Like the [“one-minute vacations”](http://quietamerican.org/vacation.html) I [previously discovered](http://www.ryskamp.org/brain/?p=1413), the Radio Aporee project collects ambient audio clips from around the world and plays them while displaying satellite photos of the location. They even have [an Android app](http://aporee.org/maps/mobile/info/) so you can take the experience mobile, and make your own recordings.
I like to record ambient audio and video from places I visit; playing the clips back later is a great way to transport your mind to another time and place.
[The Western Soundscape Archive](http://www.westernsoundscape.org/) is another great collection, containing natural sounds from the American West.
[The most interesting man in the world](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PVwG1t-NVAA), and [the most typical](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4B2xOvKFFz4&feature=player_embedded).
Though I actually find the typical man much more interesting.
> One hundred twenty-five astronaut autobiographies, interviews, and oral histories were content analyzed and scored for references to values (Schwartz, 1992). The current study extended methods tested in 2 pilot studies of space veterans from many nations, of both sexes, and with different experiences within the history of human spaceflight. Value references reflected a high degree of concern with individualism, with Achievement, Enjoyment, and Self-direction ranked highest. There were relatively few value differences across demographic categories, demonstrating the impact of the spaceflight experience. After returning, the astronauts showed increased concern with Universalism, Spirituality, and Power (social recognition), a broadened set of references to values oriented toward the collective good.
Fascinating article in the NY Times that explores how language shapes the way we think about the world. Different languages, different ways of experiencing it.
> When your language routinely obliges you to specify certain types of information, it forces you to be attentive to certain details in the world and to certain aspects of experience that speakers of other languages may not be required to think about all the time. And since such habits of speech are cultivated from the earliest age, it is only natural that they can settle into habits of mind that go beyond language itself, affecting your experiences, perceptions, associations, feelings, memories and orientation in the world.
Similar to my observations about [how language affects meaning](http://www.ryskamp.org/brain/?p=68) from years ago.
[The Global Lives project](http://globallives.org/) is an effort “to collaboratively build a video library of human life experience that reshapes how we as both producers and viewers conceive of cultures, nations and people outside of our own communities.”
They started with an exhibit of 10 people at the Yerba Buena Center. I missed that unfortunately but they’ve [put some of the video online](http://globallives.org/videos/). You can even view the raw 24 hours of footage for each person, linked at the bottom.
It’s interesting to think about this as a resource for virtual ethnography–just dial up 24 hours in the life of someone in your target market and observe them on demand…
