design ideas thought fodder

The 500-Year Building

Historic preservation is an ever-changing field. Twenty-some years ago, people in the field concerned themselves with trying to save as many “old” buildings as they could, “old” meaning primarily Victorian-era, with the goal being to bring these buildings (or, at the very least, their facades) back to how they were originally conceived. In many cases, that meant stripping off any modern skins that had been applied during the 1940s to 1970s, removing insensitive architectural features…

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ideas inspiration reading

Current Reading: Saving Capitalism

I follow economist Robert Reich on Facebook and appreciate the way he explains complicated financial topics. When he announced that his new book, “Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few”, was due to be released, I pre-ordered it from the library. When it arrived, I gobbled it up because Reich once again delivered complex subjects in his easy-to-understand style. The overall premise of the book, which should be obvious to anyone paying attention, is the…

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ideas inspiration olio

Olio – October 24, 2015

Olio: a miscellaneous collection of things So much fascinating stuff to see, read, hear, enjoy …. so little time. Passing along some of what I’ve found to you. The Unfair Truth About How Creative People Really Succeed – If you’re any kind of writer, artist, creative person, you need to read this, then you need to figure out how to build a network of support. Boredom is not a problem to be solved. It’s the last…

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ideas inspiration observations

iZombie and Not Following Instructions

Zombies and me, we have a thing. Last year I became supremely interested in zombies having had no prior interest in them before. (Heck, worse than no prior interest … I despised zombies because blood and gore. Yech!) What turned me into a zombie-lover? An idea. I wanted to use zombies to create a role-playing conference session to teach museum people about disaster planning. What better emergency can there be but the chaos caused by…

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ideas observations

Questions About the Microbiome

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about the microbiome … all the microorganisms that hang out in and around human beings, many of which don’t (necessarily) kill us. A number of articles about the microbiome have come to my attention recently, including this one that makes me think Charles Schultz’s character Pigpen was an accurate representation of human beings.  My sister-in-law shared this YouTube video, “Live Dirty, Eat Clean! Why The Microbiome Is The Future of…

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