The Joy of Patent Surfing

I only recently discovered the amazing resource of Google Patents but have been having a great time perusing it since I did. Sometimes I find myself drifting by there (internet exploration, if figured as motion, is really a derive) for research purposes and end up totally embroiled, flipping from one patent to another. This happens of course because all of the patents are linked to one another through citation.
It's the images that are the most compelling! What a fascinating graphic lexicon is at work. Line drawings I am fairly familiar with, but these have such strange texture and shadowing techniques and the labels are totally bizarre. Even patent applications from 2009 look hand-drawn, with funny jagged lettering and loopy leaders.
Here's the one that I was looking at today that made me want to share this private form of entertainment. I frankly have little idea what is being described. I recommend not reading anything about the application until you've looked at all of the diagrams in series, it'll be more fun that way.

'spoonangoogle'

I went on a crazy photo-shooting adventure yesterday to try and capture some of the things I have been writing about as images. You can expect a number of examples of the results to be posted here in the near future. Here are the first two experiments, although only the texture is from yesterday's session:

spoonangoogle 1, photomontage

spoonangoogle 2, photomontage

Team North Blog

Just a plug for the folks in the next office. I just managed to check out their progress today and it's really coming along great!

http://www.team-north.com/blog/

Archi-culture film

This looks kind of interesting - coming out soon. It has interviews with Zaha Hadid, a bunch of dirty looking self-pitying graduate students (I can totally sympathize), and most importantly David Byrne:

Archiculture Teaser from arbuckle industries on Vimeo.

Abstract Update

It's been almost a month since the last complete overhaul of my thesis abstract, so I figured it was about time for another! The revised version is here. It is far more accurate than the last one and probably will only get more and more accurate as the project proceeds.