Open House: Architecture & Technology for Intelligent Living: An Exhibition at ACCD

Open House: Architecture and Technology for Intelligent Living,” an exhibition of visionary housing projects by 10 young architects,opens on Saturday at Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California.

Standouts include Seoul Commune 2026, a cluster of towers covered in vines that provide shade and regulate interior temperature, and the Jellyfish house, which was designed to help clean toxic water on a stretch of reclaimed land on San Francisco Bay and is encased in an organic water jacket that reacts to changes in light and temperature.



Dunehouse is sheathed in skin that responds to the climatic extremes of the Nevada desert, while Open the House!, covers its occupants in temperature-responsive fabric. The show also includes vintage models of housing like Buckminster Fuller’s 1928 Dymaxion House and the Monsanto House of the Future.



Through July 1 at Art Center’s South Campus, 950 South Raymond Avenue, Pasadena, (626) 396-4254 or artcenter.edu/openhouse.

Funky Find of The Week: Watches Made From Parts Of The Titanic!

Titanic Resurfaces as Luxury Watch, BASEL, Switzerland (Reuters) -- Steel and coal from the Titanic have been transformed into a new line of luxury wristwatches that claim to capture the essence of the legendary ocean liner which sank in 1912.

"It is very luxurious and very inaccessible," said Yvan Arpa, chief executive of the three-year-old company that hopes the limited edition watches will attract both collectors and garrulous luxury goods buyers.


Ivan Arpa, CEO of "Romain Jerome" presents the "Titanic-DNA" watch that contains authentic parts of the Titanic ocean liner drawn from the ocean floor.
"So many rich people buy incredibly complicated watches without understanding how they work, because they want a story to tell," Arpa said. "To them we offer a story."

The North Atlantic wreck site of the Titanic, which hit an iceberg and sank on its first voyage from the English port of Southampton to New York, have been protected for more than a decade but many relics were taken in early diving expeditions.

Romain Jerome said it purchased a piece of the hull weighing about 1.5 kg (3 pounds) that was retrieved in 1991, but declined to identify the seller. The metal has been certified as authentic by the Titanic's builders Harland and Wolff.

To make the watches, which were offered for sale for the first time in Basel for between $7,800 and $173,100, the Swiss company created an alloy using the slab from the Titanic with steel being used in a Harland and Wolff replica of the vessel.



The gold, platinum and steel time pieces have black dial faces made of lacquer paint that includes coal recovered from the debris field of the Titanic wreck site, offered for sale by the U.S. company RMS Titanic Inc.

Arpa said the combination of new and old materials infused the watches with a sense of renewal, instead of representing a reminder of the 1,500 passengers who drowned when the ocean liner met her tragic end off the coast of Newfoundland.

"It is a message of hope, of life stronger than death, of rebirth," he said in an interview in Romain Jerome's exposition booth in Basel, where more than 2,100 exhibitors are flaunting their latest wares amid a boom for the luxury goods sector.



The company will make 2,012 watches to coincide with the centenary anniversary of the Titanic's sinking in 2012. Arpa said the young watchmaker would unveil a new series next year commemorating another famous legend, but declined to offer clues of what it is.

UPDATE: since this post, the titanic DNA collection of watches has expanded to include ceramic watches, gem encrusted versions and more:







See the full collection and learn more here.

Create Your Own Radio StationBased On Artists or Songs

I just discovered Pandora by The Music Genome Project. Create your own radio stations based on an artist or a single song!
Such a wonderful idea and fun discovery! Super easy, good sound, I can't believe I didn't know about this before.

Okay, one bummer, I love The Flaming Lips and I tried to create a station based on their music and got a pop-up window explaining why they weren't playing their songs. Like everything else, legal clearance, rights to music, etc are involved so you may not find absolutely everything you want.

I just registered free in about 30 seconds and in minutes created my own radio stations based on my liking the music and voices of Aimee Mann and the late Jeff Buckley. You can also search for other people's stations.

You cannot rewind or replay these songs, but I'm not using them for anything other than my listening pleasure. Hee hee.

Very cool! Below is a screen grab of what the interface looks like.



Above: It took me two seconds to create an Aimee Mann based (or inspired) radio station



Above: And another i second to add a Jeff Buckley inspired radio station

Below is how they describe it on their site:

When was the last time you fell in love with a new artist or song?

At Pandora Media™, we have a single mission: To help you discover new music you'll love.

To understand just how we do this, and why we think we do it really, really well, you need to know about the Music Genome Project™.

For almost seven years now, we have been hard at work on the Music Genome Project. It's the most comprehensive analysis of music ever undertaken. Together our team of fifty musician-analysts have been listening to music, one song at a time, studying and collecting literally hundreds of musical details on every song. It takes 20-30 minutes per song to capture all of the little details that give each recording its magical sound - melody, harmony, instrumentation, rhythm, vocals, lyrics ... and more - close to 400 attributes! We continue this work every day to keep up with the incredible flow of great new music coming from studios, stadiums and garages around the country.

We've now created an interface to make this available to music lovers so they could use this musical 'connective-tissue' to discover new music based on songs or artists they already know.

Pandora™ is the doorway to this vast trove of musical information. With Pandora you can explore to your heart's content. Just drop the name of one of your favorite songs or artists into Pandora and let the Genome Project go. It will quickly scan its entire world of analyzed music, almost a century of popular recordings - new and old, well known and completely obscure - to find songs with interesting musical similarities to your choice. Then sit back and enjoy as it creates a listening experience full of current and soon-to-be favorite songs for you.

You can create as many "stations" as you want. And you can even refine them. If it's not quite right you can tell it more and it will get better for you.


Above: what I created in about 2 minutes

The Music Genome Project was founded by musicians and music-lovers. We believe in the value of music and have a profound respect for those who create it. We like all kinds of music, from the most obtuse bebop, to the most tripped-out drum n bass, to the simplest catchy pop tune. Our mission is to help YOU connect with the music YOU like.

We hope you enjoy the experience!

How Exactly Does It work?

About The Music Genome Project™

We believe every individual has unique musical tastes, and that music discovery tools need to have a rich understanding of music to account for this diversity. That's why Pandora's music discovery services are based on The Music Genome Project™, the most sophisticated taxonomy of musical information ever collected. It represents years of analysis by our trained team of musicologists, and spans sixty years of music.

Each song in the Music Genome Project is analyzed using up to 400 distinct musical characteristics by a trained music analyst. These attributes capture not only the musical identity of a song, but also the many significant qualities that are relevant to understanding the musical preferences of listeners. The typical music analyst working on the Music Genome Project has a four-year degree in music theory, composition or performance, has passed through a selective screening process and has completed intensive training in the Music Genome's rigorous and precise methodology and procedures. To qualify for the work, analysts must have a firm grounding in music theory, including familiarity with a wide range of styles and sounds. All analysis is done on location.

The Music Genome Project's database is built using a methodology that includes the use of precisely defined terminology, a consistent frame of reference, redundant analysis, and ongoing quality control to ensure that data integrity remains reliably high. Pandora does not use machine-listening or other forms of automated data extraction.

The Music Genome Project is updated on a continual basis with the latest releases, emerging artists, and an ever-deepening collection of catalogue titles.

By building products that utilize the wealth of musicological information stored in the Music Genome Project™, our technology can be highly responsive to each individual, and make it easy for music lovers to find new songs and artists they will like.

My opinion not good enough for you? Well then...Here's what the NY Times Had To Say About It:

The New York Times - Technology

A Radio Station Just for you
by Wilson Rothman

March 29, 2007

Now that the free ad-supported service has been operational for 15 months, it can use the behavioral data of its six million listeners to add a new layer of suggestion. For instance, even if, on paper, the musicologists think it logical to pair a song by the "American Idol" superstar Clay Aiken with one by the Canadian folk balladeer Ron Sexsmith, several hundred listeners may give the juxtaposition a vote of no confidence. Tim Westergren, a Pandora co-founder, says the database now contains half a billion useful points of "contextual feedback."

Great Use of a Website To Promote A Book

Author Miranda July has created a charming interactive site to promote her latest book. It moves quickly and is good for a giggle. Great use of the web to sell another medium.

I could post a few stills, but they don't do it justice. Go to the site yourself and click away!

Miranda July is a filmmaker, performing artist and writer. She grew up in Berkeley, California where she began her career by writing plays and staging them at the local punk club. July’s videos, performances, and web-based projects have been presented at sites such as the Museum of Modern Art, the Guggenheim Museum and in the 2002 and 2004 Whitney Biennials.

Her short fiction has been published in The Paris Review, Zoetrope All-Story, and The New Yorker, and a collection of stories is forthcoming from Scribner in spring 2007. July created the participatory website, learningtoloveyoumore, with artist Harrell Fletcher and a companion book will be published by Prestel in fall 2007. She wrote, directed and starred in her first feature-length film, Me and You and Everyone We Know (2005), which won a special jury prize at the Sundance Film Festival and four prizes at the Cannes Film Festival, including the Camera d’Or. July is currently working on a new performance. She lives in Los Angeles.

http://noonebelongsheremorethanyou.com