Boing Boing readers predict the next five years and beyond. Some are eccentric - 'More men will decide to opt for obedient robot wives to do cooking, cleaning and other stuff that will appeal to the misogynist, creating a mind shift in the western female' - some are prescient - 'People will own fewer objects, and be more selective about the physical objects they do own' - but most are deeply pessimistic.

Blogs about vocations, mostly snippy / Kiosk, a new way of shopping for small art items and oddities - slightly like a retail version of Industrial Facility's 'Under a Fiver' project (some of which can be seen here). The site's Blog / a viral marketeer gets their comeuppance / announcing the construction of a cooled beach in Dubai. Nice headline grabbing story that probably has way more just beneath the surface.

Death maps, the UK teen murders 2008 by location, and murders across the whole of the UK ('Many victims of murder with a firearm are from wealthier areas, perhaps because it tends to be those with money who have shotguns and similar weapons in their homes.') / A Firework for WG Sebald, one of many works by Jeremy Millar.

The Commons, flickr's epic project to bring public photo collections into better view / the Book Cover Archive, with links to things like this gallery of old science fiction covers / Imitation of Life, a tumblr / the 'Green Void' installation by the Laboratory for Visionary Architecture / N55 are a Danish design group who condense their projects into downloadable manuals, such as the Walking House, a down-sized Archigram.

Song for Someone promises customised mp3s, with the name of your choice slotted in. The age of mass personalisation hasn't really expanded beyond the range of goods offered off the back of photo services like flickr, essentially just an updating of the tacky Snappy Snaps mugs that have existed since the dawn of time. But then again, playing with the fundamentals of an object, adjusting the sliders so that any permutation of words, forms or images is possible, goes far beyond the levels of control that a typical brand needs to apply. For example, would M&M's open themselves up to Nike Sweatshop-style shenanigans? It's unlikely: the disclaimers are relatively extensive ('To avoid any confusion and keep everyone safe, we will not print any reference to drugs or prescription items, especially those that are in pill or capsule form')

The rather pointless Calvin Klein Dollhouse, the conflation of brands, toys and deconstructivism in a holiday season special confused aesthetic / enter the global snowball fight. These Christmas virals seem rather thin on the ground this year / from The Big Picture's Best of the Year, this photograph of bow and arrow wielding Maasai warriors is like Agincourt with casualwear.

Adverts for General Dynamics, back when the military industrial complex had a handle on style and presentation / on a completely different tack. The world of the astrologer isn't usually on our radar, but naturally there are a host of them out there online, many touting celebrity clients (such as Henri Llewelyn Davies. Few, however, are as entertaining and wilfully perverse as Madame Arcati, which seems to combine a heightened awareness of modern media with a fervent belief in a mystical order, and draws in all manner of names into its orbit.

Labels: linkage

posted by things at 00:40 / 0 comments