May 15, 2011
The Best Toy Maker
Kids know that the best toys are the ones you make from stuff that's lying around. Arvind Gupta's been doing this for three decades. Take a look at his Turbine bottle cap,
Helicopter foam cup,
Drinking straw flute,
The CD hovercraft,
Magic Paper Fan,
Funny Fountain, Drinking Straw Centrifuge Pump, Climbing Butterfly.
Or check out the rest of his 1000 videos(!). Go to his website and discover an armload of books and pamphlets describing more toys (some of them classic) along with science experiments, math activities and stories. A sample:
The amazing Touching Slate, a drawing toy for blind children.
Hands On - Science Sense,
Hands On - Ideas and activities,
Toy Joy,
Little Science,
The Toy Bag,
Toy Treasures.
Little Toys
,
Finally you can hear Arvind in person at TED.com giving career advice, showing off a dozen toy examples, demonstrating the structure of methane; telling a Large Hadron Collider joke and finishing with the wonderful "Captain's hat" story. [more inside]
Phillippe Faraut
Philippe Faraut, realist sculptor, has a couple of interesting videos on Youtube ... one shows the effects of the aging process, another shows the effects of meth, and a third shows the effects of insanity. [more inside]
* 162m others not shown
100 years of world cuisine is a statistical exploration of military conflict that is both artistic and disturbing.
Every one a little lawyer.
“Watching the video I thought that it was wise of Major League Baseball to combine this sort of sentimental moment with mass speculative litigation. It kept brand values strong. I felt strangely grateful that I could have a moment to remember that afternoon. Surprised by the evidence of both copyright violation and father-daughter affection.” —Paul Ford, “Nanolaw with Daughter” [more inside]
They say the sun don't rise in Vegas.
Chris Worth did a tour of the real-life locations that that appeared in Fallout: New Vegas and compared them with their videogame counterparts. He explains more about the project in a newspaper interview.
Interviews with writers, producers, and directors...
On Story is a new series which takes a look at the creative process of filmmaking through the eyes of some of the entertainment industry's most prolific writers, directors and producers. Each episode will also showcase short films from the region's most promising filmmakers.
Why Would Heavenly Father Do That?
Why Would Heavenly Father Do That? After 20 years as a married Mormon living the plan of happiness, a gay man comes out to his family and his church, and blogs about it, with special attention to the question of "Mormon beards": "Why do gay Mormon men keep marrying Mormon women?" Holly Welker, a straight Mormon woman formerly engaged to a gay Mormon man, calls for an end to beards.
The last two stores of smallpox under review
Health ministers from the World Health Organization's (WHO's) 193 member states will meet this week to debate when to destroy the two last known remaining stocks of the virus that causes smallpox. [more inside]
Does internet use trigger sex crime?
Broadband Internet: An Information Superhighway to Sex Crime? [.pdf] (Leuven et al. 2011) is a German/Norwegian study that attempts to answer the question Does internet use trigger sex crime? [more inside]
A Boy and His Battle Kingdom
"Anyone who's not ready for this needs to catch up"
After being involved with the N.B.A for 40 years, Phoenix Suns President and CEO reveals that he is gay. [more inside]
Hellzapoppin'
Produced by a pair of Vaudeville comedians just as the Vaudville era was era was coming to a close, the musical revue Hellzapoppin' became a runaway smash hit, and for a time, was the longest running show on Broadway.
It was a crazy quilt of frequently updated comedy and musical bits stitched together, featuring risque humor, fourth-wall breaking audience participation, skits abandoned halfway through, dwarfs, pigeons, clowns and Adolph Hitler with a Yiddish accent. [more inside]
Everyone Knows You're A Hack
Flawed Typefaces
Flawed Typefaces. Paul Shaw, author of Helvetica and the New York City Subway System and a writer with a sharp eye even by typography standards, dissects the one or two characters in each of nearly two dozen fonts that stick out like a sore serif. (Yes, the Gill Sans numeral 1 is in there.)
Goblin Camp
Zhang Xiao
History that you can hold, smell and you can touch
Lisa Eldridge, make-up artist and blogger met up with the historian Madeleine Marsh to discuss the history of cosmetics, which is also a history of women, society, and culture. The resulting videos are just fascinating, Part 1: Victorian Era to 1930s & Part 1: 1940s to 1970s.
(via Beauty is a sleeping cat)
(via Beauty is a sleeping cat)
TEDxCaltech
GAME OVER
The last gasp of the arcade. Several months ago, two of the last major arcades on the west coast and east coast, Chinatown Fair in New York and Arcade Infinity in Los Angeles, shut down. [more inside]
DEMF - A Decade On
DetroitTechno.org presents a documentary (1 2 3) about the history and politics of techno with a focus on the Detroit Electronic Music Festival, now called Movement, from its inception in 2000 until the most recent one in 2010. [more inside]
The Shaman of the Lower East Side is no more
Ira Cohen passed away a couple of weeks ago aged 76 (NYT obit )
He was a friend and collaborator with William Burroughs and Brion Gysin and authored the Hashish Cookbook. He made several short films including The Invasion of Thunderbolt Pagoda.
In Kathmandu in 1979 Ira Cohen photographed the Tibetan Buddhist cremation of his friend Angus MacLise, poet and original drummer with The Velvet Underground.
He has been described as an "electronic multimedia shaman" .
His photographs range from a psycadelically distorted Hendix to Joujouka musicians; whom he described in his book Gnaoua
Ira was also a poet who had several volumes published.
An interview.
He was a friend and collaborator with William Burroughs and Brion Gysin and authored the Hashish Cookbook. He made several short films including The Invasion of Thunderbolt Pagoda.
In Kathmandu in 1979 Ira Cohen photographed the Tibetan Buddhist cremation of his friend Angus MacLise, poet and original drummer with The Velvet Underground.
He has been described as an "electronic multimedia shaman" .
His photographs range from a psycadelically distorted Hendix to Joujouka musicians; whom he described in his book Gnaoua
Ira was also a poet who had several volumes published.
An interview.
Subtext
The Guardian has a new series of webchats with various people in the publishing industry starting with literary agent Karolina Sutton. Also various writers are asked: Can you teach creative writing?
taH pagh taHbe
David Warner, on being Hamlet at the age of 23 in 1966, has played at least three different species in the Star Trek universe. Notably, as Chancellor Gorkon in Strek Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country. But another Shakespearean actor, playing General Chang, was more apparent in that movie. Of course there is far more Shakespeare in the Star Trek Universe.
Doug's Word Clocks
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