Elliott C. Back: Internet & Technology

I stopped by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum yesterday for the first time. While not as large as the nearby Met or MoMA, its unique Frank Lloyd Wright designed architecture and internal spiral-staircase layout make it worth a visit if you’re in the Upper-West side neighborhood. Internally, the artworks is arranged in chronological order, winding up the spiral structure from oldest to newest, bottom to top. A tip for visitors is to take the elevator to the very top, and walk down to view the art.

The Guggenheim Museum

Designed by Frank Lloyd Wright

The exterior features a winding helix stack, part of the original Frank Lloyd Wright design in 1959, and a square atrium expansion which was added in 1992 by the museum’s foundation. A massive exterior renovation occurred from 2005 to 2008, removing the original paint, laser/echo mapping cracks in the concrete structure and repairing them after determining that the superstructure was structurally sound.

The interior’s main feature is the winding spiral, housing galleries affixed the walls, terminating in a twelve-paned skylight that allows natural light to fall on the pieces contained within. The curved walls the museum make hanging paintings flush with the walls impossible.

The museum does not allow internal photography, but I jotted down the names of some of my favorite pieces. Here’s a brief sampler of the art you can see in the Guggenheim museum. In spirit of presentation, I’ve arranged it chronologically as well:

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Chinese readers should check out Wendy’s great post 来自谷歌首页的圣诞祝福!

Combining 17 different images together, Google’s prime Doodler Micheal Lopez spent 250 hours to create their latest Christmas-card masterpiece, a beautiful, abstract rendition approximating the Google logo. According to the WSJ, Chief-Doddler Lopez said, “We want to end the year with a bang.”

As seen on Google’s homepage

Each of the 17 images represents an image of holiday cheer, a sort of cultural Christmas card. So, the entire Google represents a global merry Christmas! Below, I will explode each image into its component links.

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This will work to make conductive gloves that you can use to control your iPod, iTouch, iPhone, or iPad in the winter! Normally wearing gloves means no Apple product love, but when you follow this DIY tutorial, for $5 and a bit of elbow grease, you can make yourself a pair of angel’s gloves!

Materials needed:

• One (or more) gloves
• Conductive thread ($5 sample on SparkFun or Soft Circuit)
• A heavy needle

Here’s what you do. [Step 1] put your index finger in the glove and mark with a marker, pen, or pencil, where your finger pad lies (so that you know where to sew). [Step 2] measure off a good length of thread and thread your needle. Make a knot at the other end, like this:

[Step 3] Begin to sew a small vertical square through the pad all the way through the glove and into the inside. The thread bridges your finger to the outside world:

[Step 4] Finish up your square, and it should look like this. If you sew well and use a heavier needle than me, yours should look far better than this!

[Step 5] Sew another horizontal square overtop the previous one. When done, tie off the thread and cut the excess! You are done!

I just tried it out on my wife’s iPad and it works! My index finger has magical properties! To get better results, practice on a softer glove first–sewing into leather with a regular needle (like I did here) is not just hard, it’s stupid.