YouTube Art of the Meme

In case you feel like you haven't had enough brain numbing chaos from YouTube already, here's the top 100 greatest hits in 4 minutes.

Bikes Fo Sho

Probably one of my favorite roundups from The Sponge this month. Bikes, bikes, and more bikes. Hey, did I mention I got a sexy Schwinn bike that I'm hipsterly cruising around B-town now? It has some go, fascinating the ladies... fo sho.

Type Porn

Mmmmm yeah, baby. I like it candid, raw, and in your face.

MacBook Cutting Board

Must. Have. Perhaps simply as proof that impractical yet aesthetic design will almost always trump functionality.

Parliament Portland Oregon

Revisited. I don't care. I would like to work here. Yes, free is fine. Thank you.

I'm In Love With a... Food Truck Chef

Seriously, these two are the most beautiful food chef cooks I have ever seen. And they're cooking Vietnamese lemongrass chicken sandwiches. I need to move to LA. Pronto. Video of the girls in action below:

What's Next? The Upcoming Digital Paradigm

Physical media is dead. It's wasteful, impractical, and losing traction day by day. So why do people continue to hold onto their vinyl collections? Is it a generation thing? Or is there something about digital media that simply doesn't "feel the same"?

Why do dated digital photos elicit such a poor emotion response compared to photos made from film? Do we value it less because it requires less work? Are we exposed to so much of it these days that we start to care less? Is if Facebook's fault? Are memories more or less accessible now that it's so easy to record our lives?

Gut reaction. Two words. Tangibility and sacrifice. Tangibility speaks for itself. I believe the simple act of owning a physical object easily builds the relationship of collectivism between owner and artifact. Vinyls, CDs, DVDs, and physical photo albums made this tangible collectivism easily approachable for the mainstream consumer. When it all went digital, the shit hit the fan. People don't view or understand digital artifacts the same way as real items in the world. Why?

In fact, it's quite simple. We make space for the things we cherish. If something takes up room in our world, it probably has more value to us than something that doesn't. Let's take for example: food. Food takes up room. A lot of it. But does so in a way that it stays localized to the refrigerator (well, for most of us clean folks anyway). Then, there are the chefs. For chefs, food is their world. They'd gladly tear down a wall for more space for food preparation and storage. Now, picture food that can get compressed into miniature balls, where you can easily fit a year's worth of meals into a small container, with no refrigeration needed. Would food be valued the same then? Probably not. Enthusiasts, my guess, would probably still try buy all-natural organic. You know, because they want to illustrate to others how much they love (and appreciate) food.

The same metaphor works for compressed audio and other digital media today. Because everything can be crammed into 1TB hard drives, we naturally feel our music, photos, and movies innately have less value because they're so easily transportable. Replicable. Replaceable. Enthusiasts will still vie for vinyl because it's the "original." It's what's "the best."

I'd like to see where this notion of "best" comes from. Is it good marketing? Tradition? Technology fads that come and go very much like fashion? How does one in the media production sector secure a strategic advantage in today's digital age where the medium is viewed as an innately inferior, continuously dated, and more importantly, lacking of an emotional response with the people collecting them?

Luckily, I've got an entire school year to attack this messy-ass problem space of a design situation. I'm not here to save the RIAA. I'm not here to help the MPAA make more 3D movies. I want to recreate that personal experience and joy of collecting the music, photos, and movies we love. These digital records of our lives, despite how fragile and easily replaceable they are, and they exist as a reflection of how we think, live, and understand the world around us. I feel it's important that we never forget that.

For the time being, please enjoy the music.

Lotte Kestner - Temperature (MP3)
Sunday Girl - Self Control (Azari & III Remix) (MP3)

What's In My Bag?

Gorillapod, WD 500GB, Apple Macbook Pro 13", HiFiMAN EF2A headphone amp, Panasonic Lumix GF-1, Grado SR225i, iPhone 3GS, my sketchbook, a bunch of pens, and my Oakley Holbrooks.

You Know You Owe Me Mixtape #2

Chillwave power. To the max. Hi-yak! Get your disco workout on!

1. Dunian - All Intros (mp3)
2. Blackbird Blackbird - Modern Disbelief (mp3)
3. Palmbomen - Myself (mp3)
4. Pepepiano - No Way (mp3)
5. Jeans Wilder - Don’t Wanna Live Forever (mp3)
6. THE BIRd DAY - Thirsty (mp3)
7. Total Warr - I Don’t Need Your Friendship (mp3)
8. Love Inks - Wave Goodbye (mp3)
9. Golden Eye - In Turn (mp3)
10. Machu Picchu - Hollow Your Heart (mp3)
11. Dream Cop - Daily Mirage (mp3)
12. Algodón Egipcio - Weird Feelings (Male Bonding cover) (mp3)
13. Phantom Power - Hashish (mp3)
14. Pandit - Scotch (mp3)
15. Evenings - Babe (Prizes remix) (mp3)
16. Yellow Ostrich - Morgan Freeman’s Automobile Accident (mp3)
17. Warm Waves - Drifter (mp3)

Bonus: The Pharcyde – Runnin’ (Philippians Remix) (mp3)  

Ontour Fall/Winter Style

90 degrees with 85% humidity followed by 70 degrees and 5% humidity. I think I'm starting to get used to this Midwest weather. Time to hunt for Fall/Winter styles.

Smart Sofas

Woot. I'm excited. I'll be designing some crazy shit in the next few weeks. Inspired by Cabracega's USB Sofa, I'm setting out to create the perfect (ha, who am I kidding?) smart sofa that will make computing on the laptop, iPad, or watching TV to be one of the most pleasurable experiences ever.

And no, there aren't any planned attachment upgrades geared towards self-pleasure for now. Maybe in the far future.

Unstoppable Cool

Yeah, that's right. There's no stoppin' this train of unstoppable cool. Feel the funk. Get jiggy. This is what one's 2nd year as a masters student should be like. Superstar.


Aeroplane - Superstar (The Krays Remix) (MP3)