daily stream
July 31, 2010
A little experiment on typography. I started with a rough “handwriting” with my mouse and perfected curvatures one by one to achieve a nice balance of thin and thick strokes, and also a bit of flair.
July 30, 2010
Those living and working abroad are, in a sense, “trapped”. They went abroad sometimes because they had no choice. I’m happy and lucky to be working in the city where I was born, but working on a global scale. It’s better this way, for me.
July 30, 2010
Life at Large, Today
It’s funny how people arrange priorities in their life. But that’s not anyone’s problem but the person himself. For instance, don’t you think people overrate the importance of electronic gadgets in their life?
I was once a gadget addict in the past, then receded during my college years, I think it was because I was more in touch with my studies. Maybe I’m slowly becoming another addict these days, particularly because I am now earning my own salary, and extra budget will usually go to… either gadgets, or travels.
I found a pattern.
When I am more in touch with what I do everyday, I will less worried and less focused on the tools I’m using. I am more focused into the tasks and missions at hand. It’s easy to focus on what’s lacking as your tools (and justifying purchases) when you are not really in touch with what you do. “In touch”, meaning, you really enjoy what you do, or are so busy fine-tuning yourself to challenges. And as far as I can remember, I didn’t enjoy schools very much, as much as I don’t get the same dynamics in my daily job like I found in my studies.
The key is, it is easy to “blame” your tools and environment when your obligations and interests are not aligned too well. Then, you seek for new tools, and new environments. New tools? More purchases of digital devices, or other tools like how comfortable your chairs are. New environments? Justifications for world travels, nitpicking over where you live and how you live.
It’s not that I don’t regard orchestrating your work environment, setting and other supporting elements as something that shouldn’t be done, it’s just you focus on life’s greatest perks when you’re out of tune to what you do on a daily basis.
July 30, 2010
Part four of Irwan Ahmett and Tita Salina’s Urban Play. Ahmett and Salina are husband and wife graphic designers in Jakarta. In an eight-part series on creative & playful experiment, they are utilising Jakarta’s urban environment and elements as playgrounds. This part puts a healthy criticism on Jakarta’s unfinished monorail project (the project was suspended for lack of funding, among other things, and the towers erected for this project have been sadly abandoned). Ahmett and Salina gathered enough people to do a mimicry of a real monorail, only slightly above ground.
Check it out!
(via dgi)
July 26, 2010
5th TEDxJakarta
We went to TEDxJakarta last day, and it was a lot of fun, as always. We’ve been to three TEDxJakarta events before, only missing out two out of five. We are (or perhaps most likely I am) addicted to it. Always a fun afternoon with inspiring talks and meeting great new friends. Many friends that I know on Twitter are normally present.
Last day’s event was held in Pusat Perfilman Usmar Ismail (Usmar Ismail Film Centre), a building nested in Jl. HR. Rasuna Said, a business district in Jakarta. I can say it’s the best venue so far, with a stage that resembles very much with the original TED held in Long Beach, CA.
Who spoke during the event? Six brilliant mix of creatives, scientist and public figures. Irwan Ahmett (graphic designer, on his project on urban playground), Irfan Amalee (on his project on peace education for youth), Dr. Nurul Taufiqu Rohman (on his nanotechnology research and advocation), Barry Likumahuwa (on jazz and following our heartbeats), Ade Rai (on, what you can expect, healthy lifestyle and its contribution to Indonesian society and economy) and Ridwan Kamil (on creativity and passion).
All of the speakers and videos talked along the lines of one proposition: human well-being and happiness.
Some particular interests the opening and closing presentations by Irwan Ahmett and Ridwan Kamil. Irwan is a pretty well-known graphic designer in Indonesia and he had a very popular project called “Change Yourself”, a visual campaign running sporadically from 2004 to 2007. It consisted of visual applications that consisted of snippets of messages, calling people for small, gratuitous yet genuine actions like “adopt a pet”, “hug your mother”, or “take a bike to work”. But it’s not really what his presentation was about. He focused on urban play - something to make the people of Jakarta happier by utilising their urban landscapes and elements as a playground. Wicked examples were actually executed and recorded on video, like how can you actually turn a routine, busy and boring market into instant display of wit?
They are mundane, simple but otherwise unnoticeable or unthinkable, yet Irwan has the magic to turn interests to these rather ordinary objects. His notion is to “take things less seriously” and harness human’s notion to play to deliver messages that otherwise couldn’t be delivered effectively in ordinary, jaded ways.
The other end was the infamous Ridwan Kamil, an architect with strong advocation in environmental issues and “green” architecture. His presentation emphasised in his own development as an architect. In his case, his works have been about structuring human living spaces so that we can all live saner in this already insane world. He taught us to appreciate the place we are living in and try to make it a better place. But more than that, he asked everyone in Indonesia to utilise our creativity to help ourselves and not wait for some other’s help. Creativity is our asset.
Several original TED videos coherent about the importance of positive emotional relationship and attitudes towards living happier lives, were also shown in the beginning and in between live talks.
July 21, 2010
Celebrating Sydney International Food Festival, flags of participating countries were re-created using the most popular food materials from the respective region.
(via wildammo)
July 21, 2010
Men who spent more than 23 hours a week watching TV and sitting in their cars (as passengers or as drivers) had a 64 percent greater chance of dying from heart disease than those who sat for 11 hours a week or less.
July 15, 2010
Talking Carl iPhone/iPod Touch app: “Carl repeats everything you say with the funniest voice. Carl is the funniest character that ever lived in your pocket! Tickle him, he will laugh out loud. Poke him and he will shout and yell. And pinch him to hear it growling”.
The video shows what would happen if you pair two iPhones with the apps installed.
(via kottke)
July 15, 2010
A lovely afternoon in Kedai Tiga Nyonya, Jl. Wahid Hasyim, Jakarta. Vintage interior pieces, serene setting set the melancholic mood of that day, accompanied by exotic desserts like Es Tiga Nyonya (a bowl of siwalan, basil seeds, dried salty mango slices, grass jelly, nata de coco, syrup and mixed with ice) and Es Puan Melaka (banana, coconut slices, jackfruit slices, sticky rice, rice pudding blocks, palm sugar and coconut milk, again mixed with abundance of ice).
