January 2011
27 posts
5 tags
Leave the libraries alone. You don’t understand...
Best-selling author Philip Pullman spoke to a packed meeting on 20 January 2011, called to defend Oxfordshire libraries. He gave this inspirational speech. You don’t need me to give you the facts. Everyone here is aware of the situation. The government, in the Dickensian person of Mr Eric Pickles, has cut the money it gives to local government, and passed on the responsibility for...
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Further uses for Granny: Council to heat swimming...
A council is proposing to save money – and combat global warming – by heating a leisure centre and swimming pool using heat generated by the crematorium next door. Redditch council in Worcestershire says it can save £14,500 a year by warming its new Abbey Stadium sports centre with heat from the crematorium’s incinerators that would otherwise be lost. via guardian.co.uk Bravo Redditch! ...
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US Government Officials Admit That They Lied About...
You may recall that when Wikileaks released those thousands of documents on the Afghan war, the official US government position was that it should be shamed for putting lives in danger and “compromising intelligence sources and methods.” It was only months later that Defense Secretary Robert Gates admitted no such thing was true. We’re now seeing the same thing with the State...
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Following the instructions despite the absurdity:...
via nydailynews.com Sometimes a situationist worldview just leaps up slaps you around the face and starts singing My Favourite Things in your left ear. A can is being compelled to report for jury duty in Boston. Sal Esposito was entered as a pet on the 2010 census. It seems the pet bit got past the Massachusetts court and they sent Sal a notice to report for jury duty. When the Espositos...
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Data storage and consumption timeline from 2000 to...
via rackspacecloud.com The price drop is just stunning from more than $19.70 in 2001 to less than 6 cents per GB today. Cost has almost certainly been driven down by demand as an average US household consumes 3.6 zettabytes of data a year. That’s three trillion six hundred billion gigabytes. Which is quite a lot really. Posted via email from Mad With Glee | Comment »
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Deconstructing Disney characters: The forms that...
via rainbowmonkey.de In the project “The Rainbowmonkey - and the Gaps of Surprise” Markus Hofko breaks the faces of Disney characters down into their component parts. It’s a bit like looking at a flatpack version and fun to reconstruct them in your imagination. Posted via email from Mad With Glee | Comment »
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Starbucks new iced drink cup has a larger capacity...
via laughingsquid.com Is it possible that selling people sugary drinks in containers with a capacity greater than their stomachs might encourage obesity? Presumably there will be a companion size container in the Starbucks branded vomitorium too. Posted via email from Mad With Glee | Comment »
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Virtual ambulance chasing: Access to Google and a...
Boing Boing has been on the receiving end of one or two stupid legal threats in our day but this one from the firm of Lazar, Akiva & Yagoubzadeh takes the cake, the little cake topper, the frosting and all the candles, as well as the box and the cake-stand and the ornamental forks. Back in July, I posted about the research on the academic advantage some people with autism...
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Patrice Lumumba was assassinated 50 years ago...
Patrice Lumumba became the first prime minister of the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 1960, and was killed in 1961. Photograph: EPA Patrice Lumumba, the first legally elected prime minister of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), was assassinated 50 years ago today, on 17 January, 1961. This heinous crime was a culmination of two inter-related...
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Make it better, a typographical animation
via vimeo.com I like typography and I quite like animation. I wonder if I’m turning into a cypto optimist too? Posted via email from Mad With Glee | Comment »
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What To Do When the Mic Goes Out: Lend a helping...
via neatorama.com I’m not generally into videos of cute kids, but this isn’t really about that. This young lady was doing a great job singing the US national anthem, which is no mean feat it’s a beast of a song to sing well, when the mic died on her. What happened next is charming. People are nice and that’s a good thing. Posted via email from Mad With...
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Clever, beautiful and fun: PrimoGraf Drawing...
via leafpdx.bigcartel.com This thing is wonderful. It’s not cheap but then a lot of work has gone into making it. It comes with seven prime number based gears and two sets of rods. They claim an infinite number of drawings can be made with it. I think that is probably not true, but I’d be happy to be proved wrong. Whatever the actual capabilities the results are lovely and the...
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Some artefacts of the old New York still poke...
via scoutingny.com Scouting New York tells a lovely story of this sign on the fringes of Times Square. The hotel still exists and is as seedy as ever. It seems time and money pile layers of glitz on the city but little bits of the framework still show through. Posted via email from Mad With Glee | Comment »
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Larry Bell rebutted point by point: Climate change...
via realclimate.org Real Climate take Larry Bell to task for his Forbes article “Hot Sensations Vs Cold Facts”. Bell presents a lot of quick hit attacks on climate change but only a small amount of digging puts doubt on all of them. If you’re going to make fact based arguments know your facts. Posted via email from Mad With Glee | Comment »
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The Presidential Ham: It didn't exist so someone...
via presidentialham.com Portraits of all the US Presidents holding hams by the enigmatic Bijijoo. The whole gallery is a bit unsettling but the project is a glorious congregation of whimsy. Bravo! Posted via email from Mad With Glee | Comment »
The Presidential Ham - by bijijoo
via presidentialham.com Posted via email from Mad With Glee | Comment »
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If only this were a product: Mies van der Rohe...
via edwardlifson.blogspot.com T. Oechsner has created Farnsworth House in Lego and mocked up this lovely box. I hope that Lego take the hint and create a series of these. Posted via email from Mad With Glee | Comment »
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Pedocouture: In Vogue magazine, 6-year-olds are...
via boingboing.net As a leaving gift to French Vogue Carine Roitfeld gives them a Tom Ford spread of child models posing just like the grown ups do in Vogue. The result is deeply disturbing. The child in the image above is six. Perhaps this is just an over-monied version of dress-up but the degree of sexualisation is disturbing. I suppose many of Vogue’s usual models are pretty young too...
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33.3 art show: Album covers reimagined by artists
via cargocollective.com As with all projects like this some parts are better than others, Pet Sounds is amazingly wonderful. It is interesting to use this as a way of noting how our tastes in graphic design and cultural reference have changed over time. Posted via email from Mad With Glee | Comment »
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This third way thing is getting silly: New measure...
via reuters.com There is a proposal to introduce the “schooner” or 2/3 of a pint as a measure in British pubs. So as well as a pint and a half-pint we would also have the option of 2/3 of a pint. I suppose choice is no bad thing but it all seems unnecessarily complicated. I know we cling to traditions in the UK but our current drinks measures legislation was introduced in 1698....
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Warrantless cell phone search gets a green light...
via arstechnica.com In California a fellow arrested in 2007 has just had his appeal to have crucial evidence gathered from his cellphone ruled inadmissible thrown out. This means that if you are arrested in CA the police have the right to rummage about in your digital life on any devices you have on your person at the time of arrest. In 2007 they were after text messages three years on...
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US Is Left Waiting For Godot On Public Domain Day:...
US Is Left Waiting For Godot On Public Domain Day: Once Again, Absolutely Nothing Enters The Public Domain This Yearfrom the what-public-domain dept Every January 1st is supposed to be “Public Domain Day,” in which all works published in a certain year move into the public domain. And while some parts of the world get to celebrate Public Domain Day this year with the freeing of...
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How Would You Like Your Graphic Design? A venn...
via colinharman.com The key is that you may only pick two sets. Posted via email from Mad With Glee | Comment »
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Geeks play games just not sports: The story of the...
via articles.latimes.com Caltech students hacked the Washington State card display routine at the 1961 Rose Bowl. There was quite a bit to the jape and even some lock-picking required. A famous case of geeky one-upmanship. Posted via email from Mad With Glee | Comment »
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2000 Vs. 2010: How the world has changed
via io9.com Internet and cellphone use are rising fast and natural disasters are more deadly and expensive. The movie box office figures don’t interest me in comparison. Perhaps if there was more data on entertainment consumption it would be more interesting. Posted via email from Mad With Glee | Comment »
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Jeepers creepers where'd you get those peepers:...
via behance.net Suren Manvelyan is a photographer and physics teacher who has taken a lovely series of macro images of human eyes. We are beautiful machines. Posted via email from Mad With Glee | Comment »
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Avoid the East side of town (in the Northern...
via thejanuarist.com It seems that in the northern hemisphere the majority of cities have poorer areas of town located to the East. This may be due to prevailing westerly winds in much the northern hemisphere. This would drive air pollution to the East making that side of town less fragrant. More money equals more choice and that leaves its imprint on our cities over time. Posted via...