httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bUkR0MYLYZg

And not just the twins. Pistachio (among many other things) vendor Roll Global is in the process of creating one of the most internet-friendly ad campaigns ever. It’s already recruited Snooki from Jersey Shore, Keyboard Cat, Angry Birds and other reposter-baiting virals.

Obviously, we’re sold.

Coming soon: the crazy, nasty-ass honey badger.

vIa/via



A satirical but oddly plausible vision of the digitally-augmented future (originally posted in 2010, but currently doing the rounds again) by London/Tokyo based filmmaker Keiichi Matsuda:

Augmented Reality (AR) is an emerging technology defined by its ability to overlay physical space with information. It is part of a paradigm shift that succeeds Virtual Reality; instead of disembodied occupation of virtual worlds, the physical and virtual are seen together as a contiguous, layered and dynamic whole. It may lead to a world where media is indistinguishable from ‘reality’. The spatial organisation of data has important implications for architecture, as we re-evaluate the city as an immersive human-computer interface

(Thanks Carla)

From Gawker:

The Boston Globe rolled out a handsome new website, and it’s exemplary: No confusing mess of links, no upchuck of annoying ugly ads, and, best of all, no special crippled version for the iPhone or iPad.

Open the site on a regular computer and try slowly squeezing the browser window from full width down to a quarter or an eighth of your screen. The layout progressively and intelligently resizes itself, hiding section links, scaling photos, and resizing fonts.

“Stunning,” writes outspoken designer Jason Santa Maria. “Fascinating,” writes Daring Fireball publisher John Gruber. “The design is uncluttered and reader-friendly. How many newspaper website designs can you say that about?” Not many.

The catch?

It’s all going behind a paywall very soon.

Bah.

An Incredibly Smart newspaper Website (Gawker)

The Walrus Chair by Maximo Riera: he of the Octopus Chair.

This, and other pieces from Riera’s ‘Animal Chairs’ collection go on show at the 100% Design Exhibition in London from the 22nd to the 25th of this month.

via

Frank McDonald, of the Irish Times, shares with readers of the Daily Telegraph tomorrow some of the “sad and salutory” lessons Ireland’s relaxed planning laws have forced upon us. Including…

The knock-on effects of liberal planning policies over several decades, codified by the Sustainable Rural Housing Guidelines (2005), have been ruinous not just for the countryside, but also for towns and villages; as residential development spreads outwards, many are losing population rather than being reinforced..

This imbalance in Ireland became even more pronounced during the “Celtic Tiger” boom, with suburban-style housing estates being tacked on to towns and villages as well as being built in the middle of nowhere, as more and more land was re-zoned for residential development – at the behest of farmers and other landowners greedy for rich pickings.

The farmers also did very well from selling off land, at hugely inflated prices, for inter-urban motorways that became the sinews of sprawl because they enabled so many people to live in rural areas and commute to work by car. Notoriously, Dublin’s commuter belt now extends to 100 kilometres – roughly on a par with Los Angeles.

Eventually, housing output reached a peak of 90,000 new homes per year – far more than Britain’s, despite the huge difference in population (4.5 million versus 60 million). Local councils also behaved recklessly by zoning more than 105,600 acres for residential development between 2000 and 2010 – enough to accommodate 1.5 million new houses or apartments. It transpired that only 29,660 acres were needed to meet demand throughout the republic over the decade.

Jebus.

The Housing Developers’ Dream That Ruined Ireland (Frank McDonald, Daily Telegraph)

McDonald’s article elicited this rather bracing analysis on the Telegraph site at around 12.13am. Drink may have been taken.

(Pic of Kildare train station: unknown photographer)
Broadsheet.ie