COLOR + CITY
- Hannah Bardo wrote in Graffiti, Design and Urban
Brazilian graffiti artists are beautifying their cities and inspiring their fellow citizens through an innovative, online collaboration that connects people willing to offer a space to those willing to paint it! The movement has taken off and hopes to spread internationally.
5:00 P.M., September 3rd, 1967
Sweden changed from driving on the left side to driving on the right - this was the result
Senegalese Buses are Awesome: Check Out This Pimped Out ‘Car Rapide’
- Mary Slosson wrote in Global Citizenship and Transportation
They’re ubiquitous in Dakar: the bright blue and yellow car rapide buses that criss-cross Senegal’s capital city.
For the uninitiated, Senegal’s most popular form of public transportation can be chaotic and overwhelming. The buses, custom made from discarded vehicles by the city’s brilliantly inventive mechanics, chug along the streets with the back door open and the driver’s assistant shouting out the route.
Citizenship Building Block #18: Try Biking to Work
- Zachary Slobig wrote in Transportation, Cities and Living
Commuting sucks. ‘Mega commuters’ endure 90 minutes each way to punch the clock. More Americans fall into that category than there are residents of Copenhagen. Why point to that Danish city? It’s got the busiest biking street in the Western world—the result of years of public pressure and infrastructure investment that reshaped commuting habits. The arguments for bike commuting are familiar: healthier for you and the environment; saves you tons of cash; often faster than driving or taking public transit. Here’s another: it’s an opportunity to see your city or town without looking through a pane of shatter-proof glass. Another: it’s a lot of fun. In many places it can seem too dangerous to bike to work—no bike lanes and a gauntlet of taxi doors and four-wheeled aggression. A suggestion to mitigate those concerns: find at least one bike buddy. There’s strength (and safety) in numbers. So go ahead and try it. This week, saddle up and ride a bike to work. It might become a habit.
Four Bullet Points From Seth Godin For Doing Design That’s Important, Not Pretty
- Erykah St.Louis posted in Design, Creativity and Seth Godin
Speaking to an NYU auditorium full of self-defined “creatives,” marketing guru Seth Godin began with a rendition of the alphabet song and ended with a call to action: “I have no doubt the people in this room are going to succeed. The question is: Are you going to matter?”
It’s the kind of question Godin poses on his blog, in his 17 bestselling books and throughout his many public talks: catchy, inspiring and vague enough to apply to anyone involved in a creative endeavor.
Turns Out Bike Lanes Are Really Good for Local Business
- Meghan Neal wrote in Business, Transportation and Cities
Good news for bike activists: Making a safe place on streets for cyclists (and pedestrians) boosts sales for the small businesses in the area.
This according to a recent report from the New York Department of Transportation. The study found that on commercial blocks where new bike lanes were built, the businesses saw a nearly 50 percent increase in sales.
Join us for our Fix Your Street Challenge on the last Saturday of May. Click here to say you’ll Do It and be sure to share stories of transportation innovation all month.
Get Involved with Los Angeles Walks to Help Make the City More Walkable
- Alissa Walker wrote in Walking, Los Angeles and Urban Design
Walking is a “magic app” that builds a healthier, safer, more vibrant city. Plus, walking connects us to our communities, puts us in contact with our neighbors, builds social capital and raises civic awareness. Plus, it’s fun.
We’re organizing a campaign to get more Angelenos walking and make L.A. more walkable. If you sign up on our site at losangeleswalks.org, you can join walks and community events around L.A. throughout the year! Get involved with us and start walking!
Robots With ‘Swarm Intelligence’ to Repair the World’s Dying Reefs
- Coralbots Team wrote in Technology, Environment and Sustainability
Coral gardening by humans is time-consuming, restricted to small areas, and impossible in the deep sea because of human diving limits. Our project, Coralbots, advances the current state-of-the art by creating a team of autonomous underwater robots with artificial intelligence to repair coral reefs. Coralbots is a truly cross-disciplinary project based at Heriot-Watt University in Scotland and the Autonomous Undersea Institute in the U.S. The team has expertise in marine biology (Dr. Lea-Anne Henry), artificial intelligence (Prof. David Corne), computer vision (Dr. Neil Robertson) and autonomous underwater robotics (Prof. David Lane and Dr. Richard Blidberg).
Citizen Building Block #17: Take Public Transportation
- Stef McDonald wrote in Building Blocks Of Citizenship and Transportation
If you have a car, you know the convenience of getting in and driving directly to where you want to go. You might enjoy this enough to wonder why you should bother taking public transportation at all. But you can give back and gain so much by taking the train, bus, subway, or ferry. Start with the environmental benefits of leaving your car behind in favor of public transit: reducing carbon emissions and our collective use of non-renewable oil. It can be good for people, too. Without having to fill up at the pump, you can save money on gas and vehicle maintenance. And without having to pay attention to the road, you’re free to read a magazine, prepare for a presentation, or study for an exam. When you’re sharing a ride on public transit, you can interact with other passengers—or discretely eavesdrop on conversations. You can daydream or doze, solve a crossword puzzle or play a word game with friends on your smartphone. Do it for a day, a week, or simply more often.
Video: What if Gender Roles in Advertising Were Reversed?
- Pete(r) Karinen wrote in Business, Media and Advertising
Advertising would feel slightly more ridiculous if men were sexualized the way women are… but only slightly.
YOU GUYS, WE JUST HIT 100,000+ FOLLOWERS.
All morning we’ve been like: 
And like:
I mean…
Seriously…
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THE DESIGN 75: The Best Designers In Technology
- Rexy Tseng posted in Design and Technology
In the tech world, there has traditionally been more emphasis on engineering than on design. Build a machine that works first, and decide on the colors later.
No more. Innovative companies know that if they don’t get the design right — particularly as it relates to the user-interface — then they might as well not launch a new product at all. If users don’t get it, it doesn’t matter how innovative it is — you’re wasting your time.
How Stairs Work
If America’s Serious About Appreciating Teachers, Here’s What it Takes
- Jose Vilson wrote in in Education, New York City and Teachers
This week America celebrates Teacher Appreciation Week, five days chock-full of poems, gift cards, and discounts for K-12 educators all across the country, and today is also National Teacher Appreciation Day. I appreciate getting a free burrito at Chipotle and homages to Taylor Mali, writer of “What Teachers Make,” as much as the next educator, but the current tenor of our national conversation about education also reminds me of the dire straits our profession is in.
For instance, President Barack Obama tainted last year’s Teacher Appreciation Week by proclaiming that same week National Charter School Week, opting to highlight only what charter schools do to the exclusion of teachers from all school systems nationwide.
Don’t all teachers deserve to be appreciated?
