A man walks out of a restaurant into the night and sees street lights and brightly lit shop windows. He's so thrilled by the spectacle that he stands there for 10 minutes, just looking. The reason for his joy at such a mundane sight is the fact that he is normally totally blind. More » 
Collaboration is great, but sometimes collaboration can devolve into useless debate that doesn't get you anywhere. The Globe and Mail recommend limiting those big decisions to three people or less. More » 
It turns out there's an uneasy jungle truce between tigers and elephants. Tigers don't try to attack and eat full-grown pachyderms, and the elephants make sure not to trample the big cats. And it's this unofficial agreement that the BBC used to its advantage to capture the first footage of newborn tiger cubs in the wild. More » 
Submitted by: Unknown (via Fashionably Geek)
Tagged: scarf , design , nerdgasm , doctor who , illusion Share on Facebook
Rising from the murky bowels of your toilet bowl, the "Octopus" plunger concept from designer Art Lebedev blends form and function. The bright orange tentacle is pliable but firm enough to leverage against the large suction cup foot when battling clogs. And it won't need to be hidden away behind the commode when not in use—just washed really well before your next tentacle play session. More » 
A few of these Lego brick riddles can be easily solved. The rest? Not so much. In fact, some of them are really hard—but definitely doable. They just require a little bit of imagination. Give them a try and post your answers in the comments. We will send a nice Lego set to the first person who gets them all right. More » 
I just spotted this 2009 installation by Tomás Saraceno (previously) at Andersen’s Contemporary Berlin. The exhibition consisted of numerous suspended geometric clouds made from white matte paper along with video, photographic, and sculptural pieces. You can read a bit more about it here. If you liked this, don’t miss Daniel Arsham’s Pixel Clouds.
The secret word is "novelty cycling jersey," (AHHHH!) and it's inspired by this incredible PeeWee Herman bike riding outfit that is amazing in that it simply exists. You know what else is great? The vast amount of ridiculously nerdy pop culture-inspired suits available on the ol' world wide web. More » 
Inspired by a story his grandmother used to tell him at dinner about how his fish balls would turn into a giant hairy hungry monster if he didn't eat up, Jason Goh created this incredibly cozy looking Moyee Monster Chair. More » 
When first viewing the artwork of Shintaro Ohata up close it appears the scenes are made from simple oil paints, but take a step back and you’re in for a surprise. Each piece is actually a hybrid of painted canvas and sculpture that blend almost flawlessly in color and texture to create a single image. The cinematic figures are sculpted from polystyrene while the backgrounds are made from traditional painting techniques. Via his artist statement:
Shintaro Ohata is an artist who depicts little things in everyday life like scenes of a movie and captures all sorts of light in his work with a unique touch: convenience stores at night, city roads on rainy day and fast-food shops at dawn etc. His paintings show us ordinary sceneries as dramas. He is also known for his characteristic style; placing sculptures in front of paintings, and shows them as one work, a combination of 2-D and 3-D world. He says that it all started from when he wondered “I could bring the atmosphere or dynamism of my paintings with a more different way if I place sculptures in front of paintings”. Many viewers tend to assume that there is a light source set into his work itself because of the strong expression of lights in his sculpture.
Ohata will have work later this year at the Akita Museum of Modern Art, and you can see much more of his work online here. (via toxel)
ElleryThis app needs to exist somewhere in some form
Going to the gym for an hour is 2 red points. Calling my mom is 1 blue point while calling Aunt Deborah is 5 blue points because, honestly, Aunt Deb's sort of a pain to talk to and sometimes she says crazy inappropriate things. Cleaning the bathroom is 15 red points. Otherwise I would never do it. This is the plan to gamify my life, to relate everything I do to a point-based game. More » 
Outpourings of grief and calls for change continue to flood the Internet after the suicide of Aaron Swartz, only 26 years old. More » 
This robotic spider dress made by Dutch designer Anouk Wipprecht and Austrian software developer Daniel Schatzmayr is creeping me out but also turning me on at the same exact time. I don't know what to think—if those crawling spindly robot legs are scary or if they're just sexy. More » 
Eric has compared the dangerous smog in Beijing to Silent Hill. Fair based on the pics available yesterday, sure, but new images show things look far worse, especially when the sun starts to go down. More » 
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Two years ago, my son Jacob (then 3) and I built his first computer together. I installed Debian on it, but never put a GUI on the thing. It's command-line, and has provided lots of enjoyment off and on over the last couple of years. The looks of shock I get from people when I explain, as if it's perfectly natural, that my child has been able to log in by himself to a Linux shell since age 3, are amusing and astounding. Especially considering that it is really not that hard. Instead of learning how to run an Xbox, he's learned how to run bash. I like that. More » 
Artist Philip Ross first became interested in the fibrous structures created by mushrooms and other fungii about twenty years ago, when he was working with a chef who grew his own shrooms. After years of practice and perfecting the art of manipulating molds and spores, Ross has created a range of furniture made of fungus.
Right now Ross is working with a fungus called Reishi that creates new forms as it devours the wood upon which it's placed. New Scientist uncovers how it's done:
As [Reishi] digests the wood, it rearranges the fibers and forms a hard substance called chitin, also found in crab shells. The arrangement of the sawdust and the size of its chunks alter the chitinous forms that result.
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With tools such as the serendipitous kerosene-Vaseline mix, Ross determines where a mushroom blossoms, where fuzz forms, and where the soma toughens: a black plastic bag pressed tight against the soma cuts off gas exchange, prompting the fungus to form a leather-like layer to encase itself.
Ross dismisses the notion that his rot is a dangerous addition to anyone's living room. Once a piece reaches a point to his liking, he kills the fungus within a 67 °C oven and coats it with a biodegradable lacquer. That means the finished furniture is dead and spores to spread it no longer form.
Ross has a number of other really cool pieces of art/design that you can check out, and perhaps even purchase, at his website.
Scientists have discovered that an orange or creme-colored cup definitely makes chocolate taste better, while a white or red cup will not enhance the flavor. The discovery demonstrates once again that our taste buds are definitely influenced by the colors our eyes perceive. More » 
It doesn't matter what unspeakable acts or atrocities they grew up to commit, at one point all mad scientists—from Dr. Frankenstein to Dr. No—started life as adorable infants. But what turns an innocent toddler into an adult with a penchant for world domination? This set of mad scientist-themed alphabet blocks might be one cause. More » 
3D printing has promised us a future where everything will be available on demand, not just media. But in the meantime the technology seems to have found a niche as a way to produce mind-boggling geared creations that appear to skirt the laws of physics and the universe. More » 
Samuel L. Jackson and Anne Hathaway both have bleak dramatic movies coming out this Christmas (Django Unchained and Les Misérables, respectively), and you know what that means: It's time for a good ol' fashioned holiday movie sad-off. More » 
Due in large part to the inspired efforts of 13-year-old McKenna Pope of New Jersey, Hasbro will start manufacturing gender-neutral Easy-Bake Ovens. The new ovens, which will be black, silver and blue instead of the standard purple and pink, should available sometime next summer. More » 
Making a strong case for the Nobel Prize in Holiday Cheer, Redditor Breokz posted a photo of the Christmas 'Chemistree' at the Avans University of Applied Science laboratory. More » 
