R-Echos [Reblog & Echoes] a visual index of research

Beautiful symmetry provides glimpse into quantum world

Beautiful symmetry provides glimpse into quantum world
REFERENCE LIBRARY: Apron & Bag & Apron & Bag

REFERENCE LIBRARY: Apron & Bag & Apron & Bag
Design*Sponge » Blog Archive » sneak peek: bridgette…

Design*Sponge » Blog Archive » sneak peek: bridgette comazzi + ivan duval
Design*Sponge » Blog Archive » wayside violet + fold…

Design*Sponge » Blog Archive » wayside violet + fold chair
provence « L O L I T A – Lolitas blog about fashion…

provence « L O L I T A – Lolitas blog about fashion photography graphic design interior art lifestyle inspiration
Sketchpad

Simple web-based painting/drawing app. No Flash.

★
Dapper Dan on press

Dapper Dan on press « vassilis karidis blog
George Nakashima, Woodworker
Evolved Creatures

Saw this on PBS almost 20 years ago.
Visual Interpretations – CFP
[Ben Fry / The Preservation of Favoured Traces / 2009]

Madeleine Clare Elish at the MIT Hyperstudio (a digital humanities lab) recently pinged me with details regarding an interesting symposium on information visualization that will be taking place this coming spring. Visual Interpretations is scheduled for May 20-22 and will consider the “aesthetics, methods, and critiques of information visualization” in the humanities and social sciences. The call frames the event as follows:

How do visual representations of complex data help humanities scholars ask new questions? How does visual rhetoric shape the way we relate to documents and artifacts? And, can we recompose the field of digital humanities to integrate more dynamic analytical methods into humanities research? HyperStudio’s Visual Interpretations conference will bring digital practitioners and humanities scholars together with experts in art and design to consider the past, present, and future of visual epistemology in digital humanities. The goal is to get beyond the notion that information exists independently of visual presentation, and to rethink visualization as an integrated analytical method in humanities scholarship. By fostering dialogue and critical engagement, this conference aims to explore new ways to design data and metadata structures so that their visual embodiments function as “humanities tools in digital environments.” (Johanna Drucker)

This all sounds quite promising and I appreciate the way that the event is contextualized – especially the desire to focus on the "past, present, and future of visual epistemology in digital humanities." The word past suggests this will be much more than a visualization trade show. Some highlights from the suggested topics posed by the organizers:
- Expressive and artistic dimensions of visualizations
- Cultural history of visual epistemology
- 2D and 3D visualizations of historical/social/political data
- Visualization across media and the archive
- Relationships between database and interface
- Alternative modes of data representation.
- Digital visual literacy* & accessibility
You can get more information on the symposium CFP here – the organizers can accommodate a range of presentation formats (papers, workshops, and something called a 6/4 which is either an odd time signature or a PechaKucha-style speed talk).

I'm leaning towards submitting a proposal – perhaps I'll see some of you folks in Cambridge this May.

*An issue that I prattled about during my tenure at ScienceBlogs last fall.

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OMA: the interlace residential complex, singapore

FFFFOUND! | OMA: the interlace residential complex, singapore.
Remove a Stripped Screw

Remove a Stripped Screw with a Rubber Band – Household – Lifehacker
St Martins Lane Idea Books popup bookstore (via jrgd)

St Martins Lane Idea Books popup bookstore (via jrgd)
My mouse path.

Click to enlarge, please.

This is my mouse path for today, from 10:00am until 5:30pm. The lines are movement, and the dots are periods of inactivity. (The bigger the dot, the longer the rest.)

Makes a very busy day look beautiful, doesn’t it?
Distraction-Free Zone for Any Application

Windows only: Distraction-eliminating application CinemaDrape covers your desktop with a black screen except for the application you’re currently working in, so you can eliminate background distractions and help yourself focus on getting something done.

The application is provided in both the installable and portable varieties, but the installed version is easier to use—you can simply use the Ctrl+F12 shortcut key combination to launch the dark screen effect for the current window under the mouse. If you were using the portable variety instead of the installed version, your best bet would be to setup a shortcut and assign the shortcut key manually.

Once you’ve switched into distraction-free mode, you can easily resize the dark screen area, use the Esc key to close out of the dark screen, or you can also right-click anywhere in the dark area to access the options menu, where you can setup pre-defined areas or change the other options like opacity and colors. CinemaDrape is a free download for Windows users only.

CinemaDrape [Hellogramming via Download Squad]
Hachette Joins Macmillan in E-Book War Against Amazon

The Wall Street Journal reports that French publisher Hachette Book Group has sent letters to book agents letting them know that it is going the way of Macmillan and defying Amazon’s pricing scheme for e-books on the Kindle reader.

Amazon has tried to keep new digital books at $9.99 or less, but publishers are concerned that the price will undercut hardcover sales. Major hardcover releases often go for as much as three or four times that much.

Publisher Macmillan previously announced that it wanted to bump prices of its digital books closer to $15, and Amazon responded by pulling the publisher’s books off its online store shelves. Amazon eventually agreed to capitulate, though; it will offer Macmillan books at higher prices. Still, this agreement has yet to come to fruition.

Hachette books — which include The Lovely Bones and titles by authors like Stephen Colbert and Emily Dickinson — are still available in the Kindle store at Amazon’s preferred prices, and Amazon hasn’t responded publicly to Hachette’s newly stated intentions. We don’t expect that there will be a sales freeze in this case, though.

News Corp. bigwig Rupert Murdoch has said that his publisher HarperCollins — which News Corp. owns — is also dissatisfied with Amazon’s restrictions on pricing, and that its newly struck deal with Apple for the iPad allows greater flexibility. It looks like the iPad’s entry to the market could force Amazon to budge more than Macmillan already has; we’ll probably all be paying more for our e-books soon.

Tags: amazon, apple, hachette, ipad, Kindle, Macmillan
Metric Map: Which Countries Don’t Belong With The Others?

Map : author

What sets the U.S apart from the rest of the world?

The U.S. is one of only three nations in the world (the other two being Liberia and Burma) which clings to its outmoded system of measurement, failing to get on board with the rest of the world and use the metric system.

We don’t even use the British Imperial system (that the British don’t even use anymore) – we use some bastard child of the Imperial system called “the United States customary system.” Ask any American how many ounces are in a gallon or feet are in a mile and you’re almost sure not to get a correct answer.

What does this mean for you as an American? It means that when you travel you look like an idiot. When someone asks you for directions, you are suddenly at a loss, unable to estimate distance in kilometers. If one of your South American friends asks you how cold it is, you have no idea what to say. Is 30 degrees hot? Is it cold?

There are more communist countries than there are countries not using the metric system. Everyone else has come to the conclusion that it just makes for sense to use the system everyone else in the world is using in which all units are divisible by ten.

Just try to pass the right wrench to someone and you’ll see how stupid this system is. “I need the five sixteenths hex wrench. No! I said the five sixteenths!” Of course you did.

OK. Maybe it wouldn’t be cost effective to tear down all those mile markers, but just imagine the jobs it would create to start adding kilometer markers to every highway in the U.S. of A.
Michael Haneke / The White Ribbon

A beautifully shot film. A remote village in northern Germany 1913 beset by malice & spite…

www.thewhiteribbon.co.uk

Design Real

'Design Real' curated by Konstantin Grcic. Designed in collaboration with Alex Rich and Jürg Lehni

What	Design Real, curated by the renowned industrial designer Konstantin Grcic, is the Serpentine Gallery’s first exhibition devoted to contemporary design. Grcic’s selection for the exhibition focuses on ‘real’ items: mass-produced items that have a practical function in everyday life. The exhibition presents a wide range of products with different styles and functions, from furniture and household products to technical and industrial innovations. With objects from well-known designers, such as a chair by Jasper Morrison, luggage by Ross Lovegrove and waterproof shoes by Zaha Hadid, as well as products by anonymous designers, including a wheel-shaped water container, a municipal recycling bin and a Volvo tail light, the exhibition provides new perspectives from which to look at the material world around us, encouraging new insights into design. Exhibition ends: Sunday, February 7, 2010.
Where	Serpentine Gallery (map) Kensington Gardens London W2 3XA General opening times: Monday to Sunday, 10am to 6pm. Admission: Free
When	Begins on Thursday, November 26, 2009 at 10:00am. More Info/Buy Tickets (All Ages)

The triumph of Taste.

Interesting article on the New York Times about Apple and design, about S.Jobs and restraint.

“A defining quality of Apple has been design restraint,” says Paul Saffo, a technology forecaster and consultant in Silicon Valley.

That restraint is evident in Mr. Jobs’s personal taste. His black turtleneck, beltless blue jeans and running shoes are a signature look. In his Palo Alto home years ago, he said that he preferred uncluttered, spare interiors and then explained the elegant craftsmanship of the simple wooden chairs in his living room, made by George Nakashima, the 20th-century furniture designer and father of the American craft movement.

Great products, according to Mr. Jobs, are triumphs of “taste.” And taste, he explains, is a byproduct of study, observation and being steeped in the culture of the past and present, of “trying to expose yourself to the best things humans have done and then bring those things into what you are doing.”

His is not a product-design philosophy steered by committee or determined by market research. The Jobs formula, say colleagues, relies heavily on tenacity, patience, belief and instinct.

“Real innovation in technology involves a leap ahead, anticipating needs that no one really knew they had and then delivering capabilities that redefine product categories,” said David B. Yoffie, a professor at the Harvard Business School. “That’s what Steve Jobs has done.”

If (and its a rhetoric if) we are influenced by what surrounds us, let surround ourselves by the best and most inspiring people and objects we can access.

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Get More Magnesium, Get Smarter

Those crazy scientists, they keep finding ways to make rats smarter. Brainy rodents, however, may lead to the creation of smarter humans…

A new compound, magnesium-L-threonate (MgT)…

Click here for the entire article found on the Singularity Hub. You may need to scroll down to see it.

Click here for more information on magnesium.

ICA Bookshop Sale

What	The ICA Bookshop is having a sale on 100s of books, exhibition catalogues, DVDs, VHS, T-shirts and CDs. A great opportunity to grab some great new titles and take advantage of huge discounts. Saturday 6 to Sunday 7 February, 2010, 12 to 6pm in the Nash & Brandon Rooms.
Where	ICA, Institute Of Contemporary Arts (map) 12 Carlton House Terrace The Mall London SW1Y 5AH General opening times: Monday to Wednesday 12pm to 11pm, Thursday to Saturday 12pm–1am, Sunday 12pm to 9pm. Entry to exhibitions, bookshop, café and bar is free.
When	Begins on Saturday, February 6, 2010 at 12:00pm. More Info/Buy Tickets (All Ages)

HOW TO DO THINGS BY THEORY

TkH (Walking Theory or Teorija koja Hoda in Serbian) is an opening collective lecture and discussion about the Walking Theory platform practice in last 10 years. Theory is still considered as something practiced in cabinets, in research institutes, as well as something that castrates the art practice. With the name, TkH – Walking Theory, we emphasize that theory is always also a (social) practice, that it is a relevant, potent and socially intervening agency, which cannot be separated from the art practice, let alone be its adversary. In order to stress its performative function we explore the potentialities of performance as a new scientific/theoretical paradigm but also promote the idea of performing arts as a critical concept that characterizes spectacle-based society in which we live. In this light, the main question is: How to perform theoretical practice on paper (TkH Journal); in a more traditional performance geography (stage, gallery, classroom) but also in electronic and digital media and institutional contexts from university to sport? And how can theory-as-practice – through collective work, self-organisation and self-education as well as in many resistance tactics – critically transform a given context?

An intervention by TkH will take place on Friday 5th, 7.30pm at the Laboratoires D’Aubervilliers: BE THERE!

More about TkH & interesting links on their website.
watch for trees

Eamon MacMahon’s aeriel photographs of Canadian forests.

Via Jane.
Drawn from Clay by Atelier NL

Dutch designers Atelier NL have been awarded the Re:Vision Design Award by magazine Modern Painters for their ceramics collection made of clay collected from different farms. (more…)
Google’s two-way search is good for the web

WIthout any fanfare as far as I can tell, Google has unveiled one of the most signficant, far-reaching and basically good features in its core search product.

Now, in addition to presenting the pages ranked in order of algorithmic importance, it also shows you what people you know have to say about the subject.

How does it know who you know? Based on some very simple information you may have entered into your Google profile. (I called this two-way search in July 2009.)

For example, in my profile, I told it that I have a blog, am on Twitter, FriendFeed, run opml.org, have Flickr, Identi.ca, Picasa and YouTube accounts and OpenID. From there, it presumably either crawls or makes API calls to find out who I’m connected to and what I care about. There’s a wealth of information about me just in the links on scripting.com.

So, when I search for “Michael Clayton” it includes results from my social circle. In this case it has a hit from Cody Brown who it knows (so they tell me) I know because I follow him on Twitter.

It’s good for the web because it puts all the social services on the same open playing field. If I want to add another service, I can put it in the list, and I can tell them how important it is to me by moving it up or down the list. It also makes sense for Google to throw its lot in with the web because they aren’t Twitter or Facebook, and they got their start by indexing the open web. No matter what their motivations, that’s for God to judge. Good is good. And good is not evil.

If you have an account on Google, you can edit your profile here.

At first the results aren’t blowing me away, but I expect over time they will get better.
Idea Books – DesignMarketo / POP-UP BOOKSTORE

Idea Books & DesignMarketo popup bookshop
until 27th February 2010
St Martins Lane Hotel, London
LOVE DRIVES ME NUTS

LOVE DRIVES ME NUTS
by Melodie Mousset
via Amandine via Pan Dan
Mia Doi Todd "Open Your Heart" dir. Michel Gondry

Flux interview with Mia.
What if Flash Were an Open Standard?
Some good questions from Dave Winer regarding Apple, Adobe, and Flash:

What if Apple were trying to erase something that’s not
company-owned? Either a formal or de facto standard? Further, what
if their alternative were something that was locked-down and owned
by a company? Further, what if the company was Apple?

I’d say that’d be a different ball of wax entirely. It would depend, for one thing, on the specific open / de facto standard technology.

But as for open web standards, the evidence — actions and shipping code, not just words — strongly indicate that Apple is a major proponent of them. Apple didn’t have to release WebKit as an open source project — they could have kept their extensions atop the LGPL-licensed WebCore private.¹ They’ve re-written WebKit’s JavaScript engine from scratch at least twice, and released it all as open source. (Apple has also been aggressive about releasing its advanced non-web developer technology, like blocks and LLVM, as liberally-licensed open source.) All of Apple’s top competitors in the mobile space have either already adopted WebKit or soon will: Android, WebOS, even BlackBerry. Members of Apple’s WebKit team have been helping drive HTML5 since its inception. In short, I’d say Apple likes its technology open and its products closed.

E.g., it makes all the difference in the world that Apple is pushing H.264 rather than, say, QuickTime as the way forward for embedded web video.²

I do understand the fear. It’s indisputable that Apple seeks large amounts of control over its products. So it’s a reasonable question to ask whether Apple sees the web itself, which they have no control over, as a problem. I don’t think that’s the case at all, though. The web, as a whole, is arguably the single most entrenched computer technology ever created. So where Apple seeks control with regard to the web is in the technology to render it — HTML, CSS, JavaScript. No one can tell them what to do with WebKit; they wait for no one to shape and bend WebKit to suit their needs.

My feeling is not that Apple seeks total control over all content and software in iPhone OS. I’d say it’s more like they’re providing two well-defined, nice, neat, easily-understood extremes: the totally controlled native Cocoa Touch, and the totally open web.

Winer ends with a suggestion for Adobe:

Adobe might want to consider, right now, very quickly, giving
Flash to the public domain. Disclaim all patents, open source all
code, etc etc. That would throw the ball squarely back into
Apple’s court and would frame the question right now in its most
stark terms.

That’d be an interesting move, and it would certainly shake things up. But what if the source code to Flash Player is — as many would wager — a huge steaming pile of convoluted C++ horseshit? It’s sort of like what if Microsoft open-sourced the Internet Explorer rendering engine. It’s not like anyone who is now using WebKit or Gecko would switch to that just because it was opened — or that WebKit, Mozilla, and Opera would suddenly be obligated to or even interested in adopting IE-specific web features.

The problem for Flash is just like the problem for IE — the web has already moved on.
1. An earlier version of this article stated that the entirety of WebKit is BSD-licensed. That’s wrong; the KHTML library that Apple started with is LGPL-licensed, and so therefore is the WebCore component in WebKit. We regret the error. ↩
2. H.264 is an open standard, but admittedly and unfortunately not a free standard, hence Mozilla’s opposition to it. My point here is simply that H.264 is not owned by Apple or any other single company. ↩
PARALLEL SCHOOL OF ART (updates)

PARALLEL SCHOOL OF ART
Into Time
The perfect vehicle!

via http://magazinely.com/uncategorized/the-perfect-vehicle
Order forms, a banner and bags

Designed by Ivan Chermayeff. via MoMA Inside/Out
Unexpectedly low Apple iPad price forces notebook vendors to re-evaluate their tablet PC strategies
Notebook vendors include Asustek Computer and Micro-Star International (MSI) have re-evaluated their strategies for the tablet PC market following Apple's launch of the iPad at a consumer-friendly price, according to industry sources.

The vendors originally planned to offer prices pegged at 20-30% lower than the Apple iPad, while they generally expected the device to cost as much as US$1,000. The US$499 entry-level price has caught vendors by surprise and means they will now need to adjust their price scales even lower to attract consumers, the sources pointed out.

However, starting a price war at below US$499 raises concerns that any profitably will be driven out of the nascent tablet PC market, before it even has a chance to take off. Vendors are currently evaluating their strategies hoping to avoid price competition, the sources noted.

via Unexpectedly low Apple iPad price forces notebook vendors to re-evaluate their tablet PC strategies.
Related Posts:
Ruché by Inga Sempé for Ligne Roset

Cologne 2010: at imm cologne last week French design brand Ligne Roset launched a sofa by Paris designer Inga Sempé, consisting of a quilted cover draped over a wooden frame. (more…)
(title unknown)

Shared by mi

beautiful

In order to try and get back into working again after a very merry christmas I have revisited a piece of work, patterns of rooftops. I wanted to create a geometric and gridded version of the pattern, in order that it can be cut up and rearranged and repeated so that any shapes within the pattern would work together. Some ideas are above.

I have been reading ‘Why look at animals?’ by John Berger over christmas. Time and time again, Berger just nails it for me, and eloquently expresses what is most frequently overlooked in our world, yet curiously integral to living.

I have been asking myself recently why I am sometimes drawing animals and what is it about them that cause me to draw them as I do. This poem ‘They are the Last’ by Berger really stood out for me. I think he noticed something. I will pick out 1 section-

Now that they have gone

it is their endurance we miss.

Unlike the tree

the river or the cloud

the animals had eyes

and in their glance

was permanence.

It was the same fox for ever and ever.

To kill him

was to drag him

momentarily

from the earth

of his eternity.
‘You’ll Rule the World’

Alan Kay, regarding his reaction to the iPhone in January 2007:

When the Mac first came out, Newsweek asked me what I [thought]
of it. I said: Well, it’s the first personal computer worth
criticizing. So at the end of the presentation, Steve came up to
me and said: Is the iPhone worth criticizing? And I said: Make the
screen five inches by eight inches, and you’ll rule the
world.

★
controlled variation

In conceptual art the idea or concept is the most important aspect of the work. When an artist uses a conceptual form of art, it means that all of the planning and decisions are made beforehand and the execution is a perfunctory affair.

Sol LeWitt, 1967

Sol LeWitt’s conceptualism is a powerful methodology of forgetting. It came into being as an answer to the creative paralysis induced by the triumph and subsequent enervation of American Abstract Expressionism. In order to make art new, its history had to be actively “forgotten.” Forgetting, in this sense, is not a literal amnesia, but an affirmation strategy to overcome the burden of history. The belief that one’s work was reinventing art by returning to ground zero has been one of the most productive fictions in twentieth century art. The conceptual approach gave LeWitt, whose ambitions exceeded those of second generation Abstract Expressionism, the permission he needed to make things again; to remove all self-censorship in the “perfunctory” execution of “art ideas.”

from Sol LeWitt: Incomplete Open Cubes, edited by Nicholas Baume.
Reveal by Studiomama

London designer Nina Tolstrup of Studiomama has created a cabinet with hidden compartments made of reclaimed floorboards. (more…)
Matthias Hoch

I used to have a studio in the Tea Building in Shoreditch where Rocket Gallery is based. This is where I first saw the work of German photographer Matthias Hoch. He has traveled all over the world photographing modern cityscapes, facades of buildings and urban landscapes devoid of people. There is often repetative patterns in his work which I find most interesting.

www.rocketgallery.com
Living Clay: F.R. David

Living Clay: F.R. David
The final bi-monthly reading event about art writing as a meeting place for deduction, disagreement and debate. This event is co-hosted by Maria Fusco with Will Holder, Editor, F.R.DAVID, a journal which focuses on the status of writing in contemporary art, as a mode that exists alongside or in service of the visual.

Thursday 11 February, 7pm
Whitechapel Gallery, London
Lined & Unlined » Blog Archive » The Little Books…

Lined & Unlined » Blog Archive » The Little Books of Harsh Patel
table & bench

even*cleveland: table
Interactive CD Cover

Hubero Kororo designed this interactive CD cover for the band Uceroz. When you open the CD packaging on the side, ink is set free and bleeds into the cover of the CD. I really like this idea.

found at yatzer
This beautiful unassuming two-story library building in Thailand…

This beautiful unassuming two-story library building in Thailand was built with natural lava stone from the site, concrete, wood, and bamboo. The project was a cooperative between Rintala Eggertsson Architects and students from NTNU Trondheim University for the children of Ban Tha Song Yang villiage’s Safe Haven Orphanage.

The task was to use local materials and building technics to create a building that would solve the problems of education in the orphanage the best possible way. At the same time, natural ventilation systems and sunshades were studied and introduced into the building.

(via Young and Brilliant)
pootee: GRASS PAINTED GREEN, 2009 Installation •º•

pootee:

GRASS PAINTED GREEN, 2009

Installation

•º•
dora, ansen, paris

As I forgot my usb cable, you will have to wait to see my pictures of the last shows I attended to. But in the meanwhile, let me introduce you to two fantastic people: Dora & Ansen. “Delicious” Dora Wilkenfeld, as you might have noticed is our new blog family member and has already posted three very interesting and on point articles. She also runs her own page: “Hammer of the Witches”. Welcome Dora! Ansen is an american photographer who makes beautiful images that perfectly embody (pun intended) the Sang bleu spirit.
Type should move

“All is flux, nothing stays still, no man ever steps twice in the same river“, observed Heraclites.
This intelligent (because human) letterform allows a message to change from an instant to another, in an attempt to reflect on the fleeting quality of the moment.
It is flexible enough to keep the message relevant and up to date as its context changes, but also has the visual presence of a giant billboard.
EVENT: VITRA ONE DAY SHOWROOM SALE, CLERKENWELL

The legendary one day showroom sale at Vitra’s Clerkenwell showroom returns on Saturday 23rd January 2010. This presents a rare opportunity to snap up super-discounted Vitra furniture. Warning: arrive early to avoid disappointment!

ONE DAY SHOWROOM SALE, open 9:30am on Saturday 23rd January 2010

VITRA

30 Clerkenwell Road, London EC1M 5PG

This January, we decided to boycott reporting on the sale season altogether. In most cases, stores look like they are suffering a heavy hangover and they temporarily turn a blind eye to any importance that they have ever placed on smart displays and merchandising. Vitra’s sale, however, is thankfully only one day of madness and a prime time to get some quality deals. As they put it themselves, “Don’t join the throwaway society – now is the time for investing in things that you will cherish forever.”

Covetous designs are available with at least 40% off everything. In some instances, the discounts are extreme. This year, there are five ’star buys’ including the iconic Eames Lounge Chair (above) reduced from £3904 to £199! Also, there is a Jasper Morrison 3-seater sofa in red leather reduced from £4595 to £299; a special version of the Cite chair by Jean Prouve upholstered in white leather and reduced from £2450 to £99; Philippe Starck’s Baobab desk in light yellow is reduced from £1782 to £99; a set of four MVS bar stools in burgundy are only £49 for the set.

The keen are known to arrive early – sometimes several days early. This year, in order to boost morale in the queue, Vitra have teamed up with Coffee Cartel who will be selling hot drinks and snacks outside the showroom from 6:30am.
Aw shit Those tiles are sweet

— Mary’s photos from Unchanging Window
— David Korty ceramics available at South Willard
FLKS by Kapteinbolt

Dutch designers Kapteinbolt have created a collapsible plywood workspace. (more…)
(via yimmyayo)

(via yimmyayo)
PUBLICATION AS PRACTICE

PUBLICATION AS PRACTICE
A short course on concepts of artists’ publications

Wednesday 20th January, # 1: THE ARCHIVE, Guest speaker James Hoff
Wednesday 3rd February, # 2: PHOTOBOOKS. Guest speaker Stephen Gill
Wednesday 17th February, # 3: ART WRITING. Guest speaker Fiona Banner
Wednesday 3rd March, # 4: Eva Weinmayr
Wednesday 17th March, # 5: TEXT AND LABOUR. Guest speaker Will Holder
Wednesday 31st March, # 6: THE PAGE. Guest speaker David Campany
Wednesday 14th April, # 7: APPROPRIATION. Guest speaker Michalis Pichler
… to be continued

X marks the Bökship , Donlon Books, London
summed up

summed up

in a few words

via inside
dtybywl: thejogging: SMOKE BOMB IN AN ELEVATOR,…

dtybywl:

thejogging:

SMOKE BOMB IN AN ELEVATOR, 2010

Performance

•º•+º•º
Payam Sharifi

Payam Sharifi
kepler27s20supernova.jpg

kepler27s20supernova.jpg
BE Launches Line Bonding Service

This post is from Tom Williams, head of operations at BE Broadband.

Another new service is coming out of BE HQ. Line bonding (two broadband connections acting as a single faster connection) will be available from early February 2010! Since the trial last year, we’ve been working hard to get the service ready for our customers. However, at launch, the product comes with a bit of disclaimer: it’s significantly more complicated to get line bonding running compared to a single connection. That’s why we are going softly softly when we launch. The product is only going to be available to existing Pro members, but we will be including a nice discount for them and we’re only going to be able to handle a small number of orders to begin with, though the product will be available anywhere that the regular BE service is available – about 70% of BT lines.

On a 20Mb/s + line, you should be able to get 40Mb/s + download and 5 ish upload – that’s pretty impressive if you compare with the rest. It also means that if you are on a long line length you’ll be able to achieve around double your current speed – life changing for some!

Pricing is yet to be finalised, but it won’t be cheap – it’s taking quite a lot of overhead and resource to bring the product out which is reflected in the price. We think the connection fee will be around £85 and the discounted cost for existing members around £50-55 per month. At the moment, you’ll need to order a second BT line of course too…

You can get line bonding from other companies, but not for this sort of money and not as easy to set up and robust as the BE product will be. You’ll be able to maximise your gaming experience too turning on fastpath on your line and the experience should be seamless if one line drops for any reason.

If you are interested then please register your details at www.bethere.co.uk/web/beportal/linebonding

I hope you’ll sign up – you’ll be a true early adopter if you do.

We are always hearing members ask for more speed, so this is a really exciting milestone for us. Reminds me a bit of the early days of ADSL2+…

- Tom
AN ATLAS OF RADICAL CARTOGRAPHY

January 13 2010, 17:00
An atlas of radical typography
presented by Civic City
with Lize Mogel, Alexis Bhagat & Matthias Görlich
Corner-College, Zürich

January 14 2010, 18:30
About the medial representation of the city
Virtual, cartographic, diagrammatic, processual
with Philippe Rekacewicz (Le Monde Diplomatique), Lize Mogel, Alexis Bhagat & Matthias Görlich
Corner-College, Zürich

from January 15th 2010 till February 9thth 2010
Institute Design2Context presents An Atlas of Radical Cartography.
“An Atlas of Radical Cartography” makes its premise on undermining the claim of mapping as an objective representation of the world. Instead, the project understands mapping ?as a tool for reconstructing our society and political sphere against the dominant pictures of the world that are often represented or made invisible by «falsographers» (Olivier Rolin). In this radical cartography converge diverse practices such as art, critical theories, architectural & graphic designs and activism, share interests in re-mapping the world collectively.
Whitespace, Zürich
Ooga Booga Reading Room

Ooga Booga is a concept shop vital to the creative life-blood of Los Angeles. It gathers an eclectic range of products. Spearheaded by Wendy Yao, Ooga Booga fosters a vibrant community of independent producers. For Swiss Institute, Yao installs a lounge in which one may read over 300 titles — from self to professionally published. The room contains contributions by:

38th Street, Alex Klein, Alex Olson, Alice Konitz, Amy Yao, Andrea Longacre-White, Andrew Jeffrey Wright, Apartamento, Art Since Summer of ’69, Arthure Ou, Asher Penn, B’Ling, Barry Johnston, Becca Albee, Benjamin Trogdon, Black Dog Publishing, Bookworks, Brian Kennon, Claudine Auguste, Cynthia Connolly, Cynthia Leung, David Benjamin Sherry, Dexter Sinister, Dorothee Perret, Drag City, Duncan Hamilton, Ethan Swan, Eva Svennung, Fillip, Form Content, Free Association Press, FR David, Frances Stark, Gloria Pedemonte, Goodiepal, Greene Naftali, Hanne Mugaas, Harsh Patel, Ingo Giezendanner, Isabel Asha Penzlien, Jim Drain, Joseph Mosconi, JRP, K8 Hardy, Leif Goldberg, Leopard Press, Lisa Farjam, Margaret Lee, Matt Wobensmith, Megawords, Melissa Ip, Michael & Lucena Valle-Rey, Mylinh Trieu Nguyen, Nick Relph + Oliver Payne, Nieves, Oliver Payne, Ooga Booga, Paige Johnston, Peres Projects, Picturebox, Phil Chang, Poppy Books, Primary Information, RE/Search publications, Semiotext(e), Slavs and Tatars, Sumi Ink Club, Taro Nettleton, Textfield, Ugly Duckling Presse, Wendy Yao, William E. Jones, and White Columns.

Swiss Institute
Ooga Booga Reading Room
1 December — 13 February 2010
detail-of-CT-marcus-oreilly-architects.jpg

detail-of-CT-marcus-oreilly-architects.jpg
The big chill | guardian.co.uk 8th January 11.14am: Here is that…

The big chill | guardian.co.uk

8th January 11.14am: Here is that Nasa picture of Britain cocooned in white.
soft focus

1. uta barth

2. enzo mari calendar

3. unknown
a new start

very exciting to be working on the design and build of a new shop interior in east london. a rather intimidating project as for many years i visited the space during its previous life as Store, Associates and Limoncello galleries. its a rather strange feeling to tear down a wall of a space that you normally look at but don’t touch. watch this space…
wrap

Sammy Hassy Scarf via here.
OLIVER LARIC / Versions & Real Talk

OLIVER LARIC / Versions & Real Talk

Versions, Oliver Laric’s second solo show at Seventeen, circulates around both historical and contemporary ideas relating to image hierarchies. Central to the exhibition is a suite of polyurethane sculptures…

A riff on the themes explored in his solo exhibition Versions, as much as a show of ‘influences’, Oliver Laric presents REAL TALK – a basement space group show featuring works by Seth Price, Aleksandra Domanovic, Marjolijn Dijkman and Samuel Beckett.

Wednesday 13th Jan – Saturday 13th Feb 2010
Seventeen gallery, London
* Seen at Maplin; they made the wheels look as if those were…

* Seen at Maplin; they made the wheels look as if those were dirty.
Commodore 64 unboxing

From the attic at my in-laws’ house. I’ve titled this photo “Anticipation.”

And this one? “Disappointment.”
The History of Sauces in Europe. p581

Sauces are liquids that accompany the primary ingredient in a dish. Their purpose is to enhance the flavor of that ingredient—a ortion of meat or fish or grain or vegetable—either by deepening and broadening its own intrinsic flavor, or by providing a contrast or compleemnt to it. While the meat or fish or grain or vegetable is always more or less itself, a sauce can be anything the cook wants it to be, and makes the dish a richer, more various, more satisfying composition. Sauces help the cook feed our perpetual hunger for stimulating sensations, for the pleasures of taste and smell, touch and sight. Sauces are distillations of desire.

[…]

In addition to their heightened flavor, sauces give tactile pleasure by the way they move in the mouth. Cooks construct sauves to have a consistency somewhere between the resitsant solidity of animal or plant tissues and the elusive thinness of water. This is the consistency of luscious ripe fruit that melts in the mouth and seems to feed us willingly, and of the fats taht give a persistent, moist fullness to animal flesh and to cream and butter. The fluidity of a sauce allows it to coat the solid food evenly and lend it a pleasing moistness, while the substancial, lingering quality helps the sauce cling to the food and to our tongue and palate as well, prolonging the experience of its flavor and providing a sensation of richness.
Researchers decipher parts of the neuronal code

The human brain works at a far higher level of complexity than previously thought. What has been given little attention up to now in the information processing of neuronal circuits has been the time factor. “Liquid computing” — a new theory about how these complex networks of nerve cells actually work from computer scientists at Graz University of Technology — has just passed its first test.

via Secrets of the Brain: Researchers decipher parts of the neuronal code.
Birthing Gods

Can we make sure the superintelligent machines are friendly?

Part four in a GOOD miniseries on the singularity by Michael Anissimov and Roko Mijic. New posts every Monday from November 16 to January 23.

“The AI does not hate you, nor does it love you, but you are made out of atoms which it can use for something else.”

—Eliezer Yudkowsky, Artificial Intelligence as a Positive and Negative Factor in Global Risk (pdf)

Surviving the twenty-first century is probably the toughest challenge that the human race has ever faced, and probably the toughest we will ever face. Last week Michael Anissimov spoke about the possibility of molecular nanotechnology—a technology that gives human beings the capability to do untold harm to each other, but the technology of smarter-than-human intelligence that I spoke about two weeks ago really is the ultimate Pandora’s Box. In my article, I emphasized that it was intelligence that got human beings where we are today. We have the unique and amazing ability to understand the world from an abstract point of view—and that is why we keep lions in cages, rather than the other way around.

Most people who have thought seriously about what smarter-than-human intelligence will do to the human race speak of dire consequences. For example, consider the problem of creating a self-improving software AI that breaks encryption codes.

read more: Birthing Gods – Singularity 101 – GOOD.
Mars Bacteria

In 1996, NASA researchers reported that a meteorite contained evidence that life once existed on Mars. But others argued that the evidence was most likely caused by inorganic processes that could be recreated artificially. A second group of NASA researchers containing some scientists from the first study has reexamined the 1996 findings using a new analysis technique called ion beam milling, and they again claim that living organisms are most likely responsible for the materials found in the meteorite.

via Stuck Spirit Rover Analyzes Mars Water Cycle and Improving Evidence of Fossilized Mars Bacteria.
Handlebar Bag and Bike Rack Bag by Po Campo

The Handlebar Bag and Bike Rack Bag by Po Campo would make lovely solutions for storing your possessions when you’re on a bicycle. What makes these two bags even better is that they detach from the bike and function as elegant purses. The straps and loops that allow the bags to attach to the handlebar or bike rack can also be hidden. The fabrics used are resistant to water and fading and they come in different colors and patterns.

http://www.pocampo.com

[via Yanko Design]

©2009 Design Milk | Posted by Catrina in Style & Fashion | Permalink | 1 comment | Tweet This | Share on Facebook
olafur eliasson / take your time / mca / sidney

olafur eliasson / take your time / mca / sidney / 10 december 2009-11 april 2010
Browser Pong

Browser Pong. amazing and reminiscent of those earlier experiments using windows for any purpose.
Bloesem

Bloesem
apartamentoDario always buy apartamento, which is great

apartamento

Dario always buy apartamento, which is great for me! Apartamento is a dream interior magazine, no flashy stuff all down to earth and really nice! The current issue features a great interview with Enzo Mari, a nice tale of plants, a colouring in bit and lots of other stuff!
Learn more here
Guy Brown

Reel lamp from Guy Brown.
Open Colour Standard: free/open alternative to Pantone
Ginger coons writes in about the Open Colour Standard, “an effort to create a new colour standard to help free/open source graphics programs bridge the gap between screen and print.”

It’s like Pantone’s spot colour standard [ed: a widely used proprietary system for describing "spot" colors -- that is, colors that need special inks to print. Pantone distributes both the inks and books of color swatches. Designers pick colors out of the book and the printer loads the extra ink into her apparatus at print time], but not necessarily in opposition to it. Just different.

opencolour.org is the official site, currently in the form of a wiki hosting discussion about how an Open Colour Standard can/should be created. Here is a great big backgrounder, explaining and documenting the first stages of an original, not tied to an ink manufacturer, colour standard that F/LOSS graphics users can call their own.

And here’s a piece explaining the rationale and history behind an Open Colour Standard. Seems straightforward, but is proving to be surprisingly controversial. Looks like a lot of people really do see creating a new colour standard as futile, useless and hopelessly quixotic.

From the article: “What we have, then, is a venerable, widely supported, but largely inflexible and very expensive de facto standard. It has a huge impact on both print and digital media, not to mention the clothes you wear, the color you paint your living room, even the specific shades used to define healthy dirt or high-grade orange juice. It is, in short, a bloated monopoly eating up more and more of the color market… If [Open Colour Standard] works, this effort could open up spot color, make open-source software more viable for pre-press, and maybe even inspire a little kitchen table chemistry. Most importantly, it would take the cross-platform treatment of color out of the hands of a private company and put it where it belongs, with users.”

Open Color Standard

(Thanks, Ginger!)

(Image: untitled photo, licensed Creative Commons Attribution, from iboy_daniel’s photostream)
Previously:
Raw armchair by Tomek Rygalik Studio

Raw armchair Moroso is a product designed with economy of means in mind that is long-term in its outlook, minimizing its negative impact on environment. It doesn’t have any internal structure and it’s made out of one, very natural material. Its structural integrity derives from the well-considered geometry and the natural properties of the wet moulded rawhide. It is a chair without an inherent obsolescence that is well crafted and will age gracefully.

via Tomek Rygalik Studio.

* I saw those at ARAM Gallery a little while ago and I was amazed at how simple this was…
Apartamento – an everyday life interiors magazine

Apartamento – an everyday life interiors magazine.

ISSUE 04 FALL WINTER 2009
OUT IN NOVEMBER 2009
SUBSCRIPTIONS AND ORDERS NOW AVAILABLE AT BRUIL
POP-UP STUDIO

Mark Owens and his cohort of CalArts MFA graphic design students will be in residence this weekend at Kunsthalle Los Angeles to explore the topics of production, distribution and circulation.

Stop by anytime and check out the space and the projects, bring your portable USB flash drive for daily file sharing happy hour, and/or get your conviviality on at the closing reception on Sunday from 6-9PM.

Friday 12/11 – Sunday 12/13
Kunsthalle Los Angeles
932 Chung King Road, Chinatown

Flickr set
The Real True Historic Origin of LOLCats?

To be fair, it doesn’t predate Aloysius “Gorilla” Koford’s classic 1912-1913 comic strip. But this image, from the March 1929 issue of Parents’ magazine, ~~could be the first~~ captioned photograph version of the LOLcat. ~~Unearthed by> digital archivist Jason Scott,~~ The photo was advertised as the perfect decoration for a child’s nursery. Although, in that context, I personally find it a little nightmare inducing. I can haz yer soul for to nom?

UPDATE: Digital archivist Jason Scott says, “I didn’t unearth it – a helpful person off Flickr had hundreds of scans of magazines from the 1920s and this was one of the scans. It’s from a 1929 issue of Parents’ Magazine. It has well been established that Harry Whittier Frees predates this by at least 20 years. I would call this an “Early” LOLcat but hardly the first.”

See the full vintage ad over on the Mental_Floss blog
Disused call-box turned into world’s smallest lending library
Steve sez, “A traditional red phone box has been recycled into one of the UK’s smallest lending libraries – stocking 100 books, CDs, and DVDs.

The phone booth was bought from British Telecom for £1, and it looks like something right out of a Doctor Who episode.” [ed: technically, the Tardis is a police call box, which is ~~green~~ blue, not red] [/comicbookguy]

Users simply stock it with a book they have read, swapping it for one they have not…

“This facility has turned a piece of street furniture into a community service in constant use.”

A resident dreamed up the idea when the village lost its phone box and mobile library in quick succession.

Phone box has new life as library

(Thanks, Steve!)

(Image: Phone box and bus stop, Cheriton, Hampshire, a Creative Commons Attribution photo from Mike Cattell’s photostream)
Previously:
Gay-bashing woman humiliated for wearing hideous skirt

An angry loser (right) came to Syracuse University to make a fool of herself by spreading pathetic hatred and was treated to a happy mutant style stunt by this smiling student, named Chris Pesto (left).

I decided that because this woman thought it was okay to make me feel uncomfortable in my home, I would retaliate and make her feel just as uncomfortable, if not more.

This woman was wearing a ankle-length corduroy skirt, which, as we all know, is a fashion nono. So, in order to make her feel uncomfortable, I stood next to her and held a sign that said Corduroy skirts are a sin! I don’t think I have ever drawn so much attention in my life. SO many people asked to take a picture with me, I got laughs, high fives and there were the few that even cursed off the woman standing behind me.

As I drew interest to what was going on with myself and the woman with the hateful sign, I started to draw a crowd that stood with me in support. Before I knew it I had 100+ people holding signs for gay rights asking people to honk their horns to support. I was interviewed by a news station, and more than 5 student organization papers, and the post standard of syracuse.

I never expected anybody to come stand by me and support and I appreciate it so much that everyone came! It meant so much and it proved to those ignorant people that we aren’t afraid, and we will put up a fight.

I’m proud that Syracuse has such a homosexual friendly community.

Corduroy Skirts are a Sin
Pics of the flu virus and some its components (via Pics of the…

Pics of the flu virus and some its components (via Pics of the flu virus and some its components : Effect Measure

)
Dropped by jrgd.
Pub fined £8K after user infringes copyright with its WiFi

A British pub has been fined £8,000 because someone using the WiFi there allegedly committed a copyright infringement. Even though British law exempts people who provide Internet access from liability for their users' copyright infringements, the pub was still fined (the details of this are confused).

Graham Cove told ZDNet UK on Friday he believes the case to be the first of its kind in the UK. However, he would not identify the pub concerned, because its owner — a pubco that is a client of The Cloud’s — had not yet given their permission for the case to be publicised…

According to internet law professor Lilian Edwards, of Sheffield Law School, where a business operates an open Wi-Fi spot to give customers or visitors internet access, they would be “not be responsible in theory” for users’ unlawful downloads, under “existing substantive copyright law”.

Pub ‘fined £8k’ for Wi-Fi copyright infringement

(Thanks, Zoran)
Dropped by jrgd.
Dropped by jrgd.
Lego hole-punch for paper-meets-Lego projects – Boing…

Lego hole-punch for paper-meets-Lego projects – Boing Boing

Muji’s going to start selling hole-punches that knock out patterns that can be threaded between two Lego bricks. They go on sale in a week, and open up many possibilities for crafty Lego extensions.
Gallery – Pickled evidence for evolution – Image 1 – New…

Gallery – Pickled evidence for evolution – Image 1 – New Scientist
Dropped by lennyjpg.
Kim Asendorf: Sorted Pixels – Processing Experiment

FFFFOUND! | Kim Asendorf (Sorted Pixels | Processing Experiment)
David Maisel

FFFFOUND! | \\: David Maisel
friday night is fun

*note: we removed the image mentionned below – if we have to receive more of these charming notices, we will have to turn this website in private mode with a strong end user licence agreement.

** the guy copyrighted the periodic table of the element – i’m not sure if that is really possible; however “design” (hum!) was “his” (he really produced the picture) so this is the reason why we took it down. I’m curious about how far someone can copyright such material and require anyone else to take it down…

Dear Sir/Madam,

It has come to my attention that you have made an unauthorized use of my
copyrighted image entitled “Periodic Table” -
http://www.elementsdatabase.com/Images/periodic_table.gif (the “Work”). I
have reserved all rights in the Work, which was first published in June,
2006 on http://www.elementsdatabase.com.

The image http://r-echos.net/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/periodic_table.gif, which appears
on your web site at http://r-echos.net/2009/07/18/copernicum-112th-element-on-the-periodic-table/, is essentially
identical to the Work.

You neither asked for nor received permission to use the Work, nor to make
or distribute copies of it. Therefore, I believe you have willfully
infringed my rights and could be liable for statutory damages.

I demand that you immediately cease the use and distribution of all
infringing works derived from the Work, and all copies of it. If I have not
received an affirmative response from you by November 23, 2009 indicating that
you have fully complied with these requirements, I shall consider taking the
full legal remedies available to rectify this situation.

Sincerely,

Jen Sawyers
http://www.elementsdatabase.com
IBM’s Blue Gene Supercomputer Models a Cat’s Entire Brain

Using 144 terabytes of RAM, scientists simulate a cat’s cerebral cortex based on 1 billion neurons and 10 trillion synapses

Cats may retain an aura of mystery about their smug selves, but that could change with scientists using a supercomputer to simulate the the feline brain. That translates into 144 terabytes of working memory for the digital kitty mind.

IBM and Stanford University researchers modeled a cat’s cerebral cortex using the Blue Gene/IP supercomputer, which currently ranks as the fourth most powerful supercomputer in the world. They had simulated a full rat brain in 2007, and 1 percent of the human cerebral cortex this year.

The simulated cat brain still runs about 100 times slower than the real thing. But PhysOrg reports that a new algorithm called BlueMatter allows IBM researchers to diagram the connections among cortical and sub-cortical places within the human brain. The team then built the cat cortex simulation consisting of 1 billion brain cells and 10 trillion learning synapses, the communication connections among neurons. more>>>
electrica

electrica
Michael Marriott Leila’s cafe tables (2009) Stacking café…

Michael Marriott Leila’s cafe tables (2009)

Stacking café tables for Leila’s Food Shop.
Bent steel frames, ash legs, & various re-claimed timber tops.