And not just because the site spells colour with a 'u'.
COLOURlovers is the brainchild of Darius A Monsef IV, a creative consultant and web designer. The web site calls itself a resource to monitor and influence trends in colour. But more simple than that, it allows its ten thousand plus members to create colours and 5-colour palettes. The social network aspect allows users to see and vote on each other's palettes and colours and post comments on each other's profiles. The current top pick is called paris boutique by user realitybites (warning, very annoying bit of flash sound on this profile page).
paris boutique
I have found myself compulsively creating palettes for the past twenty four hours. I almost always create a palette before I start work on a graphics project, but there is something about making up palettes just for fun that is curiously addicting. And like so many other computer phenomena, I find myself now looking around and seeing palettes everywhere. I've just been adding palettes based on the actors in The United States of Leland, which I watched last night and loved. I just kept looking at Don Cheadle and Ryan Gosling and wondering which five colours I would use to do a palette portrait of them.
Try it and I guarantee you will become a COLOURlover, too!
Last week I watched the wonderful documentary Who Killed the Electric Car? It was infuriating and inspiring all at the same time.
The film is well researched, nicely paced and beautifully structured. I was particularly impressed by the way the film makers managed to get me to fall in love with a car, the General Motors EV1 to be precise. Now, I know Canadians and Americans fall in love with cars all the time. People name their cars, people lovingly polish their cars on the weekends, people Love Their Cars.
But I don't. I don't love cars at all. In fact, I rather hate cars. Hate! It's a strong word, but there you go. Do you know, I recently just about sprained my arm patting myself on the back when I discovered that my ecological footprint was less than half (42%) of the North American average (although I suspect that like many, by "North American" they meant only Canada and the United States). Only, I was feeling ripped off because there was no option in the first survey I took for never driving a car. The best I could do is check that I always either am or have a passenger. This is true, in my case, because I have never had a driver's license. I've never been alone in a moving car in my life. I am the ultimate car-pooler! The second survey I took gave me virtually the same result (44% of the Canadian average) and did allow for never travelling by car.
Before you get too impressed, though (if you're the type to be impressed by this sort of thing) bear in mind that is still 3.9 hectares of land (compared to the national average of 8.8) required to support my oh so luxurious bus riding, groceries in a rolling cart, small apartment in a low rise lifestyle, more than twice the global average of 1.8 hectares. If everyone lived like I do, we'd need another two and a half planets, or so goes the conceit.
So, yeah, it's a little amazing that Chris Paine got me so enamoured of the sporty little EV1, but he did. And it's crucial as a viewer to feel a little romantic towards the zippy little electric car, so that you can become crushed when he tells you the story of the car's demise, along with the dismantling of some of the most ambitious environmental legislation in the United States, the California Air Resources Board’s Zero Emission Vehicle (ZEV) mandate. As a story-telling technique it's brilliant.
Al Gore's Inconvenient Truth has gotten a lot of attention and seems to have led to a genuine shift in the political currents. With a federal election supposedly looming, even the Conservatives are trying to wrap themselves in the green flag, so hot button has the topic become. But Who Killed the Electric Car is a far more engaging film, in my opinion, and does a much better job of pointing fingers and naming names. It shows who, specifically, is responsible for shutting down a programme and destroying a product that could have real impact on climate change.
The only quibble I have with the film is that it doesn't address a core part of the problem with cars, and that has to do with the volume on the roads and the extent to which Canadians and Americans are dependent on them to move about their communities. Just weaning off oil and switching to electricity won't solve that problem, and in fact, I question whether having the same number of cars on the road as we have now, powered by electricity, is even feasible. Already half of Canadians say they believe nuclear power is a good way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Talk about robbing Peter to pay Paul. Let's clean up the air today by creating nuclear waste that will be radioactive for ten thousand years.
Finding alternatives for oil are a great idea, but if those of us who life in the rich nations don't actually do something to curb our consumption, none of that will matter. We can look to Mexico for an example of the impact of American car drivers on the lives of the poor. I see no reason to believe that merely replacing every gas guzzler on the road with an electric car re-charged with electricity from a coal-fired or nuclear power plant would have any better impact.
Here is a link to the Vancouver Electric Vehicle Association, a twenty year old non-profit society.
The BC Federation of Labour has ramped up their campaign to raise the minimum wage in British Columbia from $8 per hour to $10. A couple of weekends ago Jim Sinclar himself handed me a flyer at a Vancouver Skytrain station and urged me to sign their on-line petition.
On Thursday, the NDP also called on the Campbell government to raise the wage to $10.
Business leaders and the BC Liberals are, predictably, against the $2 raise, arguing, among other things, that it will prove a disincentive to investors. You also often hear champions of small businesses raising the objection that it will put them out of business.
As a small business owner myself, I think that's just bad business. Sure, there are businesses that will go under if the minimum wage is raised to $10; in my opinion those businesses should go under. If the only way a business can stay afloat is by paying its workers poverty wages, then as far as I'm concerned they have no business operating. Arguing that it should be legal to pay people wages that will see them working full time but still falling far short of the poverty line (a single person working full time at $8 per hour falls about $4000, or 25%, short of the latest [2005] poverty line, never mind someone who is supporting a family) just encourages bad business practices. Because if businesses folding is an excuse for keeping wages so low, then why not lower the minimum wage? Surely there are plenty of businesses that couldn't hack it in the current wage climate that could thrive if we lowered the minimum wage to $5 an hour, no?
The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives released a report in March that challenges many of the myths of the "disastrous" consequences of raising the minimum wage minimum wage above the poverty line. You can read a press release and find the whole report here.
I first saw Josh Jakus's (http://joshjakus.com/) UM bags a couple of weeks ago at the Vancouver Art Gallery's gift shop. The first thing I noticed about the bags was their striking shape and the rich organic texture of the felt of which they are made.
But the real pleasure of these bags is when you unzip them. Jakus said the bags grew out of the challenge to "transform a flat surface into a volume using only the simplest of operations," and that operation is the zipping of a zipper. The bags get extra points for being made from industrial felt (sturdy!) scraps that would otherwise go to waste.
I've been meaning to write about Karim Rashid's beautifully designed Kone hand held vacuum for Dirt Devil for ages. I love the clean simple lines of the machine and the fact that I would happily have it sitting in my living room or on my kitchen counter. A far cry from the ugly beige dust buster my parentshad plugged into a hallway outlet when I was a kid!
True to Rashid's style, Kone is lovely to look at.
You can see the range of colours and see Kone at work, sort of, in Dirt Devil's spot ad for it on YouTube.
Oh I want to love this product so badly. I really do. It's reasonably priced and it looks good. I love it when something useful can also be beautiful but still remain affordable. Beauty for the masses and all that. Only, what this other YouTube video, from Popular Mechanics, shows is that Kone doesn't work. Oh sure, it's pretty but it sucks. Or, it doesn't suck! And that turns this from my favourite kind of design to the worst kind of design ever: a useless pretty thing that will frustrate the people who bought it and very quickly clutter up landfills. Shame on you Dirt Devil and Karim Rashid!
Ikea has these fabulous colourful plastic chopsticks that I love to death. I can hardly resist buying them over and over again, they are so lovely and functional. More than one person has received them as a gift!
They win my approval not just for their cheery colour, but also because the nifty little nubbies on the tips make them a pleasure to eat with. No stray grains of rice can escape their grippy nubby power. And though I'm normally not so rah rah about plastic, these are a hundred times better than the dozens and dozens of pairs of splintery chopsticks that get thrown away daily at our local sushi joint. I'm going to start carrying a couple pair around in my bag all the time for impromptu sushi lunches.
I was sad to hear that Rita Joe, often called the poet laureate of the Mi'kmaq died yesterday. Rita Joe was a survivor of residential schools, a fierce activist for her people, member of the order of Canada, a recipient of numerous literary awards and, most amazingly to me, mother to ten kids. Ten!
Here is a link to a CBC story about her.
It is a great loss for the Mi'kmaq and Canadian peoples.
This year marks the 30th anniversary of International Women's Day, which was created by the United Nations in 1977 to mark the progress in achievements in women's rights around the world and to call attention to the work that still needed to be done. It was meant as a recognition of the fact that equality and security for women and girls are vital to strengthening international peace and security.
In Canada, we celebrate women's week and this year's theme is Ending Violence Against Women: Action for Real Results, which is ironic given that the Conservative government has slashed funding to Status of Women Canada and wants to place all kinds of unreasonable limits on the kind of research organizations it funds can do. Women's organizations that find that public policy is plays a role in women's inequality or fails to address the conditions that can lead to violence against women, may find their funding drying up.
You can find something to do almost wherever you are here.
Someone recently sent me a box of Happy Elephant Darjeeling Himalyan tea. It brews up a lovely cuppa, but more than the tea, I'm in love with the packaging! The box is triangular, with a William Morris-like leaves and flowers print in pinks, golds and browns. A chartreuse sleeve slides out, with information about the tea and the company in fuchsia. The tea bags themselves are also triangular (pyramidic?). Happy Elephant is a supporter of Umeed, which promotes healthcare and social empowerment in rural Punjab, India.
Now, if only their teas were fair trade...
Hot Lips: A Celebration of Women
Saturday March 3rd, 2007
at Centennial Theatre (
2300 Lonsdale Avenue, North Vancouver, BC)
A fund raiser for the North Shore Women's Centre!
Silent Auction: 6pm Showtime: 7pm
All proceeds go to the North Shore Women's Centre.
Ticket Price: $30 (General Admission Seating)
TICKETS ON SALE NOW!!!
To order tickets, please contact the North Shore Women’s Centre at
604-984-6009 or by email at info@northshorewomen.ca (cash, cheque and visa
accepted). Tickets also available at Centennial Theatre box office at
604-984-4484.
