via simplebits
Typography t-shirt in espresso brown from American Apparel, printed with everyone’s favorite logogram (set in Knockout).
Monday, December 7, 2009
Pictory
via fastcompany
“The one major argument that still looms in the Internet vs. Magazines debate is the fact that images can’t look as good in pixels as they do in print. Pictory, a new online magazine filled with well-curated stories, could shift that debate. Readers respond to themed calls-for-entry with photos and captions telling the story behind them. The first feature, Overseas and Overwhelmed is the equivalent to traveling breathlessly around the world in 25 photos; each image is National Geographic-quality, but made even more complex, nuanced and a heck of a lot more interesting by the first-person perspective below it.”
Visit the Pictory site here.
Sunday, December 6, 2009
Alexander’s Gates
via bldgblog“In the book On Monsters, Stephen T. Asma spends a great deal of time describing ancient myths of variation by which monsters were believed to have originated. From the mind-blowing and completely inexplicable discovery of dinosaur bones by ancient societies with no conception of geological time to the hordes of ‘monstrous races’ believed to exist on the imperial perimeter, there have always been monsters somewhere in the world’s geography.
Alexander’s Gates, Asma writes, were the ultimate wall between the literally Caucasian West and its monstrous opponents, dating back to Alexander the Great. Alexander supposedly chased his foreign enemies through a mountain pass in the Caucasus region and then enclosed them behind unbreachable iron gates. The details and the symbolic significance of the story changed slightly in every medieval retelling, and it was retold often, especially in the age of exploration. The maps of the time, the mappaemundi, almost always include the gates, though their placement is not consistent. Most maps and narratives of the later medieval period agree that this prison territory, created proximately by Alexander but ultimately by God, houses the savage tribes of Gog and Magog, who are referred to with great ambiguity throughout the Bible, and sometimes as individual monsters, sometimes as nations, sometimes as places.
Beyond this wall was a ‘monster zone’ . . . ”
Read the entire post here.
Saturday, December 5, 2009
The Hokey Pokey, Delaware Water Gap, and Roman Catholic Hate Crimes
via nytimes
“. . . Popular as the Hokey Pokey song is, its authorship has long been in dispute, with the credit usually going to Larry LaPrise, who as part of a musical group, the Ram Trio, is said to have created it in Sun Valley, Idaho, as a novelty number to entertain vacationing skiers. The trio, whose other members were Charles Peter Macak and Tafft Baker, recorded the song, “The Hokey Pokey,” in the late 1940s. There are many reasons to question this version of the song’s provenance, however. Among them is that a very similar song, “The Hokey Pokey Dance,” was copyrighted a few years earlier, in 1944, by a club musician from Scranton, Pa., named Robert Degen. Mr. Degen — who claimed for decades that Mr. LaPrise had stolen his song — died in Lexington Ky., on Nov. 23, his 104th birthday.”
Read the rest of the post here to find out why the Catholic Church in Scotland raised the possibility that singing it should be prosecuted as a hate crime.
Rachel E. Foster’s Secret
via keepcalmgallery.com
No ink has been used in the making of these hand letterpressed, debossed text prints.
Geminid Meteor Shower
via spaceweather.com
“The Geminid meteor shower peaks on Dec. 13th and 14th when Earth passes through a stream of debris from extinct comet 3200 Phaethon. The Geminids have been intensifying in recent years, and 2009 could be the best year yet. Forecasters expect 140+ meteors per hour under the dark skies of a new Moon.”
Friday, December 4, 2009
My solution? More Peanuts and Granola Bars
via Penn State NewswireUniversity Park — The Office of Physical Plant (OPP) crow relocation program will begin next Monday night (7 Dec 09) at 5:30 p.m. and continue until 9:00 p.m. The campus community can expect to hear loud noises in the early evening as university employees launch anti-crow pyrotechnic noisemakers called "bangers" and "screamers". These activities will continue Monday through Friday night until the crows move to less problematic locations. Pyrotechnic operations may continue for several weeks until this objective is met.
This year’s preferred roosting location is a stand of trees east of the Visitor’s Center. Small groups of highly trained OPP employees will be conducting the relocation operation and will be wearing distinctive green safety vests.
Once the crows have vacated a location, crow effigies will be hung to dissuade the crows from returning. Light towers will be erected in the targeted relocation woods east of the Visitor’s Center to make the area more appealing to crows.
No crows will be harmed in this operation. The public can expect some disturbance from the noisemaking activities and possible crow infestation if the crows attempt to re-roost in populated areas. Crows are currently roosting in areas around Ag. Science and Industries, Ag. Administration, East Halls, and Nittany Apartments. Occupants and residents of these buildings may experience the loudest noise as the harassment effort gets underway.
In addition, The College of Agricultural Sciences is employing propane canons at two locations, the Dairy Barns and the Organic Materials Processing and Education Center (OMPEC). These canons produce a loud bang to scare crows away from those locations. The canons may be used for most of the day, seven days a week throughout the rest of the fall and winter.
Last year about 3,000 migrating crows landed on our campus causing unsanitary and unpleasant conditions. Our goal is to discourage this mass roosting and the accompanying sanitary problems. Physical Plant is partnering with Penn State researchers and the USDA Wildlife Services to relocate the migrating crows. Penn State will also work closely with the Borough to jointly find solutions to this continuing problem.”
My solution? More peanuts and granola bars for my friends.
The Lowdown on Eco-Labels
via utnereader
“The current issue of Mother Jones offers a handy guide to the eco-labels that get slapped on food, flowers, and other products, parsing overly broad claims like “free range” and “fragrance free” (practically meaningless) and pointing to trustworthy labels that have sets of standards to back them up (official “Certified Biodegradable” label, yes; plain old “Biodegradable,” no). Labels from the Forest Stewardship Council, Humane Society, and Marine Stewardship Council get high marks; ubiquitous declarations like “hypoallergenic” and “cruelty-free” are exposed for the standard-less shams that they are. It’s a great cheat-sheet (compiled by Rebecca Clarren, a savvy environmental reporter) for savvy shoppers.”
MacHeads - Watch the Documentary Film for Free
via macblips
“In 1985, Apple aired the commercial Macintosh: The Computer for the Rest of Us offering the general public the possibility of using computers in their homes for the first time. MacHEADS follows the story of the Macintosh community and its unconditional devotion to Apple Inc. For them the Mac was not just a machine —it came with a social movement, a whole community which believed they were going to change the world. MacHEADS is a feature length documentary which explore the loyalty of Apple Fanatics and their obsession. The film takes an in-depth examination of just what makes the Mac, the iPhone, and Apple’s other products seem like cultural phenomena rather than just consumer electronics. ”
Watch it here.
Lakeside
via how magazine
“Lakeside, designed by Mark Simonson, is a flowing 1940s-style brush script. It was inspired by hand-lettered titles in the classic 1944 film noir movie “Laura.”
Visit Simonson’s site here. The ampersand from his font:
Graffiti Renovation
pointed out via a friend
Classical art, improved / destroyed with spraypaint as part of a contest at wortth1000.
See more examples here.
Tech Tip: DropBox
via CreativeTechs Tech Tip
“DropBox is a application and web service that syncs a shared folder over the internet to multiple computers. After you install the application on several computers, it creates a synced DropBox folder on each hard drive. Any file you put inside that folder will be synced and available on each computer or through the DropBox web interface. Dropbox works on both Mac and Windows. You can get started with 2GB of shared space for free.”
Find out more about DropBox here.
Thursday, December 3, 2009
via quipsologies
This business card, stamped with lemon juice, reveals its information only after holding it against some light fire.
Best Book Covers
via how magazine
Amazon has chosen 60 of their favorite book covers from 2009 and is asking visitors to vote for their favorites. When you vote, you'll be entered to win the 10 Best Book Cover finalists.
The Art of the Unfriend
via designmind
“Poking. Friending. De-friending. Messaging. Posting. Tagging. Liking. Ignoring.
Frog Senior Interaction Designer Kevin Hutchinson confesses that our social power is evolving due to our presence on online social networks because we are able to find, reach, and communicate with people at a greater speed. But with this new amplified social connectivity comes a new set of expectations for increased engagement. Social networking etiquette is still evolving and it can be difficult to decipher what is appropriate in this hyper-social online space.
Hutchinson believes that, we as social creatures, should take some cues from other forms of communication. You wouldn’t text, call, or knock on someone’s door several times a day to tell them how much you enjoyed what they were reading, doing, or saying, so why comment or “like”, everything they post on their Facebook wall. Right? How does one create social boundaries on their networks and how do we not take it so, er, personally when someone does not befriend us?”
Listen to the post here.
Neutraface: . . . Even if It’s Bold Italic!
humor via quipsologiesAn ode to House Industries’ Neutraface set to the tune of Lady Gaga’s “Poker Face.”
Watch (or just listen) to this geeky font video here.
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
A Christmas Rewrite, as Dickens Edits Dickens
via nytimes
“It is an enduring mystery of English literature: What secrets lie entombed beneath the thick scribbles that Charles Dickens made as he wrote, and rewrote, the 66 pages of A Christmas Carol in 1843? The manuscript of this classic holiday ghost story, written in six weeks to raise much-needed cash, is housed at the Morgan Library and Museum in Manhattan, where it bears all of Dickens’s additions and subtractions in his own hand.”
Free Livingston Taylor Holiday Songs
via livingstonetaylor
“Fresh off the recording of my new CD Last Alaska Moon, I'm getting in the spirit of the holidays and want to offer all of my great fans a gift of two free Christmas songs to add to your holiday playlist: “Christmas is Almost Here” from Last Alaska Moon and “My Perfect Christmas Day” from There You Are Again. Both can be downloaded from my online store free!
Given that times are tough, I'm also offering a special deal for a limited time to help put you in the spirit! From now until Sunday, December 6th, you can order your copy of Last Alaska Moon for $9.99! All tracks will be available immediately as digital downloads. I hope you'll enjoy the new CD, and feel free to share with a friend!”
Visit Livingston Taylor’s site here. If you ever get a chance to see him in concert, it is a wonderful experience.
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
Infographic: History of Storage
via boingboing
“Geekologie’s superb Evolution of Storage infographic traces the history of data, music and photo storage from the wax cylinder to the 2TB hard drive. . . ‘this too shall pass, all is hubris and folly, the future rushes up upon you.’ ”
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