August 23, 2010
Icons of the Web
The area of each icon is proportional to the sum of the reach of all sites using that icon. ... The largest icon (Google) is 11,936 x 11,936 pixels, and the whole diagram is 37,440 x 37,440.
Ted Leo by way of Scharpling with Tompkins, Hodgman, and Klausner
Bottled in Cork is a new video for a song by Ted Leo and the Pharmacists. It was written and directed by Tom Scharpling, and features the comedic talents of Paul F. Tompkins, John Hodgman, and Julie Klausner. It is, therefore, the most important thing that has ever happened ever.
The unpleasant hyperrealistic artwork of Karl Persson
The unpleasant hyperrealistic artwork of Karl Persson ( nsfw )
"My intellect doesn’t come into play when I am channeling something subconsciously. There is plenty of time for interpretation after a painting is finished. Whenever I look at my finished paintings it is like analysing a dream"
Pynchon in Poland
"What I loved, as I sped through the rest of Pynchon’s oeuvre, was that unravelling prose. Lines like the following got me through those long books, their difficult sections, the vertiginous moments when I was no longer sure what was happening (let alone to whom) ... Perhaps it made us feel that we were more than pale and pitiful creatures who worshipped the books of a man we would never see, let alone meet, about whom we knew almost nothing," Nick Holdstock on attending International Pynchon Week in Poland. [more inside]
"...endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved."
Our minds boggle at how the wolf could become the chihuahua, the Saint Bernard, the poodle and the Komondor. Artificial selection was likewise responsible for transforming the humble wild mustard plant Brassica oleracea into cabbage, broccoli, Brussels sprouts and the breathtaking fractal Romanesco, all in the span of a few centuries. [more inside]
Blurry People, a safer, more comfortable, and less superficial take on social chat
Blurry People is perhaps best summarized as a combination of ChatRoulette and a dating site. On Blurry People, you engage in random video chats with people like you would in ChatRoulette. The significant difference here is that both video portraits start out blurred and sharpen over time as - or if - your conversation goes on. [more inside]
Dude, Where's My Kestrel?
Canadian carmaker Motive Industries Inc has announced a new electric vehicle, the Kestrel, with body parts made of a hemp composite. [more inside]
"We weren't here to watch the race, though. We were here to watch Hopper blow himself up."
Remembering an Explosive Encounter with Dennis Hopper. Edited video footage and brief account of Dennis Hopper's performance(?) of the "Dynamite Death Chair Act" in 1983. Another account of the event.
Fancy tea.
'They have a pattern of lawbreaking, political manipulation, and obfuscation. I’ve been in Washington since Watergate, and I’ve never seen anything like it. They are the Standard Oil of our times.' 'The Kochs are longtime libertarians who believe in drastically lower personal and corporate taxes, minimal social services for the needy, and much less oversight of industry—especially environmental regulation.''Their combined fortune of thirty-five billion dollars is exceeded only by those of Bill Gates and Warren Buffett.''The brothers have funded opposition campaigns against so many Obama Administration policies—from health-care reform to the economic-stimulus program—that, in political circles, their ideological network is known as the Kochtopus.' [more inside]
Russian Types
"During the 1860s, several photographers based in Moscow and St. Petersburg produced series of cartes-de-visite showing Russian 'types.' These remarkable portraits provide a fascinating record of working-class townspeople, artisans, street vendors and peasants, some staged performing an activity, such as drinking tea or gaming, and some photographed in the performance of their occupation."
Chad-Man
"We could have reprogrammed it to steal votes, but that's been done before, and Pac-Man is more fun!"
Part Art, All Parts
Emo Philips is on both lists.
One-liner artist Tim Vine has won the award for the funniest joke told at the 2010 Edinburgh Fringe Festival, but you'll have to click the link to find out what it was. The BBC's article lists the top ten best jokes and a selection of the worst.
Apocalypse and Amnesia
How "The Last Washington Painting" Became "The Lost Washington Painting": Losing- and finding again- Alan Sonneman's "apocalyptic image of nuclear doom".
Honest to blog!
Pay Up! "Got a blog that makes no money? The city (Philadelphia) wants $300, thank you very much." [...] "After dutifully reporting even the smallest profits on their tax filings this year, a number — though no one knows exactly what that number is — of Philadelphia bloggers were dispatched letters informing them that they owe $300 for a privilege license, plus taxes on any profits they made."
They Keep Coming Back
Sock puppets in love: ‘The Perfect Match’ by Tom Diamond, Keith Klassen, Peter MacGillivary
And then, from across the room, their sewn-on eyes meet. Why do socks fall in love? (Single-link Flash video player. And it’s a park, not a room)
... And The Damage Done
"It would have been quite a news conference, and it very nearly happened. Last fall, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the British Columbia Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS, after months of intense, private talks, agreed to face the media together to declare their agreement that research shows the 'benefits' and 'positive impacts' of supervised injection sites for intravenous drug users. For the RCMP, making such a statement would have been a turning point: the Mounties would have had to distance themselves from dubious studies, commissioned by the force itself, that were critical of Insite, Vancouver’s pioneering safe injection facility."
But it didn't happen.
Paper shadows
Please enjoy one of collage artist Lewis Klahr's haptic, romantic meditations on materiality and mortality, False Aging, and a look at his process.
The Juche View of the World is a New Man-centred View
Death Shadow of the Blood Dragon
The annual Orbit books survey of Fantasy cover art: Fantasy Art, The Changing Fashion of Urban Fantasy Heroines, Color trends in Dragons, Title Trends and Fonts.
The Stone Forest of Madagascar
The Stone Forest of Madagascar: Huge, spectacular pictures of another world by National Geographic photographer Stephen Alvarez. A non-Flash version of the site is also available.
How many spoons do you get?
The Spoon Theory. A story specifically about living with lupus but which also applies to many other chronic diseases. From the site ButYouDontLookSick.com, a resource for those with chronic illnesses and invisible disabilities. [more inside]
"Because I'm worth it."
From the BBC blog of documentary filmmaker Adam Curtis: Experiments in the Laboratory of Consumerism 1959-67: "I have quite a lot of film from the archives that was shot in the Madison Avenue agencies in the mid 1960s, and I thought I would put some sections up. It is great because it shows some of the major advertising men and women of the time, many of whom are the real-life models for characters in Mad Men." Includes a 9-minute video interview with the late Herta Herzog. [more inside]
Reading Around The World
Stitchy tree
The Oxford Reading Tree was a set of books for reception-age children to learn how to read, staring Biff, Chip and their dog Kipper. One blogger has decided to keep the memory of teaching her kids by embroidering her own versions.
C'mon Mom, Go Away Already!
When Parents Won't Cut the Cord. As a reaction to helicopter parents (who read books about the stages of grief so they can cope with their kid's growing up), colleges are literally shutting the gates on parents who can't let go.
Ark
"If, through this deluge, there emerges a last man, a Noah to carry on, that Noah must be all of us. Even then the outcome is uncertain. All we know for sure is that the 40 days and 40 nights of this deluge of pollution and erosion began centuries ago. Now we are living through--and dying through--its last hours on this Ark." [more inside]
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