Universe Factory by Michael Perry
Just a quick one-color test letterpress print. The actual print should come early-mid September. Stoked!
Universe Factory by Michael Perry
Just a quick one-color test letterpress print. The actual print should come early-mid September. Stoked!
Out of Office Auto-Reply
I Am Still Alive is shuttering for ten days as I spend some time in Los Angeles and gear up for Artlog’s relaunch on Tuesday. Orders placed through the store between now and then will be shipped once I have returned to Brooklyn on 7 September.
→ Can humans sense the Earth's magnetic field? @Guardian
If you are lost on a farm, try using the cows to find your way home. Bizarre as it may seem, cattle apparently don’t just stand around randomly chewing the cud – they in fact behave like huge compasses, aligning themselves with magnetic north.
Good tip.
Bright idea shade
The Bright Idea Shade is a project of the Eyebeam OpenLab, by Sustainability Action Group. We are converting all of our silver tipped incandescent bulbs into CFL bulbs (as they burn out.) The problem is a bare CFL bulb gives off very harsh light. So we set about designing a lampshade for the bulbs. We took several existing designs and customized the design to fit a CFL bulb, built it out of heat resistant photo diffuser material, found a diffuser material that could be laser cut, and built a laser cutter template.
The Bright Idea Shade is licensed with a Creative Commons Attribution license.
Last breath in Alaska
In this work by Pascual Sisto, a plastic bag obstructs the Google Maps Street View of Minnie Street in Fairbanks, Alaska. Discovered while researching Google Maps Street View, Sisto preserves this “found object” by redirecting it to its own url, lastbreathinalaska.com, as well as capturing it as a back-up video, in case Google decides to reshoot the location. Swirling on a constant panoramic loop, the movement of the camera gives the abstract image an almost 3D-like quality. The piece documents Google’s fraught attempt to supply an accurate representation of Minnie Street, and, as such, Sisto sees Last Breath in Alaska (Found Object) as a response to the purportedly omniscient eye of the Street View feature, and the issues of transparency and privacy it raises. – Ceci Moss
via Rhizome
Thinking Globally, but Growing Locally @NYTimes
OUT OF THE BOX Josh Levine, 33, a Manhattan real estate broker who hopes to start a community farm, harvesting tomatoes as a volunteer at Quail Hill Farm in Amagansett.
Josh in the Times! Another article about city folk putting down the briefcase and taking up the plow. Somewhat similar article here
The RFID photo booth by Touch
We built the booth in three days, with many design iterations, and ended up with a large white box with a picnic-themed grassy interior that allowed up to about 10 people to have their photo taken at once.
Inside there was an RFID reader, a camera and a screen that would show what was being recorded, as well as showing a countdown for picture taking. Outside a large LCD screen showed recent and random pictures from the booth, encouraging participation. By touching your tag to a reader outside, you could see pictures of yourself.
Over the course of the three-day event the photo-booth was extremely popular and resulted in literally thousands of pictures and social connections.
→ Is Linking to Yourself the Future of the Web? @O'Reilly Radar
At the time, I noted the way that more and more information that was once delivered by independent web sites was now being delivered directly by search engines, and that rather than linking out to others, there were strong signs of a trend towards keeping the link flow to themselves.
This thought re-surfaced when Techcrunch launched Crunchbase. Now, rather than linking directly to companies covered in its stories, Techcrunch links to one of its own properties to provide additional information about them. I noticed the same behavior the other day on the New York Times, when I followed a link, and was taken to a search result for articles on the subject at the Times (with lots of ads, even if there were few results).
via Daring Fireball
→ Rot 'n' Roll: How to start composting @Grist
Composting is a lot like sex. It’s a healthy, natural process involving fertility, tumbling around, and – when it’s going right – steaminess. On top of that, some people call it dirty.
