I read about Robert Taub’s ImproVox a couple days ago and decided to give it a try. This iPad app is a blast, adding all kinds of texture and harmony to your voice as you sing. I love it and could entertain myself for a long time with the effects and the sounds made by tapping and scrubbing the iPad case while it is on. I do wish it could export a MIDI version of the results. I’d love to replace voice with instruments to build up a piece.

Years ago when we were renovating our attic I made the naive choice to do the tile in the bathroom myself. I was inspired by Hundertwasser, but really knew nothing about tile. Many calls around town revealed a new little shop near the fairgrounds, Mosaic on a Stick. Lori Green and Maria founded the Stick as not only a source for the materials that mosaic artists need, but also as an open studio and learning space to invite people to discover the artform and fall in love with building a world from broken pieces. Today I read this wonderful article about Mosaic on a Stick.

I enjoyed it immensely. The broken plate had been sitting on my dresser for months, and every time I looked at it, I had a twinge of sadness, remembering the whole plate it had once been. But once I started breaking it up into half-inch pieces, it turned into something else entirely. Raw bits ready to be reassembled into something new. Possibilities.

I enjoyed arranging the pieces onto the wood picture frame, like pieces in a puzzle. It required a quiet concentration that was soothing, and I soon lost track of time.

If you live in the Twin Cities, you should really stop by some time. It is a healing experience!

A few years ago I saw a TED demo video about BumpTop, a prototype 3D desktop designed for pen interaction. Now this prototype has grown into a Mac desktop environment called BumpTop. (There is a Windows version too.) Now it is time to see how much the product can live up to the presentation.

Maybe just because they are Austrian and oh-so Viennese, maybe because they break all the rules for web design, maybe because the whole damn thing is in Flash, which usually I hate, maybe because the video is just hilarious… I don’t know what it is, but I love the Screenagers web site. Go ahead, take a look!

(hat tip to NotCot)

School started yesterday and that got me thinking about lunch. How do you handle lunchtime? In Austria lunch is the big meal of the day and dinner is small and snackish. I love that. But here in the USofA it is hard to pull off that kind of schedule. Lunch is often away from home, at school, at work. Eating out (or eating school lunch) is one way to handle this meal, but that can be expensive and not-so-nutricious. The New York Times published a story on Bento Boxes that was full of interesting ideas.

Nathaniel has become very creative in the kitchen, devouring the Betty Crocker cookbook, making lunches and dinners all last week, and wondering when he’ll have time to cook during the school year. He also loves things Japanese, like sushi (well, some sushi). Maybe making bento boxes is an idea that would work for him?

As a consultant working out of my home, I am always on the lookout for inexpensive ways to communicate and collaborate with teams. I’ve had a lot of good luck with Adobe ConnectNow for groups of two or three. Today I learned about tinychat, which seems even simpler than ConnectNow, allows more people to participate in a videochat, and still lets me share my screen (or a portion of it). Pretty nifty service for a free cloud app.

I love logo, it is such an easy yet powerful language. I was disappointed today to see that N’s teacher was crossing out all the Logo-related assignments in his math homework. What a waste! I wondered how hard it would be to install Logo at a school these days. As I suspected, not hard at all!

There are a number of Logo interpreters written in Java, but my favorite to date is a Logo interpreter written in JavaScript. This should run in just about any modern browser. Joshua Bell, the author of this Logo, also links to Curly Logo written in JavaScript. That one may be more appropriate for kids since it takes the trouble to appear more fun to use. Plenty of Logo without any install. Now I just wish it were being used in N’s school.

Enjoy!

I ran across a story about a cool iPhone apparatus that makes scanning documents with the iPhone simple. This is a neat idea, the iPhone can make a serviceable scanner in a library or at home, a great alternative to copying costs.

But even better was the service the creator of this apparatus had used to build and sell it. Called Ponoko, it is a website that lets you build almost anything you can imagine. You design it, you price it. Ponoko makes it, ships it, your customer assembles it.

I love sites like Jakprints where I can print almost anything and CafePress where I can design and sell t-shirts and other swag. Now I can come up with a crazy idea for a physical object and have that instantiated in the world. Cool.

The GroupLens team at the University of Minnesota has a new project, or at least one I just noticed: Cyclopath. This is a map of the Twin Cities with a social ability to mark blocks of the city with regard to their bikeability (potholes, hills, traffic, etc.). You can give it two addresses, describe your preferences (I like bikepaths and bikeroutes, but dislike hills), and it will find a route for you. After trying it out you can grade the route and leave comments for future cyclists. Very cool. If you bike around the Twin Cities you should check it out and get an account. Too bad they don’t let you save or share routes.

So you don’t think you are a musician? Give this a try. You may change your mind, or at least spend a fun hour trying! (Hat tip, who else: Andrew.)