For the love of statistics....

... and for my friends who need pictures and diagrams to be able to understand numbers - you know who you are...

Tis the Season...

I pronounce the Silly Season... OPEN ~

Hannes Broecker - Drink Away The ArtExhibition in Dresden, Germany

"Forget about wandering through an art gallery and wondering if you’re the only one who has no idea what anything means. Hannes Broecker has brilliantly invited the cultural elite to grab a glass at an exhibition in Dresden, Germany, and drink away the art. Regardless of what we do or do not understand about art, we can all agree, it stimulates our senses. Broecker has aroused our sense of taste (not to mention eliminated the need of elbowing our way to the bar) by hanging flat, glass containers with a variety of cocktails in the exhibition space. As the night progressed, the levels of the multi-coloured infusions diminished. By the end of the event, the art, itself, ran dry, and empty drinking glasses were returned to where they were originally placed. By Andrew J Wiener."

via Coolhunter

‘under-construction sites’

"Fulton Fence is installed on the corner of Fulton Street and Broadway in Manhattan, New York and can be viewed 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The project is on of the three interventions that make the pilot Re:Construction public art program organized by the Downtown Alliance and the LMCC.

Project Description

Accents of orange and yellow plastic construction meshes, industrial caution lights, safety signage and the chain-link fencing that universally signify construction-in-progress will be collaged into a vibrant op-art mural bounding the water main retrofitting on Fulton Street. These treatments will be affixed in segments following the 10-foot long section frames of chain-link fencing that currently encircle the construction site. At the time of installation the team will establish a primary linear pattern along the line of the fence that combines 30 or more of these modules. As these modules get moved around by the contractors due to on-going construction needs, these new arrangements will create unpredictable patterns conveying the very history of the construction as it progresses.

As part of the piece, the team will continually be building a web-based project, which will become the location of an online intervention that seeks to parallel the construction of the physical site with the construction of a ‘space’ within the Internet. This digital destination takes the form of a continually scrolling web page as both an organizational tool and analog of strolling down the perimeter of the project on Fulton Street. Just as the physical installation weaves elements of vernacular construction materials into the frame of the fence, the website will embed media driven ‘interventions’: process documentation, location information, online widget mash-ups, and mobile downloads among others.

These two explorations – one architectural, the other online – seek to re-define ‘under-construction sites’ as expressive spaces in a city of ongoing transformation."

Fulton Fence . net

Cracks at the Tate

Would have loved to be there for the briefing meeting for the engineer who made this happen... Maybe Gehry should use the "But, your honor, its art!!" defense for the Stata Center case.

Doris Salcedo Shibboleth

Doris Salcedo’s Shibboleth is the first work to intervene directly in the fabric of the Turbine Hall. Rather than fill this iconic space with a conventional sculpture or installation, Salcedo has created a subterranean chasm that stretches the length of the Turbine Hall. The concrete walls of the crevice are ruptured by a steel mesh fence, creating a tension between these elements that resist yet depend on one another. By making the floor the principal focus of her project, Salcedo dramatically shifts our perception of the Turbine Hall’s architecture, subtly subverting its claims to monumentality and grandeur. Shibboleth asks questions about the interaction of sculpture and space, about architecture and the values it enshrines, and about the shaky ideological foundations on which Western notions of modernity are built.

In particular, Salcedo is addressing a long legacy of racism and colonialism that underlies the modern world. A ‘shibboleth’ is a custom, phrase or use of language that acts as a test of belonging to a particular social group or class. By definition, it is used to exclude those deemed unsuitable to join this group.

‘The history of racism’, Salcedo writes, ‘runs parallel to the history of modernity, and is its untold dark side’. For hundreds of years, Western ideas of progress and prosperity have been underpinned by colonial exploitation and the withdrawal of basic rights from others. Our own time, Salcedo is keen to remind us, remains defined by the existence of a huge socially excluded underclass, in Western as well as post-colonial societies.

In breaking open the floor of the museum, Salcedo is exposing a fracture in modernity itself. Her work encourages us to confront uncomfortable truths about our history and about ourselves with absolute candidness, and without self-deception.

more here...

that's very nanna of you

The Art of Botanical Illustration

A couple of christmas' ago, the hostess of the Orphan's Christmas Lunch I went to confessed that she was obsessed with sugar tongs and a particular collection of Royal Copenhagen china Given she was 27 and working at one of australia's best private contemporary art galleries, with a personal specialty in neon art, all the guest had a laugh at her very nanna-esque obsession. Well, time to confess, mine is botanical illustration. I find the illustrations much more expressive, beautiful and representative than any photograph. The Royal Botanic Gardens in Melbourne have curated an interesting collection here.

The Story of My Life

Two Dilbert's that sum things up...

Dematerializing Samples

A granite paving sample fell on my friend and co-worker Jooyeon's foot yesterday and bruised her. I don't think it she was using it for the purposes that the sample was issued, in fact I think she was using it to stabilize a book that she was photographing because she couldn't be bothered scanning, so maybe its the sample's way protesting its abuse. (I have been reading the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy). But the incident got me wondering if there was a better way to manage the millions of paving samples that we receive constantly - I request new ones for every project because its simply too hard to find the ones I want in the existing sample collection. And voila ~ the interior designers have already come up with a way of doing this...

"In 2002 the Chattanooga-based sustainable-design-services company Tricycle launched an alternative sampling option for the interiors industry; manufacturers outsource the process to the company, which produces and delivers extremely realistic paper samples—called SIMs—to specifiers instead of actual carpet slabs. The idea quickly took off and has become widely implemented (and widely imitated) in the industry. Tricycle estimates that in four years its service has saved about 26,000 gallons of oil and kept more than 155,000 pounds of waste out of landfills.

At this year’s NeoCon World’s Trade Fair, Tricycle launched a significant expansion of the program, called Tryk. Previously the company could only cre­ate samples of tufted carpet, but Tryk works with woven carpet as well as wall-coverings and fabrics. It also allows for different scales and larger sizes—and the image quality is improved. “We continue to move toward a more photorealistic image,” says Michael Hendrix, Tricycle’s creative director and chief brand officer. “If you could see an image from three years ago, the tufts looked flatter. We’ve been able to improve the perception of volume in the overall look.”

The company is also launching a new Web platform, which will be fully functional by January. “It’s more robust,” Hendrix says. “It’s giving more features to the user, and it’s actually better integrated with the business practices of manufac­turers.” The end result is an even more efficient, easy-to-use, and realistic tool for designers to sample materials—without wasting them."

Via Metropolis Mag

Pure Geography or perhaps Pure Landscape Architecture

Without Standards and Codes.
Oh to design without consideration for Public Liability.

El sendero by Teresa Moller

"Punta Pite is a 27-acre piece of land that follows the contours of a bay between Zapallar and Papudo, two sea towns located 93 miles north of Santiago, Chile. A residential development planned and built here between 2004 and 2006 takes its name from this place and is laid out in a way that surrenders to the power and beauty of the ocean. It was developed as a series of parts connected by a walking path, one part of which seems to be sculpted out of the existing cliffs, while the other part passes through a restored creed that were meant to create one single spatial experience of the site."

the Pruned article says it all...

All the world's problems...

"Vote for the Drivers of Change that you think will influence your area of work. Vote as many times as you like and add your own if you feel that a driver is missing." ...vote here

I love that the current one has STUPIDITY as a problem... its funny coz its true...

Pneumatic Anatomica

In the artist, Jason Freeny's words -
"After months of observations, dissections and a 25 minute intro to clown school, I have finally successfully mapped the inter workings of the domestic balloon dog."

via Boing Boing

StarSight : Useful Street Lighting

Not that normal street lights AREN'T useful, but this one is even more so as its a solar-powered street light and WiFi in one.

A StreetLight System consists of a kit that contains several components.

This kit is intended to be mounted on "one" pylon. Typically 11 "Lights" network with one central control.

The kit contains :

• Lamp - StarSight Lamp Model 1021 is the "Light" of the Street Light.
• Battery Subsystem - StarSight Battery Subsystem provides power when the sun has not been available for an extended period of time.
• Solar Array Subsystem - This is the main power source.
• StarSight Controller - This unit integrates charge controller, radio, cpu, and anti-theft into one unit.

Things not included:

• pylon due to its weight is supplied in country. The system supports a varity of pylon designs.

Developed by Kolam Partnership, Ltd and currently used in the Ivory Coast, Cameroon and the Congo.

via PingMag

ESCHEW EXCESS VERBIAGE

An old housemate of mine had the theory that people who really knew what they were talking about could explain anything very simply in a very short amount of time. A postgrad I know once summed this up as "the cocktail line" i.e. what you told people that you met at cocktail parties when they asked you what your phd was about and you only had 30seconds of their interest.

For us of the generation that want to know everything but have the patience of a newt.... 60 Second Lectures -

"Every spring and fall, the School of Art and Science faculty at the University of Pennsylvania take a minute out on Locust Walk to share their perspectives on topics ranging from human history and the knowable universe, to fractions and fly-fishing. While not every speaker makes it under the one-minute mark, they all deal with their chosen subjects with intellectual agility and wit." ... lectures from here

Bureau of Workplace Interruptions

"We harness interruptive technology to expose the secret possibilities of the workday. As a time-stealing agency, the Bureau of Workplace Interruptions works directly with employees to invisibly insert intimate exchange into the flow of the workday. Our promise is to create interruptions that challenge the needs of our users and the social and economic conditions of the modern workplace.

You know how receiving flowers at work can put a buzz on the rest of the day? So do we. That's why we create surprise, the kind that slices through the banal and opens up new places for your mind to wander. The ruptures we create are temporary spaces for open dialogue, invisible resistance, and general amusement. In short, we hope to invigorate some of the time you spend at work in order to create new experiences and possibilities outside the flow of capital."

Because, like, why not?

via Guerrilla Innovation

10 Mile Spiral

"A Gateway to Las Vegas"

I love this project. Its a great example of what I like to think of as Design "Science Fiction" noun a form of fiction that draws imaginatively on scientific knowledge and speculation in its plot, setting, theme, etc.

Benjamin Aranda and Chris Lasch propose, among other things, a "10 mile spiral" that will "serve two civic purposes for Las Vegas": First, it acts as a massive traffic decongestion device... by adding significant mileage to the highway in the form of a spiral. The second purpose is less infrastructural and more cultural: along the spiral you can play slots, roulette, get married, see a show, have your car washed, and ride through a tunnel of love, all without ever leaving your car. It is a compact Vegas, enjoyed at 55 miles per hour and topped off by a towering observation ramp offering views of the entire valley floor below.

Although, I think this project may be more suitable for Dubai, where Traffic Engineers reign supreme and drivers would rather keep driving round and round than slow down.

via BLDG BLOG

Internet messiness : Everything is Miscellaneous

Recently I refiled the office's "web images downloaded" folder into some sort of respectable order, like getting rid of folders called "michael" (created by michael) and attempting to set in place a system that educates the staff by osmosis - for example, project images are filed designer_project rather than 366621521_534ed7f150.jpg (i love flickr but it really becomes quite problematic when clients ask "where is that project?" and the response is "...????... your guess is as good as mine...????... europe somewhere?.. no wait, japan... but i think the designers were dutch...")

Then yesterday, while I was out of the office my boss was trying to find an image which he described as "you know, THAT image" followed by some tantie throwing when the image wasn't found and I started to think maybe I should reinstate the "michael" folder for the benefit of all the staff in the office who haven't yet learnt how to read michael's mind. Or perhaps design a way to tag all our images idiosyncratically to our hearts content so we don't have this problem anymore - I wish my technological talents were as advanced as my technological "If only's".

Anyway, I think I will buy this David Weinberger's book "Everything is Miscellaneous" for the office library.

Infrastructure as ART

Not that long ago I told an architect that I was working with we were never going to be able to "integrate" the 2ML water tank the engineers were proposing into the landscape and that perhaps we can convince the client to let the The Graffiti Project people turn in into an artwork instead. Today... while flickering for interesting water features, I came across the Valence Water Towers in France designed by Philolaos Tloupas in 1969 and I was ashamed as a designer that I have failed to see the possibility in the form of water towers and tanks. Australian designers can be so quick to label the French conservative and yet we are so far behind them...

FAKE trees

Indeed. why leave it up to nature to decide what trees should look like...

P-A-T-T-E-R-N-S design the Fake Plastic Trees in Hollywood

"Following the lineage of the Schindler house as an experiment in modern living in close relation to nature, our proposal "Fake Plastic Trees" is an attempt to investigate the formal, spatial and atmospheric potential of a vertically sustainable garden in synch with the most advanced technology for plant growth. The garden is composed of a branching circuitry network made of plastic PVC tubes. These tubes circulate and distribute water with a nutrient solution that nurtures aerial vegetation of different kinds. The section of the tubes diminishes as the trajectories they describe move up and away from the ground. The flow of water is induced by water pumps from several reservoirs located in the ground. Water is distributed directly to the plants base by pumping up from the reservoirs or indirectly down by dripping from the upper branches and then moistening down. Depending on the section of tubes, their capacity to carry more or less water, different scale of plants can grow from and within them. The artificiality of plants growing directly on water, the modulation and scaling of them as they detach from the ground, the dynamism of the branching and choreographed vegetation and its likely wind induced oscillation, and the occasional forms of animal life negotiating temporary shelter within the garden, amounts to an advanced living ecosystem that both challenges and amplifies the assumed relations between the architecture of The Schindler House and its surrounding “natural” environment."

via World Architecture News

Luna-resonant streetlights

i LOVE this idea by the Civil Twilight Design Collective that street lights can be ephemeral and respond to the the moonlight! this would be perfect for a water front project to highlight the connections to tidal movements and the moon etc... and it saves energy, bonus!

The idea won this year's Metropolis Next Generation ideas competition.

via The Underwire

the POOP house

In the Architect's (Andrew Maynard Architecture) words...

"No matter which way you look at it, building a house is never green. It takes vast quantities of materials with high levels of embodied energy and water and it creates a lot of waste. Even houses constructed from recycled materials often have an incredibly high embodied energy to implement. So we at Andrew Maynard Architects asked ourselves "what's the greenest building" and we concluded that the answer was "no building at all". But rather than be nihilistic about it we decided that a house should build itself through a lengthy period of assembling house hold waste. Through adopting similar structural logic employed at Stanford University the Poop house is a water structure that, over time, takes all household bio-waste, including human excrement and food, and slowly constructs the walls and roof. "...more here

Sounds fantastic in principle... but the ‘yuk factor’ is hard to overcome ... a bit like drinking recycled sewage - no scientific or health reason for it not being ok, just yuk.

pro·cras·ti·nate

pro·cras·ti·nate /proʊˈkræstəˌneɪt, prə-/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[proh-kras-tuh-neyt, pruh-] verb, -nat·ed, -nat·ing.

–verb (used without object)

1.	to defer action; delay: to procrastinate until an opportunity is lost.

–verb (used with object)

2.	to put off till another day or time; defer; delay.

The Procrastinator's Creed

1. I believe that if anything is worth doing, it would have been done already.

2. I shall never move quickly, except to avoid more work or find excuses.

3. I will never rush into a job without a lifetime of consideration.

4. I shall meet all of my deadlines directly in proportion to the amount of bodily injury I could expect to receive from missing them.

5. I firmly believe that tomorrow holds the possibility for new technologies, astounding discoveries, and a reprieve from my obligations.

6. I truly believe that all deadlines are unreasonable regardless of the amount of time given.

7. I shall never forget that the probability of a miracle, though infinitesmally small, is not exactly zero.

8. If at first I don't succeed, there is always next year.

9. I shall always decide not to decide, unless of course I decide to change my mind.

10. I shall always begin, start, initiate, take the first step, and/or write the first word, when I get around to it.

11. I obey the law of inverse excuses which demands that the greater the task to be done, the more insignificant the work that must be done prior to beginning the greater task.

12. I know that the work cycle is not plan/start/finish, but is wait/plan/plan.

13. I will never put off until tomorrow, what I can forget about forever.

14. I will become a member of the ancient Order of Two-Headed Turtles (the Procrastinator's Society) if they ever get it organized.

The Park at the Centre of the World

Five very delectable possibilities for Governer's Island in New York. The title of the competition amuses me, i always remember one of my friends telling me (after having lived in both countries) that Americans think they are the centre of the world and Australians think they are the only people in the world.

More here...

Avant Garde Dating

Why moms always think its a bad idea for their daughters to date artists....

"AVANT-GARDE DATING is a new experimental dating service for artists.

In contrast to traditional dating services, the primary aim of AVANT-GARDE DATING is not to match artists looking for a romantic/sexual relationship but to match artists who are interested in investigating issues associated with relationships.

In order to apply, individuals must explain how they will explore the conventions of monogamous love, challenge the idea of artistic collaboration and/or explore one of the other numerous stereotypes of human pairing.

Based on the application, the Dating Board will match artists with each other and three outstanding 'couples' will be rewarded a 1-week exhibition during the Art Forum in Berlin (Sep-Oct 2007) to further explore the concept of human partnering.

AVANT-GARDE DATING is a project by Wooloo, an artists-run organization based in Berlin, Germany."

via guerrilla innovation

Vision of Excess

Incredible photos from the Industrial Scars series by J. Henry Fair for Harper's Magazine

via the underwire

Global Cities at Tate Modern

"Global Cities looks at the changing faces of ten dynamic international cities: Cairo, Istanbul, Johannesburg, London, Los Angeles, Mexico City, Mumbai, São Paulo, Shanghai and Tokyo.

Exploring each city through five thematic lenses – speed, size, density, diversity and form – the exhibition draws on data originally assembled for the 10th International Architecture Exhibition at the 2006 Venice Biennale. This unique show presents existing films, videos and photographs by more than 20 artists and architects to offer subjective and intimate interpretations of urban conditions in all ten cities.

As Global Cities takes place in one of the focus cities, the exhibition uses London as a touchstone for comparison. New commissions by a group of six artists and architects – Nigel Coates; Zaha Hadid & Patrik Schumacher; Fritz Haeg; OMA*AMO/Rem Koolhaas; Nils Norman; and Richard Wentworth – explore the local context through issues such as sustainability, public space and social inclusion.

Density – the number of people living in a given area, usually expressed as people per square kilometre – is at the centre of public debate on the future growth of cities. Used as a planning tool, awareness of density can help to curtail over-development and overcrowding, or ensure that scarce urban land is not under-used, especially in areas with good public transport and social amenities. High density does not mean high-rise; large numbers of people can be accommodated in five- or six-storey buildings arranged in a compact and efficient manner, creating congenial places for living.

Good design can produce desirable neighbourhoods in cities across the world by balancing dense development with access to open space and good transport. Dense urban environments can create sustainable cities; more dispersed developments use up more land and need more infrastructure – water, gas, electricity, roads – with negative impacts on the environment. High density housing can be associated with poverty and overcrowding, especially in the slums of developing countries. However, good design can produce desirable neighbourhoods in cities across the world by balancing dense development with access to open space and good transport – as evident in some of the most successful neighbourhoods in London, Paris and New York.

The four models shown in this section compare, at the same scale, the number of people living within the administrative boundaries of four of the ten cities featured in the exhibition. The peaks show the highest residential densities, with the largest number of people concentrated in a square kilometre. They range from the high-density of Cairo and Mumbai to the more dispersed, but bounded London (contained by the Green Belt) and the sprawling Mexico City."

via Creative Review

09 “Shibuya was like a stroke.” — Alice.d

hitotoki|hee toe toe key|

noun 1. a single moment; one’s moment; a point in time.

hitotoki.org is a new literary site collecting stories of personal, singular experiences in cities worldwide.

Interesting idea, i would love to see a sister site to this called...

wabi sabi

a comprehensive Japanese world view or aesthetic centred on the acceptance of transience. The phrase comes from the two words wabi and sabi. The aesthetic is sometimes described as one of beauty that is "imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete" (according to Leonard Koren in his book Wabi-Sabi: for Artists, Designers, Poets and Philosophers)

"My emails have a life of their own"

ANYMAIL

Design & Concept: Carolin Horn Code: Florian Jenett Institute & Advisor: DMI Boston, Prof. Brian Lucid. Abstract "Anymails is a visualization of my received emails.

I have investigated how I can use natural metaphors to visualize my inbox, its structure and attributes. The metaphor of microbes is used. My objective is to offer the user another experience of his email world.

The project was developed during the MFA thesis “Natural Metaphor For Information Visuzalization” (thesis.zip, PDF, 7mb) at the Dynamic Media Intitute Boston in 2007.

The emails used in the prototype are read from the users local Apple Mail database. The prototype was built with Flash and Processing. The Anymails source code (OS-X 10.4.9 ppc) is available for download (2.5mb)."

via the underwire

Gorbachev is new face of Louis Vuitton

Following on from the simpsons in harpers bazaar... Gorbachev as the face of Louis Vuitton (!!)... soon, incoming world leaders will have to sign contracts with a life time ban on advertising.

via the underwire

Who says girls can't run?

we just need something decent to run towards!

location AMSTERDAM

heels AT LEAST 9CM

goal STILETTO RUN

first prize 10 000 EUROS

video here from the Virtual Shoe Museum

Simpsons @ Colette

i love the simpsons + i love fashion

= i WANT this copy of Hapers Bazaar "The Simpsons go to Paris with Linda Evangelista” “Models”: The Simpsons, Linda Evangelista, and various designers with Illustrations by Julius Preite. Marge lets down her hair for Versace. Lisa gives up her pearls for Alber Elbaz. Homer dresses as Karl Lagerfeld. Selma & Patty in Viktor & Rolf. Maggie rides around in Jean Paul Gaultier’s Birkin Bag."

sigh, and to be at the Colette exhibition in Paris with all the designers in matching outfits...

here for images of the images and the real outfits.

via NOTCOT

Wind to Light

Recently I was in windy Wellington for a 24hour design competition, where I was memerised by the colour of the water, highly amused by the proliferation (four) of strippers surrounding the School of Architecture and Design and informed that the Mayor had recently committed the city to Carbon Neutrality (more here) . Then I read about the Wind to Light project and thought... just maybe...

Artist Jason Burges Studio in onedotzero words
"this experimental site-specific installation illustrates alternative, sustainable ways of harnessing energy that will explore the power of the wind in the city, visualising it as an ephemeral cloud of light. the installation is custom built, using 500 mini wind turbines to generate power, which illuminates hundreds of mounted leds, creating firefly-like fields of light, with wind visually interpreted as electronic patterns across the installation. wind around the southbank generates the power, creating a unique and thought-provoking light art piece that will delight all ages. commissioned by riba london and onedotzero for architecture week 2007"

onedotzero presents: jason bruges studio wind to light in conjunction with riba london and southbank centre lightlab

Cigarettes, 2007
60x82”
Depicts 65,000 cigarettes, equal to the number of American teenagers under age eighteen who become addicted to cigarettes every month.

"Chris Jordan makes beautiful photographs he hopes will disgust you. His work, on display through July 31st at the Von Lintel Gallery in New York City, takes reports of large-scale waste and consumption out of the realm of statistics and places them squarely in front of our faces.

Chris Jordan is a Seattle-based photographic artist who portrays the detritus of our mass culture—piles of cell phones, aluminum cans, garbage, and the like. His work is exhibited widely in the US and Europe, and has been featured in print media, blogs, documentary films, and radio and television programs worldwide. Chris is also a father, husband, gardener, vegetarian, sometime jazz musician, and has an obsessive fascination with the sound of large Chinese gongs."

COLOUR > Movie Posters

Preface to COLOUR
I have a mild obsession with colour. I have a mild obsession with a lot of things I come in contact with, mostly for a short period of time (3-6months) and then it gets replaced with another mild obsession with something else more amusing.

In other words, I have a devoted and short attention span.

This thing with colour started in 2006 with a project where the idea for paving patterns and colours came from cities all over the world and seems to be ongoing, mainly because it has gone on to manifest itself in my shoe selection e.g. "Ohh~ I dont have green shoes. i MUST have those green shoes."


Dark and Fleshy: The Color of Top Grossing Movies is an interesting analysis of colours used for movie posters and the correlation to its rating.

via boing boing

Quotable Quotes

"It can be asked if the real history of architecture is not that of schemes which were never built;... and if there are not, in fact, two architectures, one of research and projects, the other of completed buildings - the second being but a weak echo of the first."

Michel Ragon Retrospective de la prospective architecturale

word of the day

tru·ism /ˈtruɪzəm/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[troo-iz-uh m]
noun a self-evident, obvious truth.

tau·tol·o·gy /tɔˈtɒlədʒi/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[taw-tol-uh-jee]

–noun, plural -gies.

1.	needless repetition of an idea, esp. in words other than those of the immediate context, without imparting additional force or clearness, as in “widow woman.”

2.	an instance of such repetition.

3.	Logic. a. a compound propositional form all of whose instances are true, as “A or not A.” b. an instance of such a form, as “This candidate will win or will not win.”

TIME 50 Best Websites 2007

I like lists. Plus this one promises hours of WWILF.

a world of paper

Paper toys. As part of my quarter life crisis I am reliving my childhood by finding all the fun things I used to play with when I was a child, and all these other fun things that I DIDNT play with as a child too. I particularly like the Thanksgiving Turkey in this collection.

Harry Potter in 100 words or less

This was too funny to not post.

NB. I have not read the 7th Harry Potter (nor the 6th) as I felt quite satisfied to just skim the plot summary on wikipedia and avoid the lines full of wizards at the bookstores as well as not be seen with the book in my hands which would totally destroy my reputation as someone with taste.

Before the publication of the seventh and final Harry Potter book, BBC News asked avid Harry Potter fans to tell the entire story of the six books so far in 100 words or fewer. Vote for your favourite here

1) HANNAH, SWINDON

"By the way, Harry," said Professor Dumbledore halfway through book six, "a prophecy says that you alone can defeat evil Lord Voldemort. That's why he keeps trying to kill you. You must destroy all seven pieces of his soul, and you've got one book left to do it in. Don't expect any help from me; I'll be dramatically murdered in two chapters' time. Besides that, there's exams to pass and hormonal stirrings to contend with. Now do you wish you'd gone to that Muggle comprehensive?"

2) KATE, BERKSHIRE

Psychiatric report:
Harry is a teenage boy who thinks he is a wizard. He explains that when he was a baby he sent the most evil wizard of all into hiding. He believes this wizard murdered his parents. His aunt informs me they died in a car accident.

Harry reports attending a wizard school although he thought he was a muggle (?) before then. His friends at this school who have helped prevent him from being murdered by evil wizard several times.

He believes that both his ex-murder suspect godfather and headmaster have both recently been murdered by evil wizard.

3) EMMA PEARSON, NOTTINGHAM

BOOK ONE:
Harry: :D
BOOK TWO:
Harry: :)
BOOK THREE:
Harry: :|
BOOK FOUR:
Harry: :/
BOOK FIVE:
Harry: :(
BOOK SIX:
Harry: :'

4) GILLIAN IVERSON, HONG KONG

Harry and his posse gots ta eliminate gangsta V-Man and his evil yet sexeh followers lest they destroy the world.

V-Man has already got Harry's posse members shot down (family, godfather, Dumble-D), and it's a-time for revenge!

Harry and crew has got to cruise 'round the hood to find V-Man's treasures to destroy, and only then can they take him on and blast his ass! Pow!

Hermione and Ron want to hook-up, but feel that Harry's hollah is more important at the moment, which is way cool, but Harry ain't bovvered, because he knows that luuurve will get him through.

5) POLINA RASSOLOVA, ST PETERSBURG, RUSSIA

CV

Name: Harry Potter

Education: Six years at Hogwarts

Relationship status: Single, but kissed 2 prettiest girls at Hogwarts

Marks: Got a magical scar

Achievements: Held philosopher's stone in his hands and didn't even wish to be immortal. Found a secret chamber, killed a giant snake and destroyed one of the horcruxes (pieces of Voldemort's nasty soul). Became mates with a werewolf. Won the Triwizard championship. Was the head of a group of teenagers eager to break school rules. Faced Voldemort three times and survived.

Hobby: Excellent Quidditch player (Seeker)

Ambition: Find and destroy Voldemort and all of his horcruxes

6) MARIE, ALYESBURY

Cinderfella discovers he's a wizard and trots off to wizard school where he aces in broomsticks and being Mr popular. The wicked wizard, who tried to kill him as a baby, returns from half dead and tries again only to be defeated by pluck, luck and the togetherness of giants and friendly centaurs.

Repeated attacks by the evil wizard and teenage hormones ensure gripping adventures but the wizard community buries its head in the sand until the battles of good and evil affect the politicians and the nanny state clamps down.

Evil legacies, puzzles and exams, love and angst await.

via BBC News

climate change is the new black

Its refreshing to see a good looking hat with an design rationale and without a feather or fake flower in sight. Perhaps this look can replace the facination with facinators at this years Melbourne Cup. Its from a fashion fair in Dusseldoft, Germany - i suspect its the CPD Dusseldorf but can't seem to find anymore information.

via BBC News : The day in pictures

The Swap Meat

i LOVE this idea... in the words of the Coudal Partners, who are a design, advertising and interactive studio in Chicago, that edit the site as an ongoing experiment in web publishing, design and commerce.

The Swap Meat

Periodically, we receive unsolicited stuff in the mail. We love getting it, and most of the time we return the favor by sending back some of the stuff we've made. So we're trying to do the same thing on a slightly larger scale in an attempt to make lots of people as happy as we are when the FedEx guy shows up unannounced. Featured items are listed on these pages. Read the four things that can happen when you send us something for swapping and learn how you can get involved. The Swap Meat has been extended through the summer, so keep 'em coming and help to keep Bryan busy."

via MoCo Loco

Rice Paddy Art

I always considered the japanese as pretty OTT people but even I was surprised at this. Apparently "...every year since 1993, farmers in the town of Inakadate in Aomori prefecture plant purple and yellow-leafed kodaimai and green-leafed tsugaru-roman in just the right arrangement that when they begin to grow, works of art emerge...". If only my contractors in Melbourne were as precise with their setouts on my projects as these Japanese farmers.

via the Underwire
more images here

boys and their wheels

Came across the General Carbuncle (2006) project by UK artist James Ford on designboom and thought... it needs to be parked at Slovenian artist Matej Andraz Vogrincic's Carpark-Members Only (2000) project.