What a Great Link Blog!

Link Collection #18

Justin Michael — Sun, 14 Apr 2019 00:00:00 -0700

Infinite Essence

Mikael Owunna:

Infinite Essence is my response to pervasive media images of black people dead and dying. Being gunned down by police officers, drowning and washing up on the shores of the Mediterranean, starving and suffering in award-winning photography. The trope of the black body as a site of death is everywhere.

Absolutely stunning work.

Honey & Lou Baking Co.

This bakery produces some breathtaking cookies, and the videos of them being decorated are surprisingly soothing.

Master Penman Jake Weidmann

UPROXX:

As the world grows increasingly digital, storied art forms like penmanship are quickly dying out. Old masters pass away, leaving behind a gaping void. Enter Jake Weidmann, the youngest “Master Penman” in the United States by three generations. Weidmann’s work shows an attention to minute detail that only comes through years and years of practice. His finished pieces — which fuse calligraphy and fine art — remind us that handwriting can be beautiful.

A great five minute video.

The Costs of Building Pop Culture Structures

Lior Zitzman:

Fantasy and sci-fi structures not only serve as settings for their characters, but they also have transformed into massive cultural icons. You can’t reference Harry Potter without imagining the halls of Hogwarts, nor can you imagine intergalactic travel without the Starship Enterprise from Star Trek. Architecture is as every bit important to these movies and TV shows as the characters.

While it must have been fun to dream up these fictional structures, the creators didn’t have to worry about the real-life mechanics of building them, many of which defy the laws of physics and science. However, we can’t help but wonder the extent to which we could recreate these fictional buildings using modern technological and engineering capabilities.

To find out, we looked at materials, dimensions, and real-life counterparts to estimate the cost of five iconic structures from popular culture.

Here’s the full list of structures covered:

Hogwarts (Harry Potter)
Bat Cave (Batman)
USS Enterprise (Star Trek)
The Wall (Game of Thrones)
Death Star (Star Wars)

Fun stuff to think about!

Emma Taylor Books

Emma Taylor:

Book sculpture is my creative outlet to highlight an appreciation of the little things in life. A good book, a beautiful tree, a flower in full bloom. With my scissors, glue and paper, and led by the title of the books I chance upon in antique and charity shops, I am able to recreate plants, animals, architecture and literary scenes with all the details I love on a manageable scale.

Some incredible works of art.

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Link Collection #17

Justin Michael — Thu, 28 Mar 2019 00:00:00 -0700

TIMELAPSE OF THE FUTURE: A Journey to the End of Time

John Boswell put together this breathtaking video that takes us from the present day to the literal end of time by doubling the amount of time that passes every five seconds.

A must watch.

88 Important Truths I’ve Learned About Life

David Cain:

Everyone gets drilled with certain lessons in life. Sometimes it takes repeated demonstrations of a given law of life to really get it into your skull, and other times one powerful experience drives the point home once forever. Here are 88 things I’ve discovered about life, the world, and its inhabitants by this point in my short time on earth.

Ring Ritual Reminds Engineers of Their Responsibility

Christina Agapakis:

One of my good friends is an engineer trained in Canada. I had noticed over the years that she always wears a plain silver ring on her pinky, but I never asked if it had any special meaning to her. Recently I learned that it’s her Iron Ring, something worn by all Canadian engineers on the pinky finger of their working hand to remind them of their responsibility to the public. When they write or draw, the ring hits the surface of the paper and the facets provide a “sharp reminder” of engineering ethics and the engineer’s obligation to make things that are useful and safe.

Stuff in Space

Stuff in Space is a realtime 3D map of objects in Earth orbit, visualized using WebGL.

And not just realtime, but interactive. You can filter for certain objects using the controls in the upper right, and even click on individual objects to get more information about them.

There’s a lot of stuff up there!

An Experiment in Gratitude

SoulPancake on The Science of Happiness:

What makes you happy? Have you ever wondered why? Join us as we take an experimental approach on what makes people happier.

Well worth seven minutes of your time.

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Link Collection #16

Justin Michael — Thu, 07 Mar 2019 00:00:00 -0800

Brands Reimagined Googie Style

(That’s Googie, not Google.)

These images by Winfield Edson are a lot of fun. I especially like their version of Ikea.

Note: After visiting this link you may have to scroll to the right to get to the next image. Winfield’s site is fixed width and may be wider than your web browser’s viewport.

Nimbus – Berndnaut

Clouds where there shouldn’t be clouds.

The Nimbus works present a transitory moment of presence in a specific location. They can be interpreted as a sign of loss or becoming, or just as a a fragment from a classical painting. People have always had a strong metaphysical connection to clouds and through time have projected many ideas on them. Smilde is interested in the temporary aspect of the work. It’s there for a few seconds before they fall apart again. The physical aspect is really important but the work in the end only exists as a photograph. The photo functions as a document of something that happened on a specific location and is now gone.

Hayabusa2 Touch Down Video (「はやぶさ２」搭載小型モニタカメラ撮影映像)

This video, taken by the Hayabusa2 probe, shows it landing on the Ryugu asteroid and then firing a 5-gram tantalum bullet into the surface in order to collect subsurface samples.

Incredible to see the surface of the asteroid so close, and even more amazing to see the effect the bullet has when it hits the surface at 300 meters per second!

The Secrets of the World's Greatest Art Thief

This long read from GQ relates the fascinating tale of Stéphane Breitwieser:

Stéphane Breitwieser robbed nearly 200 museums, amassed a collection of treasures worth more than $1.4 billion, and became perhaps the most prolific art thief in history. And as he reveals to GQ’s Michael Finkel, how Breitwieser managed to do all this is every bit as surprising as why.

There’s some really interesting stuff in this one, like this bit:

Several times, he steals while they’re on a guided tour, then casually continues the tour while holding the item. At an art fair in Holland, Breitwieser hears a shout of “Thief!” and sees security guards tackle a man. It’s another burglar. Breitwieser takes advantage of the commotion and slips a painting under his coat.

SWANH, Is 123m of Star Wars a New Hope of infographics

Maritn Panchaud created an incredibly tall infographic (1024 x 465152 pixels) that tells the story of the original Star Wars film in a very unique way. Get ready to scroll a lot!

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Link Collection #15

Justin Michael — Thu, 28 Feb 2019 00:00:00 -0800

This Guy Shot 50,000 Pics to Make an 81MP Photo of the Moon

Andrew McCarthy combined 50,000 images taken from his telescope and camera in Sacramento, California into a single, breathtakingly detailed image.

Earth's Atmosphere Stretches Out to the Moon - And Beyond

A recent discovery based on observations by the ESA/NASA Solar and Heliospheric Observatory, SOHO, shows that the gaseous layer that wraps around Earth reaches up to 630 000 km away, or 50 times the diameter of our planet.

“The Moon flies through Earth’s atmosphere,” says Igor Baliukin of Russia’s Space Research Institute, lead author of the paper presenting the results.

How cool is that?

The Route of a Text Message, a Love Story

Scott B. Weingart goes into great detail as he takes us along on the journey of a text message. How detailed? Here’s a bit from the part about typing the message on a phone’s screen:

With each tap, a small electrical current passes from the screen to her hand. Because electricity flows easily through human bodies, sensors on the phone register a change in voltage wherever her thumb presses against the screen. But the world is messy, and the phone senses random fluctuations in voltage across the rest of the screen, too, so an algorithm determines the biggest, thumbiest-looking voltage fluctuations and assumes that’s where she intended to press.

So she starts tap-tap-tapping on the keyboard, one letter at a time.

A surprisingly enjoyable read considering how deep into technical details it goes.

What are those floaty things in your eye?

This is a great little four-minute video that explains what the heck those floaty things are.

Sometimes, against a uniform, bright background such as a clear sky or a blank computer screen, you might see things floating across your field of vision. What are these moving objects, and how are you seeing them? Michael Mauser explains the visual phenomenon that is floaters.

Strands of History

In the 1970’s the suspender ropes of the Golden Gate Bridge were replaced. Some of the old ropes were saved by this company and turned into various collectable (and expensive!) items.

Strands of History produces high quality, hand-crafted luxury items fabricated from the original Golden Gate Bridge vertical suspender ropes. We design and fabricate these authentic historical suspender ropes into limited edition or completely customized decorative and functional pieces, including mementos, furniture, lighting, architectural pieces and accents, artwork and sculpture. Because there is a limited quantity of these suspender ropes from the 1930’s, when you acquire one of these genuine pieces of Bay Area history, you’re investing in an asset that will be passed from generation to generation.

That coffee table on their front page is quite stunning, but for $18,500 I would hope for something that would take my breath away.

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Link Collection #14

Justin Michael — Thu, 21 Feb 2019 00:00:00 -0800

Vincent Bal - Shadowology

Vincent Bal does some amazing work with light, shadow, and a bit of ink.

How to Stop Junk Mail in 6 Easy Steps

Get a lot of junk mail? You don’t have to. Here are six steps to reducing the flow of unwanted clutter in your mailbox.

helpful

One Breath Around The World

World champion free diver Guillaume Néry explores some incredible underwater environments in this 12 minute video filmed by Julie Gautier. Some of the scenes are truly haunting and beautiful.

Onym: Tools and Resources for Naming Things

Naming things is incredibly hard. Onym makes it much easier.

A good name can help a company or product become successful, of course, but it can also help the lowliest code library find an audience, help formalize an informal process, and propel ideas about the world toward becoming talking points throughout it.

And yet, what tools do we use for naming? What methodology? Many of us practice it informally, doing our best with thesauruses and domain name searches, never stopping to formalize an approach because it seems so devilishly simple – all you really need is a word or two in a language you’ve probably been using your entire life.

But like any art form, naming benefits from rich tools and processes, and this site is meant to help you discover them – to provide a starting point for anyone who needs to name something. That is: everyone, because every idea benefits from a good name.

DevLids

Antonio Radovcic brings us a wonderful project that showcases the sticker-clad lids of developer laptops.

I find these absolutely fascinating, to say nothing of the entertainment value of some of the stickers. “My website is faster than yours.” Where do I get that one?

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Link Collection #13

Justin Michael — Thu, 14 Feb 2019 00:00:00 -0800

NASA’s Opportunity Rover Dies on Mars

Don’t let the somewhat-depressing title put you off, this is a really excellent feature put together by The New York Times covering the highlights of Opportunity’s mission.

Opportunity survived 5,111 Martian days and drove over 28 miles — a distance record for wheeled vehicles beyond Earth.

This rover made some truly incredible accomplishments over 15 years, which is quite remarkable for a piece of equipment designed to last only 90 days.

The 26,000-Year Astronomical Monument Hidden in Plain Sight

Alexander Rose did some digging to uncover the details of a very interesting installation at the hoover Dam:

On the western flank of the Hoover Dam stands a little-understood monument, commissioned by the US Bureau of Reclamation when construction of the dam began in 01931 [sic]. The most noticeable parts of this corner of the dam, now known as Monument Plaza, are the massive winged bronze sculptures and central flagpole which are often photographed by visitors. The most amazing feature of this plaza, however, is under their feet as they take those pictures.

The plaza’s terrazzo floor is actually a celestial map that marks the time of the dam’s creation based on the 25,772-year axial precession of the earth.

Me COOKIE MONSTER. Me want you to come visit me on Sesame Street! Me will bring da COOKIES! AMA.

Reddit can be problematic, but there’s nothing problematic about Cookie Monster doing an Ask Me Anything. Here are a few of the questions and answers to whet your appetite:

How big is your cookie collection?

Not very big. Me constantly run into problem of eating me collection!

My 7-year-old daughter is about to start selling cookies for Girl Scouts. Do you have any advice for her?

Don’t eat the product!

We know cookies are your favourite food. What is your second favourite food?

Can me say more cookies…?

(Then, in the next message, again from Cookie Monster…)

Me thought it over. Definitely “more cookies.”

50 Years Ago in Photos: A Look Back at 1969

The Atlantic selected some really good photos to encapsulate an incredible year.

A half century ago, humans first set foot on the moon, hundreds of thousands of young people gathered in New York’s Catskill Mountains for a music festival that became a cultural milestone, and the war in Vietnam dragged on while protest and resistance grew. It was the year that Sesame Street premiered on Public TV, British troops were first sent into Northern Ireland, the Manson Family murders took place, that Richard Nixon became the 37th President of the United States, and much more.

Gesture controlled touchscreen calculator watch from 1984

This short video (under two minutes!) showcases a very interesting piece of very old technology that was way ahead of its time. The Casio AT-552 Janus wristwatch contained a fully-functional calculator you controlled with gestures, all in a normal-sized, normal-looking package.

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Link Collection #12

Justin Michael — Thu, 07 Feb 2019 00:00:00 -0800

Purl | Pixar SparkShorts

A great short film (just under nine minutes) from Pixar:

Purl, directed by Kristen Lester and produced by Gillian Libbert-Duncan, features an earnest ball of yarn named Purl who gets a job in a fast-paced, high energy, bro-tastic start-up. Yarny hijinks ensue as she tries to fit in, but how far is she willing to go to get the acceptance she yearns for, and in the end, is it worth it?

Why You Should Never Rinse Your Dishes Before Putting Them in the Dishwasher

The title speaks for itself with this one. There are some interesting details in the article if you’re curious, like this one:

One of the arguments against pre-rinsing is that certain detergents are designed to cling to food particles […]. Without a surface to stick to, your dishes won’t get as squeaky clean.

Hey, whatever makes dishes easier to deal with!

Amazing Map Uses GPS Locations to Show How Territorial Wolf Packs Are

Wolves are famously territorial, but this project shows just how territorial they really are by mapping tens of thousands of coordinates recorded using GPS collars.

The Treasure Behind the Wall

“‘We made a discovery,’” he remembered her saying. On the other end of the phone, Mr. Bolen cringed. The last time he received a call like that about a store, their plans to move a wall had to be scrapped because of fears the building would collapse. He asked what, exactly, the discovery was.

“You have to come and see,” she told him.

So, gritting his teeth, he got on a plane from New York. Ms. Ryan took him to the second floor of what would be the shop, where workers were busily clearing out detritus, and gestured toward the end of the space. Mr. Bolen, she said, blinked. Then he said: “No, it’s not possible.”

Something had been hidden behind a wall, and it wasn’t asbestos. It was a 10-by-20-foot oil painting of an elaborately coifed and dressed 17th-century marquis and assorted courtiers entering the city of Jerusalem.

Sometimes a 10-by-20-foot oil painting just, you know, turns up.

Regular Expressions 101

Someone once said:

Some people, when confronted with a problem, think “I know, I’ll use regular expressions.” Now they have two problems.

Regular expressions are incredibly powerful, but can also be extremely confusing and hard to use. This free online tool is, by far, the best thing I’ve ever found to build, refine, debug, and understand them. It will even help you generate code to use them in various languages. If you find it helpful you can donate using the “$” icon at the bottom to help keep the lights on.

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Link Collection #11

Justin Michael — Thu, 17 Jan 2019 00:00:00 -0800

The Quest to Find—and Save—the World's Most Famous Shipwreck

The Vasa was the greatest warship to never go to war. Named after the Swedish royal family—the House of Vasa—the vessel was commissioned by King Gustavus II Adolphus in 1625 and was earmarked to become his navy’s flagship. Gustavus had big dreams for the Vasa: He wanted the most lethal warship in the Baltic Sea, one that was as beautiful as it was deadly.

For three years carpenters, sailmakers, painters, woodcarvers, ropemakers, and hundreds of other artisans and craftsmen rushed to build the king’s vessel. The Vasa would be a floridly crafted masterpiece with at least 700 delicately carved sculptures, figurines, and ornaments: Angels, devils, lions, emperors, warriors, musicians, mermaids, ghastly faces, heavenly facades—all painstakingly crafted from oak, pine, and lime wood.

A great story about the recovery of the vessel spanning hundreds of years.

Guide to Computing: A Visual History of Computing 1945-1979

James Ball worked with several museums and other organizations to produce some stunning images of various devices from the early era of computing. The results are quite amazing.

You are fluent in this language (and don't even know it)

Without realizing it, we’re fluent in the language of pictures, says illustrator Christoph Niemann. In a charming talk packed with witty, whimsical drawings, Niemann takes us on a hilarious visual tour that shows how artists tap into our emotions and minds – all without words.

What is Glitter?

This is a great piece about glitter. I know, it sounds odd, but trust me; it’s worth a read.

Most of the glitter that adorns America’s name brand products is made in one of two places: The first is in New Jersey, but the second, however, is also in New Jersey. The first, the rumored farm site of glitter’s invention, refused to answer any of my questions. “We are a very private company,” a representative said via email. The second is Glitterex.

My Today at Apple Experience

Apple offers free sessions at their stores that cover photography, art, coding, music, and more. Ryan Christoffel of MacStories decided to attend one and write about his experience:

At several points throughout the session, I found myself smiling just looking around the table as I considered how seemingly random a group of people this was. There were participants ranging from, by my best guess, age 13 up to those in their sixties. Two people were friends who just got new phones, and they were constantly delighted and awed by all the things they learned in the session. A mom was attending with her daughter, who was taking notes for a school report. The rest of us, by outward appearance at least, had little in common. But there we sat, around a table, learning and experimenting with the technology we share.

These days, when most of the tech industry is trying to replace real human interaction with profiles, posts, likes, and follows, it’s refreshing to see a program like Today at Apple that brings people together in-person. Technology should be used to enhance and enrich the time we spend with other people, not exploit our connections to each other. That’s why I created What a Great Link, and that’s why I love to see other companies do things like this.

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Link Collection #10

Justin Michael — Thu, 10 Jan 2019 00:00:00 -0800

my dog only responds to Harry Potter spells

Anna Brisbin taught her adorable puppy (aptly named Remus) to respond to spells from Harry Potter instead of traditional dog commands. The results are incredibly adorable and amusing.

Netninja Potions Party

Brian Enigma:

The weekend before Halloween in 2018, my partner Christine Rose and I hosted a Harry Potter potions party. It was just under 3 months in the making — from prototyping a magnetically-activated animated lock to having professionally laid-out spellbooks and handcrafted “magic” cabinets dispensing test tubes of alcohol. This website is an attempt to catalog the various regions of the party and document each of the magic elements we designed for the area.

There’s some truly incredible work here, from the handmade wands to the basilisk cinnamon rolls there’s something here for just about everyone.

And if you want to throw your own potions party, almost all of the source material is available on GitHub.

Procedur.al

Procedur.al is an art store where every piece of artwork is one of a kind.

This concept is called generative art, which means that the designs are generated by an algorithm with some random parameters. Every time you order, you can generate a unique version of any of the posters based on a what’s called a “seed”. This seed determines how the random parameters of the design will behave, and you can use it to generate the exact same design at any point in the future.

Such a neat idea. If you want to see the full version of the image I used for this piece, go to [the Warp Drive product] and enter seed 4028434532482.

New Horizons Glimpses the Surface of Ultima Thule

The New Horizons probe, which previously provided us with a stunning view of Pluto, recently gave us our first real glimpse of the most distant object we’ve ever visited: 2014 MU69, which has been given the nickname Ultima Thule.

Ultima Thule is 30 kilometers (18 miles) in diameter, and is thought to be an undisturbed fragment from when the solar system was first formed. Scientists hope to learn what conditions were like at that time by studying the object.

A year of drawing

Austin Kleon:

My son Jules woke up on Christmas last year and started drawing. He was 2. (His birthday is in March.)

Inspired by Sylvia Fein’s book Heidi’s Horse, which collects her daughters drawings from toddler to teenage years, I thought it’d be interesting to see how his drawings developed over the next 12 months.

There are some delightful and adorable images and commentary here. I especially love the part where he drew some skeletons on their outdoor couch cushions:

They were so good we couldn’t bear to clean them off, so my wife got out her sewing machine and embroidered them.

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Link Collection #9

Justin Michael — Fri, 04 Jan 2019 00:00:00 -0800

European Space Agency Rebranding Concept

Tata&Friends was asked to rebrand whatever they wanted for a section of Icon Magazine. They selected to reimagine the look and feel of the European Space Agency, and the result is magnificent.

Forged and Filed

Seth Gould spent two years crafting an intricate puzzle box called Coffer.

The Coffer was made primarily through handwork at the forge and at the bench. The majority of pieces, including the bolts, levers, and staples, are made from wrought iron, a material I use primarily for its working properties (enjoyable to forge and file). Wrought iron is no longer manufactured, so each piece needed to be forged from salvaged material. The forging is done using a coal forge, hammer, anvil, and power hammer. Once the pieces are forged as close to their finished shape as possible, I move to the bench to refine the surface and shape with a file. The final touch is a bit of file embellishment.

Jesse Beecher documented Seth’s project in Forged and Filed, an expectational five-minute video with sounds from Seth’s workshop weaved into an incredible soundtrack.

Thoughts on (and pics of) the original Macintosh User Manual

Peter Merholz shares his observations:

It’s been surprisingly delightful flipping through this little bit of computer history. The pace, and deliberateness, with which the system and its interface are explained are quite impressive.

I love the diagram that shows how scrolling in a window works.

25 Things You Didn’t Know Your Microwave Could Do

From cake in a mug for one to shucking corn, your microwave might be able to do more than you thought. You can even measure the speed of light:

With a relatively simple science experiment, you can measure the speed of light for yourself using a microwave and some chocolate. You’ll need to remove the tray from your microwave so that the chocolate doesn’t cook evenly. Put a long piece of chocolate in the now-empty microwave, and cook it until it begins to become misshapen, around 40 seconds. Then you can measure the distance between the hot spots where the chocolate began to melt and pool.

Vector icon speedruns

Marc Edwards:

It’s common to have to draw the same kinds of icons over and over — many different apps and websites use similar glyphs, but each instance typically needs to be tweaked for size and style, so they need to be redrawn.

Due to this repetition, I’ve always been interested in trying to work out optimal ways to create them. This is to save time, but also as a fun challenge.

If you’re a designer you’ll likely find these short animations informative. If you’re not a designer you’ll likely find them to be interesting, with a hint of magic.

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Link Collection #8

Justin Michael — Thu, 27 Dec 2018 00:00:00 -0800

Recovering Nintendo’s Lost SimCity for the NES

Nintendo produced a great version of SimCity for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES), but they also worked on a version for the older NES that was never released. Long thought lost or buried in a Nintendo office, an unfinished version of the game recently surfaced.

We had the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to digitize the game for its owner at the show, and thanks to two very generous collectors, we were able to spend the last few months tearing the game apart for the following deep-dive analysis. Seen here for the first time in nearly twenty-seven years, this is SimCity for the Nintendo Entertainment System.

A great article with some fantastic images and video.

Have a new Apple Watch? Turn on these health-monitoring features

All versions of the Apple Watch (except the original Series 0) can monitor your heart and provide high and low heart rate alerts and irregular rhythm notifications, and the new Series 4 also provides an ECG app and fall detection.

These features have already saved lives, but some of them might not be enabled by default. This article walks you through setting everything up.

Twist Pendant Light

The Twist pendant light is a 3D printed shade that opens like a flower when twisted, allowing more light to escape when open. Very cool design.

Ian's Shoelace Site

If you’re bored with your current shoelace situation I have good news: You’ve got a plethora of options.

Whether you want to lace shoes, tie shoelaces, stop shoelaces from coming undone, calculate shoelace lengths or even repair aglets, Ian’s Shoelace Site has the answer!

Each lacing style comes with step-by-step instructions, detailed illustrations, pros, cons, commentary, and more. There’s regular lacing methods, bi-color methods, styles for shoes with lugs… it just keeps going, and that’s just lacing! There’s also entire sections that cover knots, lace lengths, tips, hints, and more.

Don’t miss the Ian Knot, the “World’s Fastest Shoelace Knot” that, if I may say so, is pure witchcraft.

2018 In Review: The Sheep that Won the Internet

Earlier this year, The Museum of English Rural Life (@TheMERL) achieved the kind of viral success that social media managers salivate over. All it took was a particularly imposing ram, and five words that stamped the museum in the minds of Twitter users. “Look at this absolute unit.”

This is a great little story, and includes some interesting stuff about bridging the gap between two different worlds.

For [Adam Koszary, the man behind the tweet], social media removes the one-way dialogue that people often experience in museums – going to shows, reading the label, and going back home again. Koszary says it’s a chance to have the kind of conversations museums can’t have at exhibitions, and a more effective way of engaging with the public.

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Link Collection #7

Justin Michael — Thu, 20 Dec 2018 00:00:00 -0800

Apple Books releases six free audiobooks read by celebrity narrators

Really nice selection for being free:

The Time Machine, narrated by Kelsey Grammer
Pride and Prejudice, narrated by Kate Beckinsale
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, narrated by Tituss Burgess
Frankenstein, narrated by Aaron Mahnke
The Secret Garden, narrated by Karen Gillan
Winnie the Pooh, narrated by Disney Book Group

Here’s a direct link to the books on the iTunes/Apple Books store.

A Map of Every Building in America

The New York Times created something surprisingly wonderful with this project.

Classic maps answer questions like: How do I get from Point A to Point B? These data images, instead, evoke questions — sometimes, simply: What’s that?

We found fascinating patterns in the arrangements of buildings. Traditional road maps highlight streets and highways; here they show up as a linear absence.

Where buildings are clustered together, in downtowns, the image is darker, dense. As suburbs stretch out with their larger lawns and malls, the map grows lighter. Your eye can follow the ways that development conforms to landscape features like water and slopes.

You can read history in the transition from curving, paved-over cow paths in old downtowns to suburban sprawl; you can detect signals of wealth and poverty, sometimes almost next door to each other. It all reveals what Andy Woodruff, a cartographer, calls “the sometimes aesthetically pleasing patterns of the built environment.”

These images don’t just reveal cityscapes; they reveal ourselves.

Explore's Live Webcams of Animals

Explore.org has live webcams showing a variety of wildlife and other animals. You’ll find a little bit of everything here, including a kitten rescue, cattle pasture, owl nest, hummingbird fountain, a penguin beach, and many more.

It’s hard to beat a high-definition video stream of puppies dreaming when you want to put a smile on your face.

AMA - a short film by Julie Gautier

Julie:

Ama is a silent film. It tells a story everyone can interpret in their own way, based on their own experience. There is no imposition, only suggestions.

I wanted to share my biggest pain in this life with this film. For this is not too crude, I covered it with grace. To make it not too heavy, I plunged it into the water.

I dedicate this film to all the women of the world.

A really wonderful six-and-a-half minutes.

Package Thief vs. Glitter Bomb Trap

Mark Rober:

Summary: I got upset that my package was stolen so I made a glitter bomb revenge package.

This is why you don’t mess with former NASA engineers.

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Link Collection #6

Justin Michael — Fri, 14 Dec 2018 00:00:00 -0800

People from all over the world are sending emails to Melbourne’s trees

Melbourne gave 70,000 trees email addresses so people could report on their condition. But instead people are writing love letters, existential queries and sometimes just bad puns.

Cathy Oke, Melbourne City Council’s environment portfolio chair, had this to say about the more than 4,000 emails sent to their trees from around the world:

I think one of the great things about it is that people often think technology removes us from nature but actually the opposite can be true. It shows that technology can actually help you engage with nature. We want people to know we’re looking after our trees, we want the community to help us look after them, and if it also brings them some joy in a busy world, that’s great too.

If you replace the word “nature” with “people” in those first two sentences that comes pretty close to my motivation for creating What a Great Link!

Harry Potter: What Magic Sounds Like

Evan Puschak examines the sound design of magic in this eight minute Nerdwriter video. There’s some incredible insight and commentary in this one, with my favorite being the following:

[…] sound design is a deeply concequental part of movie making. People undertstand what they see, but they feel what they hear.

New Figurative Wooden Sculptures by Han Hsu-Tung Dissolve Into Pixelated Cubes

Taiwanese artist Han Hsu-Tung skillfully carves figures from blocks of wood, adding and eliminating cubed segments that make each bird, hand, and human look as if they are morphing into a monochromatic array of pixels. The works hint to our relationship with the screen, presenting the increasingly distracted way in which we view the world.

Custom Records for a 70's Toy Record Player

Instructions for creating your own custom records for a four-decade-old Fisher Price toy, using either a CNC router or 3D printer.

The toy is simple enough. A quick inspection reveals that the “head” of the record player’s arm is a tiny musical box with 22 metal gears. The record has 11 groves and pins on either side that operate one of the 22 notes. Each groove forms a circle so the tune repeats once per revolution - there’s no spiral track like we used to have on real vinyl records. It did take quite a while with some digital calipers to accurately measure the position of all the grooves and the holes that locate the disc on the turntable. All these measurements you’ll find either in the 3D models I used to create the record blanks or the code that generates the music information.

There’s a video of a couple custom records being played on the toy, including the Star Wars theme. Interesting stuff!

KFC 11 Herbs & Spices Firelog

Just in time for the holidays, Kentucky Fried Chicken brings you the KFC 11 Herbs & Spices Firelog.

Imbued with the unmistakable, mouth-watering aroma of Colonel Sanders’ secret recipe, the KFC 11 Herbs & Spices Firelog finally puts to rest the age-old dilemma, “How can I make this fire a hundred bajillion times better?” This one-of-a-kind firelog from Enviro-Log, a leading manufacturer of firelogs made of 100 percent recycled materials, is the result of countless hours of research and development, all done over the last couple of months since we had this idea. Pick up a firelog today, and you’ll be wondering how you were ever able to enjoy a fire that didn’t smell like fried chicken.

As I write this the KFC 11 Herbs & Spices Firelog is, unfortunately, sold out. But who knows when (if?) they’ll make more!

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Link Collection #5

Justin Michael — Thu, 06 Dec 2018 00:00:00 -0800

NPR's Tiny Desk Concerts

Tiny Desk Concerts bills itself thusly:

Intimate video performances, recorded live at the desk of All Songs Considered host Bob Boilen.

Wondering where to start? Check out the Tiny Desk Concert with Half Waif. Here’s an excerpt Bob Boilen’s description of the performance:

I’ve always found a sense of solitude in Half Waif’s music and their lead-off performance of “Lavender Burning,” with its opening line, “Staring out into the shifting darkness / Tryin’ to give a name to the place where my heart is,” reinforces my love for their peaceful, almost backwoods calm.

Katie Mack: Being Stardust

This short thread is only five tweets long, so rather than quoting any of it here I urge you to go read all of it. It’ll only take a moment, and might have a significant impact on you.

Uncanny Resemblances Between Classic Dog Breeds and Humans Captured by Gerrard Gethings

Gerrard Gethings took some great photos of people and dogs with a similar look:

For the memory game Do You Look Like Your Dog? Gethings spent a year creating images that examine the classic trope of owners looking just like their canine friends.

How Music Was Made On Super Nintendo

Evan Puschak explains how some talented musicians forced the SNES to produce incredible music that, on the surface, seemed impossible to create.

Butterfly Wings

Chris Perani takes extreme closeups of butterfly wings using macro photography. The results are stunning.

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Link Collection #4

Justin Michael — Thu, 29 Nov 2018 00:00:00 -0800

Farewell Etaoin Shrdlu

This 30-minute documentary from 1978 is absolutely captivating:

On July 2, 1978, the last hot lead edition of the New York Times rolled off the presses. Weiss, a proofreader for the Times, documented the phasing out of this historical process, and what impresses us now, beyond the Ludlow machine (which casts the lead at 535 degrees), the Linotype machine (operated for the last time by Carl Schlesinger, who also narrates the film), and the presses, is the incredible noise generated by all these people and devices.

Forever Pizza

Pizza is wonderful, and now you can have a slice that lasts forever.

The unbridled joy of dogs catching treats

Sometimes you just need huge, high-quality photos of dogs trying to snatch treats out of the air.

The Great British Baking Show: The Beginnings

The Great British Bake-Off (or The Great British Baking Show in the United States, with our wacky trademarks and whatnot) is one of the most wonderful, wholesome, fun, and above all human shows ever made. They somehow figured out how to distill some of the best parts of humanity down into a television show.

Some of the more recent seasons have been available on Netflix for a while, but now now the earlier seasons (which is where this link goes) are showing up, too.

Even if you don’t bake (I don’t) or aren’t generally interested in cooking shows (I’m not) you should give this show a try.

The Little-Known Reason Pencils Are Yellow

This short article tells the origin story of the ubiquitous hue that has adorned pencils since 1889.

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Link Collection #3

Justin Michael — Fri, 23 Nov 2018 00:00:00 -0800

1Blocker

1Blocker brings the joy back to web browsing by preventing things like ads, tracking scripts, and cookie notices from getting in your way. Available for Safari on Mac and iOS.

helpful
app

Build Your Own Professional-Grade Audio Amp on the Sort of Cheap

Glenn Zorpette shares instructions for building a “high-end, audiophile quality, class-D amplifier”:

I’m a sucker for flashy audio gear. But really now, step away from the checkbook and get out your soldering iron. If you have basic soldering and machining skills—can you drill holes in sheet aluminum?—you can get high-end gear for a lot less.

The title says, “sort of cheap,” but it’s really cheap compared to off-the-shelf gear.

Change the font size on your iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch

Ever wish the text on your iOS device was bigger? Good news:

You can change the size of your font in Mail, Contacts, Calendar, Phone, Notes, and other apps that support Dynamic Type.

Not all apps support Dynamic Type, but many do. Give it a try if you find yourself straining to read on your device.

I See You

Even if you’re not interested in yoga you should still take a few minutes to watch this lovely, inspiring video.

Step One...

Have pets? You’ll identify with this comic.

Don’t have pets? This is what it’s like.

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Link Collection #2

Justin Michael — Thu, 15 Nov 2018 00:00:00 -0800

Earthrise

This free 30-minute documentary presented by The New York Times is fantastic. The rare footage from the Apollo missions is fascinating, and the emotional testimony of the Apollo 8 crew is both touching and inspiring.

Save this one for the next time you cuddle on the couch with your favorite person.

QWSTION Roll Pack

This seems like a nice backpack, but that’s not why I’m linking to it. This backpack is featured here because it’s made out of a new fabric called Bananatex, which is made of banana plants.

Next to our own high density organic cotton canvas most of our products are made of, we have just released Bananatex®, a new shell fabric made from the fibers of banana plants.

Check out the Materials & Sustainability section on QWSTION’s site for more details.

HazeOver

HazeOver is a useful utility for Macs that automatically dims all but the foreground window, making it easy to focus on the task at hand while still keeping everything else visible and accessible. Nice little intro video, too.

helpful
app

Fold 'N Fly Paper Airplane Database

This paper airplane database has everything: detailed folding instructions with pictures and video, printable templates, and details about flight characteristics. All the planes are nicely organized by type and difficulty, making this a great link for people of all ages.

Doodle Addicts

Here’s how Doodle Addicts describes itself:

Doodle Addicts is a new platform dedicated to celebrating the addiction—our incessant need to draw, sketch, and doodle with anything and everything we can get our hands on. Whether it be in a sketchbook, on a napkin, with your stylus and tablet, or on a giant wall, artists of all types are welcome here. Our growing community is a place for like-minded creatives to share and inspire one another through their portfolio of artwork, quirky drawing challenges and insightful interaction.

It’s always nice to find a refreshing and fun online community with a great focus.

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Link Collection #1

Justin Michael — Thu, 08 Nov 2018 00:00:00 -0800

Incredible Landscape Embroidery

Vera Shimunia makes some incredible embroidered art. I mean, look at this:

Wow. Just, wow.

How a Password Changed My Life

Momo Estrella figured out how to leverage an annoying password policy to make positive changes in his life.

My password became the indicator. My password reminded me that I shouldn’t let myself be victim of my recent break up, and that I’m strong enough to do something about it.

My password became: “Forgive@h3r”

During my meeting I kept thinking on what I just did. Something drew a smirk on my face.

During the rest of week, I had to type this password several times a day. Each time my computer would lock. Each time my screensaver with her photo would appear. Each time I would come back from eating lunch alone.

In my mind, I went with the mantra that I didn’t type a password. In my mind, I was reminding myself to “Forgive her”.