Monday, December 14, 2009

iphone assembly

I've always been curious as to where all the parts came from in an Iphone. I want to know how many tons of CO2 the gadget produces before its end use as a rechargeable phone...

I'M GUILTY.

(title unknown): "



Graphic courtesy of Column Five Media






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Wednesday, December 09, 2009

Pedestrian Typography | design work life

Pedestrian Typography | design work life: "

Carolyn Sewell 03

via http://www.designworklife.com/?p=9002

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Kind of hard to work on your thesis at school when you forget a crucial price of equipment at home: the almighty macbook life giver, the power cord.
Today was the first day I have EVER had to dig my jeep out of snow. kind of fun actually- probably won't be saying that with a foot of snow though...

Wednesday, November 25, 2009

This is a test of blogging from my phone...

Saturday, November 14, 2009

between

the consumption of liminal infrastructure and bodies that straddle geographies







Friday, November 13, 2009

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

inpiration from the coffee shop

this morning I sat in the coffee shop for only five minutes until I couldn't take it anymore. if this rule applies to you- please take heed of the advice.


Thursday, September 10, 2009

A Transcendental Methodology: drawing from Thoreau’s Walden Experience

In the thawing spring of 1845, Henry David Thoreau started constructing and assembled a hermitage at Walden Pond in the northeast region of the United States- in what is today a township called Concord right outside of Boston, Massachusetts. His thoughts and his words, as he recorded them in isolation from civilization, remain a crucial historical part of the transcendentalist movement and its influence on industrialization in the 19th century US. Thoreau’s haptic definitions of shelter, clothing, food, and fire, etc. throughout his opening chapter on Economy in Walden, deliver a form of “very natural and pertinent” contemporary dialogue over issues that are just as pertinent as they were when it was first published. This paper seeks to understand and find placement of Thoreau’s parable below, regarding clothing, within larger contemporary social and environmental issues.

“Let him who has work to do recollect that the object of clothing is, first, to retain the vital heat, and secondly, in this state of society, to cover nakedness, and he may judge how much of any necessary or important work may be accomplished without adding to his wardrobe.... Every day our garments become more assimilated to ourselves, receiving the impress of the wearer’s character, until we hesitate to lay them aside, without such delay and medical appliances and some such solemnity even as our bodies.”(Thoreau,1904)

The first thing that we can deduct from this parable, and peel away from it, is Thoreau’s definition of utility in clothing. “ to retain vital heat” and “ to cover nakedness.” Both of these functions are needs that clothing’s functionalism fulfills. From practical science, we know that the need and responsibility to regulate our vital heat, as depicted by Thoreau, is relegated to our skin, then on to our clothing, and then again on to the shelter we live in. If we take Thoreau’s insights on the utility of clothing and it’s uselessness as a social novelty- then the application to contemporary issues over the ethics of defining socio-cultural roles in sustainability can be posited. For instance, what are the similarities/differences in basic human needs from culture to culture? The needs of an American factory worker will be far different than the needs of a farmer in India or Pakistan. Needs are so different because of how needs are defined and prescribed. Understanding this issue and how cultures and societies define their needs must come to a more coherent and inquisitional stance. This issue of social and cultural difference will be essential to fully comprehend and understand before exploring my thesis.

The second part of the selected Thoreau parable regarding clothing maintains that our “garments become more assimilated to ourselves, receiving the impress of the wearer’s character…” The ability for Thoreau to be able to see clothing as such an integrated part of the body was very modern for his time. Later on in his Economy chapter, Thoreau calls clothing “our outmost cuticle and mortal coil”(p25) connoting a type of prosthesis or shell that provides a natural extension of the body as protection and shelter for our mortality withholding our softer dermis. He continues the metaphor of clothing continually stripping man and concluding to the point where the shirt is all that remains, the most essential “liber” or “bark” of man that “cannot be removed without girdling and so destroying the man.” Whether the destruction of the man is based on a conscious mortality or social mortality is to be debated, but it can be called to question that a conscious mortality would presume that the shirt is integral to the body’s existence.

His choice of using clothing as metaphor, amongst other necessary life-giving elements including shelter, fire, etc., is justified, logically, because of the social and anthropogenic underpinnings of its utility. Clothing is the nearest nexus between our bodies and the physical, environmental reality we live in. We allow it to negotiate and compensate efficiently for us to do things our natural body and natural environment cannot. It serves as another system that influences how we live our daily lives- negotiating the physical and social aspects of the places we live in. Clothes are, in these cases, inseparable from our bodies. They are in effect just as permanently a part of us as a tattoo is residing underneath our skin.

Thoreau’s endeavors, and methodologies to obtain them, were questioned through his peers as he wrote- Why not do something that benefits the poor? What philanthropic values lie in such an experiment? Yet, these same thoughts provoke the same inquiries into our lives today as they did for H.D. Thoreau in 1845. These same thoughts inspire us to think outside the box and try new and unorthodox things that we may not otherwise have done. By applying thoughts and methods from H. D. Thoreau’s ascetic experiment at Walden Pond, we can draw out rational strategies to implement and create new ways of thinking.

Thoreau’s parables and thoughts on Economy spring from his analyses and realizations of the necessities in life- shelter, clothing, food, heat, etc. And his methodologies are amazingly just as applicable then as they are now. His methods of “learning by doing” allowed him to stumble across issues far beyond his time. His mission was to simplify life down to the basics of pure utility and necessity so that he could visualize how to live within his own means. To maintain his, what we would call today, “ecological footprint,” and determine the natural capital of the place in which he lived are still very relevant issues within contemporary society. Thoreau’s procedures and methods may have been based on a ‘learn by doing’ philosophy, but were rooted in what today can be known as forms of adaptive learning and environmental feedback (Rees 2003)

It is, perhaps, a bit ironic that it took Thoreau living as an isolated hermit, and completely removing himself from the socio-economic system he was a part of to recognize and comprehend the intrinsic nature of what drove materialism and capitalism in the onset of the industrial revolution. Thoreau came out of his tract on Walden having a much larger, more accurate perspective on environmental economics (another term that was perhaps way before his time) and how re-valuations of nature’s stock and capital. His revaluation of nature in effect took on the neo-classical western economic theories that isolate nature from humanity and combined them to create a symbiosis of sorts- something akin to reliving life in the same context within a different cultural and anthropogenic mindset- that of an indigenous tribesman. His method of starting something from nothing, with a ‘learning by doing’ procedure, provides a potent methodology that could serve as a framework to a project of more contemporaneity. Thoreau reveals, through experimentation and lived experiences, lessons learned that could have occurred to him only by the action of doing. Since Walden only serves as an inspiration to draw from and not a literal transference of methods- there is a limit obviously to what we can gain from Thoreau’s lessons in Economy.

To transform Thoreau’s methods into a contemporary mould we should be more specific about why Thoreau may have decided on this particular methodology, we should speculate- why did he construct this experiment as a living breathing procedural approach? As expressed above, Thoreau developed this methodology to ‘learn by doing’ and his data and results were directly a product of that method. Thoreau also chose to simultaneously make his primary audience, the materialist, industrialist townsmen and countrymen he went to school with in 19th century America, his antagonists as well. He challenged the industrialist economic institution rife with neo-classical thought, and proposed ideas that were far more indigenous and nature-oriented- the beginnings of early environmental economics. He chose this immediate American audience to appeal to by using native Indian references, mythological analogies, and anti-slavery rhetoric. By using Indian American references- he could allow the reader to relate to a common foe and provoke a feeling of vindication- that they might be wealthier or that their necessities are far different than that of the native American Indian. Now comes the hard part: to contemporize Thoreau’s methodology.



If I were to take this mould and directly apply it to the America we live in today,
I would use an informal border settlement along the US/Mexico border and its constituents as my protagonist. Why would I do this? The immigrants today are actually the Native Americans of yesterday (no i'm not necessarily making a generalization). I don’t mean to posit any potential false comparison; I do mean to make a comparison in the sense that one culture is being subdued over another culture because of material wealth. A critical strategy Thoreau utilized to make his analogies crystal clear were social and cultural relationships and how culture and place influenced the differences in the valuation of all capital (natural and social). Since I may not have the time it took Thoreau to complete his experiment using his method verbatim (2 years +), I think it will have to suffice that I devise other creative solutions that compensate for the temporal restrictions of my purposes. What I’d like to add on to Thoreau’s methods for my own speculations is a less reductionist method that will get more specific data and quantifiable results on a narrower discussion. Where his philosophy was broad and far reaching in scope, my methods will be far more focused and literal. I think overall, the genius of Thoreau’s experience in Walden is that it allowed him to capture the essence of and provide commentary on societal and cultural issues, even though he was in complete isolation from civilization. I hope, overall, to use this part of his horizontal and dynamic thinking within my research.




Bib.

Rees, W.E. “Understanding Urban Ecosystems: An Ecological Economics Perspective.,” Understanding Urban Ecosystems. New York: Springer-Verlag, 2003

Thoreau, Henry D. Walden. Economy. George Routledge & Sons. 1904

Tuesday, September 08, 2009

a new lens.

In the next chronological phase of my blog I'll be striving to articulate my thoughts and ideas that, in aggregate form, represent the issues covered within my thesis project. These articulations and preambles will inform ideas and inspirations through literature analyses, drawings, photos, maps, and videos. I hope that, in one way or another, these posts following might serve as inspiration for others to do/think about their own endeavors too. cheers chaps.

Monday, September 07, 2009

eco-war

ecological warfare? wtf is wrong with these people?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8241008.stm

Thursday, September 03, 2009

Bike Owner To Bike Thief: Truck Off And Die [Car Crime]

wow. glad I didnt steal this cursed bike...

Bike Owner To Bike Thief: Truck Off And Die [Car Crime]: "

Call us crazy, but we think stealing is wrong. So does this plucky poster-maker, who also throws proportionate response right out the window. We're on her (we assume; girl's bike, tassels) side. Monster-truck owners, your duty is clear.

(Hat tip to Nate!)



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Waxin' & Milkin': A Visual Mixtape

cash money makin! that's what i need right now.

Waxin' & Milkin': A Visual Mixtape: "

“What’s money? A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and goes to bed at night and in between does what he wants to do.” — Bob DylanDespite the epic quote, I’m certain Dylan counts his fat stack of Benjies in a similar fashion after what Cadillac, Victoria’s Secret, and Pepsi’s paid him. How does it feel, Bob?via nevver

via http://waxinandmilkin.com/post/171942565/whats-money-a-man-is-a-success-if-he-gets-up-in

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Wednesday, September 02, 2009

Saturday, August 29, 2009

rainy day in the 'burbs

So it's raining outside- These instantaneous rainstorms that have been coming through the Syracuse area lately remind me of the south. I miss that place and the people that live there way too damn much.

I've been painting the apartment this afternoon to pass the time. My wife has been of some help of course. We chose not to go to the state fair in the area because it will more than likely suck an awful amount. So this is where we are- listening to some Pat Green and painting drinking some PBR dreaming of being back down south. Some things that remind me of home-

>Shiner Bock
>Heat(100 deg+)
>country music
>chips&salsa
>nice people
>Shiner Bock
>family

alright, so it's pretty obvious that im homesick right now. Lay off me!

welp- enjoy the storm, and ride it out.

Thursday, August 27, 2009

RoyalTea: Tea bags

innovative.
RoyalTea: Tea bags: "

5_-RoyalTea


5_-DemocraTea


5_-StripTea


The RoyalTea Tea bags designed by German design company Donkey Products. You can have a “TeaParty” with you favorite characters or strippers with the RoyalTea, DemocraTea and StripTea sets. Each one has five tea bag sachets.

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Wednesday, August 26, 2009

RIP: London's First Living Wall Isn't Any More

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAAAAAA! this is awesome. The epitome of the green bullshit saturating the architecture profession at the moment. (love the 'paradise' street sign.)

RIP: London's First Living Wall Isn't Any More: "livingwall-1.jpg

Living walls can be complex things, with pumps to supply water and requiring a fair bit of maintenance. They are also relatively new concepts, and there is still a bit of trial and error going on. DSDHA designed this one three years ago with 30 kinds of plants growing through a thirty foot high wall. A rep from the Islington Council is quoted in the Architects Journal:

‘‘The wall was the first of its type to be installed in the UK and, as with anything new, carried a certain element of risk.

Of course we’re disappointed that it hasn’t thrived. It seems this could be down to its design and we are looking at t... Read the full story on TreeHugger
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Selectism.com: Home > Archive > Selectism - Maurice de Mauriac Chronographs

looks like my m.h.bertucci dive watch. but definetely not.

Selectism.com: Home > Archive > Selectism - Maurice de Mauriac Chronographs: "

Selectism - Maurice de Mauriac Chronographs

via http://www.selectism.com/news/2008/12/08/maurice-de-mauriac-chronographs/maurice-de-mauriac-watches-01/

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US senator 'Ted' Kennedy dies at 77

I hope this means that something will finally get done with the healthcare system in this country. It's a shame that such a good human being is not with us anymore. I'm sure he will see it through from his great view in the heavens.

US senator 'Ted' Kennedy dies at 77: "Brother of former US president John F. Kennedy dies after battle with brain cancer."

but does it float

interesting.

but does it float: "

via http://butdoesitfloat.com/35951

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Sunday, August 16, 2009

MAN YOUR BATTLE STATIONS!!!


These next few weeks I will be preparing myself mentally for the next year of grueling academia. I will start by sleeping in until 9am everyday and avoiding any kind of architecture paraphernalia. I will drink plenty of booze while enjoying a nice camping trip in the Adirondacks this coming weekend. At the very last moment before actual classes start, I will simply reignite my academic discipline with the application of a rudimentary thinking cap.

Thursday, July 16, 2009




This image is taken from a visit to a mortuario in san marco de chomula in mexico (not sure what distrito). It was such a peaceful place right outside of the main city. This is one of the places from my trip to mexico I remember most vividly. I rode out by horseback to get to this village. The village was very small and on the way were many peasant commune farms littering the road on both sides. The town was pretty high in altitude- I remember this because it was pretty cool air for mexico. My professor had warned us that the town's population still practiced paganism- which of course is one of the more important reasons to scope it out in the first place. When we got there we got the usual white tourist hopping off a stallion stares that I'm sure were very similar to the one's hernando cortez got when he first made contact with the new world. This place was so authentic it blew my mind. Immediately I felt this sense of calm and the whole time that feeling never receded from my body. I walked around and explored the main piazza that included a cathedral that had originally been built by the catholic church but had since been converted back to a pagan temple. The catholic references were still quite obvious in the architecture. Once inside this cathedral there were no pews in sight. Just a marble floor with a countless number of burning candles on the floor and pine needles smoldering to produce an emphemeral and aromatic atmosphere. It was so foreign to me but I tried to act completely normal, mirroring the locals of course. Right as I had gone past the crossing of the vaults there was a curtain concealing any activity that happened in the apse. They were sacrificing animals to their gods that they worshipped- Gods that were very very very familiar to me as a christian. The statues of saints from the original catholic church were still in the temple and now served as the idols for these pagans. It was one of those moments in my life that was completely eye opening. I have these flashbacks every now and then that I really enjoy, but the horse ride out to this place made the experience complete. It was quite remote to say the least. We were stationed temporarily in San Cristobal de las Casas.

Another experience that came out of the beautiful city was the moonshine made by the local indian village women. It was quite tasteless and effective to say the least. I walked around aimlessly in the markets of chomula for a few hours until i came too.

Wonderful experience there with the indians.

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

if your not first- your last.

For all you crazies out there-

So I've been living in Boston for a year and a half and I have no blogs to show for it. Damn. Much has happened since I last made any kind of peep through this baby (baby being my crappy p.o.s. dell laptop). Things like kristen and I gettin' hitched and spending our honeymoon in Greece to getting a job at a well respected arch. firm in Cambridge. I really have nothing to complain about right now- everything has fallen into place in such an unreal manner. Now that I mention it though, I am remembering one distinct thing that has happened to me in recent memory: getting hit by a car on my bike.

Here's a tip: don't get hit by a car unless your in one- otherwise it hurts... ALOT. I broke my knee cap in two, with a piece of it floating around in my leg the size of an almond. Pretty sweet huh? As luck would have it, my doctor said I was lucky to be young letting me know my knee would heal just fine. He did neglect to tell me I would soon become a human barometer with the ability to give a better forecast than most weathermen.

Another cool thing that happened since I've moved up to Boston is 'the recession'. I mean 'cool' in a very sarcastic manner. That's about all I'm going to say about that.

Kristen and I are doing great right now after just completing our first year of marriage. She just finished up with her Masters of Music in Vocal Performance at Boston Conservatory, and I'm about to become the dependent back in school for my M.Arch II at Syracuse University. We will soon be moving to upstate NY where the lake affect snow is tremendous compared to the snowfall accumulations were both used too in Texas. (haha).

For all the new news, I figure, it will be hard to squeeze everything on my mind into this first blog in at least a year. I do pledge to start back up at this thing since I would like to become more connected technologically speaking. Hell you may just have to put up with some really mundane bullcrap blogs...

remember- time is of the essence.