Field notes from skytrain and subway- October 25, 2007 Another set of field notes is posted to my Flickr. The skytrain and subway form a loop around much of central Bangkok, the skytrain in the more highly developed central parts of town, east along Sukhumvit road and north to Jatujak (both a park and a major market) and south to Sapaan Taksin ("sapaan" means bridge and this one goes over the Chao Praya to Thonburi, "Taksin" here is pronounced differently from the former prime minister and refers to the king who united Siam and recovered from the..http://www.metamanda.com/blog/archives/2007/10/field-notes-from-skytrain-and.html "right-brained" or "left-brained"- October 23, 2007 Look at the animation before reading the text. It's kind of a cool optical illusion. I'm not sure if I buy that it's at all an accurate test of brain hemisphere dominance though. (It told me I was right-brained.) (You can will it to switch directions, which I did compulsively.) (Now my head hurts.) via techyum.http://www.metamanda.com/blog/archives/2007/10/rightbrained-or-leftbrained.html green design round-up- October 23, 2007 roundup: Core77 design blog has been awesome about posting the green design stuff lately. A few inspirational things there include the seven step green product life cycle, a great check list of best practices: innovation the right materials clean and green production effective distribution low-impact use made to last avoiding the landfill Another checklist - hey they're useful -- comes from their notes on a session at Connecting '07, where Chris Hacker gives everyone a list of questions..http://www.metamanda.com/blog/archives/2007/10/green-design-roundup.html Things that are tactilely, materially, and kinetically wonderful- October 23, 2007 I feel like this faucet light that glows with the water temperature has been talked about quite a lot. It does seem like an obvious thing to make, maybe too obvious for "researchers", but still cool. Now you can actually get one. Despite the really dry tone, this media lab project with cheap giveaway sensors sounds like a Burning Man sorta thing to me: "One of the major challenges in interactive media is to find a way to build efficient and causal interactive environments through which large.http://www.metamanda.com/blog/archives/2007/10/things-that-are-tactilely-mate.html typo-graphics- October 22, 2007 Tonya and pqbon a while back (at the end of September) linked over to a super-cute free skull font. Perfect for Halloween! And check out Si Scott's beautiful, sexy, typographic and graphic design work. The body as form, as mass and line and shading -- as object -- has never looked so beautiful. And his swirlies are niiiice.http://www.metamanda.com/blog/archives/2007/10/-tonya-and-pqbon-a.html oh, the things we care to map...- October 22, 2007 This is the first of, I think, multiple entries on maps and mapping. It's been on my mind lately. In a workshop that I once helped coordinate, one of my co-coordinators had the clever idea to have people draw memory maps of the previous day. I really liked seeing the diverse visualizations of the day's experiences that we saw coming out of the different groups. Janice Caswell does "drawings and installations represent mental maps, an investigation of the mind's peculiar ways of organizing...http://www.metamanda.com/blog/archives/2007/10/oh-the-things-we-care-to-map-2.html DIY round-up- October 22, 2007 From the near future laboratory, I found out about these lilypad arduinos, made specifically for wearable applications. You can even wash them! (Carefully and "at your own risk".) And you can get sensors and peripherals, including a vibrating bit. The picture doesn't give you a good idea of scale, but the thing is about 2 inches in diameter, and surprisingly affordable. Though MAKE claims the chumby is for sale finally, it didn't seem that way when I actually checked out their website....http://www.metamanda.com/blog/archives/2007/10/diy-roundup.html craft round-up- October 22, 2007 Sometimes, I wanna drop out of grad school and just knit some really really cool stuff. I have some great quilt ideas too! But alas, as long as I'm at the computer all the time, I remain a mediocre knitter. For the time being, I am just a fan girl of some of these amazing craft people. Much of this is culled from the CRAFT blog, which I am starting to like even better than the MAKE blog. I need to write a post about the distinction between art, craft, and DIY, and the possibility that crafty..http://www.metamanda.com/blog/archives/2007/10/crafty-stuff-sometimes-i-wanna.html feminist round-up- October 21, 2007 This stuff is all a little old, as in the discussions have died down, but still interesting... There was a righteous feminist furor in late August over Cosmo's "gray rape" article (in which everyone mentioned clearly said "no", so... what's gray about those rapes again). Amanda Marcotte points out one possible reason for equivocating with terms like "gray rape," - victim cooties: "It's an odd mental trick, this need to feel that a victim is only a victim if she labels herself as such, and then.http://www.metamanda.com/blog/archives/2007/10/feminist-roundup.html technology projects for the "other 90%"- October 21, 2007 AFrigadget covers a project to bring more basic-but-robust vehicles to villages in Africa that could really benefit from them. "While there is little possibility of providing piped water and electricity to most rural communities in the near future, basic Human and Animal Powered Vehicles - or HAPV's (see HAPV MODELS) - could make this task far quicker and easier. Fitted with a solar panel that charges a 12 volt battery under the driver's seat, the "HAPPY" becomes an independent, sustainable..http://www.metamanda.com/blog/archives/2007/10/-afrigadget-covers-a-project.html |