Matt

Data visualization site Proofreader mined a list of Billboard-topping song titles gathered by Bullfrogs Pond to determine the most popular decade-specific words, beginning with the 1890s, through today. Songs from the 1930s, for instance, frequently utilized “Moon,” “In,” “Swing,” “Sing,” and “A,” while songs from the current decade were more likely to utilize more obscene language. The site used some complex equations to determine what qualifies as “decade specific.”

I used the log-likelihood method, which returns a measure of the statistical significance of finding that word in that decade. A keyness of about 11 means there’s only a 0.1% chance that you would get the same result higher picking words from the entire collection at random instead of restricting yourself to the words in that subset (decade), and about 14 is a 0.01% chance.

image via Proofreader

via FlowingData

When Cards Against Humanity fans signed up for Ten Days or Whatever of Kwanzaa, they weren’t expecting a license for their own one-square-foot parcel of land on a private island that Cards Against Humanity bought specifically for this purpose, but that’s exactly what people have been receiving in the mail. The island, which the company named Hawaii 2, sits in St. George Lake, Maine, and recipients were given a stern warning in the license agreement: “If you hurt a tree on the Private Island, we will curse your family for a thousand (1,000) generations.”

The gift is certainly an improvement over the literal bullshit the company sent to people who signed up for their Black Friday deal.

Cards Against Humanity co-creator Max Temkin recently told the Chicago Tribune about their decision to purchase an island. “We thought about trying to launch something into space, or doing something visible from space. Eventually that led us down the path of buying a private island, which is something we’ve joked about in the past.”

Other gifts for participants included a personalized Cards Against Humanity card, Miracle Berry packs, and stickers. Some proceeds from the holiday campaign were given to the Sunlight Foundation, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit organization that advocates for transparency in government globally.

images via Max Temkin and Google Maps

Thanks, Shelby DeNike!

This was originally an animated comic that looked like this, but I figured this was so much easier and actually delivered the joke better than figuring out how fast each one of you reads.

Slovenia-based artist Miha Brinovec creates precariously balanced stone sculptures in rivers and streams by painstakingly stacking stones by hand. According to Brinovec, the process of stacking stones is his favorite form of meditation, and he recommends everyone try it out. Photos of his stone sculptures are available for purchase. Brinovec’s sculptures are reminiscent of the work of Colorado-based artist Michael Grab.

photos by Miha Brinovec

via Bored Panda

photo by Muriel Chaulet

At the 2014 Fête des Lumières, or Festival of Lights (previously) in Lyon, France earlier this month, 75 fantastic light installations were displayed throughout the city. The festival has existed in its modern form–a four-day citywide celebration of lights and lighting art–since 1989. Among this year’s most striking installations: Laniakea, a constellation of thousands of illuminated globes by artists Simon Milleret-Godet and Jérôme Donna, and Color or Not, a vibrant projection-mapping installation on the facade of Cathedral Saint-Jean created by Yves Moreaux. Cool Hunting has more on the 2014 Fête des Lumières.

photo by Nara Shin

photo by Muriel Chaulet

photo by Nara Shin

photo by Nara Shin

via Cool Hunting, Archie McPhee’s Endless Geyser of Awesome

Margaret is a multimedia project based around the life and writings of an enigmatic poet–Margaret Rucker–who died decades before the project was ever conceived. Born in 1906, Rucker was the daughter of Bethel Rucker, one of the founding fathers of Everett, Washington. Her story came to light through her scrapbook, which was found by Chicken John Rinaldi in a dumpster in San Francisco 20 years ago.

The book, which traces Rucker’s life and includes her remarkably beautiful poetry, fell into the hands of musician Jason Webley. Webley was so taken by Rucker’s story, and in particular her poetry, that he wrote songs for each of her poems. He recruited musician friends to contribute additional music based on Rucker’s life, creating the full-length album Margaret, and a companion book of the same name featuring writings by Webley and Rinaldi. Webley and friends are now taking Margaret on a 2014 West Coast tour:

Dec 18 – Portland – Wonder Ballroom
Dec 19 – Eugene – WOW Hall
Dec 20 – San Francisco – The Castro Theater
Dec 21 – Los Angeles – Bootleg Theater

poster by Dax Tran-Caffee

submitted via Laughing Squid Tips

Imgur user and knitter Otterknot found three large bags of wool at a garage sale, which she turned into rope-thick yarn and then into a giant, fluffy blanket. After lightly felting the wool, she knit the blanket using knitting needles built from large PVC pipes. The result was a huge, warm blanket with stitches so big that it almost creates the illusion that people and furniture under the blanket are miniature.

There was lots of muttered cursing and wondering why I had committed to this project, but once you get in this deep, ya just have to finish!

photos via imgur

Maker Mike Warren has created a beautiful wooden table with glow in the dark inlays that illuminate after being exposed to light. For his table, Warren used a sheet of pecky cypress, a special cypress wood which contains rotten sections that can be easily removed. He filled the cavities with phosphorescent powder mixed with clear resin. Warren has posted detailed instructions on how to make your own glow in the dark table on Instructables.

photos by Mike Warren

submitted via Laughing Squid Tips

In his latest street art installation, Italian street artist BLU has covered two sides of a building in Rome with colorful faces. In many cases throughout the mural, the building’s windows cleverly serve as eyes. According to BLU, he has been living in and working on the building, an old military warehouse, for the past two years. The installation can be viewed on Google Street View. We’ve covered BLU’s work several times over the years, including his twisted veggie blender of death, and his spaghetti brain.

photos via BLU

via Colossal

I AM BIG BIRD is a wonderful documentary that tells the incredible story of Caroll Spinney, the man who has portrayed the legendary Sesame Street characters of Big Bird and the ever-irascible Oscar the Grouch since the show’s 1969 inaugural season. Now 45 years later, at the age of 80, Mr. Spinney continues on with no intention of stopping.

Think you know everything there is to know about Sesame Street? You don’t. You might know that Frank Oz turned down an offer to play Big Bird, but you probably don’t know that until a last minute change of heart by NASA, Big Bird was supposed to go to space aboard the Challenger. Or you may know that Oscar the Grouch got his voice from a cantankerous cabbie, but you’d be surprised to learn that a fire in his trash can almost led to Caroll’s untimely demise. Caroll’s stories are the stuff of legend. He has been a constant presence in our lives for over 40 years, his path weaving through American history like that of Forrest Gump. His time inside the Bird has taught him about the world and about himself. I AM BIG BIRD will peel away the instances in Caroll’s life that inspired his creation of characters that influenced generations of children. And, as the yellow feathers give way to grey hair, it is the man, not the puppet, who will steal your heart.

images via I AM BIG BIRD

via Josh Ellingson

Irwin Lark ‘sardine can’, 1940

Collection Appareils is an incredibly vast online archive of more than 10,000 cameras spanning the history of analog photography. Each camera in the archive is accompanied by a photograph, as well as technical and historical data. The archive is the work of a French camera collector, Sylvain Halgand, who personally owns around 1,800 cameras and has been running the site since 1999. Halgand discusses Collection Appareils in this (French language) Reportages Photos interview. The project can be followed on Facebook.

The Argus C3 Matchmatic (1939-1966)

Haneel Tri-Vision, 1946

Compagnie Francaise de Photographie Photosphere no1, 1899

Argus Lady Carefree, 1967

photos via Collection Appareils

via Messy Nessy Chic, PetaPixel

Cereal is a new podcast by author Kyle Scheele that offers a pitch perfect parody of the wildly popular This American Life offshoot Serial (previously), swapping the unsolved story of a murder for a breakfast food-related crime.

Baltimore, MD – 1999. A bowl of Fruity Pebbles has gone missing. Adnan Syed, a senior at Woodlawn High School, is the main suspect. But is everything really as it seems? And what’s the real story behind “Jay” H. Crunch, the police informant?

submitted via Laughing Squid Tips

As you can see I am clearly correct about this issue.
I drew a comic in which a reasonable person debated a strawman.
This is the highest level of evidence.

One of my favorite things about remix: If you don’t like the narrative, change it!

When Casey Fiesler, a PhD candidate in Human-Centered Computing at Georgia Tech, came across the issues with the since-removed “Barbie: I Can Be a Computer Engineer“, she set about creating a wonderfully remixed book that can be downloaded for free, reimagining the iconic doll Barbie as a computer engineer despite her impossible figure and overdone blue eyeshadow.

The problematic part is that, as far as I can tell, the steps for becoming a computer engineer if you’re Barbie are:

• Design a videogame.
• Get a boy to code it for you.
• Accidentally infect your computer with a virus.
• Get a boy to fix it for you.
• Take all the credit for these things yourself

And the problem isn’t even that Barbie isn’t a “real” computer scientist because she isn’t coding. (I am one of those mostly-non-coding computer scientists myself, though now I’m tempted to make a game about robot puppies shooting lasers anyway.) The problem is the assumption that she is a designer, not a coder, and the coders are boys. (There are also problems with nonsense explanations for computer viruses, taking credit for other people’s work, and inexplicable pillow fights.) I happen to study remix, so one of my first thoughts upon seeing this was: someone is obviously going to remix this. I figured, why wait?

Casey has also created an interactive “Feminist Hacker Page” to “help Barbie be the competent, independent, bad-ass engineer that she wants to be.”

images by Casey Fiesler

via The Mary Sue

The Digi-Comp II we made for MIT is featured in this outreach video from MIT+K12 Videos by Jamie Teherani about how computers work. The mechanical switches on the Digi-Comp II are compared to first to light switches and then to transistors. Regarding manufacturing computers with transistors, Jamie says, “We can make them over a billion times faster than the Digi-Comp!”

LinkNYC is a project spearheaded by New York City mayor Bill de Blasio that will replace the Big Apple’s 6,400 coin-operated payphones with 10-foot-tall kiosks that offer 24-hour free high-speed Wi-Fi access to a surrounding 150-foot radius. The project, made possible by a consortium of tech companies, will be undertaken with no charge to the taxpayer–and is actually expected to eventually generate revenue for the city through advertising. The project is reminiscent of the NYFi project that won the NYC Payphone Design Challenge back in 2013.

images via LinkNYC

German designer Peter Dahmen creates pop-up paper sculptures that open to reveal astonishingly complex forms. Dahmen talks about his artistic process and demonstrates a number of his beautiful sculptures in the video “The Magic Moment” by filmmaker Christopher Helkey. Dahmen posts videos of his sculptures on his YouTube channel.

photos via Peter Dahmen

GIFS via Colossal

via Colossal

Former Cirque du Soleil performer Greg Kennedy demonstrates his innovative approach to juggling by impressively manipulating nine glowing balls in various patterns inside a transparent cone. Kennedy also has video from a solo show demonstrating his various unique takes on the art of juggling.

via Gizmodo Sploid

This stunning image of an aurora was captured against a summit near Austnesfjord, which lays close to Svolvær, Norway by photographer Max Rive.

photo via Max Rive

via Astronomy Picture of the Day

photo via Barnie

Contemporary artist Gabor Miklos Szoke built an enormous stainless steel sculpture of an eagle for Ferencvárosi Torna Club, a famous Hungarian football club. The sculpture, which currently holds the title as the largest bird monument in Europe, took over seven months to build with the work of over 100 people. The artist notes how size and material are considered in his work to evoke the desired response of the observer.

My work strives to trigger a reaction in the spectator. Monumentality lends itself to this purpose and wood and metal are appropriate for these sizes.

photo via Barnie

photo via Barnie

photo via Barnie

photo via Gabor Miklos Szoke

via My Modern Metropolis

It was hard doing this comic knowing that no matter what I did I could only make the second best choose your own haircut adventure.

In his series Impermanence, South Korean artist Seung-Hwan Oh creates wonderfully distorted photographic portraits by growing emulsion-eating fungus on his film. Oh first allows the fungus to partially destroy the developed film in a process that takes months or even years. He then digitally prints the distorted images (the film is too fragile to print in an analog process). Oh has been working on the series since 2012.

photos by Seung-Hwan Oh

via TIME

Adafruit Director of Wearable Electronics Becky Stern continues her series of videos outlining her Tank Girl Halloween costume by demonstrating how to create a 3D-printed light-up bandolier ammunition belt.

submitted via Laughing Squid Tips

“Emulsifier” is a hand-painted glass sculpture by Austria-based artist Thomas Medicus, that, depending on the viewing angle, displays four different illustrations. The sculpture is displayed on a rotating base, which causes each illustration to slowly appear and disappear in an endless loop.

photos via Thomas Medicus, GIF via Colossal

submitted via Laughing Squid Tips

Filipino artist Jordan Mang-osan burns beautiful illustrations into wood using a most unusual tool: the Sun. Mang-osan creates the illustrations with a magnifying glass and an impressive degree of patience. His work is a form of pyrography. Mang-osan’s illustrations are available to purchase through Fine Art America.

photos via Jordan Mang-osan

via Visual News