Smell is widely documented as being perceived differently by the different sexes. This chart graphically illustrates one such study.
This graphic shows accuracy of odor identification for eighty common scents. The size of the bar represents the disparity in correct responses between the senses. The black bars are men, and the white bars are women.
i simplified the base for my concrete lamp into a block of wood. pretty simple.
I was on to the next big idea here, really I was. I had it all figured out in my head last night, and in my dreams, and was set to wake up early and write about it. but it’s gone. Dormant, hopefully. so i’ll write about what i was thinking about before I hit onto this idea which, by the way, is much more interesting. (it’s the next big thing, really) Perhaps, in the process, it will come back to me.
I’d been thinking about the idea of “de-technologizing” a product or system in two ways: First, as a simplification, a removal of excess and clutter, which of course many of the products we use on a daily basis would benefit from, if only quality weren’t strongly associated with number of features (in most markets, at least).
But can the idea also be extended to using technology to enable a market which is currently archaic and stuck competing with old technologies tied to and economy of scale of production and distribution. Can it somehow subvert a 20th century means of production with a 21st century means of information flow and networking? But in that process, can it revive a way of life in which local is not a fad or a wave of nostalgia, but a legitimate way of obtaining goods and services in a global marketplace.
What I have in mind is food. Of course, the local food movement is not new, and it is growing in awareness and market share (I assume), but it’s still solidly niche, and farms in much of the country are in a crisis state of consolidate, specialize, or die. The subsistence farm, or the farm that is interested in diversity of production, both ideologically and economically, is constrained to niche markets centered around urban centers and believing people with money to spend.
I’m thinking of an online tool which seeks to bridge the gap between the farmers market and the supermarket. It’s about consolidating and understanding information, of predicting trends and setting prices. But in doing so in regulated, regional market places, farmers can have access to the information they need as to who is producing what, what is in demand, etc. Responding to these things are the things that small, diverse farms are uniquely good at. And good farmers are into stats. They are problem solvers, tinkerers, a dying breed in our society. What they need is a tool to support them, to enable new systems of distribution, to allow a direct link to customers or restaurants, even an amazon-style rating system where by the community would regulate itself. A farmer is rewarded if she can deliver 200 pounds of red peppers, predicted two weeks in advance at a set price, at a certain quality. The accuracy of her predictions and quality of her products are rewarded not just in a marketing, or through word of mouth, but within a tightly structured, networked online marketplace.
What this is, I suppose, is a system of regulated capitalism. But we’re ready for that again, right? At some point, there must be a way to capitalize on the strength of small, diverse farms, which are much more connected to the land and have real, built-in incentives to treat it with care. As energy prices increase, and food, which as we know travels something like 1500 miles to our plates, becomes more expensive, it’s possible that with such a system in place we could see a real shift in food production to the local farm, thus inspiring a new generation of entrepreneurs who know how to solve problems with their mind, hands, and bodies.
Of course, there are a lot of people out there thinking about this problem. I think I’ll start poking around, but I’d love to hear of projects in the works.
I recently published an “instructable” for this concrete lamp project. The idea came from a conceptual model for an architecture studio a year ago. My motivation for making these (and figuring out a system to make a bunch of them) is, in part, wedding gifts. Click on the photo to link to instructables.com
This just got published on the MAKE blog
i found this dead 5 gig hard drive in the halls of MIT, free for the taking. this summer, my hard drive crashed, out of the blue (as they do, i’ve learned), and i lost stuff. some of it that stuff i’d really like to get back. but i won’t.
i was curious as to what makes these things that we depend on so much in our digital lives tick. i knew from my attempts to recover, or have recovered, my dead drive that the mechanical bits are hermetically sealed to keep out dust and that you have to pay someone hundreds of dollars (or more) to go in there and try and get your data if you should have a mechanical failure. apparently they do this in some sort of clean room: the ICU for things digital and precious. i didn’t take it that far and chose instead to let some of that data go, in a take a deep breath, walk away, kind of way… so this experience has been therapeutic, i’d say.
there she is... seagate medalist 6422... 6,400mbytes, 5400 rpm, circa 2000?
this is the circuit side of the drive
this the extent of the electronics side of the thing.
cracking the cover… a few hidden screws
first glimpse at the disk
popping the sealed chamber reveals the plates… shiny. (these things spin at 5400 rpm. they’re about 3″ in diameter, so if they were wheels on a car, the car would be going about 60mph.)
this drive has two plates stacked. i love this image because it suggests shelves – a library. (a somewhat hokey analogy, but you get the point)
this is the arm that holds the little head which actually floats above the plate while it’s spinning on a bed of air. if it touches the plate, it can scratch it and ruin the data contained on that shiny magnetic surface. crazy.
i won’t wax overly philosophical about this one.
the arm that holds the drive head is sandwiched between two strong magnets. a small coil loop allows the thing to move back and forth through induction. really fast and really precise.
head reader arm and mechanical/electronic interface. this thing is precision engineered to be sealed inside a dark, spotless metal box. what strikes me is how beautiful an object it kindof is.
this is as far as i could take it without breaking things. on the right of the body are the mechanical components, on the left, the digital ones.
Here’s video of a hard drive in action, with the cover off:
hello. i’m starting this blog as part of futurecraft, a class in the media lab at mit.
