Scientist Drinks Billion-Year-Old Water Just to See What It’s Like
By Ashley Feinberg from Gizmodo.com: This map, from the United States Geological Survey, shows the age of bedrock in different regions of North America. Scientists found ancient water in bedrock north of Lake Superior. This region, colored red, was formed more than 2.5 billion years ago. So remember about a month ago when scientists in […]
World’s Smallest Museum Finds the Wonder in Everyday Objects
By Lisa Hix from CollectorsWeekly.com: Tucked away in a lower Manhattan back alley, the freight-elevator-sized, generically named Museum is one of New York City’s newest curiosities. While it’s only open 16 hours a week, during the day on Saturdays and Sundays, the museum’s contents are viewable 24/7, lit and sealed by glass doors. Passers-by are […]
“Make JPEG Droplet” Is the Fastest Way to Convert Files to JPEGs
By Shep McAllister from Lifehacker.com: OS X: If you want to share a photo with a friend, but it’s in a large file size format, it makes sense to convert it to a JPEG before sending it along. If you don’t want to take the time to open up an image editor to convert it […]
Beautiful, functional prosthetic limbs add custom touch to amputees’ lives
These beautiful, custom prosthetics are made by Sophie de Oliveira Barata in Harlesden, UK in the Alternative Limb Project. Options are described as “Realistic, Surreal and Unreal.” With extensive design input from the amputee, Sophie can help him or her move from feeling that a prosthetic is a necessary evil to being proud of the […]
Cannes Lions: 60 Years of Ad Innovation
By Max Knoblauch from Mashable.com: The Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity — the world’s foremost brand communications conference, located in the French Riviera — celebrates its 60th anniversary this year. This infographic by SapientNitro explores the festival’s history, highlighting its growth through the decades and this year’s notable speakers. The festival, beginning Saturday, welcomes […]
‘Jony Ive Redesigns Things’ Tumblr Pokes Fun At Apple’s iOS 7
By Allison Reiber from Mashable.com. Tumblr article here: Jony Ive redesigns his passport photo. Open Mashable.com Gallery; Tumblr article here. Apple’s colorful new iOS 7 redesign has received its fair share of criticism — but none so creative as that from a Tumblr called “Jony Ive Redesigns Things.” The blog began after Sasha Agapov, a […]
10 of History’s Most Beautiful Typewriters
By Adrian Covert from Gizmodo.com — check the Comments for more pictures of typewriters: Typewriters are intricate machines—complex little boxes that require an abundance of ingenuity to produce. They are often beautiful, and they occasionally find wildly imaginative ways to conduct the delicate dance between the hammers and the keys. So much of the way we […]
7 Productivity-Boosting Tools to Fight Procrastination
By Sarah Ang from Mashable.com: You’re doing it again — spending too much valuable time on Twitter and Facebook. So we’ve narrowed down seven free and convenient browser plugins and extensions to help you stop procrastinating — now. Ed.: I’ve picked out a sound-masker, a page-blocker, and of course positive reinforcement with kittens. Other tools have […]
Quantum Invisibility Cloak Hides Objects from Reality
By The Physics arXiv Blog from MITTechnologyReview.com: Physicists have worked out how to cloak a region of space from the quantum world, thereby shielding it from reality itself. Invisibility cloaks are all the rage these days. Over the last few years, this blog has followed various attempts to develop invisibility cloaks for earthquakes, acoustics and […]
A Complete Lack of Privacy: Yves Behar’s New Office Design
By Joseph Flaherty from Wired.com: OK, OK, the actual title of the article is “An Office Landscape Designed to Kill Boring Meetings.” But to me the most striking feature of Béhar’s office design is its complete lack of privacy. The article’s one nod to this: “… in an age of noise canceling headphones, small groups […]
Thickness of the Ice Sheets 21,000 Years Ago Compared to Modern Skylines
From the brilliant comic xkcd: Data adapted from “The Laurentide and Innuitian ice sheets during the Last Glacial Maximum” by A.S. Dyke et. al., which was way better than the sequels “The Laurentide and Innuitian ice sheets during the Last Glacial Maximum: The Meltdown” and “The Laurentide and Innuitian ice sheets during the Last Glacial […]
Travel Posters Inspired by the Silver Screen
By Alex Santoso from Neatorama.com: Let’s go on a vacation! South Africa design studio MUTI collaborated with ad agency Foxp2 to create these retrotastic posters featuring places from King Kong, The Shining, Avatar, and Lord of the Rings for South Africa’s Ster-Kinekor theaters. Links: MUTI’s Behance page
Beautiful Photographs of Trash, Inspired by Botanical Drawings
By Margaret Rhodes from FastCompany.com. Visit BarryRosenthal.com for botanical photos and artist portraits. Barry Rosenthal’s series of jewel-toned garbage collections sheds new light on litter. Before photography and the Internet, developments in botany depended heavily on artists, rather than on foragers and scientists. Painters would create painstakingly technical illustrations of flora and fauna found in the wild, […]
10 Things Designers Need to Know About iOS7
Very helpful article for interface designers from creativebloq.com: Apple has revealed a radical new vision for iOS – but what does this mean for designers? Sam Hampton-Smith delves into the official guidelines to find out… Apple has long been criticised for the slightly haphazard approach it’s taken to the user interface design of its apps, […]
See an Autopsy of the Original Mac and Other Iconic Gadgets
By Joseph Flaherty from Wired.com: Bicycle — Component count: 893 Photo credit: ©2013 Todd McLellan. Photo reproduced with the permission of Thames & Hudson. In the new book Things Come Apart, Canadian photographer Todd McLellan painstakingly disassembles 50 everyday objects, including a tiny Swiss Army knife and a single engine aircraft, and carefully photographs the […]
Found at Auction: The Unseen Photographs of a Legend that Never Was
From MessyNessyChic.com: Picture this: quite possibly the most important street photographer of the 20th century was a 1950s children’s nanny who kept herself to herself and never showed a single one of her photographs to anyone. Decades later in 2007, a Chicago real estate agent and historical hobbyist, John Maloof purchased a box of never-seen, never-developed […]
Pop Culture Gargoyles Hidden in Gothic Architecture
By Laetitia Barbier from AtlasObscura.com: Fly with a spray can, a gargoyle sculpted by Walter S. Arnold for the Washington National Cathedral. (photograph by Walter S. Arnold, via Stone Ideas) Fascinating ghouls of another era, gargoyles emerged around the 13th century in European architecture with a vast array of form and function. At first, they were designed as an […]
Beloved ISS Commander Chris Hadfield Is Retiring
By Robert T. Gonzalez from io9.com: So long, Commander Hadfield – and thanks for all the awesome! Tonight at 7:08 ET, Commander Chris Hadfield – one of the most charismatic Commanders in the history of the International Space Station – will return … Read… Chris Hadfield – Canadian astronaut (the first to ever serve as […]
Unsuspecting People Get a Live Photoshopped Surprise
By Charlie White from Mashable.com: Take a look at the priceless reactions of these people who are secretly photographed while waiting for a bus, and then Photoshopped into amusing positions and implied relationships. It’s part of a “street retouch” stunt by Adobe, featuring quick-draw Photoshop master Erik Johansson. We especially liked the way people’s “street […]
Essential Guide to Living Lovecraft: The Real World Locations Behind the Horror
By Eric Grundhauser from AtlasObscura.com: H.P. Lovecraft: Author, Dark Dreamer Down a dark alley, at the corner of your eye something flickers, probably a trick of the waning light, or a stranger up to some banal task. But what hubris leads you to believe that you can understand what happens in and among these haunted […]
Paralyzed man uses brain-powered robot arm to touch
By Lauran Neergard from Timothy Betler / AP PITTSBURGH — Giving a high-five. Rubbing his girlfriend’s hand. Such ordinary acts — but a milestone for a paralyzed man. True, a robotic arm parked next to his wheelchair did the touching, painstakingly, palm to palm. But Tim Hemmes made that arm move just by thinking about it. […]
Type-o-philes Scour NYC for Urban Signage Project
By Jakob Schiller from Wired.com: [Ed. Entertainingly, this article was originally titled “Type-o-PATHS Scour NYC for Urban Signage Project.”] New York City is such a sensory overload, it’s easy to miss the details — like the graphical symphony of typography that’s playing under your visual field. Nyctype.com aims to bring that symphony to the surface […]
Mr. Bunny Goes to Work
Chalk street art by prolific artist David Zinn: Hare: the Happy Epilogue Friends + cake = jazz-handed happiness. “Hear me! I speak for the Goaterbil!”
Broidery on a medieval page
Erik Kwakkel is a medieval book historian at Leiden University, The Netherlands. He says, “I post images of medieval books and share with you what’s special about them.” His blog inspired an earlier post of mine, Cats Haven’t Changed Much,” about 15th-century cats walking with inky paws across (or urinating on) a manuscript. Holes in […]
Amazon launches Storyteller to turn scripts into storyboards — automagically
By John Koetsier from VentureBeat.com: Upload your script, choose some backgrounds, and magically created a professional-looking storyboard of your movie. Or the graphic novel version of your text-based anything. Amazon Studios released Storyteller today to allow writers and filmmakers to quickly, easily — and cheaply — storyboard their scripts. I’ve tried it, and while the […]
I’m Sorry That I Hit You in the Face With an Encyclopedia
Brilliant and hilarious artwork from British artist David Fullarton. His solo show, I Can’t Apologise Enough, is on until June 9, 2013 at The Compound Gallery in Oakland, CA (see below). . Apology 40 Of most immediate importance is the fact that I have a solo exhibition of all of my Apology Drawings on right […]
Free Font Friday!
OSWALD is a new free font from fontsquirrel.com, available as an OTF download. It was designed by excellent and prolific typographer Vernon Adams (other fontsquirrel fonts, newtypography.co.uk blog). Oswald is a strong condensed sans serif with Light, Regular and Bold weights as well as an all-caps Stencil style. It looks good in headlines and in […]
Tiny Festive Party Hats Made of Yarn For Cats, Dogs, and Guinea Pigs
I try very hard not to post about cats, but this is too good to pass up. By Rusty Blazenhoff from LaughingSquid.com: South Carolina-based Meredith Yarborough crochets tiny but very festive party hats for cats, dogs, and guinea pigs. They are all available to purchase at her Etsy shop iheartneedlework.
These vintage Dutch safety posters are stunning, completely terrifying
By Robert T. Gonzalez from io9.com: These posters are way more eye-catching than those televised public service announcements about carbon monoxide leaks and downed power lines. They’re also straight-up ghoulish. Over at 50 Watts, art and design blogger Will Schofield has curated a fantastic collection of vintage workplace safety posters, printed in the Netherlands from […]
Skull and Crossbones Sugar Cubes
From Crnchy.com: Does your morning coffee sometimes taste like death warmed over? Is that last cup of coffee in the pot at the office ominous? You can make that coffee 100% sinister by adding these amazing skull and cross bones sugar cubes to your cup. The cool sugar cubes are not available in stores, but […]
Designing for Breakpoints
By Stephen Hay from AListApart.com: A note from the editors: We’re pleased to present an excerpt from Chapter 7 of Responsive Design Workflow, Stephen Hay’s new book, available now from New Riders. Figure 7.6: Most websites need very few major breakpoints. Jeremy Keith notes that what happens between the breakpoints is just as important as […]
11 Spectacular 3D Printer Failures
By Leslie Horn from io9.com: Just because you have a 3D printer doesn’t mean you’re going to make anything remarkable. It doesn’t even mean you’re going to wind up with what you set out to produce. Believe it or not, 3D printing requires some skill. And when you don’t have it, things go delightfully askew. […]
A Green, Ultra-Modern Makeover for America’s Busiest Train Station
By Joseph Flaherty from Wired.com: Penn Station is the most heavily trafficked train depot in the United States, a cultural icon, and sorely in need of a makeover. But upgrading this century-old station has been difficult because it’s underneath another thriving landmark, Madison Square Garden (MSG). However, a recent city ruling would end MSG’s lease […]
Astronaut Chris Hadfield Returns to Earth
By Kate Lunau from Macleans.com: Hadfield saw space and Earth as if they were brand-new and shared his experience aboard the ISS with millions. James Blair/NASA On May 13, as the Toronto Maple Leafs faced off against the Boston Bruins in Game 7 of their Stanley Cup playoff series, the Russian Soyuz spacecraft was undocking […]
The International Space Station will get its own 3D printer next year
Two of my favorite things! Space and 3D printing! By Mike Wall from SPACE.com: A 3D printer is slated to arrive at the International Space Station next year, where it will crank out the first parts ever manufactured off planet Earth. The company Made in Space is partnering with NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center on […]
Brainpainting via computer frees expression for the paralyzed
By Nancy Owano from PhysOrg.com: Credit: Pingo Ergo Sum project Heide Pfutzner is getting favorable recognition as an artist who has produced skilled, accomplished abstract paintings with their colorful shapes in electric-like blues, reds, pinks, and yellows, Her admirers not only appreciate her art but her determination as a paralyzed woman who paints by way […]
Super Simple Negative Space Animal Illustrations
By EDW Lynch from LaughingSquid.com: Designer George Bokhua cleverly takes advantage of negative space in these delightfully simple animal illustrations. For more of his work, check out his Behance portfolio. via Twisted Sifter
Macro Eye Photos Zoom in on Nature’s Complexity
By Jakob Schiller from Wired.com: Long-eared Owl For years Suren Manvelyan has been making extreme macro photos of both human and animal eyes, and he’s just released a new batch of purely animal eyes that are equally stunning. “I don’t think many people suspect there are so many interesting structures in the eye,” Manvelyan says. […]
Cuttlefish eyes
Just like it says, cuttlefish eyes.
Ghostly Ship Graveyards from Around the World
By Vincze Miklós from io9.com: Where do boats go when they die? Sometimes they end up in vast ship graveyards, sometimes craggy, foggy places where ships have met their doom, and sometimes spots where ships are deliberately left to rust. There’s a quiet beauty to many of these graveyards and their resting inhabitants. The port […]
Triple-nested Klein bottle made out of blown glass
By Cory Doctorow from BoingBoing.net: Here’s glassblower Alan Bennett’s astounding triple-nested Klein bottle, a beautiful thing: A single surface model made by Alan Bennett in Bedford, United Kingdom. It consists of three Klein bottles set inside each other to produce, when cut, three pairs of single-twist Mobius strips. A Klein bottle has no edges, no […]
Game Designer Creates Board Game Meant to Be Played Thousands of Years from Now
By Spooky from OddityCentral.com: American Jason Roher has recently won a game design competition after creating a board game that no one is likely to play anytime in the near future, if ever. Called A Game for Someone, Roher’s game was made from titanium, to stand the test of time, and buried somewhere in the Nevada Desert, […]
Creativity Requires TIME: Irrefutable Video Proof
http://youtu.be/VPbjSnZnWP0 By Adam Albright-Hanna from Upworthy.com: [Link to article]
Meet the ‘Glasshole’
http://youtu.be/qGxLkaCdpLc By Dylan Love from BusinessInsider.com: You should watch this video, which comes to us via CNET. There are only so many Google Glass units out there now, but imagine a world where they’re even more plentiful than the smartphone — to not have one is to be less than whole. Then you might very […]
The First Image Ever of a Hydrogen Atom’s Orbital Structure
By George Dvorsky from io9.com: What you’re looking at is the first direct observation of an atom’s electron orbital — an atom’s actual wave function! To capture the image, researchers utilized a new quantum microscope — an incredible new device that literally allows scientists to gaze into the quantum realm. An orbital structure is the space […]
Laptop with thermite self-destruct mechanism
By Caleb Kraft from hackaday.com: Years ago we covered using thermite to destroy a hard drive. The idea is that if you melt through the platters, the data is completely unrecoverable. There are tons of videos of people doing this, but they all have a similar format. There’s a hard drive, with a flower pot […]
Nicely done beginner’s guide to iOS design
By Ben Taylor from taybenlor.com: As someone who does work on both the development and design side of iOS apps I find that many designers struggle with the transition to UI work, or with the different processes involved in iPhone and iPad app design. In this guide I’ll describe the deliverables you’ll be expected to […]
The Best Decline Letter of All Time: Edmund Wilson
Written by Tim Ferriss (Source: Crooked Timber) Edmund Wilson, recipient of both the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the National Medal for Literature, was one of the most prominent social and literary critics of the 20th century. He realized, like most uber-productive people, that, while there were many behaviors needed to guarantee high output, there […]