There is still very little known about the life of Vivian Maier. What is known is that she was born in New York in 1926 and worked as a nanny for a family on Chicago’s North Shore during the 50s and 60s. Seemingly without a family of her own, the children she cared for eventually acted as caregivers for Maier herself in the autumn of her life. She took hundreds of thousands of photographs in her lifetime, but never shared them with anyone. Maier lost possession of her art when her storage locker was sold off for non-payment. She passed away in 2009 at the age of 83.

Excerpt from a brilliant post by Jonesy.

"...In short, one cannot overestimate the importance of Jones to Alien. This is his story.

MY DAY by JONESY

Y-a-w-n. Was just having a pleasant dream about eviscerating a small family of fieldmice when the can-opener tipped me off her chest by sitting up. Impossible to go back to sleep with the can-openers all aflutter like this. S-t-r-e-t-c-h. They seem to think we're home. I could tell them we're not, but I'll leave them to work that out for themselves. No sense of direction, these people. But hey, since I'm awake, might as well take advantage of the situation to tuck into some moggynosh. I eat at the big table, like everyone else. I have my own bowl with JONES painted on the side so the can-openers won't steal my food.

Since it doesn't look as though anyone's going back into hypersleep any time soon, I do my usual patrol around the bowels of the ship. Yeah, no changes here. Everything just as I left it. But all that patrolling is exhausting, so I take a nap behind some nice warm pipes in one of the boiler rooms. Hmmmm. Hamsters. Crunchy little bones. Hmmmm..

Woken by the ship landing somewhere. Not Earth though, so go back to sleep. Woken again by a lot of shouting and neurotic activity coming from somewhere on the far side of the vessel. Honestly, can't these people show a hardworking feline any respect? But hey, since I'm up now, might as well go on the hunt for space rodents. Space rodents! Who am I kidding? No such thing, of course. When we first took off from earth, many cat-years ago, there was a family of rats nesting in the engine room, but I soon sorted them out. Maybe too soon; maybe I should have left them alone to breed a bit, so their descendants could have entertained me during the rest of the voyage. There's nothing left to hunt. Nothing. But how was I to know we'd be cooped up for so long? Anyhow, I offered generous gifts of dead rat to everyone in the crew, except the one who doesn't smell like the others; he tried to stroke me once, but got the rhythm all wrong and his fingers were too hard, so mainly I steer clear of him now...."

Read the full post here:

http://catsonfilm.blogspot.com/2011/04/alien.html

Just Ask: Integrating Accessibility Throughout Design

Welcome to Just Ask, a different kind of accessibility book

Just Ask: Integrating Accessibility Throughout Design
helps designers, developers, and managers
create websites, software, hardware, and consumer products that

• are accessible to people with disabilities and older users,
• provide a better user experience for all users, and
• help organizations maximize the benefits of accessibility.

Please read the Introduction, which sets the stage for the book and gives examples of why it's so important to make your products accessible.

• Just Ask is available free online in English, Spanish (Español), and Japanese (日本語) thanks to sponsors and supporters. If your organization might be interested in sponsoring Just Ask, see Sponsorship Opportunities.
• The print book is available in English from Amazon, and for much less from here. The print book is also available in Spanish from Imprimir libro.

Excerpt from a great post by Rob Walker:

"...What are the semiotics of this particular garment? Demetri Martin once joked that life vests protect you from drowning, bulletproof vests protect you from gunfire — and sweater vests protect you from pretty girls. The popular reading of Santorum’s vest, however, seems to be that it makes him identifiable: a regular guy, down to earth, approachable, a man of the people. The candidate himself offers a talismanic explanation for the style, noting that it was while wearing a sweater vest at an Iowa campaign event that he felt his electoral fortunes beginning to change.

Possibly all of that can be rolled into a reading of the sweater vest as signalling geeky charm, dulling Santorum’s extremely hard-edged rhetoric. As anyone who’s been watching the debates knows, he deploys sharp elbows to underscore his uncompromising views on a variety of social and political issues. And if he was known for much to the general public prior to this election, it was mostly for inflaming ideological opponents. To be blunt, he largely comes across as angry, and sort of a jerk. Given that his more liberal enemies paint him as narrow-minded hate monger, maybe a sweater vest de-fangs that image a bit, at least visually. How threatening, after all, can a man in a sweater vest really be?..."

read the full post here:

http://observersroom.designobserver.com/robwalker/post/santorums-tragic-sweat...

The Los Angeles Ghost Patrol is a paranormal investigation team focused on Southern California hauntings. The project came into our radar thanks to project producer Susan Bell, who has come up with a great Prezi presentation to describe exactly the Transmedia stratergy for LAGP. Among the platforms developed for the project include the web, film, TV and an ARG.

The Rising is an organization made up of both ordinary people & genetically unique warriors known as Seers. The Rising is dedicated to the preservation and advancement of human society, and the destruction of the Wraiths. The Rising came into our radar by creators Philip Gable and Lauren Scime from Witchfactory Productions. The driving platform for the projects is the book, which is currently available for purchase here.

GATES is a young man living a wretched existence in an isolated colony of humans. Deep within the caverns of an industrial mountain complex, his society is ruled by a totalitarian government called the ConGenement–who controls all facets of life. Gates came into our radar by creator Hal Hefner. The driving platform for the project is the web comic, which as of recently just wrapped up the first year of publication. The comic is being presented by Heavy Metal Magazine.

See April's full list here (& Part 1 & 2):

http://thearrglingtonjump.com/blog/2012/01/26/a-year-in-showcases-part-3#

5 low-profile startups that could change the face of big data

By Derrick Harris Jan. 28, 2012, 3:00pm PT 7 Comments

Big data is hot, but infrastructure-level platforms such as Hadoop, which focus on storage and processing, still need help to take them into the mainstream. They need a killer app or two that will let companies analyze, visualize and act on all that data without hiring a team of Stanford Ph.Ds, or that will let developers write big-data apps without having to reinvent the wheel.

Here are five startups (in alphabetical order) either in stealth mode or just out of it that could help take Hadoop and its ilk to the promised land.

1. BloomReach

The stealth-mode BloomReach is taking a very targeted, very hands-free approach to big data for its customers. It’s offering a SaaS-based product that job listings say is for “helping leading online businesses uncover the highest quality, most relevant content sought by their consumers, when and where they want it.” Founded by a team with roots at Google, Cisco, Facebook and Yahoo, among other companies, BloomReach has, according to one estimate, about 160 customers — all of them among the top 10,000 websites, and most of them in the retail space. Among its core technologies and methods are Hadoop, Lucene, Monte Carlo simulations and large-scale image processing.

Excerpt from gigaom.com. Full post here:

http://gigaom.com/cloud/5-low-profile-startups-that-could-change-the-face-of-...

Excerpt from the full TechCrunch group:

"Netflix, Amazon, iTunes and YouTube need to develop marketing chops, and ways to communicate with audiences on a deep visceral level. They all have a huge and powerful opportunity to move audiences — an intimate, activated, one-to-one relationship with a person sitting just an arms length away from their computer screen; or on their couch with a brand-new jury rigged gadget, invested, motivated and ready to get their socks knocked-off. Instead, users are greeted with a miasma of cover art, lists of titles in all shapes and sizes and a search box — no communication, no connection.

How can digital entertainment services connect with audiences? Three easy steps, and a bonus feature:

1. People. Tech companies need to hire people to shine a light on the best stuff, and craft the stories that sell it to audiences (at least for now, until computers catch-up and develop wit, emotion, creativity the ability to write with heart). Some people call this curation. Others packaging and promotion.

2. Design. They need to create interfaces to capture audiences and connect to users.
Living, breathing beautiful displays that make you watch, and want to click.

3. Tools. Tech companies should leverage what their platforms do best — target, track and account — to deliver those stories to interested audiences en masse...."

January 27, 2012 | Posted by Tom Sakash

Our Sunday best: World’s first transmedia sculpture walk makes its home in Davis

Finley Fryer’s “Stan, the Submerging Man ” will be a “portal to another world” during the first-ever transmedia sculpture walk on Friday, Feb. 17. Fred Gladdis/Enterprise photo

Sorry, Mayor Bloomberg, but New York City won’t be the first city in the world to feature a transmedia walking tour through its busy streets. In a few short weeks, that honor will belong to Davis.

On Friday, Feb. 17, John Natsoulas, in collaboration with Monto H. Kumagai, a software developer, and Finley Fryer, a UC Davis graduate and local artist, will unveil the beginnings of a transmedia sculpture walk highlighting various pieces of artwork in key locations throughout downtown Davis.

The inaugural walk will take place at 4:30 p.m. that day, beginning at the John Natsoulas Gallery, 521 First St.

Natsoulas said that besides “Stan, the Submerging Man,” which already is in place in front of the gallery, artwork is scheduled to be installed next week in front of the Davis Commons shopping center at First and E streets; at Dowling Properties at Third and D streets; at Davis Ace Housewares at Third and G streets; and in front of Ace Hardware in the 300 block of G Street.

“These are the first five that will be placed. We will place five more in the month of March,” Natsoulas said. “Our goal is to have at least 15 to 20 new sculptures up by the end of the year.”

read the full article here!:

http://www.davisenterprise.com/features/sunday-best/our-sunday-best-worlds-fi...