Try the Quite Place Project. It’s nice.
Scott Adams worries about different things than the rest of us.
My prediction is that robots will eradicate humankind with love, not laser cannons.
When technological companionship beats real human interactions, the species is doomed…
Interesting article about the ways legal drug use follows the cultural mood.
Just as teenage rebellion flourishes in environments of safety and plenty, depression as a cultural pose works only in tandem with a private confidence that the grown-ups in charge are reliably succeeding on everyone’s behalf.
I am severely tempted to buy an iPhone just to try this app that recreates the sensation of being chased by Zombies. Apparently, you are less likely to slow down or stop if there is a risk of your brains being eaten.
You tie your shoes, put on your headphones, take your first steps outside. You’ve barely covered 100 yards when you hear them. They must be close. You can hear every guttural breath, every rattling groan - they’re everywhere. Zombies. There’s only one thing you can do: Run!
Profane but hilarious, this Tumblr, textfromdog.tumblr.com, is a collection of text message exchanges between a man and his loving canine companion.
The act of reading books is alive and well. Radio didn’t kill it. Television didn’t kill it. The Internet didn’t Kill it.
Alexis Madrigal muses about Golden age of reading:
Remember the good old days when everyone read really good books, like, maybe in the post-war years when everyone appreciated a good use of the semi-colon? Everyone’s favorite book was by Faulkner or Woolf or Roth. We were a civilized civilization. This was before the Internet and cable television, and so people had these, like, wholly different desires and attention spans. They just craved, craved, craved the erudition and cultivation of our literary kings and queens.
That time wasn’t in some bygone era. That time is now. Grab a book and join the fun!
This forum thread is a parody of any camera (or your tech hobby of choice) gear discussion.
Thread Title: Nails for Stiletto TB15?
Hammeruser: I’ve saved up for months and just got my Stiletto TB15SS titanium hammer. At $220 they’re pricey but with the replaceable stainless steel face, ultra light weight handle, and excellent balance I can see myself using this for many years. I’ve had it 3 days now and it’s just wonderful. Does anyone have any suggestions for a good framing nail to use with this hammer?
Hammergeek:You say it’s wonderful but I don’t see any photos of nails you’ve driven. I think it’s just overpriced crap.
Hammerfiend: You know, Ken Rockbuster said the Stiletto is really overpriced and he wouldn’t have one. For $14 you can get a Tekton rubber mallet set. It’s not any good for driving nails, but it is great for body work on your car. That’s what Ken recommends.
Read the rest of this part of Hammerforum.com.
Angry Birds, Cut the Rope, Fruit Ninja—they own real estate in pockets and minds around the world. Sam Anderson:
Game-studies scholars (there are such things) like to point out that games tend to reflect the societies in which they are created and played. Monopoly, for instance, makes perfect sense as a product of the 1930s — it allowed anyone, in the middle of the Depression, to play at being a tycoon. Risk, released in the 1950s, is a stunningly literal expression of cold-war realpolitik. Twister is the translation, onto a game board, of the mid-1960s sexual revolution.
What do the stupid games we play say about our culture today?
There’s a stupid game where you get to shoot all the elements on the page at the top of the article. That little feature just might keep you from reading the rest of the story, but it shouldn’t. Because, remember, the game is stupid. And you shouldn’t play it. For too long.
And here’s a fantastic, tone-setting, quote from the story:
Angry Birds, it seems, is our Tetris: the string of digital prayer beads that our entire culture can twiddle in moments of rapture or anxiety — economic, political or existential.
How much time to stupid games waste?
One tiny masterpiece, Plants vs. Zombies, ate up, I’m going to guess, a full “Anna Karenina” of my leisure time.
Or more.
This isn’t the book of the future, but the cartoon is still imaginative.
Jet-pack friendly reading material is important. Maybe books will go here, and we’ll have to deal the distracted flying issues.
I’m mostly indifferent to baseball, but Tim Sidell’s new view of the “life is a lot like baseball” cliche helps me understand the appeal of the game.
Count me among those who believe, quite strongly, that baseball transcends the world of sport. It’s more than just a game of ingenious design, measured not by the artificial and cruel limits of a clock, but by equal opportunity. It’s more than just a symbolic renewal of springtime hope and summer frolic. It is, my friends, life.
Because just like life itself, baseball is boring. Amazingly, stupendously boring.
Despite this analogy, it is clear that Sidell is a fan of America’s pastime.
Jeff Desom made this incredible time lapse video created from clips of Alfred Hitchcock’s 1954 film Rear Window. In the video, the whole story unfolds in order, but the only thing you see is the panoramic view from the window. The movement of the small figures in the distance let you know where to direct your attention. The video is set to a great soundtrack, Brahms’ Hungarian Dance No. 5. Desom shared how he made the video on his website.
Hindsight is 20/20.
A random sampling of history’s most clueless predictions — from faulty scientific forecasts to sweeping political statements
Some gems:
“Remote shopping, while entirely feasible, will flop — because women like to get out of the house, like to handle merchandise, like to be able to change their minds.” —TIME, offering predictions for the year 2000, 1966
“Splitting the atom is like trying to shoot a gnat in the Albert Hall at night and using ten million rounds of ammunition on the off chance of getting it.” —British physicist Lord Ernest Rutherford, date unknown
“I believe that the motion picture is destined to revolutionize our educational system and that in a few years it will supplant largely, if not entirely, the use of textbooks.” —Thomas Edison, 1922
“These Google guys, they want to be billionaires and rock stars and go to conferences and all that. Let’s see if they still want to run the business in two or three years.” —Bill Gates, on Google magnates Sergey Brin and Larry Page, 2003
“Tchaikovsky’s First Piano Concerto, like the first pancake, is a flop.”—Russian music critic and composer Nicolai Soloviev, 1875
The Economist explores the psychology of morality by reporting on a dice rolling experiment:
The researchers had no way of knowing what numbers participants actually rolled, of course. But they knew, statistically, that the average roll, if people reported honestly, should have been 3.5. This gave them a baseline from which to calculate participants’ honesty. Those forced to enter their results within 20 seconds, the researchers found, reported a mean roll of 4.6. Those who were not under any time pressure reported a mean roll of 3.9. Both groups lied, then. But those who had had more time for reflection lied less.
The experiment suggests that people who are rushed and don’t take the time to think are more likely to lie and cheat than those who have time to think about their actions rationally.
The Girl Who Loves to Levitate
For the rest of these see Part 1 and Part 2.
Japanese photographer Natsumi Hayashi glides through Tokyo without ever really touching her feet to the ground. At least that’s what it seems in her Levitation photographs where Hayashi floats along in otherwise ordinary scenes.
Getting the right shot involves many attempts, and Hayashi says she either works with a friend or by herself through this following process: “First, I get a composition and a focus manually. Then I press the shutter release, run to the right position for a levitation as I check the camera’s blinking red LED counting down 10 seconds and jump by my intuition. In this manner, I need to jump over and over to get the right shot.”
(Pro tip: Part 2 is better since Hayashi had about a year more of practice with her unusual photo technique.)
