12-year-old Makes Homeless Shelter from Trash : Green Building Elements

Our friend and host of Design Squad, Nate Ball, checking in on Max Wallack, who's relaxing in the new "Home Dome" he just built in the Model Shop at Continuum

Max Wallack, a 12-year-old inventor from Natick, MA, stole the show at Design Squad’s Trash to Treasure contest with his “Home Dome.” The contest asked kids to repurpose trash into practical inventions.

Max was here at the Continuum studio last week where we helped him to turn his "Home Dome" concept into a functional prototype in our model shop.

At the end of the day, I had a chance to meet the young inventor so of course I asked him if he had anything in mind for his next invention.
He replied "Yes, but I can't tell you about it."

Oh well, I tried.

He's a super smart and motivated young man, and I hope he continues to inspire people of all ages to embrace the power of design for all things positive.

As for the "Home Dome" - it's quite warm and comfortable - and dare I say mod. With a bit more refinement, I could easily imagine them practically employed as inexpensive, semi-permanent shelters.

See the PBS Design Squad video clip here:

Remix happens...

and that's a great thing! Sampling happens as well.
In this case, our old friend Father Abraham from Indefinite Article (who we played with at The Paradise a couple years ago) just posted a new track of his. He uses a sample from the Makeout Song in the middle. Check it out on his blog.

http://fatherabraham52pickup.blogspot.com/2009/02/07-oscillator-blues-021909.html

He's also going to be posting a new track every week so we look forward to rest of the year.

Thanks Abe!

Rethinking Green for Lean Times

"Shopping along" in Atlanta

How do consumers see green?

That's a question we asked ourselves at Continuum, the innovation consultancy where I work, a little over a year ago.
Just this week, we officially published our findings, and our friend Jennifer van der Meer shared some great thoughts on the work on the Core77 design blog.

Read the full story here:
http://www.core77.com/blog/business/continuum_rethinking_green_for_lean_times_12646.asp

Tambourine Men @ Thirsty Ear: Feb 13, 2009

Rory, Matt, and Al: the tambourine men from Electric Laser People on Vimeo.

We were supremely fortunate to have Rory, Matt, and Al join us for the most rousing version of our tune "Tambourine Man" yet. What a time.

The Thirsty Ear yeah, it rules....!!!!

So do all of our pals who came down for the $6 pitchers, wings, and tambourine solos!

You guys rock!

Matt, Tambourine Al, Rory - you are rock stars! Be the drum. Be the tambourine. Be alive. It's all you.

Peace, people.

nike women | be transformed

laser people spotted in Asia Pacific Region

Electric Laser People provides the soundtrack for the new Nike Women Spring 09 “Be Transformed” campaign in Asia Pacific -- Nike Women’s largest integrated campaign to date. The campaign celebrates the transformation of women determined to drive their revolution through sport, becoming stronger and more confident.

"Be Transformed" was created by AKQA and will be distributed throughout Asia Pacific in cinema, TV, digital (mobile and website), print, out-of-home and in-store.

For those of you who know our music, you'll recognize the (skeleton of the) track "Guilty" from our debut album, "Straight Talk On Raising Kids," slightly modified for the ad. For those of you who are here by way of the ad itself, you can find the full-on track, as well as the rest of the album(!), for free(!!) download in our... uh, blog-toolbar-thing over there. (Sorry, I'm not the most blogiterate of us.)



Our video is called "Punchbag" (click for 17mb hires clip) and features beach volleyball star Sonia Kong battling a punching-bag-turned-Anime-monster. It's freakin rad.

It's featured on these Nike Women homepages throughout the Asia Pacific region:
Mainland China: http://www.nike.com/nikeos/p/nikewomen/zh_CN/
Hong Kong: http://www.nike.com/nikeos/p/nikewomen/zh_HK/
Taiwan: http://www.nike.com/nikeos/p/nikewomen/zh_TW
Korea: http://www.nike.com/nikeos/p/nikewomen/ko_KR/
Thailand: http://www.nike.com/nikeos/p/nikewomen/th_TH
Australia: http://www.nike.com/nikeos/p/nikewomen/en_AU/
Singapore: http://www.nike.com/nikeos/p/nikewomen/en_SG/
Philippines: http://www.nike.com/nikeos/p/nikewomen/en_PH/
India: http://www.nike.com/nikeos/p/nikewomen/en_IN/

More information on the campaign can be found here:
http://www.trashbagaesthetics.com/2009/01/15/nike-launches-%E2%80%9Cbe-transformed%E2%80%9D-ad-campaign/

We're super excited to have been given the chance to get the song out there to a new group of people and hope that we'll make some new friends.

Keep rocking!