25 Times a Second

Nov 6

“A new agrarian revolution has occured in China, but only in the virtual worlds of social games. Social farm games now dominate all major Chinese social networking sites — RenRen (formerly Xiaonei), Kaixin001, 51.com, and QQ’s QZone. The May launch and 2H 2009 adoption of QQ Farm — a version of China’s already popular Happy Farm game built to run on Tencent’s estimated 228 million active-user QZone platform — may very well have transformed China into the leading country of online farmers.”

via China’s growing addiction: online farming games | VentureBeat

“I think many gamers would rather take a beating if they think that they are accomplishing something, then have some pointless fun. That’s a real shame because, lets be clear, you don’t accomplish anything when you play games. There is nothing wrong with that, we don’t have to accomplish things all the time, it should be OK to just have fun every now and then. That’s why I’m not so sure I’m OK with is trying to fooling you in to thinking you did accomplish something when you played my game.” “I like your dress, its too bad you have fat legs” via Quelsolaar.

“This supermarket is the real application of the oblique function theories worked out by the architect Claude Parent. By protecting it we safeguard one of the most significant works of the modern and contemporary architecture. This work belongs to all of us”. The GEM supermarket is in Sens, France, and was built in 1970. Just as much of the contemporary anti-charming architecture, it runs the risk to be destroyed or tampered.”

via ROLU

“Dutch architects van Bergen Kolpa (with research ecologists Alterra) propose a “Park Supermarket” for the Randstad, transforming polders — historically landscapes of food production, now pressured by both development and rising waters — into a park subdivided into new climate zones (”moderate, Mediterranean, and tropical”) and constructed hydrological conditions (basins for the cultivation of tilapia, or terraces for Pandan-en Risotto), accomodating the program and contents of the contemporary supermarket within an agrarian park.”

via park supermarket - mammoth // building nothing out of something

Sebastopol Residence by Turnbull Griffin Haesloop Architects » CONTEMPORIST

Hand-Cut Street Maps of World Cities - information aesthetics

Nov 5

Amazing post of Dutch covers via BibliOdyssey. Check it out, seriously.

Great Dan Gordon work today over at The Big Blog of Kids’ Comics!

“The fence is long gone, and the no-man’s land where it stood now is part of Europe’s biggest nature preserve. The once-deadly border area is alive with songbirds nesting in crumbling watchtowers, foxes hiding in weedy fortifications and animals not seen here for years, such as elk and lynx. But one species is boycotting the reunified animal kingdom: red deer. Herds of them roam both sides of the old NATO-Warsaw Pact border here but mysteriously turn around when they approach it. This although the deer alive today have no memory of the ominous fence.” Deep in the Forest, Bambi Remains The Cold War’s Last Prisoner - WSJ.com

“Michael Fotoohi doesn’t know how the result of his three years spent world building will be received – or how it will evolve. But the co-founder and MD of developer Micazook says uncertainty is part of the programme. “We want to see how people behave,” Fotoohi explains. “We want to see how they claim property, build houses and attach data. It’s a learning curve.”

via A Brave New World | Edge Online.

25 Times a Second

A feast in a time of plague.