To fill the cup i post another reading suggestion. This is a master thesis well written by the Betsy Greer who does the great craftivism-weblog. In this paper she discovers the underlying political issues of knitting and answers the question why crafting is not only fun, but has other implications for our postmodern - media times.

Some quotes:
“With all the sweatshops all over the world, people are getting angry. Not to mention sick of wearing things that everyone else has. The creation of something with your own two hands is one way of resisting a consumerist and materialist based culture that is built upon the backs of less fortunate individuals.”

“Craft allows us, in this world of quick fixes, to actually be a part of the creation of something from start to finish. Something that, apart from giving birth, we don’t see too often as everything comes either pre-packaged or with
accompanying directions in Swedish. It allows us time to talk and learn and share with one another.”

“There is something magical about a product that is not only beautiful to look at as well as touch, but also beautifully made.”

To fill the cup i post another reading suggestion. This is a master thesis well written by the Betsy Greer who does the great craftivism-weblog. In this paper she discovers the underlying political issues of knitting and answers the question why crafting is not only fun, but has other implications for our postmodern - media times.

Some quotes:
“With all the sweatshops all over the world, people are getting angry. Not to mention sick of wearing things that everyone else has. The creation of something with your own two hands is one way of resisting a consumerist and materialist based culture that is built upon the backs of less fortunate individuals.”

“Craft allows us, in this world of quick fixes, to actually be a part of the creation of something from start to finish. Something that, apart from giving birth, we don’t see too often as everything comes either pre-packaged or with
accompanying directions in Swedish. It allows us time to talk and learn and share with one another.”

“There is something magical about a product that is not only beautiful to look at as well as touch, but also beautifully made.”

Photo from http://smoothware.com/danny/circlesmirror.html

I love Daniel Rozin. Ever since I saw the Wooden Mirror in Wired magazine. I recently visited the ITP program at NYU and got to see it and the Shiny Balls Mirror in person and what you dont get from the photos is that they make the most wonderful sounds. Dozens of servos all going at once… very soothing. Be sure to check out the videos.

And it seems that Danny Rozin has a new mirror to show.

Ok, to fill this “summertime gap” i will support some books that made me help to a fundamental understanding of design, digital art and the designprocess itself.

Super - Welcome to grafic design wonderland
I will start with Super - welcome to grafic design wonderland (you can view pages at die gestalten). It is my very favourite book. I would never sell it! Although it has almost no text in it. It is something like a “printed down visual conference or discourse”. Some bleeding-edge european designers were asked for a meeting in Switzerland. There they showed what and how they work. Insprired by that meeting they did their contribution to this book. And it is a totally blast off: highly condensed works of some leading designers. This is far more than this typical “here’s my portfolio” thing. Is is very near to art and very close to my “design is fetishism”-thinking. The contribution and the form of the book itself is very radical: the cover is in neon-yellow and they cutteed out the booktitle. They also used lots of diffrent paper. Again: a non-verbal mindblowing discourse.

Maeda at Media
John Maeda’s Maeda at media. Strange title, indeed. This book gives a good insight into the development of John Maedas thinking and the development of his “creative code”. This book reminds me more of a popsong, than a (research) publication: it made me instantly a Maeda-fan. I especially like the focus on the creative process that is embracing the whole book. And the “linear form” of it. The perfect preparation for the deep insight of creative code:

John Maeda - Creative Code
This book is the resume of Maeda’s years at the aestetic and computational group of the MIT Media Lab. It continues ‘maeda at media’ and shows a very good overview of what digital art can be at the beginning of the 21st century. Definately a must read for the digital artist.

Well, theese books are nothing new. Some are years old now. But I really hate this “we only show off the brandnew stuff” of most media. There are some mags and bloggers that say: hey you media, that is an old fart- go away. Disgusting. Go away. I hate you. Quality is here to stay.

Ok, to fill this “summertime gap” i will support some books that made me help to a fundamental understanding of design, digital art and the designprocess itself.

Super - Welcome to grafic design wonderland
I will start with Super - welcome to grafic design wonderland (you can view pages at die gestalten). It is my very favourite book. I would never sell it! Although it has almost no text in it. It is something like a “printed down visual conference or discourse”. Some bleeding-edge european designers were asked for a meeting in Switzerland. There they showed what and how they work. Insprired by that meeting they did their contribution to this book. And it is a totally blast off: highly condensed works of some leading designers. This is far more than this typical “here’s my portfolio” thing. Is is very near to art and very close to my “design is fetishism”-thinking. The contribution and the form of the book itself is very radical: the cover is in neon-yellow and they cutteed out the booktitle. They also used lots of diffrent paper. Again: a non-verbal mindblowing discourse.

Maeda at Media
John Maeda’s Maeda at media. Strange title, indeed. This book gives a good insight into the development of John Maedas thinking and the development of his “creative code”. This book reminds me more of a popsong, than a (research) publication: it made me instantly a Maeda-fan. I especially like the focus on the creative process that is embracing the whole book. And the “linear form” of it. The perfect preparation for the deep insight of creative code:

John Maeda - Creative Code
This book is the resume of Maeda’s years at the aestetic and computational group of the MIT Media Lab. It continues ‘maeda at media’ and shows a very good overview of what digital art can be at the beginning of the 21st century. Definately a must read for the digital artist.

Well, theese books are nothing new. Some are years old now. But I really hate this “we only show off the brandnew stuff” of most media. There are some mags and bloggers that say: hey you media, that is an old fart- go away. Disgusting. Go away. I hate you. Quality is here to stay.

Für alle die sich mit XMLHttpRequest rumschlagen gibts hier ein tolles Greasemonkey Skript, dass einem in einem extra div Daten zu dem jeweiligen XMLHttpRequest-Anfragen anzeigt. Hier eine kurze Liste der Features:

Anzeigen des Requestaufrufs
Anfragen können verändert und neue gesendet werden
Anzeige des Status einer Anfrage
Anzeigen von header und body der Antwort
Anzeigen der mit dem Aufruf verknüpften Javascriptfunktion

Für alle die sich mit XMLHttpRequest rumschlagen gibts hier ein tolles Greasemonkey Skript, dass einem in einem extra div Daten zu dem jeweiligen XMLHttpRequest-Anfragen anzeigt. Hier eine kurze Liste der Features:
Anzeigen des Requestaufrufs
Anfragen können verändert und neue gesendet werden
Anzeige des Status einer Anfrage
Anzeigen von header und body der Antwort
Anzeigen der …

Funny news, after having express my opinion in a forum to one of the moderators (Miko) about the criteria of assignement of the BombShock Award I've been banned

I think I haven't offended anyone saying that judging a website because the effort the creator put in his career is a bullshit, asking, of course, how do they get that information to all the sites that don't win the award.

In anycase I don't have any need to be part of a community where the moderators are not able to mantain a discussion and where you can't express freely your opinion.

Very funny how I discovered it, looking the reports of my site (it probably happens twice a year, but maybe I should check them more often ). Other funny thing is that the website is near to its 3rd birthday :).

It's a very welcome honor since we all know how much Manitu Group, more precisely Burak Kalayci, contributes very activily on supporting the flash community with very useful free softwares.

Thanks Burak and next time drop me an email!

I restored author attribution to Processing Blogs and put some more useful things back into the sidebar. Let me know if anything is broken.

This is the last project I did, the one under Ben supervision. It represents the relationship between colors and tags using as database Color Fields group of Flickr.