I'm posting a podcast of a discussion held today about the state of technology in our media lab here at UNC. I spoke with Stephanie Morgan, the Assistant Director or the lab, about things we have been working on this year. My most striking observation has to do with the ways that support structures have tended more toward the baseline infrastructure that facilitates ubiquitous computing. Our campus shifted to a laptop requirement through the Carolina Computing Initiative which rolled out in 2000. Since then, I have felt a palpable shift in resource availability and the result has been a mixed bag whereby we can count on having new baseline computers everywhere, but not much more because most of the resources get sucked up into the ubiquity. I won't carry on about it, but should say that the ubiquitous access model alone can be limiting.

One other observation: Stephanie and I sat down for the podcast after I turned over the idea of writing yet another progress report and snapshot of our technology efforts. With the three or so blank word processor pages and a set of points to make staring me in the face, I decided it would be easier to just record a conversation and make the points that way. It took about two hours to record and then clean up. Maybe a wash, but the impulse not to type and instead record was undeniable.