May 2012
2 posts
March 2011
1 post
25 tags
Larry Beasley - Carleton’s 2010-2011 Forum Lecture...
Carleton’s 2010-2011 Forum Lecture Series – Larry Beasley by arch1000
I just attended and recorded a great lecture by Larry Beasley that was held at the National Gallery of Canada, by Carleton University’s 2010-2011 Forum Lecture Series. The title of the lecture was: “Ottawa’s Quest: A World-Leading Green Capital”
Larry Beasley is the former director of planning for the City...
September 2010
1 post
15 tags
iShelf, Top Shelf, or the Currently Listening...
Since the very begging of the MP3 revolution I had always felt a little concerned about the future of the music enthusiasts. No, it isn’t the debatable sound quality that concerned me, as I had always known that sooner or later this aspect will get somehow resolved. Each person will inevitably find the perfect technology and quality in which they would feel comfortable to keep their...
June 2010
3 posts
1 tag
11 tags
LFP: Large Fry, Please
Lately I feel really uneasy with the speech of some natively pseudo-English speaking folk around me.
It has become very common for one to say “large fry, please”, while ordering French fries at a restaurant. This obviously grammatically incorrect phrase is bugging me because I continuously imagine one giant potato French fry being served, or a squirt of hot frying oil dished...
15 tags
Dreadful Vista and Windows 7 Updates:
I know that the subject of Windows Vista’s shortfalls has been exhausted at this point. Especially, now, when the “messiah” Windows 7 became available. All troubles seem so far way. Yet, I’d like to bring to the light my personal frustration with the recent Windows reincarnations, which, as far as I know, are not very often talked about.
When Vista just came out,...
February 2010
1 post
2 tags
Weekends are for oxymorons
If Saturday and Sunday are a weekend in North America and most of the western world, than why do Americans insist on starting their week on a Sunday. That makes the word weekend an oxymoron.
Why do Americans have to rub it into everyone’s face that they are special, if they cant do it with grace?!
August 2009
2 posts
6 tags
WatchThis is absolutely adorable. Penguin jumps into a boat to escapes from Killer Whales
11 tags
Extract first image attached to post in Wordpress
Well, I found about two dozens of different plugins and other crap that promised to extract the first image of every post in Wordpress. This feature was crucial for my upcoming portfolio webpage, so I went on digging deeper. Thankfully I found the Blog Mum blog which gave me a profound yet creative solution. However, I had to have the height and width of my images(divs with background actually)...
July 2009
1 post
6 tags
May 2009
4 posts
6 tags
Quake Live
If you’re an avid quake lover like me, you’d be happy to know that a fully online beta version of the well known Quake III Arena was made public recently. It is called Quake Live, and it is free to play and compete with anyone around the world.
Check it out ← www . Quake Live . com →
6 tags
6 tags
Michel Foucault, INFO. →
Today I was happy to discover that many of Michel Foucault’s (on whom my thesis banks heavily) text are freely available “for educational purpose, under fair use of the Berne Convention”. The repository is “[o]nline since 1998 […and now welcomes…] 50.000 readers every month.”
For those that don’t know:
“Michel Foucault (French pronunciation:...
2 tags
Defended at last
So, I defended my thesis at last and now in the process of doing minor revisions. A plethora of posts are about to hit this blog, as soon as I’m done. My thesis document will also be made public.
March 2009
3 posts
8 tags
11 tags
Generative Architecture and Scripting
I have been always a little bit envious of the SCI-ARCH teaching methodologies while studying architecture at the Carleton school of architecture. Their use of generative scripting technologies has been an avenue that I would have definitely loved to explore, and intent to do so in near future.
Below are a few videos that I managed to gather around YouTube that display some of the SCI-Arch...
9 tags
Andrew King Studio - Ottawa, ON, Canada
I’m usually very picky with my art taste. Nothing really suits my fancy. It is as if I am in my 100th time living as a human, and I have seen it all. However, this week I was very pleasantly surprised to find a very talented Ottawa artist Andrew King. The hints of humour or even sarcasm may seem shallow to some but I find those novel and nostalgic. I haven’t seen many works of art...
February 2009
12 posts
1 tag
30 tags
Mac vs. PC: or Apple's deathmatch
I’m an avid user of the computer. I have used it for over 8 hours a day, every day, for the past 15 years. I have thoroughly used DOS 3 to 6.22; Windows 3.1, 3.11, 95, NT, 98, 98SE, 2000, Me, XP, Longhorn, and Vista; I used Mac OS 8 to 10.4.11; as well as Linux distros Ubuntu 6 to 8.10, Mandrake, and RedHat. When I say that I used the computer thoroughly I mean that I used: Word and text...
4 tags
12 tags
Wordie [wûrd • ē]
If you are a thesaurus addict and portmanteau word enthusiast like I am than you would certainly love this new service called ← Wordie.org →.
They say that they are “Like Flickr, but without the photos” but I think that they are better. I was always unimpressed with Flickr and FFFFOUND!, because - aside from their image storing capabilities - these are simply attention suckers with no...
8 tags
5 tags
5 tags
7 tags
Blogging is Dead
I’m sure this was written somewhere already, but I swear that I’ve never found it. It’s just impossible to be original because we all take one another’s and think alike.
Blogging is dead now, or one can say that it became different, however, everyone is just reblogging somebodies content. Every blogging platform has a “reblog” button and everyone thinks they...
17 tags
MP3's are evil !
A standard CD is recorded with an audio stream of 1411 kbits/sec, while most mp3’s found and purchased on the wed have the stream of 128-320 kbits/sec. It is regardless of what compression methods, optimization techniques, or filtering that were used to create the MP3, MP4, or WMA, the result will always contain only a fraction of the original information. It then comes as not surprise that...
13 tags
Visions of Luigi Colani
“Form follows emotion, not function” - Luigi Colani
Although, these concepts may look clumsy they are rather inventive, and could challenge some of today’s ideals. How can one ignore these tacky but ingenious Mercedes windshield wipers?
Luigi Colani’s Mercedes Trucks:
Motorbike:
Piano:
T.V.:
Source article:
no.1: ← Dark Roasted...
17 tags
WatchSource: ← The Blackheart Gang: The Tale of How 2006 →
Here’s some more great animation by the Blackheart Gang:
Sea Orchestra:
Ringo:
Here are some of their shor films and ads:
12 tags
January 2009
8 posts
13 tags
REVEL IN NEW YORK: Documentaries
“REVEL IN NEW YORK is a series about the people of New York City. We take you into their worlds and reveal their personal tastes and subjective recommendations.” These are an extraordinary collection of documentaries that renders a whole new north American subcultural niche. These are no hipsters. They cannot be denied. Here are some noteworthy episodes:
Tod Sellie
...
6 tags
WatchA great although somewhat biased documentary.
← Source →
10 tags
8 tags
The Lolita Effect
I don’t have a PhD in sociology, psychology, sexology, or woman studies but I surely have been preaching a lot about the progressing sexual objectification of youth today. It effects the young by maturing them incongruently with the rest of the psyche, and effects the adults by lowering the perceivable margin of what is plausible as a sexual partner. There are thongs sold for the 5...
7 tags
“Picasso is the furthest thing from a Baller.”
– arch1k thats because he’s a Cubist
6 tags
“All paid employments absorb and degrade the mind.”
– Aristotle (384–322 BC) What a wise observation! Here I am 2.5 millenia ahead and still facing the same realization. Maybe the open source ideology is a solution, since it is where generous giving is prior to a wilful reimbursement. But then we might start expecting a return.
4 tags
Science-Fiction according to Robert Smithson
Wondering around the AGO I stumbled upon this interesting tabloid describing the sci-fi genre according to Robert Smithson:
“…Robert Smithson used filmmaking as a form of expression and as a link to the remote locations of his earthworks. His wife Nancy Holt was a creative partner in many of his cinematic works. A devoted film buff, Smithson believed science-fiction movies reflected...
17 tags
Art Gallery of Ontario
Last week I was in Toronto to celebrate the New Year with the family and took the opportunity to visit the newly renovated Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO). As a student of architecture I was not particularly impressed with the Frank Gehry touch, despite all the positive review I’ve been hearing. The facade seamed detached and off scale while the exhibition spaces were crowded and non...
December 2008
17 posts
12 tags
The song is”…By a band called...
18 tags
WatchThis is the video I presented along with the «Intertext» painting.
← See details →
14 tags
4 tags
7 tags
Giant spiders
“…A giant mechanical spider, part of a piece of free theater by French company La Machine entitled “Les Mecaniques Servants”, walks along the waterfront in Liverpool, England on September 5, 2008. The 37-ton spider which stands at 50 feet (15 meters) tall was in Liverpool as part of the city’s European capital of culture celebrations…” (REUTERS/Phil Noble)...
9 tags
One Button Mouse eh?!
This video, although not so funny, describes rather accurately the problem with Mac’s philosophy regarding technology. Computers’ design should be a compromise between functionality and clarity. Mac’s do little with little effort, windows machines usually do a lot but with great efforts. There should be a median.
12 tags
Six qustions of Socrates
Recently picked up a copy of the book “Six Questions of Socrates” by Christopher Phillips. The book starts off provocatively and promises to be a decent non-fiction read.
Loyal to the title, the book is about a set of six questions that Socrates practiced asking everywhere he went: “…What is virtue? What is moderation? What is courage? What is justice? What is piety? What...
10 tags
Jay-Z + Kanye West = Source Code
Brooklyn Go Hard is the title of a new collaboration song by Jay-Z and Kanye West made in support of the RED & the Global Fun. The video for this song is designed by the Free Art and Technology Group, which, describe themselves as acting somewhere in between open source and pop culture (← link →). Most importantly, this is”…the first rap video to end with a download source code...
7 tags
WatchSlowing down in a world built for speed
← High definition Link →
I have always sided with the notion that the western world is speeding up infinitely towards a future that becomes both irreversible and impossible for the human being to understand or consume. Carl Honore explains that there must be a limit to the human capacity to multi-task, and by surpassing this threshold one begins paying in...
7 tags
Wiki article about Me!
Today is a great day as I have discovered that someone had entered an article about me and my thesis into P2PFoundation Wiki, which is somewhat similar to the infamous Wikipedia.
An even more exotic and, and in the same time, complimentary fact is that the article was written by Michel Bauwens, 47, Chiang Mai, Thailand, whom I have never encountered and may unfortunately never have the chance to...
7 tags
WatchThe safest table saw
I wish we had some of these around throughout my University model crafting years. Now, they need to design analogous belt-senders and X-Acto(r) Knives for the masses. Of course this will result in yet another blow to the infamous architectural skill-set. They are already using CNC machinery for their “heavy” cutting.
Source Article: ← SawStop - World’s safest...
5 tags
A N00b or a Newb
Turns out there is a mighty difference between the words noob/n00b and a newbie/newb.
“Newbs are those who are new to some task* and are very beginner at it, possibly a little overconfident about it, but they are willing to learn and fix their errors to move out of that stage. n00bs, on the other hand, know little and have no will to learn any more. They expect people to do the work for...