Please check out the new site for this blog (finally hosted at our own domain!):http://www.crescendodesign.com

Let us know what you think!

fwiw, here’s the list straight off my white board.  While there are a few potential projects out there to pick up in the weeks ahead, I am actively seeking new work to start on toward the middle of May to fill up a full time schedule.  As the real-world practice falls to pieces in this economy, I’m sincerely glad the virtual practice is strong and getting stronger!

It is kind of disappointing that almost none of my virtual world work is local, though perhaps it doesn’t matter.  For example, I have tried every possible direction to engage University of Wisconsin-Madison in their virtual world work, but I can’t find a way in!  They’re right in my backyard, yet they’re outsourcing their work while I contract all over the world with other organizations who need the same kind of work.   I realized yesterday that by day’s end, I had spoken with people in New York, Chicago, Washington D.C., Amsterdam, India, Australia, Canada, and Egypt.  Skype, ftw!

Here’s what’s on the boards:

• Remedy: Metanomics event space – almost done!  Season kick-off will be with Mark Kingdon, CEO of Linden Lab, May 6th at 1:00 p.m. SLT (PST).  Here’s how it turned out.  Remedy was truly a dream team to work with!
• OpenSim education-related project, under NDA.  First draft conceptual design approved, next round presented first week of May.
• OpenSim training-related, not under NDA but private.  Tweaking layout, revising 1 of the buildings, polishing and completing the rest – first weeks of May.
• Studio Wikitecture:  getting closer to the Joint Development Agreement with i3D, looking at the earliest proof-of-concepts for version 2.0 of the 3D-Wiki tool (the Wiki-Tree).  Preparing a big pitch to deliver late May.  Looking for programmers to help us support the first version Wiki-tree – JIC we get a new project to use it on.
• The ARCH Network : new site (finally!) completed, adding land rentals and training as a core offering.  starting to market the new site.
• Virtual Project Spaces: land rentals for architects and AEC-industry professionals.  the spaces in Second Life are booked, so I’m thinking of adding a new simulator.  Adding new sims powered by Visibuild on the new Architecture grid, and starting to rent parcels out to firms and educators who want an early start in a great new technology (import 3D models, finally!)
• University of Alabama: ongoing consulting/retainer – importing campus icons from SketchUp into the architecture grid.  Added chimes sound and a new sign for Denny Chimes (click to play the chimes).  Took some new screenshots yesterday.  Signing up for a new summer retainer, and seeking grants for summer work.
• Responding to 3 inquiries from architecture schools re: teaching in virtual worlds.  1 is on board, 1 is getting closer, 1 is getting farther.
• Building a hub for the architecture groups in both Second Life and the architecture grid.  Hope to be having a meeting 2nd week of May.
• New addition project to a Victorian home near downtown Madison starting construction June 1st!  These were some of the coolest clients I’ve ever worked with.
• New home design west of Madison (hopefully) starting construction early June.  Another great client – turning from clients into friends.
• Thinking about having a booth at MREA this year, but not sure it is worth it in this economy.

Jim: Can you believe people are starting to use their real life human bodies for business collaboration in that First Life place everyone’s talking about?

Lucy:  Are you kidding?  I’ll stick to Second Life thanks.

Bob: Heck yeah, this new thing they can do in First Life called ’shaking hands’ is going to be a real game changer.

Jim: But I’ve seen what they do in these First Life meetings.  They all sit there drinking coffee, staring at their laptop screens.  What’s the point?  It can’t be productive…

Lucy:  *slaps forehead*  What is this world coming to?  I suppose they spend ‘real’ money on these so-called ‘real’ buildings for these meetings in First Life too?

Bob: They sure do, and they’re expensive!  But, totally worth it.. this is the FUTURE!  Stop being so old school.  They can pick whatever color brick they want on the exterior.  This is the FUTURE guys…wake up!

Lucy: You mean they pay more than the $300 a month we pay for our virtual office?

Jim: pfft, they pay that just for electricity!  The buildings cost hundreds of thousands – heck, millions of dollars!  How can they be profitable?

Bob: You guys don’t get it… you can shake hands  in First Life, and look someone right in the eyes!   This is going to have tremendous and far reaching potential.

Lucy: Ok fine, let me play the devil’s advocate here.  What if I live in a suburb 30 minutes from my office?  How do I work with other employees in these ‘First Life’ places?

Bob: Its totally easy, you get into a car and drive there!

Lucy: They can’t teleport to any kind of environment or worplace they can imagine?

Bob:  Bahahah.  You’re thinking like such a dinosaur.

Jim: Drive to an office and back, every single day?  1 hour in a car each day?  That’s a lot of hours a year…  I’d rather spend that time with my family and friends.

Bob: You can call them on your cell phone while you drive!  That’s the price of innovation guys.  Get with it.

Lucy: How do they visualize 3D information?  Can they create anything imaginable with the click of a button like we can here?

Bob:  Who needs all those confusing extra dimensions?  They take all that tricky information and make it 2-dimensional.

Jim: 2D?!?

Bob: Yeah, then they turn off all the lights in the room and project these images and words – mostly words, actually – onto a screen.  They call it ‘Power Point.’

Lucy: omfg

Jim: Wow, these *First Life* places must be absolutely spectacular in order to warrant such great time and expense

Bob: Well, they’re mostly gray and white.  The meeting rooms are these big empty spaces with a table and a projector.  But sometimes they have groovy pictures on the wall, with a flower in a vase in the middle of the table… well, not always, but sometimes!  Plus, everyone gets their own cubicle!

Lucy: and people actually get real work done in these places?

Bob: You betcha.

Jim: What do they do at their cubicles?

Bob: They sit at computers.

Jim: All day?

Bob: Yeah, most of the day.

Jim: So, how is that different from accessing Second Life?

Bob: We can shake hands, Jim.  And here’s where it gets really interesting..  if I fidget with my hands, you can ‘read’ that signal and make business decisions based on that body movement!

Lucy: How many fingers am I holding up, Bob?

Bob: Very funny.

Jim:  So, when they attend conferences or larger meetings, how do they do any networking if they don’t have profiles to click on?

Bob: They shake hands!   Duh.  That’s where the real magic is.  Then, they give each other what they call a ‘business card’.  They then take those cards back to their cubicles and look each other up on the web, and send each other emails.  Priceless.

Jim:  We can communicate much more efficiently here, it seems.  They can’t just send each other messages, or share references, or have a group chat with a few like-minded people during the conference?

Lucy: No way.  I’ve seen these so-called *First Life* conferences.  Most of them sit at their laptops, or texting on their iphones or Blackberries the whole time anyway.  You should see them clamoring around these wireless stations sitting on bean-bag chairs.  What’s the point?

Bob:  I’m just saying, First Life is the way of the future for business collaboration.  You can get started now, or be left in the dust.  You decide.

Jim: I’ll stick with my Second Life, thanks

Bob: Fine Jim, you dinosaur, but if you were in First Life today, you would have noticed that I wore a different color tie today.  I can be so expressive in First Life!  That’s the kind of magic I’m talking about.

Lucy:  You must be kidding?

Bob:  This tie is BLUE, Lucy… you can learn a lot about me when you think about why I wore a blue tie today…

Lucy: Right.

Jim: I rest my case.

Here’s another over-caffeinated Twitter outburst, for whatever its worth:

This is really something… Karen Armstrong’s TED wish (granted to every winner of the TED prize) has been realized – the ‘Charter for Compassion.’

http://charterforcompassion.com/

“By recognizing that the Golden Rule is fundamental to all world religions, the Charter for Compassion can inspire people to think differently about religion. This Charter is being created in a collaborative project by people from all over the world. It will be completed in 2009. Use this site to offer language you’d like to see included. Or inspire others by sharing your own story of compassion.”

“Over the next four weeks, everyone is invited to help write the Charter for Compassion. Please choose the active phase below, read the description, be inspired by the sample text, and share your own words or suggestions for that section of the Charter.”

Saturday, October 18, 8 a.m. to noon
Members, $5/family, $3/individual; Nonmembers, $8/family, $4/individual
Each autumn charming and diminutive saw-whet owls pass through Woodland Dunes on their passage south. Please join us as we celebrate this amazing migration with nature hikes, educational displays, children’s activities, refreshments and, of course, displays of owl banding. New this year: Jeannie Lord, a wildlife rehabilitator, will be giving live raptor presentations at 9 and 10 a.m. Our friends from WOW will bring Cinnamon, their barn owl, to join the line-up. Don’t miss it! An EcoExplorer Event.

located on Hwy 310 west
of Two Rivers, Wisconsin

PHONE
920-793-4007 E-MAIL
woodlanddunes@lakefield.net

Sorry for the late notice, but this ‘Natural Step‘ event will be held TONIGHT, September 16th at 6pm.

From the Monona Doug blog:

“On the evening of Tuesday, September 16, the Sustainable Future will be on display at the Monona Community Center. The Natural Step Monona hosts exhibits and presentations about living in a more environmentally, economically, and socially sustainable way. Citizens, business people, and city leaders and staff are invited to be active, constructive participants in bringing the benefits of sustainability to our households, businesses, municipalities and community by learning the key concepts and how to apply them.

At this free event, exhibits and representatives from organizations such as Focus on Energy, Sustain Dane, myfairlakes.com, and the Monona Farmer’s Market will be on hand to share their know-how and experiences. Attendees can order a Sustain Dane RainReserve rain barrel; see the fully-accessorized Gary Fisher Monona bicycle, soon to be raffled off by the Natural Step Monona; and enter to win the Sustainable Future door prize – a wealth of sustainable goodies. Visit the website for more information.”

More about the event here: http://www.tnsmonona.org/sustainable-future-event/

More about the group here: http://www.tnsmonona.org/about/

“The Natural Step Monona (TNSM) is a grassroots organization working to foster and promote the creation of an environmentally, economically, and socially sustainable community. Through a participatory process, an upstream approach, and robust conditions for sustainability, The Natural Step framework helps businesses, organizations, schools, municipalities, and individuals develop sustainable practices.”

I grew up going to these places periodically while growing up, and I’m having trouble finding the words to describe how excited I am about the Rockafire Revolution! Check out this trailer to the new Rockafire Revolution movie…

if UFOCapture is worthy of BoingBoing ( http://tinyurl.com/55ceyd ), then Outside-In is worth your vote!!!   Lets build this thing!  http://tinyurl.com/63wg3m

Here’s how CrowdSpirit works:

Step 1: Innovator sends ideas. The contributors fine tune them & vote for the best one.

Here is my proposal from Crowdspirit:

Problem context :

The idea of blurring the boundary between inside and outside has become an increasingly popular desire of many homeowners. As a designer of environmentally friendly homes, I see ’strong indoor/outdoor connection’ on the top of almost every client’s wish-list. While we may be able to connect the two visually, no amount of architectural acrobatics can bridge the acoustical gap between an indoor environment and the natural soundscape of the outdoors.

Proposed Solution :

What I am proposing is a relatively simple device. It might be as simple as a series of weather-proof wireless microphones that send a signal to an indoor receiver that can output to the homeowner’s existing surround-sound stereo systems, headphones, etc.

This system, in its simplest sense, would be a tremendously marketable and relatively inexpensive device.

Additional features for more specialized interests such as birders (the fastest growing hobby in North America) that might be sold seperately might include intelligent audio-sensory software that can recognize the species of birds singing in your yard. It might even listen constantly, delivering a daily podcast to the owner. The signal might be streamed live, and be available to the owner remotely by logging into a website. Perhaps a social network dimension might connect people with these devices, comparing the variety and type of species in each owner’s area. Tracked over a large geographic region, metadata collected from these devices might be parsed to deliver migratory data, or hone in on the location of rare or endangered species.

I just noticed this system that is a relatively adequate precedent,  which works as “a Windows application that helps you videotape meteors and other fast-moving stuff in space. You hook up a sensitive video camera to your computer, point it out your window, and while you slumber, the software saves all the good bits.”

http://www.boingboing.net/2008/07/19/software-to-video-me.html

Getting closer!

Vote for the idea here: http://tinyurl.com/63wg3m

I have always promised myself that I would one day take the time to dig up some history behind Sherwin Williams’ ‘Cover the Earth’ logo, in an attempt to learn the other side of the story behind their alleged wish to cover the earth with paint.  What were they thinking?

Even IF you grant them some lenience for the fact that it was created so long ago (1866, to be sure, was it really any better back then?), can you justify the fact that they’re STILL using it?  (no, I’m not kidding, see for yourself)

Low VOC paint is the name of the ‘green’ game, right?  But, is it that simple?  If that is the case, someone needs to tell the people editing the ‘Volatile Organic Compounds‘ article on Wikipedia.   It isn’t exactly clear, but it does state that,

“One irritant, formaldehyde, present in hundreds of office components, including wood and laminated furniture, shelving, and wall covers. It also evaporates from paints, varnishes, and chemicals used for sealing and finishing walls.”

So, is formaldehyde really what we should be watching out for?  But wait, it is “used in particleboard, plywood, veneers, and other wood products, as well as spray-on insulating foams.”  (Uh oh… we’ve been specifying spray-on insulating foams as one component in a multi-faceted energy-efficient construction package….. note to self: look into that).

Even if it is more than just formaldehyde, Green Building Supply warns us:

“The elimination of VOC’s by paint manufactures does not address the issue of why contaminants not considered VOC’s still find their way into paint.  For example; some paints contain ammonia and acetone which are highly dangerous chemicals to human health yet they are not required by law to appear on the label.

Fungicides and Biocides are toxic chemicals that are used to prevent mildew growth and extend the shelf life of the product. They may be good for the paint, but they are bad for your health. These chemicals contaminate both indoor and outdoor air for five years or more after the product has been applied! Beware: even low- or no-VOC paints contain these toxins.”

So it seems, Low or no VOC is only one part of the story, but it is certainly a good place to start.  Where can you get it?

With me on the web, and Kandy on the phone, we tackled Madison retailers to get the scoop.

Home Depot: on the phone – about 30 seconds before their response: ‘What’s VOC?’… with further prying, “oh yeah, I think we carry that, but it is only available in limited colors – the FreshAire line.

Home Depot on the web – about 1 minute – but a far more impressive experience with tons of up-sell through their mighty impressive ‘Eco Options’ web app.  However, I only found it by searching low-VOC and home depot.  If you go to homedepot.com (as of 2008-07-16), you have to scroll way down to the last item in the ‘corporate info’ area in the fine print.  Interesting tactic…  it is there if you search for it, but if you aren’t looking for it, it isn’t there.  The reasons for this are pretty clear to me – if they designate some products as being ‘green’ then what does that make the rest of their offerings?… toxic?  Yup.   

I was super impressed with the ‘eco options virtual home‘ offering on that site, though I couldn’t find a vignette that featured paint as an option for quite a while.  When I finally found one, it offered up the FreshAire option Kandy had already found by then on her phone call.

Menards website just sucks.  No place to search for products – not much of anything.  I gave up, and said “lets not even go to Menards.”

Kandy, in the meantime, was on the phone right away with a rep who informed her that she can get any paint selection they carry in the store as a ‘Low VOC’ offering they reserved for Kids Rooms.

On our way to meet some family /friends for dinner, we stopped at Menards to take a closer look.  Sure enough, everyone working there new about the Low VOC option.  The only problem remaining is that we don’t know what color to pick!

I had spent several hours this morning cycling through dozens (hundreds?) of options over a photograph of our living room I brought into Photoshop.  We had narrowed it down to a color I liked, and a color Kandy liked.  I used this pretty cool ‘Easy RGB‘ tool to estimate the product numbers for Dutch Boy (one offering @ Menards).  The only problem was that the actual real-life color was COMPLETELY different than it looked on my monitor(s).  I have some serious color-correcting to do before we start using computers to aid in paint color selections!

I’m leaning toward a more golden hue (Applesauce Cake in DutchBoy’s pallete), and Kandy leans more toward a Clay color (a bit like Bamboo via DutchBoy).

Tomorrow will be a new day, and a new paint adventure.  In the end, we will probably opt toward old fashioned Milk Paint, but then we only get to choose from their “sixteen historical colors,” compared with thousands offered elsewhere.

That should make the choice a little easier…