Posts Tagged ‘John Dee’
Crowd(source)ing into a small spot…
When Canadian Graham Hill bought his 420-square-foot Soho apartment in New York City he saw it as a chance to prove that even a tiny apartment could be luxurious – luxury being defined as being able to hold everything he wants.
Founder of the website treehugger.com that tracks, among other things, developments in green design, Mr. Hill, a designer himself, espouses the joy of living with less and the necessity of doing it in as small a footprint as possible.
Mr. Hill, originally from Hudson, Quebec, threw down the design gauntlet on the Web and offered up to $70,000 (U.S.) in cash and prizes. Wanting to generate a public discussion, the competition to re-design his tenement apartment would be crowd-sourced,which means it would involve mass collaboration of ideas from everyone who registered online.
The criteria were specific. There had to be room for 12 people to have a sit-down dinner; for “a comfortable lounging option” for eight people; and room for two overnight guests with “some visual and, ideally, auditory privacy.” In addition, it had to include a home office, a work area with space for a rolling tool chest and a kitchen that could be hidden. Creating the illusion of spaciousness was critical, or, as Mr. Hill explained it: When “the room function is changed, it should not feel like you are sleeping in your office or eating in your bedroom”…
See the results in Mary Ambrose‘s story in The Globe and Mail.
As we ponder parsimony, we might we might recall that it was on this date in 1582 that Britain’s second-best-known magician, the necromancer Edward Kelley, first met the best-known– mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, occultist, navigator, and consultant to Queen Elizabeth I, John Dee.
While Dee’s most important legacy was his contributions to the development of modern science, Dee might also be remembered as the man who, while serving abroad as a spy for the Queen, signed his reports “007”… and was the inspiration Ian Fleming’s trade-naming of James Bond.
Dee and Kelley (source)
The pursuit of the hirsute…
From the doers…
…to the done…
… it’s all at The Hair Hall of Fame.
As we let it all go to our heads, we might wish a mystically happy birthday to mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, alchemist/occultist, navigator, and champion of English expansionism John Dee; he was born on this date in 1527. Widely regarded as the smartest man and/or most powerful magician in the Europe of his time, Dee was an intimate advisor to Queen Elizabeth I and her closest ministers. But Dee, a student of Copernicus and a friend of Tycho Brahe, was also a serious scholar (his library was the largest in England, perhaps in Europe) and one of the most learned men of his day– a central figure in the development of modern science… and underneath that cap, he had a killer head of hair.
I for one welcome our new computer overlords…
In the aftermath of Watson’s triumph over humanity’s best, your correspondent thought it wise to remind readers (and himself) that this is not the first time that we mortals have faced the onslaught of astounding new technology.
The good folks at Dark Roasted Blend have compiled a nifty through-the-ages recap of attempts to create “life” in new-fangled ways; from Leonardo’s “robot” and John Dee’s “flying beetle” to an “steam-powered hiker” and an “electric milk man” from Victorian England, there’s quite a selection in “Amazing Automatons: Ancient Robots & Victorian Androids.”
It’s all fascinating; but the sweet spot is surely the selection of creations from the 18th (and early 19th) centuries, when the then-highly-developed crafts of metal working and watchmaking were turned to automata. Consider, for example…
Jacques Vaucason created numerous working figures, including a flute player, which actually played the instrument, in 1738, plus this duck from 1739. The gilded copper bird could sit, stand, splash around in water, quack and even give the impression of eating food and digesting it.
Pierre Jaquet-Doz created three automata, The Writer, The Draughtsman and The Musician, which are still considered scientific marvels today. The Draughtsman is capable of producing four distinct pictures, while the Writer dips his pen in the ink and can write as many as forty letters. The Musician’s fingers actually play the organ and the figure ends her performance with a bow.
More, at Dark Roasted Blend.
As we remind ourselves to re-read Kevin Kelly’s excellent What Technology Wants and then to retake the Turing Test, we might stage a dramatic memorial dramatist and scenic innovator James Morrison Steele (“Steele”) MacKaye; he died on this date in 1894. He opened the Madison Square Theatre in 1879, where he created a huge elevator with two stages stacked one on top of the other so that elaborate furnishings could be changed quickly between scenes. MacKaye was the first to light a New York theatre– the Lyceum, which he founded in 1884– entirely by electricity. And he invented and installed overhead and indirect stage lighting, movable stage wagons, artificial ventilation, the disappearing orchestra pit, and folding seats. In all, MacKaye patented over a hundred inventions, mostly for the improvement of theatrical production and its experience.
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