First and foremost, view this image larger and marvel at its contents. Is it fake? More than likely. Is it possible that it's part of a Russian program to transpose dog heads on to robotic fighter drones? You better believe that's what I'm going with.
These days the only mentions you really hear of major labels is usually about how badly they are flailing and falling into obscurity. That may be true but the recent redesign of Atlantic Records is certainly worth a look. The homepage is an onslaught of information but it's divided up in such a way that you can still consume it fairly easily. They've also gone to great lengths to engage the social media aspect of things - integrating Twitter posts along with their news and hiding Facebook Like buttons just about everywhere. The interiorpages are a bit more simplified but every bit as well designed. I'm not really sold on the banner ads being integrated throughout (seems a little desperate) but, I suppose, every additional penny helps them at this point.
Between 1914 and 1917 a group of explorers set off on what would be known as the 'Endurance' voyage, though originally called the British Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition. Sir Ernest Shackleton led the way on this journey to make the first land crossing of the Antarctic and brought along photographer Frank Hurley to document the occasion. The images are phenomenal - especially when you consider that Hurley had to salvage the photographic plates by extracting them from the ice-water that filled the ship when it sank in October of 1915. Sadly, only 150 of the 550 total plates were carried along but the story of their survival is fascinating. Take some time to read through it all some time.
The above image may look like a detailed pixel art project documenting the Chinese landscape but, in fact, it is an actual screenshot of China's equivalent to Google Maps - Baidu Maps. In order to control what is and isn't shown, they've opted to depict several major cities in alarmingly detailed pixel art. Assuming you don't read Chinese, follow these instructions to get to the goods and then marvel at how ridiculously far you can zoom in. I am basically wordless over this.. it's too good for words; even if it was deployed as a means of censorship.
Looks like A Bajillion Hits has partnered up with IFC to create a video guide to making the most out of SXSW. As absurd as the video is, it is also sadly accurate. I won't be in Austin for the Interactive portion of the festival but for anyone that is - please head down to Stratlandia.. it should be ridiculous.
Park Officials at the Ujung Kulon National Park in Indonesia setup a series of motion cameras in hopes to capture footage of the Javan Rhinoceros - a breed of rhino that is suspected to have a total population of less than 100 (possibly closer to 50) worldwide. The park officials succeeded in their mission and you can watch the footage here. The video itself isn't especially compelling - some rhino's eating - but the fact that there are so few of these beasts still in existence today makes it a remarkable thing to behold.
The work of Matei Apostolescu is not, seemingly, the sort of thing I usually spend much time with but I can't help but be blown away by the sheer amount of intricate detail found in every piece. There are a load of styles and the portfolio is massive.. so be sure to click around or you'll miss gems like theseguys.
How This 19-Year-Old is Taking on Google - nice article on Daniel Gross and his Greplin project - specifically, how it came to be and where he's going with it. Interestingly enough, he's actually not taking on Google - contrary to the headline - and wishes to stay nuetral; as it provides the easiest access to all the data.
Firefox 4 to be the last big release - nice writeup on why Mozilla is going to stop doing desktop style download & distribute for the future of Firefox; so it stays more nimble and able to roll out features much more quickly. Fingers crossed this doesn't mean more bloat but I like all browsers adopting a Chrome style update scheme; keeps us from having another IE6 fiasco on our hands.
Famous Objects from Classic Movies is a well done take on the classic game of Hangman. You are presented with a silhouetted object and must guess the title of the movie it comes from. Sometimes it's easy, sometimes it's not (though rarely is it impossible). It's a worthy distraction for your day.
Did you know that Silent Uproar keeps a repository of streaming albums? I did not but am glad to stumble upon an easy resource for finding / previewing new releases. There's actually way too much to listen to in a given day but it's still nice to know it's there when you need it.
Ever wondered what it would look like if you took every frame of a film and squeezed into one canvas? Movie Barcode answers your inquiries. It actually makes for a pretty nice abstract art piece - the kind of thing I could see a movie nerd have hanging on their wall.
Can good design make the difference when it comes to choosing a bank? Bank Simple seems to think so and this article does a good job of breaking down just how they're going about it. I am curious to see how they'll operate only as a customer service layer and not an actual bank - with results expected better than your average bank. Seems like there is a slight disconnect in thinking there. Regardless, it looks nice and slick.. so I'd like to check it out. via Dolan.
Need a place holder image? Use PlaceKitten to generate dynamically sized kitten images. Need I say more?
I'm always a fan of the pasts view of the future - particularly when you go as far back as 1910. This gallery shows a number of absurd scenarios that should be in full practice today but, more interestingly, it shows a number of situations that actually do exist, just maybe without the same 1910 flair.
Great intro video from One Year Study and Public School for the TEDxAustin events. It's nice to see TED Talks trickling down to the community level and Austin seems like a perfect place for these sorts of inspired talks. If the discussions are half as quality as that video; good things will certainly spring forth.
I dare someone to deem Animals on the Underground anything short of entirely adorable. Finding line drawings of animals within the infogrid of subway maps is a commendable undertaking usually left to childhood doodling. I'm glad to see artist Paul Middlewick didn't let go of that ability to discover the hidden gems within the goods all around us.
According to this announcement there will be a whole slew of custom brand top level domains coming to our Internets in the not-so-distant future. I'm not entirely surprised by such a thing but I am perplexed if it will make sites easier or more difficult to remember. Will IBM be ibm.ibm? Apple becomes apple.apple? Should be an interesting development regardless.
If you were unaware, the popular Instagram app has pretty much no website.. it's really just a launch pad to get you to download the app and navigate from within there forever after. Thanks to Joshua Inkenbrandt and his Instagram API Playground - that is not so much true anymore. He's created a fully functioning web presence that allows you to do just about everything.. except actually make a new post. Granted, that's a large part of the app but its unbelievably convenient to be able to get permalinks, possibly save images and browse submissions without the use of the app. I can only imagine this is the exact sort of thing Instagram was betting on happening by not having a website.. let some eager developer show off his skills and just procure it! Go try it out.
Leave it to John Baldwin to inform me of the oddest and most intriguing nuggets of random information such as the CIA project Acoustic Kitty in which scientists actually embedded spy equipment inside of a cat so that it could eavesdrop unsuspectingly on Communists. The details are absurd - spending roughly $20 million to create a cyborg animal that was, sadly, hit by a car on its way to its first mission. A colossal failure on the whole but a trivial piece of information bound to be worth having in your arsenal.
It will be impossible to ever top the greatness of Baby trashes bar in Las Palmas so if you're looking for the highest in YouTube entertainment, just revisit that. If you're okay with less than that, here is this weeks playlist.
Moonshoes - Boogieland - I'm calling it right now - feel good video of the year, right here. I can watch it over and over and it makes the day better every time. via Jamie.
Pink Armadillo Attack - the Japanese do things I will never understand.. and I never want to. via Chad.
Skull Trumpet - the entertainment value to length of video ratio here is off the charts. 1 second is all you get but it packs the biggest punch.
ET Sequel: ET-X - the horror angle is ridiculous but the editing work is phenomenal. Who knew Henry Thomas was in so many other movies that could be used for this purpose?? Ridiculous.
I think it's safe to say that Roger Ibars has a passion for video game controller technology. His HWD Corporation collection spans a mind-boggling set of devices from any conceivable number of consoles. The craziest part? All of them have been rewired to alarm clocks with the native controls set to the functionality of the controller itself. Breathes new life into that Power Glove, eh?
While you're checking all that out be sure to check out the Joystick-ables and Self-made objects animations.. they have a compellingly unique style.
