Architect Ellen Dunham-Jones presented at a TED talk about redevelopment projects that retrofit suburban strip malls and parking lots into people-friendly spaces. These retrofits are great for areas that were originally in outlying suburban areas – built when gas was cheap and hopes were high. Suburban populations have grown since then, and the suburbs have become population centers in their own right. People that live close to these urban and suburban commercial lots want a convenient proxy for the urban lifestyle as well as a sense of community. As a result, developers have been reinventing such lots and buildings into hip gathering spots. And these developments are not just for more dense shopping areas – malls have become art spaces and big-box stores have been turned into schools and community centers.
While these projects are certainly a step in the right direction, Dunham-Jones concedes that these projects are “astroturf town greens”. The fundamental energy gap between city residents and suburban residents will continue to exist, and there is a sense in the United States of a growing divide between “Small Town America” and the cities. Since most main street commercial areas have declined as commercial developments are built a few miles away, there is not much of a difference between sprawl housing developments and small towns in terms of economics and energy-consumption. Alex Steffan of Worldchanging considers cities versus suburbs as a political conflict.
via GristPreviously on badorbit were posts on suburban psychology and car culture.
This Stargate Studios 2009 Virtual Backlot Reel shows just how common green or blue-screening is for network television shows. I don’t watch much (any) network television, but it makes sense that this technique is used so often — it lowers the budget and lets the staff focus on good acting. Live shoots in crowded locations are expensive, disruptive, and no doubt difficult to accomplish. The chroma key editing that is used for blue- screening looks very advanced in the studio reel, and it has likely made its way from expensive movie studio editing rooms to television shows in the past few years. With many shows being watched in High Definition on large televisions, it must be very effective in order to convince the home audience.
What really struck me about this video is how modern technology is able to skew reality. Recently I posted about the advances being made in bringing Augmented Reality to mobile devices.
Chromakey is everywhere via Boing Boing
With chroma keying tech, it has become difficult for the human eye to discern reality from fiction when viewing a video screen. What are the implications of blue screens and video editing? I am reminded of the movie Wag The Dog from 1997:
How will this chroma key technology be used in the next decade? I would like to know what you are thinking, reader.
Blaise Aguera y Arcas, an architect at Microsoft Live Labs, presented the latest augmented reality capabilities of Microsoft’s mapping application at the 2010 TED Talks. TED, which stands for Technology, Entertainment, and Design and is a phenomenal collection of presentations that anyone will find beneficial.
Augmented Reality is now entering widespread adoption with the emergence of powerful smartphones capable of taking geotagged photographs and video, and especially by streaming videos over a 4G cellular network. As online mapping applications become feature-rich and widely used, people will provide their own content in the forms of annotations, photographs and videos. As a result, true telepresence will be possible, allowing a sort of virtual tourism via a computer screen. A user could experience the bustle of a city square at night or the rising sun in a silent desert. Art, hidden shops, and curious city features can be documented and tagged for the benefit of others. A cyclist can mount a smartphone to his helmet and take an audience for a tour of his city in realtime. In the next few years, the possibilities of combining the real and virtual worlds will begin to emerge and be discovered, and it will help to connect and enrich us all.
Aerial Photographs of London at Night
January 29, 2009
The non-profit organization 826 Valencia has several fake stores selling themed stuff as a method of raising funds. This organization is spearheaded by the author Dave Eggers. One store has a time travel theme and the other has a superhero theme. From their about page,
Simply put, 826 Valencia is dedicated to supporting students ages 6 to 18 with their writing skills, and to helping teachers get their students excited about the writing. Our work is based on the understanding that strong writing skills are fundamental to future success and that great leaps in learning can be made when skilled tutors work one-on-one with students.
Photos of the Time Travel Martvia boingboing gadgets
Brooklyn Superhero Supply photos at boingboing gadgets
Warren Ellis: Comic Genius
February 7, 2007
As a kid, I liked to read some superhero comics. I liked batman, spiderman, and superman comics. The Funeral for a Friend series was pretty cool. Batman was the man. Spiderman had serious issues, but he was still cool. A related topic is superhero cartoons, but I will leave that for a future post. Anyways, I was never a voracious reader, and my interest waned after a while. But I always liked good visual storytelling and quality drawing. Comic book storytelling is a great medium that is often underestimated.
But after many years my interest in comics resurfaced with a different focus. Superheros just don’t cut it for me anymore. And so I would like to point out my favorite comic book writer. Warren Ellis weaves worlds (with the help of graphic artists). He has an awesome imagination and a singular talent for comic narration. Typically, Ellis writes comics that present a dystopian futuristic world or alternate reality.
Of particular interest is Transmetropolitan whose main character, Spider Jerusalem, is a journalist. I would go so far as to call him a blogger, and since the comic started in 1997, that makes Ellis quite the visionary.
Other great comics by Ellis include Planetary and Desolation Jones.
badorbit 