Wednesday, November 04. 2009Build These Solar Heaters To Heat Your Home For Free During The Day.I originally wrote this article for my site, The Good Human, but because it is “EcoTech” oriented I figured it should probably be here as well. My landlord just installed 2 of these solar heaters - 10 days before I move out, which stinks. But for the next 10 days, I plan on running these heaters all day long to heat up the house for absolutely no cost to me. In an effort to try to explain what my landlord did, I took a few pictures of the heaters and will do my best to explain how they work. Each heater is basically a sealed wooden box sitting on a small cement foundation and attached to the side of my house. The front of the box is made of glass windows and right behind the windows is black tar paper, which helps to attract and absorb the heat from the sun. Behind the tar paper and running back and forth several times within the box itself is 36 feet of dryer venting, zig-zagging itself back and forth from one end to the other. Each end of this venting goes into my house - one entrance at one of the wooden box and one at the other. (Yes, 2 small holes are cut into my house for each end of the venting to be brought inside) Inside my home, this venting is covered with a grate and framed out with some wood that matches the trim in the house. This is a closed loop system, where the air comes from inside my house, through the heater, and back into my house through the other vent. One end has a small fan with a thermostat attached, so that once the air inside the box reaches 72 degrees, the fan automatically turns on and pulls room-temperature air into the heater, lets it work its way through the 36 feet of “heated-up” venting, and returns it slowly back into the house. When it is sunny outside, these heaters crank out some serious hot air. So even on frigid cold days, when these heaters come on they do a great job of heating up the place, as they aren’t even using the outside air to begin with. There is one on each end of my home, and because of the open floor plan, the heat comes from these ends and meets in the middle - my living room. Sure, they don’t work at night (obviously), but they definitely put out a lot of heat during the day, so the warmth does last into the evening for a bit (especially with my concrete floors).While you still may need to run your heater at night or on cloudy days, you won’t need to during any sunny days. A few of these will keep you toasty warm on the coldest of them. Here is the materials list in case you want to try to build your own: - Wood frame box I know the boxes did take my landlord some time to build, but I also know they weren’t that expensive - especially for how much they give back. Just thought I would pass this amazing idea along to you guys! ----- Via EcoTech Daily Related Links:Personal comment:
A basic "and nearly DIY" solar-air heater system. I like the way it builds something to heat the air, and then triggers some simple in & out of hot/cold air based on a sensor and a fan. Maybes this could go further with full rooms serving this purpose of heating/cooling other ones... Monday, November 02. 2009Google PowermeterBy Adam Vaughan Online tool allows householders to monitor energy use and greenhouse gas emissions, thereby reducing consumption and saving money Google may be best known for helping you find things on the web, but the online search company's latest move is a bid to make futuristic low-energy eco-homes a reality. Launching for the first time in the UK today, Google Powermeter is an online tool that allows householders to monitor their home's energy use and greenhouse gas emissions via the web, and so reduce their consumption and save money. Already being trialled in the US, the free energy-monitoring service uses new smart meters, or an add-on clip for conventional meters, to send electricity consumption to a personalised iGoogle web page. Users will be able to check their energy use anywhere in the world via a computer or mobile phone. The idea is that householders will be persuaded to stop overfilling kettles, switch appliances off standby and turn off unused lights after being confronted with their daily energy use. Studies by organisations including the government's Energy Saving Trust have suggested such energy monitoring leads people to cut their bills by 3-15%, potentially saving the average UK household £75 a year. Google Powermeter is itself free, but will initially be available to British homeowners either by buying a gadget called AlertMe Energy or switching to first:utility, a small energy supplier. AlertMe's device works using a broadband hub and a clip for your electricity meter. It can be bought from today for £69 with a £3 monthly subscription fee. First:utility customers will have to wait until next month to try the service. Powermeter works by showing graphs of a user's energy consumption over time – by day, week or month – and comparing it to their previous usage and regional averages. Ben Coppin, an employee at AlertMe who has trialled it for the last six months, said using the software had led him to switch off an unnecessary immersion heater that was costing £300-400 annually, and to halve his tumble dryer's energy use by switching from its highest setting to its lowest. Jens Redmer, director for business development at Google, said Powermeter's value came from "immediate feedback". He told of testers in California discovering pool pumps they hadn't used for years but that were draining energy, and one woman who saved her apartment from burning down by detecting a burning toaster while at work and alerting a neighbour. Redmer added that a social element could be a next step for the service, which keeps users' energy usage private. "In the future, one new feature could be friendly competition – why can't I challenge my friends to say I'll save 10% over a year, and then trigger alerts when they're falling behind, so I could ping them to encourage them?" Pilgrim Beart, the founder and CEO of AlertMe, said: "Many consumers feel they can't protect themselves from rising energy costs or do anything to stop climate change. However, more than a quarter of all energy use happens in our homes and this gives consumers the power to monitor, control, and reduce the energy they use." Heating and power for UK homes account for 27% of the UK's carbon footprint. Powermeter's move into the UK puts it a step ahead of Microsoft's rival project, Hohm, which is in a US-only beta trial and works by creating an online dashboard of energy data from partnered utility companies. Unlike Google's software, it covers both electricity and gas use, and you can enter your usage manually. Enthusiasts have previously developed kits using open-source code that allow homes to post their energy usage to Twitter, and several companies sell energy monitors – such as the OWL and Wattson – which show real-time electricity consumption on wireless handheld displays. One such gadget available in the US, the TED 5000, already works with Powermeter. The UK government is consulting on the specification for smart meters – whether they should feature wireless displays, for example – which will be fitted in every home by 2020. This article originally appeared in The Guardian. ----- Via WorldChanging Wednesday, October 21. 2009The City Is Here For You To Use: (very) provisional bibliography
A week or so back, a bright guy I met at PICNIC named Lincoln Schatz asked me if I mightn’t list for him a few things I’d been reading lately. I got about halfway through before I realized that I was really compiling a manifest of books I’d been consulting as I put together the pieces of my own. So this is for you, Lincoln – but I bet it’d also be particularly valuable for readers who are coming at issues of networked urbanism from the information-technological side, and would like a better grounding in sociological, psychological, political and architectural thinking on these topics. (There’s also a pretty heavy overlap here with the curriculum Kevin Slavin and I built our ITP “Urban Computing” class around.) Not all of these were equally useful, mind you. Some of the titles on the following list are perennial favorites of mine, or works I otherwise regard as essential; some are badly dated, and one or two are outright wank. But they’ve all contributed in some wise to my understanding of networked place and the possibilities it presents for the people who inhabit it. Two caveats: first, this is very far from a comprehensive list, and secondly, you should know that I’ve provided the titles with Amazon referral links, so I make a few pennies if you should happen to click through and buy anything (for which I thank you). At any rate, I hope you find it useful. UPDATE 19 October 20.49 EEDT That said, I’ll continue to update the page as I either remember titles that ought to have been included in the first place, or in fact do assimilate new points of view. - Alexander, Christopher, et al.: A Pattern Language -----
Personal comment:
Adam Greenfield, théoricien et essayiste des questions liées à l'"urban computing", l'"ubiquitous computing", etc. publie ici une bibliographie liée à son prochain livre. Beaucoup de choses connues et de "usual suspects", mais aussi quelques noms qui le sont moins, tout au moins pour nous. Bonne ressource à creuser, si nécessaire.
Posted by Patrick Keller
in Architecture, Culture & society, Interaction design
at
09:16
Defined tags for this entry: architecture, books, culture & society, interaction design, ressources, theory, thinkers
Friday, October 16. 2009WolframAlpha Opening Up to DevelopersWe’ve written a lot about WolframAlpha, the computational knowledge engine that debuted back in May. WolframAlpha has a lot of potential, though it’s yet to catch on in a big way. That could soon change. WolframAlpha has just released its API which will allow developers to tap into WolframAlpha’s computational knowledge base and integrate it with websites, mobile apps and more. WolframAlpha’s upcoming iPhone app is being built using the API to demonstrate its capabilities. A native app should also be a big improvement on the iPhone optimized version of WolframAlpha that is currently available. The hope is that the API will enable developers to innovate using the technology that WolframAlpha offers and to show off more specialized use cases. What do you think about the potential of WolframAlpha and what apps would you like to see integrate with it? ----- Via Mashable
Posted by Patrick Keller
in Science & technology
at
15:03
Defined tags for this entry: ressources, science & technology
Saturday, August 15. 2009The Oil Age Poster
----- Via MetaboliCity Related Links:Friday, August 14. 2009SIGGRAPH'09: The Information Aesthetics Panel(s)
The new theme consists of 2 panel sessions, an art exhibition (description coming soon) and the keynote talk by Steven Nuebes. Unfortunately, I missed the morning panel. Monday morning 8.30am proved to be to early for recuperating from a +20 hours flight and a -15 hours jet lag, registering on site and finding the correct location. However, the panelists lineup was impressive: Moritz Stefaner explained the Eigenfactor project, Norah Zuniga Shaw and Maria Palazzi showed Synchronous Objects, and Evan Tice presented Greenlite Dartmouth. Feedback from people who actually attended seemed to be unanimously positive, with a general consensus, from people independent from each other, that the Synchronous Objects project, which was the product of an elaborate three year long collaboration with choreographer William Forsythe, showed an unexpected depth and richness that it definitely requires a revisit for any information aesthetics fan. Moritz Stefaner shared his design process, including sketches of paths not taken and very intriguing "outtakes" resulting from coding errors. Unfortunately, Lorie Loeb, director of the Greenlite Dartmouth project, was not able to be there. Her collaborator, recent graduate Evan Tice, explained how the emotional resonance of the plight of a polar bear, can influence people's awareness of their use of energy. The afternoon panel had some issues of its own. A continuous bad audio feed made some audience members cringe and even leave. The panel members' presentations (of which I myself was part) did barely touch each other, and might have made the topic seem overly broad and complex. Michael Kelly, aesthetics expert and professor of Philosophy at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, described the issues involved in interpreting aesthetics in several relevant fields. He defined aesthetics as the "critical thinking about the norms (standards) of our cognitive and affective experiences in art, culture and nature" but also "in the interactivity that connects humans and computers", which always more apt than talking about just beauty and subjectivity. The use of sensible aesthetics in data visualization is required as data is non-sensuous in 2 ways: data processing can remain inaccessible to our senses (e.g. invisible) and data needs not generate or have any sensuous forms (besides code). Secondly, to be experienced or to generate experiences, and become intelligible, data has to take on some sort of sensuous form. This is the true challenge for visualization: finding the most suitable and enjoyable metaphor for essential non-visual insights. Victoria Vesna explained the process behind her latest project The Katrina Project: NO-LA. NO-LA involves collaborators from art, design, behavioral science, journalism, and community outreach. A database-driven, activist web site explores the psychological and social effects of the storm and its aftermath through interviews with, and works by various artists in New Orleans and Los Angeles. It is also based on material and information about the Katrina disaster retrieved by undergraduate students, which was then designed into infographical posters. The website aims to become a database of works by moviemakers, photographers, and others in the creative community that work around the topic of Katrina. Paul Fishwick, editor of the book Aesthetic Computing, discussed this very topic from the viewpoint of teaching a creative computer science course. Computing, seen as mathematical structures such as data and structure (e.g. sequence, branching, iteration, encapsulation), can be seen as possessing aesthetic qualities. Here, aesthetic is more about input/output and about structure, as software can have a wide audience. Software is as much about experience and interaction as about analysis and performance. The fourth speaker was yours truly, showing the wide spectrum of information aesthetic works, a model that suggest 3 criteria for information aesthetics, and potential useful usages for data visualization applications in the future. The last speaker, Kenneth Huff, showed his intriguing works of computational art, of which the image above is only a small example. In search of truly random data without repetition, he discovered the beauty of real data, here in the form of prime numbers. His works are not really data representations, but use abstract data as a sort of genetic material or raw material foundation for further algorithmic and visual treatment. Inspired by the random, yet structured beauty and minute details of nature (flora, fauna and mineral), multitudes of objects often are included in works, frequently similar in form, yet always unique in their details. Related Links:Personal comment: Une série de liens et de noms en relation avec l'"Information/data design". Dans le cadre d'une exposition lors de Siggraph 2009. Avec un projet développé par le chorégraphe William Forsythe (un des meilleurs chorégraphe contemporain, labellé toutefois "néo-classique"). Wednesday, August 12. 2009Calvin Harris and the HumanthesizerCalvin Harris performs his latest single, Ready For The Weekend, on a giant human synthesizer made of, er, pretty ladies... Take 15 bikini-clad lovelies, paint them in special ink and put them in a dance studio with special conductive pads on the floor and, hey presto, you have the Humanthesizer. To promote Calvin Harris's new single, Sony Music creatives Phil Clandillon and Steve Milbourne (who you may remember were responsible for the AC/DC ASCII Excel video last year) decided to use Bare Conductive, a technology developed by RCA Industrial Design and Engineering masters students Bibi Nelson, Becky Pilditch, Isabel Lizardi and Matt Johnson. Bare Conductive is "skin-safe, conductive ink". When painted on the skin, it allows a current to be passed through the body without causing an electric shock. "We saw the technology on a blog initially, and then invited the RCA guys in to demo it to us," says Clandillon. "We asked if they would be up for doing a project together, and then it was a matter of waiting for the right artist / idea to come along." The Humanthesizer consists of 34 pads on the floor which have been painted with the conductive ink and connected to a computer via some custom electronics created by the RCA's Matt Johnson. The performers stand on the pads, and touch each other on the hands or body to complete a circuit and trigger a sound. Harris, his hands painted with the ink, played the main keyboard line and effects by interacting with a row of eight girls. The rhythmic portions of the track were played by seven dancers performing a carefully choreographed routine. Clandillon explains how it all works in this video
----- Via CreativeReview
Posted by Patrick Keller
in Design
at
10:06
Defined tags for this entry: clips, design, design (interactions), design (motion), materials, ressources
Wednesday, July 29. 2009Association of Neuroesthetics- Association of Neuroesthetics qui regroupe scientifiques et artistes. Garder un oeil là-dessus car les neurosciences, qui décrivent le fonctionnement neuronnal de certains affects ou expériences, sont vraiment une discipline à suivre, y compris pour la perception spatiale (ou artistique). Avec ici la description de quelques projets intéressants. Related Links:Friday, July 24. 2009Real Time Carbon"Until now, anyone trying to understand the carbon impact of the electricity they use has only had a single static Government conversion factor. The factor - currently 527 grams CO2 per kWh of electricity - is updated only a few times a year. The standard figure is based on a number of assumptions about the mix of energy used to generate electricity - the "generation mix". It tells consumers nothing about the carbon intensity of electricity at a given time. Real Time Carbon wants to help energy users see the real-time carbon intensity of electricity so they can avoid consuming at times of high emissions. We look forward to a time when appliances, buildings and factories automatically manage demand according to the carbon being released. The project shows the important role web technologies can play to help people measure and reduce their carbon footprint" Good. Methodology a little iffy, as I understand it, but good anyway. ----- Via City of Sound Related Links:Friday, July 10. 2009Hadopi : Où s’arrêtera la surveillance ?Les agents assermentés de l’Hadopi pourront-ils accuser deux internautes pour avoir échangé, via mail, un fichier protégé par le droit d’auteur ? Et donc pourront-ils surveiller ce type d’échange ? La question est d’importance, et soulève les limites du contrôle et de la surveillance des communications sur Internet par la haute autorité administrative, ceci à la demande des ayants-droit. Lors de la publication du projet de loi relatif « à la protection pénale de la propriété littéraire et artistique sur Internet », on soulignait que l’article 3 prévoit de punir les infractions de contrefaçon commises « au moyen d’un service de communication au public en ligne ou de communications électroniques ». Or dans le Code des postes et communications électroniques, les « communications électroniques » sont décrites comme « les émissions, transmissions ou réceptions de signes, de signaux, d’écrits, d’images ou de sons, par voie électromagnétique ». En clair, cela peut concerner des échanges par mail, mais aussi par Skype ou MSN. Cette idée a déjà avancée par l’UMP Franck Riester dans le projet de loi Création et Internet. Mais, finalement Christine Albanel et Riester lui-même avaient donné un avis favorable aux amendements demandant sa suppression. Mais comme une mauvaise télénovela, la série Hadopi se répéte, l’idée est réapparue dans le nouveau texte adopté hier au Sénat. Et les sénateurs communistes de déposer un amendement, le 17, pour demander sa suppression, estimant que « cette disposition constitue une atteinte à la vie privée ». La sénatrice Brigitte Gonthier-Maurin (PC) a expliqué « que dans la mesure où les échanges de mails ont le statut de correspondance privée, comme la jurisprudence l’a établi, cet élargissement constitue une atteinte à la vie privée, atteinte interdite par l’article 9 du code civil français et l’article 12 de la Déclaration universelle des droits de l’homme de 1948 ». Le sénateur UMP Michel Thiollière, faisant référence à la loi Davdsi, a répondu que « dans sa décision du 27 juillet 2006, le Conseil constitutionnel a considéré qu’il ne pouvait y avoir de rupture d’égalité injustifiée entre les auteurs d’atteintes à la propriété intellectuelle selon que ces atteintes seraient commises au moyen d’un logiciel de pair à pair ou un autre moyen de communication en ligne. ». En clair, que selon cette décision il serait contraire au principe d’égalité qu’un échange via les réseaux p2p soit sanctionné par une (simple) contravention, alors que les autres supports relèveraient eux du délit de contrefaçon. Le débat reprendra d’ici dix jours à l’Assemblée nationale. Ce matin, le député UMP Lionel Tardy a en effet annoncé qu’il déposera un amendement visant à son tour à faire supprimer l’expression de « communication électronique ». L’exposé des motifs de l’amendement, rapporté par PC Inpact, explique : « Ce texte vise les violations du droit d’auteur opérées par le biais des services de communications électroniques, c’est-à-dire par la messagerie. Cela implique, pour les détecter, d’ouvrir des correspondances privées, ce qui serait assurément inconstitutionnel. » Face à Lionel Tardy, ce matin, sur BFM, le rapporteur Franck Riester a répliqué que le téléchargement illégal ne se pratiquant pas uniquement par p2p : « on doit regarder sur Internet toutes ces techniques-là ». ----- Via Libération Personal comment: Dans le cadre du projet Globale Surveillance, intéressant de suivre le feuilleton de l'élaboration de la loi Hadopi en France. Evidemment, il est difficile de "surveiller" sans atteindre aux libertés individuelles...
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fabric | rblgThis blog is the survey website of fabric | ch - studio for architecture, interaction and research. We curate and reblog articles, researches, writings, exhibitions and projects that we notice and find interesting during our everyday practice and readings. Most articles concern the intertwined fields of architecture, territory, art, interaction design, thinking and science. From time to time, we also publish documentation about our own work and research, immersed among these related resources and inspirations. This website is used by fabric | ch as archive, references and resources. It is shared with all those interested in the same topics as we are, in the hope that they will also find valuable references and content in it.
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