The Church of St. Pierre has stirred debate among Parisian academics about the ethics of finishing a work left behind by a legendary architect.

Looks a lot like the Japanese sewer photos from last year. --MM

1. Rising cost of Energy
2. Experimental monetary system
3. Where are we in the Economic cycle?
4. Exodus of money from West to East
5. Decline of the American Empire

Great. --MM

Now that Macs are PCs -- we mean really real PCs that run Windows n' stuff -- the beige box world is having a harder time than ever keeping peoples' interest when their inner John Hodgman longs to walk on the wild side and snap up a Macintel. Re-enter Microsoft: the company's latest kick is, of course, vertical integration (see: Zune), so it should come as no surprise that Redmond's supposedly been issuing a strict aesthetic best-practices kit, called the Windows Vista Industrial Design Toolkit, to PC OEMs like HP and Gateway; apparently Microsoft's got a team of twenty some-odd designers working to guarantee the first round of Vista boxes are "objects of pure desire," sure to re-obsess jejune PC-buyers like it was Win95 all over again, even in spite of Cupertino's best laid plans. The claim is that Microsoft is in no way enforcing these guidelines or requiring PC manufacturers to pretty up their boxes, but even if they were, well, given how often Windows boxes tend to get hit with the fugly stick it might not be such a bad thing.

[Thanks, CoreyTheGent]

SUMO LOUNGE REVIEW!!! Andrew over at Sumo Lounge sent over this black Omni and Otto about a month ago, and i've been test driving it and having others come play with it as well. It is extremely comfortable for sitting and working outside i've found ~ a bit large for people crammed for space, but i love relaxing and working out here on the patio, where i'm posting this from. For the full verdict see below.

So here's my breakdown ---

So lazy. --MM

While a number of European countries are moving full-steam ahead on wave power development, the idea of harnessing ocean waves to generate electricity has remained a concept here in the US. That may be changing soon, as New Jersey-based Ocean Power Technologies Inc. has applied for a permit from the US Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to build a 50 megawatts (MW) wave power installation off the Oregon coast. If approved, this would be the first utility-scale wave energy project in the country.

One step closer to harnessing the rotation of the earth as an energy source. --MM

Example projects made with visual programming software, vvvv. It looks like a mutant offspring of Max/MSP, Processing, and NodeBox. My absolute favorite feature is that it looks like you can submit screenshots of works in progress to the vvvv website directly from the application interface. --MM

The increasing number of obese Americans means two things for radiology: first, many are too heavy to be safely accommodated by scanning devices. Second, more people have so much body mass, the rays can't penetrate enough to yield quality imaging.

Scott Snibbe makes big, simple biofeedback amplifiers. --MM

"Sixteen Needs Met by Ingenuity" - Popular Science 1927. I like the pedal powered merry-go-round and the high speed bread toaster - Link.

See link for fabulous German hay gun. --MM

Wal-Mart Stores, admitting defeat in Germany's giant but cutthroat retail market, announced Friday that it would sell its 85 stores here to a German retailer, incurring a loss of $1 billion.

The decision to sell out to the Metro Group came two months after Wal- Mart sold its stores in South Korea and amounts to a rare retreat by the world's largest retailer from its breakneck global expansion.

In Germany, analysts say, Wal-Mart never got traction in a market characterized by unrelenting price competition, well-established discounters and the cultural resistance of German shoppers to hypermarkets, which sell fresh vegetables a few aisles away from lawn mowers. (THE NEW YORK TIMES)

(Nelson voice) Ha, ha! --MM

For the nomadix relaunch project i have coached 3 students from the school of art Hyperwerk (Basel, Switzerland). The goal was to design a new audiovisual content of a previous installation: nomadix. The Nomadix installation is composed of seven inflatable, motorized “screens” with a shape of a cone. The devices are made of a beamer, a computer, speakers, and a motor for each of the two axis of rotation.

Following students participated in the project: Markus Abt | Jan Dusek | Leander Herzog.

Non-rectangular projection screens are yummy. --MM

Lots of the DigitalGlobe satellite photos around the world have small lens flares like this one in Reykjavik which appear to be simply the sun reflecting off a shiny surface - no big deal there.

But reader Andrew Grannis brought our attention to this example of one such flare in Cincinnati, which is much larger than any other examples we’ve seen. If this is the result of a reflective object on the ground then it would have to be the size of a field. Any suggestions?

Thanks: Andrew Grannis

Categories: Weirdness and Ohio

View in Google Earth

Solar power installation, perhaps? --MM

Check out Flickr user 0_darcy_0’s awesome SpokePOV animations posted in the adafruit flickrpool…I can’t imagine anyone recognizing Duck Hunt from 50 ft away but it looks great anyways! This rodent one is my favorite.

Get your SpokePOV kit here and post up some pics to the flickr pool, OK?

I think I owned one of these when I was 8 or 9, but it was yellow. --MM

Spotted on the Wooster pool in Flickr

From geerard's Flickr stream, taken in Silesian castle Lubiaz. --MM

Pick a card, solve a problem. --MM

Martin Wittfooth (previously) has updated his site with a whole buncha new paintings and ink drawings, and they are fantastic. His work will be on display at La Luz de Jesus Gallery in L.A. from August 4-27.

Setpixel is a collection of articles written by a small group of like-minded individuals. The general focus of the articles contained in the site are on interactive installations, aesthetics through computation, reactive experiments, creative computer vision, et cetera.

The direction of the collection of writings will be affected by the independent opinions and directions of the selected artists. These authors were carefully selected because of their works, thoughts, and outlook on the topics above. If you would like to contribute and feel like you have something to contribute to the viewers, please email us.

Current Authors: Charles Forman, Media Artist. New York, USA. Chris O'Shea, Digital Artist. London, UK. Chris Sugrue, Artist, Designer, Programmer. New York, USA. Christian Giordano, Interactive Designer/Developer. Milan, Italy / London, UK. Cristobal Mendoza, Media Artist. Philadelphia, US. Glen Murphy, Programmer Designer Artist. Melbourne, Australia. Josh Nimoy, Undefined. Brooklyn, US. Ubi De Feo, Creative Developer. Amsterdam, Nederlands.

Originally from artificialeyes.tv reblog by exiledsurfer reBlogged on Jul 27, 2006, 7:48PM

Tessellated folding by Eric Gjerde.

A whole blog devoted to these! --MM

Esa writes - "Here's a huge hot air balloon made from grocery bag plastic. It generated enormous lifting power, so much that several persons couldn't hold it down. It flew for 200km in winter even though the heating source "failed". The balloon continued to fly being heated by the winter sun." - Link.

Insightful Slashdot post explaining MySpace's apparent natural niche. --MM

George W. Bush WTF candy. Extra-Fancy candy for when life Extra-Sucks.

Via a seekrit submittor, news that Microsoft Flight Sim and Navteq are teaming up for the next in the series of Flight Simulator. This is beyond awesome:

Microsoft is using data from NAVTEQ to create much of the world in "Flight Simulator X". NAVTEQ data such as road network information, ferry landings, railroads, detailed water information (e.g. oceans, rivers, lakes, harbors, etc.), parks, golf courses, and recreational areas, enhances the "Flight Simulator X" user experience.

...

Appropriate for a Superman game, perhaps? --MM

BibliOdyssey regularly features gorgeous illustrations from old books. --MM

What's even more interesting is what happens when those signals get to the striate cortex - all kinds of space-time FFT goodness! --MM

I'm mostly reblogging this for the awesome logo, but I sure the service is worth a look too. --MM

While Os Gemeos has been traveling the world doing projects in such countries as Japan, Cuba, China, Greek, Italy, Spain, Germany, South America, USA, until today they've never done a formal show in their hometown of San Paulo, Brazil. Today, their Twin Towers exhibition opens at the Fortes Vilaça Gallery.. The expo consists of a huge art installation on the first floor, eight paintings on the second floor. Finding the gallery won't be difficult as the twins have painted the entire building with a big yellow head.

(Thanks, Endrigo)

The $100 laptop, aka the One Laptop Per Child project just got its first major order - 1 million for Nigeria.

I would love to own one, if its internals were swapped with a MacBook. These things will be a serious nerd fetish item when they become available, and a serious nerd retro-fetish item in 20 years. --MM

Though President Bush has only issued one formal veto of legislation, he has been prolific with signing statements. The American Bar Association Blue Ribbon Task Force described President Bush's use of Signing Statements as presenting a challenge to the separation of powers. NPR Senior News Analyst Daniel Schorr explains.

Seems like a total no-brainer to me. --MM

According to research by Sheilas' Wheels, a UK car insurance company which had previously designed a female-friendly seatbelt, 82 percent of women feel safer with someone sitting in the car beside them and nearly a half don't like driving alone in the dark.

The solution they propose is "Buddy on Demand," a blow-up man that fits in the glove box, appears at a flick of a switch and is swiftly deflated when his services are no longer requested.

"We're not saying that an inflatable man is the only answer but we do hope it will give women extra confidence and make journeys in the dark less fearful," said Jacky Brown, the spokeswoman for Sheilas' Wheels.

My tip? use it in combination with the inflatable safety belt. It could be a commercial success in the US where drivers have resorted to placing inflatable dolls in the passenger seat to avoid fines for driving alone in car pool lanes.

Via Reuters, the only website to report the news. Anyone can confirm that this is not a hoax?

Just like the auto-pilot in Airplane!. --MM

Little-known fact about Poland: this sort of thing happens *all the time*. --MM

This is a picture of a label from a brand of suitcase that I saw. Not sure why anyone would purchase a suitcase with the “Smuggler” logo on it - unless they really want to be stopped at customs or incarcerated at the local prison. Pretty hilarious tho

I once made the mistake of flying in a t-shirt with a picture of a shotgun on it, and was stopped at every "random" security checkpoint from MUC to SFO. --MM

Originally from artificialeyes.tv reblog by Alex reBlogged on Jul 26, 2006, 1:33PM

More wonderful materials from Azure Magazine to deal with water run-off- Geo-cells. These are open-grid plastic systems that are filled with gravel or grassy turf. They support the weight of vehicles but let the water run through easily.

Grasspave from the appropriately names Invisible Structures, is a plastic mat that is rolled out onto a prepared bed, filled with appropriate landscaping, and you let it grow. Doesn't look like it, but it can hold up firetrucks. "Grasspave2 porous paving allows you to park, drive, walk, ride, or lounge on a beautiful grass surface. It performs the functions of asphalt or concrete pavement, but with the aesthetics of a lawn – all while enhancing the environment." They also make Gravelpave that can be used for commercial parking lots.

The iPod was never sold on the grounds of its technical merits: Apple hit a gold-mine by marketing a cool new way of integrating music in your life. Even when Apple announced the iPod with video, it presented it not as the best multi-media player in the universe, but as a cool new way of watching "Desperate Housewives" and other TV shows.

In the seemingly never-ending debate about Apple's successes, announcements, new products and predicted-but-unannounced über-gadgets, features and technical specifications often seem to dominate the debate. Yet if there's one lesson to be learned from the company's recent successes, it is a very simple one: features don't matter any more.

Feels true for certain categories of products, but what about cars, stereos, food processors? --MM

Passively Multiplayer is a system for turning user data into ongoing play. Using computer and mobile phone surveillance, a user and their unique history. These resulting avatars can be viewed online, and they interact with other avatars online.

Examples of data: web sites visited, email addresses, chat handles, contents of email or messaging, contents of word processed documents, digital images, digital video, video game moves.

Examples of avatars: virtual pets, animals, virtual humans, virtual fantasy characters, secret agents, athletes, movie stars, famous people, gangsters, soldiers.

Neat experiments on clickstreams. --MM

Hilarious send-up of Wikipedia reliability - see also recent pointers to the Wikipedia Count Chokula bio. Will the average Onion reader get the joke? --MM

(images (c) Kate Raudenbush)
I’ve been spending the last month on-and-off working on this exciting sculpture from ultra-talented Kate Raudenbush, who designed and is fabricating the main part of the 90′ sculpture. It is made of 240 ‘wings’ of 4′ x 8″ plasma-cut steel sheet and mirrored red acrylic. At the tip of each wing is a red LED.

Kate came to me with these drawings and her original plan: the red LEDs would form a ‘4-chase’ sequence. The budget is around $500 for all electronic parts, including LEDs, wiring, power, batteries, tools, etc. I decided to push the project a little futher: instead of a simple chase (which was well within reason), we would have each LED be individually controlled and PWM’d so that complex designs could be realized.
The biggest constraint (apart from the budget) is that all the electronics must fit in the square wing-support tube: .8″x.8″ and any wiring and connectors have to fit through a .5″ hole that was already drilled in the wings.

As always, I specified the connector first. Because of the small space, I couldn’t go with a feed-thru connector, and originally I wanted to use phone/cat5 cable and connectors but they wouldnt fit either. So in the end I was forced to go with 4-pin 0.1″ Molex MTA. It’s not the best but it’s dirt cheap and I’ve worked with it before. The connector pins pass power (3-5V), ground, data receive & clock. I decided against i2c and stuck with SPI because I’ve had good luck with it. It’s also more reliable than serial because of the clock.

To control the LEDs I picked the ATtiny13, which ends up being 75 cents each at the quantities I’m dealing with. It’s an 8 pin device: 2 pins for power, one for reset, and three for LEDs. The PWM code is written in C and uploaded to the chip using a surface-mount IC clip.

Re-sellers catering for highly price sensitive customers whether its cigarettes sold individually (Sao Paulo, above), shampoo & soap powder and tobacco (Delhi, below) or small units of call time in the Philippines. To what extent can what elements of goods and services be broken down into smaller parts? If manufacturers are unable or unwilling to directly cater to this market themselves what design elements support secondary markets? What are the limits of this approach?

Jan is an ethnographer for Nokia, and his site is a great source of research photos from 3rd world countries. --MM

The device, called AMOEBA (Advanced Multiple Organized Experimental Basin), consists of 50 water wave generators encircling a cylindrical tank 1.6 meters in diameter and 30 cm deep (about the size of a backyard kiddie pool). The wave generators move up and down in controlled motions to simultaneously produce a number of cylindrical waves that act as pixels. The pixels, which measure 10 cm in diameter and 4 cm in height, are combined to form lines and shapes. AMOEBA is capable of spelling out the entire roman alphabet, as well as some simple kanji characters. Each letter or picture remains on the water surface only for a moment, but they can be produced in succession on the surface every 3 seconds.

Researchers at Akishima Laboratories have developed similar devices in the past that used waves to draw pictures on the surface of water, but those devices had trouble producing letters with straight lines (such as the letter K). Additionally, it took the previous devices up to 15 minutes of data input time to produce each letter.

Akishima Laboratories expects the technology to be incorporated into amusement devices that combine acoustics, lighting and fountain technology, which they hope to see installed at theme parks and hotels.

Alright, what is it?

In simplest terms, a way to fund high-quality, original reporting, in any medium, through donations to a non-profit called NewAssignment.Net.

The site uses open source methods to develop good assignments and help bring them to completion; it employs professional journalists to carry the project home and set high standards so the work holds up. There are accountability and reputation systems built in that should make the system reliable. The betting is that (some) people will donate to works they can see are going to be great because the open source methods allow for that glimpse ahead.

Like Mechanical Turk for Journalism, a great idea. IMHO, accountability and reputation are 2.0 features. Punchiness, fun, and addictiveness are 1.0 features. --MM

Airzookas are strange old things that create a vortex of air that spirals across a room. They pack a surprising punch - check out the video.

Like action, but at a distance. --MM

So cool. I've tried to get Python running on a Nokia N-90 we have kicking around the office, but I gave up early and this looks more interesting anyway. Wi-Fi means no need to screw around with US mobile service providers, two largish screens means useful programs can be written, and DS means playing Mario Kart when you're bored. -MM

Thanks to Michael Parenti for a really amazing two weeks of reBlogging! That was good stuff.

Now we'd like to welcome back Michal Migurski, Technical Director of Stamen Design, and one of the people who helped Eyebeam's R&D Dept. redesign and improve the reBlog software. Michal has worked on projects such as http://mike.teczno.com, http://mappr.com and http://labs.digg.com just launching today.

Take it away Michal!

Talk about an ambitious project!.

Paco, a graffiti artist originally from Sarajevo, is using spray paint to recreate Michelangelo's entire Sistine Chapel ceiling in, of all places, Waterloo, Iowa.

You can check out the photos of the work in progress here.

(Thanks, Mr. Shrew)

Filed under: Transportation, Wireless

It's probably not the safest practice to to single-handedly control your vehicle while single-handedly checking your email, but until now there really wasn't an everything-free way to check your inbox while cruising. The iLane, a small device that interfaces with your Bluetooth-enabled handheld, acts as your own personal narrator by notifying the driver of incoming mail, reading your messages in a "natural sounding voice" -- which we'll believe when we hear it -- and replying to your commands. Reportedly, you can even forward, reply, or compose a message via the device, but we're unsure how chaotic your driving environment may end up whilst dealing with the presumably poor voice-recognition assistant. One much appreciated feature is the ability to prioritize messages so those disjointed "male performance supplement" advertisements in your spam folder aren't read before the manager's memo. Although the iLane currently lacks a price and release date, the handsfree approach to email while road-tripping should eliminate a few hazards along the way.

[Via Mobilemag]

Richard Sarson is a recent graduate of London's Royal College of Art.

Circles are a principal element of his design vocabulary as evidenced in several of his recent projects, which include The Circle Project, a recent series of drawings made with a compass and felt markers, Swim, a music video for U.K.-based band Fell City Girl, and a series of posters for the Royal College's music nights.

More photos after the jump TAGS: Art, Graphic Design, London,

Originally from artificialeyes.tv reblog by Dr.No. reBlogged on Jul 25, 2006, 11:03AM

As attested by this Battleship:GoogleEarth , it seems that Julian is moving towards his “near future laboratory experiments”. His idea was to start thinking about “how Google Earth could become a platform for realtime mobile gaming”. An instantiation of this was then to transfr the simple game mechanic based on the old Milton Bradley Battleship game to a Google Earth platform.

The mechanic I’m experimenting with is simpler. One person places their ships using Google Earth and the other person goes out in the normal world with a mobile phone, a GPS connected to the mobile phone. The phone has a small Python script on it that reads the GPS and sends the data to the game engine, which then updates the Google Earth KML model showing the current state of the game grid. When the player who’s trying to sink the ships wants to try for a hit, they call into the game engine and say “drop”. The game reads back the coordinates at which the “peg” was dropped and shortly thereafter, the other player will see the peg appear at the coordinate it was dropped. If the peg hits one of the ships, it’s a Hit, otherwise it’s a miss.

Why do I blog this? it’s very relevant and way beyond current google map games.

Originally from artificialeyes.tv reblog by Nicolas reBlogged on Jul 25, 2006, 11:13AM

Now its time, to say goodbye, to all our company... M - I - C ----- see you real soon ---- K - E - Y ----- why? because we LIKE you, perry.. its been a real blast reblogging at eyebeam. So much so that i did an install of the new reblog software at the artificialeyes site. So if you want to keep up with what i am tracking, the new feed is here at artificialeyes.tv reblog, with a focus on whats happening in the video and contemporary arts, and of course there is always theexiledsurfer's delicious links, and my ongoing participation at unmediated. Although i am currently based in istanbul i have posted very little here to eyebeam about what is happening locally in istanbul, as almost everything is in turkish, and i couldnt find the time for translations... so as my final post, here is an extra special treat, via undomondo , a turkish music blog. Enjoy, and help me work towards world peace.

Catch you later ---exiledsurfer.

Hi, here I am with some special ethnic music for you. A few nights ago as I was coming home and Shinanay, a well known traditional Aegean song sprang to my mind. The reason I still remember this song is because of a rendition by Omar Faruk Tekbilek the world renowned Sufi-ethnic musician from Turkey, who lives in Sweden. I know it might not appeal to people who don’t know the song or don’t understand the lyrics, but it’s a good song featuring some parts of the lyrics in Greek, so it’s a true Greek-Turkish collaboration and it’s a wonderful brasilified rich version with accoustic guitar work.

After this song, another anonymous traditional tune Sehnaz Longa song sprang to my mind. It’s a well known tune from Anatolia and Middle East (I don’t really know the origin, it might be Turkish or Persian). This song has a beatiful version in the Israeli Sheshbesh’s 1998 album led by the principal flutist of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, Yossi Arnheim. Great rendition of an Arabic/Eastern sound by a Jewish band, lovely example for cultural fusion and different cultures living together!. I’ve included another song from the same album, which is a rare gem from back in the day.

The closer is from Ilhan Ersahin’s triphop outfit Wax Poetic. Ilhan is a Turkish saxophonist and band leader who lives in NY and is the owner of the Nublu club & recording in NYC. His Wax Poetic project has been widely successful, and although I’ve never been a big fan of the sound, this track named after the Ottoman Sultan Selim the Grim is a classic. This is from the self titled album released on Atlantic.

Omar Faruk Tekbilek - Shinanay

Sheshbesh - Longa Yurgo

Sheshbesh - Kumran

Anonymous - Sehnaz Longa

Anonymous - Longa Shahinaz

Wax Poetic - Selim II