Rtersieva

Since 2008 Hungarian/German graphic designer David Szakaly has been churning out some of the most dizzying, hypnotic and wholly original gifs on the web under the name Davidope. His blend of twisting organic forms, flashes of black and white, and forays into pulsing technicolor shapes have inspired legions of others to experiment with the medium, many of whom have been featured here on Colossal. It’s hard to determine the scale of Szakaly’s influence online, but a simple Google image search for “animated gif” brings up dozens of his images that have been shared around Tumblr hundreds of thousands of times.

Szakaly began experimenting with the vector animation program Macromedia Flash back in 1999 where he used the software to create presentations, banners, and other creatives for clients. It was nearly a decade later when he decided to dedicate more time to experimenting with motion graphics and found that Tumblr was a great platform to share his quirky gifs. While he still works in the corporate world on other digital projects, he has also found commercial success making animations for clients around the world. Though it’s his personal work that really stands out. If or when gifs end up on gallery walls, it will be hard to deny Szakaly’s role in getting them there.

"There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness."

Five things you didn't know about ear wax

itwbennett writes "Everybody lies to themselves now and again in both their personal lives ('my bathroom scale probably needs to be recalibrated') and professional lives ('this code doesn't need commenting'). ITworld has compiled some of the common lies programmers tell themselves. Here are a few examples: 'This bug won't take long to fix.' 'No one could possibly fail to understand my simple user interface.' 'Code is self documenting.' 'My homebrew framework will be nimble, lightweight, debugged, and easy to use.' 'I know this is dirty code, I will rewrite it later.' 'It's just one line... it won't break anything.' '"It works on my machine.' 'I don't need version control.' 'It's written in ____, so it'll be easy to ____.' What would you add to this list?"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Today is World Sleep Day, designed to make us all celebrate sleep and, presumably, try to get a little bit more of it. But even if you can't catch more shuteye than usual, here are the five most important things you need to know in order to make the resting hours you do get count.

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Ah Paris—city of light, city of love, city of smog? Unusually warm spring weather has trapped diesel car emissions, blanketing much of France in noxious and dangerous air pollution. It's gotten so bad that officials in Paris are taking the radical next step of making public transportation, bike shares, and electric car shares free to use all weekend.

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"A great many people think they are thinking when they are really rearranging their prejudices."

"Save a little money each month and at the end of the year you'll be surprised at how little you have."

"Electricity is actually made up of extremely tiny particles called electrons, that you cannot see with the naked eye unless you have been drinking."

As an electricity source, what could be greener than plants? That's the idea behind this rig, the world's first system that powers an FM radio using nothing more than the photosynthetic powers of moss. And creators Fabienne Felder and Dr. Paolo Bombelli are just getting started.

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Just like the CPU in your computer, the human brain has an optimal temperature where it runs best. But unlike a computer's CPU, there's no built-in fan to chill the brain when it starts to run hot. Which is why researchers now believe that yawning is actually the body's physiological way of keeping the brain nice and cool.

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"I bought some batteries, but they weren't included."

Love clementines, mandarin oranges and other citrus fruits, but hate peeling them? Or just looking to add a little fun to your lunch hour? Then don't peel that clementine — unroll it instead!

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No I didn’t start crying at this point shut up

THIS is why you take the medical illustration class

"The brain is a wonderful organ. It starts working the moment you get up in the morning and does not stop until you get into the office."

She's good. After nailing her first edition of doing impressions on foreign languages, Smoukahontas is back for the sequel and it's just as impressive. It's so fun to see her make up very believable words and get animated depending on which foreign language she's doing. Her impressions are pretty much spot on to non-foreign language speaking folks.

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programmingisterrible:

With apologies to Ambrose Bierce

simple — It solves my use case.

opinionated — I don’t believe that your use case exists.

elegant — The only use case is making me feel smart.

lightweight — I don’t understand the use-cases the alternatives solve.

configurable — It’s your job to make it usable.

minimal — You’re going to have to write more code than I did to make it useful.

util — A collection of wrappers around the standard library, battle worn, and copy-pasted from last weeks project into next weeks.

dsl — A domain specific language, where code is written in one language and errors are given in another.

framework — A product with the business logic removed, but all of the assumptions left in.

documented —There are podcasts, screencasts and answers on stack overflow.

startup — A business without a business plan.

hackday — A competition where the entry fee is sleep deprivation and the prize is vendor lock in.

entrepreneur — One who sets out to provide a return on investment.

serial entrepreneur — One who has yet to provide a return on investment.

disrupt — To overcome any legal, social, or moral barrier to profit.

Check out some of the cutest "now and then" photos of pets.

bmahersciwriter writes "Theoretical physicists propose that the Sun periodically crosses into a dense layer of dark matter sandwiching the Milky Way. The gravitational push and pull that this creates disturbs debris in the Oort cloud sending deadly comets and asteroids ricocheting around the solar system. This passage happens, their admittedly speculative model suggests, every 35 million years, which jibes somewhat with evidence on impact craters. Take it with a dino-sized grain of salt."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Daily Pics and Flicks spotted this fun video of a woman using a laser pointer and a husky dog to wake up some poor sod, something that I want to do on myself (if I had a dog or a laser pointer.)

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Crude jokes, sexual humor, murder and mayhem – take a look at some of the wildest, most bizarre Japanese video games ever made.