Happy Holidays

Merry Christmas.

Happy New Year.

architecturally

note to self:

after Zaha Hadid, we need to take a close look at

Ali Rahim

Kostas Terzidis

Sophia Vyzoviti

–

and think, how arbitrary are Hadid’s lines, and why? ain’t it all a bit 90s? the Pritzker just now catching up with post- Spice Girls urban UK?

random spikes paradoxically lifeless. give me some organic purpose — or is this all a bit nihilistic, with an F-you to the good green earth… which is kind of tasty in its own way…  Hadid as rock-n-roll.  War torn.  Rogers as neat and nerdy, “likable”.

Any how. Vyzoviti’s Folding. Time Machine Go. The mean maths of large-scale feng shui boxing.

perfectbook

reBang blog writes about PerfectBook:

What I wonder is whether the public will fully grasp the potential impact that such technology might have on their day-to-day lives. Will they both be aware and understand the significance of stories such as those surrounding, for example, the final Harry Potter book (e.g. scanned copies uploaded to the internet or unauthorized translations)? Will they make the connection between the current Flickr controversy and this kind of technology? What happens when those same amateur photographers discover people using their photos to create calenders for sale on Lulu? When it’s their work being passed around - when someone else is making money from their effort - will attitudes change?

hexayurt.com

Vinay’s still at it (and thank goodness, too)!

http://hexayurt.com/

http://www.appropedia.org/Hexayurt_Playa

julius popp

Nice little intro to Popp via Infosthetics:

I really like this short video, because it captures the sound of the Bitfall — an important element (crashing and splashing and wet) to contrast with the cool steely infoviz of the project:

More from the Academy of Visual Arts in Leipzig  (German)…

reactable doctor who

Would someone please do the Doctor Who theme with reacTable please and please film it and put it on YouTube if you please? I will be the pal of the persons who do that.  In fact, I will find a piece of information for them for free*.

*Subject to terms and conditions. I’m an info-pro and I can do that. Make your request in the comments for this post, Mr. or Ms. First Person to reacTable the Who theme!

music for factories

Is this strangely beautiful, or am I just evil?

reactability gaming… to book groups?

Csven points us to SLorpedo. This is a virtual/actual (can we call it AR, “augmented reality” yet?) game that has you doing military ops by placing smart objects near each other on an actual surface. That translates into virtual activity and strategy in Second Life. That’s reactable. Ups octane and ante for/on “Serious Games“.

Okay, lemme brainstorm a minute…

Arphid enabled books. Smart book object things, spimes, that are loaded with metadata. Lets you tag books down to the punctuation, down to the typography. Lets you link blogs and gadgets and books and stock quotes. You tap your book onto somebody else’s to trade links, comments, notes. Trade references, questions, essays. Tap twice to get to the second level — .mp3s of author interviews, .pdfs of notes taken in class or at the book group. You tap your book twice on the gaming table to give the table (and all the other gamers) brief character bios for all the villians in your White Wolf story (links to a .pdf). You tap thrice to put Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix onto Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix… then you compare script to text… and tag objects from the movie with notes that link to passages in your book… that, with a special code, lets you create artifacts in the game. It’s all reactable, your book, your movie, your game. Even your prize item, a limited edition, full-weight and well-balanced replica of Godric Gryffindor’s Basilisk-slicing sword, placed in proximity, trades (not just info!, but) widgets and sound files and a dictionary of Parsel Tongue with your other reactable objects… with your books. With your watch. Librarians, that’s the kind of book club I’d be sure to show up to… wouldn’t you? A virtual, contextual “table” for the reactable objects that auto-orders the table when certain permissive objects are in range…

Yes. I’d show up to such a book club.

2 dollar multi-touch pad?

Lovely hack for making a multi-touch sensor from a plastic bag and a camera, from Medallia (via Vinay).

forever stamp

The US postal service is rumbling about a “forever stamp” that would give you immunity from rate hikes… but why in the world would they tempt counterfeiters with a hi-rez pic like this?