The bizarre news for the week is that we learnt how to open our windows all the way. They had little stops on them to prevent them from opening too far. Once we learnt where to press we’ve managed to get better circulation into the office as well as being all to get larger objects out of them. This will come in handy for one of more sneaky project once it gets closer to 24h of darkness here in Reykjavik.

Aitor and Brian also sat down this week and did some major planning for our next project with analog.is. This is our collaborative project which has roots in personal needs. In the next few weeks we’ll have more to show and discuss on the topic. In the mean time, if you love notebooks and cartography, you should sign-up for the analog.is mailing list.

The prototype Helgafell prototype is complete. It served its purpose and will certainly be the basis for many future projects. In the next few weeks, we’ll write-up a bit of a postmortem and about what next steps will be taken to bring it a bit more mainstream.

Vísar projects are in full swing as schools are getting ready to start surveying beginning in September. Version 2.0 of the system is emerging from the deep depths of development and is looking really good. A few weeks of refinement and we’ll hopefully be able to talk more about the project.

We also had an afternoon meeting with our legal team to discuss contracts, projects and making sure a few things we’re doing are square with the data protection laws. So far so good.

Our good friends at Borgarmynd, are joining us in our office space to help fill the empty half and keep us on our cartographic toes.

Finally, the team is off to Brighton, England next week for the dConstruct conference. We’re really looking forward to it and if you’re around give us a shout.

Bric-à-brac

Some amazing work with fluid dynamics, surface tension and colour.

Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London

The young hippopotamus Obayasch (1849-1878) in the Cairo garden of the British Consulate, awaiting transportation to the London Zoo. The consul, Mr. Murray, described the hippo as being as playful as a Newfoundland puppy. Joseph Wolf, the Zoological Society’s principal artist, painted the charming youngster from a sketch.

The Glutton Club

Charles Darwin, while at Cambridge was part of something called the Glutton Club. [They] attempted to live up to their title by experimentally dining on “birds and beasts which were before unknown to human palate” and tried hawk and bittern, but gave up after eating an old brown owl, “which was indescribable”.