The Rise Industries Blog

...also Providence has the Dunkin' Donuts Center, which to me is like having a beautiful shrine to a benevolent god right in the middle of town.

With views like this from downtown how can LA be all that bad? Plus, we got Pinks and In-N-Out.

Don't get me started on the LA haters though... its a polarizing place. Seems people only love it or hate it.

If you look at that list another way.. LA is the best rated out of the big 3 cites (rated 7 on the Forbes list, not 3) above New York and Chicago. Didn't see San Francisco on the list, so it must be rated higher.

-stopping LA boosterism now.

We've got some work to do... Providence is the 10th most miserable city in the country. Don't worry LAers... you ranked number 3.

Announcing the Everyday Exchange!

The Everyday Exchange is a celebration of daily routines. It involves discussing your routines with someone, and then creating and exchanging small works of art (or poems, or songs, or...) based on these discussions.

The Exchange comes in two flavors:

1. the "Boston-area interact-with-Tim" version; and
2. the "anywhere do-it-yourself" version.

Any questions? Just email the Exchange Organizer, Tim Devin, at tdevin@yahoo.com .

We hope you'll decide to join the Exchange!

Thanks!

Medieval architecture joke, with apologies to MTTS (oh I am a big fan).

Rise Industries Exclusive!




Full coverage of Davros 2008!

See also this for that other thing.

Soliloquy

I spent a bit of today recording this little song that features a hot new delay pedal that I recently got (Thanks Ethan!). Its two minutes and twenty-two seconds long. Listen to it with headphones if you can.

It will play in a new, needlessly large, window.

Comments are live, due to the lobbying efforts of Senator Tim. Now he owes me steak dinners and a trip to Martha's Vineyard. Feel free to comment on that.

I have no idea what day it is Fridays

Listening to some old Songfight challengers from back in the day.. and you can too by clinking on the links.

MC Frontalot

Brother Machine

Ask Ethan all about Songfight if you wanna know.

Rock the vote! Tuesdays

Well, the American political system may not care what you think, but we here at Rise Industries do!

Or at least I do.

So this-y here blog appears on a few different sites. Only one has our contact info. Thus, we don't know what you think.

I am currently lobbying to have the Comments feature enabled on this blog. Would you like to sign the petition? If so, please email me at tdevin@yahoo.com .

In the meantime, please enjoy this goofy image:

Relational Tuesdays

So digging deep in the archives, and referring to an older post by Michele about relationist art:

Sal Randolph posted a wonderful essay on the iDC list-serv last week about Relational work. (Ultra-boiled-down version: relational art is art the creates interactions between people.) The essay itself is brilliant. Also of interest is the list of further readings at the end (all full-text and free, even if the sites that host them can't claim ownership of the copyright...)

Take a look.

Our dear glorious leader...
A new gadget from our dear and glorious leader Google... Grand Central. What kind of sinister plot are they up to? A phone number of the beast? I'm only half kidding...

originally posted by J on 11.06.2007 (moved from the Calendar)

Apparently, I am originally from Brazil, but have also lived in Korea Republic, Greece, Vietnam, and currently reside in France.

Selon cette carte, j'habite en France.

Rename the states Tuesdays

So someone has gone and compared the GNPs for different countries with those of the 50 US states.

Below is a map, showing the states renamed according to the country the most resemble economically.


My name is Tim. I'm from Belgium. Where are you from?

(Note: to actually read the new state names, you'll have to click on the image below, which will magically make it really big. When you're done looking at the Big Image, hit the Back Button to continue reading Rise Industries Goodness.)

1963

This is our hope. This is the faith with which I return to the South. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.

This will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with a new meaning, "My country, 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim's pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring."

And if America is to be a great nation this must become true. So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania!

Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado!

Let freedom ring from the curvaceous peaks of California!

But not only that; let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia!

Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee!

Let freedom ring from every hill and every molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring.

Since then, we (as a nation) have gained so many freedoms, and lost some as well. We certainly no longer have a great leader of Americans such that Martin Luther King Jr. was. Today is always a day where I think about how we can move further along the path to living this dream of freedom for all. Its a day of hope and of celebration for how much has been accomplished, but also of frustration that we still have so far to go.

MLK Jr. Mondays

I found this article about murals of Martin Luther King Jr. over on NPR's web site. Interesting story and great little gallery of images.

Design Award Thursdays

The office that I work at, PMA, won two AIA San Fernando Valley Chapter design awards this year. Both are projects that Pablo and I designed together. One, a furniture showroom and office space for rezon8living, is a completed project, and the other, industrial office-condo's in North Hollywood, is set to begin construction early this year. I have photos of them on my Coroflot site, and you can also find them on the PMA website.

"No post from Tim" Tuesday

There will be no post on this blog from Tim today, as he generally stays away from the internet on Tuesdays.

"No post from Tim" Tuesday

There will be no post on this blog from Tim today, as he generally stays away from the internet on Tuesdays.

yes, on Tuesday we will rest.

Hm. So on the seventh day, do we rest?

"6 things to do next week" Tuesdays

Across yonder pond, a ponderer name of Mat Knowles has cooked up 6 events for everyone to do. Once you have performed these events, Mr. Knowles asks you to let him know (and provide documentation if possible) for use in a special secret something to be disclosed later.

And I quote from his project description:

Event one BUS Monday January 21st 2008
On the prescribed day you should board any bus, at any time. The length of your journey should not be premeditated. When you are ready, alight the bus. You should record the times you boarded & alighted the bus.

Event two ROAD Tuesday January 22nd
On the prescribed day, walk down any road. You should clap your hands together once, at any point. You may walk at any pace, but must record the name of the road & the duration of how long you walked for. It is at your discretion to how long you walk for (at the end of the road, you could turn around & walk back.)

Event three BUILDING Wednesday January 23rd
On the prescribed day you should enter any building. Discover the building for a duration of up to one hour. Sit down at least once & close your eyes. You should record the time you entered & left the building.

Event four SUPERMARKET Thursday January 24th
On the prescribed day you should enter any supermarket. Walk down every isle at your own pace. On your way round you must pick up any item for less then £1 Go back to your original starting place, in the supermarket. Before paying for your item you must move one other item in the store to another place, an incongruous position on another shelf. Pay for your item & keep your receipt. You may not own the bought item, it must be given away or thrown into a bin.

Event five PUB Friday January 25th
On the prescribed day you should enter any pub & ask one person any question you wish. You should request a glass of water, you should not drink it. Leave the pub. You should record the time you entered & left the pub.

Event six PARK Sunday January 27th
On the prescribed day you should enter any park Sit or stand on a green area for any length of time You should look up to the sky at least once. You should record the time you entered & left the park.

If you liked that last post about kids drawing things, you should like this one about The Laptop Club - a group of kids who draw pictures of their own laptop designs. Great interview with Amy Tiemann about it over at Themorningnews.org.

"Surveillance and Carousels" Tuesday

Following up on all of the paranoid rambling anti-surveillance posts that someone has been plastering all over this blog: Here's a link to the British journal Surveillance and Society, which examines the negative effects of police and security surveillance on the world.

Hmmm, that journal is rather depressing. To cheer ourselves up, and to remember that their is still whimsical beauty in the Land, let's look at this carousel that was built based on children's drawings.

Mondays will be Televised

We have this great TV station out here in LA that just plays old, real old, shows. We were watching it last night when I realized that Happy Days is That 70's Show for the 70's. OK, I had realized it already, but it was funny to watch it again and have it be almost the exact same show, but with greasers and poodle skirts instead of stoner jokes and suede.
Also. Laverne and Shirley was on, my whole family used to love that show. Then Mork and Mindy, which is genius. Man I had a boring Monday night.

Political Tuesdays (private joke for Tim there)

OK, this is interesting. A web 2.0 type social networking site based on tracking Congress. Yes! Congress. You can use it to track Senators, Representatives or even Bills. Make yourself a profile, find friends, and post what bills and such matter to you.

Awesome.. about time we had an easy and interesting way to keep track of what the hell our representation in DC is up to.. hopefully it will bring some more accountability and create something of a direct feedback loop with the citizens in their districts.

I saw it on BoingBoing.com, so you probably already hear about it, but still. Check it out.

Every American with internet access should get involved with this... its in our own interest. At the very least it points some of the omnipresent surveillance in this country back at those authorizing it.

Speaking of graphical informationals, here is a graphic of states I have visited. Got the east coast covered pretty good but I need to work on the rest.



create your own visited states map
or check out these Google Hacks.

Info-graphic Mondays.

Hey! If you love information, especially when it is organized into very attractive graphical displays, I suggest you head over to Feltron and check out his annual report. It's info you NEED to know! I put down my 5 bucks (8 with shipping) to get a hard-copy for my file. I have last years on file too. Its a beautiful hand-bound document. Trust me its worth it, especially for when you get audited and they want to know where your Feltron Anuual report is filed. You will sound pretty silly explaining to the auditors that you left it out on the INTERNET, won't you?

ps. I love mondays!

Hm. Had never given much thought, until now that is, to the similarities between working as an architect, and the Doozers from Fraggle Rock. Interesting quote here from the wikipedia page on Fraggle Rock.

"Within Fraggle Rock lives a second species of small humanoid creatures, the pudgy green ant-like Doozers. Standing only 6 inches tall (knee high to a fraggle), Doozers are in a sense anti-Fraggles; their lives are dedicated to work and industry. Doozers spend much of their time busily constructing all manner of scaffolding throughout Fraggle Rock using miniature construction equipment and wearing hardhats and work boots. No one but the Doozers themselves seem to understand the actual purpose of their intricate and beautiful constructions. Often their building is accompanied by marching songs and various doozer chants. To ensure that they always have a steady stream of work to do, Doozers build their constructions out of an edible candy-like substance (manufactured from radishes) which is greatly enjoyed by Fraggles. They actually want the Fraggles to eat their constructions because "architecture's supposed to be enjoyed" and also so they can go on to build again. This is essentially the only interaction between Doozers and Fraggles; Doozers spend most of their time building, and Fraggles spend much of their time eating Doozer buildings, which they think taste like marshmallows. They thus form an odd sort of symbiosis."

*Am I allowed to quote that much without getting in trouble for online word piracy or something?

**ps. Awesome.

More on scary surveillance Tuesdays

In which we ask: "But who needs the government when we can track and monitor ourselves?"

Some years back Intel Research, building upon Stanley Milgram's Familiar Strangers concept, came up with its Jabberwocky cell-phone application. The idea is this: install a small program on your phone or PDA, and then everybody who has the same program can know who you are and can receive an alert that you are nearby. It's billed as a sort of real-world social-networking application.

Don't have a cell phone? No problem! You can buy a little tag that you can wear around, so random people can know things about you.

The idea, of course, is that you will use these devices to make new friends... or at least know when you're near people you've...seen before.

Sound good? But wait, that's not all! Intel also suggests the added bonus of the product is that you will be able to avoid people you know!

These are indeed strange days.

I am sure you have heard of the annual Rose Bowl Parade in Pasadena, which I hear has to do with some sporting event or other.. but have you heard of the much more interesting Dooo Dah Parade? I think it has to do with being some kind of excuse to have a silly parade through town once in a while. The 31st Occasional Dooo Dah Parade is SUnday Jan. 20th. I'll see you there.

"Following up on Jeremy's Post" Tuesdays

This Tuesday, we follow up on Jeremy's Post by adding these two links:

1. The New York Surveillance Camera Players, who act in front of security cameras; and

2. The Institute for Applied Autonomy's I-See project, which tracks security cameras.

USA ranks even with Russia (that is, at the bottom of the barrel) in terms of protecting its citizens privacy. Way to go! You know who you are... as you are likely reading this.