A friend lamented that he had to play laser tag, a kind of paintball-like game, except with infra-red guns.

“Isn’t that kind of pointless?” I asked. “You need a little pain.”

There’s nothing like the fear of pain to make you act like a combat soldier. Or to wrestle you from ambivalence to rabid competition against your friends. And you can show your battle scars the next day. Kudos!

Ahhh bonding.

Here’s a project, illustrated above, that aims to bond remote people through an exertion interface.

Whole body computing. Fun.

Boxing over a Distance team: Florian ‘Floyd’ Mueller, Matthew Karau, Stefan Agamanolis, Costas Bissas, Cindy Jeffers, Elena Corchero, Richard Wilson, Andrea Taylor, Paula Nichols, Angus Aitken, Tomoko Hayashi, Hilary Grant

Photos from Distance Lab

Click here for an Australian What’s in Season iPhone app

Sorry about the rant.

Mullum certainly put a fire in my belly. My takeaway from the trip was: bring the rural to the city. We are so disconnected.

Throughout this blog I’ve been dwelling on game-mechanics. I think it can help promote positive behaviour change.

I’ve become interested in social innovation.

I’ve set aside the large-scale FlavourCrusader platform idea in favour of mini-apps. Much more agile. Achievable after-hours. No burnout.

I’m obsessed with food. In a good way.

My old richapplefool flash food experiments were early pointers of what I wanted my web to be.

So what do you get when you combine these things together?

I’ve got an idea forming. Tip-toe steps. The first is to make an iPhone app for Australian fruit and vegetables. Sign up to know when it’s live.

Photo by Muffet

It seems ludicrous that Woolworths are planning to set up in shop in Mullumbimby. There is a decided difference between what is fresh and what Woolworths sell. Reality versus a marketer’s tagline.

Before Mullumbimby, I’ve never cut a pumpkin that sweated so much moisture. Eaten English spinach that tasted so rich, full of iron. Bought a roast chicken from a supermarket that was moist and tasted… like a chicken! Relished a silverbeet standing proudly to attention. Sautéed with garlic and butter, it was nutty, full of flavour and delicious.

Mullumbimby. Local, fresh food at its finest.

The town of 3000 hosts two butchers, two greengrocers (one organic, the other proudly local), one wholefood store (also selling fruit and vegetables) and two independent supermarkets. There’s a farmers’ market once weekly and a community market once a month. My friend brought home a dozen or so avocados, picked at the property where his work is located. Driving through the mountains there are a plethora of honesty stalls. Driving through the fields, a plethora of cows. The neighboring town is Bangalow, with farms famous for their pork. I bought strawberries from a farmer who set up shop on the footpath of the main street.

In Mullumbimby, food is fresh, flavoursome and in abundance. The connection between people and their food source is merely a paddock away. And they know what to do with it too. The flavours popped; the ingredients sang. I’ve died and gone to Mullum; thank you D-Lush and Milk and Honey.

The idyllic town attracts people with counter cultural ideals. And people who have rejected city life in search for humanity. They inhabit the looming mountain in properties with names like Namaste. Some live in yurts! I saw more dreadlocks than in 1988. A rainbow was painted on the highway railing in memory of the passing of a community member. The Mullumbimby markets seemed less about consuming and more about catching up with friends and neighbours. There’s a day course at the community college called Introduction to psychic development & healing…

Need I say more?

The small town self-sufficient with superior food and which views the world with a different perspective strongly resist Woolworths’ battle for regional dominion.

When I say it’s ludicrous that Woolworths want to set up shop, I mean building a dominant box-like structure on the edge of town. Selling produce from miles away. Things in packages that contain a cacophony of ingredients that we really shouldn’t ingest. And which they call food.

Woolworths, you argue for choice. I think they choose for you not to be there. Convenience? What about chemical-free, freshness and flavour? Competition? What about community and co-operation?

Woolworths, what you have is a clash of values and culture. You symbolise everything they have worked hard to escape from. You threaten the real value and relationships people have created on the main streets of town. Your arrogance only serves to damage the fragile facade of your brand. Branding is not just what you say… it’s what you do.

Frank Sartor? Straw. Camel. Back. I’m voting you out at the next election.

Woolworths? You will sit in contrast to the community as an anomaly; you damage your brand equity every single day you trade.

Photo from Byron Bay Directory

Post-ironic religious icons destined to be sacrificed to the gods of ASX and NASDAQ or awards for those who excel in the implementation of enhanced consumer enabling, customer loyalty programs and the architecture of brands?

It’s not often that you see art that communicates clearly, has something to say about modern life and has serious barbs wrapped in funny. Take that advertising, marketing and design!

Adam Cruikshank knows his way around pine car air fresheners, Lynx and IKEA.

via Australianinfront

So my new thing is to design or make digital products with a Post-it premise; that is, a simple, single-function device.

The objective has to be written in seven words. Ideally the technology exists… no custom programming for me!

I’ll be the next digital MacGyver. (Gen Y? Google it.)

Photo is from exhibition “Adam Simmons – The Lost Machines”
at Catherine Asquith Gallery
Tuesday 29 June 2010 to Saturday 17 July 2010

*under optimal conditions.

This presentation resonated with me. For a harassed mum, FlavourCrusader will be a productivity tool.

For a social foodie/ethical shopper it’s more fun. They’ll be developing food skills; level one is identifying good ingredients by flavour and other properties. Sweet, juicy, crunchy, easy-to-peel etc. There’ll be game mechanics around this.

So it’s like an Alessi kitchen utensil. How you see it depends on how you use it.

Presentation by Sebastian Deterding.

Kevin Slavin presenting “This Platform Called Everyday Life”… another digital/real integration theme… I like the experience at 26:00 where people are in a real pacman-like game and running away from a virtual baddie… shows the map that helped people discover the cause of cholera… things are easier now to plot now large-scale and real-time…

I’ve been looking at motivating behaviour within FlavourCrusader to change behaviour in the real world. Not as radical as this Schell talk, but just about as much fun.

I love the interplay of real world and web. Real world does seem more magical, even the simplist things, when derived from 1s and 0s.

I also like the element of play, the projects on the side… to make yourself laugh. Figure things out. Give to a friend. The best things are often made this way.

A post repeat; but it’s the best sustainable farming talk. Ever. By a chef.