February 24, 2005

EVERYVIDEOGAME.COM

A java emulator with tons upon tons of gameboy, nintendo, sega, and arcade games.

This is surely of the deaths of the hard drive. Wait until we can hook this up to our TVs.

Some of my favorites.

Mario and Yoshi

Motocross Maniacs

Snoopy's Magic Show

Controversial new "serviceware" designs for the bizarre Alinea restaurant

Via Core77

"We realized that the service of food has remained basically the same for the last 200 years. Looking at how cuisine had developed in the last ten years it became obvious that the need to support the food functionally and emotionally was crucial to the success of the cuisine itself. The involvement of the serving pieces and actual eating utensils plays an enormous role in the emotions that guests can experience while dining. The pieces can add humor, surprise, intrigue, excitement and even a sense of intimidation to the meal. When these emotions are triggered, it leaves a very personal stamp on the experience based on the individual’s reactions. I realized the synergy of food and the serving pieces helps the chef convey the message to the guest. A personalized emotional experience is created, solidifying a meal into a form of art."

These bizarre skewer systems are supposedly designed for function. I am skeptical. I am even more skeptical of some of the recipes. Food and restaurant design in generally I find incredibly discomforting. While I encourage the viewpoint that food is scared, special, and scarce. I am disgusted with the look of food presented with aesthetic concern. It is an easy criticism to make, the wealthy eating little slivers of meat dangling from metal versus mcdonalds versus starvation around the world. There are certainly orginal designs, but do they really respond to life dealing with conflicts all the variety in consumption. I think they add to them.

As a counterpoint check out this other Core77 feature titled "Value Meal: Design and (over)Eating"

Neither are entirely revolutionary in the way we eat, but both really point to room for change succesfully.


-JAKE

February 21, 2005

A Future for the Keyboard?

Recently I have been fascinated by the "keyboard." While my fascination is a little late in terms of "trendyness," I think soon we might start actually seeing forseeable alternatives. I had to share this link from DesignGrid DesignGrid also has links to the far more arty and less practicle blank keyboard. The keyboard layout itself has often been a source of controversy, and debate over Qwerty Vs. Dvorak continues to this day. With the rise of computer keyboard came commonplace carpal tunnel. Overall, the commputer keyboard as a symbol often crops up, Josh Rubin recently posted this about keyboard jewlery.

Also see these designboom contributions... keyboard buttons and compustairz

In a strange way, I am looking forward to possibly keyboardless future...


-JAKE

The New Pogo Stick

Incredible simple reworking of the traditional coil "Pogo Stick." The "BowGo" created by Carnegie Mellon students uses a metal bow to great effect. This link has a multitude of pictures and videos of the device in action. What a ride! Similiar to the infamous PowerSkip shoes. Check out both, the PowerSkip videos are also really incedible.




Via HackAday



-JAKE

February 16, 2005

The Omnificent English Dictionary In Limerick Form

The OEDILF is a remarkably strange way to go about defining your words. Not to mention the fact that at this stage it only contains words beginning with the letter A. Check it out for some fine defining rhyme.

February 15, 2005

Kurzweilian Immortality

We have discussed both Ray Kurzweil and immortality before on Shepherd's Pie and this article brings them together with terrifying realism. Kurzweil is devising a plan to live long enough to see intelligent nanorobots that constantly repair our bodies from within. Clearly this theory and desire raise a heapload of conflicts. Mostly, I wonder about a world where our defining global condition is the psychological option of immortality, as opposed to global annihilation. Also, the economics of Ray's theory also raise interesting questions, and some are addressed in the article. How do we deal with the wealthy immortals? Asher claims to desire immortality, and according to Kurzweil, he will live to have that choice.

I have this quote from the article to respond...

"They've forgotten they're acting on the basic biological fear of death and extinction, and it distorts their rational approach to the human condition"

- Sherwin Nuland, a bioethics professor at Yale University's School of Medicine



To me, immortality is just bad design.


-JAKE

The True Story Of Automoblox

The story of how one man's vision of a toy actually goes from the initial concept, to manufacture. I am amazed by page 3, where our design sees the actual chinese factory where his toys are to be built. Check out the full results at www.automoblox.com

February 14, 2005

The Ceramic Work of Stephen DeStaebler

This is really impressive ceramic sculpture. Skeletal figures arising out of stone. They give the appearence of cracked open a wall to a secret burial chamber. Incredible stuff.


-JAKE

February 12, 2005

The Church Of Psychotonomy

"The Church Of Psychotonomy" is a dumb funny sketch from the Upright Citizen's Brigade former TV Show. It totally mocks the style of encouragement given by the actual Church Of Scientology. Not that we don't all know the scientologists are brainwashed... but the site that hosts this has a pretty great anti-scientologiest presentation method. XenuTV's motto is "Exposing Scientology's Fraud and Abuse Through Streaming Real Video."

Nothing is really as creepy as the E-Meter though.





-JAKE

Aether Architecture

Aether Architectureare a strange artichecture group. I found them digging around the architecture section of Near Near Future(which is quickly becoming my most anticipated visit of the day. Boingboing seems to be catching on, judging by the number of posts the've borrowed in the past two weeks).

Aether's Induction House work deals with potential media projection structures that display information in physical ways (I think...). Either way, they generally seem to really enjoy making protype displays of all the design that goes into their projects. Scrolling through the side links on the menu of the page, and you can find a ton of wacky little conceptual drawings. None of which seem to make any sense. Check it out, perhaps you can find some cool backround images...



-JAKE

February 11, 2005

E.P.I.C Conspiracy

A pretty interesting Flash conspiracy presentation. Explains Google's careful present, and potential future, aquisitions. Why did Google buy Blogger, volunteer to host both university libraries and now host Wikipedia and Keyhole. Both of which not even mentioned in the video. This streachs the whole thing really far, and in way too short a timespan. However, we are strangly not suspect of a company that has such a mysterious and specific ideology guiding their business moves. Either way, its a pretty entertaining and thought provoking video.



-JAKE

Very Small Objects

I found this link after browsing through Conrad Bakker's site about his minature wooden objects modeled after typical street waste. I can't link to it, but check out the "Classification Charts" link on the low left. They imagined up a working scientifict language to name tiny found objects. The pictures in the database are mysterious and beautiful...not to mention how well designed the site is. Some of the names are pretty humorous and specific despite the strangeness of the objects. Those of you who are extra small in body yourselves, can really understand the pleasures of scale in world where the small rule in secret.



-JAKE

February 09, 2005

Gaping Void: Meaning Scales

Hugh at Gaping Void is ranting again. This time he has another great post about meaningful work in a world where people are getting tired of drawing lines between their actions of labor and their actions of love.

Information, strings and eternal life

im back
sorry im so late.
some pretty exiting stuff has been happening around here and its inevitable that it makes posting more justified.

here's a little link... the rest of the blog is worth looking at, but not for too long. i wish there was somewhere I could find more information about this, but it's always worth a read when steven hawkings get's proved wrong.

...im sick
^(that's the kinda stuff people write in blogs right?)

-Asher

February 08, 2005

World Processor

I was especially happy when the worldprocessor globes were featured on this weekends MetaMoco. Ingo Gunther took global statistics and turned them into these strange and informative orbs. I knew I had come across these somewhere, yet kept struggling to remeber the project name. Finally they have surfaced again. While some are really artsy, others actually do bring to light the great divide in debt, pollution, language, race, and energy use.
-JAKE

February 07, 2005

Erin O'Connor's "Critical Mass"

A few moments ago I found out I wasn't the only blogger coming working within Buxton School. With far more discretion than myself, a certain Grade 11 English teacher was typing in the shadows with her take on American academia. Mrs. O'Connor is shockingly prolific. She was way ahead of the curve when she started her site back in March 2002. At this point, one source said she recieved near 4000 hits a day. Whether hits mean anything or not, Erin's site is incredible. She covers reviews, quotes, and poses questions with an peacefully articulate professional tounge. I am humbled.


I particurally like This post with the interesting find of Faulkner's nobel prize acceptance speech.

February 05, 2005

To Be 19 and Linked To the Forever Telescoping Future

Get out the spotlights cause I am about to scream and yell........ "I'VE BEEN BLOGGED!" I was not just blogged! I was blogged by Bruce Sterling!

After reading this post about "Cyber Academia," seeing documents like Art In The Age of Mechanical Mechanical Reproduction" next to the work of Jaron Lanier and WorldChanging's Leapfrog 101. Throw in the SCUM manifesto and some Oscar Wilde and tons of others and it makes an inviting party.

While not an literal student of that syllabus. I like to read those documents when I feel like the present is a modern mess. The industrial revolution and the great wars of the past century have created a world that is inconsistant with the actual desires and needs of our individual bodies, and our human communities. I like to find the pockets of conceptual optimism where technology and objects are redesigned to appeal to our greatest human instincts. I want to be part of that. I genuinly sense this world is slowly being smashed and rebuilt. I wanted to see if I could actually reach out and touch a pocket of optimism

I was touched back...

The often quoted (on this site in particular) writer Bruce Sterling had this to say on his blog...

"Thursday, 3 February 2005

Nineteen Year Olds of the World, Unite
Mood:  a-ok
Now Playing: with a topheavy demographic structure like today's, you better get with it
From: Jake S.
Subject: Ahh, To be 19 and immersed in that...
Date: February 2, 2005 7:28:18 PM CST
To: bruces@well.com

"I turned 19 years old yesterday and I felt reading
that post was an occasion to contact the individual
who has given me some very serious inspiration."

Here is Jake's site:
http://01267.blogspot.com/
The Remarkably Interesting Blog of Jake "


I first discovered Bruce's work by simultantiously getting a Wired subscribtion anda saw links to his "Shaping Things To Come talk. I wouldn't try to explain Sterling's outlook on design and the future, except to say that I simply agree with him. It is more like I am voting for his candidacy for Futurist For Tomorrow. Our objects and the ways we create them are simply changing....


"Having conquered the world made of bits, you need to reform the world made of atoms. Not the simulated image on the screen, but corporeal, physical reality. Not meshes and splines, but big hefty skull-crackingly solid things that you can pick up and throw. That's the world that needs conquering. Because that world can't manage on its own. It is not sustainable, it has no future, and it needs one."
-Bruce Sterling



-JAKE

February 03, 2005

Hikikomori BBC Article

Hikikomori is a new mental ailment affectting Japanese teenagers. The teenagers are simply becoming hermits. They lock themselves up in their room and withdraw from society. I am the only one who suspects this condition could easily cross over to Europe and the States?



Via Reality Carnival

February 02, 2005

Sign Swallowing Trees

After the last post being of man's control overtaking nature. This BoingBoing post perfectly shares the opposite. Nature swallowing man...

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