Welcome to the jungle: The best tech when going off the grid

Welcome to the jungle: The best tech when going off the grid:

Daniel Noll, half of the Uncornered Market travel team, used an iPhone to locate himself outside Srimongal, Bangladesh

Uncornered Market

Last Christmas, my cousin Martin do Nascimento received a Kindle 3G as a gift from my brother, Alex.
At the time, we all figured it would be a nice way for Martin to read books while serving in the Peace Corps Nicaragua on the Caribbean coast. But what we didn’t know at the time was exactly how indispensable it would be to him as he lived in a town so small that it barely has a Wikipedia entry. It turns out that this little, relatively cheap device has been a godsend for him in 2012, with its worldwide 3G Internet. Even though Martin lives in a remote area, I hear from him nearly every day by e-mail.
"Most of my e-mails I write on my Kindle," he told me recently (by cell phone this time). "I use it to stay in touch with friends, even [through] Facebook. The Kindle’s not fantastic by any means, but I can read my e-mail reliably. It loads within a minute. Even with a 3G [USB modem] stick, [service] came in and out—I gave the modem away."
Read 37 remaining paragraphs | Comments

September 16, 2012

September 16, 2012:


Holy hell, that was the end of my hand.

beautiful failures | accidental 3D Prints | cunicodeOn the path to get the perfect 3D-Print, many...

beautiful failures | accidental 3D Prints | cunicode

On the path to get the perfect 3D-Print, many...:

beautiful failures | accidental 3D Prints | cunicode

On the path to get the perfect 3D-Print, many meters of filament get piled up as discarded disappointments,
as bastard objects that never were,
as unborn half-things…
… and they are beautiful:

McSweeney’s Internet Tendency: The Ultimate Guide to Writing Better Than You Normally Do.

http://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/the-ultimate-guide-to-writing-better-than-you-normally-do

McSweeney’s Internet Tendency: Hello Stranger On the Street, Could You Please Tell Me How to Take Care of My Baby?

http://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/hello-stranger-on-the-street-could-you-please-tell-me-how-to-take-care-of-my-baby

iPhone "oil paintings," animated GIFs of artful screen smudges

iPhone "oil paintings," animated GIFs of artful screen smudges:


A little gross, a little genius. iPhone Oil Paintings (by JK Keller via Gautam Ramdurai).

Embarrassing Pothole Caricatures of Politicians Spur Action to Fix the Streets in Russia

Embarrassing Pothole Caricatures of Politicians Spur Action to Fix the Streets in Russia:






I can’t speak from personal experience about the political climate in Yekaterinburg, Russia but if we take this video from the ad agency Voskhod at face value it appears the powers that be neglected the city’s infrastructure one day too long. After repeatedly commenting and complaining about the pockmarked streets of Yekaterinburg, local blog URA.RU turned to Voskhod to create a brilliant campaign: under the cover of night they would paint the faces of local politicians around the most unsightly potholes and potentially shame them into action. The response? It worked! Via Ads of the World:

Quality of roads is the eternal problem of Yekaterinburg – the fourth largest city of Russia. The local site URA.RU, which writes about life in the city, decided to remind politicians that it is their duty to repair the roads. The problem is – our politicians don’t care about potholes. Their only worry is their own public image. We associated road holes with the images of certain politicians. In the night, on three potholes in city center, we drew faces of the governor, the mayor and the vice-mayor. The news about caricatures became a sensation. With this intense PR the politicians were no longer able to sit idle. The holes were fixed. The news about the action was released in more than 300 media venues, the website traffic on URA.ru doubled. The officials at last started to do their jobs.

Gotta love it when art and politics come together to create something positive, hopefully they don’t have to paint a face next to every pothole in the city. See much more over on Red Hot Russia.

Gorgeous Bird Paintings by Adam S. Doyle

Gorgeous Bird Paintings by Adam S. Doyle:






Artist Adam S. Doyle who recently relocated to Hong Kong creates beautiful gestural paintings of birds, where the seemingly incomplete brushstrokes form the feathers and other details of the animal. In some strange way it reminds me of the story of the Renaissance painter Giotto who is rumored to have been able to draw a perfect circle without the aid of a compass, as if Doyle just picks up a dripping paint brush and in a few seconds paints a perfect bird. In reality his work demonstrates a profound control of the paintbrush and careful understanding of the mediums he works with. Via email he tells me:

Yes, what you see is what it appears to be—strokes of paint. I’ve always loved unfinished paintings because you could see the alchemic process of surface and paint transforming into a living person. With my paintings, it does take quite a bit of working and reworking to arrive at the place where every brush stroke fits into a fluidly flowing whole. It’s important to me to find a balance between an elegance of form that holds both visible marks of paint and a representation of ‘energy within’. I’ll just add that the painterly craft of my images, which I consider secondary to investigating ideas and concepts, came about after a lifetime of expressive image-making, followed by doggedly exploring the aforementioned transformation in grad school. I realized during that same formative period that I was also captivated by trying to visualize energy, which I was quite familiar with having grown up with a dad who practiced Eastern medicine.

Doyle most recently had a show at Skylight Gallery in 2011 and is now currently working on a new body of work in Hong Kong. You can see much more of his work on his website.

Musical Light Swings on the Streets of Montreal

[This is super, super cool, although I would have wanted to implement it acoustically with actual plucked strings. -egg]
Musical Light Swings on the Streets of Montreal:











21 Balançoires (21 Swings) is a recent project by Canadian design collective Daily Tous Les Jours, known for their wide variety of interactive public installations and experiences. Surrounded on both sides by a new music complex and science center, designers Mouna Andraos and Melissa Mongiat chose to bridge the gap between the two by converting a narrow strip of land into an enormous interactive instrument. Pre-recorded sounds from a xylophone, piano, and other instruments were programmed into color-coded swings that when in use play various notes, however when swung in unison with careful cooperation, more complex melodies and harmonies arise. An additional “secret mode” was programmed to only play when all 21 swings were in use. What a fun idea.
Earlier this week a few blogs reported a photo from this series as being some type of swingset bus stop. According to Andraos, while the installation has close proximity to the street it does not actually serve the purpose of a bus stop. All photos courtesy Olivier Blouin.

Terrifying Deep Sea Angler Lamp Made from Recycled Objects

Terrifying Deep Sea Angler Lamp Made from Recycled Objects:


Probably not for the kids room, but I appreciate the effort that went into this wicked assemblage light by Justin La Doux made of bicycle parts, knives, a shovel, and other objects. The piece was entered as part of the 2010 ArtPrize contest. (via my amp goes to 11)

The Orée Wireless Wooden Keyboard

[Want. -egg]

The Orée Wireless Wooden Keyboard:






French firm Orée recently launched a new keyboard made entirely from a single piece of maple or walnut. Every keyboard is made to order and is crafted, polished, oil-finished and assembled by hand in their workshop in southern France. Via their website:

Orée was born from our observation that modern technology products look very much alike, are highly impersonal, made out of eco-unfriendly materials and are designed for rapid obsolescence. We set out to do something different: create lasting & personal high performance technology objects primarily made of wood, the most natural, durable and renewable material on earth. Orée is about reconciling tradition & novelty to create exceptional products through an exclusive combination of timeless woodworking techniques and cutting-edge technologies. All our products are eco-designed, crafted and hand-finished in France.

The keyboard is bluetooth enabled and retails for about $163 (€125.00). On their website you can customize Mac/Windows options, US/UK/Canadian keyboard layouts, options for keyboard fonts, and even a special message. Gorgeous. (via designboom)

Article: Two Possible Paths into the Future of Wearable Computing: Part 1 – VR | Valve

[Some very interesting thoughts here. -e]

Two Possible Paths into the Future of Wearable Computing: Part 1 – VR | Valve
http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/abrash/two-possible-paths-into-the-future-of-wearable-computing-part-1-vr/

(via Instapaper)

Bald eagle with 3D printed prosthetic beak

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Bald eagle with 3D printed prosthetic beak

A bald eagle named Beauty whose beak was shot off by poachers has been fitted with a 3D printed, prosthetic beak by her helpers at Birds of Prey Northwest. The prosthetic isn't stable enough for a release back into the wild, but the bird can now feed and groom herself, rather than relying on humans.

But raptor specialist Jane Fink Cantwell, who dresses like Indiana Jones, refused to take "dead bald eagle" for an answer. She joined forces with mechanical engineer Nate Calvin of Kinetic Engineering Group, and together with other scientists, engineers, and even a dentist, they designed a nylon polymer beak that would perfectly replace Beauty's lost upper mandible.

Calvin developed the new beak using a 3-D modeling program, then used a 3-D printer to fabricate it. After an arduous procedure to attach her prosthetic, Beauty was able to eat, drink, and preen herself on her own.

Injured bald eagle gets new 3-D printed beak

(via /.)

Tim Minchin explains evolution and genomics in an animated video

[This is pretty great :) -egg]

Tim Minchin explains evolution and genomics in an animated video:


Tracy King sends us an "animated history of genetics from Nature to celebrate the release of ENCODE. Narrated by Tim Minchin and animated by the team who made Storm. Written by Adam Rutherford (Nature), Andrew Ellard (Red Dwarf, IT Crowd) and Tracy King (TAM London).

Ever since a monk called Mendel started breeding pea plants we've been learning about our genomes. In 1953, Watson, Crick and Franklin described the structure of the molecule that makes up our genomes: the DNA double helix. Then, in 2001, scientists wrote down the entire 3-billion letter code contained in the average human genome. Now they're trying to interpret that code; to work out how it's used to make different types of cells and different people. The ENCODE project, as it's called, is the latest chapter in the story of you.

The Story of You: ENCODE and the human genome


(Thanks, Tracy!)

Magic: The Gathering is Turing complete

Magic: The Gathering is Turing complete:



Alex Churchill has posted a way to implement a Turing complete computer within a game of Magic: The Gathering ("Turing complete" is a way of classifying a calculating engine that is capable of general-purpose computation). The profound and interesting thing about the recurrence of Turing completeness in many unexpected places -- such as page-layout descriptive engines -- is that it suggests that there's something foundational about the ability to do general computation. It also suggests that attempts to limit general computation will be complicated by the continued discovery of new potential computing engines. That is, even if you lock down all the PCs so that they only play restricted music formats and not Ogg, if you allow a sufficiently speedy and scriptable Magic: The Gathering program to exist, someone may implement the Ogg player using collectible card games.

A series of Ally tokens controlled by Alex represent the tape to the right of the current head: the creature one step to the right of the head is 1 toughness away from dying, the next one over is 2 toughness from dying, etc. A similar chain of Zombie tokens, also controlled by Alex, represent the tape to the left. The colour of each token represents the contents of that space on the tape.

The operation "move one step to the left" is represented in this machine by creating a new Ally token, growing all Allies by 1, and shrinking all Zombies by one. The details are as follows:

When the machine creates a new 2/2 Ally token under Alex's control, four things trigger: Bob's Noxious Ghoul, Cathy's Aether Flash, Denzil's Carnival of Souls, and Alex's Kazuul Warlord. They go on the stack in that order, because it's Bob's turn; so they resolve in reverse order. The Kazuul Warlord adds +1/+1 counters to all Alex's Allies, leaving them one step further away from dying, including making the new one 3/3. Then Carnival of Souls gives Denzil a white mana thanks to False Dawn (he doesn't lose life because of his Platinum Emperion). Then Aether Flash deals 2 damage to the new token, leaving it 1 toughness from dying as desired. And then the Noxious Ghoul, which has been hacked with Artificial Evolution, gives all non-Allies -1/-1, which kills the smallest Zombie. Depending on whether the smallest Zombie was red, green or blue, a different event will trigger. The machine has moved one step to the left.

If the new token had been a Zombie rather than an Ally, a different Kazuul Warlord and a different Noxious Ghoul would have triggered, as well as the same Aether Flash. So the same would have happened except it would be all the Zombies that got +1/+1 and all the Allies that got -1/-1. This would effectively take us one step to the right.

Magic Turing Machine v4: Teysa / Chancellor of the Spires

(via /.)

(Image: Magic the Gathering, a Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike (2.0) image from 23601773@N02's photostream)