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Nameless (a playlist)

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Nameless Cover

There’s not a lot of description for this playlist (much like there’s no name) that’s not going to take this post into “dear diary” territory. What you can have, though, are thirteen sometimes dark, sometimes moody but ultimately ineffably beautiful tracks that I’ve been enjoying over the last few (sometimes sleepless) months.

  1. For Now I Am Winter – Ólafur Arnalds & Arnor Dan
  2. Miasma Sky – Baths
  3. Digital Lion – James Blake
  4. Song For Five & Six – Owen Pallett
  5. Romantic Streams – Sleep ∞ Over
  6. You Are You Are – Le Cassette
  7. This Is What It Feels Like – BANKS
  8. Wanderlust – Wild Beasts
  9. An Hour – Forest Swords
  10. Lessons – SOHN
  11. Begin Again – Purity Ring
  12. Hollow – Zola Jesus
  13. Confusing Happiness – Lo-Fang

Download all the lucky thirteen for a limited time here.

A Gulf Tower beacon I’ll be able to read

Architecture, Art, Internet, Technology by

Gulf Tower Project

So, part of the Pittsburgh skyline that I’ve not really learned how to interpret is the Gulf Tower and its weather beacon lights.  I guess I’ve never bothered with learning their language because I just view them as “pretty” – and then check the weather app on my phone.

Anyway, the very same lights are about to get a whole lot more art-y – and a lot more phone-y – as Antoine Catala kicks off his Gulf Tower Project on February 11th. The installation will transform the building’s beacon into an Instagram-based mood analysis tool for the entire city, lighting up with progressively more red or green as software decides whether posts to the photo sharing channel are negative or positive in tone.

The final results will be part of Antoine Catala: Distant Feel at the Carnegie Museum of Art and is another part of the same Hillman Photography Initiative programming that brought the live premiere of the lost Warhol Amiga experiments documentary I attended back in May.  Should be cool stuff!

(via Engadget)

Volvo wants me back

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As you know, I recently defected from my Volvo back to an Audi.  Well, the Swedes are displeased and have put together an ad that was clearly engineered by top scientist to be so pretty as to render me both utterly remorseful and desperately ready to return to their be-coat’d arms.

It’s working.

(Co.Create)

The generated book

Art, Books, Internet, Technology by

It’s National Novel Writing Month, but for those of you less interested in human-generated works, the National Novel Generation Month might be of more interest. As The Verge shares, NaNoGenMo, a creation of Darius Kazemi, is about celebrating the best in creative narrative writing code, and there are some really compelling (if not entirely readable) works to be found in the GitHub repository. Below are a few of my favorites.

From Generated Detective #1:

a noir comic with Project Gutenberg text and magna-fied Flickr pics by Greg Borenstein

From Threnody for Abraxas:

Pro-tip from the author: The enjoyment of reading this work may possibly be enhanced if one imagines it narrated in the voice of, say, David Attenborough or James Earl Jones.

Elsewhere nearby, the amusingly European sculpture, whose perfect key is cynically surveying the transparent stick and an incredible junkie and the heart behind the classical image, is approaching the mouse-cheesecake and a homunculus under the taxicab. A partly rare escutcheon is leaping on top of an axiomatically salty disease. The tedious oyster is lauding the clementine, while a brain-flavoured après-ski is an extraneous easel.

…

The breeze is chasing the meaningless entrepreneur and the florid shin-bone, whose shoe is decaying smoothly on top of the spring and a rainy jug of baubles, while the fire extinguisher is curtly caressing a shaman. An iceberg is the robust servant. The shoe is surveying a gooey statue, which is forgiving an irascible ladle on top of a mannequin, inside the sword-swallower. A supersonically cynical quote is the comic book.

“a phantasmagoric Surrealist word/concept-painting” by Chris Pressey 

From Seraphs:

an automatically generated Voynich Manuscript style text by Liza Daly

From The Last Appetite:

Sun Dried Corn Grit Fettucine

Ingredients:
  • 310 milligrams of corn grit
  • 660 grams of clam
  • 20 grams of mango
  • 270 grams of mustard
  • 20 milligrams of mozzarella cheese
  • 240 grams of french toast
Method:

Stare at the corn grit and clam for 10 minutes. Broil the mango and mustard until a thick layer of mould forms. Marinate the mozzarella cheese and french toast until mushy. Contrive a fettucine. Chill overnight.

modernist cuisine recipes inspired by Nathan Myhrvold, created by Phil Lees

And so the tracking begins…

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Grande Sicilia Rolls Out

I got word this morning that my Q3 has been loaded up. It will be making its Atlantic voyage via the Grande Sicilia and seems to have already left the German port of Emden. So, this whole obsessive tracking of the cargo ship thing is about to begin again.

I apologize in advance to those around me for how the next week or two is going to shape up.

A Dutch road lights the way

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These gorgeous glowing lines are actually the roadway edge markers on a stretch of highway in the Netherlands. They are also a proof of concept for Dutch designer, Daan Roosegaarde – and something I desperately want to see appear here in the US. Cutting down on street lighting by employee solar-charged glow-in-the-dark paint is just the beginning of reshaping the urban streetscape. Check out the Wired article to see his bioluminescent tree as street lamp concept and continue through to his portfolio for even more smart concepts like the electricity generating dance floor.

SimCity turns 25

Games, Technology, Work by

One of the most influential things I did as a child was spending time on my aunt’s Mac when I’d visit in the summers.  That little LC series machine in the early 90s was my window to a lot of things that would later become a huge part of my adult life (including my current career).  But one thing that stands out as particularly memorable was a packet of 3.5″ disks that contained a game that would shape my entire worldview.  Yes, I’m talking about SimCity, the little black & white game that infected my brain starting around the age of seven – and hasn’t stopped.

SimCity 5

one of my most recent cities – because, yes, I’m still playing

Doug Bierend sat down with SimCity’s creator, the venerable Will Wright, over at the re:form collection on Medium to discuss his games and their enduring legacy on the 25th anniversary of the Sim game that started everything.  I’ve pulled a few quotes that do a really good job summing up my love for the Sim games, but the entire piece “SimCity That I Used to Know” is well worth the read.

Wright’s games—if you can call them that—were uniquely influential for a generation of kids with access to computers in the 90s. […] An imaginative player could weave their own stories […]

—

These toys were especially effective for kids who were at an age when the real and the imaginary seem less distinct. Watching as the little cities exhibited behavior in reaction to the player’s actions created a link between us [and] the game.

–

“I think that play, in a more general sense, is fundamentally one of the ways that we understand the world, the real world,” says Wright, “as is storytelling. I think the two are both kind of educational technologies, and that’s the part that interests me […]”

–

“Players right off the bat were forced to sit down and in fact pick their goals,” Wright says. […] “At that point, they’re also having to clarify their internal model of the way a city operates…all of a sudden your assumptions become clear to you.”

–

I certainly emerged from my hunched sessions with my pet cities carrying a new appreciation for the world around me.

Ordered: 2015 Audi Q3

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2015 Q3

Well, folks, it’s that time again: ordering my next leased vehicle.  I went round and round on what I wanted to do this time and thought I’d settled on the newest instance of the A3 to make it to the States.  But the more I thought about getting a little sedan, the less excited I found myself.  I’ve enjoyed my S60 and all of it’s sedan-ish-ness, don’t get me wrong, but there’s something so practical and quirky about a European car with a hatch.

As the next A3 Sportback is not destined to make an appearance here for another model year without all wheel drive I figured the Q3 would be my absolute best bet.  I’ve liked it since its debut to the world in 2011 and have been struck by it every time I see one on an out-of-country excursion. And it reminds me of the A3 I had in 2009, especially with those weird toggle style temperature controls. Plus, the familiar zippy handling definitely didn’t hurt its case. So a Florett Silver/Chestnut Brown example is being assembled in Wolfsburg for me over these next couple of weeks.  Expect much fretting and nerdy levels of tracking in the days ahead.

4th country of 2014: Mexico

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I think my most recent trip outside of the continental United States is my last of the year…and it was a particularly splendid one, made just a bit better by getting to catch up with a good friend from home. Though it was just a four day visit to Mexico City, I still found a way to fall in love with the place, the people, the food and the overall vibe there. Vibrant doesn’t do it justice. Novel barely covers the sights around every corner. And warm is an understatement when talking about the welcoming atmosphere. Yes, D.F., I’ll be back.

You can view an entire album full of travel photos over on my Flickr (and probably a few on ye olde Instagram, for good measure).

Touring the Energy Innovation Center

Architecture, Design, Technology, Work by
View from the Penn State Center

view from the soon-to-be Penn State Center offices

I had the pleasure and good fortune to be invited along today on a tour of the Energy Innovation Center led by the incredibly informative Thomas Bartnik. My invite was proffered by Deno De Ciantis, director of the Penn State Center, a partner in the project that has been transforming the former Connelly School into a new hub for all things sustainable, forward thinking and transformative in the region. The Penn State Center will be moving offices to a wholly renovated, 11,000 square foot space in what had been teaching work shops for trade students – giving them ample room for their growing menu of programming and community outreach. As you can see above, the views are pretty great, too.

Penn State Center offices

long view of the Penn State Center offices

I was joined on my tour by two instructors from Greater Allegheny’s campus and a dozen STEM program summer students as well as representatives from another local organization interested in sustainable practices. Hard hats were required, as were reflective vests and protective eyewear, so we definitely looked the part as we made our way through a very active construction site. The entire project got started just 18 months ago and, considering the Connelly School covers 180,000 square feet, is moving at a staggering clip. So fast, in fact, that the Penn State Center expects to take control of its space in just a few more weeks.

My own interest in the Penn State Center is two-fold. Many Media Commons projects across the Commonwealth see students taking on service learning-type projects with local community groups. Having a strong ally in the Center would allow for Media Commons to connect faculty assigning these projects with non-profits and other organizations in and around Pittsburgh to create great educational opportunities. Additionally, the Center itself would be a spectacular spot to bring together the campus and wider communities for training, research and traditional teaching – while, at the same time, putting our media production resources in front of a much larger audience.

And this is just from my sphere. Other spaces and amenities coming online will include a 750+ seat auditorium, shared 100+ person conference center, workshare spaces in the PGH Green Innovators offices, sustainable systems teaching opportunities (with exposed, color coded infrastructure) and flexible events spaces throughout. The potential impact of the Penn State Center in Pittsburgh on all areas of Penn State’s mission of bringing education to the Commonwealth is absolutely thrilling.

Check out the rest of the tour photos here and stay tuned for more developments: