Touch Screen Pressure Sensitive
I was excited to see a post on Gizmo Watch about a pressure sensitive screen that Nissha is working on. Surprised to see that the decision in UI was to have the added pressure delve deeper into a folder. I’m wondering what other distinctions it might be used for.
Emphasis in writing? A “save” of “copy” action? Hoping Nissha builds in flexibility here…
Street Vendor Slush: Mumbai
All photos in this segment are taken by me during my travels… they are from Lonavala, Mumbai, Matheran, and Pondicherry in India. I’m fascinated by the many designs hawker’s carts utilize to perform only slightly different functions. Of course some carts are pieced together and are composed of whatever materials were available. This same entry is cross-posted on a topic specific blog,Street Vendors of India, a site which is dedicated to documenting Indian hawkers with a concentration on Mumbai.
Street Vendor Slush: Mexico City
The street vendors of Mexico city were the first to get me interested in vendors. I’d seen Francias Alys’s photographs and from there came to where I am today, doing what I am today- living in Mumbai documenting vendors. Here’s a few images pulled of Mexico City… I’ll post vendors of India next for comparison.
A note to the reader: I collect and compile images on topics I’m interested in. If I snatch your fancy copyright image and you don’t like it here send a note for removal or request I note the sources. Or best of all, make a copyleft notation to your image and make it more visible! I look for copyright notations! Thanks…
Dharavi Slum Tourist
After much hesitation, today I made a call and a friend and I set out to go on the Reality Tours “Dharavi Slum Tour”. For those of you who are unfamiliar with Dharavi, it’s one of the largest slums in Asia and it’s just a half hour ride from where I live in Mumbai, India. It’s spread out between railroad tracks in an area of about 1/2 square miles, with a population of about 1 million. That means: small space, lots of people.
The area itself is home to many industries and the place should be thought of as a extremely dense city rather that simply closely stacked homes (think even smaller living spaces than you thought before). Each year Dharavi generates around 650million USD while residents pay as little as 4USD per month in rent. Leaving you wondering where all the cash goes. I would love to hear a break down. Not all of the profits stay in Dharavi and it should be understood that while some businesses profit there, their owners may live elsewhere and simply take advantage of the low pay allotted workers and cheap land costs of Dharavi.
A few of the many industries we saw on the tour were plastics recycling, pottery working, cleaning of vegetable oil tins, dying of cloth and leather, and embroidery. In almost all of these conditions I found myself thinking… “Wow it the air in here is bad, wow this room is too small for this, and wow it must be crazy to work here everyday”. I couldn’t help but guess at the number of strange illnesses that come when you sit in a room all day with melting plastic or burning oil, but I for one got a head ache almost immediately and stepped out. The level of industrial work being done by hand was shocking and the work conditions in the heaviest industries seemed to promise their employees shortened life spans.
Other industries, such as pottery, offered more hospitable work environments. Walking through the section of Dharavi devoted to clay work was peaceful and the space was more open. Large pits in the ground held clay, and pots were piled up left and right. Here too though, smoking kilns burning something that seemed like cast offs of industrial work (scraps of wool and cloth) put a thick smoke in the air, and our guide told us that many people in the area suffered from respiratory problems.
Perhaps most amazing of all was the non-chalant endurance and acceptance of the people working in Dharavi. After just 2 and a half hours of walking through the cramped quarters I was ready for a shower, thirsty for clean water and longing for fresher air. People living there seemed genuinely happy in many cases, especially the children who responded to us trapseing through their territory by calling out greetings to us and running to see us pass by their windows like we were some kind of fantastic event.
The residents of Dharavi seemed clean, hard working, kind and curious. As in most tough environments people are simply trying to do the best they can with what they have and working to improve life for their children.
It was especially meaningful to visit Dharavi after having heard so much about it in the media, seen clips of it in Slum Dog Millionare, and after having met some of the people who are working there with NGOs. Indeed the architecture of the place is ramshackel and crazy clostrophobic at times, and of course the culture is Indian but on a more intense level. We ducked and wove through a residential space at one point where people sprawled out in 6′x6′ rooms with a little TV and you knew 5 people lived there. We passed by low hanging wiring that was tangled with cobwebs- we’d been warned to watch our heads as someone dies every 2-3 months because of dangerous electrical connections. I think I got my 400 rupees worth.
People praise Dharavi as a self-made city, and I’ve heard it described as “organic” and “intuitive” in terms of it’s overall layout. Perhaps “functional chaos” is a better way to think of it.
By any definition, it is certainly a unique location.
Global Warming in the media: 2009
Visualizing media concerns in 2009 show what’s hot and what’s not; besides the climate and talking about it. A direct clip and post from Treehugger.com:
The Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism is out with a new report on the media coverage–or should I say the lack of media coverage–of climate change and the environment in 2009. Turns out, that even as the science becomes more solid and temperatures continue to increase, there was less media coverage on climate and the environment this past year than the two previous years. Pew estimates that a paltry 1.5 percent of media stories were dedicated to global warming and the environment.
Technology for women: Stormy Weather?
I’m a fan of Popgadget, a site that aims to pick out tech for people in general and women in particular. Three things recently caught my eye on this site, two that have to do with weather (which I’ll go ahead and admit I am preoccupied with, genuinely) and one that’s concerned with eco-friendly fashion.
I’ll link w/ short summaries here for clarity:
Diamond Weather Station: A crystal-studed bedside weather monitor, that lets you know what’s going on with a blinging graphic before you even leave the comfort of your pillow.
Smart Umbrella: An umbrella that’s connected to remote weather monitoring and has a handle that flashes when you need to take it with you.
CO2 Runway Dress: A snazzy dress created by the Danish (who’s innovation I rarely get tired of) that monitors CO2 levels and lights up when levels are “high”. Unfortunately, there is seemingly no quantitative result from this, perhaps only maybe a laughable sparkling reminder to do something different, or ya gonna die. Al Gore would approve.
Several other gadgets and posts, one to monitor babies, one to help care for elderly adults, one commemorating the Hello Kitty, have me both loving and hating Popgadget at the same time. Inevitably the gadgets are attuned to the life of a caretaker, someone who’s got an inclination for pastels and pinks in particular, and someone who’s ready to drop $80-$140 USD to have the edge on the other tech heady ladies in the herd.
But I like some of these gadgets! And I can’t figure out how anyone would run a technology blog for women without acknowledging that stereotypes about women’s interests are based both on the reality of women’s roles and the traditions of women’s roles, each of which influence what get’s classified as “lady-like” and each of which can be troublesome to accept as is.
There’s no easy way to tackle this. I’ll keep watching Popgadget until the pink gags me or the care-taking wears me out.
Audio Notes:
I’ve been listening to the world around me a little bit closer lately. A few things stand out:
A bird sits and calls outside of my window at dawn and dusk. For months now I’ve been trying to get a good look at it and caught the best view just a few days ago. It’s a pigeon sized bird that’s black with white speckles. The beak and feet are light gray. I haven’t had any luck determining what it is yet, but it’s call and timing of call are so particular that I anticipate discovering it’s identity soon enough. The sound it makes is something like a sharp coo…actually it sort of sounds like a guinea pig!
Staying at a friend’s house, I experienced an apartment that gets only 2 1/2 hours of water total in a day. At 11:30 the toilets start to fill again and you can hear thumps of air in the pipes of the house. The water is on and running with half-hearted pressure for a short time, and then before you know, your pressure starts to drop and the water slows to a trickle. Here, if you are savvy to the situation you throw a bucket under the tap and catch the last of what’s there.
The strange audio of this experience is when the water is gone: there’s a eerie howl as the pipes are all open and you hear air rushing through them. I’m not sure what to compare the sound to… it sort of sounds like the howl you hear when wind pulls at the cracks in a window during a storm. That’s the sound of no water!
Last but not least, is the sound of vendors whose wears are sold on the go. From time to time a flute vendor passes by my house and reed pipe notes drift up from the street. Every day without fail I hear the calls of wheel barrow workers who will haul away junk for a small fee if you bring it down to them. One of these wheel barrow fellows sounds like a high-pitched cow. Another is saying a word I can’t quiet make out, and another just bellows very melodically. The later has the best voice of the three and I’ve had to get clever about peaking out of the window to watch them go by…they are hyper aware of movement on the street (as it may mean business for them) and if I rush to the window and throw it open they usually notice and stop, which is admirable as I am 5 stories up on a busy avenue.
Mumbai Air Quality: lacking
When I first rolled into Mumbai I was immediately aware this wasn’t the best air in the world. When you can see the density of the air at a 50ft distance you know something is up. Besides the daily traffic jams that pile up at least 4 times a day outside my window, many of the roads are covered in dust and muck that’s kicked up easily, with no rain to wash things away or knock things out of the air once they’re in it. If I stay in, I dramatically notice I feel better– more normal in the sort of breath I can take and generally more energetic, which I’m supposing is because I’m just not breathing in so much junk. But I digress… Can’t just complain about the matter and not take action. I went and bought $15 worth of air cleaning plants.
Here’s a list of goof air filtering plants from NASA… ( I know I’m not sure why NASA was studying theses plants, but I can’t say I mind ).
1. Philodendron scandens `oxycardium’, heartleaf philodendron
2. Philodendron domesticum, elephant ear philodendron
3. Dracaena fragrans `Massangeana’, cornstalk dracaena
4. Hedera helix, English ivy
5. Chlorophytum comosum, spider plant
6. Dracaena deremensis `Janet Craig’, Janet Craig dracaena
7. Dracaena deremensis `Warneckii’, Warneck dracaena
8. Ficus benjamina, weeping fig
9. Epipiremnum aureum, golden pothos
10. Spathiphyllum `Mauna Loa’, peace lily
11. Philodendron selloum, selloum philodendron
12. Aglaonema modestum, Chinese evergreen
13. Chamaedorea sefritzii, bamboo or reed palm
14. Sansevieria trifasciata, snake plant
15. Dracaena marginata , red-edged dracaena
For an average home of under 2,000 square feet, the study recommends using at least fifteen samples of a good variety of these common houseplants to help improve air quality. They also recommend that the plants be grown in six inch containers or larger.
More than happy with Senuti
My computer crashed and I was looking for a quick way to take music from my iPhone to iTunes. There are quite a few places out there trying to sell you something that can do this. Senuti offers a free trial and was quick and easy to understand. This is the sort of software generation that is worth donating to!
Check out Senuti here.
