There is something indescribably appealing about rooms filled with books, walls lined with well-organized shelves. Many book lovers dream of having such a space themselves, although not everyone has the space (or the desire) to have a dedicated library room in their dwellings.
The Architecture of the Comic Book City
In the opening of issue #2 of the Daredevil re-launch, you’ll find the Man Without Fear perched beneath the iron undercarriage of a fully realized replication of the High Line Park, complete with “10th Avenue Square” viewing platform, antiquated iron filigree, and passing traffic below. Resting on a authentically rendered steel column, our hero listens in on a conversation between two men above. The following image exchanges viewpoints, establishing a wide shot with the park’s infamous benches, concrete planks, and “wild” flora on full display. The interlocutors now appear at eye level; beneath them, Daredevil calmly (read: creepily) waits in anticipation. The scene is set.
To younger audiences not native to New York City, the images may appear as a fanciful construct, an amalgam of familiar park elements, bridge-like infrastructure, and urban scenarios, held together by considerable amounts of imagination. This is an introduction to architecture, not only to its more palpable aspects of scale and material, but, more importantly, to its narrative and theatrical capacities. These scenes unfold on the psychological terrain of collective urban experience, manifested by dark, empty public squares, brooding towers, schizophrenic glass office blocks, and derelict religious structures. In the case of Daredevil, and all others, the superhero maintains an asymmetric relationship with the built environment, on which his existence rests. Simply put, the city doesn’t need its superheroes as much as they need it.
via Architizer Blog » The Architecture of the Comic Book City.
Les Cités obscures
Les Cités obscures (literally The Obscure Cities, but published in English as Cities of the Fantastic) is a graphic novel series set on a Counter-Earth, started by the Belgian comics artist François Schuiten and his friend, writer Benoît Peeters in the early 1980s. In this fictional world, humans live in independent city-states, each of which has developed a distinct civilization, each characterized by a distinctive architectural style.
✌ Reading – Share what youre reading. Not what you like. Not what you find interesting. Just what youre reading.
Share what youre reading. Not what you like. Not what you find interesting. Just what youre reading.
Back to Basics
For too long I’ve felt the pull of the earth drawing me back. The land is calling to me. It smells of plain-text, ftp and baked HTML. It is self-hosted and self-publishing. The tools I use to publish are simple: Emacs, Perl, Markdown – just enough Lisp and Perl to get by. Where I’m going there are no badges, widgets or ‘like’ buttons. No promoted tweets or banner ads. Only words and pictures and links. Back to basics.
via Back to Basics.
The Value of Visualization
The digital rights quagmire
In traditional print rights, the so-called “first sale doctrine” (also known as the exhaustion doctrine) means that once a lawfully made copy of a work has been distributed by the rights owner, the owner of that copy is able to sell, lend or otherwise give away this copy without further permission from the original rights owner. This means that no brick-and-mortar bookstore or public library ever needed any license agreements with any publishers to sell or lend books.
Princeton goes open access
Prestigious US academic institution Princeton University will prevent researchers from giving the copyright of scholarly articles to journal publishers, except in certain cases where a waiver may be granted.
The new rule is part of an Open Access policy aimed at broadening the reach of their scholarly work and encouraging publishers to adjust standard contracts that commonly require exclusive copyright as a condition of publication.
via Princeton goes open access to stop staff handing all copyright to journals – unless waiver granted.
Smart cities get their own operating system
The Setup / Geof Morris
All of this stuff is useless if we don’t share our stories with each other and explore what’s out there.