Archive for April, 2007

Clean City: São Paulo goes advertising-free

Friday, April 20th, 2007

See this BoingBoing post linking to this two-page article and a São Paulo No Logo flickr set.

Here’s more on the “clean city” laws, exceptions, and fines (in portuguese).

While the desolate-looking photos in the flickr set are interesting, I wonder if the empty billboard frames have been cleared down, or replaced with some art, or murals, information, etc.

Sitting waiting on the tube, how cool would it be to get to stare across at prints of fine art, good photos, a well done mural or “graffiti”, some classic poems, a big map of the local area for each station / some history of the area, a “what’s on” for the month, or just an occasional refreshingly bare wall. Anything but those insipid oppressive posters we daily try to avoid looking at.

I think I posted this “light criticism” project a while back from the Anti-Advertising Agency, about “New York’s True Graffiti Problem”.

See also: Reverse Graffiti artist decorates dirty tunnel walls.

web sites for good

Friday, April 20th, 2007

“… the Web 2.0 generation, with its YouTube and Twitter mania, has gotten a particularly bad rap for self-obsession and indulgence.”

Article: “Responsibility is in their sites. / Web entrepreneurs have an eye on social need” - San Francisco Chronicle. A step in the right direction, at least.

The article mentions Jarkko Laine’s DoTheRightThing.com.

Complex Stereo Sound Generator for Sound Effects and Music Synthesis

Wednesday, April 4th, 2007

MAKE point at GetLoFi’s post on Complex Stereo Sound generator kits (~35 euros, shipped).

People Pixels: Pole Position

Tuesday, April 3rd, 2007

Pole Position, stop-mo animation filmed with humans for pixels. Great sfx.

via information aesthetics.

Caboose: Rails Sample App

Tuesday, April 3rd, 2007

This Rails sample app from Caboose is “intended to be an example of “better practices”, but with the intention of ultimately being “best practice” through collaboration and iterative improvement.”

“The application implements:

  • a user model with a few extra fields (last login, timezones)
  • restful authentication.
  • full timezone support
  • basic views implemented with Yahoo! YUI CSS grids.
  • behavioral testing with rspec, including good example of mocking in controller specs.
  • exception notification”