Life & Research Notes

Luis Blackaller and Kyle Buza just released the E15:oGFX site, with software downloads, tutorials, and documentation. They’ve made it incredibly easy to get up and running. Nice work dudes.

My friend and Taco Lab accomplice David Merrill gave a fantastic talk at TED last week on the Siftables project that he and Jeevan have been pursuing. The video went up today. Congrats Dave!

Jeevan sent me a TajTune today! Listen (mp3). The internet is so strange and wonderful.

The folks here at Electric Works have a new online version of their store, bringing their delightful and rare merchandise to a much wider internet. Some of the highlights:

The Magic Garden makes a wonderful inexpensive gift for that special someone. Simply add the magic solution and watch it grow.

The Secret Life of Syrian Lingerie surprises and delights.

Crocheted Owls (amigurumi) are a top seller, from what I hear.

Beeswax crayons are high quality and come in a variety of thicknesses.

Link: http://store.sfelectricworks.com/

The Taco Lab, LLC is pleased to announce a radical new collaboration with world famous bitwise biologist and curiosity curator Prof. Engd. For the first time ever, Engd’s massive collection of fine miniature creatures will be published in its entirety, one each day for all of 2009:

View these mini monsters online: Professor Engd’s Étagère of Hypnopompic Hexadecimal Miniature Monsters.

Mariko has started tracking her miscellaneous finds on her new blog, The Daily Mariks. Highlights include knitted hamburger outfits, panda bites, and obscenely buff women.

I felt a lot of PLW and MIT Media Lab pride reading John’s RISD inauguration speech, Start Here. I particularly enjoyed the last bit:

The creative mind is not limited to black and white. It is comfortable with ambiguity, and “doing both,” as I like to say. You can be both a designer and an artist, a humanist and a technologist, a student and a teacher, a hand craftsman and a Photoshop guru, a global and local thinker, a leader and a servant, a president and a citizen. And we can start as many times as we like when we are open to the spirit and rigor of the creative way of being.

It’s a wonderful start to just the sort of boundary-bridging creative imperative kick in the ass I’d hoped he’d bring to his new role. Read the whole speech…