information

LA Silver Lake Ivanhoe lake black balls
Sweet goodness, this rocks! Tossing 400,000 plastic black Caviar like balls into a reservoir with 3 million to follow in an attempt to shade off the reservoirs exposed water from sunlight for the next 4-5 years.

The water needs to be shaded because when sunlight mixes with the bromide and chlorine in Ivanhoe’s water, the carcinogen bromate forms, said Pankaj Parekh, DWP’s director for water quality compliance. Bromide is naturally present in groundwater and chlorine is used to kill bacteria, he said, but sunlight is the final ingredient in the potentially harmful mix.”

Reminds me of the beautiful Sony Bravia Bouncing balls commercial. I want to by a pool of spheres now!

Tons of fun pics after the jump.
Source via LA TIMES with video, Curbed, and CBS and video.

Continue Reading


A tour of Times Square from Keyframe on Vimeo.

hmmm… I want to make use of that empty space! The owner should convert it into his mansion or something! I hate wasted prime space!

“The One Times Square building is empty. Why? Because the owner can afford it by selling ad space alone. It costs $300,000/month to advertise on that structure — one of things you’ll learn in this behind-the-LED-screens look at Times Square. ”

via boingboing

wikipedia about Building, yup, it’s empty!!!

acrobat.com webtop

Wow! Acrobat.com’s webtop page looks amazing, incorporating the sweet Buzzword (Word online), ConnectNow for sharing screens, PDF maker, file sharing, and file storage (5 gigs free). Every thing is going to the web! Whoohoooo! If only Photoshop Express (psd online) and Illustrator could be online now as well as any 3D program via Solidworks, catia, maya, 3d studio, blender, Rhino, Zform, Sketchup, etc..! Programs online rock! Did I say online yet!
via TechCrunch

Here’s a informational video about the always controversial Net Neutrality issue whom many of us learned about back in 2006 through Ask a Ninja here!

Pass it around, be in the know, and fight off this corrupt political crap… make information free to enable creativity and progression. Reminds me of Larry Lessig‘s Great TED lecture on “Creativity being strangled the by law.”

via ipower.ning

Nick Demarco XS garbage chair

Call it what you want, but I think this is a great idea by student Nick Demarco! Buy this plastic bag/mesh shaped chair, stuff it with dry items you’d be throwing away anyways or what you have too much of, and you have a comfy chair. Take those old shirts, magazines, bottles, stuffed bears, newspapers, etc.

This is a great “Reuse” project. I’ve got a huge pile of old shirts and magazines that would work great for making a snazzy couch! Reminds me a bit of the very expensive yet cool Campana teddy chairs!

via treehugger!
video interview

Erik Nordenankar biggest drawing in the world dhl

Artist Erik Nordenankar has created the “Biggest Drawing in the World” according to his webpage.

In short, he had a grand vision to draw a huge self-portrait. He sent away a briefcase containing a GPS device around the world through DHL which plotted it’s journey in 55 days. The end result, a pretty sweet self-portrait. The GPS container became his pen and the world became his canvas.

However true or fictional this may be, it’s a pretty cool idea. He has a good documentation of it online, and a youtube videos here.

via hackaday

RISD 2008 Graduate Thesis exhibition
Rhode Island School of Design’s
Annual Graduate Thesis Exhibition
Rhode Island Convention Center: May 21-June 1, 2008.
opening reception May 20, 6-8pm

“More than 120 RISD artists and designers across 14 disciplines featured in graduate student showcase of art and design at its very best.

For the second consecutive year, the extraordinary work of more than 120 students receiving master’s degrees from Rhode Island School of Design [RISD] will be on view at the Rhode Island Convention Center in RISD’s Annual Graduate Thesis Exhibition. The work of graduate students in painting, industrial design, sculpture, textiles, photography and nine other art and design disciplines will be on exhibit from May 21-June 1, 2008.

An online gallery has also been created to allow “virtual visitors” to view examples of work from the exhibition.”

I’ll be there from 6pm onwards…this should be awesome!

RISD Graduate Exhibition Webpage
Webgallery

update: lots of pics after jump when I went to the show.

Continue Reading


I was at a party last night and stumbled upon a few passionate “CouchSurfing” ladies into Boston for the night from Australia. So what is Couch surfing? Watch the video above, or in my take, it’s the new hotel! It’s free, you meet new locals who can probably give you the best tour of the city skipping all the BS, you become friends, learn a ton about the local culture, perhaps get a homemade cultural meal, and in the end, become an official “CouchSurfer!” What an experience!

I’ve always couch crashed at friends around the world and love it over hotels, but meeting newbies from cities I don’t know might just be the next best thing! I’ve met some of my best friends in the most random situations and this couch surfing idea sounds great! Meet new people, get a free place to crash, and get a heads on dive into the local culture wherever your adventures take you. Sure, it may seem a bit sketchy to stay over at a strangers… but treat it like a friend of a friends! Where there is trust comes new opportunities! They also have global gatherings for CouchSurfers… checkout some Flickr pics.

www.couchsurfing.com
A bunch of Couchsurfing Youtube videos

pangea day sony studio LA

It’s been an incredibly busy week of travel and work and I apologize for not posting as much.

First came the wonderful GEL (Good Experience Live) conference in nyc, which made me ask “why” every time I experienced something bad in this world, rather than just letting it happen. Why do voice mail avatars talk for sooo long before I can leave a message, why do the same avatars talk for so long when I want to hear my voice mails, Why does technology direct 2 people calling each other at the same time to each others voice mail rather than connecting them, why is the nyc train system so confusing for a newbie… this world is full of bad experiences, and as a designer, discovering, revealing, and disrupting the norm is needed…especially when it comes to sustainability and health care experiences. I’ll post about GEL later on, but here is a great recap collection.

Anyhow, this week I venture off to the “Art Center: Serious Play” Conference in LA. It’ll touch base on user experience, design, and bits of everything. I’ll bring my laptop, but no promises on live blogging.

After that, I’ll be experiencing the incredible Pangea Day on May 10th at the Sony Pictures Studio in LA. If you didn’t catch my last post, this is MUST do…invite a bunch of friends, family, or even strangers over…gather around, watch this global event for 4+ hours, get inspired, and make change! There will be 24 films, live music, and several fantastic speakers very much like TED.

I’ll be twittering most of my journey on the sidebar..feel free to follow me on twitter, or just on this blog… I’ll post when I can, but for now, a few late weekend links below:

Use Whatever Clock: Pretty cool, sell the function, let customer create looks.
Wearable Chair: I had this idea sometime ago, but executed a bit differently.
Twistori: Following Twitter by emotions.
Scrapile: Using wasted wood to make cool wood composites! Very sustainable!
Sunlight Poem Projector: Public Poem based on sun location. Pretty neat!
Soba Machine: Make you own soba at home. I’m in soba mode after going to Soba Koh nyc.
A billion Pennies: What does 1 billion pennies stack up to be.
Momofuku Ko restaurant: reservations only online! Brings the experience beyond the restaurant.