The consequences of lazy/poor/corrupt/non existent regional planning come home to roost in the U.S. via npr
“Bobolinks, called skunk blackbirds in some places, were once a common sight in the Eastern United States. The birds are being poisoned on their wintering grounds by highly toxic pesticides. Rosalind Renfrew, a biologist at the Vermont Center for Ecostudies, captured bobolinks feeding in rice fields in Bolivia and took samples of their blood to test for pesticide exposure. She found that about half of the birds had drastically reduced levels of cholinesterase, an enzyme that affects brain and nerve cells — a sign of exposure to toxic chemicals.
“What should you put on your bird-friendly grocery list? Organic coffee, for one thing. Most mass-produced coffee is grown in open fields heavily treated with fertilizers, herbicides, fungicides and insecticides. In contrast, traditional small coffee farmers grow their beans under a canopy of tropical trees, which provide shade and essential nitrogen, and fertilize their soil naturally with leaf litter.
“Organic bananas should also be on your list. Bananas are typically grown with one of the highest pesticide loads of any tropical crop. Although bananas present little risk of pesticide ingestion to the consumer, the environment where they are grown is heavily contaminated.
“When it comes to nontraditional Latin American crops like melons, green beans, tomatoes, bell peppers and strawberries, it can be difficult to find any that are organically grown. We should buy these foods only if they are not imported from Latin America.” via nytimes
“Ugly men, according to research published this week, are a safe bet when it comes to love. Marry an ugly man and he will never tell you your bum looks big or turn his head to gawp at prettier women. Why? Because he is so grateful that you even look in his direction. Or so the experts tell us. According to scientists at the University of Tennessee, if you choose a facially challenged male then you are going to have a happy life. The study suggests that most ugly men who married attractive women were happy to bask in the glory of their partner’s beauty and enjoyed the prestige of having a beautiful wife. How depressing for anyone planning to stroll up the aisle with a half decent bloke on their arm. You’re destined for a life of misery. But marry Quasimodo and every day will be bliss.”
This is so true. (The grotesque proprietor of this blog awaits proposals from any fetching beauties.)
(but not this one)
“Whether you are a Mac person or a PC person, even the briefest exposure to the Apple logo may make you behave more creatively, according to recent research from Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business and the University of Waterloo, Canada. In work to be published in the April issue of the Journal of Consumer Research, Professors Gavan Fitzsimons and Tanya Chartrand of Duke, and Gráinne Fitzsimons of Waterloo, found that even the briefest exposure to well-known brands can cause people to behave in ways that mirror those brands’ traits.”
So now, does that mean seeing a Swastika can make you act more like a Nazi? Does symbol association with brand traits go in bad directions? I think the Verizon logotype makes me want to barf…
Stowell talks about Good magazine
“Grain edit is focused on classic design work from the 1950s-1970s and contemporary designers that draw inspiration from that time period.
Site content includes interviews, articles, designers’ libraries as well as examples of rare design annuals, type specimens, Ephemera, posters and vintage kids books from our bookshelves.”
After this summer, and more people finish internships, this site could be very useful.
“Renowned French designer Philippe Starck says he is fed up with his job and plans to retire in two years, in an interview published in a German weekly on Thursday. “I was a producer of materiality and I am ashamed of this fact,” Starck told Die Zeit weekly newspaper.”
“Cool your carbon consequences with CarbonCool, AIGA’s unique carbon offset program for designers and their studios. You can offset your individual lifestyle, your family’s lifestyle, the impact of your studio or even a single flight.
The cost of offsets includes two expenses:
“This is a historic find, the earliest known recording of sound,” said Samuel Brylawski, the former head of the recorded-sound division of the Library of Congress, who is not affiliated with the research group but who was familiar with its findings. The audio excavation could give a new primacy to the phonautograph, once considered a curio, and its inventor, Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville, a Parisian typesetter and tinkerer who went to his grave convinced that credit for his breakthroughs had been improperly bestowed on Edison.”
Who Would Watch This 1980’s Inspired TV Typography
