The Cry Baby is on sabbatical ....

Thursday, March 31, 2011

One man's look at redesigning the Mexico/USA border wall


Ron Rael, an assistant professor of architecture at the University of California, Berkeley, thinks the 700 mile border Mexico/USA border wall is bad idea and inhumane, but has turned his talents on how to make a bad thing better. What he has done is come up with some unique designs for it.
From www.fastcodesign.com:

"To that end, he has re-envisioned the wall as something like a town center, complete with infrastructure, social services, and recreational facilities. Among the stations he envisions along the wall are a volleyball court, a confessional, a lending library, a water catchment system, a wastewater treatment plant, a solar farm, and even a "burrito wall" featuring "a food cart inserted into the wall, allowing people from each side of the border to share a meal, chat and conduct business, all within full view of security." The designs are partly practical, partly satirical: call it ironic architecture."  Read more here ....


Big Brother is tracking you – by your cellphone


We've all seen the TV thrillers as the good guys, and sometimes the bad guys, track the perp or the hero by there cellphone use. Well, in Germany, one politician put this to the test. Politician Malte Spitz sued to have German telecoms giant Deutsche Telekom hand over all over his phone data for six months. He turned the data over to German paper ZEIT,  who combined his geolocation data with other online information, such as Twitter feeds, blog entries and websites.

ZEIT created this interactive graphic which takes you on a trip through the six months of Malte Spitz's life. Click on the graphic to go to ZEIT and the interactive graphic. You are being watched!

Video: "Full-immersion video" of Libya war


Photojournalist Danfung Dennis pushes the boundaries of photojournalism with his system he called "Condition ONE". Seeking to create an experience resembling virtual reality, Dennis teamed up with photojournalist Patrick Chauvel in Libya and produced this intense video. Read more about Dennis system on FastCoDesign.

"Through our work we hope to shake people from their indifference to war, and to bridge the disconnect between the realities on the ground and the public consciousness at home," Dennis told DSLR News Shooter.


My Freedom Or Death - Condition ONE Beta from Danfung Dennis on Vimeo.