This is an visually stunning site featuring a gallery exhibition at MoMa entitled Design and the Elastic Mind:

Design and the Elastic Mind explores the reciprocal relationship between science and design in the contemporary world by bringing together design objects and concepts that marry the most advanced scientific research with attentive consideration of human limitations, habits, and aspirations. The exhibition highlights designers’ ability to grasp momentous changes in technology, science, and history—changes that demand or reflect major adjustments in human behavior—and translate them into objects that people can actually understand and use.

You can easily spend hours here, as I’m sure you could at the actual Museum of Modern Art in New York. But since I’m oceans away, I have to live vicariously through their website and behold the genuis of these designers in the form of a flash interface.  (I recommend watching the mesmerizing Electric Sheep video–I’d like the see Windows come up with a screen saver so moving.)

If you’re lucky enough to be in the area, be sure to check out the exhibition, which runs until May 12, 2008.  (And tell me about it!!)

- If Only My 5th Grade Teacher Was This Cool
- Font Conference
- Design: Chocolate Themed Nintendo DS Cases
- Art: 'skine.art
- Art: Korin Faught's Twenty Two Exhibition

A few months ago something caused my Google Reader to load improperly in my Firefox browser. I tried re-installing Firefox, playing around with the styles of the Reader, but to no avail. I had to turn to Safari in order to get my news. But no more! Enter NetNewsWire, an application you can download for your Mac (or Windows-based PC).

My thoughts: The program is lightweight and very powerful. Within minutes, I had already imported my subscriptions and organized them. You can flag entries in the same way you can star them with Google, although (as far as I can tell) there is no button you can click. You can open the feeds in different tabs if you want to view the original item. Space bar scroll down in the article, while the down arrow scrolls through the headlines. The left and right arrow navigates between sites.

So far everything seems good. I feel bad abandoning my beloved Google Reader, but I got tired of navigating between two different browsers. The interface is simple and clean and has a variety of viewing options. I know I have barely begun to tap into all the things this program can do for me, but giving me an easy way to read my news is more than enough for now.

- If Only My 5th Grade Teacher Was This Cool
- Font Conference
- Design: Chocolate Themed Nintendo DS Cases
- Fashion: Manga T-Shirts at Uniqlo for Men
- Disney to Work with Japanese Animation Companies Madhouse, Jinni's Animation

Even though I have spent a great deal of my life bopping back and forth between America and Japan, I had never gone past paperback dictionaries to help me in tough conversations. Little did I know that electronic dictionaries existed! Until I discovered their existence at the beginning of fall semester, I was looking things up like a sucker. With an electronic dictionary, I just type the words in and get the definitions by magic.

Unfortunately it is hard to obtain one of these in the states–I heard they only sell them in Asian markets/towns, so they are hard to come by. But for anybody who is in the market, one equaling to about $200~$250 will get you a really decent model, that will most likely include a touch pad plus speaking capability. (Mine is a Casio ExWord brand.) They also come with little ear buds and a cable so that you can download dictionaries from online. For those learning another language, I highly suggest checking into see if there is an electronic dictionary for your language.

(For those who are interested in Japanese but don’t want to shell out that much money, consider purchasing a game for your DS that will help you learn kanji. It is not as comprehensive but it will help your writing and recognition abilities, and there are a ton of games out there for it.)

- Design: Chocolate Themed Nintendo DS Cases
- Design: Design and the Elastic Mind
- Shout Out: How to Buy Video Games
- Technology: NetNewsWire Desktop RSS Reader
- Design: Wii Fit

An avid Gmail user, I have converted many a friend and family member to this free, magical online service with integrated chat function so my dad can badger me about nothing in particular whenever he sees my name light up.

One of my favorite mags, Wired, has a little how-to on how to get the most out of Gmail.  Some of it has been done to death (labels, filters), but I certainly did not know about this little diddy:

The ‘+’ symbol can be added after your user name and before the ‘@’ symbol in a gmail address. Effectively you can have an unlimited number of gmail accounts by suffixing a word after the ‘+’. Example: If your e-mail address is bob@gmail.com you could use the address bob+wired@gmail .com when signing up for the wired news letter and then simply setup a filter for any mail sent to bob+wired@gmail.com. This feature is very handy for figuring out where spammers got your address from.

Ohh Gmail.  You do so much and ask for naught in return.

- Learn a Language Faster By Slowing Down
- Using Bilingual Dictionaries
- Learning a Foreign Language for Beginners pt. 3: Main Resources
- How To: Use Chopsticks
- Learn Foreign Languages with Free Online Courses

I am excited because Macworld has an article on some streaming television resources you can find online. I imagine the sources are PC-friendly as well since a lot of the programs are playable in Media Player. I haven’t tested it out yet–probably will give it a go this weekend when I have free time. Has anyone tried this yet? I am hoping it will provide some entertainment to this TV-less, stereo-less, slow-internet-connected room.

- Design: Design and the Elastic Mind
- Technology: NetNewsWire Desktop RSS Reader
- Technology: Electronic Dictionary

If you use your computer a lot, you should treat it as you would a home: clean it, organize it, give it a good pat on the back some days.

If you use your computer without regular cleanings, scans, and getting rid of files you don’t use, your computer is going to be sad and build up all this junk and bite you in the ass with it next time you forget its birthday. It will slow down, crash, or give you constant errors.

Even if you DO clean your computer regularly, what about aesthetics? Do you have an awesome background wallpaper or is it cluttered with icons? What of widgets?

Some tips:
- Get rid of desktop clutter. Do you really need the icons for every program on your computer? Keep it minimal to only the programs you’re going to use. Or just delete them all and save your computer the trouble of loading them each time it starts up.
- Get rid of taskbar clutter. Just because it’s tiny or hidden doesn’t mean it’s any less of a burden on your computer. Again, keep only the essentials–often times programs that you’ve installed will, by default, install a taskbar icon to ensure branding.
- Get organized. Folders are free: create them and use them! There’s nothing more satisfying than knowing where everything is when you need it. If you use torrent clients such utorrent, often they will have an option where you can choose what folder to download files into. Take advantage of it.
- Clear cache, history, and cookies. This will also slow down your computer over time because it downloads a version of everything you see online for loading faster in the future. It’s also a good security measure because it will erase any information you’ve saved on online forms, preventing other users from accessing private information.
- Set a schedule. A lot of maintenance programs come with options to automatically run and check for spyware and so on. Scheduling maintenance will make things easier for you in the long run.

Here are some resources to help your computer feel less sorry for itself–PC or Mac, choose whatever (free!) suggestions you think will help beautify your computing experience:

Maintence
- Spybot Search and Destroy
- AdAware SE
- Defrag Your Computer With JkDefrag GUI (Lifehacker)
- Top OS X Tips (Macworld)
Wallpapers, Icons, etc.
- San-X Free Wallpaper Downloads
- Pixiegirl
- The Octonauts
- Yahoo! Widgets

Feel free to suggest your own in the comments~

- Design: Design and the Elastic Mind
- Technology: NetNewsWire Desktop RSS Reader
- Technology: Electronic Dictionary

According to this article from the New York Times, there is a chance that we are merely living in someone else’s simulated fantasy:

Dr. Bostrom assumes that technological advances could produce a computer with more processing power than all the brains in the world, and that advanced humans, or “posthumans,” could run “ancestor simulations” of their evolutionary history by creating virtual worlds inhabited by virtual people with fully developed virtual nervous systems.

But don’t worry, kids! Life is still worth living! Your faith-inspired living styles just don’t have any validity anymore, that’s all.

You still have the desire to live as long as you can in this virtual world — and in any simulated afterlife that the designer of this world might bestow on you. Maybe that means following traditional moral principles, if you think the posthuman designer shares those morals and would reward you for being a good person.

So anyway, when do we get our trench coats and sunglasses?

- Do Women Learn Faster? Using Abstract Thinking To Learn a Language
- Does Language Change the Way We See Colors?
- Design: Design and the Elastic Mind
- Technology: NetNewsWire Desktop RSS Reader
- Technology: Electronic Dictionary

A while back I made a post on how to get mp3s off of your iPod for Windows.  Wired’s How To Wiki offers a tutorial on getting them for your Mac too!  It involves a little elbow grease, but it’s worth it to protect your sanity and mp3s.  Check out the instructions (which also include a Windows version) here.

- Learn a Language Faster By Slowing Down
- Using Bilingual Dictionaries
- Learning a Foreign Language for Beginners pt. 3: Main Resources
- How To: Use Chopsticks
- Learn Foreign Languages with Free Online Courses

Once in a while, my iPod will decide to play a joke on me.  It will work perfectly fine, only to freeze on occasion.  Holding down the menu button and the select button simultaneously will fix this.  However, yesterday my iPod decided it wanted to up the extremity by giving me a little picture, of itself, with a sad face.

I restarted it.

It booted!

…and then gave me the sad icon again.  It continued to restart itself and tell me in its own special way that it was sad.

I looked online, and found that this icon is actually quite infamous, and the cure for this is just as equally infamous, as it a.) channels the Fonz and b.) teaches your iPod who’s boss.

Now, slamming down a piece of expensive hardware is a hard concept to grasp.  Fortunately, my iPod was only a little bit of a bastard, and has not yet become a full-fedged non-functional asshole, and so I was able to make it work by charging directly into the wall.  The charge seemed to give it a little nudge that plugging it into the laptop could not provide.  But it’s good to know that giving your iPod a good smack might do the trick later on, when it decides it wants to be funny.

The moral of the story?  No matter how advanced technology will get, at least we know that hitting things will still be a legitimate form of troubleshooting.

- Learn a Language Faster By Slowing Down
- Using Bilingual Dictionaries
- Learning a Foreign Language for Beginners pt. 3: Main Resources
- How To: Use Chopsticks
- Learn Foreign Languages with Free Online Courses

A lot of jobs these days require you to know your WPM–the average amount of words you can type per minute. This nerdy but cool-looking flash game turns this into a game in which you can compete to see where you fall among the other players. See my score right–I think I averaged about 64 WPM. It’s a cool concept, but as you type, the letters fly away and hence are sort of a distraction when trying to type some of the more ridiculous words. It’s also randomized–I got “mediterraneousness” or something of the sort about three times. Give it a try if you’re nerdy or curious.

- Design: Design and the Elastic Mind
- Technology: NetNewsWire Desktop RSS Reader
- Technology: Electronic Dictionary