some nice work.

http://stamen.com/

Once you arrive in Tokyo’s busy commercial district of Shimbashi, a short walk from the station brings you to a noisy highway overpass, and beside that the futuristic Nakagin Capsule Tower. The tower’s stunning design may strike passersby as something straight out of a science-fiction movie, but it stands as a unique architectural beacon amongst the common apartment high-rises and office buildings of Ginza. Designed by the late Japanese architect Kurokawa Kisho, the 14-story tower is composed of 140 individual capsules that function as apartments and business offices. The tower has also served as a prototype of sorts for uniquely Japanese urban accommodations, such as business and capsule hotels.

http://pingmag.jp/2008/12/22/nakagin/

Domenico Dolce et Stefano Gabbana launched its own online magazine, Swide

ISTANBUL (AFP) – The maker of the shoes that an Iraqi journalist hurled at US President George W. Bush has had to take on 100 extra staff to cope with a surge in demand for his footwear, he said on Monday.

“Between the day of the incident and 1:00 pm today we have received orders totalling 370,000 pairs”, Istanbul-based Serkan Turk, head of sales at Baydan Shoes, told AFP.

Normally the firm sold only 15,000 pairs a year of the model that Muntazer al-Zaidi threw at the US president at a press conference in Baghdad on December 14 to become an instant hero across the Arab world, he said.

Turk said orders had initially flooded in from Iraq, followed by other Middle East countries and finally from the rest of the world, including for 19,000 pairs from the United States.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20081222/od_afp/iraqusmediabushshoescompanyoffbeat_081222204331

The exhibition My Favourite Game is a parallel event of the 2007 Ten Images for Ithaca competition. It consists of posters created by designers from different parts of the world, known mostly for their contemporary progressive style and common work method. These are all designers that more or less work in the outskirts of what we call “experimental design”. Free and bold, ready to confound designing facts and conventions, thus creating a team that produces cutting edge design, Xavier Antin, Sara De Bondt, Company, Eric Ellis, Oded Ezer, Jare, Richard Niessen and Andrea Tinnes, all give their personal answer to the theme My Favourite Game.

The technique in which the posters are exhibited is also some kind of a game: each designer had four square areas to design and apply them in any way he/she chose, creating united compositions of different shapes and styles. Subsequently, classic table games, experimental typefaces, mind games, constructions and comments on contemporary urban culture are exhibited together producing a multidimensional multi ethnic composition, offering eight different versions of what a game could be.

http://www.tenimages.org/events.php?aa=2
http://www.company-london.com/print.htm#MyFavouriteGame

PS’87 to PS CS3. via http://www.qbn.com/.

http://www.camerawar.tv

The Motorcycle Diaries (2004) is a biopic about the journey and written memoir of the 23-year-old Ernesto Guevara, who would years later become internationally known as the iconic Marxist revolutionary Che Guevara. The film recounts the 1952 journey, initially by motorcycle, across South America by Guevara and his friend Alberto Granado. As the adventure centered around youthful hedonism unfolds, Guevara discovers himself transformed by his observations of the life of the impoverished indigenous peasantry. The road presents Ernesto Guevara and Alberto Granado a genuine picture of the Latin American identity. Through the characters they encounter on the road, Guevara and Granado learn the injustices the impoverished face and are exposed to people they would have never encountered in their hometown. The trip serves to expose a Latin American identity as well as explore the identity of one of its most memorable revolutionaries.

This is an amazing and inspiring film. Please watch.

Man+God is a project by Art4Soul. It seeks to explore the relationship between Man and God through the eyes and ideas of creative minds of different faiths and various cultures.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/manandgod

via http://iamdriv.blogspot.com/

BEIJING (Reuters) - A man who lost his job and was harassed by strangers after his infidelity to his late wife was detailed online has won China’s first case against Internet vigilantism, the China Daily said on Friday.

A Beijing court ruled Wang Fei’s reputation had been damaged by his late wife’s university classmate, Zhang Leyi, who posted online the diary excerpts she wrote months before she killed herself, and by the internet company that hosted the comments.

“As Zhang was spreading the details of the affair, he also gave out details of Wang’s real name, name of his company and even family addresses, which infringed the plaintiff’s privacy rights,” the chief judge said.

Zhang was ordered to pay Wang 5,000 yuan ($730) and the Beijing Lingyun Interactive Information and Technology Co Ltd, was ordered to pay 3,000 yuan ($440).

He said he began the website that carried the diary narrating (Wang’s wife) Jiang’s misery after discovering her husband’s adultery two months earlier, to “commemorate Jiang’s death and help bring her justice.”

Internet users angered by the story mounted a cyber manhunt for the twenty-something Wang, mobilizing the phenomenon known in China as the “human flesh search engine.”Wang was reportedly forced to resign, and had trouble finding another job, after strangers tracked him down and contacted the companies where he and his lover worked, the paper said.Expletives were painted on his parents’ door, and his photos, addresses, and phone numbers were made public online.

more at http://www.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idUSTRE4BI1I620081219

http://blog.zanorg.com/index.php?perm=370

Agency: Wieden+Kennedy, Portland, USA
Executive Creative Director: Steve Luker
Creative Director: Steve Luker
Art Director: Mira Kaddoura
Copywriter: Alberto Ponte / Sheena Brady
Agency Producer: Robyn Boardman
Account Supervisor: Teri Fildey
Advertiser’s Supervisor: Adam Roth
Production Company: Smuggler, New York
Director: Ivan Zacharias
Producer: EP: Patrick Milling Smith/Brian Carmody/Producer: Nick Landon
D.O.P/Lighting Cameraman: Bob Raggozine
Editor: Filip Malasek
Post Production: Robota

Kipi Ka Popo is designer, illustrator & plush toy maker Lydia Lapinski.

Before setting up the studio in October 2008, Kipi Ka Popo spent six years working at top design agencies Studio Output & The Designers Republic.

http://www.diesel.com/#/start

Yes and no. No two snowflakes are exactly identical, down to the precise number of water molecules, spin of electrons, isotope abundance of hydrogen and oxygen, etc. On the other hand, it is possible for two snowflakes to look exactly alike and any given snowflake probably has had a good match at some point in history. Since so many factors affect the structure of a snowflake and since a snowflake’s structure is constantly changing in response to environmental conditions, it is improbable that anyone would see two identical snowflakes.  

Why are snowflakes symmetrical?

First, not all snowflakes are the same on all sides. Uneven temperatures, presence of dirt, and other factors may cause a snowflake to be lop-sided.
Yet it is true that many snowflakes are symmetrical and intricate. This is because a snowflake’s shape reflects the internal order of the water molecules. Water molecules in the solid state, such as in ice and snow, form weak bonds (called hydrogen bonds) with one another. These ordered arrangements result in the symmetrical, hexagonal shape of the snowflake. During crystallization, the water molecules align themselves to maximize attractive forces and minimize repulsive forces. Consequently, water molecules arrange themselves in predetermined spaces and in a specific arrangement. Water molecules simply arrange themselves to fit the spaces and maintain symmetry.

“8-Bit Jesus and contains 9 tracks thus far. Each one is a chip-tune version of a classic Christmas song done in the style of a different NES game.”

Download the entire Album in ZIP

We Three Konami
Ryu the Red Nosed Ninja
Silent Knight Man
Carol of the Belmonts
Joy to Commando
Deck the Kremlin
Little Drummer Nemo
The Legend of Noel
Super Jingle Bros.

http://www.doctoroctoroc.com/video-game-inspired-music/8-bit-jesus-new-christmas-chip-tune-album/

BAGHDAD — A day after an Iraqi television journalist threw his shoes at President Bush at a news conference in Baghdad on Sunday, his act of defiance toward the American commander-in-chief reverberated throughout Iraq and across the Arab world.

In Sadr City, the sprawling Baghdad suburb that has seen some of the most intense fighting between insurgents and American soldiers since the 2003 invasion, thousands of people marched in his defense. In Syria, he was hailed as a hero. In Libya, he was given an award for courage.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/16/world/middleeast/16shoe.html?_r=1&hp

site with more content: http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/30years/index.html

 ”China has witnessed tremendous changes since the adoption of reform and opening policy. ”

For those familiar with China’s politics, is this Deng Xiaoping’s way of justifying the economic reforms he implemented 30 years ago? It’s interesting how it’s specfically 30 years AFTER economic reforms, not after Mao’s rule, sort of giving a lot of credit to Deng Xiaoping to China’s so-called ‘progress’ today, and possibly negating Mao’s contributions.