December 2009
45 posts
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One Magazine Uses Possibly The Greenest Method to...
Image via Crunchgear
National Geographic has put every single one of its issues onto one external hard drive. It’s 120 years of National Geographic magazine issues (1888 to 2008) in digital format—including every photo and map in high resolution—all on an ultra-portable hard drive, offering an alternative to a stack of DVDs.
(Via Treehugger)
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Menu typography
Using Menu Psychology to Entice Diners:
A study published in the spring by Dr. Kimes and other researchers at Cornell found that when the prices were given with dollar signs, customers … spent less than when no dollar signs appeared. The study, published in the Cornell Hospitality Report, also found that customers spent significantly more when the price was listed in numerals without dollar...
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Sorry Vegans: Brussels Sprouts Like to Live, Too
I may not think about plants the same way again:
Plants eavesdrop on one another benignly and malignly. As they described in Science and other journals, Dr. De Moraes and her colleagues have discovered that seedlings of the dodder plant, a parasitic weed related to morning glory, can detect volatile chemicals released by potential host plants like the tomato. The young dodder then grows inexorably...
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Oh no! RIP, Kim Peek
Kim Peek, Inspiration for ‘Rain Man,’ Dies at 58:
“He knows all the area codes and ZIP codes in the U.S., together with the television stations serving those locales. He learns the maps in the front of phone books and can provide MapQuest-like travel directions within any major U.S. city or between any pair of them. He can identify hundreds of classical compositions, tell when and where each was...
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St-ring
Sun Studio’s Blossom St-ring is made with string by knot work.
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Vintage 70s ring-a-date calendar
Reminds me a bit of Duplo, the large, softer plastic version of Legos for little kids. Here.
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Creating Citizen Scientists:
A few days ago, sitting in my office, I contributed to peer-reviewed scientific research in biology, astronomy, and psychology. Even though I don’t hold degrees in any of these fields, my contributions will help advance science: I was doing real investigative work, not the prosaic replications of classic experiments that are typically taught in introductory lab...
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Geeks drive girls out of computer science
From MSNBC:
“When people think of computer science, the image that immediately pops into many of their minds is of the computer geek surrounded by such things as computer games, science-fiction memorabilia and junk food,” said lead researcher Sapna Cheryan, an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Washington. “That stereotype doesn’t appeal to many women...
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Mandy Milks
Her stitched postcards:
Milks is an artist and designer working in Toronto. She has always had an interest in traditional domestic arts like knitting and cross-stitching and in the more recent craftivism movements. The dominating factor in most of her work is creating contrast or paradoxes by blurring the lines between art and design and mixing unlikely materials or methods like embroidery on...
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I.D. Magazine, a Design Icon, Folds After 55 Years... →
Sad. (Thanks, Stacy!)
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“Design is where science and art break even.”
– Robin Mathew (via hunsonisgroovy)
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Down With Love sets
Aren’t the sets in Down With Love amazing? I watched this the other day and then re-watched some of the scenes to take in the details in the background.
Don Diers is the set decorator, and there is an interview with him here.
Each of our main characters existed in a specifically colored world. Barbara, Renée’s character, for instance, was always surrounded by lots of virginal white....
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“If I were two-faced, would I be wearing this one?”
– Abraham Lincoln
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A 19th-Century Mathematician Finally Proves Himself:
Charles Babbage, the man whom many consider to be the father of modern computing, never got to complete any of his life’s work. The Victorian gentleman was a brilliant mathematician, but he wasn’t very good at politics and fundraising, so he never got the financial backing to finish any of his elaborate machine designs. For...
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“All plants reproduce through alternating generations. Nowhere is this more...”
– Source
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I can't see this turning out well
Baby chicks as gifts?! At only dollars per animal, this is surely going to appeal to the incompetent and uncommitted. Raising chickens is becoming popular, but I’m pretty sure most people are only thinking about getting eggs and not about health maintenance for the animal.
From an October New York Times article:
Ms. Jones, who is close friends with the restaurateur Alice Waters, wanted...
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“My folder titled Dana with every email you have ever sent me has...”
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The BioWeatherMap Initiative
The BioWeatherMap initiative is a global, grassroots, distributed environmental sensing effort aimed at answering some very basic questions about the geographic and temporal distribution patterns of microbial life. Utilizing the power of high-throughput, low cost DNA sequencing and harnessing the drive of an enlightened public we propose a new collaborative research approach aimed at generating a...
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“The sound of the language speaks of the physical environment that the tribe has...”
– Juliet Shen, on designing a typeface for the Lushootseed language.
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Old World Underground, Where Are You Now?
Still pretty great six years later.
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“Science is the literature of reality.”