BLOG.MICHAELGAIO » Design

Thrive VE Sector Navigator

Michael Gaio — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 02:11:01 +0000

On November 11, 2011 (11.11.11), the much anticipated Thrive film and website premiered at locations worldwide. The premiere of the Thrive film and website is significant, as these media are perhaps the most comprehensive and compelling forms of media (so far) communicating one of the most important messages in the history of humanity. I highly recommend that you take a look.

It’s also significant for me as an experience designer, as I’ve been involved, over the past few years, in working with the Thrive team to co-produce a key and unique aspect of the website: the “Sector Navigator / Resource Tree”. The Sector Navigator is an interactive, multi-colored, 3-dimensional, Vector Equilibrium interface designed to allow people to navigate the 12 major sections of the website. The Vector Equilibrium geometry (also known as the VE, dymaxion, and cuboctahedron) is also a key topic of the film. The Resource Tree is an interactive interface for “drilling-down” into specific content of each major sector, and is designed with an organic, “fern frond” aesthetic. The Sector Navigator and the Resource tree operate as a single UI affordance on the Thrive website.

TIPS & TRICKS: There is a very little known user feature of the Thrive VE Sector Navigator (not posted in the instructions for use on the Thrive website), that is: you can use the keyboard to rotate the VE on 10 axes. The “q”-”w”, “a”-s”, “z”-”x”, “e”-”r”, “d”-”f”, and “c”-”v” keys will rotate the VE on axes that correspond to the 12 vertices of the VE geometry. The “t”-”u”, “g”-”j”, “b”-”m”, and “y”-”n” keys will rotate the VE on axes that correspond with orthogonal Cartesia space.

A Brief History with VE Design:

Many years before being enrolled to create this Thrive Vector Equilibrium interface, I was first introduced to the VE geometry by Nassim Haramein (who happens to be in the Thrive film) while attending his presentation on unified field theory physics (and more) in San Rafael, California in 2001. At one point during the mind-blowing 12 hour presentation, I specifically recall Nassim making a general reference to the Vector Equilibrium geometry as an type of “very significant interface”. That’s all I needed to hear–as somehow, that moment of seeing the geometry of the Vector Equilibrium and hearing Nassim refer to it as a type of “interface” really caught my attention. After the presentation, I was so inspired by the notion of the Vector Equilibrium that I set out immediately to create it in an interactive, digital form. Then, and over the next 7 years (off and on), I experimented with representing the VE in various ways, with various purposes of information design and user experience design. One such way was by programming the 12 vertex points of the VE geometry (distributed in Cartesian space) to correspond to red, green, and blue color values–which allowed for a natural “rainbow coloring” of the overall VE space, and a specifically calibrated and unique color for each point / sphere of the VE interface. I posted an example of this on the front page of my personal website in 2007.

Then, later in 2007, during some of the initial planning conversations with the Thrive team, I introduced my VE examples, which included the general notion of color-coordinating the VE geometry in this way. And thus began our collaborative work of creating the Thrive VE Sector Navigator as the world is now seeing it today.

Also, as destiny would have it, in 2008, 7 years after being introduced to the Vector Equilibrium by Nassim Haramein, I would be synchronistically guided to visit the Resonance Project in Hawaii, where I showed Nassim the work I had done with the VE, and was then subsequently invited to become a member of the community project, and enrolled to create some special software based on the VE geometry.

The 3-dimensional “rainbow space” configuration, as I call it, also became an integral part of the design of my CogSpace project in 2009.

Over the last few years, I’ve also been creating some even more unique and compelling interface models based on the Vector Equilibrium geometry and ”Rainbow Space”. Keep an eye on this blog, Mythic Systems, and and/or the Rainbow Space FaceBook page for updates very soon.

Rainbow Dream Temple

Michael Gaio — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 19:11:04 +0000

These are the preliminary architecture and design plans for a “Rainbow Dream Temple” being collaboratively produced by a group of creatives for the Maui Source event in early 2012 ( http://sourcemaui.com ):

The temple space is intended to inspire sacred space, and will host a wedding ceremony and several workshops on dreams and rainbow physics. It will be constructed mostly of bamboo poles painted white, and will overlook one of the most gorgeous ocean views on the island of Maui.

The 42º vertical angle is inspired by a fact of optical physics: that rainbows are perceptible at a 40º – 42º angle of observation in relation to the light of the sun (when proper percipitation is also present).

[ More about rainbow physics at: http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=202775239788251&set=a.202767226455719.52435.202689673130141 ]

See more images and updates here: http://www.michaelgaio.com/lab/rainbow_dream_temple

Core Integral Design

Michael Gaio — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 11:04:11 +0000

In 2009, I was enrolled by the design firm Ursa Minor to be involved with Core Integral in a collaborative team production of the “The Integral Approach” interactive courses in Integral Theory, created by Ken Wilber and Clint Fuhs. This initial 8 DVD interactive instructional media, “Course 1: Essential Integral”, is the first of a potentially longer series. My involvement with the media project included conceptual design, visual design, audio design, interaction design, animation, and programming of the Flash user interface–including an interactive representation of The Wilber-Combs Lattice.

THE INTEGRAL APPROACH Course 1: Essential Integral

A self-paced, interactive walkthrough of the most widely acclaimed map of human potential. This course contains over 20 hours of instruction and activities. Finally, a way to discover the Integral Approach that is both actionable and comprehensive.

See a trailer video and demo of the final DVD package product.

blog page link back: http://blog.michaelgaio.com/2010/08/18/core-integral-design/

The Internet of Living Things

Michael Gaio — Sat, 19 Jun 2010 03:33:14 +0000

As an active participant in the Information / Communications Technology domain (ICT), this is perhaps one of the most influential videos I have seen in the last several years. We are now, again (as with the emergence of the Internet), on the verge of a new great frontier in human ingenuity.

I’ve been tracking the progression of advents in bio-synthetic technology for a while now. Aside from this recent breakthrough in producing a bio-synthetic cell, there are also some significant developments happening in the overall scope of collective access and participation to the knowledge, technologies, and applications involved in this budding frontier. Essentially, the bio-tech and neuro-tech domains are beginning to go open-source and non-centralized by a trend very similar to the way the software and internet industry has in the last 10 – 15 years. The means of bio-engineering are now reaching a level of accessibility and automation that will allow for research, innovation, and applications to go well beyond the traditional scientific and corporate institutions–and into private laboratories, and even into the kitchens of people’s homes.

Can you imagine the potentials of 100,000s of independent, networked, and open-source scientists and technologists focusing on issues such as Cancer and HIV in their own homes in the same way that, say, Linux, Wikipedia, and FireFox have been developed? This same kind of collective intelligence can also go towards innovations in bio-fuels and other green technologies. And that’s just the very tip of the synthetic iceberg …

The implications are profound and staggering!

“Andrew Hessel reasons that Synthetic Biology will be the next big IT industry. In his remarkable talk Andrew talks about the parallels between IT and biology.”

video link : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S23owdOuLjc

blog page link: http://blog.michaelgaio.com/2010/06/18/the-internet-of-living-things/

CogSpace : Collective Mind Map

Michael Gaio — Fri, 01 May 2009 09:19:14 +0000

Interested in participating in a collectively formulated multimedia vision-logic model representing the multidisciplinary knowledge domains of Cognitive Science and Consciousness Studies? If so, read on …

I’ve been developing this interactive, 3-dimensional model, and it was just recently accepted to be exhibited and presented at the Asian Consciousness Festival in Hong Kong this June. You can see, interact, and read all about the model here:

www.cogspace.net

You can also download the entire abstract and descriptive paper here:

www.cogspace.net/docs/CogSpace.pdf

An excerpt from the abstract:

This model is an examination of consciousness through an interactive visual representation of the interdisciplinary knowledge domains of Cognitive Science and Consciousness Studies. As a visualization of the various scientific and academic approaches toward understanding mind and consciousness, a unified and comprehensive overview is achieved that orients our collective approach in the field of consciousness research as a whole.

The model is based on a 3-dimensional conceptual framework that assigns six (6) formally established primary knowledge domains of interdisciplinary Cognitive Science (namely: Psychology, Anthropology, Neuroscience, Computer Science, Philosophy, and Linguistics) to the geometric Cartesian coordinate system (x, y, z), and to a correlative color system (based on gradient scales of red, green, and blue), resulting in a semantic-color-space matrix for ontologically representational coordination of the topic contents. More specific knowledge areas are plotted within this axiomatic framework as sub-domains (such as Analytical Psychology, Artificial Intelligence, Cognitive Semantics, etc). The precise positions of subdomains are determined by metric averages derived by consensus survey of a diverse group of people, and is therefore also a representation of a collective perspective of consciousness research (not just the perspective of a single individual or isolated disciplinary field).

With this dynamic arrangement of organizational factors, the model renders a unique integral perspective and informative cartography of the “terrain”, and provides a “navigational instrument” for our explorative traversing across the frontier of consciousness research. By plotting each sub-domain in scope of the relative positions of all other domains, areas of knowledge and research concentration and lack of concentration (“unexplored regions”) become apparent. When referencing any particular disciplinary sub-domain within the manifold model, where it is at and what color it is can suggest something about it’s qualitative proximity to either more discrete and concrete or more continuous and abstract types of knowledge and research. For example, a sub-domain that is extremely neurobiological will be far less philosophical, and is placed on an extreme exterior boundary of the model (color saturation is more additive toward extreme hues). Inversely, a sub-domain that is a hybrid, somewhat balanced in interdisciplinary collaboration between linguistics and computer science, psychology and anthropology, and philosophy and neuroscience, is placed closer to the center of the model (color saturation is subtractive toward gray). The exterior of the model therefore represents the diverse areas of the more discrete and concrete–portrayed as the bright “rainbow” spectrum of colors. The interior of the model represents hybrid areas of the more continuous and abstract–portrayed figuratively and literally as the “gray area”. The closer a sub-domain is to the exact center, the closer it is to blending and fusing with an absolute, unified, and direct knowing and application of consciousness itself.

The overall result of the model is a “mind map” of the collective processes involving the differentiation and unification of interdisciplinary oppositions–the amalgamation of Interior and Exterior, Science and Art, Matter and Spirit, East and West–toward a realization of a coalescent whole.

A key element of this developing project is that the shape of the model is determined by a consensus formulation of the ontological constituents. Among preparations and continuing development of this model, a survey will be made of a diverse group of people over the next few weeks. In order to derive some “collective intelligence” in this formulation, some principles of “crowd wisdom” will be applied. The more diverse the crowd, the better … so anyone can apply. If you or someone you know is interested in participating in this survey, please contact me with the following information:

Name
Gender
Occupation
Education
Date of birth and age
Where you live
Any comments on why you want to be involved, or something special about yourself …

Within a week or so, the group will be selected, and the survey conducted.

Please forward this to anyone.

The CogSpace model will continue to evolve in various ways …

Thanks and happy cognitions!

Superfoods Media 2

Michael Gaio — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 12:14:04 +0000

Another experiment in fattening the tummy and the pocketbook of the masses:

A slideshow with great information on superfoods, the Elements for Life company, and a financial opportunity:

[slideshare id=1045786&doc=elements-for-life-ppt1212-1235040841384395-1]

See the slideshow here.

You can find out more about all of these superfoods from SuperFood Life – Elements for Living (a distributor of Elements for Life products).

Superfoods Media 1

Michael Gaio — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 08:53:38 +0000

Superfoods are delicious and can offer extraordinary nutritional and health benefits to the body and mind! I created a list that shares essential information on an assortment of superfoods, such as: maca, blue-green algae, raw cacao, Tibetan goji berries, golden Inca berries, alkalizing greens, cordyceps, colloidal gold, phytoplankton, noni juice, and one of the very best raw sacred chocolate bars in the world! This is a listing of some of the best superfoods available, describing key elements, and links to more information and resources.

The full listing is available here, and as a compact Super Food Widget that can easily be embedded into any social network, blog, or web page.

Enjoy!

You can find out more about all of these superfoods from SuperFood Life – Elements for Living. (a distributor of Elements for Life products).

Curriculum Vitae Word Cloud

Michael Gaio — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 21:02:55 +0000

After I recently made some major updates to my Curriculum Vitae (latin, “course of life”), I went on over to Wordle.net and made a graphic word cloud from all thirteen pages of the document’s content. In the visualization, bigger words represent more frequency of that word in the overall document. Color and position are randomized. Here is one of the custom results:

Curriculum Vitae Word Cloud (2009)

DecaFolio

Michael Gaio — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 09:30:34 +0000

I have just completed a major upgrade of my web portfolio!It had not been updated in 7 years (since 2001)!!! I Now have a full decade of concentrated web accomplishments of nearly 100 projects to show: www.michaelgaio.com/portfolio

The Flash splash page is also updated in hypercosmic brilliance as well: www.michaelgaio.com

37 Suns

Michael Gaio — Thu, 03 May 2007 22:00:00 +0000

Today is my 37th Birthday.

I have created a symmetrical numeric mandala for the occasion: