Someone should order some of these for me. A healthy clone of Dippin' Dots? Sign me up.

Labels: cool

This is just too cool.

Labels: cool

Dear mom/other family members/generous friends,

You can cheer me up by buying me one of these for Christmas. Who wouldn't love a 6-foot-tall aquarium tower in the corner of their living room? :)

Labels: cool

Points to Cris for pointing me to Kina Grannis. Grannis is a "Web 2.0" musician, someone who has embraced the Internet as a component of her art rather than simply a way to distribute it. While she has released a few CDs to iTunes, her biggest presence is on YouTube, where she releases a new homemade video each week, featuring either an original song or a cover and concluding with several minutes of "video blog," where she updates her fans on what's going on in her life, answers questions and rambles in general. The effect is that her music and personality come packaged together, in addition to spotlighting a path that is open to any aspiring musician.

Cris likes her Death Cab for Cutie cover, while I'm partial to the one above. She also did a Sarah cover that is pretty good.

Labels: cool, internet, music, wonder

WARNING: The following link contains nudity and is not work-friendly. Repeat, nudity, not work-friendly. Also, possibly not "my mother"-friendly, although maybe it will help her understand my artistic nude portfolio better (but I gave you the warning ahead of time in case you don't want to look anyway, mom).

Jordan Matter is a New York-based photographer who did a just splendid series of photos that I Stumbled upon last night. The series portrays a variety of "real" (not paid fashion models) women topless in New York (where apparently it's a little-known secret that such is legal) with commentary either from the women themselves or from the discussions of the people interacting around the shoot. The topics range from the unrealistic expectations of feminine beauty in American society to breast feeding to breast cancer and mastectomies to growing old without being discarded. The pictures show a world where women are women regardless of their body dimensions and are accepted for being individuals instead of objects, a world where nudity does not equal sexuality (in fact, one of the opening quotes is "In the city, nudity means something. In the wild, it just exists."). I think Mr. Matter came pretty close to knocking Lois Greenfield off as my favorite professional photographer with his synthesis of art and human commentary, something I've tried to express in my own portfolio.

Just as a reminder, this site contains nudity.

Uncovered, by Jordan Matter.

Labels: art, cool, photography, wonder

I need a bookshelf like this. I wonder what they cost?

Labels: cool

The Large Hadron Collider went online today. We're all still here. This is a big step for science and I'm looking forward to seeing the results of the first battery of experiments.

I was, however, somewhat dismayed in parts of the article that described the achievement. "The organization began firing the protons - a type of subatomic particle - around the tunnel in stages less than an hour earlier." It concerns me that the media thinks (and could possibly be correct) that the average reader doesn't know what a proton is (although to be honest if you don't know what a proton is, describing it as a "type of subatomic particle" probably isn't going to help much). Bleh to poor science education.

Labels: cool, science, social commentary

To most people, the lines of code that make up a computer program are meaningless symbols. To make computer threats more "personal," digital artist Alex Dragulescu has used the code of a variety of viruses and spyware programs to render unique three-dimensional images that add a "face" to the programs' names. His next project, an even more interesting venture, will use a person's blog and other online projects to create a three-dimensional "picture" of that person's online life.

Labels: art, computers, cool, internet

New iMacs debuted today!

*counting pennies in his closet*

Labels: computers, cool

In the sun, that is. People can quit teasing me about my stunning vampire-like complexion and OCD-esque avoidance of sunlight now. It's bad for you, all around. :P I'll get my Vitamin D from my food.

On a completely unrelated note (although also gleaned from the morass known formally as "the Internet"), this is fantastic. Pachelbel would have loved it.

And on yet another completely unrelated (and extremely geeky) note, Harley sent me this today. I'd imagine "steampunk" isn't a term familiar to the majority of the audience, but it's one of my favorite fiction genres (a fact easily gleaned from my near-obsession with the Myst game series and Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura).

Labels: amusement, cool, internet

Other than helping you move bodies, of course.

From the eccentric explorations that consume Cris's day comes the ridiculous and yet fantastically entertaining concept of blending random objects. My personal favorite is the dozen glow sticks, but I have to admit the neodymium magnets were very cool as well (nothing like a magnetic powder to play with). The light bulbs were interesting, too, but my fear of silicosis is too great to appreciate it on the same level as the glow sticks, and as much as Lisa likes Coke slushies I doubt she's going to let me make them with an entire unopened Coke can . . .

Tim earned 5 "friend points" (redeemable for cool gifts and prizes!) by linking me to XKCD, which is just esoteric enough that those of us "in the know" can't help but chuckle while those with real social lives look on in a puzzled blend of pity and incomprehension. Escher bracelets! Recursive daydreaming! And Schrodinger's Cat references! I think Lisa was slightly disturbed when I confessed that this actually happens to me (I know it's an inanimate object, but it seems like it's being friendly!). And at the risk of offending all of my friends who happen to have MySpace pages (not my "MySpace friends," per se, as my pretentiousness disallows communication through such a coarse medium), I would like to thank the artist for putting in pictures what I've tried to put politely in words to every single person who has ever linked me to a MySpace page (embedded MIDIs sucked a decade ago; adding words to them hasn't made them any less annoying).

Tim also earned 1 bonus "friend point" because I found another comic I liked through the one he sent me. Anything featuring a sarcastic, witty (yet secretly good-hearted) main character with a penchant for making jokes about her ample posterior has got to be written for me. (We just won't even go into the extra points for sword references.) The fact that I spent the last 5 hours reading this strip and secretly wondering if women like this exist in Omaha is probably a sign I need a better social life.

Labels: amusement, cool, quantum mechanics

I realize this is a significantly sharp contrast to the previous post, but the majority of these fall into the Keanu-esque "whoa!" category rather than the always-charming "Wow, she's hot!" grouping, and thus the distinction (at least in my warped little world). I have a particular fascination with this one (although oddly enough no one I've asked has been willing to pour a gallon of paint on him/herself to mimic the photo . . .).

Labels: cool

This is both disconcerting and fascinating at the same time (and the music is kind of addictive).

Labels: amusement, cool

While the origin of the phrase in the title has apparently been lost to time, I'm going to use it anyway. I also have some relatively large videos of the twins walking which will probably be of little interest to those who haven't actually met them.

Labels: annoyance, cool, photography, twins