After the sudden and unexpected demise of Vancouver’s Workspace, many people sprung into action.  There was discussion at BarCamp, there was a meeting in Chinatown, there are efforts underway to expand the Network Hub or for businesses and organizations to let people use their space on an adhoc basis, all in an effort to offset the loss of Vancouver’s first and most famous coworking space.

So I thought, what about BOB?

It had always been in our plans to make available for use by others our main floor at 163 East Pender, but the brain trust was thinking along the lines of event and meeting space.  I proposed making the space also available to coworkers, many of whom were now homeless after the closure of Workspace.  After creating a drawing of our space and writing a vision document, we achieved ‘buy in’ internally and set about seeing what the costs would be.

Building Opportunities with Business (BOB) is a non-profit organization that is championing an inclusive revitalization process for the inner-city that values existing businesses and residents. BOB is a connector, a resource and a facilitator working to: strengthen the inner-city’s community capacity; identify and build on untapped business opportunities; improve employment opportunities and retention; and increase investment in Vancouver’s inner-city.

To further our mission we would like to make available to select partners, individuals, and businesses the main floor of 163 East Pender Street.  We hope that this open shared work space can contribute to the revitalization of the inner-city by providing a space for creative professionals to flourish, for ideas to peculate, to cross pollinate, for businesses to grow, a place where stuff gets done.

What we’re offering is a work surface, be it a desk, a chair, a table, a couch, or the bay window, wherever you’re most comfortable.  Of course we’ll offer wi-fi and other niceties such as an electronic white board and a projector to facilitate discussion and creative thinking. There’s a fridge for your food, a microwave, filtered water cooler, and secure storage for your bike.  The room will be decorated with ever changing art from inner-city artists and galleries plus historic Chinatown is just outside the door to provide inspiration.

Target Audience

We’re looking for creative professionals, progressive thinkers, the socially responsible and ecologically conscious who want to be surrounded by others of like mind.  Folks who want more than a cubicle and a 9 to 5 and dream of bigger things and a better Vancouver to call home.  People who want to support BOB, to see our vision become a reality.

Shared Work Environment

BOB will offer our partners a clean, safe, productive, professional environment in the heart of Chinatown, filled with kindred spirits, and empower them to make an impact.

For Individuals

Individuals, known as associates, will have their own electronic fob to come and go as they please Monday to Friday.  BOB staff will make the space available and provide support between 9 and 5. The coworking hours are 9 AM until at least 8 PM on weekdays, subject to the availability of an approved caretaker and not withstanding any exclusive event bookings.  Our intention is to provide at least eight consecutive hours of access daily.  After 5pm a caretaker will be on hand to ensure a professional and productive environment is maintained and the shared workspace is secured fully at the end of the day.  24 hour access and regular weekend hours are not being offered at this time.

For Organizations

163 East Pender is also a space to hold gatherings, meetings of ten to twenty can take place around the central table, and larger gatherings of over a hundred have also been successful.  Inquire at events@bobics.org to reserve the main floor for your next AGM or networking event.

BOB needs to use the main floor from time to time for our business development seminars, employer breakfasts, and job fairs.  Best efforts will be made to schedule these events between 8am-12pm Tuesdays and Thursdays allowing the space to be used Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings by others.  Weekend and evening events are also possible and will be examined on a case by case basis.

Enough of the marketing speak, where is this idea at?

We have desks, WiFi, and fobs so people can start working out of coworking@BOB now if they like.  We are charging a flat $200 per month, plus GST of course.  Some of the furniture and upgrades to the facilities are not completed, such as tiling in the bathroom.  Tilers in Vancouver are busy people it seems. BOB has already had many events and meetings in the space, we’ll be having our Christmas Open House there on December 16th so anyone who wants to see the space or learn more should contact coworking@bobics.org.  I also set up a special Twitter account just for letting associates know what is going on at the space and am also working on getting Divvy up and running.

Thanks for all the help of the coworking community in getting our space to this state, now all we need is some coworkers, so if you know anyone looking for a cheap but professional place to work out of, send them my way.

We're looking for some coworkers to fill these desks.

I’ve decided to make the prints myself from now on, rather than having an online service to do them for me. I make them in a local lab that makes fabulous works, my preference is to print them on a material called K-fix, it’s about 2cm thick, light as feather and the print size is very smooth without strong reflections. It also looks good without framing and it’s well-priced.

I still haven’t decided the service I’m going to use to send them and how much it will cost so I’m only going to show the base prices for basic sizes. Custom sizes can be made. All prints are signed. Any additional item is free of shipping costs.

The prices refer to prints on K-fix, prints on canvas are also available, priced –20%.

For orders contact petroszeglis@gmail.com

◼ Square crop

The word monopolis derives from the greek words μόνο and πωλείν, meaning mere, only, simply and sell respectively. Also, πόλις means city, so monopolis can be a wordplay. Μόνο is also the first conservative in words like monochrome.

Funny how some cities look like miniatures but at the same time are so chaotic. Well, not Tokyo. I went up to the Tokyo tower that day, hoping either for some haze or extremely clear atmosphere and a view of mount Fuji. I got nothing of these though, not that day, not any other day I went there but I got a clear view of Odaiba.

A friend said yesterday “it’s better to dream that you’re someone than being no one”. I couldn’t agree more, but having mentioned that I wonder what makes me want to live there. You could say I expect big things from myself…

A interesting exhibition at the Medical Museion, University of Copenhagen.

Split + Splice, Del + Hel, is about the inter-relations between the culture of biomedicine and the enormous complexities of 21st century living.  The exhibition explores these complexities through the material culture, objects and instruments used by biomedical practitioners in research and in clinical activities.

Much as biomedicine itself, Split + Splice is an innovative hybridisation of complex practices.  It is not exactly science communication; it will not teach you comprehensively about the field of biomedicine.  It is not exactly old-fashioned history of science; it will not show you a triumphalist progression of miraculous discovery.  It is not exactly an art exhibition; it will not leave you with a sense that you have seen inside a solo mind.

Investigation, intervention, inquiry, analysis, critique, visualisation, modeling.  All these processes are present in scientific methodology, in the disciplines of art, design and aesthetics, and in the methods of the history and philosophy of science and medicine.  If the sheer knife of a microtome can give us the startling and strange histological slice of tissue that revealed the neuron to Ramon y Cajal for the first time, then we must also be able to wield with equal precision what we know about aesthetics to reveal vital information about the cultures that made the objects under scrutiny; here we have investigated the prosaic but fundamental way that both plastics and computing have revolutionised medicine.  Under a humanities microscope, epistemological investigations of the ritual and often hypnotically repetitive practices of biomedicine can reveal, among other things, the social assumptions that often underpin disease prediction.

In Split + Splice we have used different techniques from the arts, the sciences and the humanities as prisms to analyse the same material in several ways.  The exhibition’s ‘catalogue’ User Manual is also the object index for the entire show: a gift to the visitor to take away and keep, but also something that sets the objects free from text, allows them to be discovered in their form and materiality by the visitor.

Split + Splice is not about the ‘user end’ or the magic bullet, but rather the minutiae of biomedicine’s daily practice.

We take the visitor into the engine room of biomedicine, into its Cold Room, its Wet Lab, its number crunching, its visualisation practices.  Its incubators and ion exchange columns.  Its legal frameworks and its media leaks.  We will take you into some of the historical origins of biomedicine’s process of fragmenting the body into smaller and smaller pieces.  We came to the conclusion that all of biomedical practice is a never-ending attempt to contain the torrent of life and manage the flows of this cascade of complexity from biosample to dataset, from clinic to lab, from individual to populace.  These practices of containment and flow tell us much about the cultures of biomedicine and the kinds of societies that its practices produce.

Split + Splice is an experience, not an explanation.  We want people to leave the exhibition with a sense of how to ask pertinent questions about biomedicine and the ways in which it affects their own individual and social/collective lives.  Switch on, measure up, and to go with the flow, into the show.

Martha Fleming, for the exhibition team: Søren Bak-Jensen, Susanne Bauer, Sniff Andersen Nexø, Jan Eric Olsén and Jonas Paludan.

Simply sedated.
Not even sedated, I’ve just been around and trying to get out of certain things the best way I can…but it’s all to get the better part of the sandwich. Last week I kept telling people that I was waiting for something to hit me, then I ended up throwing up into a trash can in the middle of China Town. It wasn’t exactly what I was looking for but it did help me realize something:
don’t drink tea from Mcdonalds!
No, there has to be a more substantial reason as to why you haven’t been writing in your blog!
There’s really not, though.
For the past week I’ve been really tired and really thirsty.
Thanksgiving is coming up.
I think this is one of the most dull blogs I’ve written by far…
probably because I am writing to fill up space.
Most defiantly cause I am writing to fill up space.
I am going to pretend like there is no more space and write at a time where I am not even thinking about the space.
Does that even make sense to you?
Pause.
Don’t answer.
Replay.

The Finnish Bioart Society (established May 2008) is an organisation supporting, producing and creating activities around bioart, and creating public discussions about biosciences, biotechnologies and bioethics. Additionally it is the finnish contact-node in international networks of bioarts.

The society is also the motor behind the plan (Ars Bioarctica) that aims at introducing bioart as an own area to educational institutions.

http://www.kilpiscope.net/

When is not directly specialized in art-science project either the hosts as many of the visitors are art-sci related practicioners.

Cultivamos Cultura is a platform for experimentation and development of shared knowledge in the theory and practice of science, technology and contemporary art. In other words, Cultivamos Cultura provides conditions to foster your creativity.

Cultivamos Cultura organizes activities in the areas of production, dissemination, research, education and exhibition.

http://cultivamoscultura.blogspot.com/

LABORATORIA is the first nonprofit research centre in Russia focused on constructing the platforms of interdisciplinary interaction between contemporary art and science as well as between contemporary art and social psychology.

LABORATORIA is aimed at establishing a new type of relationship between art, science and society in which new forms and currents of creative energy are redirected and reset. LABORATORIA is the space for commun creation, intersection and movement of scientists and artists. LABORATORIA is the starting point for developing the international autonomous Art&Science space.

http://newlaboratoria.ru

There is no better feeling than to be surrounded in a room filled with beautiful publication. Or perhaps if it could all belong to me..

Efficiency in home design is paramount. Space has a cost just like materials and labour. When designing the designer should always consider the space in which he/she is working in. When space is limited we must think of a creative way of “adding” space. By creating spaces with multiple uses we can increase each spaces usefulness, and give an “added” space effect. You can fuse your kitchen with the dining room, or bedroom with living room and even the bathroom with the laundry room. Each room has its own needs, it is up to the designer to find an elegant way of combining each rooms needs into the other. In some cases you could combine more than two rooms.

SPACES opening Friday, November 20

Read the Plain Dealer story: Artist Blaise Carrier-Chouinard creates works for his exhibit as it goes along at Spaces in Cleveland | Arts

Visit SPACES website:  http://www.spacesgallery.org/

Tip 1: Remember, it’s 2009, kids; get rid of the typewriter mentality!

I am going a little afield today, and, instead of a language tip, I want to talk about some formatting issues.

You know what makes me crazy about having to tell you this? Many of you weren’t born when typewriters were being used! So what is your excuse for having typewriter mentalities?

What do I mean by typewriter mentality? It is this: many of the formatting conventions that people use were developed before word processors and computers became ubiquitous. And many of the formatting conventions came about because typewriters only had monospaced fonts. Monospaced fonts or fixed width fonts are fonts whose letters each occupy the same amount of space. Typewriters could only move an equal space forward, so it made sense that the fonts corresponded. Courier is the classic typewriter font and is a good example of a monospaced font.

Look at the picture, here, which is printed in courier. The ‘a’ is the same size as the ‘e’ and the ‘g’ is the same size as the ‘q’ and so forth. Look at the ‘i’ and the ‘l. ‘ Even they are the same width as the other letters-look at the serifs (those are the horizontal lines at the base of the letters). The width of those serifs is the same width as the ‘a,’ ‘b,’ ‘c’ or any other monospaced letters.

One of the problems with all of the letters being the same size is that the words are harder to read. So a convention was established to put two spaces after a period (full stop) or other sentence-ending punctuation. The extra space made it easier to tell when a new sentence began.

Now, we use proportional fonts. With proportional fonts, each letter only takes up as much space as it needs. The letter ‘I’ takes up less space than the letter ‘m’ since it’s a narrow letter and doesn’t need as much horizontal space as the ‘m.’ Proportional fonts are used because they are much easier to read than monospaced fonts. They are so easy to read, that you only need to use one space after a period (full stop). Do you see where I am going with this?

STOP inserting TWO SPACES after a period!

Why, you might ask, am I getting myself so worked up about this now? Well, I’ve brought it up before, but it clearly did not stick. AND NOW IT MATTERS! We are being asked to go from 25 page grant proposals to 6 or 12 page grant proposals and from 3 page response to reviewers to 1 page! We need all of the space we can eke out. In a typical 25 page proposal, changing from two spaces after a period to one space after a period will save you more than a page! That is huge when you only have 6 or 12 pages to work with.

I know you are used to the two spaces and may forget to change. But, you can actually set up Word to check this for you.

In Word 2003 on the PC, go into ‘options,’ ‘grammar and spelling,’ and in ’settings,’ select ’spaces between sentences,’ and select ‘1.’

In Word 2007 on the PC, go into the button menu, select ‘word options,’ then select ‘proofing,’ and under ‘When correcting spelling and grammar in word,’ select ‘writing style,’ ‘grammar only or grammar and style,’ and ’settings.’ In settings, under ‘require,’ at ’spaces between sentences,’ select ‘1.’

In Word 2008 on the Mac,  under preferences in the Word menu, select ‘Spelling and Grammar’. Under ‘Grammar’ select ‘Settings,’ and then at ‘Spaces between sentences,’ select ‘1’

And there you have it. If you forget and leave two spaces after a period, Word will insert one of its green squiggly lines to remind you.

And while I am on a rant about space, let me add this. Some of you, and you know who you are, persist in adding an extra space before and after a slash.

We want to look at the effects of chronic disease and / or acute infection on the lymphatic system.

What is with that? Cut it out. We can’t afford to lose any space. The sentence should be:

We want to look at the effects of chronic disease and/or acute infection on the lymphatic system.

The only time it is legitimate to surround the slash with spaces is when you are quoting poetry.

This Is Just To Say
William Carlos Williams

I have eaten / the plums / that were in / the icebox

and which / you were probably / saving / for breakfast

Forgive me / they were delicious / so sweet / and so cold

Our formatting lesson is almost over, but let me leave you with one last thought. There is one more relic of the typewriter that we don’t need and should NEVER use anymore, and that is the UNDERLINE. While in the olden days of typewriters, that was the only way to show emphasis (typewriters did not have bold or italics), that’s not true anymore. Italics and bolding are much better and more readable ways to show emphasis. Pretend that you don’t even see the U in your word processor. And never touch it!

Tip 2: Irregardless, what do we mean by a few?

A reader writes:

I have a question: My husband thinks “a few” means “some,” and “few” means “none.” For example, “Those apple trees have few apples” means “Those apple trees have no apples” to my husband. Is this accurate?

Also, can you please clarify whether “irregardless” is a real word, even colloquially? It drives me crazy when I hear it, but I’m not sure if it is in fact, correct.

Let me answer the second question first.

Irregardless is not a word. Some say it is a word since it has been used so much, but its use is not standard. But I don’t buy it: Irregardless is not a word. Do not use it in your conversations nor in your writing. Garner calls the use of irregardless a barbarism and has this to say about it:

Although this widely scorned NONWORD seems unlikely to spread much more than it already has, careful users of language must continually swat it when they encounter it.

Consider it swatted.

Now for your second question:

Your husband is on to something but he is a little bit off the mark. There is no sense in which few equals none. Few implies some. And there is, indeed, a subtle difference between few and a few.

A few means a small number.

Love all, trust a few. Do wrong to none.
William Shakespeare (1564 – 1616), “All’s Well That Ends Well”, Act 1 Scene 1

If you want to make a song more hummy, add a few tiddely poms
Pooh’s Little Instruction Book, inspired by A. A. Milne

Few means an indefinite small number. Few emphasizes how small the number is. Few implies hardly any-but not ‘not any.’

Manifest plainness,
Embrace simplicity,
Reduce selfishness,
Have few desires.
Lao-tzu (604 BC – 531 BC), The Way of Lao-tzu

Baseball is like church. Many attend, few understand.
Leo Durocher (1906 – 1991)

Finally, the expression, few in number, is redundant.

Well, we’ve made it past Issues 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, etc. for 2009!

Maybe you’re happy with the outcome of the vote on these issues, or maybe you’ve already forgotten what they were. In any case, all of those issues on the ballot got me to thinking about good ol’ Issue 18.  Remember that one? A little refresher: Cigarettes sold in Cuyahoga County + a 1.5-cent-per-cigarette tax applied through 2017 = $$$ for the arts.

As we know, Issue 18 passed in 2006. And according to the 2008 Annual Report issued by Cuyahoga Arts and Culture (CAC), in just three years, the tax has generated nearly 50 million dollars and enabled $33,560,000 in art-supporting grants.

SPACES benefits from one of those grants. It’s a huge source of income for us, and we’re grateful to the citizens of Cuyahoga County for their support through Cuyahoga Arts and Culture.

On a related note, CAC appointed Karen Gahl-Mills as their new executive director last week. Gahl-Mills has served as the president and executive director of the Syracuse Symphony Orchestra since 2006. Read the press release here.

I’m sure Meg, Achala, Donnie, and all of our friends at CAC are very excited to welcome Karen in 2010. Until then, they’re keeping busy with a whole slew of workshops to inform organizations about how to apply for CAC funds. Check out the calendar of events on their homepage.

And next time you’re out and about at your favorite Cuyahoga County arts organization — favorite besides SPACES, that is — look around for the Cuyahoga Arts and Culture name on the wall or in the program. Chances are, they’re a beneficiary of Issue 18, too.

– posted by Sarah McGreer Hoyt, Development Manager

241315     ที่ว่างในงานภูมิสถาปัตยกรรม     Spaces in Landscape Architecture

การสร้างที่ว่างให้มีความหมายะเฉพาะตัวด้วยองค์ประกอบทางภูมิสถาปัตยกรรม องค์ประกอบพื้นฐานทางศิลปะ การใช้วัสดุก่อสร้าง พืชพรรณและเทคนิคการจัดวาง

(Construction of spaces with particular meaning by landscape architectural elements. Basic art elements. Use of construction materials, plants, and installation techniques.)

(241315 มหาวิทยาลัยเกษตรศาสตร์)

Breathe.  Let go.  And remind yourself that this very moment is the only one you know you have for sure.  ~Oprah Winfrey

In. Out. In. Out. I had to remind myself that this is all that’s required to breathe this week, the last of several where anything that could go wrong did while anything that could go right didn’t. There’s something humbling about being in a state of flare, because it made me stop fighting the fatigue that I’ve been pushing through to keep on top of my job, family commitments, friends and just daily living. Flares remind me that saying ‘No’ is a good thing and you can’t please everybody.

I can’t speak for other people with Fibro or RA, but every now and then, I just want to be normal and handle life without measuring every action against an energy limit. I don’t want to have to think about the impact of what I do today on tomorrow. The rebellious spirit that I found as a teenager doesn’t want to think of the consequences of every decision I make.

But that’s the reality of it. I do have to take into consideration those things because if I don’t, then I lose time. Time spent in agony, time spent in a fog, time lost to recuperating from overdoing it. And I resent the hell out of it.

Then I stop and think about someone who is worse off than me. Like my friend’s little daughter who was born with half her heart, and who will be facing surgery soon at the tender age of four, so that she can just manage to participate without going blue. This lovely, cuddly child who has so much love and tenderness about her and has no understanding of the enormity of what she is facing. Her mother and father do, yet they take each day they have with their daughter and see it as a gift. It’s humbling.

Why is it we forget to just breathe and take in the world around us? Walking slowly through the park the other day with my friend’s daughter, her little trusting hand in mine, all the resentment and anger at my lot in life got put in perspective. Who am I to hold onto resentment and anger at my limitations when this little one doesn’t?

So in and out. In and out. That’s what it takes to let go of the stuff that doesn’t matter.

A scheme to invest 225m over a three-year period to beautify London’s streets, parks and waterways is unveiled…. From BBC News. Full story

This site may contain information about: sea temps. The blog is also related to: sea coast.