Vegetables
- Yacon
- Cardoon
- Quinoa and Amarinth (love lies bleeding)
- Chicory/endive/escarole/radiccio-what are they? what's a category of what? what do you do with them?
-Early Scarcity Beets
-Sugarloaf cabbage
-Long marrowfat peas
Fruit
-my architect friend Donna West just told me about "magic fruit"--a berry that makes everything taste sweet for one hour after you eat it. article from the NYTimes "The Miracle Fruit"
Herbs/Medicinal/Misc
-Mullein
Friday, May 30, 2008
Thursday, May 29, 2008
The Meaning of Odds & Ends
(+ see also)
odds & ends
knick knacks
the ampersand as a punctuation mark poets and information architects can't live without.
what does it take to be a botanist?
blog in progress is a redundancy (what's that term)
study group: literary terms (word a day)
focus and the challenges of not doing it
meditation
blog as a series
blog as scrapbook
blog as storage bin/filing system
blog as communication technology
that when, 10 years ago, you thought 'ah that's really trendy now' you had no idea that it would be a cultural explosion / dependency now
future trendspotters: another of our specialties
- is it intuition, research/social involvement/community, or manifest destiny
self-determination and what it means
challenges of special characters on the internet (file under: ampersand)
psychological analysis of our blog posts
knick knacks
the ampersand as a punctuation mark poets and information architects can't live without.
what does it take to be a botanist?
blog in progress is a redundancy (what's that term)
study group: literary terms (word a day)
focus and the challenges of not doing it
meditation
blog as a series
blog as scrapbook
blog as storage bin/filing system
blog as communication technology
that when, 10 years ago, you thought 'ah that's really trendy now' you had no idea that it would be a cultural explosion / dependency now
future trendspotters: another of our specialties
- is it intuition, research/social involvement/community, or manifest destiny
self-determination and what it means
challenges of special characters on the internet (file under: ampersand)
psychological analysis of our blog posts
odds/ends
- better image posting workflow
- workflow diagrams!
- I KNOW WHY WE NEED TO BLOGS: because we only have a one-page website and this is the only way to have a second page
Taxonomy/Botany Notes
- What does it mean that a plant comes from the same family? What characteristics does that family tend to share, and what distinguishes them? (brassicas share the same leaf structure). Take a botany class?
- Do we want to make a taxonomy/glossary/tool related to the differences / similarities / overlap between different disciplines and terms?
Garden Experiments & Fun Projects
- Do we want to set up some lab trials to document how plant distance affects the plant (Note: "Control Group" is an interesting term to explore)?
- Try propagating various things
- Make beauty products from the garden (salt scrubs, etc.)
- Jam/jelly/canning?
- Make crazy old-fashioned foods?
Gaps in my Garden Knowledge
- Planting distance: How far apart do you really need to plant things? (I tend to ignore the directions on the packet and plant much closer together)
- Mulch: What is it really? What's the best kind?
- Seedling mix recipe (I've heard peat moss is bad for environment--draining bogs and wetlands--and also too acidic)
- What is pH really? (create a key /cheat sheet for identifying pH and adjusting soil pH)
- Worm compost vs. hot compost
- How to be more water-wise and ecologically conscientious in growing food (I think the Indians in SF at acorns. Would that be the real "macrobiotic" thing to eat --what's native to this area? What does it mean to have altered the landscape)
- Future gardens: Native plants, xeriscaping
For each species, I need to know
When to:
--start seeds
--transplant
--harvest
--collect seeds
Specimen Garden is making a calendar-tool.
--start seeds
--transplant
--harvest
--collect seeds
Specimen Garden is making a calendar-tool.
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Sunday, May 25, 2008
On Breadcrumbs
Breadcrumbs are an IA term, derived from Hansel & Gretel story (to find your way back home). It would be nice to use this here somehow, but usually it's within the context of a site with a navigation scheme (which unfortunately we can't easily create w/in Blogger).
e.g.
SPECIMEN GARDEN>CATALOG>Tagging notes (keyword selection)
e.g.
SPECIMEN GARDEN>CATALOG>Tagging notes (keyword selection)
Our Favorite Words & Concepts
Concepts
-The Conceptual Razor (my genius friend Ignazio Moresco came up with this; he does interaction design)
-Simplicity
-Instant readability/legibility
-10 minutes a day
-About-ness
Words
-Squint
-Blink
-The Conceptual Razor (my genius friend Ignazio Moresco came up with this; he does interaction design)
-Simplicity
-Instant readability/legibility
-10 minutes a day
-About-ness
Words
-Squint
-Blink
Our Favorite Subjects to Geek Out On
Terms information architects, librarians, and botanists love:
-Labels (terms, systems and physical objects used to catalog the garden, online, etc)
-Concordance/s
-Glossary/Lexicon
-Taxonomy/Ontology (species, genus, etc.)
-Field Guides
-Tools to Measure/Predict (Divining Stick, Weathervain, Thermometer...)
-Documentation
Information Design Challenges:
-Documenting Scale (show egg or hand in a photo to indicate its scale)
-Consistency in Nomenclature & Categorization
-Multi-lingual/internationalization
-Iconography
Hot Topics: Frontlines
-"Dashboards"
-All things eco (urban homesteading,...)
-Water conservation and the coming apocalypse
-Iconic indicators (=signage?)
-Literary terms (word of the day, the word that means a microcosm representing the larger topic)
-Labels (terms, systems and physical objects used to catalog the garden, online, etc)
-Concordance/s
-Glossary/Lexicon
-Taxonomy/Ontology (species, genus, etc.)
-Field Guides
-Tools to Measure/Predict (Divining Stick, Weathervain, Thermometer...)
-Documentation
Information Design Challenges:
-Documenting Scale (show egg or hand in a photo to indicate its scale)
-Consistency in Nomenclature & Categorization
-Multi-lingual/internationalization
-Iconography
Hot Topics: Frontlines
-"Dashboards"
-All things eco (urban homesteading,...)
-Water conservation and the coming apocalypse
-Iconic indicators (=signage?)
-Literary terms (word of the day, the word that means a microcosm representing the larger topic)
To Do List
Online
-Post brainstorming notes
-Can we add a tag cloud to our blog
-Define our web 2.0 toolset (del.icio.us, flickr, etc.)
-Get our blog signature set up
-Post brainstorming notes
-Can we add a tag cloud to our blog
-Define our web 2.0 toolset (del.icio.us, flickr, etc.)
-Get our blog signature set up
Our Projects
1. Collect and Analyze Information Design Tools (a la Tufte)
2. Create Urban Homesteader Tool
2. Create Urban Homesteader Tool
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2008
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May
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- Plants We're Obsessed with
- Honesty
- The Meaning of Odds & Ends (+ see also)
- odds/ends
- Taxonomy/Botany Notes
- Garden Experiments & Fun Projects
- Gaps in my Garden Knowledge
- For each species, I need to know
- Seasonal Ingredient Map
- Inpiration for My New Business Model
- Map Iconography
- On Breadcrumbs
- Our Favorite Words & Concepts
- Our Favorite Subjects to Geek Out On
- To Do List
- Our Projects
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May
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