I guarantee you most 15 or 16 year olds would be so much more interested in The Great Gatsby and its endless droning on about the corruption of the East Coast if they could play it as a sidescroller. And now they can!
(Engadget)
Well, we now know how one might translate some of Danielewski‘s zanier ideas into a tangible paper book.
What you are seeing here is an amazing, handmade German art book called Thoughts on Dreams that has been threaded with hyperlinks to direct readers from one important section to another. It is sublime. I also love how it really illustrates the idea of interconnected content in a way that does, actually, look like a sinewy spider’s web or neural network.
(Engadget)
“We’re rehearsing for our own future – why not do it as pleasantly as possible?” – Syd Mead, futurist
The second installment of BMW’s films on the future of mobility has just been released and it combines a plethora of things I like including: retrofuturism, cars (obvious) and visionary artist, Syd Mead (who is awesome).
I promised myself at some point in the past year or so that I’d stop forgetting the Paleofuture blog I love so much. (Yeah, that worked out.) While I wasn’t watching this time, the creator decided to start putting together video montages on specific topics related to the world of tomorrow. Upshot to just realizing this now: not one but two videos to get started – one on food, one on the apocalypse.
(Did anyone else hear Orson Welles say “nuke-u-ler”?)
Lepht Anonym is a transhumanist experimenter with years of experience performing DIY enhancements to herself:
But it isn’t for everybody, this cutting yourself up in your own kitchen. She’s the first to warn people that it hurts. A lot. Every time, you don’t get used to it. Afterward, people may not be inclined to understand, to put it mildly. (“Avoid normal people,” she warns. “They’re stupid.”)
io9 has a compelling story about Lepht that’s a really entertaining short read.
For Hoover, since we just spent a good chunk of a car ride talking about our opinions on WikiLeaks – one of few political topics we seem to mostly agree upon:
Sites like WikiLeaks work because sources, more often than not pricked by conscience, come forward with information in the public interest. […] It helps guarantee the information won’t be hidden by editors and publishers who are afraid of lawsuits or the government.
Why WikiLeaks is Good for America – Wired
Update: What the crap, England?
Kate just found for me this amazing Tumblr, Everything Punk, Goth and New Wave – a collection of real photos from the heyday of the subculture(s).
Sometimes I think I was born just a little too late. While my 1984 start in the world put me in the thick of new wave and goth culture, I was a little too onesie-clad to partake in the more interesting fashion choices. And it may be a little cliché to look like a panel from the Sandman, I’d still thrill at participating in this aesthetic while it was new.
As Kate astutely points out though, “I’d miss the internet.” So maybe the 80s were best left to my early years?
I’ve only made it through the first portion that was hosted on CNN’s website, but this video exploration of Japan’s Suicide Forest is eerie – and a perfect compliment to the song in my head as the afternoon pushes on. (Thanks, Kate!)
A truly unique story from a Canon users’ forum: a New York-based photographer and his lens technician friend unearthed and retrofitted to a new digital SLR a 102 year old cinema lens that was discovered hidden in a box. The resulting photos are haunting and downright gorgeous. Proving that anything can benefit from a touch of the unexpected.
I’d normally say “Watch” for something of this sort, but Arcade Fire went entirely HTML5 extravaganza on us with their new project in support The Suburbs. Appropriately, my own experience of this Google Maps-enabled mix of audio, video, text and on the fly graphics wouldn’t work with the childhood address I provided it so I used Kate’s suburban home instead. I think it came out for the better because trees bursting through the ground and birds swooping down from the skies are pretty much par for the course back in the wilds of my home.
Anyway, if you have five minutes to be amazed by the possibilities of HTML5, “The Wilderness Downtown” is more than worth your time.