Callum Cooper (the same guy who made this, and this, and this, and this, and this) built this apparatus for his iphone and took 4,000 photos of homes from East to West London, over the course of two years. Then he compiled all the images into a film, watch it below!
View the whole post: “Victoria, George, Edward and Thatcher” by Callum Cooper over on BOOOOOOOM!.
National Geographic has launched a new Tumblr site that features the less-celebrated-but-still-awesome parts of its vast photographic archive. I want this car:
(via the verge)
Tags: National Geographic photography weblogs
“Eyes as Big as Plates”, a photo series by Riitta Ikonen and Karoline Hjorth inspired by Norwegian folklore.
Weird day (fuck, weird week) but this totally totally made it. Some genius took Carly Rae Jepsen's Call Me Maybe and mashed it up with Nine Inch Nails' Head Like a Hole.:
Totesally amazingballs. Way way better than I expected. (via the verge)
Tags: Carly Rae Jepsen music Nine Inch Nails remixDaniel EvansonIt's very silly
Tony McCabe demonstrates how to jump on eggs without breaking them.
If this is what Britain was like in the 70s, it's possible that Monty Python's Flying Circus was a documentary. (via @scottlamb)
Tags: Tony McCabe video
If this photo series from 1950 of the interior of the White House being ripped out so that the building could be structurally reinforced isn't an apt metaphor for the current state of American politics, I don't know what is.
Experts called the third floor of the White House "an outstanding example of a firetrap." The result of a federally commissioned report found the mansion's plumbing "makeshift and unsanitary," while "the structural deterioration [was] in 'appalling degree,' and threatening complete collapse." The congressional commission on the matter was considering the option of abandoning the structure altogether in favor of a built-from-scratch mansion, but President Truman lobbied for the restoration.
"It perhaps would be more economical from a purely financial standpoint to raze the building and to rebuild completely," he testified to Congress in February 1949. "In doing so, however, there would be destroyed a building of tremendous historical significance in the growth of the nation."
So it had to be gutted. Completely. Every piece of the interior, including the walls, had to be removed and put in storage. The outside of the structure-reinforced by new concrete columns-was all that remained.
(via digg)
Tags: architecture photography politics USA White HouseThe On1on gathers news that seems like it should be from The Onion but isn't. Like "Russian man busted for cheating on girlfriend when she spots him on the Russian version of google maps with the other woman", "Accused of being gay, Spanish priest challenges Church to measure his anus", and "China Bans Reincarnation Without Government Permission". (via waxy)
Tags: journalism The OnionSome enterprising genius has registered the domain for Guy Fieri's (famously panned) restaurant in Times Square and put up a fake menu chock full of hilarious foodstuffs. For instance, the Hobo Lobo Bordello Slam Jam Appetizer:
We take 38 oz of super-saddened, Cheez-gutted wolf meat, lambast it with honey pickle wasabi and pile drive it into an Ed Hardy-designed bucket. Sprayed with Axe and finished with a demiglaze of thick & funky Mushroom Dribblins.
Also, "Add a Cinnabon and two more Cinnabons $4.95". Also, "superbanged". Also, "ranch hose".
Update: Copy for parts of the menu were crowdsourced from Twitter. Which doesn't make it any less funny...just that the person who made it is not an "enterprising genius". (via everyone)
Tags: food Guy Fieri restaurantsNassim Taleb asserts that, on average, old technologies have longer life expectancies than younger technologies, which helps explain why books are still around and CD-ROM magazines aren't.
For example: Let's assume the sole information I have about a gentleman is that he is 40 years old, and I want to predict how long he will live. I can look at actuarial tables and find his age-adjusted life expectancy as used by insurance companies. The table will predict he has an extra 44 years to go; next year, when he turns 41, he will have a little more than 43 years to go.
For a perishable human, every year that elapses reduces his life expectancy by a little less than a year.
The opposite applies to non-perishables like technology and information. If a book has been in print for 40 years, I can expect it to be in print for at least another 40 years. But -- and this is the main difference -- if it survives another decade, then it will be expected to be in print another 50 years.
This is adapted from Taleb's recent book, Antifragile. Anyone read this yet? I really liked The Black Swan.
Tags: Antifragile books Nassim Taleb
Honestly, if this child from Don't Call Me Oscar replaced all of the actors and actresses, I'd probably pay 3 times as much to see these movies.
Daniel EvansonHoly crap! These are beautiful
Wire Bonsai by Ken To
Bonsai is a reflective art, but you could almost see yourself in the delicately wrapped copper wire that Ken uses to cnstruct his miniature bonsai sculptures, which are available to purchase at his rondei.
Artist: ebay / DeviantArt
Mini Bonsais!
Daniel EvansonI've seen these photos before, may have even shared them on google reader before, but they're great. Don't click the photo, click the link below the photo.
Here in the U.S, manhole covers are treated as simple utilitarian access to underground systems, and their design generally reflects that — just a utility hatch.
In Japan, however, a large number of municipalities use the same kind of utility opening covers to express their local identity, with decorative covers that portray local landmarks, plants, animals, festivals and other elements of cultural or civic import.
There is an extensive Flickr group devoted to them and a book on the appreciation of them called Drainspotting.
[Via Salon]
This ten minute film by Martin Rosete of Spanish production company Kamel Films, narrated by French actor Féodor Atkine will take your breath away. Or at least it'll try.
"You had enough air in your suit for 3 hours. Now there's just 3 minutes and 33 seconds left."
(via @hughhowey)
On Friday Jason Kottke recommended the audio version of Charlotte's Web read by EB White himself. We happened to have a long drive that night and took it for a listen. The audiobook is simply produced without fussy music or sound effects, it's just White reading and it's wonderful.
To get a sense of White's voice, you can check out this Academy award nominated short The Family That Dwelt Apart; it's an adaptation of one of his New Yorker short stories and is also self-narrated.
And since we're on a White kick, fans might also enjoy this 1970's era form letter to his young readers.
Dear Reader:Filed under: on kidsI receive many letters from children and can't answer them all -- there wouldn't be time enough in a day. That is why I am sending you this printed reply to your letter. I'll try to answer some of the questions that are commonly asked.
Where did I get the idea for Stuart Little and for Charlotte's Web? Well, many years ago I went to bed one night in a railway sleeping car, and during the night I dreamed about a tiny boy who acted rather like a mouse. That's how the story of Stuart Little got started.
As for Charlotte's Web, I like animals and my barn is a very pleasant place to be, at all hours. One day when I was on my way to feed the pig, I began feeling sorry for the pig because, like most pigs, he was doomed to die. This made me sad. So I started thinking of ways to save a pig's life. I had been watching a big grey spider at her work and was impressed by how clever she was at weaving. Gradually I worked the spider into the story that you know, a story of friendship and salvation on a farm. Three years after I started writing it, it was published. (I am not a fast worker, as you can see.)
Sometimes I'm asked how old I was when I started to write, and what made me want to write. I started early -- as soon as I could spell. In fact, I can't remember any time in my life when I wasn't busy writing. I don't know what caused me to do it, or why I enjoyed it, but I think children often find pleasure and satisfaction is trying to set their thoughts down on paper, either in words or in pictures. I was no good at drawing, so I used words instead. As I grew older, I found that writing can be a way of earning a living.
Some of my readers want me to visit their school. Some want me to send a picture, or an autograph, or a book. And some ask questions about my family and my animals and my pets. Much as I'd like to, I can't go visiting. I can't send books, either -- you can find them in a bookstore or a library. Many children assume that a writer owns (or even makes) his own books. This is not true -- books are made by the publisher. If a writer wants a copy, he must buy it. That's why I can't send books. And I do not send autographs -- I leave that to the movie stars. I live most of the year in the country, in New England. From our windows we can look out at the sea and the mountains. I live near my married son and three grandchildren.
Are my stories true, you ask? No, they are imaginary tales, containing fantastic characters and events. In real life, a family doesn't have a child who looks like a mouse; in real life, a spider doesn't spin words in her web. In real life, a swan doesn't blow a trumpet. But real life is only one kind of life -- there is also the life of the imagination. And although my stories are imaginary, I like to think that there is some truth in them, too -- truth about the way people and animals feel and think and act.
Yours sincerely,
E.B. White
Gabriel: "At the end of the rainbow is an everything tree. It can make whatever you want. Cherries... Toys... Even little dogs... Just everything"
Me: "What does it look like?"
Gabriel: "You can't see it, that's why it's at the end of the rainbow. You can never find it."
Me: "Can you draw it?"
Gabriel: "I can draw it. Maybe you can. Maybe. I don't know, but most people can't."
Me: "Why?"
Gabriel: "You know why... people get dusty in their mind."
Filed under: on kids
