I’ve been using Popurls for the last few days and must say it’s a great little tool for the web. Popurls is much like an rss feed that merges several dynamic content driven sources into one simple easy to read page. These sources include the best of Flickr, Youtube, Digg, del.icio.us, google news, slashdot, odeo, and a few others. The titles also have roll-over blurbs detailing the articles. If you don’t end up using PopUrls, I’d also highly suggest Bloglines, which is an incredible time saver for you blog readers.
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I first heard Barry Schwartz speak at the GEL conference about his book, “The Paradox of Choice – Why More Is Less“. He talks about how freedom is better, but also worse. How the more options we have the better the final outcome, but the worse the experience. How 175 different types of salad dressings is ridiculous. Is too much choice bad? Does it really numb our thinking and decision making? Does variety mean quality? What’s better, Capability vs Usability. Anyhow, his incredible 1 hour Google lecture can be viewed here. For any of you out there that create consumer products, this is a must watch!
In my opinion, there are the services and products that that I love to have choice in, but then there are a ton of services I wished never had options. Airline tickets, phone plans, health plans, cameras, cars, and the everlasting ordeal of figuring out which movie to watch. A few years back, we’d just watch a movie that came out. Now we look at all the trailers, read a bunch of reviews, dive into their websites, ask friends that have seen it, look at their rankings, look at who’s in it, then finally deciding if the movie is worth watching even though we know everything about the movie now. After all that chaos, we have to figure out how to buy the ticket. Should we buy it early, online, offline, as a group, print the ticket, pick it up, matinée, which theater, etc. Many hours later, our choice is made, which is probably a great decision, but the experience to get there has become a job… So, is choice good? Is thinking about this good, bad? Well, enjoy the video which has several other examples of this paradox!
“The art of experimental interaction design” is a great book to have if you want to see some of the best interaction projects that merge and question the physical, interactive, and interface world together. The book contains projects by ideo, antenna design, daniel rozin, golan levin, and many others. It also includes a CD documenting several of the books projects. I’ve had a hard time finding great books dealing with the physicality in interaction design and electronics, but here it is. Most interaction books only cover interfaces and rarely bridge back to the physical world. I’ve had this book for about a year, and it’s been an everlasting source of inspiration.
The cute “ugly dolls” that I love so much are now available in larger 2 foot sizes, mini 7 inchers, the original 12 inch sizes, and itsy bitsy keychains sizes,. They also have a few other goodies based on their popular series. Their great dolls to have in your studio space…nothin like a goofy, ugly, cute, doll to have around to keep ya inspired!
I’m a bit late on this one, but KidRobot released an aweseome new LA Dunny Series a few months back, and of course, they are sold out. I own a few from the first series and they rock out my lil work space! Hopefully I’ll be able to get my hands on some of these somewhere, cause they rock!
Another video to follow from 1998, Water Power Car.
I’m a huge advocate for greener cars but my question is where are they? These videos are 8 years old. I’d pay well over 100k for a car now that just needed water as fuel. Hopefully I’ll see them soon, cause we need them. If your not motivated, you should watch the movie “An Inconvenient Truth”.
update: another water as fuel invention Daniel Dingel of the Philppines has been trying to get made for 30 years!!!
Update: Yet another option, air as fuel car, yes, I said AIR!!!
If you missed Jennifer Lin rockin out her beautiful and inspiring piano skills at TED2004 then here’s your chance again to see and be amazed on her brief performance on Oprah!
While at GEL this past week, I ventured down to Lincoln center to say hello to David Blaine who is living in a tank of water for a week, then holding his breath under water for 9+ minutes monday night while escaping a set of chains. The tank is beautiful, his fingers are pruned like crazy, and the public is lovin it! The nytimes has a great article on the event.
I’m off to the wonderful GEL conference (good experience live) in nyc… I’ll be back in a few days!!!
update: highlights from GEL
– Google exit party, meeting people!
– Seth Godin, love the tie man.
– a chocolate high tour (sweet riots)
– exchanging BIG ideas with people
– seeing everyone from last year again!
I came across this inspiring article about being an entrepreneur and making your passion reality. Reminds me of the billion dollar networks. Give it a read, and think about it. I truely believe that more and more people will run their own business in todays fast paced digital society.
Cool+geeky+stylish is rare, but check out these sweet looking dot matrix watches!! I’m the type that has to feel and see before I approve, but these already have me craving. It also has a wave-like light pattern sort of like the pimp watch. Leather+Tech= rockin awesome! Hopefully it fits great!
via unkrate
iwantoneofthose– product page
Watch this preview for the movie “An Inconvenient Truth” about the troubling Climate Crisis. I had the great opportunity to hear, listen to, and interact with Al Gore at the TED conference where he spoke passionately about this global issue. His personality during the conference was incredible. The content that he presented was mind-boggling. I can’t wait for this movie to reach a larger audience in hope for changes that must be made.