July 18, 2018

Rendering Trends

Decoding tired tropes of flashy architectural graphics Look at architectural renderings on a regular basis and soon you’ll start to spot stylized elements that pop up often enough to be called cliches, every one of them inserted into the image for a specific purpose. It’s all about selling the viewer on the concept, consciously and subconsciously, like any other form of marketing.
posted by MovableBookLady at 11:07 PM PST - 26 comments

How to Befraud One's Investors

Another Kickstarter campaign revealed to be a fraud: How the "Be." battery-free toothbrush faked a demonstration video. Having already collected over $400,000 in donations, the backers have quite a bit of vitriol to dispense (the creators have already labeled the revelation "fake news", despite having immediately removed the incriminating video).
posted by Christ, what an asshole at 9:53 PM PST - 62 comments

Whaddya got?

Why punk keeps connecting people across space and time, by Miss Rosen, Angela Boatwright & GODLIS.
posted by the man of twists and turns at 9:28 PM PST - 6 comments

Mandela Day, 100 years, explained

Trevor Noah spends about 8 minutes explaining exactly why Nelson Mandela's birthday is still observed in such a major way in his home country of South Africa, and also around the world.
posted by hippybear at 8:48 PM PST - 15 comments

"I'm pinning all my hopes on the creature in the sarcophagus."

Around the internet, people have been delighted and uneasy at the news that a gigantic, featureless, sealed black sarcophagus recovered in Alexandria, Egypt, will be opened by archaeologists. Despite stateside hopes, the sarcophagus is unlikely to contain any Elder Gods. It is also unlikely to contain Alexander the Great, even though he was said to have been reburied in a sealed coffin [pdf] full of honey in Alexandria. Since the only clue to the owner's identity is an alabaster bust with the face eaten away, it is no doubt a very ordinary person's burial with nothing amazing about it at all.
posted by Countess Elena at 6:29 PM PST - 72 comments

I would crash this ship to save my friend

Superfans The Sevateem (Twitter) have created The Caves, a lush, electro-indie-pop tribute to the classic 1984 Doctor Who story The Caves of Androzani. (Wikipedia) (Tardis Data Core). It's pay-what-you-want, with all profits donated to Doctors Without Borders.
posted by Orange Dinosaur Slide at 6:25 PM PST - 5 comments

I think that I’m the original, but so do they.

Alice Bell at Rock Paper Shotgun asks game industry insiders: what would you do to a clone of yourself? [more inside]
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 5:59 PM PST - 70 comments

Work less, get more

New Zealand firm's four-day week an 'unmitigated success'. Reduced hours for same pay increased work-life balance by 24%, cutting stress levels and boosting commitment.
posted by spaceburglar at 5:33 PM PST - 27 comments

Vanilla flavoring comes from *what*?

Lucy Cooke (previously) has a relatively new book, The Unexpected Truth About Animals. Here are some truths you may not be aware of.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 4:35 PM PST - 13 comments

“None of these ‘mysteries’ are matters of legitimate public concern”

S-Town, the controversial hit podcast, is being sued for exploitation [more inside]
posted by not_the_water at 4:28 PM PST - 50 comments

Hints of people travelling along the edges of the world

Coastlines around the world are revealing the footprints of ancient people gathering together, playing and travelling together, article by Andrew Curry in Hakai Magazine [more inside]
posted by Helga-woo at 2:07 PM PST - 6 comments

Human subcultures are nested fractally. There's no bottom.

"At this point, I decided the only thing that made sense was to build my own mattress from scratch." [more inside]
posted by rufb at 12:52 PM PST - 93 comments

17 Artists Blurring the Line Between Painting and Photography

Guillaume Hebert first merged classical landscapes with photography in his series The Rocks of Taiwan, then The Rocks of Ludao, combining his photographs of seascapes with romantic landscapes. He increased the juxtaposition of the modern foreground with idyllic background in a series titled Updated Landscape, pairing the lighting in his photos with the background paintings from prior centuries. [via Wired] For different takes on merging painting with photography, here's a list of 16 more artists from My Modern Met, and a nod to Painted Land, a film documenting the efforts to track down landscapes painted by Canada's Group of Seven [interview video as trailer].
posted by filthy light thief at 10:52 AM PST - 3 comments

“A text driven first person adventure game...”

Under a Porcelain Sun [YouTube] [Video Game Trailer] is a first-person adventure set in a surrealist colonial India. It’s about two thieves searching for the mythical city Kayamgadh. Along the way, they’ll encounter castles of glue, wax people, and other strangeness. It comes from a studio in India called Oleomingus and will be out this summer. [via: Kotaku]
posted by Fizz at 9:12 AM PST - 16 comments

The Speartip Of The Moral Majority

“...by 1984 the future of the conservative party had already been in Washington for a dozen years. Jesse Helms, a junior senator, was among the group of North Carolinian and Texan conservatives that created their own wave without full national party backing, without complimentary ads from Nixon and his squad, without the money or even full-throated support of the North Carolina Republican Party. His election registered nationally, but only because of what the national media and audience saw as the byproduct—a one-off Republican conservative slipping through while the Democrats picked up two Senate seats and kept a healthy lead over their counterparts in the GOP. Helms was initially cast as an aberration; he wasn’t. He was a reaction, and the future.” How though direct mail, mudslinging, open racism, and television appearances Jesse Helms Invented The Republican Party (Splinter News)
posted by The Whelk at 8:43 AM PST - 28 comments

the foundation landscape

"Rihanna made headlines last fall when she launched Fenty Beauty, an intentionally inclusive makeup line created “so that women everywhere would be included.” Fenty’s liquid foundation product, Pro Filt’r, was so groundbreaking that it made it onto Time’s 25 Best Inventions of 2017 list. Its claim to fame: the foundation launched with 40 shades “made for women of all skin colors & undertones." But as it turns out, a few other brands had 40 or more shades too, including Make Up For Ever, who was not about to let that fact go unnoticed. Shortly after Fenty’s launch, they challenged the newcomer in an Instagram post noting that 40 shades of foundation was “nothing new” since they’ve had 40 shades since 2015. Rihanna was unimpressed. She quickly shot back with two comments: “lol. still ashy” and “shook.” In other words, Rihanna was implying that Make Up For Ever’s foundation lacked range and would still leave people of color looking “ashy” or slightly gray. So how valid is her comeback? Actually, there’s a way to find out—with data." How Inclusive Are Beauty Brands Around the World?
posted by everybody had matching towels at 6:27 AM PST - 47 comments

The west isn't necessarily the best

What are higher education deserts? The Chronicle of Higher Education explores where and which Americans are the farthest away from colleges and universities.

The Urban Institute offered a somewhat different approach, combining geography and broadband.

The American Council on Education focused on geography, but used a different model to yield different results.
posted by doctornemo at 6:06 AM PST - 12 comments

The Igbo slave trade

My great-grandfather, the Nigerian slave trader. A New Yorker article by Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani in which she reflects on her family's involvement in the African slave trade, and its ramifications today for the descendants of both the slavers and the enslaved.
posted by tavegyl at 2:14 AM PST - 25 comments

This ant moisturizes. This ant is round and huggable.

An entomologist rates ant emojis.
posted by Vesihiisi at 12:01 AM PST - 27 comments

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