Archive for January, 2008
After used panties distributors in Japan, here comes Weed ATM in L.A.
For those oy you in Paris: Ronan & Erwan Bouroullec are at Kreo Gallery in Paris. “For Ronan et Erwan Bouroullec, working with galleries is a chance to breathe outside the usual constraints that characterise their enthusiastic contribution to industrial design. Their need to go “over the top” shows their almost childlike joy in escaping the ties that bind them when working on a brief. The unique proportions of these new pieces are free from existing typologies and domestic conventions. They free themselves from defined and definitive shapes.”
This is a great project: it aims to “create the first comprehensive map of Public Art [read: street graffiti, stenciling & government commissioned art pieces” across the UK”. It’s like stencil revolution meets google maps.
Need to get from Sydney to Brussels in a dash? Not too far in the future you may be able to travel that entire distance in less than 4 hours - emissions free - thanks to an amazing hypersonic hydrogen jet project called LAPCAT.
I somehow missed the Wallpaper 2008 Design awards. (scroll-down for winners)
This is as crazy as it gets. I mean, I could -never- hope to get a US citizenship (i mean, it’s not like I want to ;P). 15 questions to check your knowledge of the US.
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I mostly read non-fiction. The only type of fiction I’m really digging is Sci-Fi. Why? Cause Sci-Fi Is the Last Bastion of Philosophical Writing, Of Course! “If you want to read books that tackle profound philosophical questions, then the best — and perhaps only — place to turn these days is sci-fi. Science fiction is the last great literature of ideas.” And Cory Doctorow, the author he’s talking about in the beginning of the article, is simply great.
More coffee machines! “Professionals have long been willing to pay prices in the five figures for the perfect espresso machine, but the siphon bar does not make espresso. It makes brewed coffee, as does another high-end coffee maker, the $11,000 Clover, which makes one cup at a time. Together, they signal the resurgence of brewing among the most obsessive coffee enthusiasts.” Right.
A step-by-step on how this 20 000$ coffee making machine works.
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China’s still kicking ass and their inflation too.
“It was the fifth consecutive year that [China’s] economy has grown over 10%, and the strongest growth since 1994.[…] Food costs are still the greatest concern in the country of 1.3 billion people. Food prices, which rose 12.3% last year, contributed 4 percentage points to the rise of the country’s consumer price index. The average price of poultry and related products ballooned 31.7% and egg prices rose 21.8%.”
Those who know me well know that I love everything that display information in a useful&original way. Those maps combining the travel time/house prices of London are simply awesome.
Surfing on the thin line of stupid and brilliant, here’s the handpresso! You love coffee. Your going in camping? Check this out! (Or it could be, you love coffee, you want to have it everywhere OR you love coffee and don’t have a coffee machine? OR …)
I think Richard Branson is simply amazing (I said it earlier, I say it again). An entrepreneur, but mostly, a dreamer. Virgin Galatic just unveiled their “new” plane for space travel. One of the possible commercial application (except space flight) is super-fast sub-orbital flight (London to Sydney in an hour and a half). Coming to a city nearby in 25 years.
FastCompany most innovative business people of 2007, featuring Tim Ferris (4HWW), Yves Béhar (Design Guru) and everybody’s favorite, Arnold Schwarzenegger (Governor&Terminator).
Artist of the day: Sublime
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On six degrees of separation, the inexistent influential and why everybody got it wrong for the last 50 years.
“As Watts argues, there are a lot of ways an Influential could convert the masses. Merely talking to a friend once could infect her with an idea. Or it might take several conversations. Or maybe Influentials are so persuasive they’re like trend vampires, and each victim they bite becomes hyperpersuasive too. Depending on how you define the specific mechanics of influence, you’d get totally different types of epidemics–or maybe none at all. But gurus of the Influentials theory never directly clarify these mechanics. […] A trend’s success depends not on the person who starts it, but on how susceptible the society is overall to the trend–not how persuasive the early adopter is, but whether everyone else is easily persuaded. […] Watts thinks trends are more like forest fires: There are thousands a year, but only a few become roaring monsters.”
I love fastcompany.
I’ve already showed some of there here but hey! nice ads are always a good watch…
How Goldman Sachs made a 12 billions profit this year (despite the subprime mortgage crisis..)
Free download of mp3’s from indie groups on that blog from the creator of Engadget
Juno is nominated for an Oscar. I haven’t seen it yet (movies go out late here..) but Jason Reiman is great (Thank you for smoking) and, oh, wait. He’s from Quebec!
That’s my kind of stuff… “Wardrom is an object that invites throwing clothes at. Paula: ‘Wardrom is a vertical wardrobe for young and/or disorganised people of the new millennium.’”
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Steven Levitt (of Freakonomics) co-authored a paper on the economics of prostitution.
From the summary: “Street prostitutes earn roughly $25-$30 per hour. […] Given the relatively limited hours that active prostitutes work, this generates less than $20,000 annually for a women working year round in prostitution. […] According to our estimates, a woman working as a prostitute would expect an annual average of a dozen incidents of violence and 300 instances of unprotected sex. […] Where pimps are active, prostitutes appear to do better, with pimps both providing protection and paying efficiency wages. Condoms are used only one-fourth of the time and the price premium for unprotected sex is small. The supply of prostitutes is relatively elastic, as evidenced by the supply response to a 4th of July demand shock. Although technically illegal, punishments are minimal for prostitutes and johns. A prostitute is more likely to have sex with a police officer than to get officially arrested by one.”
Bobby Fisher died
The Miracle fruit, a slightly tart West African berry with a strange property:
For about an hour after you eat it, everything sour tastes sweet. Within minutes of consuming the berries, guests were devouring lime wedges as if they were candy. Straight lemon juice went down like lemonade, and goat cheese tasted as if it was “covered in powdered sugar,” said one astonished partygoer. A rich stout beer seemed “like a milkshake,” said another.
Library of Confress put about 1500 pics on flickr.
The always very good Good Magazine has a great article called “A call for Yuppies commune“. I featured an article not so long ago about how the twenty something had a new phase in their sociological development. This is kinda an echo to it …
“If it sounds as if I’m calling for a return of the commune, that’s because I am—or at least for some alternative to the arid emotional deserts that are our oversized, empty homes. Imagine friends and families living around a courtyard, occasionally sharing meals and keeping an eye on the kids. Cohousing—a movement that’s taken off among boomer retirees—aims to do just that. It should go without saying that this way of life has massive environmental benefits. But the case is strong enough if we stick to the question of our cultural and emotional environment.”
Artist of the day: Svinkels
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a great article with numerous sources from Agenda inc. about the recession and luxury sector. “Part of the problem is the ‘masstige’ trend which has created a more vulnerability in luxury brands which used to stay above most market fluctuations.”
Just discover a new nice website on trendwatching from BNP Paribas. In french only.
Those guys replicated the Battle of Normandy. It’s crazy to see what three talented people can do with After Effects…
A tale on two brilliant minds in AI research.
Artist of the day: Yael Naim
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Please excuse me for my lack of posting recently, some personal biz + I started a new job so. I know y’all understand..
I mean. Just saying inspirational scientology video with Tom Cruise should get you to watch this right?
We are not alone. (insert ur fav sci-fi theme song here)
How-to sleep better, from Wired.
free accomodation when traveling
Cali and Jody shaped the Best By work environment, using their ROWE (Results-Only Work Environment).
I talked about this guy last month you do every year an annual report about his last year. Here’s the 2007 report.
Mapping the relations of blogs, social networks and the US presidential elections. Awesome.
Moneygami: origami with bills.
UPS optimize its vehicules routes and eliminates the left-turn (you have to wait a bit and change lane to turn left right?). The result? It “helped the company shave 28.5 million miles off its delivery routes, which has resulted in savings of roughly 3 million gallons of gas and has reduced CO2 emissions by 31,000 metric tons.”
Last links were taken from bienbienbien.fr
Artist of the day: Zooey Deschanel (which I loved both in Hitchiker’s guide to the Galaxy and the Weeds show) has 4 original songs and a “dream a little dream” cover on her mypsace space. and it’s good!
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Tata unveils their 2 500$ (100 000 roupies) car in India (happened on the 10th).
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From Dezeen: “Smoking in public buildings was banned in France on 1 January this year, so Paris architect Florian Brillet has designed an adjustable hood to keep smokers cosy outside bars and cafes.”
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Will most probably create a mid-to-strong competition to low-cost airlines (less hassle with customs, don’t have to show up that much in advance, usually trains arrive in city centers, …): “Last July seven operators banded together to form Railteam, an alliance that is working to create a seamless, high-speed network across a large swath of Western Europe. […] the Eurostar now carries more than 70 percent of passenger traffic between London and Paris. And air service between Paris and Brussels has ended altogether now that trains connect those cities in 1 hour and 20 minutes [… but] the train and the plane are complementary,” Pépy says.”
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Facebook “will soon be launching a “profile clean-up” tool. Similar to how your computer’s desktop will remind you to get rid of unused icons, this tool will give users the option to move extra profile boxes to an “extended portion” of their profile.” Thanks GOD!
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Some 250 links, the “Best of of Internet Marketing Blog Posts for 2007“. In other terms, a shitload of info. Great. With summaries and all.
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I always said that Richs were important to our current society, mostly because they provided jobs in sector that they only can nurture. This guy says that they are also responsible for the R&D for most of our “now” products: “These are the people who are willing to pay the extra money to get brand new expensive technology into commercial production, and for all the jobs that will come with that production. Without rich people, technology you take for granted, such as automobiles, would have remained prototype stages for decades, if not permanently. ” I agree. Hail to the richs.
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Two great articles from Agenda inc:
First one on the niche social networks of 2008
Second one on collaboration from luxury brands. I love the DD+1 initiative from Evisu!
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Artist of the day is DJ Deckstream
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An update with American Apparels (I had a rant on them some weeks ago…). The New York post says “Dov Charney walks around his office in his underwear, sleeps with employees, and calls women bitches, sluts, whores and the c-word - and that’s the stuff he admits to.” So anyway, Charney is being sued by an ex-employee ’cause he “once had a meeting with her wearing only a fragment of clothing called a “c- - k sock,” invited her to masturbate with him, and then fired her when he learned she planned to meet with a lawyer.”
If you haven’t see it yet, here’s a video with a cool Bill Gates. Funny is the least I can say. It shows a really down to earth Bill Gates trying to arrange his future with MS (starring Jay-Z, Jon Stewart, Bono, …)
Great pictures of Paris.
The U.S. is going into a recession in 2008. “Many analysts gathered at the American Economic Association’s two-day annual meeting spoke of a recession as almost a given but differed over how severe it will be.”
This page here allows you to stream music from torrent files.
If you’re in Paris, you’ll be happy to know that the Mairie is running an experiment. From Jan ‘08 til July ‘08, 4 museums will be free on specific days.
This orange squeezer was designed after the St. Peters Basilica. From the comments section, “The juice comes down towards the bottom, on the “public square” (that it represents the people), while the better part of the fruit, the flesh, it remains on the cupola (that it represents the Church, in generally).”
Artist of the day: Britney Spears (no kidding..)
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