"I've yet to hear a man asked how he's going to combine work & family." - Gloria Steinem, 1972.

2012, still waiting.

Ask a social scientist about the keys to happiness and you’re likely to hear that it’s better to buy experiences than buy possessions. What you’re unlikely to hear is a good explanation for why experiences make people happier.

Two Cornell psychologists, Emily Rosenzweig and Thomas Gilovich, attempted to answer this question by examining regret rather than satisfaction in the aftermath of a purchase. They theorized that with material purchases the strongest regret stems from action (i.e. buying the wrong thing), whereas with experiential purchases the strongest regret comes from inaction (not having the experience.) The result is that those who make a purchase are more likely to feel regret when buying a material good, and therefore buying a material good leads to comparatively less happiness.

We've sort of been dropping the ball here on the blog.

We still love it, and we have been working a lot on it (in our minds)

If you want to know what we're up too.. its worth checking out our twitter feed, dropping us an email so we update this more or more interesting is you can always stalk us.. we'll be here for most of January and Feb 2012... Bringing us baked goods is always a nice intro.. don't you think?

It's like that David Foster Wallace thing: If you worship money, you'll always feel poor. If you worship beauty, you'll always feel ugly. If you worship power, you always feel powerless. I worship innovation and I always feel like I'm not doing enough new stuff. That's my impulsiveness.

• Tom Sachs

We're half way into a hackathon workshop week here at HyperWerk. We have been honored and amazed by the energy and students here..

Half way into the workshop week, they've already got a running system. Total Win.

More photo documentation of the week is here.

by Fabian Ciraolo

A while back, at the entrance of a gym, there was a picture of a very thin and beautiful woman. The caption was "This summer, do you want to be a mermaid or a whale?"

The story goes, a woman (of clothing size unknown) answered the following way:

"Dear people, whales are always surrounded by friends (dolphins, seals, curious humans), they are sexually active and raise their children with great tenderness. They entertain like crazy with dolphins and eat lots of prawns. They swim all day and travel to fantastic places like Patagonia, the Barents Sea or the coral reefs of Polynesia. They sing incredibly well and sometimes even are on cds. They are impressive and dearly loved animals, which everyone defend and admires.

Mermaids do not exist.

But if they existed, they would line up to see a psychologist because of a problem of split personality: woman or fish? They would have no sex life and could not bear children. Yes, they would be lovely, but lonely and sad. And, who wants a girl that smells like fish by his side?

Without a doubt, I'd rather be a whale.

At a time when the media tells us that only thin is beautiful, I prefer to eat ice cream with my kids, to have dinner with my husband, to eat and drink and have fun with my friends.

We women, we gain weight because we accumulate so much wisdom and knowledge that there isn't enough space in our heads, and it spreads all over our bodies. We are not fat, we are greatly cultivated. Every time I see my curves in the mirror, I tell myself: "How amazing am I ?! "

When a person meets you for the first time they ask themselves two questions. The answers to these two questions will have all sorts of knock-on effects for how they think about you and how they behave towards you.

Professor Susan Fiske of Princeton University has shown that all social judgements can be boiled down to these two dimensions:

1. How warm is this person? The idea of warmth includes things like trustworthiness, friendliness, helpfulness, sociability and so on. Initial warmth judgements are made within a few seconds of meeting you.

2. How competent is this person? Competency judgements take longer to form and include things like intelligence, creativity, perceived ability and so on.

I have this home, but I'm still homesick.

"The patent world is undergoing a change of seismic proportions. A small number of entities have been quietly amassing vast treasuries of patents. These are not the typical patent trolls that we have come to expect. Rather, these entities have investors such Apple, Google, Microsoft, Sony, the World Bank, and non-profit institutions. The largest and most secretive of these has accumulated a staggering 30,000-60,000 patents." more ....

Some upcoming events in NYC we will be speaking at:

The Open Hardware Summit at 2:30pm EST September 15th

NYU 'Setting things on Fire with Lasers and Other things nobody taught you' at 6:30pm at ITP/NYU on Friday Sept 16th

The Future of Stuff at Pivatol Labs (Union Square), NYC on Sept 24th (and its FREE!)

There is a great line up at all of these events and we highly encourage anyone interested in fabrication or open source to attend!

And if you can't make it? We never say no to a coffee.. drop us a line!

See you there... !

• Lasersaur (Editors Choice) Makerfaire SF 2011, featured on Makezine (Sept 2011) and Make TV.
• ShadowProject in Volume Magazine The Internet of Things, V.28, August 2011
• New project: ArtWars
• Speaking at the Open Hardware Summit and Future of Stuff, September 2011 NYC
• Speaking at Parsons Paris and NYU/ITP (October/September)
• Hyperwerk Institute for Postindustrial Design Residency and 200W Hardware Workshop, Basel November 2011 and February 2012

Lasersaur #003 from Karl Kliem. Checkout the Lasersaur project for details and how to build your own.

We introduced ourselves, and I asked her what she did for a living. She looked at me and said, "Whatever I can get away with."

Dear Eva,

It will be almost a month since you wrote to me and you have possibly forgotten your state of mind (I doubt it though). You seem the same as always, and being you, hate every minute of it. Don’t! Learn to say “Fuck You” to the world once in a while. You have every right to. Just stop thinking, worrying, looking over your shoulder wondering, doubting, fearing, hurting, hoping for some easy way out, struggling, grasping, confusing, itchin, scratching, mumbling, bumbling, grumbling, humbling, stumbling, numbling, rumbling, gambling, tumbling, scumbling, scrambling, hitching, hatching, bitching, moaning, groaning, honing, boning, horse-shitting, hair-splitting, nit-picking, piss-trickling, nose sticking, ass-gouging, eyeball-poking, finger-pointing, alleyway-sneaking, long waiting, small stepping, evil-eyeing, back-scratching, searching, perching, besmirching, grinding, grinding, grinding away at yourself. Stop it and just DO!

From your description, and from what I know of your previous work and you [sic] ability; the work you are doing sounds very good “Drawing-clean-clear but crazy like machines, larger and bolder… real nonsense.” That sounds fine, wonderful - real nonsense. Do more. More nonsensical, more crazy, more machines, more breasts, penises, cunts, whatever - make them abound with nonsense. Try and tickle something inside you, your “weird humor.” You belong in the most secret part of you. Don’t worry about cool, make your own uncool. Make your own, your own world. If you fear, make it work for you - draw & paint your fear and anxiety. And stop worrying about big, deep things such as “to decide on a purpose and way of life, a consistant [sic] approach to even some impossible end or even an imagined end” You must practice being stupid, dumb, unthinking, empty. Then you will be able to DO!

I have much confidence in you and even though you are tormenting yourself, the work you do is very good. Try to do some BAD work - the worst you can think of and see what happens but mainly relax and let everything go to hell - you are not responsible for the world - you are only responsible for your work - so DO IT. And don’t think that your work has to conform to any preconceived form, idea or flavor. It can be anything you want it to be. But if life would be easier for you if you stopped working - then stop. Don’t punish yourself. However, I think that it is so deeply engrained in you that it would be easier to DO!

It seems I do understand your attitude somewhat, anyway, because I go through a similar process every so often. I have an “Agonizing Reappraisal” of my work and change everything as much as possible = and hate everything I’ve done, and try to do something entirely different and better. Maybe that kind of process is necessary to me, pushing me on and on. The feeling that I can do better than that shit I just did. Maybe you need your agony to accomplish what you do. And maybe it goads you on to do better. But it is very painful I know. It would be better if you had the confidence just to do the stuff and not even think about it. Can’t you leave the “world” and “ART” alone and also quit fondling your ego. I know that you (or anyone) can only work so much and the rest of the time you are left with your thoughts. But when you work or before your work you have to empty you [sic] mind and concentrate on what you are doing. After you do something it is done and that’s that. After a while you can see some are better than others but also you can see what direction you are going. I’m sure you know all that. You also must know that you don’t have to justify your work - not even to yourself. Well, you know I admire your work greatly and can’t understand why you are so bothered by it. But you can see the next ones and I can’t. You also must believe in your ability. I think you do. So try the most outrageous things you can - shock yourself. You have at your power the ability to do anything.

I would like to see your work and will have to be content to wait until Aug or Sept. I have seen photos of some of Tom’s new things at Lucy’s. They are impressive - especially the ones with the more rigorous form: the simpler ones. I guess he’ll send some more later on. Let me know how the shows are going and that kind of stuff.

My work had changed since you left and it is much better. I will be having a show May 4 -9 at the Daniels Gallery 17 E 64yh St (where Emmerich was), I wish you could be there. Much love to you both.

Sol