#{Boontdusties.com}

I found a link to this new web service today called Omegle that hooks you up randomly with a stranger so you can have a conversation. That’s all there is to it!

I tried it out immediately and had a short polite talk about ‘being on the planet earth’ (which is one of my favorite conversation starters). But @jaredrules had an encounter with a ’stranger’ that blows mine outta the water.

ENJOY

You: Hello
Stranger: hi
You: How are you doing?
Stranger: what’s going on?
Stranger: i’m pretty good
Stranger: how about you?
You: Eh, I’m just killing time til I can figure out what to do with myself
Stranger: well this seems like an ok way to do that
You: yeah, could do a lot worse
Stranger: figure out what to do with yourself in what sense?
You: just for today
Stranger: you could go for a walk
You: Yeah, thats not a bad idea
Stranger: is it nice weather?
You: I did a lot of walking today though
You: no it’s raining
Stranger: ah
You: I don’t have a car
You: so I walk a lot
Stranger: anything good on tv?
Stranger: i don’t have a car either
Stranger: and i walk a lot as well
You: Don’t have TV currently :-)
Stranger: nice
Stranger: me neither
Stranger: are you me?
You: Whoa
You: That would blow my mind
Stranger: wouldn’t that be weird?
Stranger: totally
Stranger: our mind, i suppose
You: That’s a question I would ask!
Stranger: now you’re freaking me out
Stranger: what’s your favorite color?
You: Green, you?
Stranger: no way
You: you’re lying
Stranger: not at all
Stranger: i wish you could see how not lying i really am
You: Maybe you’re me from the future?
You: or the past?
Stranger: that would be cool
Stranger: but in that scenario, i would know what you should be doing with yourself right now
Stranger: unless i’m you from the past
You: oh right?
You: But I would remember this conversation…
Stranger: that’s true too
Stranger: unless, while you were walking,
Stranger: you hit your head and had amnesia
You: oooh
You: and I probably wouldn’t remember doing that
Stranger: exactly
You: man…
Stranger: i think that’s probably what happened
Stranger: to one of us
You: do you have hoverboards in your time?
Stranger: nope
You: damn, me neither
Stranger: unfortunately
Stranger: yeah things here are pretty boring
Stranger: no flying cars either
You: no jetpacks or anything!
Stranger: nope
You: whatta ripoff
Stranger: maybe you should be inventing those things
Stranger: instead of killing time here
Stranger: ever thought of that?
You: If I could invent a hoverboard, I already would have
Stranger: unless you were on the cusp of the invention, then hit your head and had amnesia
You: noooooo!
Stranger: i’m not saying it actually happened
Stranger: but it could have
You: and we’d never know
Stranger: so perhaps what you should do, is go for a walk
Stranger: like, where you would normally walk
Stranger: see if you have deja-vu
Stranger: and maybe jet packs and hoverboards will be forthcoming!
You: If I invented a hoverboard or a jetpack I would be my own hero
Stranger: and mine too
You: well you are me
Stranger: exactly
You: totally
Stranger: so that was a bit redundant
You: redundancy is good sometimes I feel
Stranger: in what context?
You: it reinforces knowledge
Stranger: sure
Stranger: learning by rote
You: I’m beginning to wonder if Omegle is actually a huge test in Artificial Inteligence
Stranger: and building muscle memory
Stranger: that could be
You: it just hooks people up to what they are told are “strangers”
Stranger: that’s true
Stranger: but i know i’m a real person
You: but it’s actually a super computer attempting human conversation
You: that’s what a computer would want me to think!
Stranger: it’s not doing too badly, i have to say
Stranger: it’s got me fooled
You: that’s how good you are!
Stranger: so what could you ask that would prove it wasn’t a computer on the other end?
Stranger: is there anything?
You: maybe ask a paradoxical question and see if you get “error: does not compute” as a response
You: like
Stranger: right
Stranger: well, i’m sorry if i haven’t helped you figure out what to do with yourself
Stranger: but i have helped you kill time
You: that is true
You: and I thank you for that
Stranger: so this you-robot is good for something
Stranger: and thank you!
Stranger: i’m going to go make supper and perhaps a walk afterwards, now that you’ve inspired me
You: I am totally gonna send this conversation to a friend of mine
Stranger: do it
You: Supper is such a good word
Stranger: even better is supper club
Stranger: i would say: don’t you agree? but I know you do
Stranger: because we are one
You: it’s true
You: alright, later Me
Stranger: later
Stranger: see you in another dimension

Yesterday, Amber called me and said “Hey, what’s this song?” and then she held up a little electronic kids guitar up to phone and made it play one of the demo songs. Apparently, the little boy that she nanny’s is really into the song and wanted to know what it was called. I listened closely but it was hard to figure out all distorted through the phone mic. She played it again and I realized that it sounds vaguely like a ‘The Police’ song. I don’t really know anything about that band but somehow I could tell it was them. Then I picked out a lyric by singing along with the melody, yes: “Message in a bottle”.

Then later that night I was at a band meeting hanging out at someone’s house. The keyboard player in my band picked up the guitar and immediately started playing a tune. I said: “Wait a second! WHAT ARE YOU PLAYING”. And he said “Message in a Bottle”. I asked him if he played it a lot and he said “huh, you know, I haven’t played this song in a really long time.”

Tim just wrote me this:

i really want: a mobile transmitter that will allow me to make use of whatever communications systems & signals are nearby and will convert them to whatever weirdo channels i want them to be converted to and transmitted on. you know what i mean?

And as I was casually looking up the current state of software and radio integration, I came across this:

“Software radio is a revolution in radio design due to its ability to create radios that change on the fly, creating new choices for users. At the baseline, software radios can do pretty much anything a traditional radio can do. The exciting part is the flexibility that software provides you. Instead of a bunch of fixed function gadgets, in the next few years we’ll see a move to universal communication devices. Imagine a device that can morph into a cell phone and get you connectivity using GPRS, 802.11 Wi-Fi, 802.16 WiMax, a satellite hookup or the emerging standard of the day. You could determine your location using GPS, GLONASS or both.

Perhaps most exciting of all is the potential to build decentralized communication systems. If you look at today’s systems, the vast majority are infrastructure-based. Broadcast radio and TV provide a one-way channel, are tightly regulated and the content is controlled by a handful of organizations. Cell phones are a great convenience, but the features your phone supports are determined by the operator’s interests, not yours.

A centralized system limits the rate of innovation. We could take some lessons from the Internet and push the smarts out to the edges. Instead of cell phones being second-class citizens, usable only if infrastructure is in place and limited to the capabilities determined worthwhile by the operator, we could build smarter devices. These user-owned devices would generate the network. They’d create a mesh among themselves, negotiate for backhaul and be free to evolve new solutions, features and applications.”

Last night I had a dream where I was having a party in my living room. I was sitting in a chair and observing the crowd, just feeling comfortable drinking a beer. An unfamiliar Indian (as in, from India) fellow approached me from the side and I remember taking note that he was not one of the invited guests. He was dressed rather formally, sort of like a butler, and he leaned over me heavily – not touching me but definitely giving the impression of weight.

He looked down into my eyes and whispered: “Do you know that there is a spirit in your hallway?” I turned towards the stairway right at the front door of our house and saw the head of a dark creature beneath a mirror. His body blended in with the coats hung up on the wall and he sorta reminded me of an insect or the strange rabbit creature from Donnie Darko.

(This picture is of a carboard piece of artwork @ Holy Mountain, a club I spent most of my time at today).

In the dream, I immediately panicked when I saw the entity at the bottom of the stairs and ended up waking myself by saying outloud ‘get him outta here. Get him outta here!” When I woke up my body felt a little paralyzed and my mouth parched. I had the lingering feeling that the Indian man and the creature were one and the same – it felt strangely like that part in David Lynch’s Lost Highway where Robert Blake walks up to that guy and says ‘im in your house. call me’.

Also, I wonder now if the ‘Indian’ from India was actually a sunconcious play on words and in fact was a Native American).

Anyway, the weirdest part about this is that this place in the house that I dreamt about is the same spot where Amber ACTUALLY saw a dark creature seem to float up the stairs. This morning I took some pictures of the spot and opened the front door and asked whatever it was to leave. How do tell a spirit that ‘dude, you’re not on the guestlist?’

Taken on Vashon Island.