Author Archives: leo
Hard Labor
Another amazing resource for anyone who wishes to know more and act with information when choosing products or choosing which issue to tackle – the US Department of Labor’s List of Goods Produced by Child labor or Forced (slave) Labor (publicly available in pdf format). The dry checklist gives only a cursory glance – it [...]
Visualization for Advocacy
Nigel Holmes’ illustrations for the Citizens Guide to the Airwaves Advocacy groups today need direct control over the way data is presented, often creating custom visualizations to communicate about systemic issues. Tom Longley of Tactical Tech introduced me to his group’s beautiful guide to information visualization for advocacy (available for download in pdf) – a [...]
Posted in conviviality, visualization 1 Comment
Radical Traceability
Small and independent producers can benefit from the Internet’s Long Tail and on-demand manufacturing to find supply and demand for their products. Now, they can also count on radical traceability in the form of Myfab.com, a website that combines user-contributed design with the ability to follow each step in the manufacturing process once a product [...]
Hijacking Ads
Last month at LUCID I had the honor of opening for Ji Lee, a Google employee who was discovered because of his brilliant guerilla advertisements or ‘hijackings’ as he calls them. He is responsible for The Bubble Project, a simple and thoroughly successful adbusting campaign where bubble stickers placed on posters invite crowd commentary. It [...]
Posted in augmented reality, free & open, guerilla, marketing Leave a comment
Evening Ware
As a frequent attendee of computational couture/fashionable technology/wearable computing events, I’ve grown suspicious that computers could become a seamless extension of Fashion. Until Thursday, when I was lucky enough to attend Diana Eng‘s runway show at Eyebeam Atelier. Her line explores many (by now) traditional techniques – electroluminescent wires, inflatables, computer-generated patterns, the ubiquitous LEDs [...]
Posted in fashion Leave a comment
Fashion without Trash
The fashion industry is the poster child for un-sustainable practices, as we’ve already seen from the myriad of social and environmental problems plaguing the cotton trade. Fashion designers share the responsibility, because they are so remote from the means of production – usually outsourced to Southeast Asia, Africa or South America – that their designs [...]
Posted in 2d, 3d, fabrication, fashion, supply chain Leave a comment
Heat Local
Last week John took me to see Highland Wood Energy, Scotland’s largest biomass heating company. While the idea of burning wood is not particularly new, modern chip and pellet furnaces provide a uniquely sustainable solution for regions with a natural overabundance of wood (whether from natural growth or industrial waste). In particularly isolated regions like [...]
Posted in maps, supply chain Leave a comment
Capacitors from the Congo