Eighty Days: Nellie Bly and Elizabeth Bisland’s History-Making Race Around the World
By Maria Popova from brainpickings.org: Two Victorian women race against each other around the world, countering the cultural inertia of their era. “Anything one man can imagine, other men can make real,” science fiction godfather Jules Verne famously proclaimed. He was right about the general sentiment but oh how very wrong about its gendered language: […]
Cartoon Laws of Physics
From TheFunnyPages.com: Cartoon Law I Any body suspended in space will remain in space until made aware of its situation. Daffy Duck steps off a cliff, expecting further pastureland. He loiters in midair, soliloquizing flippantly, until he chances to look down. At this point, the familiar principle of 32 feet per second per second takes […]
Walking Your Octopus: A Guidebook to the Domesticated Cephalopod
Available at BabyTattoo.com: Walking Your Octopus: A Guidebook to the Domesticated Cephalopod is an illustrated book by artist Brian Kesinger about the adventures of a Victorian-era lady and her land octopus. The book is available as a hardcover on Amazon and as an e-book for iOS.
Photographer’s Facemash Project Reveals Uncanny Genetic Resemblances
By Quenton Narcisse from Mashable.com: One photographer has taken face-swapping to a whole new level. In his Genetics Portraits series, French-Canadian photographer Ulric Collette photographs two family members and edits half of each face to create one portrait. Some of the portraits look so seamless, it’s hard to tell they’re even mashups at all. While […]
French Revolution Wallpapers
By Gregory Herringshaw from cooperhewitt.org: Sidewall and border: République Française Liberté Égalité. France, ca. 1792. Woodblock print on paper. Gift of John Jay Ide Collection. This is an example of wallpaper used as propaganda. This is a paper produced during the French Revolution, woodblock-printed ca. 1792. The citizens of France felt that the Revolution could […]
Raymond Chandler and Ian Fleming in Conversation (1958)
We take you back to 1958 when Ian Fleming, creator of the great spymaster character James Bond, meets up with Raymond Chandler, America’s foremost writer of hard-boiled detective fiction. The two authors, who read and admired each other’s work, sat down for drinks one day and got down to talking about villains (real and imagined) […]
Fearsome Font Friday
In celebration of the SyFy network’s world-class, glorious horror movie “Sharknado” (see my previous post, ‘”Sharknado” saves the Summer!’), today we have three fearsome fonts guaranteed to strike terror into the hearts of all who behold them.
“Sharknado” saves the summer!
By Mary Elizabeth Williams from Salon.com: When a summer’s this terrible, it takes something truly, gloriously terrible to redeem it. We are in the midst of a long, hot summer that has already strained the limits of our threshold for awfulness. We’ve been subjected to the racist hat trick of Paula Deen, “Big Brother” and […]
Living People Linked to 5,500 Year-old DNA
By George Dvorsky from io9.com: Members of the Metlakatla community recently collaborated with scientists in ongoing genetic studies of Native peoples in British Columbia. Those pictured asked that their names be withheld. Credit: Metlakatla Treaty Office. Back in the 1980s, the 5,500 year-old remains of an aboriginal woman were found on a British Columbia island. Now, […]
“Umami” Was Coined by the Inventor of MSG to Describe Its Taste
By Matt Novak from Paleofuture.com: In 1908, Japanese chemist Kikunae Ikeda created monosodium glutamate, more commonly known to English-speakers of the 21st century as the often-maligned MSG. Ikeda thought that his discovery was so special that the taste deserved to be described with a brand new word, a word that a century later has become quite […]
How iOS 7’s Font Change Looks in the New Beta 3
By Kyle Wagner from Gizmodo.com: iOS 7’s switch to the Helvetica Neue Ultra Light typeface was one of the bigger design points for the new OS. But it came with a catch: It looked, in places, pretty bad on non-retina screens. The fix was simple enough. Just change it back to regular weight. Here’s what […]
X-Ray Reveals How Bats Take Flight
By Megan Garber from Mashable.com: If you have seen a bat in nature — which is to say, if you have seen a bat that will go on to haunt your nightmares, mercilessly — you have probably seen the creature in one of two situations: in mid-flight, or hanging upside-down, sleeping. It’s unlikely, though, that if […]
The Largest Structure Ever Built Has Opened in China
By Kelsey Campbell-Dollaghan from Gizmodo.com: At what point does a building become a city? At 1.2 million square feet, the New Century Global Centre certainly toes the line. New Century, which has been under construction since spring of 2012 (which isn’t long, for a building of this size), opened officially on July 1. The 18-story, glass-and-steel […]
‘Shortcat’ utility replaces mouse clicks with keyboard presses
As a visual person, this is completely counterintuitive to me, but others may find it useful. By Marco Tabini from MacWorld.com: Review Product Specs At a Glance Shortcat 0.4.3.1If you’re a keyboard junkie, Shortcat allows you to use keys to access almost any any onscreen element, avoiding a mouse or trackpad (almost) altogether. Nearly two […]
Undervalued Inventor Nikola Tesla’s 157th Birthday
Nikola Tesla, unlike contemporaneous inventor Thomas Edison, was unconcerned with fame and financial gain. Edison co-opted many of his inventions. An innovators’ group in Nebraska has painted a mural of Nikola Tesla’s life and work on their building: This mural, dedicated to the life of Nikola Tesla, is freshly painted on the outside of our […]
The Hut Where the Internet Began
Alexis Madrigal for The Atlantic: Let’s start at the end point: what you’re doing right now. You are pulling information from a network onto a screen, enhancing your embodied experience with a communication web filled with people and machines. You do this by pointing and clicking, tapping a few commands and organizing your thoughts into […]
Fearsome Chrome T-Rex Sculpture on the Banks of the Seine in Paris
By EDW Lynch from laughingsquid.com: photo by Anthony Gelot A fearsome chromed skeleton of a Tyrannosaurus rex was recently installed on the banks of the Seine in Paris. Created by artist Philippe Pasqua, the aluminum and chrome sculpture is nearly 23 feet long and consists of 350 bones. photo by Jean-Charles Sarfati
World’s Most Wired: Designer Robert Egger
By Beth Carter from Wired.com: Robert Egger crests a hill in the Santa Cruz Mountains, and a spectacular view of his 50-acre ranch overlooking Monterey Bay fills the windshield of his pickup. He and his wife made everything you see, from the Mediterranean-style adobe house to the hand-cut stone barn to the huge iron gate […]
9 Superheroines Who Deserve a Movie
By Gabe Bergado from mashable.com: Nothing says success at the box office more than spandex, superhuman powers and a villain to take down. The superhero movie genre has continued to dominate the silver screen, with this summer’s Man of Steel and the highly-anticipated Avengers 2 that is slated to come out in 2015. There’s a long list […]
Wild Cat Found Mimicking Monkey Calls; Predatory Trickery Documented for the First Time in Wild Felids in Americas
From sciencedaily.com: In a fascinating example of vocal mimicry, researchers from the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and UFAM (Federal University of Amazonas) have documented a wild cat species imitating the call of its intended victim: a small, squirrel-sized monkey known as a pied tamarin. This is the first recorded instance of a wild cat species […]
‘A Nice Cup of Tea’ by George Orwell
From the Evening Standard, 12 January 1946: If you look up ‘tea’ in the first cookery book that comes to hand you will probably find that it is unmentioned; or at most you will find a few lines of sketchy instructions which give no ruling on several of the most important points. This is curious, […]
NASA Set to Fund World’s First 3D Food Printer
From worldindustrialreporter.com: NASA has announced that it will fund construction of the world’s first ever 3D food printer. The American space company has given a $125,000 grant to mechanical engineer Anjan Contractor, who has already designed the machine. And they hope it will eventually be able to provide food for astronauts on long-distance journeys through […]
Disaster Preparedness: San Francisco Emergency Drinking Water Hydrants
In the spirit of Independence for July 4th, be independent in case of disaster by knowing your closest San Francisco hydrant with drinking water. Go here for an interactive map of all 67. Note: There doesn’t seem to be a Hydrant #19 for some reason. Emergency Drinking Water Hydrant #1 Anza St. & 43rd Ave., […]
This Subway Window Whispers Ads That Only You Can Hear
Do you ever feel like ads are speaking to you? Well, new talking windows ads for Sky Go—a mobile streaming service—literally speak to you using bone conduction technology. So you’re just riding the train, commuting home, and you lay your head against the window and close your eyes for a minute. Just as you drift […]
Cortex 3D-printed cast for fractures
From de zeen magazine: 3D-printed casts for fractured bones could replace the usual bulky, itchy and smelly plaster or fibreglass ones in this conceptual project by Victoria University of Wellington graduate Jake Evill. The prototype Cortex cast is lightweight, ventilated, washable and thin enough to fit under a shirt sleeve. A patient would have the […]
Orwell’s birthday celebrated with party hats on surveillance cameras
By Anne Sewell from DigitalJournal.com: Utrecht – The famous author of “Nineteen Eighty-Four”, George Orwell, would have turned 110 on June 25, 2013 if he was still with us. Two Dutch artists found the perfect way to celebrate his birthday in the current surveillance climate. With the current revelations by Edward Snowden about the NSA’s spying […]
In an appalling decision, the Supreme Court stops use of a key part of the Voting Rights Act
By Robert Barnes from WashingtonPost.com: Video: Attorney General Eric Holder said Tuesday he was “very disappointed” with the supreme court’s invalidation of part of the Voting Rights Act. A divided Supreme Court on Tuesday invalidated a crucial component of the landmark Voting Rights Act of 1965, ruling that Congress has not taken into account the […]
Supreme Court’s ruling overturns both the Defense of Marriage Act and Proposition 8
The Supreme Court’s ruling this week overturned both the Federal Defense of Marriage Act and California’s Proposition 8, both of which restricted the right of same-sex couples to legally marry. Edie Windsor, the plaintiff in the DOMA case, will be one of New York City’s LGBT Pride Parade’s Grand Marshals. From HuffingtonPost.com: NYC LGBT Pride […]
A pristine ‘temple of the dead’ has been uncovered in Peru
By George Dvorsky from Gizmodo.com: A massive royal Wari tomb has been unearthed in Peru — and it’s full of mummies and artifacts made of silver and gold. Remarkably, the 1,200 year-old site has never been touched by looters, which is a rarity as far as these things go. Above image: A pair of heavy gold-and-silver […]
The Lowly Luggage Tag Gets a High-Tech Makeover
By Damon Lavrinc from Wired.com: We shop for flights on our laptop, book hotels on our tablet, and have a QR code boarding pass on our smartphone. So why are we still walking up to the ticket counter to get a printed sticker when we check our bags? British Airways and Designworks asked the same question […]
Desktop Backgrounds Designed to Make You Smarter
From Mashable.com: Anyone can throw an image of the periodic table onto a desktop and call it a background, but the creations in the gallery above combine useful information with strong aesthetic appeal. 1. Periodic Table of Typefaces Study the popular, influential and notorious typefaces with this background. Image courtesy of Flickr, Jeff McNeill 2. […]
Prairie dogs’ language decoded by scientists
Human-animal translation devices may be available within 10 years, researcher says From CBC News Prairie dogs give each other detailed descriptions of humans nearby, including the colour of their clothing, their size and whether they have carried a gun. (Hyungwon Kang/Reuters) Did that prairie dog just call you fat? Quite possibly. On The Current Friday, […]
Scientists use electron ‘ink’ to write on graphene ‘paper’
By Lisa Zyga from Phys.org: Images taken by a scanning transmission electron microscope (STEM) of electron ink on graphene paper, showing the letter “N” and the symbol “Ʌ.” Credit: Wei Zhang, et al. ©2013 IOP Publishing Ltd. (Phys.org) —Nanoscale writing offers a reliable way to record information at extremely high densities, making it a promising […]
Public Art Marks Hurricane Evacuation Spots in New Orleans
By Anya Kamenetz from FastCompany.com: Storm season is coming soon, so look for the giant stick figure to get out of town. When Hurricane Katrina struck in 2005, over a quarter of New Orleans households did not have access to a vehicle. Therefore nearly 100,000 people did not evacuate the city, creating hellish scenes in the […]
Extreme Typographic Nerdery, Part 2: Making Sense of Type Classification
By Joseph Alessio from SmashingMagazine.com: In the first installment of this two-part series on type classification, we covered the basics of type classification — the various methods people have used, why they are helpful, and a brief survey of type history, classifying and identifying typefaces along the way. Unfortunately, we only got as far as […]
Extreme Typographic Nerdery, Part 1: Making Sense of Type Classification
By Joseph Alessio from SmashingMagazine.com: In my previous article on Smashing Magazine (“Understanding the Difference Between Typography and Lettering”), I wrote about how understanding type terminology can help us better appreciate the arts of typography and lettering. This article again deals with terminology, probably more specifically than most designers are used to, and the title […]
Bigger and brighter ‘super moon’ lights up night sky – in pictures
By Jonny Weeks from guardian.co.uk: We round up some of the best images of the ‘super moon’ – an annual event when the moon’s elliptical orbit brings it closer to Earth. A so-called super moon, caused when a perigee moon coincides with a full moon, is visible over Mexico City. NASA scientists say it appears about […]
Geeks vs Nerds: An Infographic
By Diego Martinez-Moncada from dailyinfographic.com: [Full article]
English is no longer the language of the web
By Ethan Zuckerman from Quartz.com: Conventional wisdom suggests that English is becoming “the world’s second language,” a lingua franca that many forward—looking organizations are adopting it as a working language. Optimists about the spread of English as a global second language suggest it will enable collaboration and ease problem solving without threatening the survival of […]
Beautiful! Historical use of pomegranate motifs in textiles
Yes, I am a big fabric geek. By Katy Werlin from TheFashionHistorian.com: Pomegranate illustration from Dr. Otto Wilhelm Thomé’s Flora von Deutschland, Österreich und der Schweiz, 1885. Image from http://www.biolib.de/. The pomegranate (Punica granatum) is a fruit-bearing shrub, originating from the Middle East and Mediterranean Basin. Throughout history, the pomegranate tree has been used for a […]
Neil Gaiman novel inspires Portsmouth street name
By Alison Flood from TheGuardian.com: “The Ocean at the End of the Lane” will become a road as well as a read, as Portsmouth City Council honor homegrown novelist Neil Gaiman. Street smarts … Neil Gaiman. Photograph: Murdo MacLeod for the Guardian From the Carnegie medal to the Hugos, Neil Gaiman has won armfuls of […]
Social Networking in the 1600s
By Tom Standage from the New York Times Sunday Review: Men enjoying a drink and a chat in a 17th-century coffeehouse. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images) LONDON — SOCIAL networks stand accused of being enemies of productivity. According to one popular (if questionable) infographic circulating online, the use of Facebook, Twitter and other such sites at work […]
“Aviatrix” – A few of the fantastic woman flyers of the early 20th century
From formerdays.com: A few of the fantastic woman flyers of the early 20th century. (For some of those I’ve missed, the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum has a great online exhibit). From various institutions, but especially the San Diego Air and Space Museum. Matilde E. Moisant, the second American woman to get a pilot’s license, 1912. Source […]
“See America with the WPA” Posters
From formerdays.com: WPA posters from the Library of Congress, this time telling us to get out and see America! Source Source Source Source [Silly note– the day after I posted this a Jeopardy question had a picture of this fountain and you had to identify the city! You see, this is good for […]
Vintage Photobooth Animations
From The1955Hudson.com: These photobooth animations are the work of Nicholas Osborn of Square America. He describes them as: “A jittery, flickering, Frankensteinian attempt to bring old photos back to life.” [Full article]
What iOS 7 Should Look Like
Sigh. Apple’s garish new iOS 7 is deservedly getting terrible reviews all over designer-dom. Here’s one, with suggested redesigns from TristanEdwards.com: When Apple recently showed how they had redesigned iOS, I was shocked like many other UI designers. Not because it was “flat” (we all expected it to lose some of its skeumorphic elements) but […]
Buildings Based On Human Bone Structure Could Be the Future of Cities
Kelsey Campbell-Dollaghan from Gizmodo.com: Biomimicry borrows design solutions from the embedded intelligence within animals’ bodies—chiefly from other species. But occasionally, it also borrows from within the human body. For example, a new study from MIT suggests that buildings of the future could be built with super-strong materials based on the structure of human bones. In […]
A Chocolate Maker’s Big Innovation
By Corby Kummer from MITTechnologyReview: You may have seen little squares of Tcho chocolate in their brightly colored wrappers decorated with futuristic parabolas of gold and silver. They’re easily found: Starbucks has sold them; Whole Foods sells them now. Those usually aren’t the stores you visit to track down handcrafted chocolate from bean-to-bar makers, the new […]