These are just records of things or sites I think are important, interesting, funny or both. Therefore, if you have a little time in your hands at lunch break or when you get home just relax, sit down and have a look.
Moon is a film directed by Duncan Jones, starring Sam Rockwell, Matt Berry, Robin Chalk, Dominique McElligott and Kevin Spacey as the robot. Sam Bell (Sam Rockwell) is finishing his contract with Lunar Industries, which operates a mining operation on the far side of the moon. Using automated mining machines, the company mines Helium-3, a precious gas that holds the key to reversing the Earth's energy crisis (wouldn't that come in hand?). He has been a faithful employee for three long years at Selene, a moon base where he has spent his days alone. While there, he only has a robot Gerty (Kevin Spacey) to keep him company. I had a peek at the trailer and at the synopsis but for people who like sci-fi movies like I do, seems to be a good film. Also with the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing having happened so recently, there couldn’t be a more fitting time to revisit the Moon.
If you like popular science this site is for you. Interesting, informative and full of novelties. There are lots of surveys in which you can for instance get a brain sex profile to find out if you think like a man or a woman or you can also find out why scientists are interested in the length of your fingers.
One Canadian is hoping to de-stress the world, one can at a time. Lino Fleury has created what is known as the anti-energy drink. Slow Cow is packaged like the popular Red Bull energy drink, but it has the opposite effect: "It's a balm that soothes people and takes the edge off stress," says Fleury. Under the premise that caffeine-packed drinks tend to increase anxiety, Slow Cow contains theanine, chamomile, valerian, passiflora and other ingredients known for their calming effects. This drink is meant to increase mental awareness while improving relaxation, without the post-effects that caffeine and other stimulants cause. Slow Cow, whose logo apparently did not amuse Red Bull, might have found a gap in a market saturated with energy drinks of every possible variety. I want to try it!
Life would be hard without this engineer's guide to cats. All you need to know to deal with your cat from corporal cuddling to collaborative low energy cardboard performance art. A must see.
Here is a great idea to sell stuff. The SomethingStore is a website that operates simply: They will send you something, an item selected randomly among many things from their inventory, for $10 and you will find out what your something is when you receive it! You might get lucky and receive a neat present (like a magazine subscription) or you might just get stuff you don't really need (like a set of shiny shower curtains). Anyway $10 seems like a fair price to pay for a surprise, don't you think?
How hard is it to break with our clicking habits? What happens, if we remove the essential element of navigation from an interface, which we are accustomed to? Does it change our behaviour of navigation? And is change good or does it suck? These are some of the questions which will be answered by the project don't click it. It took me a while to get used to but after a while I was already into it (sort of...)
According to the Greenpeace site, Japan is still the whales’ enemy number one. Japan has aggressively expanded its “scientific” whaling over the past five years and pushed for an end to the ban on commercial whaling. Figures provided by Japan also show that almost a third of the whales Japan harpooned in the Antarctic last summer were pregnant, making a mockery of its “scientific” program.I know this probably won't solve the problem but it's a noble initiative and it's fun! All you have to do is customise your own whale (you can choose from a different set of colours, textures, props and sounds) and send it to japan with a personal message. After having designed your whale you can track her and spread the idea by sending an invite to your friends. Mine is already out there!
Robin Sloan (generalist writer and web-worker in San Francisco) has produced an original flash online movie for the Museum of Media History which predicts the evolution of media from 1984 up until 2014 and how newsmasters will eventually claim their territory. In this fictional narrative, the ‘Evolving Personalized Information Construct’ (known as EPIC) Sloan describes the system by which our sprawling, chaotic mediascape is filtered, ordered and delivered. Everyone will contribute – from blog entries, to phone-cam images, to video reports, to full investigations. Many people will get paid to contribute by Googlezon (which will be a fusion between google and amazon). It was interesting to watch this thought provoking prediction of a not so far away future. You can also see the updated version (2015), which is basically the same movie with a few updates.
I don't really know how I am going to feel when Clint Eastwood is gone, but I am guessing I will be devastated. Clint is unique and irreplaceable. One feels like everything would be less interesting if he were not involved and things that could easily be sentimental in other hands turn into something human when he is involved. This is one of his latest films and as usual it mirrors Clint's intelligence, strenght, character and heart. I have seen it twice already (both at the cinema and at home) and it has - made my day! - Just out of curiosity, the Gran Torino song was written by Clint Eastwood himself, Jamie cullum, Michael Stevens and Kyle Eastwood (Clint's son who just happens to be a Jazz musician!)
Recently I was chatting with a friend of mine and was telling him that I loved stand-up-comedy (or any kind of good comedy). It's not easy to find but it's out there!Flight of the Conchords is a Grammy award-winning mighty folk comedy duo from New Zealand composed of Bret McKenzie (on the left) and Jemaine Clement (on the right). They describe themselves as "Formerly New Zealand's fourth most popular guitar-based digi-bongo acapella-rap-funk-comedy folk duo", and I can tell you that they are so incredibly fun you will not want to stop watching. I'm a huge fan! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGoi1MSGu64 (the humans are dead) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLJ5a6aJOb8(ladies of the world)
Sitting down for a chat with a total stranger is not something we generally do but can now be just a click away. All you have to do is go to omegle and not even the usual registration is required. Afterwards you are thrown into a two-way conversation with a complete stranger on the Net. You can't be identified as there are no defining features in the chat that could give away your age, race, sex, country of origin or whatever. So there you go! You can anonymously have a conversation with someone about whatever you want without any bias. You can't have the same experience twice but you can feel secure as you can hit the disconnect button if you're harassed or spammed. The founder of Omegle is Leif K-Brooks and he is (if you can imagine!) only 18 years old. He is currently finishing his senior year of high school and is planning to go to college next year to major in computer science.
Lois Greenfield was born in 1949 and is a photographer who is famous for her ability of capturing the human body in motion. I found her by chance on the internet, thought her photos were somehow poetic and was very curious about her work. According to wikipedia, she has been compared with Eadweard Muybridge for exploration of human locomotion, and with Henri Cartier-Bresson for capturing the elusive moment. Make sure you also check her bodyscapes here.
I would love to watch all these incredible conferences live but I must confess that having access to them online is already a priviledge. Ted Talks are simply addictive. Here are but just a few of my favourite ones (which by the way you can download to your iPod or laptop).
I was amazed when I read about the self timing egg...and it all started to happen in 2006. Here's the deal: the egg goes into your pan as normal and when it is perfectly cooked a Lion logo appears as if by magic. As if this wasn't enough, associated to this brand there is also a British Egg Information Service. Apparently they have been inundated with questions, so many that they have decided to eliminate the problem for good. The self-timing egg has got heat-sensitive invisible ink that turns black the minute that the egg is ready. Now all you need to do is decide whether you prefer your eggs soft, medium or hard-boiled, and buy them from British Lion Eggs.It never crossed my mind that boiling an egg could be that hard...really!
Love letters is a very original project developed by Asia Wong. These are not classical love letters and they don't deal with pre-programed words or feelings. They are not solely addressed to lovers but also to friends, crushes, family, strangers and acquaintances. Some letters are just normal or even a bit banal, but there are others which are surprising, interesting, insightful, funny and clever. They are organized by colours so one can see who the letter is addressed to. Many people have got several letters, according to the importance of the relationship in a given time - Check it out.
Meanwhile I found another similar project - The mysterious Letters- which kind of relates to the love letters. I am not sure which came first but I like to think none of them did. History repeats itself and many times we have an original idea which is being reproduced somewhere else at that very instant. Mysterious Letters is a collaboration between artists Lenka Clayton and Michael Crowe who sent a personal, handwritten letter to each of the 467 households in the small Irish seaside town of Cushendall. All the letters were different in form and content. The artists hoped that these beautiful unsolicited letters would prompt neighbourly discussion that would spread across the town, promoting community curiosity. The art work consists solely of the discussion between the recipients about what on Earth these letters are, who sent them and why, etc...
Arrogance: The best leaders inspire by example. When that's not an option, brute intimidation works pretty well, too.
Despair, Inc is a company from Austin, Texas, that produces posters and souvenirs that satirise corporate habitats and life in general. Their work became famous for their dark, humurous and ironic demotivator items. In 2000, Despair, Inc. obtained a registered trademark in the USA for the well-known emoticon :-( when used on greeting cards, posters and art prints (actually, they once held a press conference stating that they would sue anyone who would dare to use it on emails too :)
What age do you appear to be? Old enough to buy beer? To be called "Ma'am" or "Sir"? To get special discounts? You can get an "objective" answer (depending on the pic you submit) by adding your photo to The Age Project. After having registered and having sent a picture you can also write a small sentence about what you've learnt until now and send your friends an email to join the fun. This site has also got potencial for people interested in face/body analysis.
It’s a pitty that not all charitable organizations can be as fun and educational as FREERICE. Freerice is a word game. For each correct answer, the site’s administrators donate 10 grains of rice to the UN World Food Program. If you don't think playing with words is that funny, you can also tell the game to give you questions about famous paintings, chemical symbols, world capitals and more. Besides being entertaining it made me feel good :) Perfect for a rainy day!
Moon is a film directed by Duncan Jones, starring Sam Rockwell, Matt Berry, Robin Chalk, Dominique McElligott and Kevin Spacey as the robot. Sam Bell (Sam Rockwell) is finishing his contract with Lunar Industries, which operates a mining operation on the far side of the moon. Using automated mining machines, the company mines Helium-3, a precious gas that holds the key to reversing the Earth's energy crisis (wouldn't that come in hand?). He has been a faithful employee for three long years at Selene, a moon base where he has spent his days alone. While there, he only has a robot Gerty (Kevin Spacey) to keep him company. I had a peek at the trailer and at the synopsis but for people who like sci-fi movies like I do, seems to be a good film. Also with the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing having happened so recently, there couldn’t be a more fitting time to revisit the Moon.
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