At the recent Health2Gov hackathon, I found myself in the open hardware room exploring ways to create sensors that could be mass deployed for high resolution data aggregation.  Some of the ideas involved people wearing these sensors.  Unless the device includes some benefit, adoption of such sensors are unrealistic- without an immediate individual benefit, they are too intrusive.

High resolution data can be time consuming to aggregate- using methods like surveying, site-visits by experts, or installation of expensive sensors.  For the case of energy efficiency, a group in Cambridge has devised a simple technique using thermal infrared pictures, and a Google street views setup.

That “non-invasive” aspect is a key difference from typical home energy audits, which often take a few hours and involve inspecting every part of the home, from the basement to the attic, and often require special equipment such as door blowers to measure air leakage. Even then, while such audits can determine where the energy losses are and suggest ways of reducing them, they do not provide quantitative estimates of the projected savings resulting from a given change (adding insulation, replacing windows, or installing a new heating system, for example).

This would have pretty cool implications for DIY scientists and groups like Project Laboratory.

I love you and you love me, times infinity

I created a GIF animation for the show The GIF Economy by Weird Fiction .  You can click the above image to see the animation.

Here is an excerpt from Rhizome:

Denizens of the World Wide Web are implored to reanimate dead media and revive retrograde knowledge structures; deploying anomalous information and thereby accelerating GIF speciation. The GIF is your passport to the immortal realms of mythology mash-ups and off-modern memes. Remember: overexposure to cine-molecular glitch scapes (GIF animations and their kin) may lead to as of yet unknown climes of panopticonscious surrender.

The GIF Economy begins on December 3rd at 6pm at Tractor 328 NW Broadway #114 Portland, OR 97209 and is up until December 18th.

Update March, 19th 2010

The animation will be featured in the 8 Bits Per Pixel show at MEME gallery.  All of the fun GIF animations can be seen here.

8 Bits Per Pixel will show from March 25th – 27th at MEME gallery 55 Norfolk Street, Cambridge, MA 02139. The closing event will be on March 27th from 7 to 10pm.