I had a dream that my eyes were bleeding chroma, the gray value associated with the Munsell color system. It made finishing my maps impossible because the colors were all too bright. Weird, for many reasons, but mainly because I don’t like the Munsell system. I much prefer to work with HEX codes. RGB is ok, but harder to remember when you have to type in a lot of values. Time to use some eye drops.
Month: March 2007
Peas
Ella has started eating “real” food in the last two weeks. We started with peas, which is somewhat distressing because I still can’t stand the smell of the awful little vegetable. She absolutely loves them though and is happily eating a small jar of them in a sitting – even when mixed with rice cereal.
The one thing that peas are good for is a plethora of jokes. My favorite, and the one I’m sure Michelle is the most tired of is using the phrase “pea-ness.” Try it sometime – it’s a non-profane word that becomes profane simply by using poor grammar.
And of course, I have to mention the change in her output. It’s gross. Like mechonium again, but it varies in color depending on her diet. The strange thing is, these colors where once common in people’s homes. Carpet, furniture, drapes and appliances actually came in these colors.
Open Architecture Network
Pollyanna, a friend from high school, sent me a link to a project she’s been working on with Architecture for Humanity called the Open Architecture Network. It is going to be a community driven site for sharing building plans and ideas for solving shelter-related problems. AFH is dedicated to solving architectural and design issues that come after various crises; natural or human caused.
The project is quite exciting and will hopefully help address a plethora of shelter-related problems in innovative and affordable ways. Ironically enough, the “about” page starts with a declaration of Le Corbusier’s being wrong. The banner on my site right now is nick-named after the Swiss architect. He made quite a few contributions to modern architecture, including the gigantic utilitarian apartment complex that sought to give each inhabitant a window. These structures were mostly built to house the poor, but many failed horribly. (See Paris riots, 2005) It will be interesting to see how this project manifests, and hopefully there will be a variety of solutions available so we don’t get the uniformity and banality of the banlieues.
Sprawl and Obesity
Science News Magazine has a store on City Design and Human Health right now that looks at whether smart urban design could help improve our health. The article suggests that sprawl has caused us to become less healthy, or as UC puts it, “Fat Lards.”