Welcome to

Visual Scratch by Jesse Kriss is a realtime visualization of scratch DJ performance. Ms Pinky is used to get the velocity of the turntable into Max/MSP using a control record. Ms Pinky allows you to scratch an MP3, so the sound is routed out to the mixer, and then back into Max where volume & frequencies are analyzed. A second machine is used to output the Processing visuals. Jesse has previously created MaxLink, a method of communication between Max/MSP & Processing, used in the project Visual Scratch.

Watch video.

(via processing.org)

Originally by chris from Pixelsumo on April 23, 2006, 2:24pm

David Pescovitz:
A series of strange window-rattling booms or rumbles have been heard and felt in recent months in Alabama, North Carolina, Mississippi, and, on April 4, in San Diego County. The latest disturbance was said to have set off car alarms, caused waves in a backyard pool, and shook double steel garage doors. It wasn’t an earthquake. And the Federal Aviation Administration has no record of planes breaking the sound barrier at the time. Apparently, nobody seems to know what the hell caused the disturbance. From the San Diego Union-Tribune:

By noon on the day of the incident, The San Diego Union-Tribune was being inundated with e-mails from people wondering what could have caused the strange tremors.

“My garage door is double steel and it weighs about 500 lbs.,” a man in University City wrote. “It was rattling back and forth like a leaf in the wind for about 3 or 4 seconds.”

A Mission Beach resident compared the sensation to “somewhere in between an explosion and an earthquake.” A woman in Carmel Valley noted that the rattling was very distressing to her cats…

Among bloggers and Web-based conspiracy theorists, one of the leading explanations for the San Diego disturbance is that the military is testing a top-secret spy plane called the Aurora, which supposedly can travel several times the speed of sound.

“Sir, I’ve never even heard of that plane before,” an Air Force spokeswoman in Virginia responded when asked about the possibility.

Even UFO experts are baffled by what happened in San Diego. Asked whether a flying saucer might have caused such an event, Peter Davenport of the Seattle-based National UFO Reporting Center said, “Probably not.”

“UFOs almost never generate sonic booms or shock waves,” he added. “They accelerate so rapidly that they leave a vacuum in the sky, much the way lightning does.”

Link (Thanks, Loren Coleman!)

Originally by David Pescovitz from Boing Boing on April 23, 2006, 7:59pm

From Mantis:

“This was just begging to be tampered with. Harrods the self proclaimed ‘world’s most famous department store’ situated in the rich West end of London decides to put up a billboard in Hackney Wick, one of the poorest parts of the East end of London with a question for us. I figured I would give them a more local answer.”

Originally from Wooster Collective / A Celebration of Street Art, ReBlogged by sonia zjawinski on Apr 24, 2006 at 10:25 AM

Originally from Eyebeam reBlog on April 24, 2006, 10:25am

an installation that converts people’s speech into a visual pattern using a phonetic writing system for representing sounds in English. the shapes of the sounds intend to convey a hidden meaning, giving rise to a kinesthetic response, eg: words can ‘feel’ sharp or smooth depending on how they sound.
[pcho.net & pcho.net (avi, 13mb)]

Originally from information aesthetics on April 23, 2006, 9:24pm

I don’t think this is ever gonna catch on, but it’s a pretty interesting upgrade to the centuries old art form. –SZ

Originally posted by syntheticpubes from del.icio.us/tag/art, ReBlogged by sonia zjawinski on Apr 24, 2006 at 10:34 AM

Originally from Eyebeam reBlog on April 24, 2006, 10:34am

A few weeks ago we posted some controvercial photos of street art done in the abandoned city of Pripjat, location of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. Now, the artists have put up a website about the project. You can see it here.

All the photos coming out of Chernobyl are amazing. This is yet another example. –SZ

Originally from Wooster Collective / A Celebration of Street Art, ReBlogged by sonia zjawinski on Apr 24, 2006 at 10:26 AM

Originally from Eyebeam reBlog on April 24, 2006, 10:26am

With further proof that the future is green, the New York Times reports on the latest innovation in newspaper publishing, and it doesn’t have anything to do with paper. Several publications have started testing versions of electronic paper, using a device with low-power digital screens embedded with digital ink that could do for newspapers what the iPod did for music. A handful of trials are underway: De Tijd, a Belgian financial newspaper, the newspaper trade group IFRA in Germany, and the New York Times here in the States are all testing both hardware and software that could take newspapers off the printing press and directly into your hands. The devices, which will be able to download books, newspapers and podcasts, are expected to intially cost about $400. For publishers confronting declining newspaper circulation in most parts of the world, they offer promise similar to that of blogs and other internet content: reaching more readers, saving on printing and distribution costs, quickening the pace of news and information and ultimately saving some trees. ::New York Times via ::Engadget

Originally by Collin Dunn from Treehugger on April 24, 2006, 10:35am

Flight Patterns (2005, 22.9MB, 1:48 min.)

A String (2005, 43.5.9MB, 3:49 min.)

Documentation of two projects using the
open source processing language.
A String was made by E.J.Gone for a
performance at the National Theater of Korea &
Flight Patterns involves ‘flight pattern
visualizations from FAA data parsed and plotted in
Processing’ by Aaron Koblin.
Fascinating & austerely beautiful.

Originally by michael from DVblog on April 23, 2006, 12:00am

Sometimes the most efficient path is the one overlooked; until someone clever “steals their eyes back” and overcomes the habit. Case in point is “Boxsmart”, a Phoenix AZ USA company that has “taken recycling to another level”, making a business out of keeping cardboard boxes in circulation. They really don’t recycle cardboard cartons, which would involve 1.) Collecting, 2.) Flattening, 3.) Sorting, 4.) De-labeling and de-stapling, and then 5.) Sending off for re-pulping with lots of water & energy inputs, and 6.) Making “new” corrugated boxes with more energy and additives, and 7.) Redistributing the boxes. By not following the open loop recycle paradigm described by the above seven recycling steps (a 1960’s idea decidedly un-TreeHugger on the life cycle balance sheet), Boxsmart has a product after only three! Excerpts from Arizona Central Earth Day story on Boxsmart “after the fold”.

(This post continues on the site)

Originally by John Laumer from Treehugger on April 24, 2006, 7:36am

gratuitous picture of cute animal affected by global warming. suck on that, Cuteoverload!

Click on the amazing graph from yesterday’s New York Times article on American opinion about global warming.(below the fold) It doesn’t even register as a serious issue. Even when asked about environmental issues, it rates near the bottom, above acid rain and below the ozone hole. We think that Green is going mainstream in America as we read our Vanity Fair, Elle, Time and even Wallpaper this month, but we may be wrong. We are not even on the radar.
From the Times article: “I wish I were more optimistic of our ability to get a broad slice of the public to understand this and be motivated to act,” said David G. Hawkins, who directs the climate program at the Natural Resources Defense Council, a private group. In an e-mail message, he wrote: “We are sensory organisms; we understand diesel soot because we can smell it and see it. Getting global warming is too much of an intellectual process. Perhaps pictures of drowning polar bears (which we are trying to find) will move people but even there, people will need to believe that those drownings are due to our failure to build cleaner power plants and cars.” ::New York Times

(This post continues on the site)

Originally by lloyd from Treehugger on April 24, 2006, 7:55am

Recently, I came across a post at Rob’s watchful blog about an ambitous plan in the Philippines to build 700,000 homes in 7,000 villages by 2010, to help rid the nation of its slums. Sounded impressive. 60% of the population there considers itself to live in poverty, while a conservative estimate puts 17% of the total populace in an urban slum.
In general, the Philippino government has done more to wall off the shantytowns from public view than it has to truly address the problem. But in recent years, natural disasters like typhoons, flooding and fires have forced the visibility of national poverty back to the surface, while more and more each day go on to join millions of people inhabiting garbage dumps, dangerous flood zones, and cardboard shelters that could go up in flames as easily by an errant cigarette butt as a serious natural disaster.
Gawad Kalinga is an international NGO that started off as a local movement in the Philippines to abolish the slums. After rebuilding several communities following a ruthless rash of typhoons in 2000 and 2004, the organization has moved its model to various countries through out the region, and is being studied by the UN for its community-based model, which builds more than just shelter, but offers empowerment services like health and educational facilities, capital for community-based products, and uses sweat equity to help people rebuild villages for themselves.
I wrote a lengthier article on the topic which you can read now at
Inhabitat
. There are lots of other useful links to articles and studies included which should help shed more light on the subject of urban slums, and some inspiring work being done as a remedy. Check it out.

Originally from Subtopia on April 23, 2006, 1:52pm

Recently, a brand new “Solar Parabolic Trough” power plant was officially opened near Tucson, Arizona. The plant consists of six rows of parabolic mirrors that track the sun as it moves across the sky. The mirrors concentrate the sunlight on steel tubes coated with an absorption material to keep the heat from dissipating. Mineral oil flowing inside the tubes is heated to about 600 degrees Fahrenheit.

(This post continues on the site)

Originally by justin from Treehugger on April 24, 2006, 10:25am

Earth Day is great; it’s a wonderful opportunity for millions of people around the world to take action to help save our delicate planet; the only bummer is that it’s only one day each year. With the big day squarely in our collective rear-view mirror, but still fresh in our minds, now is a good time to mention our favorite ways to make every day a little bit more like Earth Day. Each day this week, we’ll bring you five things to do to take action and be a good TreeHugger.

25) Get a reel (human-powered) lawn mower (like this one — they really work! Read our review here) instead of a loud, noxious gasoline grass-cutter.
24) Compost your garbage instead of throwing it all away; over 60% of solid household waste is fit for the compost pile, heap or bin. Check out our picks for composters here.
23) Buy clothes and other linens made from organic cotton. Conventional cotton farming uses only about 3% of the farmland but consumes approximately 25% of the chemical pesticides and fertilizers, and if you want it, you can get it organic: jeans and denim, towels and sheets, even designer couture and upholstery fabric
22) Ride a bicycle. The most efficient form of transportation ever devised was named the most significant innovation in a UK survey; in 2005, more bikes than cars were sold in the US, and it’s certainly one of our favorites, from a myriad of killer folding bikes to bamboo bikes to bikes with an electric boost.We don’t know how you can’t love something that will alternately charge your iPod or make you a daiquiri.
21) Use eco-friendly household cleaners. It’s never made any sense to us to use “dirty” chemicals and volatile organic compounds to try to get things cleaner around the house; we recommend ECover, Seventh Generation (if it’s good enough for Liv Tyler, it’s good enough for us), Mrs. Meyer’s Clean Day (read our review of their products), B_E_E and method; between them all, there isn’t anything you can’t clean without dirtying yourself or the rest of the environment.

Originally by Collin Dunn from Treehugger on April 24, 2006, 9:56am

Phil Ayres a member of sixteen*(makers) and tutor of the Bartlett Interactive Architecture Workshop spoke last week at Podnet (post-digital architecture network) about sixteen* (makers) research and development.

Through a series of projects they have explored design methodologies which use the complimentary technologies of CAD and CAM . He spoke about how their recent projects were exploiting real world data to start to develop adaptive and local specific artifacts from initially generic starting points.

Phil describes the ability of a structure whether to biologically or artificially redefine and modify itself as being adaptive. ‘An adaptive system requires attributes of behavior, sensing and memory and then mechanisms of feedback allowing for these adaptive systems to construct themselves specifically for their environment increasing their local specificity over time.’

What was of most interest to me was how they built an iterative loop into this process so that rather than the design and construction being a linear process, it was a system of reiterations based on observations which as the cycles of the loops progressed created the possibility to build artifacts that were specific to local conditions of a site. Their most recent project is situated in the rich and varied landscape of Keilder (UK), containing a vast forest and the largest man made lake in Europe . Their research question - ‘The computer allows us to simulate living systems and their environments over time. With a bridge constructed between the worlds of the digital and physical through CAD/CAM, could notions of growth and adaptation act as mechanisms to drive the design, manufacture and life cycle of fragments or larger parts of the built environment.’

They have developed initally environmental drivers using temperture variation accross diurnal/nocturnal/seasonal cycles. These values are able to build up data sets of locally specific microclimates. They have examined these climates under 2 found conditions, exposed and under mature canopy and 1 introduced condition, glass enclosed spaces placed in exposed areas. ‘The results vary dramatically, suggesting possible investigations exploring a range of differing strategies to exploit or inhibit the influence of local conditions through architectonic means.’

They are currently developing the first iteration of the described cycle and have generic prototypes fabricated and awaiting installation on site early this spring. During this time they will be ’speculating and testing associations between design drivers and design attributes, and possible goal states of the construct in relation to specific site conditions. It is here that the design challenge presents itself in that too prescriptive a definition of rules will result in predictable outcomes, denying the opportunity for the designer to experience surprise and delight.’

Originally by Ruairi from Interactive Architecture dot Org on April 23, 2006, 7:04pm

Li Yongbin. Face 2003.

Acrylique sur toile.

Read more about the powerful work of this Chinese artist here and here.

Originally by Sughra Raza from 3quarksdaily on April 23, 2006, 11:13pm