Both a gas and tears at once

This rather brilliant experiment in asymmetric humanism demonstrates the Palestinian and Israeli response to a recent advert. The TV commercial showed a hopeful world otherwise in which Israelis and Palestinians played soccer by bouncing a ball to one another over the enormous wall (built by Israelis) that separates their territories. It was one of those rainbow-and-unicorn moments that we'd all like to see more of.

Regrettably it was not to be. A video recently posted on YouTube tried to reenact the game in reality, but found that the result could not be further removed from the situation on the ground: when the Palestinians kick the ball to the other side of the fence, what they get in return is a salvo of tear gas grenades.



09:15 AM

Boards of Canada - the music videos

Curiously I've never thought to look up whether Boards of Canada ever produced music videos. They have! One at least. And here it is.



09:01 AM

China on your desktop

This won't get you all the tea in China, but it could eventually replace all the cheap manufacturing that China produces.

The RepRap is the latest example of "desktop manufacturing", a new economy of distributed industrial production on the verge of going mainstream. Desktop manufacturing scales down traditional industrial production to something suitable and affordable for any home user. Connect a RepRap to your home computer like a printer, add a chunk of raw plastic, get on the net to download the design of a 3D object, and hit "print". Presto, RepRap will go to work manufacturing your product, from a coat hook to a tea cup to replacement plumbing. No shipping costs, import tariffs, production facility or Wal-Mart required.

The unique quality differentiating RepRap from other similar devices is that it can produce 60% of its own parts, effectively reproducing itself. The next version will be capable of producing its own electronic parts as well, though not microchips per se.

It doesn't take much imagination to envision how a world full of RepRap devices will be different. Distributed home production could remove a lot of the waste that goes into bringing a physical product to market (factory costs, shipping, packaging, retailing) while facilitating greater recyclability (if all objects can be produced from just a few types of plastic) and nourishing a radical new era of Do It Yourself handiwork. The new market demand for the 3D drawings to print would result in an iTunes AppStore for every product imaginable, with individuals and professional designers alike uploading whole sets of stylized objects for $1. There would be a virtually limitless market demand for new 3D plans to print just about anything.

None other than Jay Leno has recently demonstrated that 3D polymer prototyping machines can also scan physical objects for reproduction. Miss the look and feel of Mom's kitchen table setting? Just scan all the objects and automatically reproduce a new set.

RepRap from Adrian Bowyer on Vimeo.

10:35 PM

Guess who pays for credit card incentive plan?

You do silly.

When credit card companies give you "cash back", or "points" or "air miles", it isn't really a gift. You've already paid in the form of higher prices at the till. Reward programs work when you use your card more frequently. Frequent use of the card forces the retailer to pay more fees to the credit card company. The direct results are higher prices which conceal the credit card fees you are paying indirectly and feeling good about with your piddly "cash back". It feels like a reward but all you are really doing is contributing to consumer price inflation and making credit card companies more money.

If you don't believe me you can believe Target, one of the largest department stores in the US. Target tells the Bloomberg newswire that credit-card interchange fees are the retailer's second-highest expense, exceeded only by payroll. The fees can sometimes exceed 3% of the purchase price.

09:35 PM

Suburbs without cars

I put this concept to an urban planner I know in Victoria a couple of years ago and she said it was impossible, that I was an unrealistic dreamer, and that there were no practically workable solutions.

Punchline? Now available in Germany. From the NY Times article:

Street parking, driveways and home garages are generally forbidden in this experimental new district on the outskirts of Freiburg, near the French and Swiss borders. Vauban’s streets are completely “car-free” — except the main thoroughfare, where the tram to downtown Freiburg runs, and a few streets on one edge of the community. Car ownership is allowed, but there are only two places to park — large garages at the edge of the development, where a car-owner buys a space, for $40,000, along with a home.

As a result, 70 percent of Vauban’s families do not own cars, and 57 percent sold a car to move here. “When I had a car I was always tense. I’m much happier this way,” said Heidrun Walter, a media trainer and mother of two, as she walked verdant streets where the swish of bicycles and the chatter of wandering children drown out the occasional distant motor.

Vauban, completed in 2006, is an example of a growing trend in Europe, the United States and elsewhere to separate suburban life from auto use, as a component of a movement called “smart planning.” [...] The town is long and relatively narrow, so that the tram into Freiburg is an easy walk from every home. Stores, restaurants, banks and schools are more interspersed among homes than they are in a typical suburb. Most residents, like Ms. Walter, have carts that they haul behind bicycles for shopping trips or children’s play dates.

For trips to stores like IKEA or the ski slopes, families buy cars together or use communal cars rented out by Vauban’s car-sharing club.

09:21 PM

Hans Rosling on HIV

Hans Rosling unveils new data visuals that untangle the complex risk factors of one of the world's deadliest (and most misunderstood) diseases: HIV. He argues that preventing transmissions -- not drug treatments -- is the key to ending the epidemic.



07:33 PM

Metal Heart

Time-lapse tilt photography film of a monster truck show. Awesome.

Metal Heart from Keith Loutit on Vimeo.

11:53 PM