Loosely Assembled

Christian Croft and Kate Hartman have hacked a pair of Heelys (those sneakers with the hidden wheel in the heel) to generate enough juice to power a little onboard navigation system with unconventional ideas about navigation. As you roll down the street, a little toe mounted digital screen gives directional suggestions, but these suggestions are not trying to help you get to a specific point B, they are directions to help you get lost, to help you wander and explore your own city in a new way, in a way that isn’t influenced by your own habits, nor by urban design, nor by instinct. It’s a pure wandering route generator.

Despite understanding that the project is primarily a technological sketch for sustainable energy harvesting, I am primarily interested (for this venue) to examine the relationship it has to the situationist practice of the dérive because I feel that a purely random, or even algorithmically based path through a city misses the experience of ‘feeling’ one’s way around the psychological topography, which Guy Debord expresses as essential in his Theory of the Dérive:

One of the basic situationist practices is the dérive [literally: “drifting”], a technique of rapid passage through varied ambiances. Dérives involve playful-constructive behavior and awareness of psychogeographical effects, and are thus quite different from the classic notions of journey or stroll.

In a dérive one or more persons during a certain period drop their relations, their work and leisure activities, and all their other usual motives for movement and action, and let themselves be drawn by the attractions of the terrain and the encounters they find there. Chance is a less important factor in this activity than one might think: from a dérive point of view cities have psychogeographical contours, with constant currents, fixed points and vortexes that strongly discourage entry into or exit from certain zones.

If the onboard digital instructions were less about turn right or go straight, but were more about looking, feeling and following currents like: oncoming traffic, the loudest street, the most or least crowded path, a smiling face, towards the sunrise or sunset, towards the sound of music, into an empty shop, up the steepest stairs, towards the shortest person or away from home, then i would say that this (already very cool) project would actually be participating in the historic conversation on psychogeographic dérive. But in the meantime, shit, I’d sure rock some dope ass rolling cyborg shoes! Wouldn’t you?

tip off via wmmna

A final Last Thursday for the Clown House: ”
Dingo Dizmal, captain of the Clown House.

Yes folks, it’s true. Tonight at Last Thursday on Alberta Street, the Clown House (at NE 24th and Alberta) will play host to hijinks and fun for the very last time.

(Via BikePortland.org.)

Well, not really a ‘barcamp’ brand event, but in the similar unconference style, REWILD is putting on a week long skills and knowledge sharing event called REWILD CAMP PORTLAND. Mark your calendars, August 4th in when it kicks off, and you should go to the wiki and RSVP.

BYOB

yes! there are poeple in that ball (3 of them), yes, it’s full or water, and yes they are jamming down that hill. It seems like it might be like a hamster wheel meets water slide.

gnar gnar, but why the hell isn’t it being dropped off a cliff, or down a roller coaster, or into some SF hills?

via: blogabond

There is a nail fasteners that comes off the toy, posing a hazard.
Parents started reporting this issue 2002, Fisher-Price did nothing.
Then, because they didn’t issue a recall, in December 2002, a 14-month old child aspirated one of the nail fasteners into his lung. The child was taken to the hospital and underwent an emergency surgical procedure to have the metal nail fastener removed.

Federal Law mandates immediate reporting to the CPSC after getting legit reports, Fisher-Price botched that one too. So they are being fined almost a million bucks, and yes they finally have issued a recall where they will send you a repair kit for the toy, but they sure don’t make it easy. We DO actually have this toy (disclaimer: gifted), so I called their recall line at (866) 259-7873, and got a slew of menues, and the notice that they really didn’t want to talk to me in person, but that i’d be happier if i went online to complain. I wanted to interact with a human, the human that answered was impatient with the fact that i didn’t know the product number for the toy i was talking about, “we make several models of that toy, i can’t help you if you don’t have the product number”.

Great, thanks a lot.

THIS is exactly why you should never buy the garbage that is being dumped on the market by toy industry giants. And here is an example of a barn that you can make with your kids instead of supporting companies like Fisher-Price and their parent Mattel.

also, if you aren’t afraid of a little pro-islam sentiment, and perhaps a little conspiracy theory, check out this rundown of a very popular meme about Mattel’s Cyber Patrol software and it’s deep political tentacles.

made by yours truly

Just like the old skateboarding things we used to draw.

Bike Poetry!

Go Dag Go.