Whip of the Week
Bird of the Timez
Film Financing Abroad

Film financing information for Belgium, Germany, France, Hungary, Iceland and Ireland via Knol
Alt. New Yorker Cover
Just in case those ninjas over at the New Yorker were trying to be more direct in their satirical portrayal of our nation’s leaders. Yeh, that’s Nixon framed above the mantle, and the consitution burning in the fireplace. Seems accurate to me…
::cartoon by Patrick O’Connor, for the Los Angeles Daily News, via::

It is no wonder that with such a huge potential market, the taste and needs of the Chinese consumer has encouraged many of the large international companies to look at the area of design to make their products more attractive. According to a report in BusinessWeek, Sony set up a design centre in Shanghai in August 2005 to help them understand the minds of the young Chinese consumer. It is a sign of growing importance of China that corporations are prepared to go to such lengths and create products especially for the Chinese. The results of this bold move will be seen early this year when a new range of Sony products will be launched in China.
Made in China, copied in China
It is however, the China firms who are giving the major impetus to the growth of the design business within their country. While many Western products are being manufactured in China, the design comes from talent based in firms located in San Francisco or London. The locally-created goods have been, up until now, poor imitations of Western products or unabashedly copies of popular electronic goods and even motorcars. General Motors are currently suing China’s Chery Automotive Co. They feel the Chery QQ compact is a compact of GM’s Chevrolet Spark. read the rest at idasia
McDonalds Vs. Iron Chef
Foto del dia 7.24
Back to baseball and philosophy part II. With quite a lot of approaches to competing in the diamond game, from the runner’s game, to the pitching and defense game, mechanics and such, I’ve decided that the team is the formula.
Some might say like the Devil Rays that there is no strategy to America’s ‘perfect game’ apart to solely winning Wall Street or like ((mp3)) says : it’s none of your business!
Aligning the stoics with the extremes of baseball seems to be easy for some. And again for others, who speculate on even if there is just philosophy to start off with, with the hardball versus softball debate. Where are the women?
Or that saying “all philosophies are taken” can also be seen as being quite selfish. Sharing is the name of the game, so how come I haven’t revealed any of my personal philosophies? I can’t, I won’t, I will, but not yet.
The rules of the game rule and the “hunches, guesswork, grittiness, gutsiness, the lore of the lunch-pail work ethic” paled against the traditionalists rests where I would start a few fore none philosophy. Next let’s attend the experience and environment conference.

To wonder about the base stealing factor or to focus on those clutch situational players…….?
….Enough of the whoopla, here is John Rawls’ end point philosophy from a letter that was found by the author of the article with the least amount of resistance:
“[Finally], there is the factor of time, the use of which is a central part of any game. Baseball shares with tennis the idea that time never runs out, as it does in basketball and football and soccer. This means that there is always time for the losing side to make a comeback.”

words by Phelton Skypes
iPhone 3(G’s!!)
We’re kicking off a new Wednesday feature here on Myninjaplease: Ninja Homes. Each week we’ll be bringing you coverage of some 9th dan level housing - so drop us an email if you know of a project that you think should be featured.
I first came across this project, the Torque House by Mass Studies, in the February issue of Dwell Magazine - who feature a full page image [the shot above] of the home as a ‘house [they] love’ - and I was compelled to find out more. Located in, Gyeonggi-do, Korea, the project is a three-story, 134-pyeong [I’ve learned from Mass Studies that 1 pyeong equals 3.3 square meters - cool to know] house for a family of four.

Deemed ‘irregular’ by the masterplan due to a curve in the nearby road, the site was programed to house a ‘linear’ building by the planners. This was used by Mass Studies as a basis for the home’s slightly curving volume - described as a building reacting to its surrounding environment - creating the ‘torque’.
As sharp stones are worn down by a flowing stream and transformed into pebbles, a rectangular building becomes torqued through the movement of curves.
Other site conditions - nearby houses, vehicular traffic, etc - were factors in creating the fairly large expanse of solid wall [seen below] on two sides of the house, while the building opens up on the others [particularly in the family space - kitchen + living areas], looking out to the surrounding landscape.

One of the most interesting aspects of the house is the ‘green’ wall treatment. For the Torque House, Mass Studies incorporated a ‘moss catch system‘ [basically a panelized wall system covered in moss] at the suggestion of a local landscaping designer, in the hopes of reducing the ’spartan’ quality of the large bare walls. Additionally, it serves to absorb noise from the street, further insulate the building, and is ‘green’ [does that whole photosynthesis thing]. Imported from Japan by the previously mentioned landscape company [whose name isn’t given by Mass Studies, oddly], the house is the first building to employ the system - a type of geotextile that has been used to improve the aesthetic quality of roadside retaining walls - in this way.
The product, manufactured by mixing two types of mosses that grow well on both south and north sides, was perfect for applying to this building, and currently sprouts of the mosses are gradually growing on its walls, making it a “synthetic mass” with multiple functions as part of the landscape in Heyri Art Valley.
The project combines working space for both husband and wife [a classical music recording engineer and painter, respectively] with the private living space needed by a small family. Both the atelier for the wife/artist, and the studio for the husband/recording engineer required a level of privacy that was achieved with the previously mentioned long, predominantly solid walls. On the interior, spaces are also separated by private vs public - situating the staircase to allow for visitors going up to the third floor recording studio without disturbing the family’s privacy.

Lastly, we’ve got what I thought was a pretty siiick staircase leading up to a roof terrace, playing on the ‘torque’ of the building. The bend in the concrete wall [image above] to form a ceiling over the stairs offers an interesting frame for a view of the sky while walking up the stairs - while the ‘window’ cut through this wall emphasizes the in-between quality of this space -not in, not out.

::Images + info from Mass Studies - photographers by Yong-Kwan Kim - originally posted on AMNP::
It’s not Monday right now, but it’s definitely time for a documentary. This one is about the so-called “Phoenix Lights.” Some of you may remember this fiasco, with literally hundreds of people around Phoenix reporting seeing some sort of huge mega-craft with flashing lights. At the time, the then governor held a press conference disclaiming and, basically, mocking the entire thing. Several years after his tenure we learned straight from the horse’s mouth that he was strongly encouraged by the powers that be to hold this conference.
Anyway, this is supposed to be a good documentary. Judge for yourself what happened. Continually, after the fact, we find that UFO sightings turn out to be government activities (or Nazi’s) that go unnoticed, save for by the shrewd few who happen to be looking at whatever part of the mostly deserted sky. Test pilots for new technologies are often seen laughing on the documentaries ten years later about how everybody freaked out they first time they saw a stealth bomber. On the other hand, as we’ve reported to you in the past, many fighter pilots and astronauts - directly from the glory days of American sky dominance - including Buzz Aldrin, the second man to walk on the moon, have reported seeing unexplained airborne… vehicles.
Baseball and Philosophy

Don Sutton used to tell me, ‘Every time you go out there, you’re going to be a different guy. So throughout the course of the year you can be between 30 and 35 people.’ via
Buildings in Motion








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