how sweet it was while it lasted! blogging may soon slip from my daily activities – i’ve been using google’s reader for a year now, and only recently i noticed that it was possible to make my favorite (‘starred’) items public, which places them into their own beautifully formatted albeit very vertical blog (mini-version above). on some days it doesn’t look very different from this hand-wrought blog of mine, and if i could add cross-linking and commentary it would be nearly identical.
with flat-pack all the rage, it seems like we are destined to make things that can compactly store themselves and pop into shape to serve our needs. two new advances demonstrate that you don’t always have to be the one that assembles it yourself: parisian researchers have developed miniature pieces of material that form three-dimensional enclosures when in response to water (above) while harvard scientists have developed electronics that fold themselves into three-dimensional configurations when exposed to heat (below).
via treehugger
the united states holocaust museum and google earth have partnered up to create a real monument to atrocity on earth – not one that is frozen in the past but one which testifies to the ongoing brutality around the world. first you have to download google earth, then you download the darfur layer, after which you can explore in detail all of the people and villages who have been destroyed in this long-ignored conflict. the experience starts with the image above, and by clicking on the hot spots you can see images, quotes and videos from the war. Below is an aerial image of a burning village.
interestingly you can expand on the existing data because every site has a window with links to external information. some of the additional information includes individuals’ quotes:
what this project does is go far beyond map-based mashups like flickr’s maps and real-time disaster visualizations by characterizing the data with real stories. now if only it could be extended into an on-going global witness to atrocities everywhere they happen, then we could transform the way history is written.
swimming is a wonderful sensory therapy, but most pools require chlorine or some other corrosive chemical to stay clean – except in europe, where total habitat has been making natural pools for twenty years, pools containing water gardens that keep the water clean through beneficial plants and microorganisms. now if only i had a big enough back yard…
via the new york times
when i saw philip de vellis’ anti-hillary ad on youtube i realized for the first time that user-generated content could transform politics. his pro-obama spoof is a carefully crafted overlay of the robotic clinton onto the orwellian world of apple’s ad. having been viewed at least 3 million times, it is just as influential as many high-cost mainstream-distributed ads on television. while user-generated often connotes amateur, the reality is that the most popular content is often very carefully crafted, and if not cinematically at least conceptually. for once, having studied art can directly serve towards political influence. people who know how to make movies and graphics are uniquely positioned to generate advertising that expresses our views. the skills we were taught can have a direct impact, and if i had to choose between advertising agencies and freelance artists, i have a bit more faith in the politics of the latter.
thanks to alex tingle’s flood maps i was able to create this animation of my house and global warming. each frame represents a sea level rise of 1 meter, and as you can see it doesn’t survive past 6 meters of so. on the positive side, my office seems to flood a little before.
via treehugger
patagonia’s DIY mocassins are an amazing product: made from leather scraps, delivered in pieces and it’s up to the buyer to stitch them together using provided thread in the perforated patterns. no wonder it’s only $30!
it’s everywhere: a chance we can replace the noisy, dangerous, dirty processes of production with biological growth. first germinating buildings, now clothing grown – actually fermented – from beer and wine, what next, electronics?