This is a fantastic opportunity to come out and mingle with other microformatters, learn what it’s all about and share your ideas.

Sponsored in part by: Object Adjective

Celebrate the 4th birthday of microformats.org!

Come out and join us in celebrating 4 years of doing it with class. This evening, Friday, June 26, 2009 at 7:00pm is the Microformats.org fourth birthday bash. In honor of the great achievements the organization and its voluntary community of contributing developers have made, there will be a party at B Restaurant and Bar in San Francisco. If you love portable data and semantic markup, we’d love to see you there.

To help out with or attend the party, please add your name and RSVP.

Sponsored in part by: Object Adjective

Algorithmia: An exhibition about problem solving

Algorithmia Opening Reception: Saturday March 14, 2009 at 7:00pm. Object Adjective’s own Lauren Scime curates an exhibition that explores the relationship between math, science, programming, and the effect these have on our relationship to the changing world.

Unlike many math oriented shows of the past, this exhibition does not draw the line at simply defining algorithm as the use of a mathematical equation, but rather opens up the door to a broad array of artistic interpretations, both literally and conceptually referential.

Just as the algorithms of nature constantly work in flux to solve and create problems, so does the human use of algorithmic processes towards advancement. The science fictions of yesterday are rapidly becoming the realities that shape our everyday. From iPods shuffling our favorite songs and videos, to web applications that allow us to do everything remotely online, to the “smart bombs” that target enemies of the corporate world, we are surrounded by the good, the bad, and the ugly sides of computational progress.

Algorithmia consists of both physical and web-based work, presenting diverse procedures for problem solving, and explores the ways these methods, in turn, program us.

Curated By: Lauren Scime, Bryan Hewitt, Vita Mei Hewitt.

It’s been a crazy and hard few weeks. Between work, film projects, family coming into town (and crashing on our floor) and the passing of my Grandmother, my mentor and my closest friend, I’ve hardly been keeping my head above water. But this week ushers in an event we have all been looking forward to all year. Yes, it’s that time again. An Event Apart 2008, sails in to San Francisco Monday.

This years line up is chalked full of interesting topics and top notch speakers. In particular, I’m looking forward to Better User Experience Through Microformats, by Tantek Çelik, who is one of the founders of microformats.org. Tantek will discuss “proper use of microformats (in addition to those Elements of Meaningful HTML that you know by heart) [and how this] can improve the usability of several common interactive design scenarios.”

In addition, there is an entire arsenal of compelling sessions, including presentations by Luke Wroblewski, Jeff Veen and Kelly Goto.

I look forward to seeing everyone there.

It’s not too late, you can still get tickets.

There’s no question about it, I’m a film enthusiast. However, I’m finding it more and more difficult to make time for keeping up with and watching films. Fortunately, for those in close proximity of San Francisco, there is the 3 Minute Film Festival.

This year, for the 6th Annual 3-Minute Film Festival, Lauren and I are not only attending, but we’re also featuring our own original film, Regular Expression.

There will be art, live DJs and of course, an exciting menagerie of short films. I hope you all come out!

When and Where

For more information, visit the Root Division website.

On Friday night I attempted step outside of the world of digital media and information superhighways and attended the The Edwardian World’s Faire, here in San Francisco.

The Edwardian period fascinates me for the fashion and adventure our modern lives seem so miserably to lack. The outing we planned, was intended as a brief departure into this world, and to my surprise it was very nearly approaching successful. I left behind all traces of my contemporary life, barring my iPhone and six one dollar notes, all minted in the last 3 years.

My inability to part with my iPhone, for a night in the early 1900s, is excusable by my standards, but my reasons and the resulting outcome turned out to be quite contrary. There are a dozen or more reasons why I love my iPhone, but the camera was never among them. It is fine, in all practical senses, but I have never purchased a phone for it’s camera. And I’ve never considered a mobile phone camera to truly manifest any of the prerequisite qualities of an actual camera. The evenings excursion, however, proved the iPhone camera otherwise.

recording visual images

I’ve always been a sucker for cameras. For me, nothing feels better than a fully manual, traditional camera. I like to feel the mechanics of a good camera in my hands. Digital cameras have always felt a bit foreign to me, but for the convenience, they are winning.

For the first time, the poor, grainy quality of a mobile phone camera became an asset at the Edwardian Ball and I ended up capturing some of the most compelling, apropos images of the event. The photos below, as well as the one I used in the title image for this post, were all taken with my iPhone 2 mega pixel camera. They have not been manipulated in any way.

Kinetic Steam Works installation

Kinetic Steam Works crew, manning the boiler

I was completely impressed, though I will admit, the subject at hand, made the exception. You can view more of my photos on Flickr. You can also see a collective posted in the Flickr group, Edwardian Ball.

Despite my enthusiasm for my iPhone photos, my chap August managed to capture the winner this evening, with something a device slightly more confident than 2 mega pixels. To top it off, it’s a picture of me.

Outside the Edwardian Ball