailbreak process. → It’s helpful to install this first, as it does get you started with the ardous process of setting up the toolchain. Use iFuntastic to do simple, but high-impact modifications, such as alter the Spring Board (home screen), customize iPhone UI graphic files, and easily add custom ringtones. iFuntastic only supports Mac Intel machines at this time.

An essential alternative to iFuntastic is iActivator↓, which also peforms the Jailbreak process and manipulates the activation process, and works on Mac Intel and older PowerPC systems.

In addition, we figured out iphonedisk→, which mounts some parts of the iPhone file system as a network drive for easy drag-and-drop file installation.

But first, there are so many dependent programmer tools that must first be installed, including subversion and specialized iPhone modding tools like the unfortunately named iPHUC→. A decent guide for installing iPHUC→ is available.

The main key to gaining access to your iPhone is enabling SSH→, which allows secure command line access to the iPhone’s UNIX file system. However, this should be carefully considered, as enabling this feature certainly opens your iPhone up to future hackers who will now have a way into your handheld computer as you wander through open WiFi networks.

At the moment, the various executives at AT&T and Apple have nothing to worry about. This mod movement is restricted to the realm of enthusiasts. But it’s only a matter of time before refined GUI interfaces for iPhone customization and third-party application development and management emerge. Remember that modders got Windows to boot on the Mac Intel machines very quickly. Apple responded with Boot Camp offering native, official support to be offered in Mac OS X Leopard (10.5). It’s not a matter of if but when a truly open iPhone platform appears.

Doesn’t the iPhone look even better with a full set of buttons?

Sporting provocative bullet points, this essay may not be new news, but it speaks refreshing truths while standing the test of time.

» Download essay [PDF]

This scholarly paper by was originally presented as a talk for the conference Mobile Communication: Social and Political Effects, held on April 29-30, 2003 in Budapest, and is collected in Mobile Democracy: Essays on Self, Society and Politics. We’ve come upon this text during regular research in pursuit of an interesting range of academic treatments concerning critical viewpoints of mobile media and electronic culture. The “Global Nomads in the Digital Veldt” essay stands out in the collection for its succinct expressions that thoughtfully document complex social changes in deceptively simple terms. Despite the arcane literary device in the title, the writing is downright accessible and the core message articulates a cogent framework for thinking about mobile technologies and society.

Meyrowitz’s use of the Veldt to encapsulate his message is regrettable. He plays off Marshall McLuhan’s coinage of “global village,” contrasting it with a reconceptualization of cyberspace as a primordial hunter-gatherer society. We agree with the idea, and we can even visualize the metaphors. But we’re belly-aching on the word-play, the sprechen-spiel. Perhaps it feels hokey and detached while attempting to persuade us with trite McLuhan soundbyte style textual imaging. Our cover image◊ might suggest our frustration with attempts to photo-illustrate the idea of a global nomad in the digital veldt. We also succumb to the tendency to pepper titles and blurbs with metaphors that amuse with clever yet esoteric cultural literacy for readers — something catchy that sums up an idea with a wordy picture.

Even for an academic paper, however, the reference is unnecessarily obscure, and diverts readers away from the simple elegance of his central point. That said, his word choice motivated us to conduct some cursory research into the term veldt, and so we sidebar now in order to reveal subtle ironies that redeem his transgression. Our electronically nomadic research trail begins with the Wikipedia→, jumping off to a copy of the Ray Bradbury short story→ of the same title, off to a quick cheat using a study guide→, and ending up at veldt.com→, which upon closer look, manages to poetically reinforce Meyrowitz’s metaphor. When you perform a View Source on the empty page, you discover the anonymous author’s epitaph embedded as a comment in the HTML source code:

veldt.com is dead.
old, useful content may come back to life, when i find the time.
i may post at veldt.vox.com
but no guarantees.

it’s not been all that fun, blogosphere.

Clearly, the proprietor of veldt.com has wandered on to greener pastures, perhaps disenchanted with the promise of online social networks only to find the veldt a hostile playground of disillusionment rather than the abundant network of social connections and benevolent discourse. There is rewarding irony in this discovery when you connect it linguistically with the use of Veld, the low German form of the word, which means, according to Wikipedia, at retrieval:

[...] a place that is generally overgrown or has gone fallow, such as a thicket or a field that has become overgrown from lack of maintenance.

Comparing the term “Digital Veldt” with the vernacular that emerged through unfortunate force of popular lexicon — “blogosphere” — we can’t decide which is worse. In fact, no one has even come close to coming up with a quality term for describing the electronic human condition, and do it with a pleasing aesthetic and semiotic.

Now this diversion aside, it’s still not clear after re-reading “Global Nomads” why the author selected the Veldt to image the lonely wasteland of electronic communications. Despite misgivings with the literary references, the essay still stands as an important discussion of how electronic media fundamentally alters humanity and its societies. We’ll get over our squabbling and get to the point by quoting the core passage of the essay where Professor Meyrowitz states his uniquely succinct observations:

From “Global Nomads”

A key feature of the electronic era is that most physical, social, cultural, political, and economic boundaries have become more porous, sometimes to the point of functionally disappearing. This seemingly simple proposition has far-reaching significance and implications. The relative products, services, and channels of communications have been leaking into each other. While the key change is literally happening “at the margins” of all social systems, the change is not simply something happening “out there.” As the margins change, the contents of all forms of human organization change. As a result, we are experiencing a dramatic shift in our sense of locale, identity, time, values, ethics, etiquette, and culture.

The increasing functional permeability of boundaries — combined with the continued physical existence of most of those same boundaries — explains the contradictory feelings we have in the early 21st century: Many things still seem the same, and yet everything is somehow changed. In our electronic landscape, we have thinner distinctions:

• between here and there
• between now and then (and yet to be)
• between public and private
• between male and female spheres
• between child and adult realms of experience
• between leaders and average citizens
• between office and home
• between work and leisure
• between business and customers
• between users and producers
• between news and entertainment
• between one field or discipline and another
• between different media genres
• between simulated and real
• between copies and originals
• between direct and indirect experience
• between biology and technology
• between marginal and mainstream

Your thirst for additionally succinct world-changing bullet points will be quenched, as the author delivers another set of bullets that further illustrate twenty-first century living. At least scan for the passage where he connects his idea of global nomads to September 11, 2001.

Response

More than any other essay in the collection, “Digital Nomads” provokes us enough to seriously consider undertaking the multimedia production of photo-illustrating all of these bullet-points, a sort of electronic media peer review. Or at least, we’re interested in annotating the quotation with commentary hyperlinks. We’re not through with this one yet. Too many unresolved considerations remain.

Credits

Essay quotations © 2003 by Joshua Meyrowitz.
Photo by Teseum via Flickr. Photo-illustration by mercurious via Creative Commons licensing.

For the uninitiated, Processing→ is an open interactive media platform published on free software license via MIT by Casey Reas→ and Ben Fry→. Originally created as a learning tool, it is maturing through a Beta phase currently while winning tremendous support within the academic and design community. It appears to be emerging as the [tag]Sketchpad[/tag]↔ of the future. Sutherland→ would be so proud of his fellow alumni.

• Download Sample Chapters→ in PDF
• MIT Press→

For those in-the-know, this MIT Press release, Processing: A Programming Handbook for Visual Designers and Artists will be noticed on August 24, 2007. A substantial amount of the book is available in PDF format now. The free preview certainly suggests how tremendous and definitive this text is going to be. Take a peak at this inspiring passage from the introduction. It begins by describing the world view of Processing and the philosophy about software it epitomizes:

Software is a unique medium with unique qualities
Concepts and emotions that are not possible to express in other media may be expressed in this medium. Software requires its own terminology and discourse and should not be evaluated in relation to prior media such as film, photography, and painting. History shows that technologies such as oil paint, cameras, and film have changed artistic practice and discourse, and while we do not claim that new technologies improve art, we do feel they enable different forms of communication and expression. Software holds a unique position among artistic media because of its ability to produce dynamic forms, process gestures, define behavior, simulate natural systems, and integrate other media including sound, image, and text. (p. 1)

The introduction continues on to beautifully frame the pursuit of aesthetics through software. The free preview includes not only complete Table of Contents and Index, but also a very solid introduction to Processing and some of fundamental concepts. It’s enough material to function as an ideal free resource for getting started, while also leaves you thirsting for more.

Indeed, a more comprehensive review is forthcoming.

Adobe Integrated Runtime demonstrated by Big Spaceship.

This afternoon, Joshua Hirsch and Jamie Kosoy from Big Spaceship, here in Brooklyn, presented Building Adobe AIR Applications with Flash CS3 on the Adobe Connect presentation service. They did an excellent job of introducing the new capabilities of Adobe’s new desktop application delivery platform. In particular, they focused on how Flash CS3 can be used to compile AIR programs. Although still in Beta, AIR remains un-implemented in Flash CS3. The online seminar walked us through the tricky process of configuring for AIR development and introduce us to the command-line tools required to build and test AIR projects. However, Grant Skinner apparently has an extension set for Flash CS3 that assists with this process as we await Adobe’s full integration into the Publish Settings of Flash CS3. The links and notes of the presentation are posted here for reference. This post is likely to be updated and fleshed out as I process and try things out myself.

What is AIR?

AIR brings Flash and other web formats to desktop standalone applications. We should start to see more ‘downloadables’ once this catches on. Probably the best way to figure out AIR is to look at some examples on Adobe Labs→I’ve been a fan of kuler→ ever since I started following the Adobe Labs, and discovered Apollo, the codename for AIR. This is a great example of how being able to break out of the browser will encourage creative technology to engage with us more deeply.

Presentation Links

How to get started with AIR and Flash CS3

• Presentation Event Details
• About Adobe AIR
• AIR Developer FAQ
• Download AIR SDK
• Download FLEX Builder
• ActionScript 3.0 Language Reference
• Get the Flash Debug Player
• Get FlashTracer extension for Firefox
• Get Grant Skinner’s AIR Panel for CS3
• Big Spaceship’s Lab

Raw Notes from the Presentation

Here are the raw notes from the presentation. I’ll try to decipher them into more sense once I get my head around it all myself.

 airglobal.swc locations: MAC:    /Applications/Adobe Flex Builder 3/sdks/moxie/frameworks/libs/air/airglobal.swc PC:      Program Files/Adobe Flex Builder 3/sdks/moxie/frameworks/libs/air/airglobal.swc move and rename to MAC:    /Applications/Adobe Flash CS3/Configuration/ActionScript 3.0/Classes/playerglobal.swc PC:      Program Files/Adobe Flash CS3/Configuration/ActionScript 3.0/Classes/playerglobal.swc (you should make a backup of your old playerglobal.swc) AIR SDK: MAC:    Place all files in /Users/[you]/ PC:      Place files whereever you want. (I use c:AIR_SDK) Set environment variables: Right click "My Computer" Hit Properties. Go to the "Advanced" tab Click "Environment Variables" In "System Variables", under Path add path you put the sdk. If there is no Path var, you can add it. ADL syntax: adl myApp.xml Flash Tracer: After installing extension, Tools --> FlashTracer Click "Options" in the bottom right of the AddOn. PC Path MUST be: C:Documents and Settings[YOU]Application DataMacromediaFlash PlayerLogsflashlog.txt Mac Path MUST be: Hard Drive:Users:[YOU]:Library:Preferences:Macromedia:Flash Player:Logs:flashlog.txt If no Logs directory or flashlog.txt file is missing, you need to add them. ADT syntax: adt -package myAirFile.air myApp.xml foo.swf bar.swf icons videos etc

Between 1962 and 1964, Dr. Ivan Sutherland created Sketchpad: A Man-Machine Graphical Communications System, arguably the world’s first computer graphics system, and non-procedural programming system.

Video

In this video, Dr. Alan Kay, from PARC, discusses Sketchpad and its significance in determining the nature of Object Oriented graphical interfaces.

[flash http://www.youtube.com/v/495nCzxM9PI]

Geneology

In this Computing Family Tree diagram◊, note how Sketchpad is considered the origination point for the modern operating system, as we know it.

Links

• Sketchpad, PhD. Dissertation, .pdf (3.9 MB) ↓
• Sketchpad, Wikipedia→
• Sketchpad, YouTube→
• Sketchpad, Archive.org→

See Also

Lecture: The Origins of Interactive Media ↑

Originally published in the Atlantic Monthly→, “As We May Think→” (July, 1945), a member of the Manhattan Project proposes the [tag]Memex[/tag]↔, a sort of microfilm-based knowledge desk. Many consider the Memex to be the pre-digital precursor to the idea of the Web and Internet as we know it today. It may reflect the dawn of the information age.

I am constantly referring to the Memex in my [tag]lectures[/tag]↔ and research as a significant historical precedent to modern informatics, information design, hypertext and interactive media.

A diagram depicting “Computing’s Family Tree”◊ sources the Memex at the root of all modern operating systems. See also Dr. Ivan Sutherland’s [tag]Sketchpad[/tag]↔ for the world’s first interactive computer graphics system.

Links

• Original article, Atlantic Monthly→
• “As We May Think”, Wikipedia→
• ‘Memex,’ Wikipedia→
• ‘Informatics,’ Wikipedia→

See Also

Lecture: The Origins of Interactive Media ↑