Loved this video - Twiggy used in video for psychedelic band The Chocolate Watchband's 'Sweet Young Thing'.
Art - An interesting interview with Mega-Patron Simon Mordant on Remaking Sydney's MCA & taking Charge of Australia's Venice Biennale Pavilion.
Nice resource - Review of and sort-of guide to the Universal DIgital Format Registry which was intended as a single, comprehensive source for information about file formats, with particular attention to requirements for archiving and preservation. It draws on the well-regarded PRONOM from the UK’s National Archives and the ill-fated Global Digital Format Registry (GDFR) from a number of institutions, including OCLC and Harvard.
Global Innovation Index 2012 full report pdf
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| http://www.museepata.org/oracle.html |
A fantastic coincidence this week was stumbling into Alfred Jarry's mad world of pataphysics for the first time in many years. The first was an exhibition of the works of 5 patamechanical practitioners at Musee Patamechanique - amazing stuff - the second was a listening again to'Dub Housing' by Pere Ubu which I had last owned about 20 years ago - again simply amazing
Book- Open-Source Everything Manifesto Robert David Steele. "What all this boils down to is that normal average human beings, when they share information openly with one another and engage in respectful deliberative dialog, always, without exception, arrive at better conclusions than experts or elites who rely on “secret” information and generally have hidden agenda enabled by secrecy combined with public ignorance and apathy." Robert David Steele.
Book - Taxidermy and Zoological Collecting, by William T. Hornaday and W. J. Holland, 1894. A Project Gutenberg EBook. "The rapid and alarming destruction of all forms of wild animal life which is now going on furiously throughout the entire world, renders it imperatively necessary for those who would build up great zoological collections to be up and doing before any more of the leading species are exterminated. It is already too late to collect wild specimens of the American bison, Californian elephant seal, West Indian seal, great auk, and Labrador duck. Very soon it will also be too late to collect walrus, manatee, fur seal, prong-horn antelope, elk, moose, mountain sheep, and mountain goat..."
This was kinda nice - Small Business Uses Crowdfunding; jellybeans to spread tolerence message.Diversity Jellybeans look like ordinary jellybeans, but they have a secret “You can’t determine what is on the inside by simply looking at the outside.” A red jellybean might taste like licorice and a black jellybean might taste like coconut. It’s always a surprise with thirty-six flavor and color combinations. “Many schools use them as part of their anti-bullying and teaching tolerance curriculum,” said Tracy.
This week I went to the Social Media Day event here in Sydney organised as a global event by Mashable. It proved to be an interesting day and I enjoyed the @TimNoonan talk about Fleksy a text input system designed for people with visual impairments and also his comments about the importance of implementing web and media design for those with visual and hearing impairment now but also because there is a vested intrest for all of us as we are also rapidly growing old and may need to access these features to continue using the web and social media in the ways we have become accustomed.
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| http://www.gizmag.com/case-of-bass-upcycled-luggage-sound-systems/23134/ |
I thought these were a really good example of re-design - brothers Ezra and Alex Cimino-Hurt up-cycle old suitcases into stylish and powerful Case of Bass boomboxes.
Paper - Urban Planning - Addressing concentrations of disadvantage: policy, practice and literature review - Australia. Looks at the processes that lead to concentrations of disadvantage, particularly the roles played by housing market processes and by government policy or programs (‘causes’). Secondly The processes that contribute to spatial disadvantage—that is, the negative consequences for residents of living in an area of concentrated disadvantage (‘consequences’). lastly urban policy responses to concentrations of disadvantage.
Post - Urban Planning - The History of Adventure playground and its arrival in 70s & 80s by James Trainor
Post - Education - Gaming - While game-based learning is gaining market share in discussing educational change there is still some confusion about how we define the different terms associated with the use of games and game principles in the classroom. This post by Lucas outlines some of the main points of discussion while the older blogs cover plenty of other areas related to gaming and learning. see more
Japan has found a large deposit of rare earth minerals in its Pacific seabed, enough to supply its hi-tech industries for more than 200 years, a scientist said. see more
I thought this was a really nice design solution to a problem - the lack of bone marrow donations, particularly given the need to match types exactly for transplant - Graham Douglas comes up with placing a sign-up kit in Band-Aid box so when cut your finger you dab blood on swab drop it in envelope and post it off to be tested for donation possibilities at a centralised agency ... see article
