Creativity in everyday India

Creativity in everyday India

Creativity in everyday India is humble. It has a purpose, and remains invisible.

When a multinational bank decided to give Bombay Dyeing bedsheets to the homeless families that I volunteered with one Christmas, I was curious to see how people who slept in bus stops would use it. A few days later, I saw a toddler run around in a dress made out of a pillow cover.

In 2004 in Varanasi, an estimated 600,000 condoms were being utilized daily, the majority of which were distributed free of cost by the government. Family planning departments were busy congratulating themselves over the growing demand for condoms till it was discovered that Banarasi weavers were using it to lubricate the loom’s shuttle. The condom’s lubricant didn’t stain the silk threads yet increased the pace of production.

Recycling is a typically Indian tradition. Not every innovation bears the nobility of recycling, though.

>> Read more on Indian Freakonomics

Time to guess What it is?

Time to guess What it is?

Can you tell us what this strange contraption is for?

Rob has been collecting unusual tools and other objects for quite a while, and several years ago he started this project of posting them on the web as puzzles for visitors to figure out what they are. And he doesn't say till some one recognizes what it is.

Users can place guess in the comment section. To make it more interesting you got to think and write your guess. Time to give some time for your drop-dead brain some thinking & take it away from automatic living.

Time to guess What is it?

Pilobolus

Pilobolus

Forming dance group is a challenge. A concept of one may not be a thought of everyone who succeeds. I liked the concept of this dance group for its innovative flair, flexing the creativity; bending human movements which are tried and tested.

Pilobolus is a phototropic zygomycete—a sun-loving fungus that grows in barnyards and pastures. It is also a highly unusual dance company, now in its 30th year of evolution. Pilobolus, the arts organism, sprang from a 1971 Dartmouth College dance class with a clear desire to make something new.

Known throughout the world for its startling mix of humor and invention, and unique physical vocabulary, bringing its singular vision to diverse audiences worldwide. It remains a deeply committed collaborative effort with four artistic directors and six dancers contributing to one of the most poplar and varied repertoires in the field.

Tracy of Pilobolus, who choreographed Aquatica, describes the work: "If you ever look under a microscope, there is an amazing array of creatures underwater. So a lot of the images [onstage] hopefully convey that kind of wonder, that kind of discovery. The dancers combine to create all kinds of locomotive structures and communication systems. We see fishes swimming in pods, crabs crawling on the sea floor and unclassified creatures, too."

An interesting interview snippet with founder Jonathan Wolken at freedom-blogging

Pilobolus perform "Symbiosis" | TED Video

Pilobolus perform "Symbiosis" | TED Video

Symbiosis means, the relation between two different species of organisms that are interdependent; each gains benefits from the other.

The Pilobolus dancers have created an art that tells a story about our relationships with each other and with nature and how we should work together in harmony to achieve a good meaning for a good cause and for the common good. To me, that's the message in their art.

This was the most amazing dance piece I've ever seen. The two dancers moved almost as one creature with two bodies. It was so flowing like some flower unfolding organically, or some alien creature with its own perfect internal chemistry and architecture moving in a completely new way that nothing we know of moves, but entirely right and logical, totally holistically obvious and natural to itself. I'm just mesmerized and completely seduced by the beauty and artistry here. I'm going to watch it again and again. (via Tatiana Boshenka)

I found this "Symbiosis" video in TED. If you've not heard about it, watch it here :symbiosis performance.

"Lazarus you are a life saver !".

"Lazarus you are a life saver !".

{ flickr.com/photos/dalltoramos/3216526968/}

Imagine this: you are filling a very long form in a website; may be shopping cart, search page, or any portal where long entry of fields is needed. When you submit, it yells : session out. please login again ! That's a bland situation when you had to type all over again. Some time it might be short, but you may not remember what you typed also.

This is purely the context-sensitive mistake of page design. Now a days, there are so many ways to retain non-important values using client side scripting. Some sites remembers what you typed and some do not. For ex: Gmail auto-saves what you typed as a draft. That's a neat thing.

What if, you loose lengthy form filling due to computer or connection error ? Here comes the life saver if you're using Firefox. 'Lazarus: Form Recovery extension'.

Never lose anything you type into a web form again! Lazarus securely auto-saves all forms as you type, so after a crash, server timeout, or whatever, you can go back to the form, right click, "recover form", and breathe a sigh of relief. I am very glad that I got to know about this add-on. Many times I lost forms for different reasons (server suddenly disconnected, a key that I accidentally typed and got me out of the page, etc.). Now I feel confident that if this happens again I will be able to recover a whole form or just a field that was not saved, and save time | excerpt

Do give an attention to security related settings after install. After installing it appears in bottom right hand corner of Firefox. You can set password to retried details as well. Very handy feature.

>> Find Lazarus here

Swype wow !

Swype wow !

Wow ! this is what I call an amazing innovation in touch keypad called - swype.

If typing on your touch screen mobile has not been a comfortable task for you, Swype is here to change that forever. It is a keyboard which looks almost like any other keyboard but it has one difference which makes it unique. The difference is how you type text.

You trace a path across the letters that make the word you want to input. You can use your finger or stylus, but without lifting it from the touch screen. You do not have to touch each letter of the word you want to input. Staying close to the letters while tracing the path is good enough. Swype recognizes every path you draw as one word and types it | Excerpt

Swype’s word recognition accuracy will surprise you. If Swype does not understand a traced path correctly or if you traced a path carelessly, Swype displays all possible words matching the traced path. Just tap the right word and that is it. Be careful that you do not lift your finger until you have completely traced a word.

To input a double letter in a word, just scribble on the letter and carry on with the rest of the word. You can also add your own words in the in-built dictionary | Excerpt

>> Swipe to swype

Boneware

Boneware

This is a beautiful piece of glass-filled nylon jewellery, which was a senior design project, from Molly Epstein of Temple University. For her senior project in 2002, Molly Epstein made a glass-filled nylon necklace that looks like a set of vertebrae. Epstein specializes in synthesizing jewelry and medical conceptions.

Click on the image to view in large size. If this kind of design and material evolves, I think it's time to think beyond platinum and diamond mafia :)

>> View more models of Molly Epstei

naukri.com in Gtalk

naukri.com in Gtalk

Here’s some great news for savvy internet users who spend more time on the social web ;-)

Here's a tool that enables all Gtalk users to search for jobs on naukri.com by simply chatting with our bot. All you need to do is add “jobs@chat.naukri.com” to your friends’ list and you are ready to go. If you are a Gtalk user - you can search and find jobs and if you are registered with naukri.com , you can also apply to the jobs that you like - using this medium.

Though the prime intent behind this tool was simplifying the online job-search experience for jobseekers, as a by-product - if your organization has blocked www.naukri.com - don’t fret cause this would help you search for jobs despite that ;-) Moreover, if your boss is in your cubicle, he/she would not even come to know that you are searching for jobs on naukri.com !

>> Search for jobs while chatting

Made in England - Stickies.

Made in England - Stickies.

{Photo via - www.flickr.com/photos/ascott/2380875606/}

I just got some important number via chat friend & I want to save it quickly. I just found some nice information online and I want to save it to my personal notes. I have a quicker task to followup with. I need lot of reminders and alarms to keep me on toes.

I rely on notepad to get things done most of the time. Sure, it's simple and effective way. But I was bugged up with opening notepad, do task, save and remember where it's ! Though I'v used stickies before, was not particularly happy with any of them. Mostly because of sad design or no usability.

If you are late fore the party, stickies are simple notes live on your desktop, so that you can reach out to them without much fuss. Since I work on more collaborative work environment I was in need of a sticky which ensures privacy with non-intrusive feature. I was in need of some usable solution to note down lot of info.

Viola ! After little bit of search: I found a usable and friendly Sticky program which is made in England [Made in different location for a change ;)]

Though minimal, a feature I was bowled over is - Rolled stickies have a different position to unrolled stickies: just this is enough to show how innovative this free software is ! I just love it and it's one of the essential ware I rely heavily now a days. I'm sure lot of us use paper based paper stickies very often and stick them on your cubicles. If you're little bit of concern on 'go-green', it's time to - recyclable, usable and environment friendly stickes.

>> Get stickies by zhorn-software

Timelapsed downtown toronto.

Timelapsed downtown toronto.

“Timelapsed Downtown Toronto” by Sam Javanrouh

Fantastic photography from flickr. 6 photos shot in a 2 hour time period. Amazign time elapsed shot is vividly laid out here. You can download the wallpaper size version of it as well.

Monalisa, just using Microsoft-Paint

Monalisa, just using Microsoft-Paint

Microsoft-Paint - A software piece known for its basic drawing tools. Drawing is all about shadows. I found this interesting video, in which artist creates Monalisa, just using Microsoft-Paint. He proves, it's not about tool, it's about what you can create out of it. It's awesome how shadow & light come alive to create magic colors of Monalisa using MS-paint.

The same painting is done using Photoshop here which is much more versatile, powerful and flexible tool. If you could realize how nicely this artist is using Photoshop tool to his advantage, you will know the importance of the Monalisa painting done by MS-Paint:
Monalisa realized on Photohosp

Clicxpy : recording user's actions

Clicxpy : recording user's actions

What if, if you could know what visitor is doing on your website ? is he moving mouse, has he just paused to read something ? is he clicking something ? or is he filling some forms ? of has he stuck up while doing something ?

It's easy to analyze all the actions of a visitor on your webpage if he's sitting right next to you, but what if he's a random netizen who visited your site from other part of the globe ?

well, then here's the interesting and viable solution: Clixpy, a web based revolutionary analytic tool. It records all user action silently and saves it in the form form of video in Clixpy's server. It's a clever service as well from the business point of view too ! ;)

Clixpy is a web-based tool. It helps you improve your site’s usability by analyzing your users’ behaviour. When you install Clixpy on your site (by placing a small javascript code), it starts tracking everything your users do - like mouse movements, clicks, scrolling, typing, etc. Clixpy sends this data to our servers and generates "video" captures so you can see exactly how people use your site. Interface usability is crucial for a website’s success and that is how Clixpy helps you.

>> Check how it works

Japanese fish

Japanese fish

The Japanese have always loved fresh fish. But the waters close to Japan have not held many fish for decades. So to feed the Japanese population, fishing boats got bigger and went farther than ever. The farther the fishermen went, the longer it took to bring in the fish. If the return trip took more than a few days, the fish were not fresh. The Japanese did not like the taste.

To solve this problem, fishing companies installed freezers on their boats. They would catch the fish and freeze them at sea. Freezers allowed the boats to go farther and stay longer. However, the Japanese could taste the difference between fresh and frozen and they did not like frozen fish. The frozen fish brought lower price.

So fishing companies installed fish tanks. They would catch the fish and stuff them in the tanks, fin to fin. After a little thrashing around, the fish stopped moving. They were tired and dull, but alive.

Unfortunately, the Japanese could still taste the difference. Because the fish did not move for days, they lost their fresh-fish taste. The Japanese preferred the lively taste of fresh fish, not sluggish fish. So how did Japanese fishing companies solve this problem? How do they manage to get fresh-tasting fish to Japan?

To keep the fish tasting fresh, Japanese fishing companies still put the fish in the tanks. But now they add a small shark to each tank. The shark eats a few fish, but most of the fish arrive in a very lively state. The fish are challenged.

As soon as you reach your goals, such as finding a wonderful mate, starting a successful company, paying off your debts or whatever, you might lose your passion. You don't need to work so hard so you relax.

Like the Japanese fish problem, the best solution is simple. L. Ron Hubbard observed it in the early 1950's. "Man thrives, oddly enough, only in the presence of a challenging environment."

The Benefits of a Challenge: The more intelligent, persistent and competent you are, the more you enjoy a good problem. If your challenges are the correct size, and if you are steadily conquering those challenges, you are happy. You think of your challenges and get energized. You are excited to try new solutions. You have fun. You are alive!

Life's challenges are not supposed to paralyze you; they're supposed to help you discover who you are!

Via | Sreenivas

Display custom fonts, using only html code

Display custom fonts, using only html code

If I you want to use a font style which is not loaded in a user's system, normally you may convert the same text into graphics in .gif and .jpeg format and upload it as a image called into web page. Which adds to the size of the page and rendering time also increases. Till now, though there are many hacks to load custom fonts, they were mostly few browser specific. Here's an interesting solution, just by using javascript and HTML coding custom font written text can be rendered in a browser.

Instead of creating images or using flash just to show your site's graphic text in the font you want, you can use typeface.js and write in plain HTML and CSS, just as if your visitors had the font installed locally. This is a work in progress, but functional enough at least to render the the graphic text on this site. Here's what it takes to get going: load the typeface.js library and some typeface.js fonts, then proceed like normal here:

>> Using Custom fonts at Typeface.js

Find yourself as a poster | Photo-funia.com

Find yourself as a poster | Photo-funia.com

Find yourself as a poster of some phirang city as a fan of nice looking chicks kissing you, easy way to publish your life size photo on times square, have your photos painted on the streets, why don't you see your photo hanging in some foreign museum..

Try this:
Photo-funia.com

Aah! is the word here

Aah! is the word here

Digital Art Photography is debated, sometimes marginalized & although it's highly creative, it's distinguished as an obscure medium of photography. I believe in one or the other occasion one has to retouch photographs for any reason. Since RAW image formats seeing lot of market in terms softwares released to edit & enhance them, this medium of art gains true prominence.

Here is a guy - Rarindra Prakarsa based in Jakarta, Indonesia who burrs this fine line between digital photography and digital art creating splendid images. Frequently his images are featured on the front pages of photo.net these days. Most of his pictures are beautified with nice color tone, spectacular coloring techniques and well balanced frame. Rants apart, view these wonderful compositions. Eye treat for anybody who is from the den of Photoshop & digital photography.

I'm sure, 'how did he do that ?' is your first expression while viewing his photo work :)

>> Link to his marvelous digital art photography