Ji Lee: The Transformative Power of Personal Projects from 99% on Vimeo.

And finally: Matt B’s Otamatone arrived. It’s delightful. A musical toy that sounds and works much like a Stylophone: you press a contact-sensitive strip that maps to pitch, but it’s the rubber mouth of the character – that adds filtering and volume just like opening and closing your own mouth – that brings the whole thing to life. You can’t see someone playing with it and not laugh!

It’s a product by Maywa Denki, an artist makes musical toys and sells them as products; previous musical toys include the Knockman Family, all of which are worth your time watching as much of you can on Youtube.

And if you get your own Otamatone, and practice really hard, maybe you could play with some friends:

http://firstpersontetris.com/

fucking brilliant

“Lost Generation is a palindrome video that reads the same backwards as forward, but has a totally different meaning. The video was submitted in a contest by a 20-year old. The contest was titled “u @ 50″ by AARP. This video won second place. When they showed it, everyone in the room was awe-struck and broke into spontaneous applause.”

Via SwissMiss

Statement on Google Operations in China

Hillary Rodham Clinton
Secretary of State

Washington, DC

January 12, 2010

We have been briefed by Google on these allegations, which raise very serious concerns and questions. We look to the Chinese government for an explanation. The ability to operate with confidence in cyberspace is critical in a modern society and economy. I will be giving an address next week on the centrality of internet freedom in the 21st century, and we will have further comment on this matter as the facts become clear.

http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2010/01/135105.htm

We’re sure that by tomorrow morning, there will be an even bigger slew of news out about Google’s recent move (including if they actually are talking to the government, we hear they are at least). But for tonight, here’s the latest news on the matter.

You know how people were offering flowers up at the alter of Google in Beijing? That’s not allowed anymore - security officers at Tsinghua University (right next to Google’s offices) are asking you why you’re buying flowers and demanding that it not be for the Big G. That’s apparently propelled “Illegal flower donations” (非法獻花) to the first big internet meme of China 2010.

Meanwhile, quite expectedly, China’s official state media has officially told all news portals to harmonize their news with Xinhua’s/People’s Daily’s versions. Considering that China Daily’s take on the whole ordeal was a boring two sentences, Chinese people not addicted to the internet probably aren’t going to know much about this. According to Reuters, Xinhua has said that Chinese authorities are “seeking more information on Google’s statement that it could quit China” and that “it is still hard to say whether Google will quit China or not. Nobody knows.”

Wired quoted a source that said Google has tried to work to protect its employees from that “information seeking,” timing the announcement so that its Beijing branch would know about what was happening before they arrived to work. “[Google is] really concerned about their safety and feels that there is a very real possibility that they will be interrogated,” the source said. “They have been [interrogated] numerous times before, and this time they could be arrested and imprisoned.”

http://shanghaiist.com/2010/01/13/everything_almost_thats_been_happen.php#more

Google.com:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&source=hp&q=Tiananmen+square&aq=f&aqi=g5g-z1g1g-z1g2&oq=&cad=h

Google.cn:

 http://www.google.cn/search?hl=zh-CN&q=Tiananmen+square&btnG=Google+%E6%90%9C%E7%B4%A2&aq=f&oq=

http://www.qubibi.net/bunka/daydream/index.html

Profile: Kazumasa Teshigawara, Born in Ikebukuro, Tokyo, 1977. Used to live with mother in the beginning. Later moved in with a new family. Was taken around bars while still young. Hostesses used to like me a lot. I stopped going to school. Played game at home. Cried out of fear when collectors banged at the door for money. Father ran away, got caught. Graduated elementary school. Got into an accident and hurt my neck. Father came back. Father died. Graduated secondary high. Worked at Nihonbashi Textile Processing Factory. Got into an accident, almost died, and hurt my neck. Got into music. Quit point drawing. Bought a Mac. Met some weird people. Said goodbye. Unknowingly entered a bad content design firm and quit immediately. Was scared for days after I quit because the company got hold of me. Worked and quit a number of jobs. At age 21, discovered the fun of design. Eventually got married. Had a kid. Got separated. Got the kid. Taking care of the kid. Working quietly under the label “Qubibi.” Would like to make a lot of things.
Awards: One Show Interactive Gold prize / Cannes Cyber Lions Silver prize / D&AD Awards Yello Pencill / AMD Award The Naomi Enami Award / Japan Media Arts Festival Excellence prize / Tokyo Interactive Ad Awards Bronze prize and Finalist  (にほんご…)

http://www.qubibi.net/

At around 4AM local time, Google updated their official blog with an entry titled “A new approach to China.” It states that around mid December, Google discovered a “highly sophisticated and targeted attack on our corporate infrastructure” coming from within China. And this, they asserted, was the last straw for their operations here.Basically, Google discovered that:
1. the security of various multinational companies had been breached
2. a main directive of the hackers was to access the personal emails of Chinese human rights activists
3. the personal emails of human rights activists concerned with China around the world were routinely being accessed, far beyond the incident in question.

As a prominent website, Google said it was used to hackers trying to breach its security. But its months of research into these attacks raised such serious issues that it may spell the end of Google in China completely.

From the Official Google Blog:

We have taken the unusual step of sharing information about these attacks with a broad audience not just because of the security and human rights implications of what we have unearthed, but also because this information goes to the heart of a much bigger global debate about freedom of speech. In the last two decades, China’s economic reform programs and its citizens’ entrepreneurial flair have lifted hundreds of millions of Chinese people out of poverty. Indeed, this great nation is at the heart of much economic progress and development in the world today.We launched Google.cn in January 2006 in the belief that the benefits of increased access to information for people in China and a more open Internet outweighed our discomfort in agreeing to censor some results. At the time we made clear that “we will carefully monitor conditions in China, including new laws and other restrictions on our services. If we determine that we are unable to achieve the objectives outlined we will not hesitate to reconsider our approach to China.”

These attacks and the surveillance they have uncovered–combined with the attempts over the past year to further limit free speech on the web–have led us to conclude that we should review the feasibility of our business operations in China. We have decided we are no longer willing to continue censoring our results on Google.cn, and so over the next few weeks we will be discussing with the Chinese government the basis on which we could operate an unfiltered search engine within the law, if at all. We recognize that this may well mean having to shut down Google.cn, and potentially our offices in China.

Google has always had a tenuous place in Chinese cyberspace, particularly when it comes to issues of censorship: the ideological discord has been apparent since the company first came to China in 2006, hoping to expand their informational services without compromising their integrity. But in the light of China’s increasing internet restrictions, it seems Google’s very presence in China facilitates the government’s censorial agenda.

Word on the street is that the move is Google doesn’t plan on “negotiating” in the true sense of the word: rather, they’ve laid out their motives and beliefs, and expect to walk away when the government refuses to accept them. A pretty bold move from any company… though some have already wondered if this was also a way to “back out of a market it was losing to Baidu”.

We’ll be following the story for the rest of the day, so stay tuned for updates.

quoted from http://shanghaiist.com/2010/01/13/google_to_shut_down_in_china.php

Send and receive anonymous questions, and learn more about people you find interesting by following their answers.

http://www.formspring.me/

example: http://www.formspring.me/jessversus

or  http://www.formspring.me/nelsonthegreat

PowerPOST is a table leg for system furniture that installs power outlets into the desk.

http://www.red-dot.sg/concept/porfolio/o_e/HF/R101.htm

WHO ARE YOU??????

January 5, 2010 · 16 Comments

Ok, so after confirming my mania in a chat with Ellie, I have decided to pose this question to the group:

I received a friend request on facebook from this mysterious vixen about a month ago, and accepted only after seeing that I had HUNDREDS of friends in common with her, most notably: ALL OF YOU. Thinking that I was crazy for not remembering someone clearly so connected and such an integral part of my life and those of my friends, I began to create memories of her in my head. Like the time she forgot all of her drawing supplies in Jean Shin’s foundation drawing class and used an extinguished cigarette as charcoal. Or the time that she brought in cookies for everyone in Stabile Hall, even though it was HER birthday. Thats just the kind of girl Ashely is. In my mind.

That is until it was confirmed by several people that they accepted her request for exactly the same reasons, and do not have a clue who this girl is.

one comment:

 mmonroedesign // January 6, 2010 at 2:35 am | Reply

i got the request, messaged her and waited a few days… this is the response I got:
“Hi Michala,

Oh this has been a huge faux pas on my part! I feel like a idiot saying this but, as it turns out that I did the stupidest thing the other day. While going through the suggested friends section I accidentally hit invite all and ended up sending out a blanket invite to a lot of people. I guess you were one of many to receive that request from me. Please accept my apologies for the random add. It really was an honest mistake

Have a great day,

Ashley ”

so… now i feel bad, is she real? im guessing yes…?

http://blogfwends.com/2010/01/05/who-are-you/#comments

“British artist Michelle Brand found her inspiration at the bottom of a plastic soda bottle. Brand’s artistic eye saw the shape of a flower at the base, so she collected 366 bottles from a landfill to create the Cascade Lancashire Chandelier. The resulting fixture is five feet of incandescence.”CNN MoneyThe root of my interests lies in sustainable waste management. At present it has manifested itself into a designer maker practice.I have designed an aesthetic and decorative fabric from which most people in the western world would perceive to be waste/rubbish.The fabric is composed of plastic drinks bottle bases, which have been cut, sanded and then tagged together.I love seeing design opportunities where most people only see problems.

Sugar Daddy’s Cupcakes is Magnolia of Jordan.

drag and drop your cupcakes 6 packs configurator

“For Crumbs, it’s the bakery that needs to know how many of which flavors to bake; it’s the distribution center that needs to know how to pack cupcakes so they arrive anywhere in the country as fresh as if you bought them at the store; it’s the ability to switch up a Red Velvet for a Boston Cream Pie on the fly; and it’s everything Shipping needs to know to make sure a beautiful box of gourmet treats gets to someone’s door in time to blow out the candles. Intelligent web technology links every part of the company to create and meet customer demand.”- P1CA

As a doctor and researcher, Hans Rosling identified a new paralytic disease induced by hunger in rural Africa. Now he looks at the bigger picture of social and economic development with his remarkable trend-revealing software.

http://www.gapminder.org/

Even the most worldly and well-traveled among us will have their perspectives shifted by Hans Rosling. A professor of global health at Sweden’s Karolinska Institute, his current work focuses on dispelling common myths about the so-called developing world, which (he points out) is no longer worlds away from the west. In fact, most of the third world is on the same trajectory toward health and prosperity, and many countries are moving twice as fast as the west did.

What sets Rosling apart isn’t just his apt observations of broad social and economic trends, but the stunning way he presents them. Guaranteed: You’ve never seen data presented like this. By any logic, a presentation that tracks global health and poverty trends should be, in a word: boring. But in Rosling’s hands, data sings. Trends come to life. And the big picture — usually hazy at best — snaps into sharp focus.

Rosling’s presentations are grounded in solid statistics (often drawn from United Nations data), illustrated by the visualization software he developed. The animations transform development statistics into moving bubbles and flowing curves that make global trends clear, intuitive and even playful. During his legendary presentations, Rosling takes this one step farther, narrating the animations with a sportscaster’s flair.

Rosling developed the breakthrough software behind his visualizations through his nonprofit Gapminder, founded with his son and daughter-in-law. The free software — which can be loaded with any data — was purchased by Google in March 2007. (Rosling met the Google founders at TED.)

Rosling began his wide-ranging career as a physician, spending many years in rural Africa tracking a rare paralytic disease (which he named konzo) and discovering its cause: hunger and badly processed cassava. He co-founded Médecins sans Frontièrs (Doctors without Borders) Sweden, wrote a textbook on global health, and as a professor at the Karolinska Institut in Stockholm initiated key international research collaborations. He’s also personally argued with many heads of state, including Fidel Castro.