I've been at Providence Airport waiting out a 2-hour delay, so here's a post about today.

Breakfast started at 8am in the hotel restaurant, and then to a Research Advisory Board meeting for 30 minutes until 9am. John distributed shrinkwrapped sets of postcards from January's Snowflake-A-Thon (1). Chris Csikszentmihalyi took a picture of me with his Sidekick II (2). The day's main program began with Dan Ariely's talk on the Psychology of Honesty and Dishonesty (3). I finished the last slide of my PowerPoint presentation based on a discussion woth John's student Burak Arikan, who is developing a new interface for web-based project management (4). Then designer Ayse Birsel described the development process behind Herman Miller's Resolve office furniture system (5). Five of the sponsors, including myself, each presented quick PowerPoints on various parts of the Physical Language Laboratory's new web services-like platform they've named SMPL. My lunch was with the workshop support team, and then some of us took one last walk on the beach (6).

- mike lee - providence, ri

We're on a break from the workshop after reviewing a student's project management tool interface. Dinner is next, where I'll dine with Topper Carew, architect and documentary filmmaker. After dinner, Topper's film, "The Fine Art of Frying Chicken" will be screened.

- mike lee - cape cod

The wind chill isn't bad out here on Old Silver Beach. The western sun is bathing everything in golden hour light--perfect for photos. Chris and Jonathan are tinkering with the wireless kite cam (3 & 4), but alas, couldn't get a signal. I did get to fly it myself (6). And look! John did finally get a Sidekick II (5).

- mike lee - cape cod

Several sponsors gave sponsor perspectives talks. People are excited about Cyworld (1), a blogging community in Korea that has attracted 13 million users. Kelly Dobson introduced Gemma Schusterman's "Faunacise" chair exercise video (2 & 3). And now, Chris C. is leading a group to build kites (4) to fly on the beach. One of the kites will have a wireless video camera (5). I'm wearing John's logo'd conference t-shirt (6).

- mike lee - cape cod

After a buffet lunch by the (1), Dan Ariely and John Maeda (2) welcomed the attendees (3) to the sponsor workshop. The first guest speaker was Nicholas Makris of the MIT Department of Mechanical Engineering (4 & 5). Nick talked about his work with NASA in studying the tidal cracks in the ice surface of Jupiter's moon Europa as a possible entry way for future space probes to reach the subterranian sea of liquid water. In another project, Nick's team was tasked to image the ocean floor off the continental shelf off Long Island. In a surprise discovery, the sonar data was able to image entire schools of fish 10km wide. Observations of the course of single days yielded never-before-seen insights in to how schools of fish form and break up.

- mike lee - cape cod

I enjoyed a good improptu chat with our workshop organizer John, and Paula and Jonathan who are working AV.

We talked, among other things, about bridging generations using technology, Noam Chomsky's uneasiness with being in the Gehry-designed Stata Center at MIT, and how (not having read it yet) Bruce Mau's new book "Massive Change" should also speak to tactics for dealing with the near future.

The snow has turned to rain washing the white off the streets, but leaving a nice blanket of snow on the beach. Now to register for the workshop.

- mike lee - cape cod

After a run down a dark slippery road in which the signs were covered by blowing snow, I made it to the Sea Crest Oceanfront Resort & Conference Center. I'm settled in to rest up for a busy day tomorrow with the wizards from the Media Lab.

- mike lee - north falmouth, ma

195 east, crossing the Bourne Bridge into the Cape area, stopping at Mobile Station for a drink and starting up again. The snow is still coming down hard. Where's the rain? Good thing I'm only about 15 minutes away from the hotel.

- mike lee - town of bourne

...briefly. After a 90-minute delay in takeoff from DC, I'm in a rental car preparing to leave from Providence airport under gently falling snow. The shuttle bus driver says that the Cape is just getting rain, and not the 6-9 inches as predicted earlier. Though the roads will just be wet, I have as much as a two-hour drive ahead of me. Fun.

- mike lee - providence, ri

We had our first Lunch 'n Learn of the year today at work. Several staff who are displaying artwork in the office gallery talked about their pieces (1-4). There was lots of photography as well as paper sculpture and public installation.

I finally got my copy of Bruce Mau's new book Massive Change (5), which is about the future of design culture. Tonight, I'm roaming around the newly-released alpha of OurMedia.org (6) offering UNLIMITED storage of digital media files FOREVER. Mapquest is also helping me figure out where I need to drive my rental car tomorrow night to get from Providence Airport to North Falmouth on Cape Cod (7) to attend a Media Lab sponsor workshop. Even though I should really update my main blog, I am going to sleep.

- mike lee - langley park, md