Most real estate agents have an especially keen eye for the small details when it comes to homes, and TikToker Eric Goldie is no exception. In his latest post, one such detail catches his attention as he faces the window of a New York apartment all the way across the street from his own, and he kindly gives his neighbors a heads up: "To my neighbors who live on the corner of Bleecker and Perry, um … [camera zooms in on a busy little critter between a window and its blinds] … you have a mouse problem." — Read the rest
According to Utravillage ("A guide to underground ambient, minimal, progressive electronic, and new age releases from approximately 1975 to 1995, covering primarily vinyl and cassette releases from the U.S. scene.") Quark Pair was a "precocious duo of Gen X teenagers who met at Stuyvesant high school in New York." — Read the rest
As a rare book dealer and specialist in the history of the book, I view printed texts as historical artifacts, holding material clues to the past. When it comes to children's books, we tend to see them as a reflection of their target readers, but they more often convey the hopes and anxieties of the adults who created them. — Read the rest
A study conducted by Douglas Elliman Real Estate found that one in five New York retail spaces is sitting vacant; these spaces are boarded up and attract vandalism, drug-dealing, and other unsavory activities. The rate has more than tripled since 2016.
In "design fiction" and "speculative design," designers and science fiction writers create fictional products and services, which go on to inform real engineering and product design processes.
My artist/serial entrepreneur friend Julian Bleecker's new labor of love is OMATA. The company and gadget that he and co-founder Rhys Newman have been working on intensely for the last year or so today officially launched on Kickstarter. — Read the rest
Julian Bleecker and his Near Future Laboratory have followed up on their amazing Skymall-of-the-future catalog with an imaginary near-future Ikea catalog that jam an insane amount of witty futuristic speculation into elegantly presented, arresting images. — Read the rest
There's a wonderful feature by Robert Barry over at the Quietus on the 50th anniversary of the introduction of Bob Moog's first modular synthesizer. Moog turns 80 today.
Aisling sez, "Emerge is an exciting 3 day event of active workshops, thoughtful conversation and keynotes about what it means to be human, hosted at Arizona State University. Featured speakers and active participants include Bruce Sterling, Neal Stephenson, Bruce Mau, Sherry Turkle and Stewart Brand. — Read the rest
As a camera, the iPhone 4 is really sweet. I hopped on my bike and took the device down to the Venice Skate Park, then out to the ocean pier, then rode back to the office and tested the device out in a variety of lighting conditions with less animated subjects. — Read the rest
The fourth incarnation of Apple's iPhone is an incrementally improved, familiar device—not a new kind of device, as was the case with the recent introduction of iPad. Yes, the notable features with iPhone 4—both the device and the iOS4, which came out yesterday in advance of the iPhone itself—are mostly tweaks. — Read the rest
Julian Bleecker sends us "a short, pictorial essay on the arrangements of science fact and science fiction and the possibility of design shaped by both. The essay looks at how science fiction can be used to inform science fact, both in terms of the stories that science fiction tells and the actual production of props for science fiction film. — Read the rest
Siva sez, "In cooperation with the Media Education Foundation and La Lutta, Free Culture @ NYU is screening Freedom of Expression®: Resistance and Repression in the Age of Intellectual Property at 9pm on Thursday, January 31.
Narrated by Naomi Klein, the film features interviews with Stanford Law's Lawrence Lessig, Illegal Art Show curator Carrie McLaren, Negativland’s Mark Hosler, UVA media scholar Siva Vaidhyanathan, and Free Culture @ NYU co-founder Inga Chernyak, among many others. — Read the rest
The USC's Julian Bleecker has just published an astonishingly awesome paper called "A Manifesto for Networked Objects – Cohabiting with Pigeons, Arphids and Aibos in the Internet of Things," subtitled, "Why Things Matter." It's a paper about the coming wave of "blogjects" — objects that blog — which is to say, manufactured goods that emit a steady stream of information about their world and what they make of it, and take action to change it. — Read the rest
Hey, New Yorkers: my friend Patrick Nielsen Hayden (co-editor of the kickass Making Light blog) is having a CD launch party for his band Whisperado this coming Wednesday:
[T]his coming Wednesday we'll be throwing a CD release party downstairs at the Cornelia Street Cafe in conjunction with fearless leader Jon Sobel's monthly "Soul of the Blues" event.
Some pals recently hacked together this vidcasting site designed for the PSP. Collectively, we knew this sort of thing would happen, and now it's happening. The content isn't there, but the framework is awfully compelling. Next, I suspect, will be direct to PSP downloads over WiFi or, even better, a video aggregator that lives right on the device, allowing one to browse indy channels of Vidcasts.
