The Bucky-Gandhi Design Institution

who reads Chinese?

http://bbs.fobshanghai.com/thread-1150820-1-1.html

discussing using hexayurts in China.

Global Swadeshi Dialogs

Click here for the main interview discussion:

http://www.globalswadeshi.net/forum/topic/show?id=2097821%3ATopic%3A501

Here are the supporting links:

1. Global Village Construction Set (and weblog):
http://openfarmtech.org/weblog/?p=198

2. Open Source Technology pattern language:
http://openfarmtech.org/index.php?title=Pattern_Language

3. Development page:
http://openfarmtech.org/index.php?title=CEB_Press
and overview:
http://openfarmtech.org/index.php?title=Overview

4. Year 1 of our Life at Factor e Farm
http://openfarmtech.org/index.php?title=First_Year_at_Factor_e_Farm

5. Economic model:
http://www.newmediaexplorer.org/steve_bosserman/2008/02/09/giving_it_away_making_money.htm

Today’s other video release - Dr. Linton Wells II and I discussing STAR-TIDES at FAHUM

Great explanation of STAR-TIDES. This was shot at the FAHUM expo. It’s a little noisy for the first half, but it clears up at the 24 minute mark, and there’s a lot of great content past that point.

Enjoy.

Five notes on video: if a thing’s worth doing, it’s worth doing badly

Word to Jonathan who’s been my video guru these many months.

Here are my five notes (most of which he won’t approve of )

1> The only thing that’s worse than bad video is no video at all.

2> Properly synchronizing sound and images is nearly bloody impossible, and, worse, even if it’s right on your computer, once it’s on youtube, it’ll be screwed up again, I don’t know why.

3> I have no idea how to manage all the files. It’s a mess. I guess it’s usually a separate job, like “archive manager.” I don’t even know what that person is called.

4> Audio is key. One of the great lessons Jon taught me was that the continuity of video is generated by the audio - if it would sound right as a radio piece, it’ll be fine. The images hang off the narrative thread of the audio. This was a considerable enlightenment.

5> It’s really fun to make films, even if they’re not technically great, because film is how serious people communicate. Films, and of course, books.

I might have to try the book thing next year.

But, for now, I’ve got two hour-long films compressing. Both of them are essentially unedited - straight shot discussions or monologs that would probably work fine as radio pieces, but for now, they’re video. Somehow just making those work seems to have taken forever, largely due to a massive mess of Little Things. But it’s close enough for now, and maybe later either I’ll get better at it (some formal training?) or somebody who knows what they’re doing will take over.

Video matters.

One will be up on STAR-TIDES and the other will be up on Global Swadeshi Network tomorrow.

SODIS in Tanzania

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/4786216.stm

good article!

http://www.msrc.sunysb.edu/news/Tanzania.html - more here.

Good article on STAR-TIDES from last year

http://www.federalnewsradio.com/?nid=169&sid=1296495

Big earthquake management

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-quake22-2008may22,0,3753797.story

yep. it’s about like that.

More pix from STAR-TIDES at FAHUM 08

http://www.fa-humexpo.com/

I’m dog tired, but it’s been a *great* week.

nice “bottom of the pyramid” piece

http://anand.typepad.com/datawocky/2008/05/removing-fricti.html

focusses on urban slums… and flat panel TVs…

ah, words of wisdom

Powerpoint will not keep you warm and dry at night

- daimonos