Bruce Sterling's Blog, page 754

Eco Fashion World

*I knew this was coming ten years ago, and I talked about incessantly. Now that it's really here and there's tons of it everywhere, I still get a kick out of it. Especially when it's both very green and *super* fashionable bomb-the-catwalk wrist-flapping silly, with stiletto heels, and handbags, and "ethical" make-up, and sales sales sales, darling.

http://www.ecofashionworld.com/

Sustainable Summer Fashion Hot Picks! from Conscious Living TV on Vimeo.

The mind map of mind-mapping software

*Oh come on, who could keep mental track of all that?

http://ow.ly/jRpb

BotJunkie at the military robot show

*You're gonna want a contemplative look at these. They're in Washington, looking for funding.

http://www.botjunkie.com/2009/08/12/auvsi-expo-gallery/

via @GreatDismal

African Augmented Reality

*Hmmm. That ought to up-end a few paradigms.

http://appfrica.net/blog/2009/08/12/the-future-of-giving/#utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=the-future-of-giving

The Swimming Cities of Serenissima

*Junkboats built and manned by New York artists. Man, they are really cramming the artsy chic into Favela Chic. That's such top-end, admirable Favela Chic that it's river-cruising into Marcel Duchamp objet trouve' territory.

http://www.swimmingcities.org/photos/

"The Swimming Cities of Serenissima is a fleet of three intricately hand crafted vessels that will navigate the Adriatic Sea from the Litoral region of Slovenia to Venice, Italy in May of 2009. Designed by the visual artist SWOON, the f

MakerBot in GadgetLab

*Nice, useful, factual write-up on the Bre Pettis ubergizmo here. A thousand bucks and some soldering, and you can make your own bathtub plug out of leftover plastic milk bottles! Yeah man, bring the noise!

*But wait, there's more — MakerBot hardware scheme comes with iTunes-like software "Thingiverse."

*Wait'll they figure out how to make handguns, IEDs and junkie hypodermics, and you're gonna see a self-replicating Ponzi Scheme that makes Bernie Madoff look like a piker.

http://www.wired.com/gad

Guerrilla Gardening in Abandoned Newspaper Boxes

*Dead Media and Favela Chic, together at last.

http://popupcity.net/2009/05/guerrilla-gardening-in-newspaper-boxes/

Augmented Reality, rockin' the Sticky Light

*We've run this one on the blog already, but that's one game little lab-system there.

I'm liking the complete simplicity of it, the lack of pop-ups and pull-down menus,

no language barriers. The sound-design could use some work, but it's got

augmented sound design. Augmented sound is underrated.

*Go, Wired UK.

http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2009-08/10/video-playing-with-the-sticky-light.aspx

CLICK HERE to join MYSTERIOUS DISCOVERY

"*Fiction by Bruce Sterling." In the future, science is like blogging. Also, in the future, fiction is like blogging. Hey, you can figure it out; welcome to network culture.

http://discovermagazine.com/2009/jul-aug/10-in-the-future-doing-science-is-like-blogging

"• Why is this science game so socially important?

"Because science means human progress! Yet fame and influence in science have always depended on "publication." That means lots of "papers." Also citation (writing "papers" that other sc

Urban Sprawl Repair Kit

http://www.re-burbia.com/2009/08/04/sprawl-building-types-repair-toolkit/

*Alternate title: "Transform your dead suburb into a 2010s favela by cobbling-together densely-populated add-ons in the emptied parking lots." Textbook Favela Chic here. Imaginary, but almost practical.

*The quality of the transformation depends on the desperation of the inhabitants. You've got your totally awesome Stuffed Animals, like, say, Lord Foster's high-tech remake of the Reichstag, and then you've got your low-e