June Glowlounge: a post-Conflux gathering

On June 11, about a dozen participants from the 2004 psy.geo.CONFLUX gathered in Williamsburg for a drink and wrap-up of this year's event. Ideas were shared about what was great and what wasn't so great, and what we might do next year in terms of scheduling, projects and venues. We talked about our own projects -- Sharilyn Neidhardt spoke about her experience organizing the human-scale chess game, and Andrea Moed discussed her NY Snap Exchange project. Much talk followed about mobile phones...how people in the US don't text message as much as in other countries, how to handle projects that involve camera-phones [or even regular cameras] when not everyone has one, and general observations about phone usage in Europe versus the US.

Glowlab contributor and Providence collective PIPS member J Gabriel Lloyd brought us all copies of Crosswalk, an impressive journal published for Provflux, a Providence event held in conjunction with the Conflux. Calvin gave us the highlights of the marathon 24 Hour Road Trip held from Friday - Saturday night during the Conflux. We heard the exciting news that another road trip is in the works for the fall.

We were really having too much fun talking and listening to take good notes, but these are a few other topics we covered:
*street games like Dodgeball and Capture the Flag being played in Williamsburg these days
*Julian Bleeker's WiFi Bedouin project
*differences in our perception of time when "talking" by mobile phone, text message, instant messaging and email
*messaging precedents: those old pneumatic tubes that used to carry money to the teller at the bank drive-thru and "runners" in imperial Japan who carried letters and poems between lovers
*current events -- riding the subway: a warning against buying a swipe from someone pretending to be a subway worker who will offer to get you through the turnstile but then switch cards and hand you back a fake one.