Can we fix it?

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Jonathan Glancey get all used-universe on us:

“Today, many of us are unable, or unwilling, to change a fuse or even patch a bicycle tyre, much less repair a locomotive or build a ship. We are fast becoming a nation ignorant of how things are made or work even as the nation’s infrastructure crumbles around us. Who cares? What excites us, as the opening of the new-look Birmingham Bull Ring proves, is the passive consumption of shiny new gewgaws, most produced abroad, rather than the making of the practical machinery that gets us to our glamorous new shops in the first place.”

»Guardian: Can we fix it? No we can’t

Ministry of Space

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Space stuff. When I left architecture skool, the web beckoned – but for a mad month or so I was trying to apply for a masters programme in Space Architecture and Engineering, which I seem to remember was in Houston.

(E=mc) square dancing

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“The Institute of Physics has asked a contemporary dance company to produce a new work marking the centenary of the 1905 publication of Einstein’s most famous and important ideas.

“Dance is an expressive medium,” said Jerry Cowhig of the Institute of Physics. “It will be ideal for abstract concepts like the theories of Einstein on everything from tiny atoms to the dynamics of the whole cosmos.”

» Guardian: Arts: A dance to the music of spacetime
[via Aula]

Consistency redux

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James Spahr:

“One of the first things I was told when I took a film class was that in order to show motion, you needed to have something that did not move; ie. A moving car is not moving until is passes a static telephone pole. In this context the telephone pole is playing the role of a consistent design element. From a purely visual standpoint, consistency is the design element that lets other parts of your design stand out.”

Lovely.

» Designweenie: Hobgoblin?

I am the lens.

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From picturephoning.com:

“What counts as newsworthy, noteworthy and photo-worthy spans a broad spectrum from personally noteworthy moments that are never shared (a scene from an escalator) to intimately newsworthy moments to be shared with a spouse or lover (a new haircut, a child riding a bike).The transformation of journalism through camera phones is as much about these everyday exchanges as it is about the latest headline”.

You can see this in evidence among the selection of users’ shots at BBC News Online. Beauty, intimacy and humanity in the everyday are more commonplace in what people share than tragedy or spectacle.

The soft city

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Dan on “The Knowledge”: a test that London taxicab drivers have to take:

“You do it once, that’s it – it covers an insanely large area of London, from Stretford in the east to Acton in the west, way north to way south – all the main roads, and main locations. From then on, it’s all practice, reinforcing your knowledge of the city by driving it, reinforcing certain routes just as neural networks do.”

» Cityofsound: Buses and taxis

More on the BBC Creative-Archive

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Danny fires an anti-FUD missile in the direction of my bosses:

“The BBC, in theory, shouldn’t care how many times you share a copy of, say, Dixon of Dock Green. On the contrary, it should thank you. You’re taking the hard work – and cost – out of distributing the works you have already paid for with your licence fee. So not only does the BBC not need to care about Napster and other file-sharing systems – it can actively take advantage of them. Distributing content in this way does not reduce the BBC’s income, but it can reduce its costs. Copy protection devices and clampdowns on internet copying just get in the way of the BBC’s mission.”

» Guardian Online: Auntie’s digital revelation