My partner is part of a group of graduate students
at Parsons who have been working to design and
build a laundromat and community information center
in
DeLisle, Mississippi.
The student-lead team worked from January to May to design the building
and plan its construction, then moved to DeLisle for the summer where
they lived and worked to build the structure. The project has been
very well received:
- It was displayed in a group exhibit at the 2006
Venice Biennale.
- It was featured in September 2006 edition of Architecture magazine
(one of four articles linked off this month’s homepage for the
magazine). To highlight the student-run nature of the project, the
magazine had the students write their own article and submit their
own photos, which were taken by Laura. (Update 2010-10-18, the
link for this article is now dead unfortunately.)
- Dwell Magazine published an article in June of 2007 (Update
2010-10-18, this link has also stopped working).
- Allegedly NBC planned some coverage, but I’m not sure if it was
ever released. Let me know if you find it.
- The
New York Times
published an article in November of 2006.
- The American Institute of Architects awarded the project an AIA
New York State Design Award in September of 2006.
For more information about the project, click through
their flickr photo page. For
more information about the Parsons Design Workshop in general have a
look through the following links:
This is a bugfix release for WuCoco, it contains no new features but
resolves the following issues:
- Comments now render properly in IE6. This is a moderately severe bug.
- Posts with complex HTML tags now display properly in the category archives.
- All theme variants are now validating again (thanks for the patch Brian).
- The comments link now correctly links to the comment form when a
post has no existing comments.
By now, you know the drill: Download
the
one-column layout,
the
two-column layout,
the
new three-column layout,
or
the
image sources
(which haven’t changed since 0.10.0) in Gimp XCF format. Read
the project page for the latest downloads and
more information.
Drew… you didn’t leave your e-mail address or phone number. Try
another way. Or send me an e-mail at the address I contacted your
brother from like a normal person. You’d be impressed with the
sleuthing job Rich and I did to find you.
P.S. Sorry for the private post in a public forum, folks. I’m
tracking down an old friend and don’t have conventional contact info
yet.
Earlier this week,
Schneier
wrote about a short
paper from the CATO Institute
that attempts to give some everyman-context to the risks associated with
terrorist threats. Although it was BoingBoinged the same day,
apparently not enough people read it because the media is ablaze all
over again with
totally
irrational commentary
since the
incident in the UK. A
choice quote from the CATO paper puts the risk of dying in a terrorist
incident into perspective:
Even with the September 11 attacks included in the count, the number
of Americans killed by international terrorism since the late
1960s… is about the same as the number of Americans killed over
the same period by lightning, accident-causing deer, or severe
allergic reaction to peanuts.
This one compares airline terrorism to the risks associated with driving:
University of Michigan transportation researchers… determined
there would have to be one set of September 11 crashes a month for
[flying to be as risky as driving an equivalent distance].
So I say enough is enough. Forget about this terrorism baloney, what
I want to know is what the government is doing to protect America from
destruction by the new Triangle Of Terror: lightning, rogue-deer, and
peanuts. Now please excuse me while I go buy some lotto tickets.
During the development for 0.9.0 I thought I was ramping up for the
big one-oh release, but as I dig deeper into the theme I’m finding
that there are a few more cycles of disruptive development before I’m
ready to settle into a maintenance cycle. WuCoco 0.10.0 features…
- The much requested three column variant. I’d like to thank
Soulpress.net for generously sponsoring the development of this
feature.
- A completely revamped layout engine, based on the Octopus Engine
from Dragon Labs. Now that WuCoco no longer relies on faux
columns it’s much easier to adjust column-width, and I no longer
have to maintain separate graphic assets for the different
variants. As an added bonus, it’s possible to easily switch to
independent column heights if you choose.
The new layout engine involves a lot of changes under the hood. It’s
quite possible that rendering bugs have been introduced, so speak up
if you find one. By now, you know the drill: Download
the
one-column layout,
the
two-column layout,
the
new three-column layout,
or
the
image sources in
Gimp XCF format. Read the project page for the
latest downloads and more information.
Check out the amazing animated short available from
the Blackheart Gang,
A Tale of How
(low-res youtube version).
It feels grand and beautiful and immediately evokes a kind of
childlike wonderment that’s all too rare in the adult world.
The short is often and aptly compared Terry’s Gilliam’s animation for
Monty Python’s Flying Circus and to anything by Tim Burton (WFMU says:
“I’m sure they whip a stapler across the room every time someone goes
‘Tim Burton.’“), although it’s denser and more surreal than either
(yes, more surreal than Tim Burton). The most apt comparison I can
make is to the little known work
of
Patrick Woodroffe.
I first encountered Patrick’s drawings when I was a child through the
very collectible
The Second Earth: The Pentateuch Retold,
which confused and intrigued me with it’s simple but striking story
and fantastically detailed imagery.
There’s not currently a lot of information about the Blackheart Gang
on the web, but Motionographer does have an informative writeup
including links
to
two additional BHG audio files that
I haven’t seen posted elsewhere. Update 5/7/07: Siouxwire has
an
interview with the Blackheart Gang.
Via WFMU’s Beware of the Blog (Update
2010-10-18: The original story at WFMU has disappeared, linking to
their front-page instead).