i bought a whole bunch of books back to the library today. heres what they were: -first time europe -amsterdam -the netherlands -the salmon of doubt/douglas adams-well worth reading, really interesting -parallel thinking/edward de bono- now i understand a lot of what kate was talking about in playgroup, and i discovered the sophists, who discovered the same thing i discovered last semester, but about 2000 years earlier. -encyclopedia of superstitions-was thinking this would have some use to inspire me, but i didn't finish it. i found out about rough music though, and how to cure warts -a very public solution/paul mees- an awesome book about public transport that compares melbourne with toronto, and finds that melbourne has a better system then toronto, and in fact should be one of the world leaders in public transport, if it were not for the low level of service. full of awesome facts, like in 1905 the sandringham line carried 30 million people annually, and now it only carries 6 million. the sandringham line has the highest level of cancelled trains in melbourne, which seems to prove the connection between level of service and usage.
just some pics from grad night. i was helping behind the bar which wsa suprisingly fun. i put the pictures of brian and the picture frame up because brian broke it by leaning on it. if you need to blackmail him, don't tell him you got the pictures from me.i saw a whole bunch of third years who i had never seen before, and quite a few i had seen around but did not know. it seemed like a good night, and they did a good job to organize it. for posterityi'd like to record that we need to provide water for people to drink at our one, as well as more ice to keepthings cold. i have a flash file of photo's i took from behind the bar at roughly 15 minute intervals, and i will put it up if someone tells me where i can post a flash file.
pic is John Toogood from Shihad,at the JC/DC show at the esplanade hotel st. kilda.yes he is standing on the bar doing ac/dc covers.that guy is nuts.go see him if you get the chance.they took out all the tables and theplace was as full as is physically possible.
if we get laptops for all students we should use linux. there are many advantages. unlimited updates for free, low cost, the ability to bundle software and operating system onto a bootable cd, with preset configurations, so all computers have equal abilities, and same levelof software. the fact is, if we get computers, we're going to be using pirated software anyway, so the advantages of using free, open source software are numerous. number one it is free, so when we leave we don't have to fork out thousands of dollars for operating licences for programs we know how to use. it encourages equity. it supports everything we have been learning about in studies, and means we would remain seperate from the rest of the university. if everyone was using the same system, much of the issues regarding compatibility of files etc would be void, making linux more viable. software updates can be sent over the wireless network. computers can be dual booted into windows, linux can also run on macs and you can dual boot into osX. all you need is someone who is good with computers to create the initial packages of one linux installation dvd for PC's and one for macs, and create a network linking the system. then you just have to convince people to use it. if it doesn't work out, back to plan A.
These guys are in a band called british india. two of them went to my school in the same year level as me. they are fairly successful at the moment, touring with their first album at the moment. i read in Beat magazine that they stole guitar strings and effects pedals from music shops when they were starting out. the writer of the article thought that it was to provide some sort of street cred or "image" to themselves. these guys are an image band and not afraid to tell people that. if you start reading some of the interviews they've done you realise that they are attempting to craft an image around themselves, but not quite succeding. Jet came from my school too. they were more successfull at creating their image then British India. As tough working class Dingley boys- following in the rolling stones model of pretending to be poor. British India have avoided mentioning that they went to the same school as Jet. they seem to be trying to craft a "mod" style image for themselves, that doesn't fit with jet's rough garage rock. they both rip off other bands significantly. like i said last semester, it's all about what you tell people, and what you don't tell people. if people never find out you're lying, it's not a lie. these guys are partway to understanding that, but i think they needed a few more years in the wilderness to harden up a bit because every now and then they say something that shows the chinks on their armour.
"where can you go?" is the title of the list i got from rochelle in the education abroad unit. At the moment it looks like nowhere good. i asked them about Design Academy in Eindhoven, and she said there was no way they could get me into there. my choices are Gerrit Reitvald in amsterdam, which takes two exchange students worldwide each year. or Utrecht school of the Arts, which looks ok. Utrecht is apparently a big uni town, so that might be good. thye are sorting out agreements with Tu/e Eindhoven and Tu/e Delft, of which the eindhoven one may be ok. so now i have a short list of three. apparently they allow you to apply for two schools if you apply for Gerrit Reitvald academy because they are so hard to get into. hard to get into does not necessarily mean good.
my budgerigar Evan died. so we buried her in the garden. safe to say that no Preston Project style excavations will be taking place.my exchange overseas is becoming increasingly complicated. i've narrowed it down to gerrit rietvald academy, haagse hogeschool, utrecht school of the arts, all of which rmit has exchanges with, and tu/e eindhoven and my favourite, design academy eindhoven,which is probably bloody hard to get into and which rmit doesn't seem to have exchanges with. so as you can see,i haven't narrowed it down that much.
this was on the back of a batman mask. obviously it does not confer superpowers on the user.
i went to the canberra industrial design grduates display with Rob E.
some things i noticed were how consistent they were as a group. and how different their work was from ours. they even used a different computer program, PRO E which meant that their work really looked different.
inspired me to write a list of things that define industrial design students:
1. we use brief sentences to vaguely explain things that we don't show visually eg: "the chair is ergonomically designed using a form fitting environmentally friendly and form fitting foam".
2. designs are dictated by the computer program used to mock them up, or the method used to visualize them, even if it's a pencil.
3. extruded furniture- draw a shape in solidworks, extrude it, cut extrude it full of holes, and then render it
