A fascinating biography of Buckminster Fuller. I didn’t know about his self-imposed isolation, a la Thoreau: “Fuller moved his wife, Anne, and infant daughter, Allegra, to a one-room apartment in a Chicago slum, withdrew completely from all friends and social contact, and vowed not to speak again until he really knew what he thought. And then he began to think. His virtual silence lasted for almost two years…”

How to make a globe – I love this video.

Fun gallery of wild Dutch bike designs at the Designhuis exhibition. My favorites: the Giant Downtown, with integrated handlebar lock; a bike you connects two bikes to make a 4-wheeled vehicle; a dinky little recumbent trike; a slick carbon recumbent; a rowing-action pullcord drivetrain; and an internal-drivetrain suspended recumbent.

October 27, 2008 - Psst

October 27, 2008 - Psst

“The starting point for a new way of thinking is to give up the fantasy that there was once a golden age to which we can return. What might have been a golden age for one segment of society was a time of torture for other segments.” – Fred Taylor. Good to keep in mind as we watch our most recent economic golden age crumble…

It’s striking to me that the place Christianity is growing fastest–China–is where it is limited by law to churches of fewer than 25.

Immersive design – “The immersive design process attempts to describe two simultaneous entwined tasks: 1) To design intact worlds that are coherent, have interior logic, contain history, geography, surface, metaphor and story, and allow an audience to be fully immersed in both environment and story. 2) To put in place a non-linear immersive process that provides a fully collaborative, often virtual production space for creators and the work that they are creating.” Coined by Alex McDowell, production designer for Minority Report, Fight Club, etc.

Melee – looks like a nice distributed/digital brainstorming app, virtual sticky notes; supports clustering and prioritizing as well…will be released in a couple days

Manta Bicycle Saddle – it’s certainly different…