NASA Planetary Collage

NASA Planetary CollageAFP/NASA) No image of Pluto? I’m outraged! Disney’s copyright protection schemes have gone too far! Update: I found this image on the AP newswire feed. There was no link or credit, but Rosemary Frezza writes: http://grin.hq.nasa.gov/ABSTRACTS/GPN-2000-000454.html This is the closest thing I could find on a NASA site so far. I wonder who…

Wearable Tech… Clothing that Changes Color

“The world in which clothing, paint, lighting, rugs, and curtains all change colors to match (or influence) our mood is coming, but it’s some time away — a lot of technology has to be made affordable and durable before then. In the meantime, IFM and other companies are working on ways to weave touch sensors…

Teachers Strip off for Calendar

“It’s not every day you see your teacher naked in the technology room or posing with a cello.” — Charlotte, British schoolgirl who helped organize teacher pinup calendar for charity. —Teachers Strip off for Calendar (BBC) Uh, I should hope not, Charlotte. The pictures really aren’t that revealing, but this is still just too weird. The…

The New Scholarship of Comics

“Today, students who come to a campus with Spider-Man on their minds may have trouble believing it, but they share the superhero with middle-aged professors. For, in our scholarly lives, many of us are not just harking back to distant memories of the Marvel comics of our childhoods, but creating a new scholarship on the…

Keep Out Sign Irresistible Online

“Despite one website creator’s plea to stay away from his site, people just can’t stand not clicking on the Don’t Go There button. The site, programmed to go dark after 100 visitors, stayed live just shy of one hour.” Michelle Delio —Keep Out Sign Irresistible OnlineWired) Similar:Nested (procedurally generated game of expanding drop-down lists)A text…

Radebaugh: The Future We Were Promised

An excellent collection of images by a futurist illustrator. The website itself is rather difficult to navigate. First, it uses frames. Second, nothing happens when I click on the images that are supposed to be “portals”. Third, there’s really no text anywhere that I could quote in order to introduce the content of the site.…

Bourke-White's 'Photography of Design': Early Work Found the Hidden Beauty in Industry

“Margaret Bourke-White hung out of bombers to take pictures, climbed out on a gargoyle high atop the Chrysler Building to take pictures, was the first Western photographer to go to the Soviet Union, covered the dangerous days of India’s partition….Margaret Bourke-White was in love with the shapes of industrial design — the mechanical muscle and…

Relatively Speaking

“But however it may be in the art gallery, in moral issues we often cannot agree to differ. Agreeing to differ with Genghis is in effect agreeing to tolerate fox-hunting, and my whole stance was against that. Moral issues are frequently ones where we want to coordinate, and where we are finding what to forbid…

Film Scientists Not All Mad, Bad

“It might seem like a stretch to compare scientists to, say, African Americans and Latinos, who have historically been targets of often viciously stereotypical portrayals in film and on TV. But Weber thinks the media has a blind spot when it comes to scientists.” Jason Silverman —Film Scientists Not All Mad, BadWired) Similar:Here’s What Happens…

Content is Crap

“The public water system is somewhat unpleasant to think about. Basically, the stuff you flush down the toilet gets sent through a filtering system. That system ‘treats’ the sewage until what remains is sufficiently pure to send back to you as drinking water. As content intermediaries, publishers perform an analogous function. Individual software writers, authors,…

Games * Design * Art * Culture

“Why is this a hobby horse of mine? Largely because I’ve been trying to promote the idea that games are an artform since I was a teenager, when I first started designing them professionally. Also because the rest of the world, both inside and outside the game industry, is starting to realize the validity of…

Fantasy Illustration by Luis Peres

“Creating imaginary worlds while trying to do it in a personal style to at least be able to retain some originality in my work, was always an enjoyable challenge for me and my favorite thing while drawing Fantasy themes.” Luis Peres —Fantasy Illustration by Luis Peresworld4mysheep.com) Similar:How reading fiction can help improve our mental healthIn…

Interactivity Final Assignment: Create a Hoax. Submission: "Mothers Against Videogame Addiction and Violence"

“Proposal. Develop a false website and organization concentrating on the newest national concern: videogame addiction and violence. This organization is called Mothers Against Videogame Addiction and Violence (MAVAV, www.mavav.org). There is a great amount of stereotypes about people who play videogames (anti-social, depressed, unintelligent) and a lot of videogame violence bashing and blame (scapegoat) by…