randomosity

I have spent the last decade naturally evolving towards a work day that largely takes place in coffee shops. Having written my MA largely at the Second Cup in Guelph and turned to the Starbucks before that to do business planning, I currently spend the bulk of my time at the Second Cup in Westdale. During this time, I have evolved from relying on pen and paper to hopelessly attached to my laptop. That same appendage has gone from tethering to an electrical outlet to craving attachment through wireless connectivity. The way in which I work away from the office or home has evolved, technically and socially.

The pen and paper days also involved a good book and allowed for reading during the day. As data connectivity has progressed, direct social connectivity has decreased.
Read the complete article… »

English Russia has posted some great footage of a Stalinist video showing the wonderful architectural rewards that the populace was about to reap. I was particularly impressed by what must have been a rather impressive technique for the time of putting the modeled or rendered structures into live video of the actual construction sites. I am not sure that I’m too won over by the nature of the designs themselves, suffice it to say they are certainly ‘grand’, in scale and scope scope. I’m not an expert on Soviet architectural achievement, but i don’t think I recognized any of the projects as ones that were actually constructed.

I got the little Nike+ pedometer for my iPod last year to track my running progress. Yeah, that’s right its was purely for exercise sake…yeah. Yes, its a gadget. I like gadgets. And this one is very cool. If you don’t know the Nike+ doodad. There is a wireless receiver that attached to your iPod and a transmitter that you put in your shoe. Although Nike advertises particular shoes with a magic compartment for it, reality is, its easy to simply insert it into the tongue of the shoe or use a variety of means to attach it else where to the show and it works great.

Read the complete article… »

From bestdesi.com comes a top ten list of the most annoying alarm clocks in the world. I like the selection of clocks. All are pretty much annoying which of course is part of the deal, but what the better ones seem to feature is a rather challenging activity to turn the alarm off. I really like the one that pops four puzzle pieces out and demands that you a) find them and b) place them exactly in order to turn off the alarm. The clock that scurries about the room looking for a place to hide before you can catch it and disable to alarm is a close second. The alarm clock that requires a second person to lob the alarm grenade into the room is of limited usefulness, but then I have to admit my bigger challenge is staying in bed and rising slowly…perhaps even luxuriating in gradual wakefulness. An interesting collection of gadgets.

Genealogy remains one of the more popular pastimes in modern culture. Embracing Web2.0 Ajax comes Geni.com, which is quite viral. It offers a very easy guided data entry process geared towards encouraging contact with relatives to have them fill in their own information and gradually flesh out a very comprehensive tree. Its extremely fun to play with which is enhanced by the immediate feedback that you get seeing the tree evolve. Its quite intuitive to use. I may actually share it with a couple relatives and see how well the collaborative effort works.
Read the complete article… »

Clever lads have run the CES address of Bill Gates and the Macworld Keynote by Steve Jobs through a variety of text analysis tools to get an idea of why one has greater impact than the other. The article demonstrates that there is a huge difference in the complexity of the message. Jobs delivers short, easily comprehended sentences, where Gates tends to be using longer sentences, with more complex language. The word clouds generated from the speech are not that different in terms of focus. Both featured most frequent references to the products being featured. Interestingly this contrasted with Michael Dell’s CES presentation which was seemingly used much more ambiguous language with less direct reference to particular products. There’s also a slider-based version linked to the article that offers an alternative way to view the clouds. Unfortunately unless you use the arrow keys (i.e. read the small print) it seems next to impossible to click on the magic spot to get Gates cloud displayed.
This exercise begs the question of magic however, and whether it is merely the message and not thew actual technology being presented that enthralls the audience. One would expect that the concept of the iPhone itself may actually be more appreciable than Windows Vista and Michael Dell simply didn’t talk as much about products because he didn’t have any exciting new product to introduce. Nonetheless, a fun little intellectual exercise.
Gates in fact doesn’t seem to have always had the product focus that he does now. There is a word cloud timeline of his communications and it is only recently that products have bgun to experience high frequency of reference.

“An incredible number of dice, always rolling, dominate and determine each
individual existence: uncertainty, then, in the realm of individual history;
but in that of collective history . . . simplicity and consistency. History is
indeed ‘a poor little conjectural science’ when it selects individuals as its
objects . . . but much more rational in its procedures and results, when it
examines groups and repetitions.” - ‘L’histoire, mesure du monde’, in Les Ecrits de Fernand Braudel, vol. ii, Paris 1997.

From Michele comes this very musing correspondence about an Englishwoman’s experience in ‘polite’ Parisian society. It provided me with a good chuckle and I hope it does the same for you. I guess I wasn’t hanging around in polite enough circles to have been apprised of or embarrassed by my behaviour. Things to be aware of for your next sojourn to the city of light.

Thanks to Usama for this one. Glasses that have interchangeable parts so you can choose a colour to match your mood or your fashion. The toulch ONE eyeglass system has a series of arms and nosepieces in a variety of colours and patterns. The website itself is pleasingly entertaining. They aren’t cheap of course, but they do offer you the opportunity to make a little change to suit your taste every couple months rather than replacing the entire frame. The initial purchase lenses are custom shaped to fit your features.

Simply too absurd not to blog. Apparently there’s a new luxury condo planned for Dubai which is designed to resemble an Apple iPod (I probably don’t actually have to brand tag that do i?). Designed to reemble to that extent that the building rest on an iPod dock (hopefully size appropriately ;-) and is canted at 6 degrees a la the pod in dock itself. Yes, this is a bit much. The iPad project in Business Bay certainly sounds intriguing, but I was not able to find a single rendering…yet. The developer, Omniyat Properties, has quite a few renderings of their other *interesting* projects, but no this one.