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Ok, if you don’t want to be playing this game for the next 20 hours straight, click away now. Kingdom Rush is my latest tower defense addiction and it may be the best one yet. That the music sounds a lot like the Game of Thones theme isn’t hurting it either.
I’d been wondering if a video like this existed, but I’d never been able to find it before. “Most of us probably take our rolls of toilet paper for granted.” I like seeing how the cardboard tubes are made.
I love this bottlecap collection assembled by Gail Anderson (more here).
Lovely bits of graphic design.
So you’re thinking, ‘It’s getting late, I’m winding down the day, maybe I should watch some videos.’ And then you watch this snowboarding trailer with a metal soundtrack, avalanches, and a BEAR. Cripes, maybe you should just watch this one tomorrow morning instead of coffee.
(Via @Kazaroth)
The award for the most creative wedding photos goes to Juliana Park and Benjamin Lee.
They start out kinda ordinary but stick with it. (via mlkshk)
This is a nice story for the afternoon. During the cleanup process following the earthquake and tsunami in Japan, citizens have turned in tons of wallets containing $48 million. 5,700 safes washed out to sea in the tsunami have been recovered containing another $30 million. Most of this has been returned to the owners. This is the type of story that makes me say, “Please don’t be fake, please don’t be fake,” as I click submit.
This is the only thing I’ve ever liked about Anne Hathaway, and yet this video makes me think the problem is me, not her.
(Via everyone)
Steven Heller writes about the 40th anniversary of Nike’s iconic swoosh, one of the best logos ever designed.
The origin of the mark goes like this: Knight wanted to differentiate BRS’s custom product from the ones they were importing from Onituska in Japan: “…so Knight turned to a graphic design student he met at Portland State University two years earlier.” One day in 1969, the student, Carolyn Davidson, was approached by Knight and offered $2 per hour “to make charts and graphics” for his business. For the next two years Davidson managed the design work on BRS. “Then one day Phil asked me if I wanted to work on a shoe stripe,” Davidson recalled. The only advice she received was to “Make the stripe supportive of the shoe.” Davidson came up with half a dozen options. None of the options “captivated anyone” so it came down to “which was the least awful.”
(via megadeluxe)
Every year, Gallup surveys the drinking habits of Americans. If this is familiar, it’s because I posted about the 2010 version of the study last year (and I’ll probably post about it next August, too, if I’m here). The biggest notes this year are beer falling 5% to the drink of choice of only 36% of Americans. This puts it in a statistical tie with wine (35%) as America’s favorite beverage. (Us rye drinkers are down at 23%.)
But also, more educated people spend more on alcohol, and praying reduces alcohol consumption. The more you know.
If you thought for one second that I wouldn’t post a story about homemade New Kids on the Block sweaters from the 90’s, well, ma’am, I don’t think you know me, and you certainly never loved me. Shut it down, internet, you can all go home. This post wins.
Click through to see 2 more NKOTB sweaters and a bonus Vanilla Ice sweater.
Oh, boy. So what you’re telling me is this week we have a new Danny MacAskill video, a new Ken Block video, and now a new Kilian Martin video? You’re crazy. I like you, but you’re crazy.
(Via Rick Curran)
Muphry’s Law, as coined by John Bangsund, of the Victorian Society of Editors, states:
I may be the last person in the universe to have heard of Muphry’s Law, but dad gave me the keys this week, so I’m driving where I want to drive.
(Via @Tedder42)
An extensive side-by-side reference sheet of four scripting languages (PHP, Python, Perl, and Ruby) with which you can compare how the different languages handle variable declarations, concatenations, objects, and hundreds of other things. Great cheatsheet for learning a new language when you’re already familar with one of the others.
I don’t want to freak anyone out, but this is happening. The monkeys are getting smarter and there’s nothing we can do. Today they’re fighting each other. Tomorrow they fight us. Langurs were deployed around buildings in Delhi to deal with the growing macaque menace. Unfortunately, the macaques are no longer afraid of the presence of langurs.
Diljan Ali, a langur handler, complained that the government hires monkey men to confront the macaques but refuses to compensate them when their animals are defeated. “(The macaques) are very smart. They know when they have the advantage. They attack in numbers and when they do it’s pre-planned,” he said.
Can someone tell me if this is for real? Regardless, I’m giving myself credit for avoiding the obvious Planet of the Apes headline joke.
A post featuring 8 different Tube maps since 1908 had me wondering what else was out there on the evolution of the London Underground map. There is quite a bit. This is less a reflection on Harry Beck, etc, and more a collection of what can be found.
A History of the London Tube Maps is pretty thorough until 2002. It’s also attractive as a time capsule for websites from around then.
A more up-to-date designed collection of maps from 1889-2002.
An animated look at how the Thames has been represented over the years. An animated look at the entire system until 2008.
The Guardian’s retrospective slide show.
Among other things, info on non-Harry Beck designed maps from 1939 and 1940. Also the detail that Beck received about 2 weeks wages as a bonus for the original design.
A critique of the 2008 map. And the 2009 map. Undated critique (I think for 2008 map).
Geographically accurate Tube map, and the rest of this blog’s coverage of the London Underground, including Edward Tufte’s thoughts:
Harry Beck’s diagram of the 7+ lines of the London Underground, although geographically inaccurate, provides a coherent overview of a complex system. With excellent color printing, classic British railroad typography (by Edward Johnson), and, in the modern style, only horizontal, vertical, and 45 degree lines, the map became a beautiful organizing image of London. For apparently quite a number of people, the map organized London (rather than London organizing the map). Despite 70 years of revision due to extensions of the Underground and bureaucratic tinkering (the marketing department wrecked the map for several years), the map nicely survives to this day.
(First post via Dave M.)
This article on why Americans don’t want to compromise was pretty dumb, but this is an interesting tidbit:
89 percent of the Whole Foods stores in the United States were in counties carried by Barack Obama in 2008, while 62 percent of Cracker Barrel restaurants were in counties carried by John McCain.
For what it’s worth, I was seriously disappointed by the biscuits at Cracker Barrel when I had them the first time.
The best Watch the Throne album review you’ll read orig. from Aug 16, 2011
* Q: Wha? A: These previously published entries have been updated with new information in the last 24 hours. You can find past updates here.
We started the day with parkour on a bike, and we’ll end it with the closest thing you can get to parkour in a car, Gymkhana. This is Ken Block’s 4th Gymkhana video, and it’s chock full of cameos. This has good spots, but I think #3 was way more impressive. Although the video clocks in over 9 minutes, you only need to watch from the 1:35 mark until 7:00.
(Via The Daily What)
Parsing a handful of different bad celebrity tipper lists, the folks at Short Order create a top 10 list of celebs who must have never worked in the service industry. Madonna, celebrating her 53rd birthday today, is #2. From what I could tell, here are the lists they used (Caution: Here be slide shows):Glamorati, The Frisky, Stained Apron, Zimbio, and Love to Know.
All this reminded me of the story of Shaq leaving $160 for a $20 tab, then ordering a Sprite on his way out and paying $40 for it. This is also the story where Shaq was talking about the people from Twitteronia.
Ghostface Killah from the Wu-Tang Clan reviewed Jay-Z and Kanye’s album, Watch the Throne…and it is hilarious.
2. Lift Off (ft. Beyonce) - I almost aint wanna even comment on this shit son…. I dont even kno what to say bout it yo. This shit sounds like the anthem the fairies in Ferngully would use to go to war against evil humans to or some shit b. This shit is like Shia LeBeouf in song form yo. Lissenin to this shit is like havin ya ears penetrated by a million microscopic dicks namsayin. Shit sounds like n***as doin aerobics on a magical cloud of daisies. How many meadows did Kanye cartwheel across before he decided to make this beat? Seriously yo….
Seriously.
Update: The review was not written by Ghostface but it is still hilarious. (thx, all)
On Saturday night, an 11-by-6-inch Rembrandt pen-and-ink drawing called “The Judgement”, worth $250K, was stolen from the Ritz-Carlton Marina del Rey. Interestingly, Rembrandt pieces are the second most stolen pieces of art.
Art experts reached Sunday said works by Rembrandt are among the most popular targets for art thieves, second only to those by Picasso, because of the artist’s name recognition and their value. Anthony Amore, chief investigator at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston and co-author of the book “Stealing Rembrandts,” said there have been 81 documented thefts of the artist’s work in the last 100 years.
It’s like I always say: When I edit Kottke, art gets stolen.
Update:
That was fast. The drawing has been recovered. Thanks, Patrick.
Researchers have found that lower income individuals become more opposed to programs designed to help them if people they perceive as below them will also be helped. I don’t have a comment on this except, COMEON!
Instead of opposing redistribution because people expect to make it to the top of the economic ladder, the authors of the new paper argue that people don’t like to be at the bottom. One paradoxical consequence of this “last-place aversion” is that some poor people may be vociferously opposed to the kinds of policies that would actually raise their own income a bit but that might also push those who are poorer than them into comparable or higher positions. The authors ran a series of experiments where students were randomly allotted sums of money, separated by $1, and informed about the “income distribution” that resulted. They were then given another $2, which they could give either to the person directly above or below them in the distribution.
The other side of this is Warren Buffett wanting the government to charge him higher taxes.
(Via @chrisfahey)
I usually like these videos at the end of the night, but they’re also quite nice in the morning. As Jason said, “He rides across a rope. On a bike!”
Animal Farm orig. from Aug 15, 2011
All HTML orig. from Aug 15, 2011
Coming to America orig. from Aug 15, 2011
* Q: Wha? A: These previously published entries have been updated with new information in the last 24 hours. You can find past updates here.
Animal Farm is a photo series by South African Photographer Daniel Naude. Comprised of feral dogs, cows, goats, and other domesticated animals, the series is striking. One of the cows has hooves coming out of the back, which I can only imagine means the cow is giving birth. Click through to see them all. They’re really something.
Update: Seems like the servers are overloaded. I’ll update if they come back up. Here’s a cached version for now.
This page, built by Evan Roth, consists of “One sentence contained within every HTML tag in alphabetical order.” It would be fun to build a randomized version to see how the tag order changes the look.
Update: At least three people took me up on my suggestion: one, two, three.
Hopeful reservation makers for Chef RJ Cooper’s new Rogue 24 in Washington, DC are asked to sign a 2 page contract which defines the cancellation policy (half charge for cancellation 3 days out, full charge for cancellation day of), bans cell phones and cameras, and asks the diners to choose one of 2 tasting menus (with or without wine pairing). The contract is here. I don’t know why they use a paper contract and not a webform.
8/17 Update:
RJ Cooper on changes to the reservation contract at Rogue 24. In their defense, I don’t think having a cancellation policy is a problem, especially if it’s stated, but not always enforced, as this one was.
I get the sense that you had no idea this contract would be a point of controversy.
No, I didn’t. But it’s not any different than going to Minibar or Alinea. The difference is that Alinea has six reservationists that can handle that; we have one. Minibar has six seats; we have 52. Komi has a no camera and phone policy in their restaurant. What’s the difference? Is it going to make experience better to have a phone? … I’d rather just sit and really enjoy the experience of a place like this. Are we doing this out of arrogance? No. Are we doing it out of being hyped? No. We’re doing it to make sure you as a diner have a valued experience.
I’m not sure what this is — some National Geographic thing? — but it’s fascinating. The short clip follows a group of young Sudanese men who move to the United States and remark on the cultural differences they observe.
Their reaction to the food and the characterization of the US as unfriendly are especially interesting.
Update: Several people wrote in to say that this clip is from the 2006 documentary God Grew Tired of Us. (thx, all)
I’m an avowed fan of musicians writing critically of other musicians (see Pat Metheny on Kenny G), so this post by Steve Albini on Odd Future is right in my wheelhouse. Steve is not a fan, but I like the post for its ‘What is Art?’ tone in the second half.
I am well aware, thanks, that good people can make ugly art and that ugly people can make good art. Ultimately the function of art is to express something and move an idea from one person to another, and the tools of that can include revulsion and discomfort.
(via Chuck Klosterman)
Jason asked me to fill in this week as he bunkers in an undisclosed location pursuing interpretive dance training. He’ll chime in with some posts here and there, though, along with some videos of his training.
I’ve been here before, but if you don’t remember I write Unlikely Words. I’m hoping for a good week on the internet, and if you find any gems, buzz me on Twitter.
Using facial recognition in realtime via a webcam, this system lets you control the face of another person…like, say, John Malkovich.
Given a photo of person A, we seek a photo of person B with similar pose and expression. Solving this problem enables a form of puppetry, in which one person appears to control the face of another. When deployed on a webcam-equipped computer, our approach enables a user to control another person’s face in real-time. This image-retrieval inspired approach employs a fully-automated pipeline of face analysis techniques, and is extremely general-we can puppet anyone directly from their photo collection or videos in which they appear. We show several examples using images and videos of celebrities from the Internet.
By Sarah Illenberger, who does many other things in a similarly playful style. Print is available. And now that I’m looking, I think I’ve seen her Soft Brain piece before. (Hey, I have!)
Lots of footage from The Net, Johnny Mnemonic, etc., virtual reality, Moby with hair, and websites of yore.
Need some “artisanal text filler” for your latest project? Hipster Ipsum provides dummy text in two great flavors: “Hipster w/ a shot of Latin” and “Hipster, neat.”
Organic sustainable lomo, +1 irony McSweeney’s skateboard Portland PBR tattooed farm-to-table Terry Richardson Williamsburg. Organic farm-to-table wolf, next level shit put a bird on it freegan American Apparel Williamsburg chambray gentrify viral you probably haven’t heard of them keffiyeh Cosby sweater. Pitchfork photo booth fuck, DIY cardigan messenger bag butcher Thundercats tofu you probably haven’t heard of them whatever squid VHS put a bird on it. Thundercats fixie Williamsburg, photo booth synth vinyl dreamcatcher Wes Anderson cliche. You probably haven’t heard of them DIY mlkshk biodiesel McSweeney’s raw denim. Skateboard Pitchfork Etsy, photo booth messenger bag artisan raw denim beard Tumblr retro Austin. Wes Anderson sustainable keffiyeh, blog lomo craft beer cliche brunch homo skateboard biodiesel fanny pack Pitchfork you probably haven’t heard of them Stumptown.
(via ★dansays)
If Super Mario Bros was designed more recently, it might look a little different.
(via ★interesting-links)
Published in The Onion more than 10 years ago after George W. Bush took office, Bush: ‘Our Long National Nightmare Of Peace And Prosperity Is Finally Over’ is just getting more and more prescient.
Bush swore to do “everything in [his] power” to undo the damage wrought by Clinton’s two terms in office, including selling off the national parks to developers, going into massive debt to develop expensive and impractical weapons technologies, and passing sweeping budget cuts that drive the mentally ill out of hospitals and onto the street.
During the 40-minute speech, Bush also promised to bring an end to the severe war drought that plagued the nation under Clinton, assuring citizens that the U.S. will engage in at least one Gulf War-level armed conflict in the next four years.
“You better believe we’re going to mix it up with somebody at some point during my administration,” said Bush, who plans a 250 percent boost in military spending. “Unlike my predecessor, I am fully committed to putting soldiers in battle situations. Otherwise, what is the point of even having a military?”
They probably should get a Pulitzer. (thx, andrew)
A 33-minute documentary made by a then-17-year-old Vivian Kubrick (Stanley’s daughter) about the making of The Shining is available in its entirety on Google Video. From Wikipedia:
It has some candid interviews and very private moments caught on set such as arguments with cast and director, moments of a no-nonsense Kubrick directing his actors, Scatman Crothers being overwhelmed with emotion during his interview, Shelley Duvall collapsing through mental exhaustion on set and a very playful Jack Nicholson enjoying playing up to the behind the scenes camera.
Fast Company has a nice piece on Adam Lisagor, known around these parts as lonelysandwich. After doing a well-received promo video for a Twitter app he developed with a friend, Adam found himself in demand to do similar videos for a growing roster of technology companies.
But his tone is his real strength. “I try to identify that thing in a product that matters most to me,” Lisagor says. “I’ll glom onto that element and try to recreate it in this linear story I’m telling.” That calm, Billy Mays-free approach conveys an inherent trust. It assumes that the viewer is the kind of person smart enough to appreciate the product’s value. That’s exactly the kind of customer tech startups want, which does much to explain their love for him: Lisagor is sui generis — “the best and only one doing what he does,” Dorsey says — and his promos blend “the aesthetics and techniques of advertising with the storytelling of an instructional video,”says Malthe Sigurdsson, Rdio VP of product design.
He’s got himself a web site on which you can view his work. Congrats on all your success, Adam…you smell great!
Where Children Sleep is a book of photographs by James Mollison of kids and the rooms they sleep in.
The caption for the photo above is: “Joey, 11, killed his first deer at the age of 7. He lives with his family in Kentucky.” The diversity in living environments is amazing. (via lens)
The seventh episode of Put This On covers personal style…for which they interviewed Gay Talese.
Rafe Colburn revisited Wired’s June 1997 cover story on 101 Ways to Save Apple.
A lot of the suggestions were to be more like Microsoft and embrace the Windows platform. Apple, obviously, rejected that path and has benefitted greatly from doing so. It’s hard to remember now, but many people thought that Apple should drop their operating system and instead turn to making high end Windows PCs. I think we’re all glad they never went that route.
(via @anildash)
For the Slice pizza blog, Adam Kuban lays down some serious-but-succinct NYC pizza literacy.
One thing you might not be familiar with is the fact that some NYC pizzerias use anthracite coal to cook their pizzas. (Then again, I know that Brooklyn-based Grimaldi’s has made inroads into Texas, so maybe you do know coal-fired pizza.) Pizza geeks have long been into coal-fired pizzas. The ovens cook at a hot-enough temperature that a skilled pizzamaker can create an amazing crust that is both crisp and chewy at the same time and that is not dried out and tough. Also, the way that most of these old-school coal-oven places make the pizza, they just sort of know how to make a nice balanced pie, one that doesn’t go too heavy on the sauce or pile on too much cheese.
Take five minutes to read this and you’ll be talking NYC pizza like an expert.
From late last week, news that NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has found possible evidence that there’s flowing water on Mars.
Dark, finger-like features appear and extend down some Martian slopes during late spring through summer, fade in winter, and return during the next spring. Repeated observations have tracked the seasonal changes in these recurring features on several steep slopes in the middle latitudes of Mars’ southern hemisphere.
“The best explanation for these observations so far is the flow of briny water,” said Alfred McEwen of the University of Arizona, Tucson. McEwen is the principal investigator for the orbiter’s High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) and lead author of a report about the recurring flows published in Thursday’s edition of the journal Science.
From fashion designer Hedi Slimane’s photoshoot with Cobain. She’s 18 now. The time, where did it go?
Art of the Menu is a new collection of well-designed menus by the folks who bring you Brand New. Two of the most interesting menus I’ve run across are Shopsins’ (the design of which I wrote about several years ago) and Alinea’s (the menu is an infographic).
The New Yorker took their awesome Goings On magazine section and crammed it into an iPhone (and Android) app. More details here.
In addition to collecting the magazine’s listings for theatre, art, night life, classical music, dance, movies, restaurants, and more, the app has exclusive new features. More than a dozen of the magazine’s artists and writers have contributed entries to the My New York section, which showcases their personal cultural enthusiasms: Alex Ross introduces readers to Max Neuhaus’s Electronic Sound Installation in midtown; Susan Orlean revisits the Temple of Dendur, in the Metropolitan Museum of Art; and Roz Chast drops by the Tiny Doll House, a unique Upper West Side shop. Critics also lead readers on audio tours created specifically for the app: Peter Schjeldahl tours the Frick Collection; Paul Goldberger walks the High Line; Calvin Trillin shares his favorite downtown food; and Patricia Marx goes in search of vintage clothing.
This is a bit of a head-scratcher…the guy behind the Family Guy (Seth MacFarlane) is teaming up with Carl Sagan’s widow and Neil DeGrasse Tyson to do a sequel to the landmark science series, Cosmos. The series will air in primetime on Fox.
The producers of the show say the new series will tell “the story of how human beings began to comprehend the laws of nature and find our place in space and time.” They go on to boast: “It will take viewers to other worlds and travel across the universe for a vision of the cosmos on the grandest scale. The most profound scientific concepts will be presented with stunning clarity, uniting skepticism and wonder, and weaving rigorous science with the emotional and spiritual into a transcendent experience.”
I’ll be tuning in but will be pleasantly surprised if it does well in the ratings or is any good.
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