Olinda
Olinda is a prototype digital radio that has your social network built in, showing you the stations your friends are listening to. It’s customisable with modular hardware, and aims to provoke discussion on the future and design of radios for the home.
Borrowing from the social aspects of the web (how people consume, share and react to media on the internet) as well as the interchangeability of data via APIs (the radio has a hardware API) and the understanding of a strong product ecosystem (iPod) Olinda is poised to open a multitude of discussions. As consumer electronics get smarts we can look forward to some of the interactions we expect from the web and highly specialized devices to move down to our simpler gadgets, like radios.
Olinda was created by Shultze & Webb for BBC Audio & Music Interactive R&D.
Paulville, where like minded people come together
The goal of Paulville.org it to establish gated communities containing 100% Ron Paul supporters and or people that live by the ideals of freedom and liberty. The first of many, I am sure, Paulvilles is located in West Texas.
The first Paulville based community purchace of land has happened! This land is in western texas a short distance from Dell City, Texas. The land is a 50 acre chunk of land, it is flat and level and ready to be developed. We have had a couple members that went to check out the area and took many photos of the area.
great hair at the polygamous cult
What is not explained in any of the news reports so far is what membership of a polygamous cult could possibly offer its female members. Yet pictures showing the women and girls being bussed from the sect’s headquarters have shed light on at least one unlikely advantage – great hair. As the women were taken into custody and investigators started searching their home, they each sported elegant quiffs, complicated plaits or multiple buns; hair so intricately woven that one hairdresser has called it “classic couture”.
from the Guardian
most photographed barn in america
To follow up Deron’s post on views of earth from space I submit a most photographed thing/place on earth.
Moulton Barn (seen above) is discussed in Don DeLillo’s White Noise as Jack and Murray travel to visit The Most Photographed Barn in America
There were 40 cars and a tour bus in the makeshift lot. We walked along a cowpath to the slightly elevated spot set aside for viewing and photographing. All the people had cameras; some had tripods, telephoto lenses, filter kits. A man in a booth sold postcards and slides — pictures of the barn taken from the elevated spot.
“No one sees the barn,” he said finally.
A long silence followed.
“Once you’ve seen the signs about the barn, it becomes impossible to see the barn.”
pixel pour
Physical-Digital hybrids are a continuing fascination of mine. Pixel pour is only a hybrid in the visual sense but it asks the right questions and presents the ideas of a mixed reality in terms of adding digital to the “real” world rather than trying to virtualise it.
A wonderful instance of hybrid realities. Here, of course, the pixels are materialized through some medium that is not electronic and the hybridity is more about a semantic cross-over from pixel worlds of electronic games to the real world.
markedly vulgar, transcends the limits of simple bad taste and offends the sensibility of viewers
BANNED! Tom Ford eyewear ads as reported in WWD
Italy’s advertising watchdog, the Institute for Advertising Self-Discipline (IAP), has banned Tom Ford Eyewear ads from national media. A close-up photo of a woman wearing the brand’s sunglasses with a man’s finger in her mouth was deemed by IAP to be “markedly vulgar” and, as such, it “transcends the limits of simple bad taste and offends the sensibility” of viewers.
via search & destroy
LOLvant Garde
LOLvant Garde combines contemporary art and LOLs. This one is for Mary
oh shiit
oh shit!
The single serving site ohshiit.com tracks the google results for various permutations of the popular phase “oh shit”.
Clusterflock’s contribution – oh shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit – 50 (currently zero ohshiit/google results for that one)
Crayola Crayons are better now
Crayola released some new updated colors today. Some colors got kicked out of the color club but I can’t find which ones. And I can’t find the color to name-of-color list. The crayola wikipedia page needs to be updated!
The 2008 “Kids Choice Colors” include:
famous – American Idol and shows like it inspired this hue, as kids believe they can become celebrities just like everyday people who become stars
super happy — kids don’t want to worry, they just want to be happy — “super happy” — as their color says and they wish the same for others, too
awesome – means kids think school is cool and getting good grades feels awesome;
“fun in the sun” — riding bikes, playing soccer, skateboarding, and gymnastics – kids said this color means exercise and keeping fit are important … and fun!
giving tree — it’s a colorful truth that kids are thinking green, too, and want to play a part in protecting the Earth
bear hug – a hue of harmony as kids want their homes to feel warm and loving just like a great big bear hug
happy ever after — kids want to make a difference and create Cinderella moments for others, so everyone’s story has a happy ending
best friends — this shade of purple reveals who kids’ real BFFs are – their parents – and spending time with them is what they enjoy most
picture from Crayola 64 Box on flickr
Let’s send bearded kids to Antarctica
The Natural History Museum in London has an exhibit that features Antarctic qualities such as 24 hour darkness and frigid cold temperatures. Ice Station Antarctica challenges kids to see if they are up to the challenges faced in the extreme Antarctic environment. The bearded kids are from posters advertising the exhibition, shot by Paul Thompson, whose work is really quite stunning. Why do the kids have beards? Don’t all arctic and antarctic explorers have beards?
Collaborative crosswords
CUBIST LITERATURE posts partially completed crosswords to Flickr where friends use the notes feature to complete them
Clusterflockers, please do not blog yourself to death
New York Times article about the high pressure world of blogging for dollars and the associated health risks. Death, heart attacks, sleep disorders – oh my.
They work long hours, often to exhaustion. Many are paid by the piece — not garments, but blog posts. This is the digital-era sweatshop. You may know it by a different name: home.
PrintBall printer
PrintBall is a large format printer that uses paintballs as ink and a robotic paintball gun as the printhead. Currently in Dulbin shooting at the plate glass windows in the front of the gallery.
Cable News Reporters
reportercaps.com is a collection of screen-captures of cable news reporters. Sabrina has collected over 170,000 images of our beloved cable news reporters, with hundreds more submitted to the message boards.
German learns he killed his favorite author in World War Two
A German fighter ace has just learned that one of his 28 wartime ‘kills’ was his favourite author.
Messerschmidt pilot Horst Rippert, 88, said he would have held his fire if he had known the man flying the Lightning fighter was renowned French novelist Antoine de Saint-Exupery.
The fliers clashed in the skies over southern France in July 1944.
On the fold
Being above the fold is where the newspaper journalist wants to be. I like when a story falls on the fold.
Puddle
You know, that puddle should have its own blog
Puddleblog is a blog about a puddle
Airport Security
My 5 year old son pointed out that the passenger’s shoes cannot be removed. Then, we placed a deadly fingernail file underneath the passenger’s scarf, and neither the detector doorway nor the security wand picked it up. My son said “that’s the worst security ever!”. But it turned out to be okay, because when the passenger got on the Playmobil B757 and tried to hijack it, she was mobbed by a couple of other heroic passengers, who only sustained minor injuries in the scuffle, which were treated at the Playmobil Hospital.
via Amazon review of the Playmobil Airport Security playset by loosenut
the time is imprecisely twelve o’clock
‘It’s about time’ gives a rough account of the time using words to give a true reflection of how people view time.
niagara falls
On October 1st 1995, Robert Overacker, a 39-year-old man from California, went over the Canadian Horseshoe Falls on a single jet ski. Entering the Niagara River near the Canadian Niagara Power Plant, he started skiing toward the Falls. At the brink, he attempted to discharge a rocket propelled parachute that was on his back. It failed to discharge. His brother and a friend witnessed the stunt. His body was recovered by a tourists ship.
McCain
John McCain has got the K-Car credentials in that fine fine logo.
image via Matt Haughey
very big gmail
It’s in Russian, done by Saatchi Moscow and creates the familiar interface at a large scale.
Border Camping
The border between Mexico and Arizona has become a magnet for the full time Rv’er where thousands of raw acres of federal lands have been converted into parks called Long Term Visitor Areas (LTVA). For around $1 a day campers can purchase a LTVA visitors permit and camp for 14 days in a 28-day period. There are no hook-ups or electricity in the parks but there is generally a water outlet and sewer disposal located at various points. This minimal infrastructure is all that is required for the creation of self evolving cities of several hundred thousand residents.
These semi nomadic Americans that temporarily occupy the border zone are just an extreme example of both the sophistication of the recreational vehicles in which they live as well as the flexible attitudes toward home and what appears to most, on some level, homelessness. Living outside the realm of fixed address or property taxes those who live full time in their RV have a unique opportunity to be quite flexible in where exactly they fulfill their needs and desires. Similar to previous migrations out west for both land and opportunity, and to urban manufacturing centers for jobs, the move to the border zone is driven by more modern needs, in particular
the proximity to cheap pharmacies, clothing and dental service [in Mexico].
via PolarInertia
Wired.com Shreds
After being removed from YouTube the ‘Shreds’ videos are now being hosted by Wired. Kudos!
MoOM
The Museum of Online Museums is a project of Coudal Partners where”you will find links from our archives to online collections and exhibits covering a vast array of interests and obsessions.”
Comprised of three main sections -
The Museum Campus where the most interesting online presences of real world museums are located. Selection: Museum of Useful Things
The Permanent Collection points to collections of related to design and advertising. Selection: Plan59
Galleries, Exhibitions and Shows is where the really interesting stuff is. Selection: Gallery of Business Cards
