Tweenbots by Kacie Kinzer:
Given their extreme vulnerability, the vastness of city space, the dangers posed by traffic, suspicion of terrorism, and the possibility that no one would be interested in helping a lost little robot, I initially conceived the Tweenbots as disposable creatures which were more likely to struggle and die in the city than to reach their destination. Because I built them with minimal technology, I had no way of tracking the Tweenbot’s progress, and so I set out on the first test with a video camera hidden in my purse. I placed the Tweenbot down on the sidewalk, and walked far enough away that I would not be observed as the Tweenbot––a smiling 10-inch tall cardboard missionary––bumped along towards his inevitable fate.
The results were unexpected. Over the course of the following months, throughout numerous missions, the Tweenbots were successful in rolling from their start point to their far-away destination assisted only by strangers. Every time the robot got caught under a park bench, ground futilely against a curb, or became trapped in a pothole, some passerby would always rescue it and send it toward its goal. Never once was a Tweenbot lost or damaged. Often, people would ignore the instructions to aim the Tweenbot in the “right” direction, if that direction meant sending the robot into a perilous situation. One man turned the robot back in the direction from which it had just come, saying out loud to the Tweenbot, “You can’t go that way, it’s toward the road.”
The Tweenbot’s unexpected presence in the city created an unfolding narrative that spoke not simply to the vastness of city space and to the journey of a human-assisted robot, but also to the power of a simple technological object to create a complex network powered by human intelligence and asynchronous interactions. But of more interest to me, was the fact that this ad-hoc crowdsourcing was driven primarily by human empathy for an anthropomorphized object. The journey the Tweenbots take each time they are released in the city becomes a story of people’s willingness to engage with a creature that mirrors human characteristics of vulnerability, of being lost, and of having intention without the means of achieving its goal alone. As each encounter with a helpful pedestrian takes the robot one step closer to attaining it’s destination, the significance of our random discoveries and individual actions accumulates into a story about a vast space made small by an even smaller robot.
AwwWWWWWWAHHHHHHHHHHHH.
In. Credible.
A testament to the kindness of strangers! Well, at least to adorable little robots. No robot apocalypse if we kill them with kindness!
Com·mem·o·rate
The 1,204-piece set stands 17.5 inches tall, with a 10-inch wingspan. It includes launch pad, detachable fuel tank, booster rockets, robot arm, retractable landing gear, opening cockpit with two minifig astronauts (male and female), opening cargo compartment, satellite, and even a ground vehicle.
Detail of very old 19th century Bouyei blanket with diamonds design
The surface of this blanket is entirely made of silk supplementary weft patterning
92cm x 131cm
![masquerade92:
wenchymcwench:
We enter a little coffeehouse with a friend of mine and give our order. While we’re aproaching our table two people come in and they go to the counter:‘Five coffees, please. Two of them for us and three suspended’ They pay for their order, take the two and leave. I ask my friend: “What are those ‘suspended’ coffees?”My friend: “Wait for it and you will see.”Some more people enter. Two girls ask for one coffee each, pay and go. The next order was for seven coffees and it was made by three lawyers - three for them and four ‘suspended’. While I still wonder what’s the deal with those ‘suspended’ coffees I enjoy the sunny weather and the beautiful view towards the square infront of the café. Suddenly a man dressed in shabby clothes who looks like a beggar comes in throught the door and kindly asks‘Do you have a suspended coffee ?’It’s simple - people pay in advance for a coffee meant for someone who can not afford a warm bevarage. The tradition with the suspended coffees started in Naples, but it has spread all over the world and in some places you can order not only a suspended coffee, but also a sandwitch or a whole meal.Wouldn’t it be wonderful to have such cafés or even grocery stores in every town where the less fortunate will find hope and support ? If you own a business why don’t you offer it to your clients… I am sure many of them will like it.
Source : [x]](http://24.media.tumblr.com/400b276df72eda0cde6c7cc1d71bde98/tumblr_mkbiq2u4y91qmvz7to1_1280.jpg)
We enter a little coffeehouse with a friend of mine and give our order. While we’re aproaching our table two people come in and they go to the counter:
‘Five coffees, please. Two of them for us and three suspended’ They pay for their order, take the two and leave.
I ask my friend: “What are those ‘suspended’ coffees?”
My friend: “Wait for it and you will see.”
Some more people enter. Two girls ask for one coffee each, pay and go. The next order was for seven coffees and it was made by three lawyers - three for them and four ‘suspended’. While I still wonder what’s the deal with those ‘suspended’ coffees I enjoy the sunny weather and the beautiful view towards the square infront of the café. Suddenly a man dressed in shabby clothes who looks like a beggar comes in throught the door and kindly asks
‘Do you have a suspended coffee ?’
It’s simple - people pay in advance for a coffee meant for someone who can not afford a warm bevarage. The tradition with the suspended coffees started in Naples, but it has spread all over the world and in some places you can order not only a suspended coffee, but also a sandwitch or a whole meal.
Wouldn’t it be wonderful to have such cafés or even grocery stores in every town where the less fortunate will find hope and support ? If you own a business why don’t you offer it to your clients… I am sure many of them will like it.Source : [x]
Alejandro Guijarro photographs the chalkboards of some of the brightest minds in quantum physics for his continuing series Momentum. He went to research facilities like CERN and many of the top universities in the world to find them.
good:
US Food Administration PSA from Nearly 100 Years Ago Still Rings True
- Haley Scott posted in Food, Sustainable and Brown
Classic tweet by @hell_homer. I’ve postponed drawing this one since the beginning because it’s visually complicated, but it was too canon to ignore forever.
This ad from Berrge Tattoo in Istanbul requires artists who hope to work there to prove themselves a bit before even getting the necessary information to apply…
(via)
(Source: stuntoftheday)
Pratt Institute student Aaron Mickelson examines packaging design for ways to eliminate waste as part of his Masters Thesis Project ‘The Disappearing Package‘. He takes a product and then based on its use case, creates packaging that becomes the product itself, like soap packaging that dissolves in the shower, a container of Tide pods made from the pods themselves, and trash bags that create their own dispenser without cardboard packaging.
Mickelson took five products; Tide PODs, OXO POP Containers, Twinings Tea Bags, Nivea Bar Soap, and GLAD Trash Bags, and reimagined their packaging. By applying the functions of packaging to the product itself, he created packages and containers that completely disappear by the time you’re done using the product.
Other recent experiments with disappearing packaging here and here.
Now this is a fine example of junkitecture — junk used as building material: License plates repurposed as shingles.
Built by Dan Phillips of Phoenix Commotion (mentioned in our post on the two-story, Houston-area office building constructed from salvaged material):
When folks return license plates for new ones at the tax office, Dan asks the office to save them for him. They make a dandy roof — reflective, which is a big deal in the Texas summer sun. The beefy galvanized metal yields a 75-year roof.
(via Phoenix Commotion)
See also: Earlier Unconsumption posts on aluminum cans and vinyl records used as roofing material, and posts on other uses for license plates.
Brand new astronaut kids duvet by Snurk. Available end of February. Very, very, very wow!
“My local library branch started doing this “Blind Date with a Book” thing, thought you guys might like it. The shelf was full when we got there, but was like this as we were leaving. The books are wrapped in paper and have different designs on them, and then a few words vaguely describing the subject matter of the book. Things like “Drama”, “Plot Twists”, “espionage”, etc. The only thing exposed on the book is the barcode that you use to scan the book out. I thought it was a pretty cool idea.”
Sometimes marketing is not a bad thing at all.
