viewmaster

I think the world is small sometimes. Before I made the grueling decision to leave Brussels I was looking for a room in the city center. I ended up inquiring with a woman but not taking it obviously. Anyway, we kept in touch a bit and I ended up hearing about a performance that she'd created last year, called "viewmaster." The concept is interesting because it's based off of an old style optical illusion called "pepper's ghost" where lighting effects create multiple reflections in a glass viewing window (one person is actually there and the others are out of sight of the audience.) This is a clip of the performance.

the weather is getting to me

exploding dog

reflections of modern society

get someecards

bad bad bad

Here is a fabulous example of amazing furniture laid out for an interview. I would *hate* to sit here and try to feel comfortable in a social setting, not to mention how weird it would be to enjoy the sofa on its own with 2 empty seats staring at you.

I want to sit on you

I don't like anything about this decor, but that sofa is pretty hot.

it's about questioning yourself

When I started this blog, it was just my 4th attempt, and moving from Belgium back to NYC to embark upon a new and exciting life seemed like a good time. Up until December of 2008, my posts were just as random as my ideas. Now that I'm making an effort to post more, I have to question with frequency, should the topics be more consistent? I go through phases when it comes to the sorts if ideals that I want to share, and they range from personal, to political, to DIY, to art... the result is that there's nothing streamlined about this blog. Sometimes I question the direction that I've taken by posting something out of sync (creepy pope, for example) and I wonder how that reads to people who look at this. I'm then left questioning if I shouldn't think about my audience and focus my posts on one idea or topic, or should I just post a mess of different topics? I could say, well this blog is for me so who cares. On the other hand, if it was just for me then I could write and save files on my hard drive rather than putting them up on the Internet. So is this blog for me or for you and if it's for you, what do you want? (I write this as if I'm famous even though I rarely ever break 20 views per day)

the pope is creepy looking

In a country where sex ed is not compulsory and many aren't even able to get a proper education, where rape and abuse of young women is all too common, and the plight of these victims with a condition known as a "fistula" is still swept under the rug.. and where the epidemic of the AIDS virus that is wreaking havoc on Africa's people... I find it difficult to understand how the Pope can say that distribution of condoms is not the answer, or even a contributing factor that could help improve the situation.

Instead he predictably calls for abstinence.

Life would be a lot easier if with the virtuous belief in god that one may be able to abstain from rape, incest, murder, and whatever terribly disgusting behavior people have been known to engage in, however, just last week I read an article how the number of cases being brought against the church for molesting children has skyrocketed.

How can the Pope sit there and preach that religion is the answer in Africa, when the people who stand inside the church that represent him and the entire belief system of Christianity are guilty of such abominable behavior themselves? This self righteous ideal that spreading the word of god will cure the world despite seeing before your eyes that life is a lot more complicated than that saddens me... with archaic ideals like this preventing even the notion of responsible sexual behavior, I believe people will continue to suffer and their situation will not change. People aren't going to stop procreating, however, if they are offered the education and resources to prevent unwanted pregnancy and disease, something valuable is offered and this knowledge can be passed on to the younger generation. Abstinence is black and white and life is not but education and self value is essential.

real simple

Both of these images are from different spaces, however, I like the way they relate to each other. They bring me to think about traditional clay building techniques, where construction is entirely from the earth so that the shelves are part of the home, the seating is part of the home, everything is built as one. Here, obviously in a contemporary fashion, these ideas are put into place. I love the giant concrete slab floors that seamlessly become the walls and the table. There's some sort of romantic quality to them... for some reason they make me want to visit the Greek Isles.

yes, please

Being a huge fan of sunlight, this shower looks more than inviting. I bet it's gorgeous at night too!

creatures of Rotterdam

just curious

Where is the best place to host images online? I have some reservations of course: 1. finding out that all of my images are available to these crazy people stalking websites that I posted about a few days ago 2. people downloading my images

I like the way Flickr seems to offer some privacy options. I've found a lot of images on Flickr that won't allow me to right click and "save as"... which is what I want. I know that won't stop someone from taking a screen shot and getting it, but if you're willing to do all that to get my pictures, then you deserve them.

So I opened a Flickr account, trying to be as covert as possible now that I'm officially paranoid about everything that I do online. I'm not sure that I want to move forward and upload any more. I don't mind if strangers can see my photos, I just don't want public searches for me linking to them, and I don't want people taking them.

Any thoughts? Is Flickr the best option?

"to pine" is to yearn deeply and suffer with longing

This pretty little lady was built almost 100 years ago! She's 110 square meters, including 3 bedrooms, 2 balconies, and 3 fireplaces with hookups for wood stoves. With a tram stop at the front door, she's also biking distance to Amsterdam, and is just north of Rembrandt Park. At 249,000 (400/mo.) what I would do to live here and fix this place up. *sigh*

good dreams

Can you learn a lot about a person by how they decorate their home? I've created my ideal space here...

good to know

Last night, I found out about a website called "Delver" (and a handful of others that I'll go over as well) which seeks to "take social networking to a new level" by changing the way your search results are gathered.

What does this mean to you? Well, let me explain:

A typical search engine crawls the Web by following links to URLs found in other pages. By contrast, theses sites are using the "Deep Web", which is made up of pages that no other pages link to. Dynamic pages are a good example. When someone searches for you by name, email address, or telephone number, a host in relevant information will turn up.

I typed in my own name and found photos from my public MySpace page, a link to my MySpace page, my friends, my videos, my Picassa images, and even my Stumble account bookmarks. Even worse, the site features non-current data which appeared on my profile over a year ago, including photos which have been deleted long ago.

You don't need an account to view the information, however, the site lures you in by allowing you to sign up to "claim" your account (so again, giving even more information). This allows you to decide how you want that information to appear to others, but the catch here is that there is no way for you to opt to make this profile private so I'm not really sure why it's worth it take ownership over the "profile" so that you can add to it but not have complete control over it. (check out this article on Delver at Tech Crunch for a clearer explanation on how this works.)

A Laptopmag review says, "When we first used Delver, we felt a bit creeped out: you can’t use the search engine without first creating a profile. When we typed in our real name, Delver, by default, used our LinkedIn profile to gather basic information on us (such as previous jobs and geographic location). You can also add your profiles from a variety of other popular sites, including Blogger, Facebook, Flickr, and MySpace, among others. For privacy’s sake, you can change your display name to an alias".

Prepare for this: it doesn't end with Delver (I was silly to think that it would)

Wink "provides search results on people from social networks like MySpace, LinkedIn and Bebo. Users search based on name, geography and other criteria (company, school, whatever) and see results from major social networks."

Spock beta indexes the entire web to search for people-related data. "Spock will generate a lot of controversy because individuals are not in complete control of their profile. The community decides on descriptive tags for a person." "Litigation is sure to follow from celebrity types not happy with their Spock profile, but Singh said flat out tonight that the site will firmly fight any attempts to defy the community’s decisions on
descriptive tags."

And then there's pipl. Tech Crunch posted this article, aptly titled, "Pipl.com: People Search Engine So Good, It Will Scare Your Pants Off" "It produces not only links to all of your profiles on social networks like Facebook, MySpace, and LinkedIn, blog mentions, and photos on Flickr. It finds mentions of your name in public records, including property records, SEC filings, and birth databases. It also finds e-mail addresses and summarizes “quick facts” about the person." (UH... NOT COOL WITH THIS)

Give it a try. See what shows up. How do you feel about it? I felt violated only to realize that every time I open an account online, by agreeing to the terms of service, I'm saying that it's okay for the public to see my information. I hadn't thought that someone would develop websites like these to corral ALL of those pages and put them in one place for someone to view. What this means to me, is that if I'm looking for a job, a potential employer could not only look for me on Linkedin for my professional information, but they can see things that I don't think should be part of the job screening process. If you enjoy watching Youtube videos or if you have a Flickr account, those will show up too. So, be aware that if you post images of you drinking with your friends or posing in a sexy photo on vacation, your potential employer can see it. It also means that a routine email to a stranger/associate/family member suddenly opens up your entire life to them, should they choose to visit these sites.

The thing is that we knew all of this when you opened your online accounts! They're public! So, there's not really anything that we can do about it... except maybe making sure that they are all set to private, and that you use different email accounts and aliases when opening new ones in the future.

sleeper

I'm going to be 32 in May, and I'm beginning to seriously question my abilities to organize myself effectively so that my workload is more spread out, rather than in 10 hour blocks of time. It's a crazy habit that I developed when I was younger. I'd begin a drawing and I just wouldn't stop for hours. Finally I'd sit up and realize that I'd been in another world, and that my shoulder was locked in position because I'd been leaning on it for the entire time.

I guess I've always thought that sort of behavior was just innate.

Right now, I am totally exhausted. The past 2 weeks have been slightly hellish in a good way, but the kind of way that makes you feel like stopping and doing absolutely nothing is not an option, but it's something you want to do so badly.

It's 3 am, and arguably, I could stay awake for at least another 3 hours to get this assignment done, but I can't think anymore, my eyes hurt, my back is sore, and I want my pajamas and my bed.

nite nite

take on me?

Take on Me: Literal Video Version - watch more funny videos

it all starts here folks

no joke

"We had to remove an image (or images) from your account because they violated our Terms of Use. Our site is for people as young as 13, so we can't have certain kinds of pics (nude/sexually explicit, violence). If you continue to violate our Terms, we may be forced to remove your account.

If you find an image which you feel is in violation of our Terms, please feel free to use the 'report image' link below the image.

Thanks for your understanding.

MySpace Safety & Security"

my work

...uh, no MySpace, I don't understand,not when my images were in a "friends only" album, and this is a girl's public profile image

here

the answer is: to be

Naked. You may have read my original post about sauna culture where I mentioned that I would eventually be going with a friend of mine. Well yesterday was the day, and during the week leading up to the event I definitely felt some degree of anxiety, although the fact that my friend and I had planned on making our trip on "ladies day" kept it to a minimum.

From start to finish, our day was relaxing. We took our time and walked from Amsterdam station through the center of the city and then through Vondelpark. We had more than agreeable weather, flowers were sprouting, and I was able to take in the architecture overload that is Amsterdam... good stuff. At the end of the park is Sauna Fenomeen.. a little hippy-esque type place which you may not even notice if not for the herbal smells wafting to the street (oh and the crazy painted walls.)

When we entered, the first thing I noticed was the smell of eucalyptus and the sounds of Buddha Bar. We checked in and went to the locker area, stripped down, and headed for the shower. I had to leave my towel at the entrance, and I was uncomfortably aware of my bare behind facing the common area.. but I got over it quickly. Over the next couple of hours, we did a circuit of 1. sauna, 2. outside in the garden to cool off, 3. shower/rinse, and repeat. We did that 3 times before lunch. The final step was the Turkish sauna, which is a super steamy room (and the source of the eucalyptus) where you immediately sweat like crazy and your nose opens up from the medicinal smells. I think I could have hung out in the steam room all day, it felt so comforting and invigorating at the same time. This winter, with all of the dry heat indoors, my skin has been so dry, but afterwards my skin was noticeably silky and moisturized...

Overall, the experience felt wonderful and I want to go more often. It was extremely relaxing, I was doing something nice for my body, and although I had my towel on for the most part I feel like I conquered a fear, and that's always a good thing.

I'm definitely not interested in going to visit the sauna when there are both men and women together. There was something special about the all female environment. There was a grandma with her daughter and her grand daughter... Turkish ladies covering themselves with mud, women relaxing in silence or chatting away with friends sipping mint tea.

I give the day 5 stars. I got loads of exercise while walking, girly energy, yummy Indian snacks, architecture craziness, even more love for Amsterdam, flowers, and public nudity, oh, and I got home and passed out cold by 10:30 and didn't wake up until this morning. yaaay!

Wilbur

Supermarket

I found this website called Supermarket. I want to say straight away, that there is a lot of crazy cool stuff to be found here. My impression here is that this is a step up from Etsy, where the offerings are from start up companies, and the products range from home decor, accessories, jewelry, and apparel. Supermarket is the debut project by Brooklyn based development company Supercorp.

Here are a few things that I think you should buy (if you're a girl.. or you like to dress like one):

The Market Bag - Moop

Neck Lush

grey wool hat by Claudia Shulz

Aside from that, check out my favorite shop, by a company called Little Houses. I'm a sucker for these styles with their high over sized neck lines and the little extras that make them stand out, such as off center buttons, feminine detailing, and unique cut.

Interested in Supermarket? Check out Superblog

thought of the day

Did you ever notice how when you wake up early and go to the library in town to have peace and quiet to do some reading for school and homework, that a family with a loud child who climbs all over the floor and furniture decides that despite the fact that there are 8 other free tables, the one directly next to you looks the most appealing?

c'est ma vie