Category Archives: random thoughts

being lazy by doing too much

By Ed Fladung | October 23, 2009

“There are different species of laziness: Eastern and Western. The Eastern style is like the one practised in India. It consists of hanging out all day in the sun, doing nothing, avoiding any kind of work or useful activity, drinking cups of tea, listening to Hindi film music blaring on the radio, and gossiping with friends. Western laziness is quite different. It consists of cramming our lives with compulsive activity, so there is no time at all to confront the real issues. This form of laziness lies in our failure to choose worthwhile applications for our energy.” – Sogyal Rinpoche

I am firmly and increasingly so, planted in the doing too much western style laziness category. gotta slow it down.

[via swissmiss]

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Oh Snap!

By Ed Fladung | September 17, 2009

i'm gonna let you see it

Dude! Kanye stole my site!

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Zombie Modernism

By Ed Fladung | June 6, 2009

nelson_desk_chairjpgNelson Swag Leg Desk by Herman Miller

Design George Nelson™, 1958.
Walnut, laminate top, plastic drawers, chromed steel tubing. Made by Herman Miller®.

A beautiful desk and one that I’ve admired for years. George Nelson made rad things, along with his cohorts at Herman Miller: Charles and Ray Eames, Alexander Girard, Isamu Noguchi and Donald Knorr. The above desk is particularly beautiful with its minimal profile, tapering bent legs and perfectly placed color palette.

But the price? $1800.

Now don’t get me wrong, I am fully down with paying a premium for historically important design works. But mid-century Modernism was partially born out of an idealism that hatched during and after World War II, when factories were converted back to civil use after having served the war effort. Break-throughs in production methods, materials and technology cleared the way for mass-production of well-designed objects. All the folks at Herman Miller were on board with the idea of bringing design to the masses. Charles and Ray Eames spent decades trying to get various iterations of their bent plywood chairs into consumer hands for modest prices. George Nelson was a champion of low-cost design up until his death.

So my question: why is this desk – and other items from this period – so expensive? Surely not for the materials, as this isn’t a luxury item hand-made from lemur teeth and sea eel hides. I’m guessing that it costs maybe $100-$200 to produce this piece, I could be wrong. But I doubt the price of production is in any way connected to the selling price. My criticism isn’t aimed at this particular piece of beautifully designed furniture though it was definitely the impetus for this post.

Good design should not have to cost a lot of money. Yes, maybe a premium, but not astronomically high. Furniture and design sellers often talk about Modernism as bringing design to the masses, the great equalizer. Yet the products they sell have price tags far above what your average work schmoe can afford. Ikea understands this, and has made oodles of money knocking off modern and minimal designs and selling them on the cheap, the sacrifice is the production quality. A high percentage of Ikea’s products are essentially disposable and fall apart long before they’ve outlived their usefulness. If it weren’t for the toll that disposable furniture takes on the environment, this wouldn’t be so bad, not all furniture has to last centuries.

Why does good design cost so much?

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Peace, Love & Pogue Mahone

By Ed Fladung | March 17, 2009

album-peace-and-lovejpg

Even though I’m fairly disconnected from my Irish heritage — and I do have a bit o’ Irish in me — I did a stint in Catholic high school where I got into art and punk rock. My religion teacher turned me to The Pogues1 and the irish spirit (If I should Fall From Grace with God being in my top 10 albums of all time). I enjoy a good Guinness every now n’ again and I love me some Pogue Mahone2. Today reminded me of the bar/cop/wake scenes in The Wire, where they all sing a pretty horrible, drunken rendition of “The Pogues’ The Body of An American” (as it should be). So happy Sint Patties to eryone a ya chip bastids.

The Pogues – The Body of An American

  1. ever notice the “peace” hand? six fingers ↩
  2. Irish slang meaning “Kiss My Arse” ↩
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Facebook Album Cover Meme

By Ed Fladung | February 26, 2009

stutter
original photo: maydos {vovvv!}

Me:
So this Facebook meme1 is floating around and I got tagged recently. I’m sure you’ve seen the same one, from one of your friends. You never clicked through to the posted image to see what it was all about and worse – you’re getting tons of messages from random people you don’t know, who are commenting on it. But you should really check it out, if you’ve been tagged. I don’t usually do memes, but this one is pretty bad-ass. The gist of it, is to take a photo, a random title, and a snippet of a random quote and jam it all together to create an album cover.

You:
zzzz…z….z.zzz…zz

Me:
I’ve been watching this meme rev up and there some really nice concoctions brewing all over Facebook. It’s actually a secret plot to publicize creative commons. Chances are, you’ve been tagged by one or two already. Well, this is mine. Hit me up on facebook, if you wanna get tagged.

You:
Are you done yet?

Me:
It turns out that if you take the time to check, 99.9% of all the images on flickr’s interestingness are copyrighted works. That means no remixing, no alteration, no nothing of that person’s content. So taking their image, messing with it a small bit and adding some type over it – essentially creating something wholly new – is against the copyright and apparently, illegal.

My photos are copyrighted as well, though I don’t see how someone on facebook remixing my imagery could possibly violate my rights as the copyright holder, but some people might get pissed at this. The thing about memes is that they reach a tipping point and start to spread like wild fire. This one seems to have legs. I’m definitely interested to hear what happens when photographers start to notice their photos up on facebook and other people’s blogs. I don’t see any groups on flickr or facebook to discuss this yet.

You:
zzzz…z….z.zzz…zz

  1. btw – check out that search: fellow surf blogger homie Three Tree Journal is #6 on that list. ↩
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Yes, We Did!

By Ed Fladung | January 20, 2009

Run DC tshirt by Glen E. Friedman
tshirt design by Glen E Friedman
We run things, things nah run we.

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Getty/Flickr

By Ed Fladung | January 15, 2009

picture-6_500

Pretty cool. Mushing my way through the contractual agreements now.
We’ll see how it goes. And report back.

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Quote of the Day

By Ed Fladung | December 5, 2008

The simplest and most straightforward answer to the question of the existence of dark matter is that it doesn’t exist at all. The question then becomes “How then does the universe and other galaxies maintain their cohesion without dark matter’s gravitational pull?”

It’s simple.

The universe and everything in it exists within my own mind1. We, you, us exist as thought only, no physical manifestation behind it. It’s like the matrix without anything existing beyond the matrix itself.

We are merely thoughts only… there is no red pill.

- Digg user Chubbybubba on a semi-recent thread Giant simulation could solve mystery of dark matter.

  1. I agree with the overarching view, but I resist this thought that it’s only in my own mind – rather, we collectively create this world. What happens in your mind, directly affects my mind. All things are interdependent. ↩
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Adobe Craprobat

By Ed Fladung | November 20, 2007

acrobat

< -- Begin rant -->

An online hotel booking agency sent me a form to fill in and send back. I tried to do the whole thing digitally with Adobe Acrobat and my scanned signature. The whole process was so frustrating, I had to resort to printing out the form, filling it in, with my chicken-scratch handwriting, scanning it back in and sending it off.

Acrobat’s ‘digital signature’ features were definitely designed for some heavy and secure business usage. The only problem is that the software is so hard to use, I can’t imagine a business oriented user having the time to figure this application out. Most business people just don’t have the time to read manuals, like it or not. Simplicity is not on display in Acrobat. There’s so much useless bloated feature creep, it’s ridiculous.

I’d consider myself a power user and this application totally had me doing limbo moves. Once I finally made it through the torturous maze of figuring out how to fill out the form and adding my signature I had five different versions floating around my desktop. Adding insult to injury, I checked the finally pdf in Apple’s Preview app and the signature isn’t even on the form?! You mean to tell me, whoever recieves this form, has to have Acrobat just to even view the signature? How lame.

If I could give the Acrobat dev team my two cents, here’s what that would be: their current ‘digital signature’ feature should be called ’secure/verified digital signature’ and they should add a new feature called ’simple signature’ that just allows you to add an image file to the form that has your scanned signature. Wanna be a little bit more secure? Have the editing capabilities of the doc locked by password, upon saving. This ’simple signature’ functionality would suffice for 90% of most users’ needs. The ability to add 3D models to a pdf doc? I found it hard enough just to add a plain old image.

Some indie mac developer needs to come out with a pixelmator-style app for pdfs. Design a pdf editing application for 70% of users that has 30% of the functionality of Adobe Acrobat. I’d buy that for 10 or 20 bones.

< -- end rant -->

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Lazy Sunday update

By Ed Fladung | May 27, 2007
  • Graphic Design & Photography: working on photography portfolio sites for my sister and myself. it’s nice being able to design a minimal photographic site and to be able to do it twice. the staid photography-grey themed thing has interesting boundaries to explore but colours are what keep me alive. been poking into slideshowpro/director and flickrssp.
  • Surf: Finally, a tiny micro-swell rolled into town yesterday, funny enough, only hitting Burros and Veneros. everywhere else, flat. so picky. But I managed to have a really nice morning cutting up the 3 footers. It’s been a month or so since the last time I could complement the waves with such nice flowing lines.
  • Movies: Last night we finally watched The Devil and Daniel Johnston. insanely great music, wonderful movie. I had no idea how tumultuous his life has been, up and down and up and tail-spin. good quality documentary too. great art-direction, cutting and mixing, like a sound and audio collage. Sunshine was great for the first 45 minutes, but the only thing i hate more then horror movies are horror movies in space. terrible third act.
  • TV: Watched the finale of Heroes. whoa, what an uneventful ending. Watched the finale of Lost S03, pretty freakin’ good. But if what we were watching is a flash-forward, then why is Jack’s dad still alive (inferred from Jack’s conversation with the doc at the hospital mentioning his dad). I like the flash-forward as the new flash-back idea. Watched the first episode of Nip/Tuck S04, what a bummer, that show jumped the shark two seasons ago. delete.
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Before / After

By Ed Fladung | April 28, 2007

beforeafter

Today I did the unthinkable, I got braces and I’m going on 33. Why would I possibly do this to myself?

Well, the story goes something like this: although I have straight teeth, for the most part, my bite is all screwed up. Both top and bottom rows fold a little too far inward. When I was wee lickle shite, the orthodontist told my parents that he’d have to break my lower jaw and wire my mouth shut for 6 months (ala through the wire) to be able to fix my bite. Graciously my parents declined and since have completely forgotten the episode.

Recently I’ve been catching up with my dentist visits, replacing all those metal fillings and trying to get teeth fixed that through time had been ground down or chipped. The dentist said that my teeth could not be fixed. As a result of my bite, any fixes he did would come undone. So he referred me to an orthodontist and here we are. Braces. 6 months. To alter my bite, so that in 20 years I still have teeth and gums left. yay me! Let the pain begin.

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Don’t Get Your Wires Crossed

By Ed Fladung | September 13, 2006

telephone pole - bucerias

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All The Little Boxes

By Ed Fladung | September 7, 2006

weedsSo we’re at episode four, in season one of Weeds. What a great little show. I can’t believe I haven’t seen it until now (cuz, like, ya know, i’m so in the know. and all). After three episodes we are really getting into the rhythm of the show. The dialogue isn’t always the best but the scenes ebb and flow really well. The plot devices aren’t cliched or very predictable and the character development is good (although I still can’t understand why they ditched Silas’ girlfriend after episode one).

Every time the opening credits and song come on, my face lights up with glee. All the rows of houses and people who all look the same, great intro. and the theme song matches it beautifully. I had to go and find out all about the theme song, it’s called “Little Boxes” by Malvina Reynolds, a sixties folk singer. I love smug little songs like this, breaking down modern america in 100 words or less, written easily 40 years ago and it’s still as true today as it was back then. What a great way to start off a good show. The whole thing reminds me of the four years I lived in Valencia, as i went to art school. I’m gonna have to do some research on Malvina.

I guess I’m Floating has the Weeds theme song and several other songs used in the series as mp3 downloads. go check it out.

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fly on the Wall

By Ed Fladung | April 19, 2006

Help me! I’m stuck in the airport edition:

dude, that shirt you’re wearing, that disco looking, tight lycra looking shirt? it’s a rash-guard, for boogie-boarding. oops!

Currently listening to: Mala Rodriguez Jugadoras, Jugadores. super nice.

oh and you’ll be listening to Gnarls Barkley’s Crazy, all summer long, so get a jump start on it now. hyper buenisimo.

it’s official. my house is for sale. Anyone wanna own a peace of architectural history? It’s really a beautiful place.

Azteca has to be the worst airline ever. Their prices are half what the other airlines are (to Mexico City, atleast). I guess that makes up for them pushing our flight five and a half hours.

Currently reading: Disposable: A History of Skateboard Art. a great coffee-table book written by Sean Cliver. a former Powell-Peralta / World Industries graphic designer. It’s awesome seeing the art from all these skateboards in one place, all the old decks I used to own, but it’s even more fascinating reading about the insiders’ perspectives from Cliver and several other deck designers. Stuff that I was blissfully unaware of, for my 15 + years of skateboarding. Oh and here’s my first deck: Vision’s Mark Gonzalez

Anyways, Marcia wants the computer back so she can catch up to me in our homework (learning to program ruby). so I must go.

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Fly on the Wall

By Ed Fladung | March 30, 2006

So we are going to LA today. let’s see, here’s my shopping list so far: camera grip (for shooting vertically), a light set up (!), 2 external hard drives, usb card reader, shorts, light pants, jeans, peet’s coffee, a longboard. I got champaign tastes on a beer wallet. something’s got to give.

Andrew, Pau, Salim, Marcia and I are planning the ultimate summer mexican road trip. Following the coast south, of course, to catch the summer swells. Ticla, Pazcuaro and Puerto Escondido are on the route, Chiapas being the southern most point, where Salim’s sister is currently living. The question is 2 or 3 weeks? I think 3. To say the surf will be gnarly is a horrendous understatement. We’ll need one car for the peoples and one for the boards and gear.

Relatedly to last paragraph, Salim has the dopest invention ever. I am on a mad quest to procure one: a camping hammock, made exactly like a tent, complete with mosquito netting. How awesome is that?

I’m currently thinking: the ocean is as flat as I’ve ever seen it, the past few days. and why does the swell come up, just as I’m heading to LA. murphy is not my friend.

Currently listening to: Royksopp – The Understanding. on repeat and repeat and more repeat. possibly the best electronic dance album ever, What else is there?

My good friend, Jeremy Fels is currently in Puerto Vallarta, vacationing with his family. We hung out tuesday and I showed Him and hist sister the glossier side of local nightlife, we hung out at the decadent De Santos, PV’s answer to the Sky Bar, although admittedly we were literally the only people there. A decadence in anonymity.

Everyone in LA says it’s so warm! shah right! The warmest day in LA in the spring, is 200% colder then the coldest day in the winter here. Marcia and I are resigned to the fact that we will be icicles for most of the trip. If you can’t beat him… On Saturday, we are going snowboarding at Mountain High with Mr. Dave Swift and his lovely girlfriend, Lisa. I am Ed’s unbridled anticipation.

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