...because it's important to ask questions. -jw

UK architecture website BD online asked Austin Williams, author of new book The Enemies of Progress, and Pooran Desai of BioRegional Quintain. We excerpt a bit:

Austin Williams says YES: "The mantra “less is more” has gone from being a defining moment in modernist thought to the unquestioned orthodoxy of our environmental age. Unfortunately, its progressive content has been stripped away.

Efficiency used to encourage us to design creatively in order to, as Buckminster Fuller implied, do more and more. Now, environmental efficiency states that using less is an end in itself. Sustainability is a moral injunction for restraint. Architecture has become a car...

...because I sometimes have trouble with the distinction between Gary Busey and Nick Nolte, and perhaps this will help me tell the difference. Also, one wonders under what circumstances an 11-year-old gets to interview Gary Busey.

Eyebeam Winter 2008 Resident Joe Winter makes sculptures that re-purpose familiar technological systems and undermine their functional sense. Past works have targeted sound-related technologies and objects, and have included: a cassette tape that draws three-dimensional moving images; pianos driving in endless circles; and telephones that talk only to each other. Recent work revolves around contemporary technologies of image production. Joe is currently assembling a subjective astrophotographic archive using an office photocopier as an observational instrument with which to catalog fake stars.

http://www.severalprojects.com

At This happened in March, Jack from Schulze & Webb gave a presentation on the development of Olinda, a prototype commissioned by BBC Audio & Music Interactive R&D. Olinda has now arrived and it looks fantastic…

“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.”

“Six lights on Olinda show when a close friend is listening to the radio, using wifi and Radio Pop, the BBC’s website for sharing ‘now playing’ information. Each light is a button: you can tune in to listen along with them, discovering new stations via your social network.”

Additional hardware modules can be snapped on to the base unit . This allows further expansion of the radio through purchased modules or possibly consumer created hardware. Examples of possibly modules included in the pdf.

“The hardware interface is made a feature with sprung copper connectors, and magnets mounted in rounded guides pull the modules together to a solid whole. It’s kept visible behind a clear, orange cap, and begs to be used.”

Olinda has two dials to tune: the outer scroll stations alphabetically; the inner one scrolls only your most listened.

The process of research, design and development that Olinda went through is a really interesting story. Soon we will put up a video of the This happened talk, but additional information & design detail can be found in the pdf pamphlet.

Unfortunately they are not for sale as the BBC don’t sell consumer hardware, however…

“Olinda is a design prototype. Conventionally, the implementations of and protocols behind concepts like the hardware API, social sharing of listening and other novelties developed for this radio might attract intellectual property protection.

To encourage development of these ideas, the BBC has agreed to waive certain rights, following a pattern which has proved successful on the Web, there called the ‘Creative Commons Attribution License’. This licence allows for sharing and remixing of a work, provided the original author is credited in the derivative work. It means remixing is supported without requiring any lengthy negotiations or discussion.”

I’m really pleased that the BBC commissioned this work as S&W have done a really fine job. Creating it under a more open licence is even better.

View from a grain elevator in Greensburg. Nearly all of the town's buildings were destroyed or heavily damaged by the May 4, 2007 tornado.
The middle of nowhere and the center of everything. That is how it feels in Greeensburg, Kansas right now. May 4 (Sunday) is the anniversary of the storm that destroyed the town. It is a bit surreal all that has occurred in the past year. And this week just seems reflective of that year. A multitude of media outlets from around the world is in town and the President is coming to speak and acknowledge the success of the recovery. There are over 30 buildings being rebuilt to exemplary levels of energy efficiency and green buildi...

We've blogged before about tools for visualising social networks, for instance who met who at a conference and this tool to visualise election donations, and written about analyses of whole country's social networks. It was only a matter of time before these technologies made their way onto sites like Facebook and MySpace, and sure enough there's now a piece of software called Nexus which draws network graphs of your Facebook friends.Each friend is represented by a black dot, and the software draws lines showing who is friends with who, then darkens the lines when people also have interests in common. Another app called Visualiser does something similar, but with a far less useful display and fewer options.Baring my soul, here are Nexus' representations of my friendset:I find the second style much more intuitive, but the first one throws up some interesting results. You can see that there are several big clusters, which are unsurprising: schoolfriends, university friends and so forth.However it splits my university friends into several clusters, which as far as I can see don't correspond to their real-life groupings. In other words it's good at pinning down which groups of people all know each other, but despite taking loads of data on activities and interests it can't spot the strong friendship groups within those clusters.I would really like to apply this sort of network analysis to a Facebook group (the New Scientist group for instance). I'm interested to find out how linked the members are, and what shape the network takes.Is the group spreading by word of mouth (and thus strongly linked) or just by people searching for us? Unfortunately none of the apps I've found can be applied to a group, so I'm thwarted (FriendWebs claims to, but I can't get it to work). If anyone knows a way to do this, let us know!Lastly, while playing with these applications I discovered one that should appeal to scientists everywhere. MyTypicalFriend runs through your list of friends, their interests and so forth, and calculates your average friend, simplifying the whole complicated socialising thing no end. This is apparently my typical friend:Michael Marshall has reduced friendship to a list of middle-of-the-road attributes

Filed under: Transportation, Wearables

Sure, you can get yourself a personal helicopter or, if you're particularly daring, a jet pack, but what about those that crave yet more danger in short 30-second bursts? As in, rocket-propelled helicopter blades a few inches from your head-type danger. Thankfully, the folks at Tecnologia Aeroespacial Mexicana (makes of some of the aforementioned jet packs) have come to the rescue (so to speak), with their latest high-flying concept, the Libelula rocket-powered helicopter backpack. Apparently, the rockets on the tips of the blades are necessary to keep the whole rig counter-balanced, a job that would normally be done with a tail rotor on an ordinary helicopter. Of course, as you can no doubt surmise by the detailed illustration above, this one's still a ways away from getting its first test flight, but the folks at TAM do have a proven track record, so we wouldn't put it completely past 'em to get it off the drawing board sooner or later.

[Via Tech Digest]

Not to be outdone by the Time 100, the journals Foreign Policy and Prospect have together released a list of the Top 100 public intellectuals -- with voting. Many TEDTalks favorites appear on the list, and you can help choose the eventual top 20 by voting for your very own top 5. From Foreign Policy's site:

Although the men and women on this list are some of the world’s most sophisticated thinkers, the criteria to make the list could not be more simple. Candidates must be living and still active in public life. They must have shown distinction in their particular field as well as an ability to influence wider debate, often far beyond the borders of their own country.

TEDTalks speakers on this top 100 list include George Ayittey, Steven Pinker, Neil Gershenfeld, Malcolm Gladwell, Craig Venter, Al Gore, Richard Dawkins, Vilayanur Ramachandran, Larry Lessig, Steven Levitt, E.O. Wilson, Dan Dennett and Bjorn Lomborg -- and look for upcoming TEDTalks from others on this list, including Paul Collier, who spoke at TED2008 about "the bottom billion."

See the full list of 100 >>

This striking modern structure cuts a profile every bit as sleek as it is streamlined for efficiency. It is composed of four single family units joined by a flowing fusion of glass and “smog-eating” photo-catalytic concrete, creating a series of separate yet structurally connected spaces. Italian architects Iosa Ghini Associati designed the residence to integrate seamlessly into its sweeping Mediterranean landscape, and its airy day-lit interiors benefit from a slick set of green features including adjustable solar panels, rainwater recycling, and a heat storage system.

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