Tiresome, I know. I’ve posted a couple of times about my weariness with the blog format and my interest in some new web technologies – Nokia’s Lifeblog, the forthcoming Ftrain Sitekit, Flickr, and del.icio.us – but Rudy Rucker, in his most recent Boing Boing guestbar entry (scroll down to the cellphone) articulates what I’ve been wanting: a lifebox.
“[You tell a lifebox] your life story. It prompts you with questions and organizes the information you give it. As well as words, you can feed in digital images, videos, sound recordings and the like. [...] Once you get enough information into your lifebox, it becomes something like a simulation of you. Your audience can interact with the stories in the lifebox, interrupting and asking questions. [...] You might leave a lifebox behind so your grandchildren and great-grandchildren can know what you were like, you might use your lifebox as a way to introduce yourself to large numbers of people, or you might let your lifebox take over some of your less interesting duties in your daily routine, such as answering routine phone calls and email.”
I know it sounds a little kooky, but that’s what I’m shooting at, minus the taking over the daily routine bit.
ps: there’s a lifebox in I, Robot.
UPDATE: Kottke’s got the vision of this for the short term.
I write screenplays, books and push software; I'm a collector and indoorsman. If you have a Masonic scepter or a copy of the Boyd Philadelphia Blue Book (any year), drop me a line.