hippoblog

Silly Things

More funny men in suits and hats: JNC, Barton-Wright, Self Defence with a cane part 2

An Ed Emberly fan finds a Japanese site for Ed Emberly-illustrated products. I remember Ed Emberly books. Good stuff. Still, I remember being frustrated at some of those how-to-draw illustrations, you know the ones that start with rectangle, circle, circle then suddenly end up as fully detailed locomotive?

When Pornstars Attack

* Ray, 1/29/2005 07:36:00 PM
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css

I read this review of The CSS Anthology on Slashdot and became intrigued (again) with the power of css. I always heard you could do a lot more with it, but I hadn't seen any examples. The review, however, links to The CSS Zen Garden, which is a little mind-boggling. That is, if you write code. It probably doesn't mean much to people who haven't worked in html, but to me it's ultra cool. I get that how'd-they-do-that feeling and want to reverse engineer the whole thing. Now it seems I can learn about it the old fashioned way and just read The CSS Anthology.

Neato.

* Ray, 1/29/2005 07:12:00 PM
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Supertable

The finale to near near future's Strangely Familiar coverage: The Message Table. This one's my favorite.

When a message is left, a box representing that message slowly rises from the desk. The higher it rises, the longer the message. So when you return home, you know how many messages are waiting for you. To hear one, open the box's lid. Pushing that box back down into the desk deletes the message.

.

I like these tables/desks that have stuff built into them. You can sit down to them, observe them, give them an audience. It'd be nice to collect this one with Dunne+Raby's Compass Table and that GPS-sensitive one that displays a tiny satellite image depending on where you roll it to. What was that called?

* Ray, 1/28/2005 05:04:00 PM
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Brazil Nut

Yay,mp3s of 60s Brazilian pop with album art.

* Ray, 1/28/2005 04:45:00 PM
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iCarbonite

Armor plate for iPod Photo via BoingBoing

Heavy. Shiny. Boss.

* Ray, 1/28/2005 04:40:00 PM
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More people who are better than you

Heavy Backpack has returned (to be honest, I never heard of them before, but a lot of people are exclaiming, "Heavy Backpack's returned, Heavy Backpack's returned!" so I'll do the same, except without the exclamation mark since I hate those.).

Big invitation-only portfolio of designers, photographers and other visual-creative talent. Inspiring.

* Ray, 1/28/2005 04:36:00 PM
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Buffy Buffs

Been a while since we had some Buffy around here. God I miss that show. Here's the permanent record, in case your memory fails you...

buffyology : searchable Buffy cast, crew and episode database

* Ray, 1/28/2005 04:26:00 PM
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Shadows. You mean Shadows?

Posted on core77: Sensitile - responsive material. I don't get it. The tiles use light to change color... it looks like, uh, shadow. Now, if you reversed it, so that the absence of light made it brighter, then you could have shadow-less walls, which would be very cool in an unnerving way.

* Ray, 1/28/2005 04:15:00 PM
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Bold. You mean Bold?

Land+Living links to notNeutral: Rios Clementi Hale Studios, modern housewares that look like what we want Target products to look like.

* Ray, 1/28/2005 04:01:00 PM
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Hubrisiest

Business 2.0 - 101 Dumbest Moments in Business

You may have heard about most of these stories, but here they're collected in one place (causing my eyebrows to go up and up til they can't go up no more, then they fall into a furrowed position). They follow up on the aftermath of Bic pens vs. Kryptonite, Real vs. Apple, and more.

If someone knows the link to all 101 (subscription or AOL required), let me know...

* Ray, 1/27/2005 08:22:00 PM
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Movie Music

MOJO's Top 100 Soundtracks of All Time List ("You Ain't Heard Nothin' Yet!") -- Rate Your Music via BoingBoing.

...and we're not talking whiny white male voice strumming a guitar.

* Ray, 1/27/2005 08:16:00 PM
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Anxiety

Now you can have all of the Mole's horrible, horrible words in a single volume.

Rafael Moneo: Theoretical Anxiety and Design Strategies in the Work of Eight Contemporary Architects

He speaks on:
James Stirling
Robert Venturi
Aldo Rossi
Peter Eisenman
Alvaro Siza
Frank Gehry
Rem Koolhaas
Jacques Herzog and Pierre De Meuron

Yeah, it may not be light reading, but there are 500+ images. Plus, no one can craft an insult like Moneo. I bet there're some good'uns in thar.

* Ray, 1/27/2005 08:08:00 PM
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I know a thing or two about construction, and...

If you're not one of those people who get creeped out by the sight of marching ants, watch this Nextel ad (via Archinect). Nicely done. Note, they seem to be building the Borgata extension. Joyful, joyful Borgata.

* Ray, 1/27/2005 08:02:00 PM
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Seriously strange

A couple links from BoingBoing:

HIERONYMUS BOSCH ACTION FIGURES

and how to kick someone's ass with an umbrella, with etchings of men fighting in suits and hats. Ought to make a nice animated GIF.

* Ray, 1/27/2005 12:12:00 PM
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Look it up

A9 (the Amazon-Google engine) now has visual yellow pages. They drove around the country with trucks, taking pictures of as many addresses as possible, so now when you look something up you can get a picture of the street at that location. Wowee wow wow.

I just tried "Rockwell" in "New York" and sure enough, there's a picture of our front door.

* Ray, 1/27/2005 12:10:00 PM
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Has desktop publishing ruined our sensitivity to typeface?

Boing Boing: Photoblogging aging Vegas signage
Joey Harrison photoblogs Las Vegas (and surrounding area, pictured) before it all goes away. Very nice photos.

* Ray, 1/26/2005 10:58:00 PM
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iPod cozies

The Japanese offer ways to make the iPod cuter: iKub from Kubrick and iBear.

What they ought to do is connect the headphone jack to one of those dancing Santa motors, or maybe just merge it into the Robosapien. Yeah, that'd be cool.

* Ray, 1/26/2005 10:46:00 PM
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Bedroom Objects Stand Up For Themselves

Spotted on clogger:

Hayat Benchenaa's hanging radio alarm clock physically drags you out of bed.
In the evening, after you've set the alarm, the glowing Sfera gradually dims and the music fades as you drift off to sleep. When the alarm chimes in the morning, you must reach up and tap the Sfera to silence it. Which triggers the snooze function and makes the alarm rise higher. As it slowly rises away from your reach, you must stretch higher each time to gain another ten minutes of snooze.

When Sfera finally reaches the ceiling, you have no option but to get up and drag it back down to your bed - an action which switches off the alarm.

And then they link to the wake-up pillow and glowing duvet (one shakes you awake, the other blinds you, apparently), which then links to the wave pillow (vibrates according to how good the waves are between 5 and 7am, allowing surfers to continue sleeping if the waves are weak).

* Ray, 1/26/2005 10:21:00 PM
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Very small pens, I guess

BBC NEWS | Asia-Pacific | Japan bean plants sprout messages

Does this mean you can put tattoos on a fetus, too?

* Ray, 1/26/2005 08:08:00 PM
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Global Joy

I was of course happy to discover WORLDPROCESSOR on Archinect. It's a series of globes that depict the world according to more than geographical data:

WORLD PROCESSOR

This project started some eight years ago.
An attempt to do justice to the term 'political' and 'geo-political' globe.
Trying to tell the lie (of abstraction and visualization) that tells the truth.

* Ray, 1/26/2005 08:48:00 AM
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dTuned

U B U W E B :: 365 Days Project, from 2003. Obscure and strange mp3s you can download, starting with two ladies singing horribly. Click on the date headers to get the links (e.g. "January 16-31").

* Ray, 1/26/2005 08:46:00 AM
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NYTimes forever

Boing Boing: New York Times weblog-safe link generator

Nifty, a way to link to New York Times articles without having to worry about whether the link will work or not.

* Ray, 1/25/2005 10:52:00 PM
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Shoveel

The Whovel is a wheel with a shovel to protect against strained backs and hernia. Videos of the Whovel in action on the site. I think it should be called the Shoveel, but it's not my invention.

On the one hand, it seems pretty easy to duplicate. On the other hand, it doesn't seem useful at all.

* Ray, 1/25/2005 10:39:00 PM
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Google Eyes

Google Video Search is now available (beta). Search TV by way of closed-captioning.

* Ray, 1/25/2005 08:42:00 AM
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WB wasn't that far off

Boing Boing: The horrible grunt of the Tasmanian devil

Ever wanted to know more about the Tasmanian devil? You should. Links (above) to their lovely wail--now available as a ringtone--and a video of five of them eating a wallaby. Marvels of nature.

* Ray, 1/24/2005 10:37:00 PM
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What people better than you like

McSweeney's Recommends

* Ray, 1/24/2005 08:37:00 AM
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Beach Creatures

Wired has videos of Theo Jansen's wind-powered beach animals. See the rhinoceros in action.

Wired News: Wild Things Are on the Beach

* Ray, 1/24/2005 08:26:00 AM
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Holy Diagram

I found this link at flambeed yak, a blog I found through de.licio.us (go play with tags if you haven't already, they're all the rage):
Time Line Of Revelation - 7 Angels

Wow.

* Ray, 1/24/2005 12:31:00 AM
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Science

CNN.com - Blazing speed: The fastest stuff in the universe - Jan 18, 2005
"...Jupiter-sized blobs of hot gas embedded in streams of material ejected from hyperactive galaxies known as blazars... blobs in blazar jets screaming through space at 99.9 percent of light-speed..."

HOWTO: Mod a microwave to melt iron
"...the rotating glass plate must be removed and the holes which admit air to the cooking chamber must be taped over (masking tape works reasonably well)..."

Search Engine Users: Internet searchers are confident, satisfied and trusting – but they are also unaware and naive
"...Nearly half of searchers use a search engines no more than a few times a week, and two-thirds say they could walk away from search engines without upsetting their lives very much... Only 38% of users are aware of the distinction between paid or 'sponsored' results and unpaid results. And only one in six say they can always tell which results are paid or sponsored and which are not. This finding is ironic, since nearly half of all users say they would stop using search engines if they thought engines were not being clear about how they presented paid results."

* Ray, 1/23/2005 09:33:00 PM
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POTUS poop

Boing Boing: Planting flags in dog poop

German pranksters have planted 2,000-3,000 miniature US flags and pictures of Bush in piles of dog poo in public parks.

* Ray, 1/23/2005 02:26:00 PM
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Castro's Favorite Color

Howard has started his own blog, Castro's Favorite Color. Some fresh tasty links:
Bunny Suicides (cartoons of bunnies offing themselves)
Professor's Saturn Experiment Forgotten (18 years down the drain because someone forgot to say "turn it on.")

* Ray, 1/23/2005 01:25:00 AM
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Antiquatify

How to turn your cellphone into a rotary phone. I like his reason for attempting such a nerdly feat...

Yes, you read it right. Port-O-Rotary. We've gone and hacked into a rotary phone.

I find myself talking about nerd things with my friends and peers who could usually careless. Every once and a while, someone who really doesn't have a clue, says something so crazy, it makes you take a step back. I can't remember who had the idea of a rotary cell phone - needless to say it had something to do with quite a few rum and cokes. They didn't have a clue how to do it, they just thought it would be cool. So did I...

Why wouldn't it be cool to see a rotary phone, ringing, with no wires attached? It might mess with your brain a bit.

Turns out I am very glad there is no such thing as a cellular rotary phone - the dialing takes forever! And here in Colorado - on a 10-digit dialing system - you don't dare mess up the number.

So here it is - a portable cellular rotary phone - in all it's random glory!

It might mess with your brain a bit. Yes. That's right. A bit.

* Ray, 1/23/2005 01:03:00 AM
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Those young people sure do like being foolish

core77.com's design blog: Idiotarod

The Iditarod is the famous long-distance race in which yelping dogs tow a sled across Alaska. Idiotarod is pretty much the same thing, except that instead of dogs, it's people, instead of sleds, it's shopping carts, and instead of Alaska it's New York City.

January 29, 2005. Race Starts at 2pm
Race begins at Fulton Ferry Landing Pier, Brooklyn

Reminds me of Flugtag, but I think San Francisco's got silly in the bag. Best for NYC to stick to gonzo events like the Broadway Bomb:

SKATEBOARD RACE DOCUMENTARY - PRESS RELEASE - NEW EXTREME FILM DOCUMENTS ANNUAL UNDERGROUND URBAN SKATEBOARD RACE... Redshift Pictures/Planet Brooklyn announce the release of “Broadway Bomb,” an extreme film chronicling the competitive journey of 27 skateboarders through the concrete canyons of New York City. The unauthorized and unpredictable 8.5-mile course begins near Columbia University on 110th Street and travels south on Broadway through traffic, construction sites, and crowded crosswalks culminating at Battery Park at the southern tip on Manhattan. Skateboarding in New York City without getting chased by a cop is challenging enough, but imagine skating full-speed on an unsecured route, with erratic traffic patterns and no protection from pedestrians and potholes, just passionate participants testing their urban street-riding skills in uncontrolled conditions. This race is about more than just being fast, it is about being tenacious and adaptable in the face of an ever-changing city course where a miscalculation can not only cost you the win, it can be disastrous. The only rules that are set-forth are quite simple: no leaving the Broadway route, no hanging-on or being pulled by vehicles and no unveiling of race details if stopped by authorities. To film and capture such a unique event required a shooting style as unorthodox as the race itself. A guerilla crew stationed cameras on various streets, on motorscooters, on a bicycle and even on the helmet of favored race participant. After 33 minutes and 23 seconds of fierce competition, participants began streaming, skating, and even staggering across the finish line. By the time all 27 had arrived, the producers had over10 hours of raw footage, and so began the countless hours of using these images to tell the skaters’ story. Energized by the music of renowned DJ/Producer Tim ‘Love’ Lee and his Tummy Touch Records, the film continued to take shape; the result is the “Broadway Bomb.” The race, organized by the New York Longboarding Association, was publicized to members and amateur boarders via Internet message-boards and word-of-mouth. For more info contact - Bethany.Eppner@ogilvypr.com

* Ray, 1/23/2005 12:41:00 AM
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Clowns stay with you

Amusing post, Boing Boing: Nightmarish aquatic clown postcard. First it's one guy submitting a postcard of a clown, then other people writing in on the backstory of said nightmarish aquatic clown. Mentions "Ralph the Diving Pig" and "Aqua Maids."

* Ray, 1/23/2005 12:30:00 AM
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That's what I thought

core77.com's design blog: Zeitgeist Watch
The Thought Project by Simon Hogsberg documents the random thoughts of 150 passers-by. It's at first intriguing, then mystifying, and then ultimately boring, which would be the hypothesis I suppose.

* Ray, 1/23/2005 12:26:00 AM
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Insomnia Maxima

Ananova - Ukrainian hasn't slept in 20 years (via BoingBoing).

A 63-year-old man who hasn't slept for more than two decades has been told there is nothing wrong with him by doctors.

Ukrainian Fyodor Nesterchuk from the town of Kamen-Kashirsky said the last time he managed to doze off was more than 20 years ago.

No word on how cranky he is.

I read the other day that no one knows why people require sleep. No one knows even if people require sleep. I guess that'd be a terrible thing to find out, that it's ok not to ever sleep. Sorta on the same scale of terrible modernity as the electric light and Godless Sundays.

* Ray, 1/23/2005 12:21:00 AM
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The madness of King George

Boing Boing: The madness of King George, the image that should replace the normal portrait in all government offices. I bet he'd be proud to be thought of as a king.

* Ray, 1/23/2005 12:17:00 AM
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You don't want that thing near your eye or your groin.

VersaLaser, a laser cutter for the home. Only $10,000. Gotta wonder how it handles exhaust fumes, though.

* Ray, 1/23/2005 12:11:00 AM
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