June 2010

Politisches Plakat. This poster blog boasts images of over 1,900 political posters from the radical left in Germany. They have a Flickr account, too! (thanks sandy)
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>  28 June 2010 | LINK | Filed in ,

Updates

Recent happenings on old blog posts:

More Public Schools: In March 2009, I wrote about The Public School a website where people propose, discuss, and coordinate free, offline classes taught by volunteers. The project has since expanded from Los Angeles to 6 more cities including New York, Paris, and San Juan. And still more coming soon! I taught a class on Mapping as Activism last month and had a great time.

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Listener Supported: In December 2008, I wrote about Spot.us, a site for crowd-funded news where anyone can pitch and help pay a journalist to produce a local story. Last week, Public Radio Exchange announced they will pick up the software to launch StoryMarket to bring the model to public radio.

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Guerilla Wayfinding in NYC: In March 2006, I proposed a compass rose stencil at the exits of New York City subway stations. Shortly after, stencils started appearing! A year later, City officials decided to implement a few test marks of their own, and I found out the idea had been proposed back in 1992. Now it’s 2010 and new compass stencils have popped up at downtown subway exits.

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The Trouble with Hippos: In February 2006, I wrote about the Hippo Water Roller, a rugged, round water container designed to be transport water on tough rural roads. Last year, Alissa Walker reported on some of the obstacles the project encountered with extended use, and when trying to scale up production.

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Public Designer: My first article for Communication Arts ran in February 2005 on citizens designing for better government. It included several examples orchestrated by Sylvia Harris. This month the AIGA published a great interview with her that’s worth checking out. Harris is a public designer if ever there was.

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Get the E out of NYC: In 2004, I wrote about New York City’s trial collection of electronic waste for recycling. On May 29, 2010, New York State decided it’s illegal to throw away your electronic waste in the regular trash. Governor Patterson just signed a producer responsibility law requiring manufacturers to pay for collection and recycling of e-waste from consumers (including individuals, schools, municipalities, small businesses and non-profits.)

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Girl Power. In advance of the 20th Human Development Index release, a new paper finds that a country’s economic development does not necessarily lead to human development factors like longer life expectancy, community health, or even a decent standard of living: “Although correlated, we do not find evidence to suggest that human development trends can be explained by factors associated with economic growth.… Social factors seem to be driving the aggregate human development story.… We believe the underlying drivers of these changes are linked to individual and household-level decisions concerning fertility and female schooling.… Changes in gender roles (literacy, fertility and labor participation) are a robust driver of human development achievements over time.” (via)
>  25 June 2010 | LINK | Filed in

Auto

BP Oil Poster

There are plenty of structural issues around the crisis in the Gulf, but this one was on my mind tonight. PDF version here.

>  17 June 2010 | LINK | Filed in , ,

North and South

Just this week:

Also:

Conflict Kitchen. Kubideh“A take-out restaurant that only serves cuisine from countries that the United States is in conflict with. The food is served out of a take-out style storefront, which will rotate identities every 4 months to highlight another country.” The current iteration, Kubideh Kitchen, serves Iranian kubideh from a stylish pop-up facade. “The sandwich is packaged in a custom-designed wrapper that includes interviews with Iranians both in Pittsburgh and Iran on subjects ranging from Iranian food and poetry to the current political turmoil.”
>  1 June 2010 | LINK | Filed in ,


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