You may have already caught this one but please take a few moments to watch this Fake Rhino Attempt Zoo Escape. It's part of a training exercise in Tokyo to help realize a real world scenario but it's too silly and absurd looking not to enjoy purely from a comic perspective. Put a little "Yakety Sax" on there and it's good to go.

Brooks sent over this photo essay of Scene's from Europe's Frozen Cities and it serves as a good reminder - It's Cold Out There! While the temperature in TN hasn't dropped anywhere close to the Brutal Zone™ it is good to remember that some people are dealing with -20°C.

Also check out The Big Picture rundown of extreme European winter woes... it will remind you to stay inside where it's warm whenever possible.

• Musings on Preprocessing - Chris Coyier at CSS Tricks writes out his thoughts on systems like LESS and SASS - CSS pre-processors. I'm actually really keen on the idea of such a thing but haven't really dunked my head in yet.. this is a great place to start.
• Detox - Shaun Inman put together a Safari extension to automatically expand Twitter's t.co links and have them properly recognized by your browser; so they get inserted into your history. It's, apparently, not necessary to use such a thing in Firefox, Chrome or Opera but if you're a big time Safari user I can't imagine not hooking this up immediately.

The 2011 motion reel of Takuya Hosogane has an impressive number of styles mixed throughout; each one executed masterfully. You can dig into the individual works of each one once you're done watching the reel.. you don't want to miss Vanishing Point, Free Modulation or V.L.C.. You can also snag the soundtrack to the reel (which reminds me of Cornelius). All and all, one of the more pleasant experiences you'll have today.

The portfolio of John Hendrix is stunning. His Drawn Type and Sketchbooks will likely depress you with how compelling they are but try to take it as an inspirational. Even his about page is nuts!

HT Matt Lehman.

Last night I noticed a lot of folks posting about the fact that the team at Double Fine were raising money to develop a new point and click adventure game over on Kickstarter. In an attempt to understand this excitement I looked into who Ron Gilbert and Tim Schafer were... turns out they are responsible for a wide range of games that influenced just about any nerd my age (Monkey Island, Day of the Tentacle, Maniac Mansion, etc). Knowing that made the notion that they're funding a game outside of publishers much more intriguing. If you enjoy adventure games, go fund it. If you couldn't care less, still go watch the introductory video because it's actually quite entertaining.

• Patent Troll Claims Ownership of Interactive Web - And Might Win - apparently in 1993 a man named Michael Doyle patented the "interactive web." A handful of ideas such as viewing video, getting search suggestions or rotating an image all seem like concepts open to the world but Doyle (and his company Eolas) claim they've got the patents and they're pursuing litigation against a number of big names. Upsetting patent law stories may seem pretty commonplace these days but this one seems to stand out amongst the rest as it strikes at such fundamental ideas of the web.
• Nick Kwiatek - an image or a description of this site wouldn't do it proper justice. Go view it, then see the engine it's based off of and marvel at the implementation. Such a simple looking site with such an impactful effect.

As I said on the tweets, I don't consider myself a huge St. Vincent fan but the goodness of her latest video for Cheerleader is undeniable. The oversized exhibit in an art gallery aspect is reminiscent of Zhang Huan or Ron Mueck but you couldn't ask for better influences.

Architect Mario Botta is responsible for a lot of beautiful buildings - including the SF Moma. So, he's certainly got an eye for the alluring. Such is the case with Wohnsiedlung in Novazzano, the above image. Simple and compelling. As it should be.

I, foolishly, assumed that the default web browser on Android devices was Google Chrome. I now assume that's not the case because they've just announced Chrome for Android - and the video is pretty snazzy. Great animation style and the features look great; particularly the tab syncing between desktop and mobile. Sure, that may be a bit scary from a privacy point of view but the convenience is through the roof. And that's what matters, right? Regardless, watch this video, read about it and leave a comment if you're actually using it.. I'm curious to hear how it is.

Alex Braidwood spends a good bit of time researching "the relationship between people and the noise in densely populated environments." His Noisolation Headphones are intended to allow environmental noise into your listening space at various intervals to showcase how intrusive the sounds around you really are. The video shows it in action. It looks absolutely ridiculous but it's worth giving a little thought - how much environmental noise seeps into your every day listening (assuming you're a headphones wearer)? Do you go for Pink Noise?

Spend some time with his portfolio - lots of curious undertakings going on.

via Mr. John Baldwin.

It's been awhile since I've been privy to new content coming out of Grain & Gram but I'm totally okay with that - content of such intriguing quality should come slowly. Definitely makes it easier to digest and it takes time to make a fine product. The latest profile is on Jason Gregory of MAKR Carry Goods. Like all of the G&G interviews, the end product from the designers is not as important as the process getting there.

Having the liberty to create absolutely anything you want is what every designer wants, but it's also quite daunting. To wrap my head around this, I created my own parameters to work within: the locality of production, the feel and texture of materials, the limitations of my factories — all of these things play into the vision of Makr.

It's also worth noting that Makr is based out of Orlando, FL - probably not one of the first places you'd assume a high end leather shop would be. If the product or the process aren't inspiring (they should be) then maybe the location will be.

Phenomenal work as usual... be sure to watch the video as well.

The above image is from NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Spirit capturing the sunset as seen from the surface of Mars. Granted, the image is from 2005 and, quite possibly, old news to many of you but it was new to me. It gives me a strange feeling to see something so familiar from a place so utterly far away. In the good way.

Inge Jacobson executes a number of artistic styles consisting of needlepoint, embroidery and custom cross-stitch - many times resulting in works of art that look like low color level gifs. You can see a great deal of these works here and here. My affections are torn between the full conversion pieces and these overlaid stitches - which put out nice diametrically opposing views.

via.

• Smart Lencioni Image Resizer - resizing images on the fly isn't a new concept by any means but SLIR seems to do it with some robust grace that could come in handy. The built in caching is crucial and well implemented.
• BRICSS - a simple responsive design test page that creates four iframes with your content inside. Conceptually, it seems super handy. In practice, I've yet to really work it into my standard flow.

The name Wayne White may not ring any immediate mental bells but if spend 2 minutes with his portfolio you'll realize you are likely wildly familiar with his work - particularly his involvement with Pee-Wee's Playhouse. The new documentary, Beauty Is Embarrassing , seems to be a phenomenal look at the life and work of Mr. White. Just watch the trailer and you'll be entirely on board to learn more about the antics of such an inspiring and diverse artist.

Awhile back I shared a pet project of mine called MobileEats aimed at taking Twitter geo-data and plotting it on a Google Map. It seemed like a no-brainer of an idea to connect mobile food vendors with customers by letting them know where they are. Since the first launch I have overhauled the look and feel of the site to be more conducive to a single screen browsing experience and learned a lot about building a "web app" along the way.

However, I have run into a very serious problem. Mobile food vendors in Nashville, apparently, don't understand how to use GeoData in their tweets. Of the 38 Trucks the site monitors, only two of them regularly post with geodata and one of those does so haphazardly. Without the geodata, the site is pretty useless. So, I'm left with two choices: re-code the site to send Twitter data through a series of hoops involving Google Calendar, GeoData Mapping and GeoLocation Requests (good looking out from Dale Liszka on that solution) OR just try the system out with a different city where the vendors are maybe a little more educated on how to press that "Share Location" button when they send out updates.

It's super disappointing that this didn't work as expected right out of the gate but given that it's a pet project not meant to generate any income, I can't be too bummed. So, I'm looking for another city to try this out on. I'm skeptical to go with a well established scene like LA or Portland but it's likely that those vendors know how to harness the geodata better.

TL:DR: there's a new looking version of MobileEats but the map plotting is fairly useless due to lack of geolocation data being included in tweets. What city should I try next or should I just ditch the whole thing?

Photographer Antonio Bolfo was busy working as an animator on Playstation games when he realized he was bored and wanted to make a difference - so he quit and became a cop. Kind of a nutty story in and of itself but the best part is that while on the beat he brought along his camera and documented his experiences. This NYTimes Gallery has a good sampling of his work (lots more on his official site). It's great to get a Behind The Scenes look at a job that's, for most of us, is pretty difficult to imagine having.

HT Jeremy.

These days, immersive Flash experiences are few and far between - particularly impressive ones. So, when Ro-Bros came through my inbox I was skeptical. However, after watching the Intro I was engaged. The site asks you to queue up as a spectator or active visitor and fight robots against one another in real time. Even if you never see an actual fight taking place (I've yet to catch one) it's fun to see the transitions between sections and how Real Art took advantage of using Flash.

Found myself very intrigued by the iUI Framework over the weekend. The implementation looks simple and the results, from the screenshots, look incredibly native to iOS devices. My experience with other frameworks has proven to be less than stellar. On the whole, I think a framework is a bad way to go and you're much better off using proper Responsive Techniques but it's always good to stay educated and know what's out there - you never know when a project is going to come along that might be perfect for such a thing. Anyone used iUI and have an opinion?