Thursday 31 March 2016

Espresso Drinks: A Visual Glossary

Espresso is coffee brewed by forcing a small amount of nearly boiling water under pressure through finely ground coffee beans. Favorite espressos are ristretto, macchiato, cortado, cappuccino, latte, mocha and mezzo. Here's a guide to all the different types of espresso drinks.



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(via Laughing Squid)

Face Melody


Your face is one of a kind. The color and texture of your skin, your expression, and your features. These are all unique to you and you alone. Face Melody creates a beautiful musical piece by analyzing your face.

What type of melody will your face inspire? It didn't work for me because apparently if you wear glasses your facial expression can't be analysed.

10 Facts About Tarzan That Will Surprise You

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Tarzan of the Apes is one of the best known characters in all of fiction. The lord of the jungle was the subject of 24 novels by Edgar Rice Burroughs and he's also been the main character of a radio program, newspaper comic strips, numerous comic books, multiple TV shows, and countless movies.

Despite all this, there are many things people don't know about this near-mythic character. The original Tarzan novels are full of interesting and bizarre details that have seldom made it to other media.

Do The Math


(via Bad Newspaper)

Why You Can't Divide By Zero

What is 0 divided by 0? This topic is trending because Apple programmed Siri to give a sarcastic response about dividing cookies and the Cookie monster. Siri does give the correct mathematical answer that dividing by 0 is indeterminate. But why is dividing by 0 a problem? And why is it indeterminate?



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Hogancamp's Heroes: How Playing With Dolls Lets A Hate-Crime Survivor Fight Back

image credit Mark Hogancamp, courtesy of Princeton Architectural Press

How do you feel about men playing with dolls? Turns out, our society has strict rules about how and when people interact with miniatures. But Mark Hogancamp, who was beaten within an inch of his life for being a cross-dresser, has broken all those rules.

He uses his WWII figures as a means of physical and mental therapy, and he's created some incredible art photography in the process. In this piece, Collectors Weekly looks at how Hogancamp’s story could forever change how we think about dolls.

(thanks Lisa)

The Incredible Secret Lives Of Sea Lilies And Feather Stars

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Once thought to be extinct, these lesser-known cousins of sea stars and sea urchins are some of the prettiest creatures in the ocean. Prepare to be wowed, things are about to get weird.

Wednesday 30 March 2016

Waltz Duet

Waltz Duet is about a girl who has shut herself off, and the tremendous healing power of music.



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19 Of The First Things To Ever Happen On The Internet


When was the first time anyone sent a tweet? What was the first video to be uploaded to YouTube? What was the first webpage on the internet? What was the first ad banner to spam a webpage? What was the first internet search engine?

19 Of The First Things To Ever Happen On The Internet.

What Typeface Are You?

Have you ever wondered which typeface is best suited to your personality? Are you more of a relaxed script font, or an assertive, bold sans serif? Just take this typography quiz and find your perfect font match.

I'm Helvetica.
Classic and reliable, you’re picky about design. Clean and streamlined, you don't get bogged down in detail or decoration. Versatility and simplicity is key, and you're the master of both.

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The Demonic Origins Of Ventriloquism

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Ventriloquism - altering your voice to make it sounds like it's coming from somewhere else - is familiar to most as entertainment. Performers beguile audiences by making their voices seem like they belong to a dummy, chatting with their playful, inanimate partner.

Ventriloquism is not a modern art - it dates back to at least the classical Greece, when it really freaked people out. Back then, ventriloquists were called 'engastrimyths.' Basically, people believed engastrimyths had demons in their stomachs who belched words from their host's mouths.

The Interlace Apartments In Singapore

With its 31 stacked blocks and hexagonal plan, The Interlace is far from standard tower block design. The building is 170,000 sqm and accommodates 1,040 units. Last year, The Interlace won the World Building of the Year award at the World Architecture Festival.



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Unicorns Really Existed, Science Says

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A now-extinct giant 'Siberian unicorn' existed much more recently than previously thought, paleontologists say. The animal, an elasmotherium Siberian rhinoceros was previously thought to be extinct 350,000 years ago. However, new research by experts in Russia indicates that the animal may have existed until 29,000 years ago.

This means that the 'unicorn' may have roamed the Earth at the same time as humans - a human fossil found in western Siberia in 2008 was dated to 45,000 years ago.

Fun And Interesting Periodic Table Spin-Offs


For many, the periodic table has been that complicated chart you had to memorize in high school or something only scientists deal with in daily life.

While the periodic table we are all familiar with was formulated by Russian chemist Dmitri Mendeleev in 1869, the ideas behind it began formulating 200 years earlier and almost another 150 years later, the template it created is used in various designs from artistic visions to organizing candy.

Tuesday 29 March 2016

Create Line Art With Linify Me

You can upload a JPG picture to Linify Me and it will redraw the image using only straight lines.


Word That Are Their Own Opposites

Welcome to the world of contronyms, where words mean something - as well as its opposite.



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The Alien Landscape Of Bisti Badlands

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The Bisti Badlands, also called Bisti/De-Na-Zin Wilderness, is a vast rolling landscape of phantasmagoric formations of earth and stone located in northwestern New Mexico's high desert lands.

Wind and water erosion over a long time have carved a fantasy world of strange rock formations and hoodoos here in the form of pinnacles, spires, mushrooms and other unusual forms that have attracted names such as 'Cracked Eggs,' 'Bisti Wings' and 'Rock Garden.'

Are You A Morning Person Or An Evening Person?

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Are you a morning lark, a person who usually gets up early in the morning and goes to bed early in the evening. Or are you a night owl, someone who tends to stay up until late at night. Find out with the Automated Morningness-Eveningness Questionnaire.

There will be 19 questions about your daily sleep-wake habits and the times of day you prefer certain activities. As soon as you finish, you will receive personalized feedback. The questionnaire finds I'm a Moderate Evening Person and that's quite right. My melatonin onset occurs at about 10:45 pm. My 'natural' bedtime is about 12:30 am.

How Smart Is Your Favorite TV Show Character?


DIRECTV went through 250 lines of dialogue for each of these characters and ranked them based on their dialogue complexity and the Flesch-Kincaid system.

How Smart Is Your Favorite TV Show Character?

(thaks Caroline)

This Life-Sized Slimer Replica Is Pretty Terrifying

image credit: Tim Deering

In the Ghostbusters movie, Slimer is a translucent green blob creature, with two skinny arms, no feet, and several chins. The National Entertainment Collectibles Association will release a life-sized foam replica of Slimer this summer and it's kind of terrifying.

Does The 5-Second Rule When You Drop Food Really Work?

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The five-second rule states that food dropped on the ground will not be significantly contaminated with bacteria if it is picked up within five seconds of being dropped. Some may truly believe this assertion, whereas most people employ the rule as an amusing social fiction.

Monday 28 March 2016

Marble Track With Easter Eggs

Video made by Dutch marble racer Jelle Bakker. Not just marbles, but also Easter eggs can roll on this 80 meter long sand ball path. First five balls and then nine Easter eggs will go into battle to see who'll win.



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(via Laughing Squid)

Names That Break Computer Systems


When Jennifer Null tries to buy a plane ticket online, she gets an error message on most websites. The site will say she has left the surname field blank and ask her to try again. A few people have names that can utterly confuse the websites they visit, and it makes their life online quite the headache. Why does that happen?

10 Facts About The Most Interesting Reptile In The World

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New Zealand is home to many weird species of plants and animals. The fact that the archipelago was isolated for millions of years has allowed strange critters like the kiwi, kaka, and the moa to exist up until modern times.

When it comes to reptiles, New Zealand is also home to the tuatara, a lizard-like creature that doesn't seem all that outstanding at first glance. However, there are quite a few reasons that make this creature the most interesting reptile on the face of the Earth.

Japanese School Children's Mesmerising Skipping Routine

A group of Japanese school children have been filmed in a skipping routine.



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(hanks Cora)

Explore The New Batcave In Google Street View


Batman vs Superman, one of the most highly anticipated movies of 2016 is now in theatres across the globe. Google has teamed up with Warner Bros to bring the Batcave from the new movie to Street View.

Check out the new Batcave and take a look at all of the equipment, weaponry and more that's scattered across the cave.

(via Ubergizmo)

What Is A Robot?

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The year is 2016. Robots have infiltrated the human world. We built them, one by one, and now they are all around us. One is no larger than a single grain of rice, while another is larger than a prairie barn.

Not all of them have faces. Not all of them have bodies. And yet they can do things once thought impossible for machine. Except, wait. Are these all really robots? What is a robot, anyway?

Sunday 27 March 2016

Crushing Coins With A Hydraulic Press

Coins vs a hydraulic press. The hydraulic press wins.



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The Ghost Town Of Bodie

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Bodie is a ghost town in the Bodie Hills east of the Sierra Nevada mountain range in Mono County, California. Bodie began as a mining camp of little note following the discovery of gold in 1859 by a group of prospectors, including W. S. Bodey.

Bodie's golden years didn't last long. By 1882, it had already started to decline as several smaller mining companies went bankrupt. Then a devastating fire in 1932 wiped out 90% of the town's buildings and people moved out. Despite the declining population and diminishing profits, some of the mines continued operating until the war forced them to close in 1942.

Photochrom Postcards

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Photochrom is a process for producing colorized images from black-and-white photographic negatives via the direct photographic transfer of a negative onto lithographic printing plates.

The process was invented in the 1880s by Hans Jakob Schmid (1856-1924), an employee of the Swiss company Orell Gessner Füssli. Füssli founded the stock company Photochrom Zürich (later Photoglob Zürich) as the business vehicle for the commercial exploitation of the process and both Füssli and Photoglob continue to exist today.

Bonjour Paris

Tyler Fairbank spent two weeks in Paris this summer exploring the city and capturing many of the touristy things to do.



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(thanks Cora)

10 Crazy, Terrible, And Hilarious Haircuts


At one point or another, unless you're lucky, we've all gotten a haircut that we weren't happy with. After all, getting a haircut is all about trust. You give instructions to a hairdresser or barber and then hope for the best as they take scissors and clippers and do irreversible things to your hair.

So while some of us have had a bad haircut or two, they were probably never nearly as bad as these 10 haircuts.

Watches In Ads Always Show The Exact Same Time... And This Is Why

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You may or may not have noticed that most of the time you see a watch in an ad or even a display window, it's showing the same time. That time is 10:10. Now that you know that, you might be wondering what exactly is so special about that time.

Saturday 26 March 2016

Turtle Cam

This film puts the eye-popping slow motion function of the Sony Action Cam to the test in an surprisingly fast race between the epitome of slow - turtles.



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(via Everlasting Blort)

Imagine That


(via Bad Newspaper)

10 Huge Facts About Whale Sharks

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This fascinating, filter-feeding species will finally get its close-up in this summer's Finding Dory. Here are a few things you might not have known about the world's largest fish.

Eggstatic - Stroboscopic Patterns For Easter Eggs

EggBot is an art robot that can draw on spherical or egg-shaped objects. Various patterns are generated using mathematical equations. The patterns are calculated in such a way that when rotated under a stroboscopic light, they start to animate.



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(thanks Cora)

10 Important Expeditions Of Forgotten Explorers

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Our understanding of the world would not be where it is today without the brave people who were willing to face the unknown and venture into the deepest, darkest regions of our planet. History is littered with these explorers, but few of them are remembered today for their efforts.

10 important expeditions of forgotten explorers.

The Biggest Unsolved Art Heist And The Detective Who Came Close To Cracking-It

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On March 18, 1990, two policemen demanded to be buzzed in by the guard at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. At least, they looked like policemen. Once inside the building, the men ordered the guard to step away from the emergency buzzer.

They handcuffed him and another guard and tied them up in the basement. For the next 81 minutes, the thieves raided the museum's treasure-filled galleries. Then they loaded up a vehicle waiting outside and disappeared.

Friday 25 March 2016

Virtual Reality Dad

If you don't own an Oculus Rift or another virtual reality gadget, you can di this. Isn't this the best dad ever?



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(via Miss Cellania)

The Harvard Library That Protects The World's Rarest Colors

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Edward Forbes, a historian and director of the Fogg Art Museum at Harvard University from 1909 to 1944 traveled around the world amassing pigments in order to authenticate classical Italian paintings.

Over the years, the Forbes Pigment Collection grew to more than 2,500 different specimens, each with its own layered backstory on its origin, production, and use. Today, the collection is used mostly for scientific analysis, providing standard pigments to compare to unknowns.

The American Concordes That Never Flew


In November 1962, the British and French governments announced a deal that caused great distress in the boardrooms of American planemakers. The two countries announced plans to jointly build a new airliner, one that would be able to fly at more than twice the speed of sound. The aircraft - to be called 'Concorde' - would be the most advanced civilian aircraft in the world.

But America would create its own rivals to the European design, building a giant, passenger-carrying jet capable of flying faster than a rifle bullet. So what happened to the US plans to master supersonic passenger flight?

Purple Bread Is Apparently Really Good For You

image credit: triin

Bread has long since been considered the enemy of dieters, but this new weird-looking bread might just change the way we look at the staple food forever.

White bread is linked to obesity and high blood pressure, but Professor Zhou Weibiao of the National University of Singapore claims he has come up with a way of solving these problems. There's just one catch though - his bread is purple.

How Does An Owl's Hearing Work?

Cold weather and a blanket of snow force a barn owl to hunt in the day but how does an owl hunt when the food is hiding? Luckily the owl has another super power in her armoury.



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(thanks Cora)

Why Sleeping Through The Night May Not Be 'Natural'


It's undeniable that we need proper sleep not only to maintain our physical and mental health but also to function in our everyday lives. We consider eight uninterrupted hours of rest the marker of a healthy lifestyle - but is that really all that constitutes 'proper sleep?'

Some scientists have argued that we may not be built to sleep through the night in one long stretch. Our ancestors experienced sleep in a very different way. In the 18th century, people may have slept in two separate nightly intervals, rather than one eight-hour period.

6 Songs About Bananas

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Bananas are delicious, nutritious, and are considered the funniest of fruits.
No wonder they're frequent fodder for songwriters.

Thursday 24 March 2016

Asteroid Discovery 1970 - 2015

This video, created by Scott Manley, is a view of the solar system showing the locations of all the asteroids starting in 1970. As asteroids are discovered they are added to the map and highlighted white so you can pick out the new ones. The final colour of an asteroids indicates how closely it comes to the inner solar system.



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What Would Your Job Have Been In The Victorian Times?

Answer some questions and find out what your job would have been in Victorian times.
I would have been a Slum Landlord.

Goat Rituals And Tree-Trunk Gravestones: The Peculiar History Of Life Insurance

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Before Americans bought into private life insurance, middle- and working-class men relied on secret societies like the Masons and the Woodmen to be their safety nets. To buy into a fraternal insurance policy, though, they had to face torch-lit skeletons in arcane mortality rituals or be humiliated through elaborate goat-themed hazing pranks.

Groups known as the Woodmen offered special incentives to lure men into their insurance pools: They could march down the street in military-type uniforms twirling axes, looking a little like their Civil War heroes. Or they could be guaranteed to burial in a marked grave with a distinct tree-trunk tombstone.

(thanks Lisa)

19 Different Foods That Surprisingly Bloom Beautiful Flowers

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As winter melts into spring (at least in the Northern Hemisphere) take a look at some of the most floral-tastic versions of common fruits and vegetables. Did you know that onions, lemons, and soybeans are all flowering plants?

In addition to the familiar cherry blossoms and plum blossoms of the world, here are some surprising foods that sprout beautiful blooms fit for any bouquet.

Eye Of India

Eye of India is a visual record of a journey across India that showcases the diverse culture of one of the world's fastest developing nations. During a six-week trip the film highlights moments that aim to capture a feeling of transition as India emerges as an economic super power.



Vimeo link

(thanks Cora)

Sistine Chapel Of The Early Middle Ages Reopens

image credit YouTube

A 1,500-year-old church which was buried under debris from an earthquake for more than a millennium has reopened to the public after a painstaking restoration of some of the world's earliest Christian art.

The sixth-century church of Santa Maria Antiqua is located in the ancient Roman Forum. It was buried under rubble by an earthquake in AD 847 and was only rediscovered in 1900 during archaeological excavations. It has taken more than 30 years to restore its exquisite interior.

11 Beautiful Art Gardens To See Before You Die

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From Frida Kahlo's courtyard to a tropical sculpture park in Brazil, art and the outdoors meet to spectacular effect across the world. Here are 11 must-see gardens for art-lovers.

Wednesday 23 March 2016

Losing Things

Comedian, storyteller and filmmaker Angel Yau loses things all the time and she feels guilty so she tries to forget about them.



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(thanks Angel)

Duvet Suit For People Who Love To Sleep Anywhere, Anytime


British Jurys Inn Hotel Group has created the first ever suit and duvet combo- the suvet, in a bid to help working Brits get out of bed and catch up on lost sleep wherever and whenever the mood takes them.

Bigfoot Picture


(via Bad Newspaper)

Research Ship Possibly To Be Named 'Boaty McBoatface'

image credit YouTube

In a blow for democracy, the British public has decided the best name for a £200m ship is 'Boaty McBoatface'. The Royal Research Ship, at the forefront of British naval engineering, deserved a great name.

Naively thinking the British public would take it seriously, The National Environment Research Council thought it would be a nice idea to ask people online to name the ship. One name was massively in front of the rest - Boaty McBoatface.

Drone Display Sets World Record For Most UAVs Airborne Simultaneously

A spectacular display of drone technology by Intel Corporation involving 100 small aircrafts being launched skywards in formation has earned a new world record title for the Most Unmanned Aerial Vehicles airborne simultaneously.



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(thanks Cora)

Taq Kasra: The Archway Of Ctesiphon

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The ancient city of Ctesiphon, on the banks of Tigris, is located southeast of modern Baghdad. Established in the late 120s BC, it was one of the great cities of late ancient Mesopotamia and the largest city in the world from 570 AD, until its fall in 637 AD.

The only surviving structure of Ctesiphon today is the majestic vaulted hall of Taq Kasra, which served as the palace of the Sasanian king Khosrow I, in the late 6th century. The archway is one of the largest single-span vault of unreinforced brickwork in the world.

The Batmobile - A Cinematic Evolution


As befits a billionaire vigilante: Batman is man of many gadgets, toys and vehicles. But none of these tools of his vigilante trade are as important, or as iconic, as the Batmobile itself.

Each of the different actors that has donned the cape and cowl of Batman in a movie has brought something different to the role. These changes are shown clearly in the vehicles chosen to be the Batmobile. This infographic gives you all of the information you could want about the Batmobiles used in the films and tells you what each Batmobile has said about the Batman that drove them.

Tuesday 22 March 2016

2084

In the year 2084, society is slowly being crushed into conformity by an all-powerful computer. But one man is surprisingly impervious to the malevolent machine's relentless conditioning. How is this possible? Perhaps, in this dystopian future, Ignorance really is Strength.



Vimeo link

(via Laughing Squid)

Do The Math


(via Bad Menu)

Visiting Scarfolk, The Most Spectacular Dystopia Of The 1970s


Though adults tend to look back on youth as a time of innocence, childhood is actually terrifying. Designer and screenwriter Richard Littler turned his nightmarish memories of life in suburban England into a hilarious blog and book about the fictional town of Scarfolk - a paranoid, totalitarian '70s community, where even babies are not to be trusted.

Littler created pamphlets, posters, book covers, album art, audio clips, and television shorts, which all play on the era's aesthetic style and culture of fear. Check out the full story at Collectors Weekly.

(thanks Hunter)

The 13 Most Endangered Sea Creatures

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Dive into our oceans with these photos of 13 of the most endangered creatures. From the smallest shrimps to the largest whales. Despite the threats, no marine species received additional protection by the recent United Nations CITES convention.

(thanks Pavle)

Introducing DRU

Meet DRU (Domino's Robotic Unit) - the newest team member to join the Domino's family. He's the world's first autonomous delivery vehicle.DRU has a passion for delivering piping hot meals and a nice warm smile to customers.

While he won't be taking to the streets tomorrow, he is enjoying his early progress as a prototype and giving customers a glimpse into the future of what is possible.



YouTube link

(thanks Cora

Peer Inside The Grave Of Richard III


He was the 15th century king who stole the throne of England, is blamed for the disappearance of his nephews and was left languishing under a car park in Leicester for hundreds of years.

But the team of archaeologists that unearthed King Richard III's remains have now released a detailed reconstruction of the grave where the controversial monarch, who was the last of the powerful Plantagenet royal line, had lain since 1485. An interactive 3D model lets you virtually climb into the final resting place of the last Plantagenet king.

(thanks Cora)

This Technicolor Mutant Zebrafish Is Synthetic Biology's Craziest Creation Yet

image credit YouTube

It sounds ripped out of the pages of a science fiction novel but the genetically modified, brilliantly colored zebra fish pictured above is no fantasy. It was created by scientists, to explore one of the most elusive processes in biology: tissue regeneration.

Ken Poss, a professor of cell biology at Duke University has spent the last several years creating Skinbow: a mutant zebrafish with fluorescent markers embedded in the DNA code of its skin cells.

Monday 21 March 2016

'Stadsmuziek' (Citymusic) By Akko Goldenbeld

Akko Goldenbeld, a graduate at the Design Academy in Eindhoven, the Netherlands, has a very personal way of looking at, or rather listening to the city. He has created a scale model of Eindhoven and assigned it the role of sound recorder; the buildings create a score.

Placed on a revolving wooden cylinder the buildings set little hammers in motion that play the keys of a piano. And turning and turning, the city makes its voice heard.



YouTube link

(thanks Cora

The Spider In The Clock


In 1932 a spider achieved overnight celebrity status, with the media producing daily reports of its adventures. It's the curious case of the 'spider in a clock.'

The spider's rise to fame began on the morning of November 20, 1932 at 552 Parker Ave in Barberton, Ohio. Louise Thompson rolled over in bed, turned off her alarm clock, and then noticed a 'tiny black dot' moving across the face of the timepiece.

(via Nag on the Lake)

The Evolution Of The Computer

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This timeline computer evolution infographic starts off in 1613 when the term computer was coined and goes all the way through to 2013 when Sony released the Worlds thinnest and lightest tablet.