Katrina was the most powerful storm i have ever seen. After surviving my share of hurricanes, no level 4 has even been close to the destruction i see down there. My prayers go out to all the families and people who are in this horrific situation. If you have 5 dollars it can be put to use, if you have a spare blanket, it can be used. Click on the link and please help.
FEMA
"This past weekend a zombie quasi-flashmob two or three *hundred* strong materialized in the center of Vancouver and staggered through an upscale mall, onto the skytrain and down Main Street before joining their resting brethren at a local cemetry." Hmm this could be freaky if you are an 9 year old skating down the street. Come on people, do something with yourself. A funny sidenote: zombies descended upon american idol tryouts, saying tv and idol rots your brains. Thank you for someone standing up and admitting this is garbage polluting the tv waves. Now its me and 12 zombies. Very interesting these flash mob things
Zombies ate/ should eat my neighbors
Well im still waiting to find out if i got the apartment. Pissed as hell. Could be moving twice....grumble grumble. Read Einstein's manuscript for 'Quantum theory of the monatomic ideal gas' as that will make you smarter. Much smarter than me........
E=MC2
Where else can you get a drill for 25 bucks? Draino for 3.94. 3.94 people, i can drain all day on savings like that. Where else can over friendly Home Depot Associates in orange vests easily outnumber customers, almost to the point of being annoying? Imagine a flood. Who knew so many shared my love of home renovation? Who knew hot girls liked tools? Happy adventures in remodeling.
Remember sometimes life throws us curves. Appreciate the little moments. There is beauty on the other side. enjoy the ride. Love life
LONDON (AFP) - London Zoo unveiled a new exhibition -- eight humans prowling around wearing little more than fig leaves to cover their modesty. The "Human Zoo" is intended to show the basic nature of human beings as they frolick throughout the August bank holiday weekend. "We have set up this exhibit to highlight the spread of man as a plague species and to communicate the importance of man's place in the planet's ecosystem," London Zoo said. The scantily-clad volunteers will be treated as animals and kept amused at the central London zoo with games and music. Brendan Carr, 25, from Aylesbury, southern England, wrote a poem in his bid to get on the mountain. "I'm funky like a monkey and as cool as a cat, talk more than a parrot, up all night like a bat," it went. "I got a laugh like a hyena but get the hump like a camel, so cover me in fig leaves as I'm the ultimate mammal." I wonder if this will recieve more attention than the Calvin Klein "living model" exhibit/advertisement. Basically these people kick back and lounge like the ultimate couch potatoes while people pay to watch(sounds like reality tv). Not a bad gig indeed. Though don't we get enough of the jackasses running around everyday? Does this really merit an exhibit and do we really want be reminded that we are an over-consuming parasitic species?
Mammal's R' US
NY-based architecture weblog Transfer has brought Helicopter pilot / photographer Oscar Ruiz’s Aerial shots of Mexico City to everyone’s attention today. The second largest city in the world seems simple and organized from Oscar’s POV. Cool shots. I can't imagine Mexico City on any type of scale. It seems like a massively chaotic place.
Eye in the Sky
Napoleon (played by Jon Heder) and sidekick Pedro (Efren Ramirez) star in three TV commercials and a handful of radio spots for this year’s fair. (Check out “Napoleon’s Sweet Ads” on the fair’s main Web page. Napoleon revisits the days when the carnival rides weren’t so great. “In days of yore,” he says, “the Utah State Fair didn’t have sweet rides like the Scrambler, the RockoPlane, the Octopus. ... Instead, they had retarded crap like this”—at which point Pedro duct-tapes him into a flimsy cardboard box and rolls him through a field, down a set of bleachers and over a fence. “This is pretty much the worst ride ever,” Napoleon moans. The fair, to be held Sept. 8-18, is celebrating its 150th year. This year’s tagline: “All your wildest dreams will come true.” These are hilarious. It will fill your ND craving.....click on Napoleon's sweet ads
Sweeeet
THIS IS SO RAD!!!!! Come on, how amazing could this thing be in your foyer? Granted, it only does stills or vertical panoramas because of the downward motion direction of the “screen,” but don’t act like you don’t want it in all its 128 nozzle glory, because we know ya do. This could take the place of my wall of water/waterfall ive been wanting. If you can translate the german let me know what it says.
Niiiiiice
Austin Texas is starting a public campaign to promote plug-in hybrid cars. Frankly its amazing to see this in the gas-guzzling state of Tejas where the roads are built extra wide in case you feel like swerving. I wonder what the commandant thinks of this as well. More forward thinking communities like Austin are needed to eliminate our dependence on the importation of fossil fuels. Especially since our federal government seems unwilling to change.
The appeal of plug-in vehicles is underscored by the fact that 78 percent of Americans live within 20 miles of their jobs. A battery pack sufficient to power a vehicle a distance of 35 miles on a charge would mean a majority of Americans would likely need to fill up with gasoline only once or twice a month. In addition, an "electric" gallon of gas would cost 70 to 80 cents at prevailing electric rates. A plug-in hybrid that gets 25 miles on a gallon of $2.55-national-average gasoline could travel more than 100 miles on $2.55 worth of "electric" gallons of energy.
How would PHEVs impact the national economy?
A 2002 EPRI study indicated that if 25% of Americans drove PHEVs by 2025, there would be an $88 billion net annual economic benefit. This would include a $26 billion decrease in the U.S. trade deficit, $7.5 billion saved due to "oil disruptions" that lead to increased gasoline costs, plus the projected creation of over 400,000 jobs.
plug in
Had an excellent weekend in Richmond. DrewDawg graciously drove my ass all over and showed me the Creek. Awesome to chill with my homie. Saw my "extended" family also known as the UNC swim team. I can go anywhere with these people and feel like when i take off my shoes, its always appropriate. It was a fantastic wedding, and a big big party. Here are some pictures i don't remember taking.
congratulating the newlyweds. Im still standing!! (wow i am that short)
Bradley flashes the McDade street sign.
I was convinced my jacket was much cooler to wear inside out. um this was later in the evening....
Willem flashes the secret society doctor's sign. do any of my pictures of willem not have him throwing this?
Janna and me. this means trouble.
Lindsay and me
Bdiddy outside waiting for the shuttle. Now its coming back to me...
The Train Station where the wedding reception was held. Richmond has great Civil War era Architecture.
A post-tsunami’d NYC 30 years from now is the setting for this William Gibson-ish style comic, designed to be read on the Sony PSP, one panel at a time. A neat idea interestingly done, and under a creative commons license to boot. I used to love Aeon Flux, even though im not a huge anime fan. This is pretty cool. The panel above also describes how i currently feel after partying at Steve and Becky's wedding this weekend.
2123
to
to
Well here is a soon to be cultural phenomena. Your own posse club. You heard it here fist folks. Those of you that are here. and listening. Hmm ok so Swarthmore students, who love charles darwin started a sticker to tag and spread their love. Well next thing you know Darth Vader has a posse appears, and BAM we are onto the jedi creature with meat dreadlocks. Whatever that is. I can see kids and people of all walks creating their own posses. In fact i may be hard at work at mine. Thanks to boingboing for the kickoff inspiration that got me digging. Check out the evolution up there.
Got my back
Vader's Posse
Vessel has these kick ass rechargable lamps that give off a great ambient glow. They look like candles but cant ever be blown out. Hmm no wax, no odor and fairly inexpensive...These look very cool. Think of it has the 21st century candle. I WANT ONE!! hint hint. Check out all their other futuristic products.
candela
The WashingSacks, designed by industrial design engineer graduate Maja Kecman, are nifty dissolving laundry bags impregnated with washing liquid. Once filled up with laundry the bags can be placed straight into the washing machine.
By simplifying the transfer of laundry from the basket to the machine, much of the labour of the washing chore can be removed. The laundry bags are water soluble and biodegradable. Very simple, very cool, great concept.
Maja Kecman
Well great things come in 2s. And that seems to be the site's theme lately. Downhill Battle -- an amazing, energetic, imaginative copyfighting nonprofit group -- has spun off something called the Participatory Culture Foundation with the aim of making DTV, an open source video publishing, aggregating and viewing tool: in other words, a TV killers. They've just finished the MacOS beta of DTV. Proliferation is everywhere, dont fight it. Embrace it, heck even make a few bucks off it.
MyTV
Add TiVo to the list of companies trying to wed the Internet to television. The San Jose maker of digital video recorders will soon allow customers to download TV shows to their set-top boxes via the Internet -- even before the shows air on TV. TiVo has struck a deal with the Independent Film Channel to transmit several of the cable channel's shows through a broadband connection as part of a trial program. TiVo has offered its 3.3 million customers a form of watch-what-they-want, when-they-want-it luxury since it launched in 1997, but the service remains restricted to broadcast schedules, and customers must program their set-top box to record shows. Content on demand has long been a holy grail for Internet and cable companies as they hunt for the next generation of television. No one yet has found a way to overcome the considerable technological hurdles, such as finding a speedy way to pump two-hour movies through broadband, or convince Hollywood that its content won't be pirated and that it can profit from Internet broadcasts. Yet another example of convergence people...hmm in 20 years will tv exist? Will the internet? could it just be called media?
this is it; this is the big one folks!
Researchers in the US believe they have come closer to solving a centuries-old mystery - by deciphering knotted string used by the ancient Incas. Experts say one bunch of knots appears to identify a city, marking the first intelligible word from the extinct South American civilisation. The coloured, knotted pieces of string, known as khipu, are believed to have been used for accounting information. "This work gives us some sense of how this complex information was compiled, manipulated, shared and archived in the Inca hierarchy," Mr Urton said in a statement quoted by Reuters news agency. He said that the discovery could help researchers build up an inventory of place names, marking the first time khipu have been associated with words rather than numbers. So we discover that an ancient civilization used strings to record things. And the item of choice, accounting and finance.....fantastic. no wonder their cities were decimated.
The string incident
Wow i can't escape the ipod and neither can you. Michael Tseng has created Mopah, a ten week project at SCAD. Just plug in your ipod and off you go whisking away with your personal tunes. Not only does ipod supply the music, but it's also the key. Using the unique serial number on your player means that only your ipod will unlock mopah. Its an ipod or he claimes boombox, inspired and centric scooter. His prototype runs on a 500 watt motor, and two 12 volt batteries. The speakers work in conjunction with the ipod so users can experience the joy of riding mopah with tunes. Its fairly simple and his site is cool. Someone will give him a job. Just imagine if steve jobs wanted to buy vespa and remake it..
Mopah fo Noma
Ok yesterday's post got me thinking and investigating. What is the opposite of looking for additional uses for the ipod? A world where Apple is useless.....well.......
Apple is lagging far behind South Korean rivals in the local digital music player market, a survey showed Wednesday. Apple accounted for 1.8 per cent of the South Korean MP3 player market in terms of revenue in the first half of this year, compared with ReignCom Ltd.'s 35 per cent and Samsung Electronics Co.'s 14 per cent, according to the survey by GfK Marketing Services Korea, a marketing consulting firm. Another South Korean manufacturer, Cowon, is closely challenging Samsung with a market share of 13 per cent, the survey found. When it comes to unit sales, Apple came in 13th place with a market share of less than 2 per cent, compared with ReignCom with 31 per cent and Samsung with 14 per cent, the survey showed. The survey found Apple, the world's biggest MP3 player maker, didn't win much attention from South Korean consumers. My father keeps reminding me that South Korea is light years ahead of us when it comes to science. SK is one of the, if the most, online-tapped country. Its amazing to see where technology is so much more proficient, that the lexicon of "cool" barely registers. That makes some sense, in that other players offer things the ipod can't. The ipod wins on style, but not always on extras and functionality. The South Korean market is an example of a level playing field.
Not the Apple of my Eye
Here is one for all you public transporation people. At the planning conference one activity we talked about were new applications for the ipod. This session was a wash, and i was unimpressed as the design agency sat there and wrote down all of our ideas to use on their own. I was impressed with using an ipod or technology piece for unusual applications. Here comes something super practical. It's a simple and genius concept: upload the maps into the iPod's photo albums for easy access in times of underground uncertainty. The maps work on all color-screen iPods (formerly iPod Photo) and are absolutely free. New York, D.C., Boston and Hong Kong are currently available, with San Francisco, Chicago and London on the way. Now when someone jacks your ipod and you have no idea where you are, you will not only be tuneless but completely lost....
ipracticality
Sixty years ago, on 9 August 1945, the US dropped an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Nagasaki, killing at least 70,000 people and destroying the city. Exhibits at Nagasaki's Atomic Bomb Museum include this clock, suddenly stopped by the force of the blast at 1102 on 9 August 1945. This comes at a time when America isn't seen in the best of light globally. I only wish more attention was made to this act. This horrific act should be prevented at all costs and yet we seem oblivious to its passing. America needs to be more cogniscent of the world and less of the cowboy mentality. Sorry for the preaching...busy busy today, back to normal tomorrow.
from this:
This has to be the first and only shoe inspired by a food steamer! But its incredible to see where these designers draw their inspiration. Check em out at Sneaker Freaker since you will never get a chance to sport em.
Xiao Dunks (better than Yao)
Those of you who know me, know about my interest in archaeology and ancient churches. For my art requirement in college, i should medievil church architecture. The remains of an ancient church and monks' retreats that date back to the early years of monasticism have been discovered in a Coptic Christian monastery in the Red Sea area, officials said Saturday. Workers from Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities found the ruins while restoring the foundations of the Apostles Church at St. Anthony's Monastery. The monastery, which is in the desert west of the Red Sea, was founded by disciples of St. Anthony, a hermit who died in A.D. 356 and is regarded as the father of Christian monasticism. A colony of hermits settled around him and he led them in a community. hmmm a colony of hermits..is that like a colony of hobbits? Still i think its incredibly cool and a testament to the middle east as a center of early civilization. Amazing that centuries ago, different religions could co-exist peacefully in understanding......how things have changed.
Ruins
The past 2 weeks I have spent the majority of my time searching for a new pad. it has been an incredidbly disheartening and enlightening experience at the same time. I have attempted to search out apartments on my own, use internet brokers, craigslist, real estate agencies, and cold calling classifieds. I have learned that this is one nightmare i want to end. New York is a fascinating place to work but with my salary, the living situation leaves much to be desired. Im very proud of my search skills being a planner, but competing with brokers for every half-way-semi-livable apartment has me at wits end. These guys get 2 grand for "showing" me an apartment. Real estate language can be broken dow with low level typically meaning ground level and spacious describing any space. Also as i sat with an agent, another one kept telling me how good she is, "oh she is just the best", not realizing hey you sit right next to her at work. Always consider the source and always check the language. And if you actually know of a deal that exists in the new york real estate market, let me know....
Where i should be livin'
Its incredibly tragic what still exists in the world today. Graffiti artist/master Banksy recently trekked to the wall on the Israel/ Palestinian border. Banksy, who is among my favorite artists, creates fantastic works of art that are provocative and delicately placed. Im not sure what he was trying to accomplish here, and it sounds like the work wasn't recieved well by either side. Possibly he wanted to brighten the bleakness of the situation. My question is why does the world continue to sit back while this happens? Were the jews themselves not treated horribly not half a century ago? Its despicable to create this wall of hate....Look at this beautifully tragic work on his site, and please make a difference, speak up.
Banksy
stop the wall
Be grateful you don't end up in the city’s infamous Shanghai tunnels. In the late 19th century, Portland's waterfront was in its heydey filled with passing ships, prostitutes and workers back from sea temporarily--or so they thought. Apparently a popular practice back then was for ship's captains to pay minions to find a drunk, able-bodied young man at a local bar, drug him, and "shanghai" him which meant sneaking him through a series of underground tunnels that led to the city's waterfront. He was sold, unconscious of course, for slave labor and awoke confused the next day on a slow boat to China where he would likely spend the next three to six years. The tunnels also connected various bars and properties of ill repute along the waterfront during the early-mid 20th century. Having checked out the various tunnels Seattle has to offer, this sounds quite fascinating. Who would of thought our west coasters would have such a way of dealing with the "trash".
Get shanghai'd
forbidden city
Scientists have found large quantities of cocaine residue in a river in northern Italy - suggesting consumption is much higher than previously thought. They say they found the equivalent of 40,000 doses a day in the Po valley, home to about five million people. The study, published by the UK's Environmental Health magazine, tests sewage and rivers for levels of a by-product of cocaine metabolism. The chemical found in the urine of cocaine users is called benzoylecgonine, or BE. According to official estimates, people living around the Po consume about 15,000 doses of cocaine a month, but the research claims more than three time as much cocaine is used in the area......wow. i guess the cat is out the bag
Italian Stallion
Ok so im finally back in nyc from the conference. Apologies for slipping on the blog here. Was going to try and blog but i figured id take some notes and maybe absorb some plannerspeak. I will post my thoughts and reflections in the upcoming weeks. Here are a couple breakdowns of a couple speakers:
Bob Greenberg-Genius, way ahead of his time. Might be too far ahead. reminded me of steve jobs
Mike Hall-Poor old man abandoned and left out to dry by his own crew. Relevant information just doesnt matter if you arent engaging, people cant reach your slides and you keep talking about the first stage of penetration illustrated by silly flying bees.
Russell Davies-Brillant. Speaks like a planner should and has all the embodiments we should strive for. Learned the most from him. Plus he works at nike doing his gig, whats better than that? Honda cog was the coolest thing i have seen since terminator 2 and reminded me why i got into this bit.
Malcom Gladwell-Good, very engaging. Brought up some good points but referenced the book too much. I already paid for it and didn't care to have the examples repeated. Plus blink left me slightly empty feeling. Still no tipping point. Kinda funny
Jerry Hirschberg-They needed more people like this. HE WASNT A PLANNER. Since im so into design in general, it was great to hear his approach and really how he helped nissan establish a beachhead here in the US. I certainly realize when i noticed that first nissan ad.
Mark Earls-Why is it that the brits always seem to know what they are talking about. Funny presentation and by god, so relevant. I have actually considered myself more of this than anything. My ideas are hardly original, but massively pulled from what influences me and the world surrounding. If only i could get that song out of my head.
THE AGENCY MODEL
Talking to a scot (of all people), he let me in on how the client fears the agency over there. I think that role reversal pushes thinking and its a shame how the whole US business model is. note to that point. On the plane ride home, i was on a flight with a ton of business guys. All dressed the same, all the same haircut, same crackberry phone. It seems to me the US is great at producing managers, but where are the creative thinkers, where are the innovators of the business world? Why do they all have to wear a suit? And what happens if one of those is in the business. Is it up to us as an agency to bring this...just a thought.
FINAL THOUGHTS
we speak so much about creativity yet its all planners preaching to the choir. I loved last year the hardvard mathematics prof, & saul wurman. This year we just didn't have the dynamics of different and varied speakers. Left me feeling like a scolded child who didn't learn a lesson. I am always told i need to do this, or in this way, yet never told what to do. The speakers nor the sessions didn't tell me too much, other that what i wasn't doing. It needed better organization. Beats the office though....
No link sorry today is a bit of a wash
Posts
All Comments
© Blogger templates The Professional Template by Ourblogtemplates.com 2008
Back to TOP
