Hillary versus Barack

curious of the ever farcical “democratic” process that festers in the united states, i payed a visit to www.californiaprogressreport.com, which has a copy of the debate transcript between hillary clinton and barack obama in los angeles on the 31st of january, earlier this year.

other then it being an utterly boring and mind-numbingly mundane back-and-forth of the usual lies and malarky so akin to people of their stature (read: politicians), i was curious about the vocabulary they used. reducing the debate to weighted lists, patterns such as favorite words, key issues, etc. can be derived and speculated on. take a look for yourself and come to your own conclusions of deceit and conspiracy. i for one will not be voting for either of them, namely because i am not a US citizen and have been cursed with the nationality of being Canadian, where nation wide healthcare is forced upon its population so widely and ruthlessly that you may have heard about it in popular culture.

Clinton

able absolutely access administration affordable ago agree america american approach around barack being believe best bringing bush business california care certainly change children clear companies conditions costs country debate democratic designed differences drug effort either everyone family given going health hope house immigration imperative important instead insurance issue jobs kim lives looking lot making meet million money month obviously once party pay people plan political practical president problems program proud provide public question rates really reasons record reform respect responsibility saying senator something stand start states system tax therefore think troops united universal values voice willing work workers world years

created at TagCrowd.com

Obama

able afford against agree already america american approach argument being believe billion bit bring bush buy campaign care change chronically clinton companies costs country crisis cuts debate democrats difference drug economy eight example fact forward generally getting going government hard having health hillary immigration important influence insurance interests investment iraq issue john leadership looking lot making mandate mccain meeting million mortgage nation number otherwise paid pay people percent plan policy potentially president prevention problem provide question rates reason respect school seeing senator something special started states suggest sure system talking tax thank think understand united wants war worked workers year

created at TagCrowd.com

better then the real thing?

on my ongoing quest to back my life up, i have started a mirror of my blog using the wordpress online blog service. you can visit the villainous.biz mirror here.

i almost feel that the mirror is a better webpage then the original for various reasons. first of all, the wordpress hosted service is free, although laugingsquid has been fantastic so far in terms of value, uptime and support. the built-in theme on the mirror is much more clean and intuitive to use then the custom gridview theme i am using for my primary site. too much control makes me want to customize villainous.biz and i end up cramming as much info into it as i can, which i am beginning to think is a mistake as access to content should be paramount.

in any case i will keep both weblogs, maybe because of sheer vanity. if you have a preference let me know

the indispensable course of momentum

the time goes by so quickly. it’s blinding, the speed of it all. i will attempt to summarize my experiences so far this season.

how do i quantify the value of this last month? so soon the pang of summer will be upon us. as is in most states of change, this spring has been a torrential series of mountains and valleys; no doubt that king pendopoo himself need prove to one and all our (in)significance, as we walk the precarious landscape of the long now.

of all the events that can change the course of life in any given direction, some stand out as president, its true significance only apparent to some. the first was known to me back in march. karin, alex and i received news from OMA in rotterdam that we were to join them for the summer as an intern “dream team” for the thinktank section of the company called AMO. since that time, i have been steadily gearing myself towards our eventual move to rotterdam to participate in arguably, one of the most exciting firms in architecture/urban planing today.

meanwhile, with the new spark that collaborative strategies offered, karin, alex and i did some great work with violeta houbenova and niki lampaski for the Argent/kings cross regeneration in the city of london. while working on this project, i soon re-realized the importance of the virtual domain and its blurring of perception and paradigm. as the real and virtual became unified, so do our online experiences collide with real life making our lifestyle that much more intangible, the two complimenting one another more and more by the nanosecond. this project was so well received that the director of my MA course in london has decided that the project is worth pursuing farther. this good news of course, excited me. along with our joint internship with OMAMO, i felt as if everything i have learned up to this point was being harnessed and directed towards a bright future.

then my grandma in singapore passed away. it wasn’t unexpected, as she was sick already for quite some time, yet it is truly miraculous what she has achieved in her lifetime, with the cultivation of such an amazing and loving family that spans the globe. as matriarch of our widespread clan, she was our living ancestor from a time when life was very different and proved to us the invaluable skill of adaptation. my relationship with her was sparse but never temporal – i would say timeless. i will miss her very much but know that her legacy will persevere in the people she has affected in her lifetime.

and not only did i loose my grandma this month but i lost my OMA as well. just last week karin, alex and i received a letter from OMA stating that they could not find an appropriate project for us (but we suspect it was actually for visa reasons). this unfortunate turn of events completely disrupted my plans for the summer, already giving notice to our landlord that we would leave our flat in london, not to mention losing the dream of working for a company that so inspires such as OMA. my collegue Myrto put it quite bluntly to me; as a young architect, from OMA, there is no where else to go but down.

not knowing what to do next, i reached out to my friend and mentor Dan Hill, of cityofsound.com and monocle magazine fame. he was the first person i turned to and his help and advice has been spot on and extremely supportive. seeing more in me then i have wisdom to even notice, he has taught me the genius of personal experience. after talking to him i pulled myself together and began to rearrange my outlook of the future. he also kindly posted on his enlightening weblog about karin, alex and me, even in the midst of organizing Postopolis! in NYC. because of his invaluable input and the inspiration of just witnessing his own practice, i realized the immense work and passion that one has to endure to be happy with what they do.

this morning i set out to find a new place to live since i am about to be homeless on the 6th of june. when walking out of the finsbury park tube station, i noticed that alex was trying to call me so i took a seat on the curb and gave him a call. he frantically conveyed to me that OMA wrote back and said they wanted us, after all. then i asked myself, how can this month get anymore thrilling?

j.

robot tattoo.. or .:|-=r0b07pr0n=-|:.

i asked what the bleep is it too when i first saw one. QR code is what’s known as a two dimensional barcode, or matrix code dreamed up by Denso-Wave of Japan in 1994. they are used in Japan quite a bit, but you can also find QR code online. i first saw the code on cityofsound.com and became curious, so i did some research.

QR code can be read by most modern camera phones. you can grab the software from here, and start generating codes here. what’s fun is that you can load it up with all sorts of info and also has some pretty dope applications.

for instance, you can have a phone directly sms any number upon acquiring a positive scan. you can load rss feed addresses so that you can aggregate information such as flickr photostreams, gmail and podcasts. you can also use it to leave simple text messages or numbers. the more info within the code, the more complex and dense the pattern becomes.

being a relatively old system, i am sure that people have been using it in graffiti and urban art. it is most definitely being used in the advertising sector and there are even design firms that specialize in integrating QR code into communicative design.

karin and i were toying the other day about using QR Code as blueprints for urban planing. imagine scanning QR code in google earth of entire city blocks and getting links to concise information directly to your mobile phone. well.. just a thought. if it has already been implemented then please post a link.

i have incorporated QR code into my weblog on the sidebar. with a flick o’ the wrist, you can have my contact details automagically upload directly into your phone. pretty sweet at the bar, if it was tattooed somewhere accessible.

BLANK III – what the blank is this!?

Karin and i were recently invited to do some work on BLANK for Madhouse.  what is Blank, you ask?  why it’s a traveling collaborative sketchbook journal, that’s what.  there are currently 2 blank books on the go and 2 more already completed and are filled with all sorts of artsy/designy goodness from all over the place.

 

to take a look at the album, click on the above photo. 

 

if you are interested in getting your goods into the next BLANK collaborative sketchbook journal or just want to check the project out, visit this link to get more information. 

cheers to madhouse for allowing us to get involved on this kick-ass, community driven, participatory project.  can’t wait to see how this one is going to turn up!

Vox Populi, Vox Dei!

if and when i do complete my studies at the University of the Arts London, Central Saint Martin’s College of Art and Design, Masters of Arts in Creative Practice for Narrative Environments, i will be the only one in the world with my combination of degrees along with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Monumental Art, which is my undergraduate degree. i know this doesn’t mean squat at the end of the day, but it is a thought that strokes my ego quite nicely.

for those of you who are thinking WTF?!? is Narrative Environments, i did manage to find a wikipedia entry regarding Narrative Environments within the sphere of Narratology. here is an excerpt from the entry:

A narrative environment is a space, whether physical or virtual, in which stories can unfold. A virtual narrative environment might be the narrative framework in which game play can proceed. A physical narrative environment might be an exhibition area within a museum, or a foyer of a retail space, or the public spaces around a building – anywhere in short where stories can be told in space.

hope this confuses you enough to be impressed… go wikipedia!

Vox Populi, Vox Dei! (the voice of the people is the voice of God!)

installation artist sabrina basten knitted works

one of my best friends and favorite artists sabrina basten is now selling her wonderful knitted creations online. grab some of her geweldig fantastisch ongelofelijk work while you still can in time for the cold, cold winter by visiting her storefront webpage at etsy. here is the link!

in the mean time…

as you may have noticed (or may not have noticed… nuts to you) i have been a little inactive.. i am currently in toronto enjoying time with my family and friends, so i haven’t really been perusing the metaverse as frequently as i would like to, but here is a vid to keep you entertained;

to use this great music video by weird al called white and nerdy as a lubricant; in october i will be starting my new studies in london, england so until i am fully prepared to face the new challenges ahead of me, i probably wont be updating this weblog too frequently, or at least less frequent than what is commonly perceived as frequently… which would make this authors frequency of posting not so frequent after all. i hope you enjoy this video like i have so frequently. stay tuned for more use of the word “frequent” real soon.

(^_^)

Technorati Tags: music video, puppy, smallcaps, villainous.biz, weird al, white & nerdy

my dad in china

my dad recently made a journey to the motherland (china) with some survivors of the Nanjing Massacre. here is an excerpt from his most recent blog entry:

Her story was one of horror and sexual terror; she has become sterile and barren, and has a fear of men. Unable to bear any children herself, she adopted two boys, one of whom (man on her right) is now looking after her in her old age. Surprisingly, she displayed no hatred for her oppressors; like all the other victims, all she asked for was an apology from the Japanese government.
Everybody in the audience was moved by her story. At one point, Flora, who was translating her story for the teachers, broke down in tears. By the end of her story, there was almost not a single dry eye in the room.

continue reading the weblog of eugene koh here.

[SmarcH]’s brand spanking new weblog!

before bedtime i often find myself infront of NetNewsWire for a min or 120, reading the latest headlines being fed to me by RSS. curiously enough, i noticed a secret message dispatched to me from [SmarcH] using his feed from his ‘old’ villainy.biz weblog. the contents were as follows:

Help me smallcaps you’re my only hope, tear this excuse for a blog down, build something new. or should we just keep villainy.biz as a test bed for all projects? I feel a warm embarrassment for the content that occupies this space. also i think that you are the only one that will actually read this post. hope all is well in berlin, keep rockin’ the metaverse, now that you are in your “teens”

smarch
out.of.europe.

feeling the call for help by my brother from another mother, and since i already pwn3d! all access to his entire web server, including administrator level logins & passwords for webhosting admin, ftp, and phpmyadmin (what?! no email?). there was no need to log into his old wordpress weblog, i just dropped the entire database and created a new one . deployed in its place is a shiny new installation of the latest wordpress build for him to use with some minor tweaks (its got theme-switcher dawg!)* and once he finds internet in South Africa (he is there now to take care of family matters, but will be back in berlin soon. did you know that the BCC conference hall used for 22c3 in berlin had more bandwidth then all of Africa… the continent, not the Bambaataa.) lets hope it serves him well.

here is the address. update your links and feeds please.

- = villainy.biz weblog = -

now [SmarcH], start blogging!

smallcaps

*edit: removed theme-switcher cause its being a bitch!