— unpredictable thoughts

Archive
February, 2010 Monthly archive

february philly, walking

By: ste!!a
28-02-2010
this fair city

february

Took this on a walk last week. The weather just seems to keep call­ing out for the ever­green. Love the tile house number!

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Marvin Gaye : What’s Going On…

By: ste!!a
28-02-2010
listening

Remem­ber­ing many a party lis­ten­ing to this. Danc­ing all night long until the steam rose from our heads. What a time, what a song, what a voice.

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poetry in motion

By: ste!!a
27-02-2010
listening

I have always loved poetry. It has drawn some of the most vivid pic­tures I have ever seen. In this case Ron­nie Bruce a film stu­dent at Tem­ple Uni­ver­sity visu­al­izes the words of poet Tay­lor Mali using typog­ra­phy and ani­ma­tion. In its’ exe­cu­tion we do not lose sight of the mean­ing or the pic­ture they draw — we gain new insight into the pac­ing and tone as the poet speaks. We read the words as the poet says them; bur­nish­ing them into our heart and mind.

This lit­tle film real­izes the poten­tial of com­mu­ni­ca­tors when they do good work. It is not spec­tac­u­lar. It is not just clever. It speaks, we think, and understand.

Typog­ra­phy from Ron­nie Bruce on Vimeo.

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breathing and balance

By: ste!!a
22-02-2010
talking

acrobat poison dart frog

Life has been a bit com­plex recently. I’ve always dri­ven into the skid so to speak. But this time it’s dif­fer­ent the eco­nomic atmos­phere has much thin­ner air these days. It’s dif­fi­cult to breathe.

I decided to take some time to focus on noth­ing and breathe deeply. Quiet time reestab­lishes balance.

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Walk in John Maeda’s shoes.

By: ste!!a
20-02-2010
unpredictable thoughts

John Maeda lives at the inter­sec­tion of tech­nol­ogy and art, a place that can get very com­pli­cated. I under­stand that place very well. I’m post­ing this talk because there is so much of it that I relate with.

This talk cre­ates more ques­tions than answers. It is about observ­ing, ques­tion­ing, and exper­i­ment­ing. Cre­at­ing some­thing new that adds to the uni­verse. Some­thing that brings joy. Orga­niz­ing found objects and every­day things to make some­thing totally new.

John Maeda uses imag­i­na­tion to inspire. Walk one day in John Maeda’s shoes. Think, what would John Maeda do with this? Open your mind to new and cre­ative ways to move for­ward in what­ever you do.

BTW, Mr Maeda is no longer at MIT he is now Pres­i­dent of Rhode Island School of Design. Makes me think about how much fun it could be to be back in school. You can find out more about what he is doing there. http://www.risd.edu/president/

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poem today : It Is a Living Coral, William Carlos Williams

By: ste!!a
20-02-2010
reading

a trou­ble

archaically fet­tered
to produce

E Pluribus Unum an
island

in the sea a Capi­tol
surmounted

by Armed Lib­erty—
painting

sculp­ture strad­dled by
a dome

eight mil­lion pounds
in weight

iron plates con­structed
to expand

and con­tract with
variations

of tem­per­a­ture
the folding

and unfold­ing of a lily.
And Congress

autho­rized and the
Commission

was entrusted was
entrusted!

a sculp­tured group
Mars

in Roman mail plac­ing
a wreath

of lau­rel on the brow
of Washington

Com­merce Min­erva
Thomas

Jef­fer­son John Han­cock
at

the table Mrs. Motte
presenting

Indian burn­ing arrows
to Generals

Mar­ion and Lee to fire
her mansion

and dis­lodge the British—
this scaleless

jum­ble is superb

and accu­rate in its
expression

of the thing they
would destroy—

Bap­tism of Poca–
hontas

with a lit­tle card
hanging

under it to tell
the persons

in the picture.

It climbs

it runs, it is Geo.
Shoup

of Idaho it wears
a beard

it fetches naked
Indian

women from a river
Trumbull

Var­num Hen­der­son
Frances

Willard’s corset is
absurd—

Banks White Colum­bus
stretched

in bed men felling trees

The Hon. Michael
C. Kerr

one­time Speaker of
the House

of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives
Perry

in a row­boat on Lake
Erie

chang­ing ships the
dead

among the wreck­age
sickly green

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the madhatter, johnny depp

By: ste!!a
17-02-2010
objects of desire

Alice is in the title, but the Mad Hat­ter is get­ting all the press. The Mad Hat­ter may be for­ever known as Johnny Depp. I’ve been watch­ing the trail­ers and my antic­i­pa­tion for this film is at 18 on a scale of ten. Tim Bur­ton cre­ates the won­der­land of my dreams.

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iPad platform ready for tablet publications

By: ste!!a
16-02-2010
gadgets

This video is being shared all over the place as the next com­ing. Not all that imag­i­na­tive. These are all pretty sim­plis­tic ways of adding inter­ac­tiv­ity once you have a touch screen. So, will you care after the first three times you use it? Will you want to inter­act with con­tent this way on a reg­u­lar basis?

How will a reader be able to avoid the adver­tis­ing is the ques­tion that comes to mind. Will adver­tis­ers want to invest the resources needed to make adver­tis­ing for these kind of pub­li­ca­tions? Adver­tis­ers a con­sis­tent model to build ads. For pric­ing and pro­duc­tion. Seems like a big barrier.

With each pub­li­ca­tion design­ing it’s own inter­ac­tiv­ity where is the com­mon interface?

Just not con­vinced that this par­tic­u­lar model is sustainable.

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Freezing out women : sexism ski jumping in Olympics

By: ste!!a
15-02-2010
confused

I had no idea. Did you? Did you know that women are not allowed to com­pete in Ski Jump­ing in the win­ter olympics? Did you know that a woman holds the WORLD RECORD? Watch this piece and as you get more angry as you find out more — get angy and speak out. I will post resources to take action as I find them. If you know of any orga­ni­za­tions that will help please com­ment here.

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failure and imagination

By: ste!!a
13-02-2010
listening

J.K. Rowl­ing Speaks at Har­vard Com­mence­ment from Har­vard Mag­a­zine on Vimeo.

Your qual­i­fi­ca­tions, your CV, are not your life, though you will meet many peo­ple of my age and older who con­fuse the two. Life is dif­fi­cult, and com­pli­cated, and beyond anyone’s total con­trol, and the humil­ity to know that will enable you to sur­vive its vicis­si­tudes. — J.K. Rowl­ing

Watch the whole speech, really. It was quite amaz­ing to lis­ten to the wis­dom and chal­lenge that the author put before this grad­u­at­ing class at Har­vard. How she reminded them of their priv­i­lege yet embraced their achieve­ments. How she reminded us all of the value of imag­in­ing and act­ing on behalf of others.

on fail­ure :

So why do I talk about the ben­e­fits of fail­ure? Sim­ply because fail­ure meant a strip­ping away of the inessen­tial. I stopped pre­tend­ing to myself that I was any­thing other than what I was, and began to direct all my energy into fin­ish­ing the only work that mat­tered to me. Had I really suc­ceeded at any­thing else, I might never have found the deter­mi­na­tion to suc­ceed in the one arena I believed I truly belonged. I was set free, because my great­est fear had been realised, and I was still alive, and I still had a daugh­ter whom I adored, and I had an old type­writer and a big idea. And so rock bot­tom became the solid foun­da­tion on which I rebuilt my life.

on imag­i­na­tion :

Now you might think that I chose my sec­ond theme, the impor­tance of imag­i­na­tion, because of the part it played in rebuild­ing my life, but that is not wholly so. Though I per­son­ally will defend the value of bed­time sto­ries to my last gasp, I have learned to value imag­i­na­tion in a much broader sense. Imag­i­na­tion is not only the uniquely human capac­ity to envi­sion that which is not, and there­fore the fount of all inven­tion and inno­va­tion. In its arguably most trans­for­ma­tive and rev­e­la­tory capac­ity, it is the power that enables us to empathise with humans whose expe­ri­ences we have never shared.

You can read the full text of the speech here : Har­vard Magazine

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chonological

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