In this dust-choked region, long seen as an increasingly barren wasteland decaying into desert, millions of trees are flourishing, thanks in part to poor farmers whose simple methods cost little or nothing at all. NY Times

Tapes and tape recorders are good candidates for a virtual cemetery like Bruce Sterling's Dead Media Project.

However there are people ensuring that these material witnesses of the 20th Century sound culture will survive. One of them is Harold Schellinx with his Found Tapes Exhibition Project.

Some years ago, the Dutch musician, sound artist and researcher started a tape collection by wandering through the streets of cities and suburbia, looking for leftovers, picking up thrown away tapes that otherwise would have been worn up by weathers and time to finally vanish completely.

The photographs of his findings provide images of loss that cannot be kept as such in a picture: Humans are often more attached to the fetishes of material culture, yet tapes are about sound – and so are some of our most important emotional bindings.

Accordingly, also Schellinx' work is not about simply buying into another kind of ruin romantics. Even smallest bits and pieces are carefully collected and, if possible, sorted to be restored into what later may be listened to as memories from an almost forgotten past.

On the Found Tapes Exhibition website, one can not only browse the contents of these revived Frankenstein style mix-tapes, but listen to and download their soundings as well. And from time to time, the artist invites the audience to live performances based on the acoustic treasures of his collection.

Last week, following an invitation by Rinus van Alebeek's "Kleines Field Recordings Festival" Schellinx has been wandering through the streets of Berlin, while parts of his collection were on show at two gallery spaces: Transitlounge (focusing on FTE) and at takt kunstprojektraum (art project room), where the artist will also be part of the "Acoustic Flux" show running from February 18 onwards.

Last Sunday Schellinx was part of the concert evening in the "Kleines Field Recordings Festival" series, dedicated to "Berlin Soundscapes". Missed it? radioINCORRECT has caught up the sound stream and will send it this evening, starting from 8 p.m. CET.

[Pictures from the Found Tapes Exhibition website - Many thanks to Harold Schellinx!]

Reuters - Cut-outs in clothing may be cool, but when in Asia, make sure they stop at your socks.

Filed under: GPS

Regardless of your personal opinion regarding the increasing use of so-called "Big Brother" tactics by the governments of the world, you've gotta hand it to the Maryland legislature for its sheer audacity here. "What, your kids won't go to school? We've got an idea, let's track 'em with GPS like the criminals they are!" Though perhaps parents will be delighted to learn that if Billy skips school too many times, an upcoming bill means they won't have to bother to do anything about it. According to Maryland Delegate Doyle Niemann, "They're not in control of their children. They take them to school, the kid walks in the front door and then out the back door. It doesn't make any sense to continue to beat on the parents." Seems like the schools might try a bit harder to spot these kids in transit from front door to back door, but if they're proving this elusive already, perhaps GPS really is the only answer.

[Via The Raw Feed]

 

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

---

BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-time

Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Q: I found treehugger.com while searching for information on CFLs. Tonight I tried my first CFL bulb and am completely dismayed by the amount of light output. I bought a GE 3-way bulb for a lamp in my study. It is nowhere near the same amount of light as the incandescent. I am very disappointed as I want to switch as many lights as I can away from incandescent. Can you offer any advice to get the same amount of light output from CFLs? Are there better brands than GE? Thanks for your time, Jeremy A: Thanks for your question, Jeremy. You don't mention the wattage or lumen output of either your new or old bulb, but we recommend that you go for the highest lumen/watt ratio that you can find. For example, if you're replacing a 75 W incandescent with a 15 W CFL, and you have the choice between 900 lumens with one manufacturer or 1100 with another, the one with 1100 will give you more light; CFLs have improved and you should now be able to find comparable light output to your old incandescent in an energy-saving CFL. Because you're looking for a 3-way bulb, your choices will be somewhat limited, but the ENERGY STAR CFL page is a great place to start; you can compare bulbs, find one that looks good to you, and find a distributor near you. This TreeHugger hasn't tried 3-way CFLs yet; readers, if you have tips for a good 3-way CFL, please leave your thoughts in the comments section below.

Cory Doctorow: This Old House's website hosts several galleries of frightening jury-rigged "home improvements" discovered by home inspectors -- car-jacks used as structural support, sideways drain-traps, breaker panels installed inside bathrooms next to the running water.

Someone suspended this cot from the rafters, presumably to collect rain water. “After I finish this inspection, I think I’ll take a little nap in the attic.”

Link (Thanks, Abe!)

Eyebeam solutions for cascading debris from rafters!-AE

CAT PICTURES USED TO SCARE AWAY BIRDS
If live cats will scare birds away, why not use imitation cats as scarecrows? Acting on this unconventional idea, a farmer of Warwickshire, England, is decorating his property with painted likenesses of cats like those illustrated above. Stoppers from mineral water bottles supplied the eyes. Now it remains to be seen whether the birds will be terrified.

Tags: Sign of the Times

Mark Frauenfelder:
Warren Ellis found this 1951 photo of scientists from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory testing out some helical antennas designed to receive radio signals from missiles in flight. Link (Thanks, Brian!)

Previously on Boing Boing:
• Print your own missiles
• Biography of neutron bomb inventor (PDF)

Microsoft founder Bill Gates expects an AIDS vaccine will be developed while he's around to see it, he told CBC News in an interview Friday.

New Music Canada is the only place you need to go to find the latest in emerging, new Canadian music. But, you knew that already, right?

With the launch of NMC v 2.0, you may have noticed a lot more has been added such as the ability to create your own User Playlists - your own collection of songs from all of the music you like on NMC, along with your favourite Concerts & Sessions tracks. Many bands have uploaded dozens of new photos to their pages and they now have their own blog space, too.

However, there is one major new feature we would like to share with all of you on a weekly basis...that would be the "New NMC Videos". You read it correctly- NMC is now a home for music videos as well! Each Saturday, we will provide you with a list of all the new videos that have been uploaded to the artist's pages. Ready...set...watch!

Altered State, Arctic, Ayton & Atherton, Betablokka, Cat Jahnke, Daniel Bouliane, Dragon Fli Empire, First Reign, Hill, Inner Surge, Kokenut Df a Pepper, Liam, Never, Not_Digital, Orinj, Paris Chance, Scant Intone, The Dudes, The Nobs and Tomas Jirku.

(Hey, NMC member- do we have your music videos yet? Get uploading...)

photos by Brett Boardman from website of Farnan Findlay The March issue of Dwell includes this off-grid house north of Sydney, Australia, designed by Farnan Findlay Architects for mechanical engineer Chris Medland, and the mechanics are certainly impressive. Four 6,000 gallon tanks hold water gathered from the roof; a wind turbine and photovoltaics generate electricity for 14 batteries that hold a week's worth of electricity (do they have longer nights in Australia?) LED lighting, passive solar design, in an elegant modern envelope. As Dwell says, none of the "down-on-the-alfalfa-farm nuts and berries aesthetic associated with sustainable architecture."

Deadline April 15, 2007

We’ve made note of the Sustainable Living Festival for the past one or two years, and would you believe it, it’s on yet again. For the eighth time, in fact. Last year they had over 120,000 happy visitors thronging about this free eco-fest. With over 150 exhibitors, plus more than 300 talks and workshops, and film, art and performance you can see that there might be something to attract attention. Will be curious to see if they have an even bigger roll-up this year, given the amazing level of media exposure that Australia has seen in the past 12 months regarding climate change and sustainable water management. A thread which appears to have be followed up with the very topical theme for this years festival: 'Sustainability - how do you do it?' Maybe you begin by listening to Peter Singer discuss the ethics of what we eat. Or how about this debate: Going carbon neutral, as carbon offsets the real deal or simply more greenwash? Then there are talks on organic cooking, climate change for kids, who killed the Australian electric cars, peak oil and even top ten tips for environmental career changers. And, as they say, much more. It all happens during the 16th to 18th of February, in Melbourne, Victoria. ::Sustainable Living Festival 2007.

Filed under: Displays, Transportation

You wanna talk about LEDs? Let's talk about LEDs: how about 60 million of them covering the entirety of a massive spherical airship, capable of floating overhead and distracting onlookers with a new kind of multimedia advertising, á la Blade Runner (or, if you prefer, Futurama). Apparently the Air Genie would call for a solid $36 million in LEDs alone, which would burn a kilowatt of power as the globe floats through the air containing nearly 800,000 cubic feet of helium inside its 41,000 square foot facade. What a bold new world; bigger, better rendering after the break.

[Via Wired]

Continue reading Air Genie LED-video airship patented

 

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

---

BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-time

Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Chinese developers have unveiled the world’s first permanent magnetic levitation wind power generator at the Wind Power Asia Exhibition 2006 in Beijing. The device is called a MagLev generator, and is being regarded as a key breakthrough in the evolutio

I started writing this post and it got completely out of hand, I could not come to a conclusion, so I just decided to turn it into a survey and find out what you think. It is a TreeHugger mantra that "Cities are the most efficient way to live" and that "if it were granted statehood, New York City would rank 51st in per-capita energy use." as David Owen says in a New Yorker article. Owen continues: "The key to New York's relative environmental benignity is its extreme compactness. Manhattan's population density is more than eight hundred times that of the nation as a whole. Placing one and a half million people on a twenty-three-square-mile island sharply reduces their opportunities to be wasteful, and forces the majority to live in some of the most inherently energy efficient residential structures in the world: apartment buildings.." In January Edward Glaeser picked up the theme and said "Manhattan, not suburbia, is the real friend of the environment. Those alleged nature lovers who live on multiacre estates surrounded by trees and lawn consume vast amounts of space and energy. If the environmental footprint of the average suburban home is a size 15 hiking boot, the environmental footprint of a New York apartment is a stiletto-heeled Jimmy Choo."

Eons ago when I first showed up at WFMU I came across a tape of the man I later dubbed "W-F-M-U Guy". Someone involved with the station longer than I probably knows his origin but to me he sounds like he came off a scratchy 1940's "Learn Proper Diction" record.

All I've every heard W-F-M-U Guy say are those four letters and yet he must've spoken volumes in his day. Over the years I've tried to rectify this paucity by dropping him into as many different scenarios as possible. As you listen to these station IDs you'll soon realize that W-F-M-U Guy always sounds at home (all files are small MP3s):

• "Never get out of the boat"
• "Birds"
• "I can hear your radio!"
• "He put his disease in me..."
• "Am I boring?"
• "Check it out..."
• "CIA Tapes"
• "Dee Lite"
• "Don't use those words!"
• "Civilian radio"
• "Stupidest thing ever heard come over a pair of headphones."
• "Goddamn adorable!"
• "I was trying to listen to a record."
• "Keep an open mind."
• "Let me sorta touch it."
• "Listen and learn."
• "Music for maniacs"
• "Opposed to all the rules."
• "Parents and teachers"
• "Pathetic Champagne"
• "Rosemary's Baby"
• "State of irony"
• "Those crappy people"
• "Whadja say your call letters were?"
• "What's your taste?"
• "Who in the Devil?"

Artist Rosemarie Fiore makes these amazing time lapse photos of retro arcade screens. Pictured here - "Tempest 1" 2001. digital c print 4 ft x 6 ft - [via] - Link.

[Read this article] [Comment on this article]

Actually, it's to make a charger for anything that charges over USB.

Filed under: Digital Cameras, Misc. Gadgets

Apparently, the US military forces have hired some seriously good R&D help, as we've seen the Navy's 8-Megajoule railgun, the Army's war-tested iRobots, and now the Air Force has something of their own to boast about. Nova Sensors of Solvang, California has designed the Variable Acuity Superpixel Technology (VAST) system, which is reportedly capable of tracking "anything slower than a bullet," but the shifty part is that this camera can home in on speeding shells as well, hopefully lending a hand in protecting soldiers in the years to come. The machine focuses on heat bursts emitted in the infrared range by moving bullets in order to detect an incoming projectile; ideally, it would be connected to "active armor" that could move, expand, or otherwise protect an individual or a entire platoon if a stray (or purposeful) bullet was headed their way. The system includes software that "mimics the fovea in human and animal eyes," and essentially provides high-resolution focal points of the incoming shells while making everything else low-resolution in order to showcase what's really important life-threatening. While we're fairly certain these guys won't be coming out with a commercial rendition suitable to block those laser-guided office missiles that nail you in the kneecap every morning, be sure to click on through for a short demonstration of VAST in action.

 

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

---

BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-time

Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Here is a design competition we like: " Designers of all fields are asked to submit designs and concepts for their respective homes and immediate communities, taking into consideration the implications of the "end of oil" on our culture, industries, and lifestyles." They can be tangible submissions of products or textiles, or conceptual submissions including architecture, landscape, urban planning, interiors or fashion design. "Responding to growing unease about our culture's rate of consumption and the notion of peak oil and its implications, THAW 2007 challenges designers of all fields to consider a world without oil and the consequences it would have for our design solutions and how these adaptations would in turn directly impact our lifestyles and immediate communities." Unlike recent American Competitions, this is wide open to competitors worldwide. Hurry: Preliminary registration is Feb 28. ::Thaw O7

These are the people who need to change most- at least according to Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment. The study used current data to predict the environmental footprint of humanity in the year 2015. The findings indicate that affluence, population, and geography are the major determining factors for a societies footprint, while urbanization, economic structure, and age in and of themselves are not correlated with ecological impact. Affluence and population are no big surprise, given the fundamental system we use to power our wealth and production (Fossil Fuel). Interestingly, geography has become the third member of this group. Even though you might be lonely and poor, if you cut down part of the rainforest your impact on the world is quite large. Thus, not only do we need to address our systems of power production and asset creation, but we need to be quite careful that the sensitive areas are not compromised.

Sometimes the frame is as important as the art it surrounds; " The goal of the Urban Curators project is to engage the public in the celebration of the decaying urban environment, recognizing its inherent aesthetic qualities as well as the important role that it plays within our cultural habitat. The project achieves its goal by elevating common, overlooked objects and spaces within the city of Providence, Rhode Island to the level of high art." It seems that there is a fair amount of urban decay in Providence to frame some pretty depressing pictures. The images are quite striking, art made out of existing waste and blight. It is an interesting way to document what we hope is a temporary view.

"The Sonic Bomb Clock has an adjustable volume alarm with a maximum loudness of 113 decibels (just for reference, a jackhammer is about 100 decibels!) And the bed shaker does just that. Slip it under your mattress and your ears will bleed and your bed will shake, and there is no way you will oversleep."

Theatres are environmental offenders—lavish sets, global tours, huge fuel bills and throw-away programmes every night. Not to mention the size of many of the older ones and the amount of fuel needed to heat them. Power demands are huge, not just for the lighting of a show but also from the lobbies, bars, offices and exit signs. Then there are all the sets that get scrapped at the end of a run because many of the pieces cannot be used again or small companies can’t afford to put sets into storage until needed. In Germany bus transport services are timed to coincide with the end of performances. However in most other places, audiences travel to theatres in private cars, particularly to those in small towns where many come in from the countryside to attend. But theatres have always minimised waste because historically companies are so cash-strapped. Costumes were used over and over again, and props are painted and recycled constantly. Now, directors are starting to think about recycling in all aspects of the business. At the National Theatre in London they are printing programmes on recycled paper, filtering the marsh water under the building for use as grey water in the toilets and aiming to reduce power by 20% over the next year. Companies are changing their travelling policies and trying to reduce air tours. The least environmental play: how about the new Lord of the Rings with 55 hobbits, 500 pieces of armour and 17 elevators to turn 3 stages. The cleanest: Breath, by Samuel Beckett. It is 35 seconds long and the actor is required only to breathe. :: Guardian

Fede brugerdrevne plakater til inspiration...

For Robert -AE

modernist "plagarism"; surrealism; art; literature

amigoro writes "US Senators introduced a bill that better protects the privacy of citizens' personal information in the face of data security breaches across the country. Key features of the bipartisan legislation include increasing criminal penalties for identity theft involving electronic personal data and making it a crime to intentionally or willfully conceal a security breach involving personal data."

SINGAPORE, Feb 7 (Reuters Life!) - Think you deserve a throne? A U.S. plumbing firm has created a luxury toilet equipped with laptop computer and flat-screen TV which it plans to give away in an online sweepstake.

When there isn't sun there is often wind, so it makes sense to use them both. Here is another version of a combined solar/wind powered streetlight, perhaps not as elegant as Justin's Canadian vertical axis unit, this Chinese fixture has a 400 watt turbine, 200 watts of solar, batteries and controls with a six day reserve, powering a 200 bulb 30 watt LED array. "intended for permanent installations and can be located in the remotest of sites since no mains services are required saving on installation costs, inconvenience and time. The whole system is virtually maintenance free and there are NO daily running costs- the power is completely free and clean." ::Duxlite

Kevin C. Tofel writes "Using a simple concept, iPhotoMEASURE software can measure any objects you can take a picture of. Include a printout of a 7.5- or 15-inch sqaure in the photo and the software can measure any distance or object in the pic to within 99.5% accuracy. Although geared towards contractors, there's any number of consumer usage scenarios as well. Enough to justify a $99 price tag? Jury's still out on that."

SINGAPORE, Feb 7 (Reuters Life!) - Video game addicts, rejoice: U.S. researchers have found that playing is actually good for your eyes, and despite all those dire warnings from your parents, it won't make you blind.

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

There's already a bevy of devices out there designed to keep track and manage one's diabetes and glucose levels, but Eli Lilly's innocuous pen-like injector looks to make the process of taking insulin a bit less invasive. The Huma-Pen Memoir resembles your average ink pen and shouldn't look too out of place holding it down in your tee's front pocket, but whenever you need a shot of insulin, it conveniently turns into an injector thanks to the hidden hypodermic needle encased within. The device also "allows the user to dial the amount of insulin they need to take," and keeps the dosage, date, and time of the previous 16 shots in order to keep diabetics from overdosing. Users should be able to utilize the same pen for "around three years," and after a needle is used, another is inserted and ready to go at the owners request. A few lucky participants have already received their pen here in the US, and while this nifty invention has been available across Europe for some time now, it will officially hit American retail shelves next week for around $45.

[Via MedGadget]

 

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

---

BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-time

Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Western pharmaceuticals are looking more an more like a pentagon pens.-AE

"President Herbert Hoover promised "a chicken in every pot and a car in every garage." With warnings about global warming reaching feverish levels, many are having second thoughts about all those cars. It seems they should instead be worrying about the chickens." We have discussed how meat production is a major contributor to global warming and water depletion; Kathy Freston at Alternet reviews the UN report on livestock and the environment (we covered it but I can't find it!) and finds that giving up meat is a lot more effective at saving the atmosphere then buying a Prius. "Going veg provides more bang for your buck than driving a Prius. Plus, that bang comes a lot faster. The Prius cuts emissions of carbon dioxide, which spreads its warming effect slowly over a century. A big chunk of the problem with farmed animals, on the other hand, is methane, a gas which cycles out of the atmosphere in just a decade. That means less meat consumption quickly translates into a cooler planet." It is a bit of a headscratcher; dropping meat may be better than driving a Prius, but following a well balanced carbon diet would seem to be the most rational approach. ::Alternet

The planet is going to catch its breadth once WE are gone.-AE

World Cities Browser

The Oracle of Elsewhere, by Ian Wojtowicz, explores current events happening in major urban centers around the world. It functions as both an information visualization and as a collage generator. The work's first screen shows a rotating 3D model of the earth displaying cities as extruded blocks. The height of each block indicates city density, and width represents land use. Color is also used to convey information: varying shades of blue show where news is currently increasing. Because this map is connected to live data from Google, it changes with the fluctuation of world events. At the time of this writing, for example, a ferry disaster in Indonesia insured that Surabaya was most noticeable city on the map.

The Oracle also has a sculptural element that enables people to interact with the 3D model manually. A reconfigured standalone globe allows the computer model to be rotated by physical interaction. It brings the work out of the confines of the computer screen and into a real collaborative conversational space. [via Rhizome]

Cool weekend project to build with your kid, Ezra. -AE

This almosts beats etch-a-sketch! -AE

Uberphones reports on two new phone models from Korea Telecom (called Ann Sweety and Ann Cutie) that come with built-in TV/PVR/DVD functionality. Meaning the cell phones can be used as a remote control for a television set.

"Whenever you want to go channel surfing but are unable to find the remote, all you need to do is whip out your cellphone and dial the house number. "

Just in case you are still watching TV on a TV.- AE

Interactive voronoi diagram, very squidgy and squirmy behavior.

This is my dream house.-AE

Fifty years ago, not a single man-made object orbited the earth. Now, approximately 10,000 pieces of "space junk" remain in orbit -- everything from spent rockets to dead satellites to a camera. With more nations getting into space for business and military purposes, the orbiting junk pile will grow exponentially -- especially as nations test antisatellite weapons and explode satellites the way that China did recently.

Scientists worry that the number of junk objects could grow into the billions, threatening active satellites and spacecraft and making space flight increasingly dangerous. They also worry that collisions could create even more space "shrapnel" that simply adds to the risk. The ultimate fear is that, to remain safe, spacecraft will need so much protective shielding as to make them cost-prohibitive.

Source: New York Times

Recycling programs in space?- AE

From People's Daily
Pillow fight helps ease pressure:
White collar workers participate in a pillow fight at a Karaoke club in Guangzhou, south China's Guangdong Province January 28, 2007. The organizer of the spree say it can help people ease pressure from busy work.

<!-- technorati tags start -->

Technorati Tags: fight, karaoke, leisure, pillow, play, youth

<!-- technorati tags end -->

• Roman descendants found in China? | I