ideometric

Recent research also supports the hypothesis that health can be passed down through generations […]

A long-term study that included more than 100 years of birth, death, health and genealogical records for 300 Swedish families in an isolated village showed that an individual’s risk for diabetes and early death increased if his or her paternal grandparents grew up in times of food abundance rather than food shortage.

“Evidence indicates that what you eat can affect your grandchildren’s brain molecules and synapses,” Gómez-Pinilla said. “We are trying to find the molecular basis to explain this.”

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So, what does that bode for our obese, diabetes ridden, genetically modified food-eating, hormone and antibiotic fed meat-consuming, cheap corn-obsessed food culture? We’re already dooming ourselves with unsustainable energy, environmental, and industrial food/farming policies (etc). Are we in the process of creating deeper problems embedded in the genetic make-up of future generations as well?

Random shot in the Fashion District, downtown LA.

Aesthetics and security. Form and function. What’s the difference between a nice looking security gate and a utilitarian one? Who does it avoid offending (who is the audience)? Does it change the perception of the surrounding area? What’s the point? (Alternatively, why not? Why shouldn’t it look good?)

I don’t think enough thought (creativity, culture, wit/humor/irony, style, humanity, whatever) is put into design, especially for mundane things. What if we lived in a culture that could incorporate a sense of humor into the design of security gates as a matter of course? Like, perhaps, Japan and their all-encompassing emphasis on kawaii (see the Japanese defense ministry’s annual report, published as a manga).

Maybe this hints at a deeper critique of industrialized production, monopolization, and/or the cooptation of the aforementioned design aesthetic (and material culture more generally) by a production process that makes it all subservient to marketing, efficiency, and profit.

I think that computers and the ‘net put some of that creativity back into the hands of individuals, atleast for certain things.

[unfinished thought]

http://www.myspace.com/hamatsu

I can’t read Japanese, so I don’t know what it says. But I really like the bass emphasis, electronic elements, and blend of styles. The retro 80s cheesiness is also a plus.

http://ffffound.com/

This is the best time waster ever. (And occasionally inspiring).

“Glenda Kinzer, 41, from rural Ohio, believes the end of the world is about to occur. “A lot of people are talking about how Obama fits the description” of the Antichrist.”

Sigh.

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