One of many neat projects from avoision, this ‘video‘ (featuring music by Dan Frick) pulls random images from flikr that have the song lyrics as tags. It’s different every time.

Interesting diagram on the left, of the worlds oldest trees. The list is dominated by tree colonies, which, in my opinion, aren’t as sweet as single ancient trees. The oldest single tree on record is a bristlecone pine named Prometheus, which we cut down, of course. However, Prometheus is survived by another bristlecone named Methusela, which currently occupies top spot on the oldest-single-living-thing chart at about five thousand years. It’s location is secret, but it probably looks like the bristlecone pictured above, and if I were hiking along and found THAT tree, I would definitely guess that it was special. Whether I’d guess it was older than the pyramids…

Production stills from David Bell, for his upcoming stop motion movie Illumin. I think high detail models are a really sweet size, though miniaturized versions, they’re still too big to really be kept as decoration, like you would a figurine or doll house. Anything that size and quality wasn’t made for consumers, and has probably been involved in something sweet.

Pictured above is a portrait of Charles Darwin and, beside it, a version that I made on my computer. Actually, it would be more accurate to say that my computer made it for me; the picture on the right was evolved using a program written by artist/scientist Steve DiPaola. The program is part of his research into computer creativity, which is, as the name implies, an effort to make computers creative. Evolving Darwin’s Gaze is described in an excellent set of videos, and also on its website, where you can evolve your own set of portraits.

Two awesome adventure-roleplaying board games from the 90s. One of which has become a critically acclaimed movie, the other a song so bad that I’ve been prohibited from linking it. These were the board games of my youth, and they’re still rad. A couple of miniature monsters and a cheesy fantasy story are more than enough for an imaginative mind. If you’re having trouble add a couple flashlights for spooky facial lighting.

Note: The game master (the kid who plays the role of the bad guys) in HeroQuest is called Zardon, also the name of the player’s character in missile command.

Although I think these cutouts are computer generated, the idea of shading a 2d drawing with real shadows is sweet. More work here.

Read this. It’s a Discover magazine article about sensory substitution. I read it when it first came out and it led me to study psychology. It’s a good example of the level of detail present in Discover’s articles, which are short enough that you can get through the magazine in a few hours. The only downside of a healthy Discover habit is the urge to constantly spout science factoids, which, depending on the company you keep, will either make you a social pariah (me in high school) or, if you hang out with the writers of Convoke, normal.

If I could recommend one magazine, it would be Discover.

Did anyone know that people were doing this? Frameless glasses may correct one of your senses, but magnetic implants actually give you a new sense altogether. A little magnet is implanted into the tip of your finger so that you can sense EM fields and pick up small magnetic objects. It’s body modification, not medicine, and carries with it the risk of infection or rejection, but still… how cool would it be to have an extra sense?

The Morning News put up a photo series by Paul Virilio featuring WWII bunkers along the French coast.