A House as Portable as Furniture

Architect Camino Alonso wanted to create a small, portable, prefab homes, but she didn't want it to feel like a shipping container. Camino, along with her husband and siblings (also architects at their firm Ábaton), created ÁPH80, a tiny home that ships like furniture, but has the style and usability of a smartphone.

©Abaton

©Abaton

©Abaton

©Abaton

The 16th President of RISD

John Maeda was welcomed into the Art Directors Hall of Fame in 2008, at the time I was just joining the ADC board. It was inspiring to be part of an organization that was able to recognize the career of a creative person who is comfortable at the intersection of Design, Technology and Business.  Now just 6 years later it is amazing to see what John has accomplished at RISD, bringing technology to the design/education space and what he will do in at EBAY, in the technology/business space.

Exploding Cars - A how to by Fabian Oefner

Such beautiful work it reminds me a bit of how Steve Ellis painted a series of cars.  By taking photographs of matchbox cars after they had been scratched up a bit, he would then paint in details that only real sized cars would have. Creating an ambiguity of scale, that is so pleasing in the work that Fabian Oefner has just shared.

Searchlight - A Technical Projection Study.

Urban Screen  is a group of 8 contributors based in Bremen, Germany who have backgrounds in Architecture, Music, Stage Design, and Media art.   They create custom made large scale projections of urban surfaces. This video documents an experiment that they are working on called Search Light. The projector is on a gimbal that is connected to a realtime 3d map of the room, allowing for amazing dynamic projections and for experimentation around artful and purpose driven use cases.

Amazon Prime Air - Drone Delivery

Prime Air is a service that Amazon is developing who's goal is to get customer's deliveries to them in 30 minutes or less. The R&D team at Amazon is working on using drones to deliver small packages, up to five pounds, which accounts for 86 percent of the items sold on amazon. 

Amazon is working with the FAA to advance the rules and regulations to make this possible, which they say will take some years, with a goal as early as 2015. They also mention safety as their top priority. 

 

UPDATE:

Wired debunks this Cyber Monday Hoax.

 

 

GoldieBlox - Go Girls!

It's sorta sad that the Beastie Boys are going after Goldie Blox for use of their song. Goldie Blox is a Small company, now, and it's likely the 7.2 millions plays will spern people to buy "Girls" from the Beastie Boys.

To think that it took until 2013 for this to happen. Thank you Debbie Sterling. The work that you are doing here is the most important kind. Creating a generation of future citizens that are interested in how things work. Making it desirable and competitive amongst the sexes, is truly inspiring. To see a future where there are rooms of engineers that are equal parts male as they are female will ensure a future that has less disease, less poverty, less war, and higher standards of living for all. Girls! Let's do this.

As the legal battle ensues between the Beastie Boys and Goldie Blox, I suggest that you buy from both sides of the argument.

 

HBO Movie Openers 1980 till Today

This is a behind the scenes featurette showing how they created the HBO opening sequence. The effects sequence has always been an inspiration to me. I can remember sitting on the floor watching it and wondering how it was made.  As it turns out the  piece was created by Anthony Lover and his team at Liberty Studios, started in 1968 the longest standing productions studio in New York.

Vintage HBO feature presentation intro from 1987.

Vintage HBO feature presentation intro from 1982.

Vintage HBO feature presentation intro from 1981.

1983 version from HBO's Channel.

R.I.P. Video Stores

WARNING: Depending on your age, this will probably make you ache for your childhood. Special thanks to Cinefile Video http://store.cinefilevideo.com/ and Eddie Brandt's Saturday Matinee http://www.ebsmvideo.com/ Share on Facebook: http://on.fb.me/19sPJko Share on Twitter: http://bit.ly/19sPK7G Music: "Music Story: Rock, Paper, Scissors [Instrumental]" by The Ghost of E.B.L.

Understand the Economy in 30 minutes.

http://www.economicprinciples.org | How the Economic Machine Works by Ray Dalio. The economy works like a simple machine. But many people don't understand it- or they don't agree on how it works - and this has led to a lot of needless economic suffering.

Andrew Brown shared this, and I think it's a great combination of diagrammatic narrative that truly explains what is going on.  Also found this from Scott Burns, an explanantion of wealth in america, and how distorted it has become.  

Infographics on the distribution of wealth in America, highlighting both the inequality and the difference between our perception of inequality and the actual numbers. The reality is often not what we think it is. References: http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2011/02/income-inequality-in-america-chart-graph http://danariely.com/2010/09/30/wealth-inequality/ http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2011/10/03/334156/top-five-wealthiest-one-percent/ http://money.cnn.com/2012/04/19/news/economy/ceo-pay/index.htm

THE ANSWER

Wealth Redistribution. It is commendable to hear about Bill Gates, and Warren Buffet giving a bunch of there money to charity to build educational and cultural resource.  It would also be great to see the Wealthiest American look towards a plan that would distribute  wealth, and agree to an appropriate tax plan.