Free Change

Rocky

Originally uploaded by gregoniemeyer

Cloudy is visiting San Diego these days, but the lights on the Monitor apparently terrified the guest dog so much that the host had to turn the monitor off. We here from Black Cloud headquarters think the lights blink below the dog’s flicker fusion rate, but people less satisfied with scientific explanations think Cloudy just wanted to play… What’s your take?

Kudelabs Office in Guangzhou

Originally uploaded by rejon

Kudelabs Offices in Guangzhou, a manufacturing hub near Hong Kong, now features a multimodal air quality sensor. We see clear patterns of work and leisure, but surprisingly, the VOC’s stay at a high level during the weekend. Comparing CO2 in Shanghai and Guangzhou, we see much higher baseline levels Guangzhou. Is this because there are more factories and less pacific breeze?

PS: Photo by the wonderful Jon Philips.

Johannesburg "Drill Hall" Gallery

Originally uploaded by gregoniemeyer

Thanks to the efforts of Joseph Gaylard, Black Cloud is now reporting from the Drill Hall Gallery in Johannesburg. Stay posted for emerging patterns!

Thermostat at Turkish Kitchen

Originally uploaded by gregoniemeyer

The photo does not show the Baltas Cafe, but it shows a thermostat hidden in a mural of a cafe in Berkeley. We installed a sensor in the Baltas Cafe in Berlin, but we do not have any steady data yet. Coming up, and the question will be if the data patterns match data patterns of cafes elsewhere in the world?

Effect of Clouds

Originally uploaded by gregoniemeyer

Bladerunner meets Cloudy in this dream Xiu Min Li sent Cloudy, this sad and beautiful dream of Black Clouds turning into solid blocks and crashing on us:

It was chaotic and people were running around in a frenzy.
It was gloomy and dark but as in dreams, we knew it was the day time.
We were hurrying up on a hill next to a rushing river, along with seemingly hundreds of people. I was only with my Mom.
The river was dark and there were boats going upstream in the same direction we were going. These boats were oddly shaped like different dinosaurs. But instead of carrying people, they were carrying giant billboards with images of Hong Kong Pop Stars like Wang Chaowei (Lust, Caution or Happy Together). Some of the images appear to be MTV videos…it was very odd.
We climbed some hills and finally landed in an open field. It seemed like an urban area because there were cars parked on streets and in storefronts. I saw some dark clouds and some clear clouds in the distance. But there was strange objects that shaped like rockets flying into the white clouds and as soon as they hit the clouds, the clouds would turn black and fall onto the group. Some fell on top of cars and was heavy enough to crash the tops of cars and people.
There was screams and panics everywhere. People were running into the gas station which appeared to be the only shelter around. There was a loudspeaker near the corner roof of the gas station, blasting radio messages by a strangely apathetic voice stating that because human beings did not care about the environment, the sky is falling and the end is near.
I held on to my mom’s hand and told her not to leave me alone. We were able to make it underneath the gas station and I remember standing there, looking up at the falling sky and feeling sad…

Jeddah Dar Al Hekma

Originally uploaded by gregoniemeyer

Our sensor made it to Jeddah! Thanks to Alice Agogino, the famous Dar Al Hekma School for Women now is home to a Cloudy sensor, and data is coming in. Temperature seems very stable, which makes me believe we are in an air-conditioned space. Can you predict the next, daily peak in VOC’s?

MLA Offices

Originally uploaded by gregoniemeyer

Cloudy arrived at MLA Partner Schools. Their headquarters are at 1035 S. Grand Ave., 2nd Floor, Los Angeles, CA 90015. MLA supports public schools in Los Angeles by helping to connect the progress of students, teachers and communities. MLA supports two schools currently, including Manual Arts High School, where the Black Cloud started.

The space is a typical non-profit space, and we observe typical office use patterns in the air quality data, at least for a city like LA with a fairly high baseline. Temperature and VOC’s are completely flat, perhaps due to low usage and good ventilation. CO2 peaks around 2 PM… why?

Oakland Museum

Originally uploaded by gregoniemeyer

Squeak Carnwath’s new show drew me and my daughter Medina to the Oakland Museum today. The show of paintings is clearly a triumph, it is really quite satisfying to see works spanning 15 years. From year to year, the paintings build more complexity, and increase their presence as objects. The most successful moments are in the paintings that reach directly into the visual cortex, the colors, patterns and proportions that need no words to convey some kind of sense, some kind of luxury, directly into the brain.

After the gallery visit, my daughter and I listened to some free (it did not cost anything) jazz in the museum restaurant. Then, to my surprise, my daughter, who is 3 years old, got completely immersed in the natural historyshow. Oh what fun. For me, after looking at the paintings, the natures mortes of California life were ever more interesting, rich to behold, there was so much more to see than without the paintings as a reference.

That is a strength in its own right, the strength of context. The two shows on their own certainly had merits, but together they really took off. The civic promise of the Oakland Museum, so deeply fair, attained a higher, subversive plateau. I saw Squeak’s rabbits again, not in the gallery, no, this time stuffed and in a vitrine, against the background of a black bear’s fur, graced by reflections of distant stars.

To top it off, the black khoi swimming underneath the golden ones, and all this for the price of a burrito.

Mary’s Office

Originally uploaded by gregoniemeyer

Mary got a sensor at our Google presentation. She designs buildings, focusing on buildings and health. Her location seems to have dramatic swings in CO2 and VOC’s, and we should see more dramatic changes as she puts the Black Cloud sensor next to different material samples she considers working with. Here’s the list of bad stuff she tries to keep out of new buildings:

Cloudy, our pollution monster, of course loves all these things, but we sure don’t.

black cloud at google

Originally uploaded by gregoniemeyer

After our Google Tech Talk, that Omar Khan invited us to give, we handed out two sensors, one to Josh and one to Mary. Both Mary and Josh took them home, and now we have an air quality race among the two: Ready, get set, lower your emissions! Who will have changed their pollution patterns for the better by May 1st? Place your bets. More information about Mary and Josh’s houses will follow here shortly.
The Google talk itself was fun, the campus is beautiful, but it seems to have a secret Minotaur in it, maybe the Minotaur of hard work?