The Drifter

“20 year old singer/songwriter from Australia with a unique passion for music, fashion and pancakes!” this is their bio on Facebook, which basically says everything about them. Vanessa and Arna Rogers are the two masterminds behind this Dark Alternative pop group. The two started out on Youtube ( and still are ). Even though they are still unsigned they made their way to Spotify and iTunes and even have their first music video out already. The twins are not to be missed in a crowed as they lack all the beauty ideals to their big black latex boots, they really just dress the way they feel and let us not get started on their shoe collection, which has its own video on their channel which is quite long. In their latest song ‘Dying to be thin’ they state what is actually wrong with this world with an eye on fashion, looks, body-shaming etc.

This young generation needs people like the twins who actually speak their mind about the media created beauty ideals, which most of them is just pure photoshop, so pretty unrealistic. With an eye on the trend of Shifting Identities, this is a very good example. Because the way we look at the media now a days is becoming more and more critical, mostly because we know that not everything is true of wat we see. Since the upcoming of the internet they way we see thinks have changed drastically. Stuff we didn’t know a thing about in the past is now just one click away to enter our gray mass. Even though the view on famous rolemodels and magazines and media has changed much yet it will sure come!

 But still young teenagers, especially girls, but boys as well, still think they need to look like the people in magazines and movies. Which is a horrible thought because it just can’t be realized. The twins try to bring their message over as clear as possible but still be poetic in a way, which makes them just even greater.  You should definitely check out their music on Spotify or on Youtube it is worth it.

Even though I just mentioned the Twins here, but there are many more artists who are acting the way the twins do towards the media now a days and I sure do know that many more artists will follow in the future. To be honest, I think that in the future this kind of mentality is the only one that will be accepted by the ‘common’ people. Which is great because the delusional idea that the media is giving young girls and boys now will be destroyed and the acceptance of who you are will be embraced. Which is just great! 

Have a good one!

Of course I’m talking about Jaden Smith, son of Will Smith and famous of his weird tweets on Twitter. Living a bit in the shadow of his little sister Willow Smith, Jaden is coming more in the picture today. “no pants, no problem!” seems to be his new statement while wearing dresses he could have stolen from his lil sis. Not going to lie he was rocking the look and I kind of got jealous because I never dared to do such a thing. Then again you kind of need to have the body to do pull such a stunt.  Thank god, this was not just a one time thing, we see Jaden experiment with skirts and women clothing in general more often.  He actually tweeted about him going shopping for girl’s clothes. Or as he stated: “I mean ‘Clothes’”.

You go Jaden! As the shifting Identities is becoming more popular lately, androgynous news like this is helping it very well. Just as I explained in my previous posts about the beards and the makeup for men, men are getting more in touch with their fem side, which also brings in a more acceptance of being different in overall. Of course this has still a long way to go from here, but it’s a start, and especially famous people like Jaden Smith are helping with it. Swerve on Jay!

With an eye on the future, women and men clothes will dissapear eventually. unisex will become more popular again but this time it won’t be just pants and sweater but also skirts just like Jaden is wearing now. Ofcourse this  will take some time but it will happen eventually, and once this has happened, you will probably see me rocking them skirts as well!

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The so called ‘Daddy-look’ is the thing right now. Not a six-pack but a beer belly is appealing to the women.  To create such a daddy look you just have to hit the gym a couple of times to get a bit of muscles, heavy drinking in the weekends and just stuffing your face with pizza afterwards!  Biology major Mackenzie Pearson wrote an ode to the daddy-body including chest hair, a belly and manboobs.

She first heard about the love of a daddybod during a conversation with her roommate who just loved her some piece of that manboob. According to Pearson there are more and more American students who want a dadbob instead of a nice six-pack. Full glory these men show there godlike bodies on instagram.

Pearson gave us 5 reasons to love these kind of bodies:

1.       The bodies are less intimidating

2.       Women just look better next to a dadbod

3.       The cuddling is just way better ( more coushin for the pushin! )

4.       Eating is just more pleasant

5.       And you have a kind of guarantee how your man will look like in 20 years.

The last reason explained, women tend to settle down with someone quite early in their life, so if they settle for a guy with a dadbod they can already get used to the look before she even thinks about dating, marrying or get kids with the guy.

So why a dadbod? Well as explained women like it now a days, but that is not the only reason. You can also see this movement as an act against the image media gave the man to have a nice body with abs etc. to be appealing to a woman. This is pretty shallow thinking but yet many men ( including myself ) think that they need such a perfect body to find the right woman or man. Obviously this isn’t true at all, of course there are people among us that are shallow like that, but the majority of people are falling for the personality and not the way someone looks. Also is this a perfect example for the trend I’ve been going on about. Shifting Identities. Men don’t want to go to the gym all the time and they certainly don’t have to look like some guy who just has been photoshopped. The acceptance of the few extra rolls you can have is great and has a positive vibe on body positivity. 

However, I’m not sure that this kind of body will be still accepting in the future. There are a lot of trends going on in the food section of life and they are becoming more and more healthier, so getting a dadbod will be harder. Then you have to watch out for obesity as well, there will be a chance that this movement will get out of hand which will have a negative effect on the body positivity and that not what this movement is about.

So guys, less gym more pizza!

Have a good one!

Andrés Velencoso uses an androgynous makeup look in a photograph of Richard Burbridge. The model has been styled in printed pieces and bright solid-colored clothes, which are specially designed to match the vivid cosmetics.  

This awesome statement called “made up” challenges a lot of traditional beauty ideals of men, just as in my previous post, that men have to be only masculine is a past. The use of makeup on men is a another acceptance of androgynous, just as dyed beards of male models modeling for female clothes. The world is becoming more and more unisex and I myself really appreciate that!

The future potential of this statement is still in its babyshoes. The acceptance of male make-up is not really accepted yet. Actually the only time it is accepted for a man to wear make-up is in the show bizz. However, more and more men are using all kind of creams and concealers lately so the acceptance of make-up won’t be far. Just look at the tv show “RuPaul’s Drag Race”, even though these men dress up like ladies as well ( this could be interprented as shifting identities as well) they also wear a ton of make up just for fun and entertainment. Taking baby steps, but eventually it will be just as acceptated as women wearing make-up!

The article about it is here or look up Andrés for more examples!

 Have a Good one!

Well because you are the farmer in this case, you can choose what kind of toxins you will spray over your plants to get rid of insects. Or use none, which will also let you and your child see that not all tomatoes are as red as the ones in the supermarket or as big and round, but they still taste the same, or sometimes even better. For a personal example, my granny used to make her own marmalade. It looked gross.the color was a gray-ish red and it just didn't look tasty at all. However, while still trying it, I just love my granny so I couldn't refuse, the taste of the jam was amazing. never had I ever tasted such great marmalade. My granny told me that she barely used sugar and the sweet taste she created with adding a bit of rum or vodka to it ( yeah, we germans just love our booze!),

The lack of sugar made the jam extremely healthy and was not as fattening as all the ones you can get in the store. This really opened my eyes, and it definitely made me a full supporter of the mini-farm action at the supermarket.

This is not only happening in the Netherlands. Texan health advocate Mike Adams who also is also CEO of non-profit organisation Food Raisin has developed a mini-farm grow box, which is soil-free, non-electric and also home-based to grow your own food! This nice box allows home farmers to grow their own food without having to weed out invaders or  without having to worry about complex pumps, motors or other parts. Also, the system works on 1/20th of the amount of water that would be required in a normal agriculture and half as much soil space! which makes it more eco-friendly than ever.

If you want to know more about these great boxes check them out here or just read the article about it here.

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The tech-hungry chefs under us are extremely excited about all this, however getting such a machine can cost a fortune. for small restaurants it's just not an option yet. But the development of print2taste's Bocusini could actually change this! Bocusini's designed components are so handy that the chef or person who has aleady invested money into a 3D printer you can easily 'update' your machine and replace the filaments with the food ones from Bocusini. Secondly, the bosucini will be sold as a complete plug-and-play set for the printer for those who are starting from scratch. Some examples of the ediable filaments of Bocusini are bases made out of chocolate, jelly, cookie, vegetables and fruit juices!

Sadly this product is not on the market yet but the kickstarter will be public very soon!

Let's take a look at the open world again. Because we will be able to print our own food in the future, which will be a lot cheaper in the long run and probably will save some animal species from extinction. it will also give us and insight look of what we put in our food, because these are all bases we can choose what we put in it or not, which really brings the power back to the people. and that is what we are actually craving for right now!

In the long run the 3D printer will be as common as the average PC now a days but until that day comes we can easily improve the way we print food now. We are not yet there yet ( especially if you look at the prices..) but if we continue to research food printing we will safe a lot of time going to the stores. Then again, if that happens, what will happen to the supermarkets? Will they just be closed which will cause a streak of unemployment or will they embrace the trend and just evolve with it? It’s hard to get a good picture on this but I’m sure as hell that they will find a sollution to involve 3D printing in the common supermarkets.

If you want to read the full article click here or keep an eye on their kickstarter!

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Let me present you the Heat Map Microwave. Basically a microwave 2.0, which will allow you to view via a thermalview screen how hot or cold your meal is. The ceiling of the microwave is implanted with infrared lenses that will let you see the thermalview on the front of the microwave where normally the window would be. This is all in birds-eye view, so you can actually see the whole plate! When the food warms up it will go from a blue color to a red color so you know it is warming up and then will change into white so you know it is done! The most perfect thing about the whole microwave is that you can manually programm it so much that it will automatically switch off when it reachtes this point! no more undercooked or plates from hell just going to love this gadget.

In the trend of the open world this is a really simple example. you can see what is going on in the microwave so you know what is going on in there. And I know for sure if this is really hitting of that they could expand this system to an oven as well or maybe a toaster, no more black toast! Thanks NASA for this awesome product. If you would like to know more about the Microwave check it out here or here or just go buy one already!

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It's called the EggMinder tray. Yes, it does have an aweful name and I would probably not say the full name if I'm telling someone about it, however it would definitely help me to stop wasting so much eggs. This great food tray will wirelessly connect to an app on your phone and will let you know when you are out and about doing your groceries if you are in need for some new eggs or not.

the tray itself looks just like a regualr egg tray just made out of plastic, the looks may be deceiving, the technology behind it quite isn't. In each eggcup comes with a integrated sensor, as you put eggs in the cups the sensor will alert the app that the cups have been filled up and will let the app know how much eggs you have left and when they are close to expire, so that you will always have fresh and healthy eggs to get your extra boost in the morning or before your workout!

Who doesn't want something like this tray in their fridge? and maybe if this hits the market there might be a chance that in future all our fridge products will be analysed and kept track on like this, smartfridge that is! especially in a time like this when we have less and less actual free time and are not at home that much anymore an app like this will probably help you get track on your groceries but also on your spending of money on groceries. To link it to the open world, this just as the smarplate will let you know exactly the things that we need to know about our food and it's in your hands and not in the hands of the producers!

check the article out here or visit the website!

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The so called SmartPlate actually counts all the calories you put on there and automatically sends them to your app on your phone ( this comes in really handy especially for me because I tend to forget to add meals) However, that's not all the plate can do, it will also let you know when you are eating too fast. Study shows when you eat slowly the feeling of being full is stimulated faster than when you are almost choking on your meal while eating. According to your eating habits the SP will give you some tips and advice of how you could eat or what you could eat instead or change the amount of a specific product.

Lets take a look on the more technical side. TO be able to give you that muc of information the SmartPlate uses 3 different cameras in the plate itself and also uses algorythms especially designed to detect what you are eating.There is a scale hiddin in the plate as well, so the food can actually be weighd and calculated into the calories you are eating. If you are eating some complicated meals like a salad or something what is mashed up the plate will analyse the ingredients first so it can find out how much of everything is contained in the specific meal. it can also detect if your meat or chicken is grilled or baked and even if your pasta is whole grain or not!

This all sounds super interesting, most definitely if you keep the trend 'the open world' in mind. As we want to know more and more about our food and what is actually in it. Because of the hunger for knowledge about things that should be good/healthy for us this kind of gadgets are a must have and will actually stimulate ( or worse, it will drive you insane ) for a healthier lifestyle. Of course there are already apps which do the same, however you always have to put your meals in manually and I kind of forget to do so sometimes. SO this handy plate will help to get a full view on what you actually eat that day, if you use the plate of course. Because I know for sure there are a lot of cheaters among us!

But what is the open world? To me the open world means the transparancy of things for example WikiLeaks. We want to know what is going on in the world but also if we stay in the food sector, what is going on with our food. But it also means collaboration. We the people can put intput into companies the border between the people and the companies is open. However it also means sharing. Share the wisdom you have with someone else so you both can gain something from it. But most importantly it means empowerment. The common people get more and more involved ( just like i said with the collaberation) with the big companies.

However, this is not the only thing that works like this, IKEA is also producing a table that works similar to this plate so I’m pretty sure that in the future our kitchen will tell us more about our food than the internet can right now. Of course the internet knows a lot too, but these cool technologies will help you get more insight into the food you bought, so the actual food that is on the table and not the general information you can find on the internet. This will not make only cooking easier but also to keep in mind what you want to eat ( if you are on a strict diet) or what you can eat ( if you are allergic to something ).

So the plate is not for sale yet but you could help by donating to their kickstarter here, or if you want some more info about the plate go visit the article or their website!

have a good one!

Sahara Here We Come!

French Architechts from OXO Architechts came up with a concept to survival in the African Sahara. City Sand Tower is it called and is constructed to sustain high density in deserts. The tower will run using sources as rainwater collection solar power and geothermal energy. The tower will reach a height of 450 meters and will have a floorspace of 192 acres. let us go a bit deeper in about this. For example the rainwater collection, it is claimed that each year it will collect 24,000m3 meters of rainwater which will be going straight into the deep underground where the earth's coreheat will convert the water into steam.  The steam on its turn will be sent to the surface of the tower and will be used to power up a huge generater that is necessary for the electricity and will also heat the water in the tower. However, the rainwater will also be used for irrigation of an indoor vertical garden throughout the tower.

This will not only help us survive if the 'Day after tomorrow' will finally happen but it will also provides us to create another source for energy because we are depleting our current resources way too much and way too fast.

Back to the nomads!

Let's stay in the desert shall we? we already discussed a vertical city in the desert but what if we just copy the nomads and improve the ideas they have figured out for us already. Well the Architechts at XTU thought the same and came up with the concept called "Flohara". As the concept is called a desert city it is more like a bunch of sand shelters rather than a whole large environment what we call a city now a days.

These lightweight and also inflatable shelters are easily transportable and can be created locally or created elswhere before being transported. These 'bubbles' which is the basic of your shelter can be sprayed on with a specific mixture of water, sand and hydrogel before you will leave it there. The sand and the sun will do the rest for you! how easy is this? the sand will get stuck on your shelter and the sun will dry the gel which will give the shelter its solid basic.

Under the Sea!

There is more water than there is available land on earth, so why not move into the sea? to be honest this has been a dream of mine since I was a little kid, I always wanted to become a merman ( the little mermaid was on repeat 24/7) and live in the big blue oceans. Well, AT DEsign has developed a concept for a floating city. Even though this concept was only for the Chinese Construction firm CCCC, but this could be a really good sollution for our problem of overcrowding.

The Island which has a span of 4 square miles is already in production to become a real thing. The design will be similar to the design of a 31km long bridge between Hong Kong and Macau and Zhuhai. The Island will be equipped with farms and hatcheries and also garbage collection systems so that the Island can sustain and produce food and will be able to remove waste on it's own. But it will not be just a normal Island, no, it won't stop on the surface! More recreational parks and green spaces will be build underneath the island as well. And in the future it will even contain spaces to actually live on or under the island which gives us a feeling of actually living under the sea. The architechts state: "this project offered an opportunity to develop a new urban nucleus of world-class residential commercial and cultural facilities, as well as to promote a zero-carbon,energy-efficitent and self-sufficient city."

Well so much for some examples, but why would we need this? Well let me tell you. Global warming already has an effect on our enviroment. sadly.

1. It is already increasing the risk of coastal flooding especially in the US east coast due to accelerating of the sea level. 

2. The wildfires are becoming more intense and the season is getting longer and more damaging.

3. Heatwaves, just like we are experiencing right now will happen more frequently, they are already happening more frequenlty in the past 60 years.

4. it has some risk for our health, for example the increase of air pollution and a longer and also more intense season of allergies.

5. Because of the temperature rise, the rain that will fall will increase.  Which will also increase the risk of flooding.

We know that this is happening and with the 3 examples I gave we are trying to battle this confrontation. But the main reason this is going so slow is that we are actually pretty scared. We do want to change but we just can’t. The threath that is hanging above our heads is just too much for us to change drastically especially because we are so in love with how we are and act now. So changing your living situation or even having to leave the country is something we in the western world would never do or at least not as fast. We build our homes here and the emotional attachment we have with our home, city, country and even culture we can’t just break it. This is why sollution like this, building that can sustain extreme weather conditions or give us shelter by such weather are the sollution to keep the value we are already giving to our life and not change it drastically. My example of the city undersea is an example for when we do have to change drastically but we rather stay where we are right now and just upgrade the way we live, hence why the other posts I have written are about the smaller things of citylife and not as big as these example of sutainable cities.

So in the future we might be living down under and could the great white be your neighbour!

If you want to get some more info about any of these concepts just click on their header it will lead you to some articles about it!

Have a good one!

25 Verde it is. this apartment complex is definitely an eye catcher the complex is coverd in a vertical garden which provides space for 150 trees. Because this garden isn't focusing on plant but on trees instead. so this city block kind of looks like a mini-forest in the middle of the city. The complex is designed by Luciano Pia and he states "if the trees aare integrated in the building, they are closer to the people who live there, and so there is more integration between man and nature." 25 verde is a good example to show the world how to involve nature in urban settings like big cities. Just as I previoulsy said, pollution is a problem in such cities and creations like this will combat against it. The 150 trees absorb 200,000 liters of CO2 per hour and the trees and oversized plant pots are also providing some protection against sun rays on the warmer days in Italy!

Much like The vertical Farm, which focuses on the problem of urbanisation 25Verde would also help with this. Vertical Farm says that in 2050 the population living in cities will be increased to 80% (present day 50%) and the population will be increased with another 3 billion people. For this increase 109hectare of extra ground is needed to build food on for the population and if we keep with the traditional farming we won’t have enough space because 80% of the soil we can use is already being used. So making the farms and gardens vertical is the best sollution there would be. Not just is this great for the space but also, for shadow as I already said in the part before. It can Also fill empty buildings. But the best thing will be that i can fight against the air pollution that will happen in such big cities, 25 verde is a great example for that but also the vertical farm will be much needed for this.

So basically this big tree house could save our future! and who doesn't want to live in a treehouse? Read some more about it in this article or visit the website!

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The korean government selected the dutch architects MVRDV to design the so called "Skygarden" for them, which will be half a mile of pure green scenery. just like the High lane in NYC, the Skygarden will not only provide the people of Seoul with a new park but will also make good use of the unused infrastructure in Seoul. The overpass which it will be build on hasn't been used since 2009 when it failed to be a governmental saftey inspection. the main reason Seoul wants to recycle this highway into a park is to make Seoul more greener but also to make the city more walkable. because of much traffic in this city, walking somewhere is not the best sollution to do so especially because there is just a lack of places you can actually reach easily on foot. And Seoul, just like other big cities, is just really crowded, so a 'floating park' is just what the koreans need. The construction of the park will begin this October and is expected to be finished in 2017. However, it doesn't stop there. the Skygarden will just be a starup for the dutch architects. They are planning to expand the park to several rooftops throughout the city in the future they also are planning out to create satellite gardens which will connect every piece to the skygarden itself. In total this project will include 254 species of flora, which will be called "a complete collection of Korean Vegetation"

Making cities greener is a perfect way to make the cities more sustainable in the future, because of the lack of parks or even green scenery in every way, cities will be just big piles of air pollution and gray skylines. which will decrease the quality of life of the citizens. If you would like to read an article about it click here or visit the website of MVRDV.

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Berlin based Spamroom constructed the Micro-Apartment Moabit ( Moabit is part of Berlin ), through awesome smart architecture and intelligent use of spacing they somehow created an apartment which if compact yet still stylish, comfortable and elegant. The main factor of this apartment is by far the livingroom central unit that splits the room lengthways. on one side there is a kitchen with windows so big that it provides enough sunlight, has some cupboards which offer a lot of extra space without taking up lot amounts of room. taking adventage of the height of the rooms, the "upstairs" part has an mezzanine floor which can provide as a sleepingplace, also has some shelves to store books in or put your laptop in.

Let’s speak statistics. According to a study by Euromonitor International about the living society in cities, it turned out that more and more people just choose to live alone. In the past half century we changed from a human that married young and only was alone when the partner had died, to a human that marries later, gets divorced, spends years, sometimes even decades alone/single and tries to avoid moving in with their spouse. The number of people living alone globally is rising sky high, rising from about 153 million in the year of 1996 to 277million people in the year of 2011. This is an increase of around 80% in only 15 years. So the idea of small living spaces isn’t so weird anymore. In fact it is filling the niche in the market today because most home estates are focusing on the bigger families and not the single mother or the student of the city.

All by all, the idea of fitting a whole apartment into such a small space isn't quite new, for example the Paris Maid's room or the studios here in Tilburg but never have I seen so much smart design in one apartment. Like I said in my previous post about sustainable cities and urbanisation, living on crammped spaces has become a major factor in now a days cities, products like this will help to sustain to live in such cities. Because these rooms are not that big, you can fit many in one flat or complex which will reduce the space that is needed for new apartments. Especially for cities which have a lot of students will definitely appreciate this kind of apartments. It's a good startup for them from living at their parent's house to moving into their own small place. If you would like to know more about the German designers you can visit their website here or read the article about the Moabit here!

Have a good one!