Holden.richards

We've read about Florentijn Hofman's giant rubber duck before (previously), and it made it's way earlier this week to Hong Kong to spread joy :D

Well, unfortunately, the duck was also viciously murdered (warning: may be graphic to younger viewers), and many already blame chinese mainlanders for it.

o<

To complement the rapid political climate change of the past few days, here in Minnesota we have freak ice destruction followed by a gorgeous day of 90 degree temperatures. I've seen the ice out on Mille Lacs Lake many times, but this YouTube video is pretty incredible, and features commentary in authentic Minnesotan.

The Anar Foundation and Grey Spain created a lenticular street-poster about child abuse that shows a "secret" message to people who view it from a kid's eye-height.

ANAR Foundation manages in Spain the european unique phone number 116 111, to attend children and teenagers under a risk situation. On this telephone number, only for minors, they can find the help they need in a totally anonymous and confidential way. But, how can we get our message to a child abuse victim, even when they are accompanied by their aggressor?

Knowing the average height for adults and children under 10,GREY has created two different messages. Using an outdoor lenticular we show adults an awareness message, while children see a message where we offer them our help and show them the telephone number. A message only for children.

Glad they're using this power for good and not evil. Wait until the grocery stores get hold of it and start loading the pester-power ads at kids' eye-height.

FUNDACIÓN ANAR. "ONLY FOR CHILDREN"

'Before their show in Seattle last month, London four-piece Savages posted a sign around the venue that laid out a couple of ground rules: no Instagramming, no video, no tweets-- in short, "SILENCE YOUR PHONES." This could be seen as a part of a growing trend of bands pointing out how sick they are of looking out into a sea of smartphones rather than human faces (the Yeah Yeah Yeahs posted a similar missive at their recent New York homecoming show), but it felt more like an extension of Savages' overall manifesto. And no, "manifesto" is not too dramatic a word; especially in contrast with the Yeah Yeah Yeahs' sign, which tempered its message with chatty humor, Savages' fiery imperative read like something hammered onto a door.' --Pitchfork has both a review and cover story on Savages well-named new record "Silence Yourself"

Last week, Tate & Lyle Sugars created a one-day pop-up cake hotel in Soho, where the rooms were stuffed with edible fixtures and furniture:

A Mediterranean-inspired bedroom, with edible furnishings, a caramel popcorn-filled bathtub, floating meringues and edible pearlescent popcorn bunting, all created using Light Soft Brown sugar. The perfect location for a midnight feast!

A Pirates of the Caribbean room, with a giant treasure chest full of edible pearls, ginger spiced doubloons and cutlasses, which visitors can spray gold themselves, and rum and raisin chocolate brownies and tea cakes – all made from Taste Experience Caribbean-inspired Light Muscovado sugar

A British-inspired Golden syrup sugar room, with a giant golden-syrup lion, patriotic treacle tarts in the shape of the British Isles and a giant tower of doughnuts

A Mayan-inspired room hidden in the cellar featuring a Mayan fudge temple, complete with floating meringue ‘clouds’, ‘sacrificial’ salted caramel and chocolate hearts, and Mayan-inspired carved gold cookies all made from Taste Experience Mayan-inspired golden caster sugar

A Mississippi-inspired ‘Mardi Gras’ room featuring a five foot long rainbow cake in the traditional colours of green, yellow & purple, gold baby heads and of course King Cakes

A Barbados-inspired library, with edible shells, and beautiful hand-painted cookies, fruit cakes and florentines showcased as museum features inside vintage glass jars, all made from Barbados inspired Dark Muscovado sugar

A Guyanese-inspired room, complete with a sea turtle cake, and cake ‘turtle eggs’ buried in mounds of Demerara sugar

A South Pacific-inspired room with a huge two metre high Easter Island statue, made entirely from chocolate mud cake baked using Golden Granulated sugar

SWEET DREAMS… WORLD’S FIRST CAKE HOTEL OPENS TO THE PUBLIC (via OhGizmo)

Eugene Vasserman is uneasy about his digital pedometer. The company that makes the thing doesn't know his name, age, or gender, but it does track his every step and his location. "They know where I sleep. They know my address," says the Kansas State University cybersecurity and privacy researcher.

Movies reimagined for another time and place

Two women have invented an invisible bicycle helmet. "The project started as an industrial design master thesis in 2005, when Anna Haupt and Terese Alstin, decided to 'improve' (reinvent if you ask me) the bicycle helmet in such a way that 'adult cyclists would voluntarily start protecting their heads on the roads without the law ordering them to do so.' Because, you know, helmets are not very attractive, and neither is one's hair after wearing them."

Visitors to the Museum of Modern Art were surprised to see Tilda Swinton sleeping in a box today. The Maybe is a collaboration of Swinton and Cornelia Parker originally shown in 1995. Her appearance at MoMa is seven years in the making and will be repeated throughout the year with no announced schedule.

My fellow Mefites, I implore you. Don't even think about clicking the more inside if you have anything pressing to do. [previously]

Black Delta Religion

The Ballad of Frankie Silver

Les Blues de Balfa

Carnival Train


All part of what I can only say is an epic collection of Americana documentaries, at Folkstreams.

Ourspot will let you hire amateur photographers for as much (or little) as you want.

Currently only running in San Francisco, but with plans to branch out to LA and New York soon, Ourspot lets users upload a job with any amount of money attached to it (even free), and then photographers on the site are able to take or leave it, depending on their needs.

The site doesn't specify how much you should pay, but suggests $10 for a "fun" gig, $25 for "standard," and $100 for "quality."

NASA's guide to observing a comet over the next few days

"Our team has delivered the vibe of a coffee shop right to your desktop, which means when your workspace just isn't quite cutting it, we've got you covered." Coffitivity promises "Enough noise to work" for those who are wired to experience increased productivity with some ambient noise around them. There's some science behind it. (HT: @SaraMynott)

How beautiful it is when you allow high voltage electricity to burn it's way through wood? Very beautiful.

Every Fucking Website

Wikimedia's Wikipedia Zero project will let people look up Wikipedia articles using text-messages. This will bring Wikipedia to billions of people who lack smartphones:

We want to enable access to free knowledge for every last human being. For many readers in developing countries, their primary (and often only) access to the internet is via mobile. However, barriers exist that can prevent users from reading Wikipedia and accessing free knowledge on their mobile devices.

Cost - While handset prices have reduced sharply around the world, data costs are still prohibitively expensive for many users. From the 2010 mobile readers' survey, for example, we saw that 21% of users listed "too much data usage" as a critical barrier to access. That number rises dramatically when we consider people who have capable devices, but are not even yet mobile readers. We need to remove the cost of data as a deterrent to reading Wikipedia.

Speed - The mobile survey also pointed out that speed of connection is the top barrier (44% of users) for using Wikipedia on a mobile phone. Therefore, we need to offset this barrier by offering an experience that loads faster.

There are two outcomes to this. First, new readers will be encouraged to access free knowledge for the first time, knowing that the barriers are low. Second, existing readers will not be obstructed from accessing knowledge when they need and want it.

Wikipedia Zero (via /.)

A bank robber who paid a wizard $450 to make him invisible was nonetheless detected and overpowered during his Tehran heist. [Metro]

One of the biggest charmers at TED2013 so far has been Romo the Robot, who rolled and whizzed around the stage with one of his creators, Keller Rinaudo. With large bubbly eyes, four fang-like teeth, and a happy alien voice, it's easy to forget that this animated robot is actually just an iPhone mounted on a rolling platform.

"We wanted to build a robot that anyone can use, whether you're eight or eighty," Rinaudo told the audience. So he and his two friends - Peter Sodd and Phu Nguyen - all from Phoenix, created Romo, who you can control from an iPad, computer, or another iPhone after downloading its free app. The three twenty-somethings then started their company, Romotive, where you can purchase Romo for $150. I spoke to them after the talk.

What's the purpose of Romo?

Rinaudo: He's just a robot that anyone can program and hack. He's also just fun to play with. You can invite anyone to control Romo from anywhere in the world. We think of him as a robot, but a lot of people buy him for kids, especially because when kids create behaviors for him and they try to train Robo how to do things, they are actually learning about computer science. It's a really cool way to get kids excited about technology and robotics and coding.

How did you create your first prototype?

Peter Sodd: He [pointing to Nguyen] called me on the phone and said, "What if we could build robots that used smart phones as their brain?" Two weeks later I built the first prototype, and it worked.

Rinaudo: We built 100 of them by hand - at first. Then we built 2,000 of them.

By hand?

RK: Yes. Now we're building 2000 of them per week. But not by hand.

What can you do besides hit the [touch-screen] joystick and make him move around?

Romo has a bunch of autonomous behaviors, which means he can interact with his environment, he can track you, and he can also use computer vision not only to track your face but also to recognize different glyphs. Something we're working on is the ability to hold different glyphs in front of Romo - we call it Romo glyphs - and what that allows people to do is program him. Romo knows that each card means something different and by holding cards in front of him you can create a program. And by changing the order of those cards and holding them in front of him again you can change the program. So that's our attempt to make programming accessible to kids who are even just six or seven years old - make it tangible, make it easy, and make it interactive with a robot that is actually going to show kids what they are creating in real time.

Is your primary audience kids?

We built Romo for 12-year-old versions of ourselves because we thought that advanced robotics shouldn't only be in research labs and factories - we wanted to figure out a way to get those robots into homes. It's in much the same way the first personal computers were called toys, and they appealed to kids and hackers who were sitting on the floors of their garages hacking on these things, getting them to do cool stuff. Same thing with Romo. But we don't think about whether the robots are for kids or adults. We build robots we think are awesome and that appeal to all ages of people.

See all TED2013 coverage

I use my iPhone to shoot video because the quality is excellent and I like the many different inexpensive video apps available for the iPhone (such as stop motion apps). I also like being able to email iPhone videos or upload them to YouTube directly from my phone instead of having to first transfer them to a computer.

The main drawback with using the iPhone to shoot video is that you can’t put it on a tripod — you have to hold it in your hand or precariously lean it against something. The best iPhone mounting solution I’ve found so far is the Glif, a tiny hard-rubber clip with a metal 1/4″-­20 thread that attaches to any tripod mount. Simply slide the iPhone into the Glif’s slot and you’re ready to go. (The Glif was one of the first breakaway hits on the crowdfunding site Kickstarter, taking in almost $130,000 more than its $10,000 goal in late 2010.)

The Glif has one other function: it’s a “kickstand” that lets you use your iPhone as a mini-display on your desktop or airplane fold down tray.

If you want to use the Glif when you’re on the move, pay the extra $10 for the Glif Plus, which includes a separate plastic piece that locks your iPhone onto the Glif so there’s no chance of it falling off. - Mark

The Glif