Reposted from: quietbabylon, originally posted by gregrutter
I’m reblogging this on the flimsy excuse that it’s about things you can do with a city, but mostly because it’s just charming and fun.
gregrutter: “This is a skateboard video about 2 men from Wisconsin which serves to remind us that sometimes it’s not about how high you can ollie, it’s about how far you can power slide.”
Reposted from: viafrank, originally posted by tcsnmy6
Okay, yes, the content of this snippet from a talk with Daniel Pink is good. But I’m interested in its presentation. Man, is it fun. I was totally engaged for 10 minutes and there were no explosions or anything. (Although, there was one Back to the Future joke, and that gets you a long way in my book.)
This was found on Rob Greco’s blog for his 6th grade class. I love the fact that I can find things on a blog for 6th graders and share it with all of you and feel that it’s relevant. In sixth grade I was picking my nose, pulling hair, and throwing rocks and not thinking about how standard economic concepts about incentives break sometimes.
PS: Are you reading Greco’s delicious stream? It’s literally a one-stop-shop for everything interesting happening on the web day to day. It’s almost a blog. Pats on the back, Mr. Greco, and see you in 5th period.
…but the reality is that everything is gross, especially doorknobs, and if I’m going to use doorknobs, I figure I might as well just go whole-hog.
Reposted from: viafrank, originally posted by viafrank
The version of Beowulf that I read in seventh grade described the hero as having honey in his veins. His greatest virtue was how, when he received his subjects in his great beerhall, he would listen to them- really listen. His eyes and ears wouldn’t leave the speaker for any distraction and they would feel the bees and sweetness and yellow sunshine bore into their soul, and they would glow with the warm, sublime knowledge that they were truly being heard. That description has always stuck with me, while the rest of the story is hazy (they wrestled in a mucky pit and someone lost an arm? Mother was pissed?) and I know the reason is stayed with me was because I wished I could be as great as Beowulf in that way. If listening with honey can make a Scandinavian warrior great, imagine what it can do for a tiny little designer like me.
Sometimes my students write stuff and it just makes me want to run around the room and try to find someone to excitedly share it with. No one’s here in the room but me (it’s early), so I’m sharing it with you.
“If listening with honey can make a Scandinavian warrior great, imagine what it can do for a tiny little designer like me.” Geez.
(via viafrank)
Reposted from: phila, originally posted by phila
We’re Webby award nominees! Please vote for 350.org and Free Range Studios by going here: http://www.freerange.com/webby.html
Reposted from: putthison, originally posted by putthison
Looks like somebody over at Dinosaur Comics has been reading Put This On.
(By the way: the pursuit of aesthetic beauty, and particularly novel aesthetic beauty, is an important part of fashion as well.)
Put This On and Dinosaur Comics: Two (great) things I never though I’d see together.
Reposted from: superamit, originally posted by superamit
I’m calling it now: The laptop starts dying tomorrow.
IT’S HAPPENED BEFOREAs someone in both the photo and the tech world, I’ve seen (and spoken about) the point and shoot camera’s declining relevance.
Ten years ago, they couldn’t make those thing fast enough. Then one day someone put a camera into a phone.
It took a while, but the cameraphone has slowly, quietly, and almost completely replaced the point and shoot for many people. Cameraphones are simpler, more convenient (smaller) and, for 99% of situations, they are good enough.
When you need a really great photograph you use an SLR. The rest of the time, you use a phone. The point and shoot is dying, relegated to a niche middle ground.
IT’S ABOUT TO HAPPEN AGAINThe same’s about to start happening in the computer hardware market. Laptops have always been a compromise solution. They’re awkward and unergonomic, slow compared to their desktop counterparts, have poor battery life, and are just as complex and confusing to operate as their larger brethren.
Enter the iPad. Simpler, more convenient, and for 99% of uses, good enough. See a pattern?
Yes, the first version will be flawed. Yes, it will be hard to tear your beloved laptop out of your hands. Yes, it won’t live up to all of its promises. Yes, it will take time. Maybe years.
And, like your cameraphone, it’s going to sneak up on you. But one day, pretty soon, you’ll realize that you haven’t used your laptop in days. That you tend to grab your iPad first whenever you need to visit a website or answer email. That your laptop never leaves your desk anymore.
It starts tomorrow.
Reposted from: quietbabylon, originally posted by quietbabylon
Nobody uses the word “cyber” anymore, except people trying to scare you and trying to make the internet seem scary or foreign.
Reposted from: quietbabylon, originally posted by beachjustice
Two artists have been playing pretty games with the UK Royal Mail’s automated sorting offices. It seems the machines simply read the colour of stamps to check whether the correct postage has been used, so it doesn’t matter what shape they are. Kim Rugg and John Spurgeon each use proper stamps, only they are cut into tiny pieces to create the art on the envelopes. As long as it’s cancelled, it counts! Rugg creates tentacled monsters (pictured), fireworks and beach scenes, while Spurgeon has a collection of vintage postcards sent with confetti postage called ShakesMyMail.
Link to Kim Rugg’s work. Link to John Spurgeon’s Flickr set. (via Neatorama, beachjustice)
