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Brazilian street art. Awesome.
Batman and Robin.
Castor.
Donut.
Elephant.
Fish.
Ice Cream Cone.
Lighter.
Lincoln with top hat.
Matchbox.
Pharaoh.
Ski.
Review of the Apple Store app from Touch Arcade, a blog focused on the latest in iPhone gaming.
WikiHunt is an app which can be downoaded for $0.99 from the Aple Store is perfect for anyone who, like myself, has spent (see: wasted) several hours reading random articles on Wikipedia. The premise behind the game is quite simple: WikiHunt provides a start and and an end article and you try to find articles linking them together, in as few clicks as possible.
The game allows both a completely random version, and a custom version wherein the user chooses the start or end page.
From Touch Arcade;
The completely random article mode sometimes results in the two pages being so frustratingly different that you can go forever trying to link them together. You can almost always get to the Jesus article inside of a few clicks from even the most random starting article. Of course, if you get stuck, you can always view the solutions which often are extremely amusing by themselves as getting from one article to another often involves the absolute strangest links.
Wiki Hunt is surprisingly fun to play with friends, usually involving lots of shoulder surfing and arguing over whether or not you can get to the Christopher Columbusarticle by clicking through the 1950 Boston Red Sox season article or not. Also, since the game objective requires you to read each of the articles you’re clicking through to figure out how to go next, you find yourself learning all kinds of interesting facts, all while playing a game.
I really can’t believe how much more fun Wikipedia is when you add an extremely basic link searching game on top of it. If you’re a fan of reading random Wikipedia articles, you really need to give Wiki Hunt a spin.
For all those iPhone users, any thoughts? As I lack the mobile device, I can’t provide my own insight, but would like to hear your thoughts on this simple but amusing app.
-Jessie W.
From the blog of Ok Great, a “a tight-knit crew of designers, writers + artists, hell-bent on delivering the best in art, design and culture”, the following photos are of graffiti from a French artist. From the blog;
Christian Guemy (aka C215) is a seriously talented graffiti artist from France who has traveled the world spraying magic on the streets. I found his work on flickr and there is a ton of it on there. It’s cool to see all the work he’s done over the years and how his technique keeps improving. Most of the subjects in his work are from the streets themselves (homeless, refugees, street kids, etc), complimenting his gritty and powerful style.
This is Christian Guemy at work:
And this is his work:
From a translated interview (Noregewian to English, mind Google’s grammatical errors), C215 says of his choice of canvas: ” I enjoy places that have been neglected. A wall that has spent several years trying to become overgrown and worn. I try to stay away from the typical tag locations.”
And an interview from his Flickr account:
S.A.S. : Why do you paint in the streets? And why stencils?
C215 : “The streets are just my favourite gallery, I been in love with graffiti since I was a child. Sure I did draw, paint free hand, with brushes, with cans, but stencils are the best way to quick place something beautiful anywhere in the streets, without any … authorisation.”
FT: How would you define your work and what inspires you?
C215: I do stencil, realistic but stylized, that I create as a craftwork without a computer, but along with a picture. I start with a picture to end up with another, the one of my work painted outdoors, which is part of a framework while diverting it.
For an extended interview via four posts on the blog Against the Wall, go here and here and here and here.
-Jessie W.
British e-mail users with Google accounts are now able to change the end of their addresses from @googlemail.com to @gmail.com.
A five year trademark dispute meant that Google was not allowed to use the name Gmail in the UK.
In 2005 a company called Independent International Investment Research claimed it had used “Gmail” first.
Google claimed at the time that the settlement IIR asked for was “exorbitant” and dropped the name.
Within a year of launching the free e-mail service in the UK, Gmail became Google Mail.
While early adopters received a gmail.com address, all subsequent new accounts were given the suffix googlemail.com.
“Since ‘gmail’ is 50% fewer characters than ‘googlemail’ we estimate this name change will save approximately 60 million keystrokes a day,” wrote software engineer Greg Bullock on Google’s Gmail blog.
British users with Googlemail addresses will be asked whether they wish to change their address. It will not affect the settings or functionality of the accounts, Google said.
The firm is not releasing the details of the new settlement but states that the matter is “happily resolved”.
Argentinian artist Leandro Erlich created this installation, simply called The Swimming Pool, for The 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art in Kanazawa, Japan. A 10cm layer of water over a piece of glass separates above from below. It must be a pretty serious piece of glass; some back-of-the-envelope math based on the published dimensions gives 1,100 kg (2400 lbs) of water that it has to support. Plus its own weight.
From Mashable, full piece here.
Social media earned a mention in the annual White House Correspondents Dinner tonight, with President Obama quipping, ‘But even though the mainstream press gives me a hard time, I hear that I’m still pretty big on Twitter, Facebook … or as Sarah Palin calls it, the socialized media.’ [1:25 in the second clip]
As in previous years, the decline of the newspaper at the hands of free online alternatives formed part of the narrative in the humorous 20-minute monologue. Obama said of the news industry’s transition, ‘People say to me, “Mr President, you helped revive the banking industry. You’ve saved GM and Chrysler — what about the news business? I have to explain, hey, I’m just the President. I’m not a miracle worker here.”‘
The President’s closing remarks were ultimately optimistic about the state of news, online and off: ‘For all the changes and challenges facing your industry, this country absolutely needs a healthy, vibrant media. Probably needs it more than ever now. Today’s technology has made it possible for us to get our news and information from a growing range of sources; we can pick and choose not only our preferred type of media but also our preferred perspective. And while that exposes us to an unprecedented array of opinions, analysis and points of view, it also makes it that much more important that we’re all operating on a common baseline of facts … every single reporter in this room believes deeply in the enterprise of journalism.”
There’s good news, too, for the online army of Conan O’Brien supporters known as I’m With COCO — Obama was much, much funnier that the official comedy act of the night, Jay Leno.
-Jessie W.
Gary Chang, a Hong Kong archiect, has transformed his childhood home from a cramped three room bedroom apartment into a luxurious space with innovative design.
Full video explanation, check it:
-Jessie W.
From Mashable, full text here.
A new clothing-themed charitable campaign from the guys behind lucrative social media marketing exercise I Wear Your Shirt is looking to get unwanted T-shirts out of your closet and onto the backs of a million people across Kenya, Uganda, DRC, Ghana, Liberia, Mozambique, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Sudan, Swaziland and South Africa.
The 1MillionShirts project, launched this month, is asking for used (but decent) T-shirts to be sent in with a one dollar bill to help with container costs. The shirts will then be shipped to Africa to help clothe folks in need.
As you’d expect, Jason and Evan are using social media to help promote the campaign with a Facebook pagethat is already racking up Likes, a Flickr tag to gather all relevant pics and the #1millionshirts Twitter hashtagto spread the word via Twitter.
While the project is thus far U.S.-centric, it’s starting to generate some momentum across the pond too. The team is currently looking for a company that can help store and/or ship the T-shirts in the U.K. If you or anyone you know is interested in helping out, please contact project ambassador Alex Hardie.
“We understand that t-shirts aren’t the first thing you think of when you hear people are in need,” says the team, “but we also know what it takes to ask people to donate money.”
-Jessie W.
Production to cease as of March 2011, ironic hipsters mourn.
From Electronista, full article here.
Sony this weekend said it would finally put an end to floppy disk production in its home country, marking the effective end to the format’s 41-year run. Having already stopped selling floppies in most areas as of March this year, it now expects to stop sales of 3.5-inch disks in Japan as of March 2011. Developing markets like India continue to sell the disks today, but their fate isn’t known.
The cutoff comes as the result of both changes in design philosophy and technology. Apple was one of the first to aggressively move away from floppies as it dropped all floppies from the iMac in 1998 and the rest of its lineup soon afterwards. The format remained popular for years later but declined rapidly as writable optical discs, USB flash drives and the Internet made the 1.44MB disk obsolete. Virtually no desktops or notebooks now even have the option of a floppy drive.
For a fond farewell to the disks, here.
Oh, the memories.
And finally, ten things to do with your old floppy disks, here.
-Jessie W.
Narrowed from 30, here are the top ten best advertisements that will make you laugh, smile or smirk.
1. Cafe Rico, an intense wake up call
2. Dog Toast: You eat what you touch
3. Don’t let them get comfortable
4. Duende Azul Costumes: You, but funnier than you
5. Face detect
6. Granny fries with the Granny
7. No insects left; will work for food
8. Olympus Optical Zoom
9. Steady shot
10. Tires that grip to the road
To view the other twenty advertisements, here.
-Jessie W.
