hippoblog

Flickr, an architect's resource

If you like spying other people's photos and are disappointed with Google Image search (or if you just want to get involved with the latest buzz-worthy web service) join Flickr! Just browsing "architecture" you get all sorts of amateur but decent pics of buildings around the world, often of things that won't find published. Lots of crap, too, but what can ya do.

Flickr! lets you blog your photos direct (to the hippoblog, for instance), too. Once I figure out a convenient way to move photos from my Palm to the web, I'm going to try to start using it. The coolest thing about Flickr!, though, is the community chatter and cross-posting. One of those precarious fun-loving everything-is-good web beta environments. I hope it lasts.

* Ray, 12/11/2004 07:40:17 PM
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Curatorial Art

Fotos encontradas | Found photos, a collection of photos found on the streets of Buenos Aires. From the site:

'A city is, properly speaking, more poetic even than a countryside, for while Nature is a chaos of unconscious forces, a city is a chaos of conscious ones. The crest of the flower or the pattern of the lichen may or may not be significant symbols. But there is no stone in the street and no brick in the wall that is not actually a deliberate symbol - a message from some man, as much as if it were a telegram or a post-card. The narrowest street possesses, in every crook and twist of its intention, the soul of the man who built it.’

G. K. CHESTERTON
...All of the photos and objects that are shown here have been found in the streets of Buenos Aires, specially in the neighbourhoods of Once and Paternal: most of them inside the sunday's trashbags, many others on the sidewalks. The rest seem to have been lost by their owners.

via k10k

* Ray, 12/11/2004 01:19:38 PM
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Smartfood

I'm a little behind in my Atlantics, but I managed to read this article from October's issue about Yale's Alice-Waters-sponsored/inspired program to serve good food in the dining halls. Or, at least one (Berkeley).

One of the twelve residential colleges at Yale University is trying to give students that kind of summertime epiphany at every meal, by serving dishes made from produce raised as close to New Haven as possible. In just two years the Yale Sustainable Food Project has launched two ambitious initiatives to bridge the distance from farm to table: the complete revamping of menus in Berkeley College's dining hall to respect seasonality and simplicity, and the conversion of an overgrown lot near campus to an Edenic organic garden. The garden does not supply the dining hall—it couldn't. Rather, it serves as a kind of Greenwich Mean Time, suggesting what is best to serve, and when, by illustrating what grows in the southern New England climate in any given week. The goal of the project is to sell students on the superior flavor of food raised locally in environmentally responsible (but not always organic) ways, so that they will seek it the rest of their lives.

Food comes from local farms, and the cooks have been retrained to peel garlic, chop onions and make simple, fresh (but not always organic) food. Students have been lining up outside the gates and faking Berkeley College ID's to get in. Plans are now in the works to spread the good cooking to the other residential colleges. It costs 1.5x more than frozen Aramark food, but somehow it's working. (There's some mention of an anonymous donor in the article.)

Here's a Yale Herald article on the project and an NPR story.

If this project is to become a revolution it won't be because of philosophical ideals -- it will simply be a matter of taste.

* Ray, 12/11/2004 01:56:00 AM
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The Tablet

I was thinking about a massive tablet/LCD screen for architects as I put together an SD set this week. So much redlining, so much redundant work. I figure, if you had an A0 size LCD screen, or maybe e-ink, you could see what your drawing was going to look like immediately. Then with a tablet feature and some kick-ass recognition software you could sketch your changes on the screen and have the drawing you want, immediately. Think of all the hours you'd save. Basically, I'm talking about an Autocad work-around.

Still, it's an idea that's in the works. See: Tool Time at Pixar. They custom-made a tablet so the director could say what he wanted graphically. For architects it'd have to be a lot more precise, and you'd have to manage layers simply (different tablet pens for different layers?)...

* Ray, 12/11/2004 12:45:00 AM
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Reuse

In the news today: new uses for things.

The Millennium Dome will be used as a homeless shelter for the holiday season.

Some guy builds a working Lego Grandfather Clock

Google beta's Google Suggest, a strange function that anticipates what you're searching for. I wonder if next they'll release a search engine that searches search engines, based on what it thinks you're searching for, rather than what you say you are.

* Ray, 12/11/2004 12:33:34 AM
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Other People's Architecture

Out now: Precedents in Architecture, 3rd Ed. Pretty diagrams, three new buildings. (For you non-architects, you can go get a different new release: HaXXXor, vol. 2. Learn geeky things while being encouraged by nudity.)

Generally derivative: Finalists, Lakeshore Drive Bridge.

Derivative by a different definition: Parasitic Architecture, with a peculiar cursor-chaser at the upper part of the screen. Don't know what that's about.

* Ray, 12/09/2004 02:54:00 PM
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Good Gadgets and Really Good Gadgets

We all want to know which gadgets are really the best for travel, long-term use and so on. Here's one guy's log: The Trip: Gadgets get rated. But, if iPod's are too prosaic for gadget tastes, read about this fully analog photographer who's invented a way to get incredible clarity, the kind spies envy. Unfortunately the article doesn't describe how the camera works.

Mr. Diegert and six other scientists joined Mr. Ross on Tuesday night at his home in Greenwich Village for a presummit dinner and viewing of his whiz-bang camera. The camera, called the R-1 (R for Ross), looks oddly rigged, like something out of Dr. Seuss, and almost like an antique viewfinder camera on legs. In fact, Mr. Ross pulls a cloth over his head and the back of his contraption when he takes a picture. But with this camera that he concocted out of 60-year-old camera parts, mirrors, a microscope and other items - none of them digital - Mr. Ross has taken photographs on 9-by-18-inch negatives that when slowly processed by hand and digitally scanned contain 100 times as much data as the average professional digital camera.

* Ray, 12/09/2004 02:49:23 PM
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Esperanto

I learned today that Hunter speaks Esperanto and is (was?) a firm believer in the language. It came up as I was looking at All Free Dictionaries project : More than 90 free dictionaries. Impressive multilingual translation. Also, ironically bad English (or perhaps grammar learned from only reading dictionaries):

It is not easy to explain this concept so we hope this example will help everyone understand the tremendous power of this concept. There will be always the backbone description which binds English word to only one meaning in Wordnet. English words and Wordnet descriptions are now used as backbone descriptions which will be translated into all languages. This concept will lead contributors to translate English words into other language. More common words are translated before less frequent words. First working version of this concept will have for example only 5000 most common English words. Later the list of backbone descriptions will grow. The table will be filled with triplets (for example corresponding english-german-french translations) from all existing free dictionaries. This will make it even easier to fill the table with translations.

That reminds me, I didn't mention to you GSD guys that Silvia Fuster (from the GSD) is engaged to the guy who sits next to me here at Rockwell. Small, small, small world. She just opened her show last weekend, "Siamese Connections" (a typological study of standpipes).

* Ray, 12/09/2004 02:47:40 PM
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More blogs

I added Jalopnik and createdigitalmusic to the links list. If I can't actually pursue a life in cars and/or music, then at least it's fun to read about people who are. By the way, if you think Jalopnik's just for gearheads, check out this Wesfalia concept.

* Ray, 12/08/2004 07:59:35 PM
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A ton of conversation

Statue of Liberty Head for Sale

This is a true life size highly detailed replica of the Statue of Liberty's face. It is sculpted out of white polystyrene foam with a hard plaster coating. A steel armature on the back can be used for rigging. Weight is approx. 2000#. Buyer will be responsible for arranging transportation from it's current location in South Norwalk, CT. Originally made as part of David Copperfield's Magic Underground in New York City this conversation piece is ideal for anyone interested in recreating the famous finale to Planet of the Apes.

* Ray, 12/08/2004 03:29:15 PM
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Unpowered Gaming

Today, somehow, I found only one link worth reblogging:
The 2004 Good Gift Games Guide

Board games from the future. I mean, Europe. I'm especially curious about Boomtown, a card game featuring gold prospectors and chesty girls. From the game maker's site:

Some of the graphics from the french edition have not been used in the US edition. This is due in part to the use of wooden bits for the saloons and mayors, but also to the fact that some of the french illustrations were not politically correct for the USA, using "potentially offensive stereotypes". You can see here over the five mayor cards from the french edition, the mayors of Tokamawak, Whiskey River, San Narciso, New London and Cold Mountain. You can otice the variety of mining tools.

"Potentially offensive"? More like hilarious. Ah, what a bunch of carefree, small-minded bastards, those French.

* Ray, 12/08/2004 01:42:37 PM
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Eye Openers

First, the news: Police suspended over bomb gaffe

French authorities have suspended two dog-handlers who lost track of plastic explosives they hid in a passenger's bag at a Paris airport.

If you need something to distract you from the news, look at the ever-changing list at wellvetted.

Or amuse yourself with the interfaces of Stanton Warriors and Ichikoo.

Even better, get flabbergasted or bemused by D.R.Horton or Bibleman (who happens to be Scott Baio's Barney Rubble).

Or go mindless and wowed by cheval noir, or just go mindless with Baby Jesus.

And then there's Camper Tramps.

* Ray, 12/07/2004 11:54:24 PM
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Clogger

I was looking through the Clogger archive tonight (Core77's blog) and found some neato things:

Levitated | the Exploration of Computation: artificial intelligence scripts for Flash and more

The inside of a potato chip bag, QTVR

FLATPAK, the portable house.

Art Spiegelman's In the Shadow of No Towers is on sale now.

Color in Motion, a student (award-winning) piece on the language of color.

Large Chill Out Room, $400 of inflatable isolation.

Yay Core77. Good site.

* Ray, 12/07/2004 01:18:40 AM
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Eating Anywhere

10,000 euro prize for Eating Anywhere (competition to promote aluminum recycling, in particular as it relates to "food nomadism").

* Ray, 12/06/2004 02:03:08 PM
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Architectural Hope

Architectural Record's Design Vanguard 2004:

nARCHITECTS
Patterns
Architecton
Alejandro Aravena
Contemporary Architecture Practice
Byoungsoo Cho Architects
Christoff:Fino Architecture
Masaki Endoh/EDH
Antón García-Abril & Ensamble Studio
dECOi
Plasma Studio

Also check out: a non-Shigeru Ban cardboard house

* Ray, 12/06/2004 01:59:54 PM
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Nothing but strange

This weekend I read about the paper-crane "bombing" of southern Thailand. I'd think it was an American idea--for its naive short-sightedness--except that it requires having the dexterity to fold paper cranes. Well, after reading what happened, the news just took a turn toward the strange:

The wonderful hypergraphic world of KLONdesign.

Holiplay, surprisingly good graphics. Children are depicted eating bird shit and puking. Also, you get to throw a small boy at other boys.

A collection of nut-kicks.

Poodle Fitness Video

Free Holy Spam

The hardest simple puzzle in the world, the Quzzle.

Artists take over Pittsfield, Mass.

A recursive animation.

The Neo-Kaiju menagerie.

Who needs a natural history museum when you can have a Creation Museum?

The music of porn.

This CD represents 17 individual artists' interpretations of the 'Wakka Chikka Wakka Chikka'; each providing their own unique cultural and geographic spin on the vibe that is "Wakka Chikka Wakka Chikka'. From celebrations of the beauty of intimacy to a cautionary tale of excess, this collection of sound sculptures of the 'Wakka Chikka Wakka Chikka' mystique from around the world will guide you into the heart of all that is 'Wakka Chikka Wakka Chikka'.

The endoskeletons of cartoon characters.

Phone booths without phones.

* Ray, 12/06/2004 01:53:10 PM
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hippobloggier

As you can see, I've made some changes to hippoblog. I found a great collection of intricate wallpapers at k10k and couldn't resist putting them to use. I also wrote a script to assign font, border, width and placement for each post, based on window size and date (essentially random). Oh, and I added a bunch of links on the left.

Just wanted to keep from getting too boring. Next up, my portfolio page...

* Ray, 12/06/2004 08:53:45 AM
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Useful

The other day I found this script at Tech-Recipes.com that brings filenames from a Windows directory into Notepad. Supremely useful sometimes, thought I'd put it here in case someone needs it in the future:

Directions
Often I need to print or email somebody a listing of a folder's contents. Windows does not have an easy way to do this.

The creation of this file will make this task very simple.

1. Open Notepad
2. Copy and paste the following text:

@echo off
if EXIST %1 goto start
echo Drag and drop any file onto this program to grab its parent directory listing.
pause
goto end
:start
echo "%~dp1"
dir "%~dp1" > dir.txt || pause
start dir.txt
:end

3. Under the File menu select Save as
4. As you want to save this to your desktop, browse to the appropriate location.
5. Under filename type dirlist.cmd
6. Under Save as type select All Files
7. Click OK

A file called dirlist.cmd should be created on your desktop. Clicking this file will just give you the echo message and not do anything productive.

To use your new tool, drag any file onto this newly created item on your desktop. The directory contents of that file's folder will be opened in notepad.

For example, to print out a listing of my toolbar directory, I would navigate to my toolbar directory and drag any file in the toolbar directory to the dirlist.cmd file.

* Ray, 12/05/2004 12:50:26 PM
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