Japan, The Strange Country

In a mere 12 minutes, this video about Japan covers everything from its strange cultural mores to its equally strange economy. Before you get hung up on the ugly caricatures of Japan people and exclaim racism, consider: The creator, Kenichi Tanaka, says, "By the way, please don't call me racist, because I am one of short, small eyes Japanese." Apparently, his motivation in creating the piece--which was his graduate thesis--was to show a Japanese audience how strange they are to foreigners. (This idea of "Foreign people think you're freaks"--with its implied blend of xenophobia and self-criticism--is a uniquely Japanese sentiment.)

Via Fast Company.

Global Day For HAITI

Global PechaKucha Day For Haiti is a charity event, with the aim to raise $1,000,000 for rebuilding Haiti.

It will take place on Saturday 20th of February from 6pm to 9pm at the Round Foundry Media Centre in Leeds. It's a global event with over 200 cities participating & each city is going to broadcast live around the world.

We have really great speakers, including Phil Khorassandjian (Architect, currently in Haiti - live link), Rommi Smith (Parliamentary Writer in Residence) & Simon Wallis (director of Hepworth Gallery, Wakefield). Other presenters include musicians, artists & architects.

Please try and come if live in Leeds or close by. Free entry, lots of beer & orange juice!

It's for a really good cause and 100% of the donations are going directly to Architecture For Humanity for construction work.

Havana Cultura

Brilliant site by Havana Cultura. Also follow the Treasure Hunt on Twitter.

Paper Scissor Stone

Paper Scissor Stone a shop and gallery here in Leeds just launched their new website. The shop is set up by clothing label Electronic Poet, graphic designer Si Scott and art curator Jules Balchin.

Barack Obama

Finally there. Change begins...

Behind the scenes with Family / Celebrations in Chicago

Design For Obama

I've mentioned Design For Obama before, but since then a lot of great new work has been submitted and it definitely deserves another look. It's amazing to see so much involvement and contribution by the design community to the Barack Obama campaign.

Vote For Hope

Heart Obama

Heart Obama is the creation of Brooklyn-based designer Mark A. Reigelman II and artist Angelo LaMarca who created a mural for the riverside residence of enthusiastic Barack Obama supporters Rafi and Liz Magnes.

Also have a look at Design For Obama.

Via Surfstation.

The Medal Count

The Olympic fever is taking over. Here is neat map of the Olympic Medals count produced by NY Times. My support goes to UK and Armenia.

Beijing 2008

Beautiful photographs from the opening ceremony of Beijing 2008 Olympics.

Space Collective

Space Collective, where forward thinking terrestrials exchange ideas and information about the state of the species, their planet and the universe, living the lives of science fiction today.

Green Yourself

As part of the Blog Action Day, below are tools, resources and inspiration to help you reduce your carbon footprint and minimise the impact on the environment.



Tools:
EnergyRace
Carbon Footprint
Vivavi’s Modern Green Living Home Directory

Resources:
Inhabitat
TreeHugger
Hugg
EcoStreet
Good Energy
Celsias

Inspiration:
White Design
SITE Architecture
Enertia

we sure did...

link.

Miss Teen USA 2007 Q&A

She's right, the education system in US needs some serious reforms.

Blog Action Day

Blog Action Day aims to unite bloggers around the world, to combine their power and put an important issue on everyone's mind. This year it’s the Environment. On October 15th every blogger will post about the topic in their own way, with an aim to get everyone talking for a better future.

The iseen blog is a proud participant of the event and will make a post on the aforementioned date and promote the cause.

Kwik-E-Mart's in town

Kwik-E-Mart has stepped into Burbank, CA and ten other locations accross North America, offering the all favourite Squishees, Buzz Cola and Krusty-Os cereal.

Lights Out London!

Sydney started it, and now London is getting into the act. The Lights Out London campaign is inviting londoners to turn off their lights for one hour, between 9p.m. and 10p.m. on the 21st of June (the Summer Solstice). If successful, this will become the largest climate change event ever recorded whose only request is to switch off.

All of UK should join in as well. My laptop will be off for a change.

Read more via Inhabitat.

Global Warmings

Global warming is happening, you like it or not, and it’s good to see that the president is concerned deeply about it, in a deep kind of concerned way.

Jokes aside, evidence exists that the White House has sought repeatedly "to mislead the public by injecting doubt into the science of global warming."

Also check out the Breathing Earth, where you can see people being born, and dying, in real time. Hover over each country to see it’s population and how much CO2 it generates nationally.

P.S. - it takes the U.S. only 5.4 seconds to generate 1000 tonnes of CO2.

A Closer Look At The iPhone

The much anticipated iPhone is out and here is closer look at it below. Demo by Apple's Phil Schiller

I want one...

I'm on Myspace. Damn!

Amid all the ugliness, randomness and flashing backgrounds that might give you a seizure, there’s something enticing in there that I can't explain. I tried to make mine as ugly as possible, but I had to give up as I just didn't have the skills.



Here is zefrank taking about ugly myspaces and I wouldn't recommend having a myspace page if you're going for a job interview.