Day One of "Trash Talk"... Collecting + Carrying my own trash!

From Frog Design: Trash Talk Blog For two whole days I am collecting and carrying all my trash. Thats right, the tissues, water bottles, plates, soda cans, lollipop sticks, cupcake wrappers, etc. Thankfully, I will not be carrying my compost (because I make a lot of it) from all my cooking. That would reek. I must take it wherever I go. Be it to the movies, to Bloomingdales or to my chiropractor.

By the end of the day  I will have pictures.

So far its mid-day and I have no trash! I think Saturday may be a light load.

OFFICIAL RULES: - Participants must remove all garbage cans from your house/ desk (see exceptions below). - If the participant has roommates, they do not have to participate in this exercise (but may!) - If the participant has a partner and/or children, they do not have to participate in this exercise (but may!) - Participants may not use public garbage cans/ or anyone else’s garbage can. - Participants cannot give garbage to someone and ask them to throw it away for you. - Participants may recycle – so you don’t keep items that can be recycled. - Participants may compost. - When participants eat in a restaurant, unless it states that it composts, they must finish everything on their plate or take it to a compost facility. - Participants may flush your toilet. - Participants may incinerate items. - Participants may donate objects to Goodwill or other charity organizations. - Any garbage created, the participant must live with. It must stay on him/her (in a purse, bag etc.) or within five feet at all times.

Adaptive Eyewear... Explained!

I was recently writing a paper on the need for micro-finance in Sub-Saharan Africa for a geography class and I stumbled upon this project which I had heard of before through a talk with Jacqueline Novogratz/Acumen Fund at Parsons. It's called Adaptive Eyewear and was immediately fascinated. Here's a bit from Monocle Magazine:

Adaptive Eyewear is a social enterprise that’s working to correct the vision of some of the millions of people in developing nations that have no access to glasses. They do this using a unique technology that might prove the key to giving widespread vision correction to those who need it in a cost-effective manner. Monocle visits their headquarters in Oxford to see how they’re doing it.

watch the full explanation here on their website. brilliant.

hey! that's my work!

Bruce Nussbaum has just moved to Fast Co. Design! I was one of his students last semester and he mentioned my work in his post "F*** The Boomers, Screw the X-ers, Give Gen Y Power Now":

After observing that most visitors to MOMA and the Met hated their audio headphones--bad information, interrupted socializing and annoying technology--a group of students from Parsons decided to re-design the experience. They created a prototype iPhone app called The Museum: A New Social Experience, combining exhibition images, detailed information about the works, links to expert video conversations and consumer comments. Use it while you’re there, share it with your friends, and return to the exhibition forever after. The 19, 20 and 21-year-olds designed a better learning experience than a generation of museum designers.  My thought? If they could only be empowered to design a new university….

Read the whole thing here and admire those pics at the bottom too (!)

Thanks Professor Nussbaum!

Powers of Ten

Craving a little Carl Sagan, IBM and furniture design? The Eames created this documentary in the late 1960's and it was later released in the the 1970's. It explores the relative scale of the Universe in different powers of 10. Also, it provides a sense of insignificance if you need help getting down from an ego trip. Watch it below or on the Powers of Ten website.

powers of ten :: charles and ray eames from bacteriasleep on Vimeo.