Wednesday, August 31, 2005

Sketch




Here's a little sketch I did a few years back. I ripped it out and stuck in my sketch book. I guess it says something about my subconscious but I rather not think about the voices in my head that have been yearning for world domination since childhood. Not just yet ... Not just yet my child. MooohahAHhahaha.

by Nationless

Communication Nation



Communication Nation
is an excellent blog on all sorts of communication. The graphs and diagrams feel yummy in my tummy. Please be checking.

<checking>

BackPackIt



An organization blog for people who travel. Backpackit seems to be a new foray into easily syndicated websites. Soon I think you'll be able to buy templates for any kind of site you want to create. With a choice of back end plugins to install. It should probably be part of your browser. So you can stake out your territory on the world wide web without every really have to know what and href really is.

<video review> (on the great Attack of the Show)

Tiffinbox.org




Tiffinbox.org

Tiffinbox is a blog that explores the cultural fabric of the South Asian diaspora through writing, photography, art and design.

Tiffinbox hopes to be a feast for your eyes and mind. We'll promise to feed you only small, healthy spoonfuls of information.

Monday, August 29, 2005

"Nations have recently been led to borrow billions for war; no nation has ever borrowed largely for education... no nation is rich enough to pay for both war and civilization. We must make our choice; we cannot have both."

- Abraham Flexner

Sunday, August 28, 2005

Google Sightseeing



Google Sightseeing an interesting use of google maps that allows people to forget about travel and just see land marks of the world from above. Why deal with the pain, expense and general smelliness of travel when you can pretend your God and watch the world from elevated viewpoint. Silly silly humans.

<lookie loo>

justcurio.us

justcurio.us : strangers helping strangers.

What an odd place the web is to have something as strange and as wonderful as this.
Go there. Answer someones question, ask one yourself.

<link>

Tuesday, August 23, 2005

without Borders

So you've got Doctors without Borders and the Engineers without Borders and they are all doing mighty fine work. You also have the Graphic Designers without Borders and the Architects without Borders and though the architects might have the ugliest site I've ever seen they must be doing something great as well. The question that remains is where are the industrial designers without borders. Are they hidden behind the common product designer moniker. Nope... Not there. No organization seems to exist to provide industrial/product design solutions to parts of the world that cannot afford them. Or if they dot hey don't seem to have any web presence at all. I hope I can't find it because if I really doesn't exist it would be such a shame.

It's a shame and I hope that it is out there and because I believe industrial designs ability to apply creative solutions that work within a cultures own ability and desire to change rather than the more forceful technological or political solutions alone. This is because change is such an inherent part of design. In many ways it is a core part of what we do. We make change attractive. If we are good designers we can the useful change attractive. But regardless the basic element of industrial design exists. If design isn't involved in bringing about progress and change to make attractive and acceptable solutions then what kind of 'humanists' can we really claim to be?

By Nationless



Some other people that are doing some good Without Borders stuff
Builders without Borders
Reporters without Borders
Teachers without Borders
Words without Borders

Geeks without Borders (how odd ;) )
Artists without Borders
Lawyers without Borders
Sociologist without Borders
Clowns without Borders
Braille without Borders (which is frankly amazing)
Nursing Students without Borders
Mothers without Borders
Botanical Theraputic Plants for Real Medicine without Borders (i'm not making this up)
Diplomats without Borders
Women without Borders
Cultural Heritage without Borders

.... and yet not industrial designers without borders....makes me sad.... ; (



rickshaw phone booth in India

Sign outside Hong Kong restaurant

by Rathi

Translation Sites

Nice Translation Websites

Nationless - دون جنسي - Sin Nacionalidad - 沒有國籍 - Без Национальности
"Science and art belong to the whole world, and the barriers of nationality vanish before them."
~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832)
"We are a nation of many nationalities, many races, many religions bound together by a single unity, the unity of freedom and equality. Whoever seeks to set one nationality against another, seeks to degrade all nationalities." ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882-1945)

Monday, August 22, 2005


Somewhere over Savannah, GA
by Nationless

Me and my New friend

So the other day I was sitting at the bus stop, going to work. There are other people waiting too, the guy next to me asks which bus I’m waiting for. The bus won’t arrive for another 20 minutes so we chat for a bit…

New friend: “Hi, you waiting for Bus 2?”
Me: “yeah, it’s never on time, just missed the last one”
New friend: “I usually take a later bus; I thought I had never seen you before, I usually take a later bus”
Me: “I just moved here recently”
New friend: “Where are you from actually?
My thoughts: What to answer today? That my father is from North Africa or that my mother is Northern European? Or that I grew up in Switzerland but I now live in Italy, and previously in America, hmmmmm…..I’ll go for
Me: “I grew up in Switzerland”
New friend: “Your English is so good, where did you learn to speak it”

And the conversation goes like that until most often my new friend thinks I must be the most confused person in the world! I always reassure them that it’s not the worst thing that could happen to you. It’s actually quite nice and exciting, it’s a good conversation starter. “where are you from?” “actually, I don’t know”

“Where are you from?”
“Actually, I don’t know.”

by Hayat

Sunday, August 21, 2005

Kids with Cameras



One of the things that inspired this blog was watching Born in Brothels by Ross Kauffman and Zana Briski. To call it a documentary alone would ignore its large social implications where it directly tries to change the lives of eight children living in the Red Light district in Calcutta. It is immediately apparent while watching the movie that the goals quickly change from passive exploration to active change. The project is as human as it is direct in its attempts (and failures) to bring children out of harms way.

<explore more>

Difference

An international airport. An insane number of people at any given
point of time. In most circumstances no one next to you is from the
same country as you. All these people. Different faces, different
thoughts, different experiences. What makes them dress a certain way?
What dictates their hairstyle? Which magazine inspired their jewelry?

So much difference at this gate of a delayed flight to The United Arab
Emirates. But why if we're all so different, is everyone in a hurry?
Who do they have to meet? Why did they travel? Why are they here?

Most everyone dresses in shirts, pants, skirts, jackets and slacks. I
wonder if this is because everyday the airport brings us closer
together- this coexistence of a fragment of each part of the world in
one large room, if even for a few hours in a day. The similar clothes
on different skin makes me wonder more...enticing me to find out the
culture and experience behind each checked shirt, plaid skirt and
black jacket. To explore the mystery behind their language. Will they
tell me all if I knew it? Why is everyone so determinedly looking at a
book, or the ceiling, or their shoes, when there's so much to know?

Are we all just looking for similarity- something we can relate to?
Maybe the similar shirts, pants, skirts, jackets and slacks make it
harder to find similarity. But what is it about difference that scares
us so much? What is it about difference that makes conversation so
hard, when really, the difference is what makes it so easy to ask a
question?

~ by Aruna

I Belong



I Belong is an international online story chain, created by 25 young writers from five different countries. The I Belong project seeks to explore how young people in different countries (Pakistan, Malaysia, France, Egypt and the UK) choose to portray themselves creatively, and to appreciate similar and different approaches to the theme and representation.

<link>


by British Council
Connecting Futures Project
Aunties Protest for Peace


Camels and Construction, Two common sights in Dubai
by Raghav

Flood Forecasting



Officials from Bangladesh, Bhutan, China, India, Nepal and Pakistan have held several meetings coordinated by the World Meteorological Organisation and the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development to discuss forecasting.

These are the countries that host the world's most flood prone river basins like the Ganges, Brahmaputra, Meghna and Indus.

This is also the region where a huge proportion of the world's poor live.

"There exist immense possibilities for regional cooperation in flood forecasting and warning," says Dulal C Goswami, environmental science faculty member at Gauhati University in Assam.

<read on>

By Navin Singh Khadka
BBC News

You would think that nations could put down their differences long enough to be able to share this kind of information. This, to me, seems like a true example of the 'information divide' between the haves and the have nots.


Friday, August 19, 2005

While I wander through the world

Prague, 1981

Once, in the winter of 1981, I was walking with my wife through the streets of Prague when we came across a young man drawing the buildings around him.
Although I dread carrying things with me when I travel (and there was still a traveling ahead), I was taken by one of the drawings and decided to buy it.

When I handed him the money I noticed that he was not wearing gloves, despite the cold weather (it was 5 degrees below zero).

“Why aren’t you wearing gloves?” I asked.

“So I can hold the pencil.” And he began to tell me how loved Prague in the winter, that was the best season to draw the city. He was so happy with his sale that he decided to do a portrait of my wife without charging anything.

While I was waiting for him to finish the drawing, I realized that something odd had happened: we had chatted for almost five minutes without being able to speak one another’s language. We made ourselves understood only by gestures, laughter, facial expressions and the desire to share something.

The simple desire to share something had enabled us to enter into the world of language without words, where everything is always clear and there is not the slightest risk of being misunderstood.


Paulo Coelho
Warrior of the Light, a www.paulocoelho.com.br publication

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