How a soccer ball is made
And not just any soccer ball…the official match ball for the 2010 World Cup.
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Entries for December 2009
The future of photography, circa 1944
In 1944, Popular Photography magazine asked several people, including photographers Berenice Abbott and László Moholy-Nagy, to speculate about the future of photography.
Their opinions differ. Yet somehow all seem to feel that the second hundred years will see the camera put to use as never before with the amateur often leading the way.
The Noughtie List highlights, pt 4
Hey guys, It’s Jenni. The Noughtie List is getting quite long, up to 255 at last count. The year is ending in a matter of days, but there is still time to email me anything you have come across. You can find my past highlights here: part 1, part 2 and part 3.
Technology changed alot of things this decade, the “mega-novel” in particular. Time we would have spent reading is now replaced with blogs, tweets, forums and other internet time wasters. This decade is When Lit Blew Into Bits. BTW Jason, this article is heavy in David Foster Wallace prophecy.
What new species of books, then, have proved themselves fit to survive in the attentional ecosystem of the aughts? What kind of novel, if any, can appeal to readers who read with 34 nested browser tabs open simultaneously on their frontal lobes? And, for that matter, what kind of novel gets written by novelists who spend increasing chunks of their own time reading words off screens?
Many books mentioned in this article are on The Millions list of Best Fiction, which goes in depth on why each book was chosen plus excerpts.
Most of you probably don’t want to even think about a Decade Of Food after gorging yourself with yummys the past few days. This mini timeline covers food scares, the rise of organic, blogging chefs and people’s obsession with cute food. (Thanks, Peter!)
Cost of healthcare
This clever graph by National Geographic shows the cost of healthcare compared to life expectancy in a number of countries. The way that the US healthcare expenditure is pictured entirely outside the confines of the graph’s scale and legend is a particularly effective design decision. (thx, jim)
Avatar
One of the most difficult things to get right in movies about aliens or the future is matching the cultural and technological sophistication of a people with their environment and history. In Avatar, the Na’vi are portrayed as a Stone Age tribe, living in relatively small groups and essentially ignorant or uninterested in technology beyond simple knives and bows. But the Na’vi are also very physically capable, obviously very intelligent, aware of their global environment, well-nourished, healthy, omnivorous, adaptive, and even inventive. They have domesticated animals, are troubled by few serious natural predators, can live in different environments, have easy access to many varied natural resources (for sustenance and building/making), and can travel and therefore communicate over long distances (dozens if not hundreds of miles a day on their winged animals).
And most importantly, the Na’vi have regular and intimate access to a moon-sized supercomputer — a neural net supercomputer at that — that connects them to every other living thing on their world and have had such access for what could be millennia.
It just doesn’t add up. The Na’vi are too capable and live in an environment that is far too pregnant with technological possibility to be stuck in the Stone Age. Plot-wise it’s convenient for them to be the way they are, but the Na’vi really should have been more technologically advanced than the Earthlings, not only capable of easily repelling any attack from Captain Ironpants but able to keep the mining company from landing on the moon in the first place.
My year in cities 2009
Not sure why I’m bothering to do this list for 2009 as I didn’t really go anywhere, but here it is for posterity:
Waitsfield, VT*
New York City, NY*
Boston, MA*
Orange, MA*
Springfield, MA
Nantucket, MA
One or more nights were spent in each place. Those cities marked with an * were visited multiple times on non-consecutive days. Here are my lists for 2005, 2006, 2007, and 2008.
The gravity of the solar system
Today on xkcd, an illustration showing the gravity wells of our solar system’s planets and some of their moons.
Two of Mars’ tiny moons barely have any gravity at all:
You could escape Deimos with a bike and a ramp. A thrown baseball could escape Phobos.
That’s great, but you forgot Pluto!
Waiting for 2010
The AV Club lists 32 entertainments (books, movies, TV) they are most anticipating in 2010. (thx, judd)
The foods, the Whole Foods, and nothing but the foods
This week’s issue of the New Yorker has a long profile of John Mackey, the CEO of Whole Foods.
John Mackey, the co-founder and chief executive of Whole Foods Market, refers to the company as his child-not just his creation but the thing on earth whose difficulties or downfall it pains him most to contemplate. He also sees himself as a “daddy” to his fifty-four thousand employees, who are known as “team members,” but they may occasionally consider him to be more like a crazy uncle. To the extent that a child inherits or adopts a parent’s traits, Whole Foods is an embodiment of many of Mackey’s. A Whole Foods store, in some respects, is like Mackey’s mind turned inside out. Certainly, the evolution of the corporation has often traced his own as a man; it has been an incarnation of his dreams and quirks, his contradictions and trespasses, and whatever he happened to be reading and eating, or not eating.
Free to Choose with Milton Friedman
There’s not a whole lot to do at work this week, right? So how about tucking into all ten hours of a PBS documentary featuring economist Milton Friedman called Free to Choose. Here’s part one:
Here’s part two and part three…all the rest are available on Google Video (aside from part six for some reason). From Wikipedia, a brief description of the series:
PBS telecast the series, beginning in January 1980; the general format was that of Dr. Friedman visiting and narrating a number of success and failure stories in history, which Dr. Friedman attributes to capitalism or the lack thereof (e.g. Hong Kong is commended for its free markets, while India is excoriated for relying on centralized planning especially for its protection of its traditional textile industry). Following the primary show, Dr. Friedman would engage in discussion with a number of selected persons, such as Donald Rumsfeld (then of G.D. Searle & Company).
Top Vimeo videos of 2009
From Vimeo’s list of favorite videos of 2009, the music video for Luv Deluxe by Cinnamon Chasers:
Also worth watching is the Tarantino Mixtape, which hovers somewhere between an analysis of the themes in QuentinTarantino’s films and a toe-tapping remix of all the great music, visuals, and sounds he uses in them. (via @brainpicker)
Nation’s Pride
Nation’s Pride is a fictional Nazi propaganda film that appeared in Inglourious Basterds. The six-minute clip above was released as a promotion for IB and was shot by Eli Roth, who played the baseball bat-wielding Bear Jew (and is also a director of some repute). (thx, jeffrey)
Updates on previous entries for Dec 24, 2009*
The case of the missing Wired writer orig. from Aug 27, 2009
Orson Welles doesn’t like Rosebud orig. from Dec 11, 2009
Media packaging mashups orig. from Apr 22, 2009
Why shoot a gun with a side grip? orig. from Dec 17, 2009
The world’s fastest knife orig. from May 18, 2005
NASA is a middle-aged baby boomer dad orig. from Dec 18, 2009
What’s the deal with fish oil? orig. from Dec 16, 2009
Selling Wants to buy Haves orig. from Dec 16, 2009
Growing Up Heroes orig. from Dec 21, 2009
A PayPal horror story orig. from Dec 23, 2009
* Q: Wha? A: These previously published entries have been updated with new information in the last 24 hours. You can find past updates here.
Home Alone, the Twitter version
Follow the McCallister clan on Twitter as they fly to Paris and discover that they left their son Kevin at home, alone.
An attempt to tell the narrative of John Hughes’ classic Chistmas movie through the medium of Twitter as if its happening in real time.
This is pretty crazy/elaborate…they’re updating 22 separate Twitter accounts, one for each main character.
The Noughtie List highlights, pt 3
It’s Jenni and I have some more favorites off The Noughtie List. I’m still accepting any “best of the 2000s” lists you happen to find, just email me. If you missed any past highlights, check out part 1 and part 2.
New York Magazine invited a select few to design covers for the 00’s issue. In the end, they chose one for the newsstand, one for subscribers and now have all the submissions online to view. The gallery includes photos showing the creative process of Todd St. John, who built a wooden sculpture of 00’s for the subscription cover.
Horror movies are generally not that great, but this list reminded me there are some worth having potential nightmares over. (Thanks Jon!) Anyone who hasn’t seen the number one movie, should definitely watch it. For those with Netflix, it’s available to stream instantly. If you’re looking for something more themed for this week’s festivities, AMC has a list of the best holiday movies.
Christian Annyas lists movie title stills of the 2000s in his very thorough collection. It made me realize how many movies still opt for the black screen with white type. Which in turn made me more curious about the art of the title sequence.
Jim Lehrer’s rules of journalism
He listed them during the last broadcast of the The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer.
And, finally, I am not in the entertainment business.
(via df)
A PayPal horror story
Use PayPal for your small business? Maybe you shouldn’t.
Money in your PayPal account will be held for 180 days. After 180 days, we’ll email you information on how to receive your funds. We regret any inconvenience this may cause.
Nice. PayPal can unilaterally decide you’re being fraudulent and keep your money for six months while they collect the interest on it. Holy fucking conflict of interest, Batman! Are banks just naturally customer hostile?
Update: Feedback from several people: PayPal is not a bank and therefore they can do (and do do) anything they want.
Stereotyping people by their favorite author
For example:
Haruki Murakami: People who like good music.
Ralph Waldo Emerson: People who can start a fire.
Dave Eggers: Guys who are in the third coolest frat of a private college.
The full list is here; it says I’m “confirmed 90’s literati”. Which is LOL. If I’m an -ati of anything, it is definitely not liter-, 90s or otherwise.
Darth Vader opens Wall Street
Darth Vader and a number of Storm Troopers from the Star Wars Saga rang the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange.
(via @kngofwrld)
The physics of space battles
The logistics of fighting wars in space is a little different than the movies have lead us to believe.
For the same reason that we have Space Shuttle launch delays, we’ll be able to tell exactly what trajectories our enemies could take between planets: the launch window. At any given point in time, there are only so many routes from here to Mars that will leave our imperialist forces enough fuel and energy to put down the colonists’ revolt.
Tiny gingerbread architecture
These little gingerbread houses that can perch on the rim of your hot chocolate mug are pretty cool:
Make some! (via matt)
Updates on previous entries for Dec 21, 2009*
Gimme Friction Baby orig. from Dec 09, 2009
* Q: Wha? A: These previously published entries have been updated with new information in the last 24 hours. You can find past updates here.
Growing Up Heroes
The Growing Up Heroes blog is collecting photos of little kids wearing superhero costumes. (thx, jasons)
Update: See also I Used To Be Younger.
Skiing the Air Force Memorial
There was so much snow in the DC area this weekend that Rob Story decided to make fresh tracks down the slope of the Air Force Memorial.
I suck at online basketball too
A simple but oddly compelling multiplayer basketball game…after each shot, you’re shown how you’re doing against everyone else (~1000 players when I was playing). (via waxy)
Best stories of the past 4.5 billion years
Now that it’s the end of 2009, The Onion is taking the opportunity to present their top ten stories of the past 4.5 billions years. #5 is Sumerians Look On In Confusion As God Creates World:
“I do not understand,” reads an ancient line of pictographs depicting the sun, the moon, water, and a Sumerian who appears to be scratching his head. “A booming voice is saying, ‘Let there be light,’ but there is already light. It is saying, ‘Let the earth bring forth grass,’ but I am already standing on grass.”
“Everything is here already,” the pictograph continues. “We do not need more stars.”
I also like The Ones We Lost:
Some of the world’s most beloved people have died over the past 4.5 billion years. Here are a few…
World-changing music
To ponder over the weekend: twenty pieces of music that changed the world. #11 on the list is Gloria Gaynor’s I Will Survive. (via @bobulate)
Gladwell v. Simmons III
New idea for a biweekly sports magazine: Simmons & Gladwell. Two writers, off the cuff, no polish…the whole magazine is one big long rambling smartypants messy conversation. Or maybe it’s an email list where subscribers are CC’d on their emails in real-time. Anyway, in the meantime here’s the third conversation between Bill Simmons and Malcolm Gladwell (mostly) about sports. Here’s Simmons on why the NBA is so good right now:
When you consider the influx of foreigners, the extended shelf lives of quality careers, the medicine/health strides, the positive impact of the rookie salary scale, the successful drug policy and the equally successful one-year waiting period for high schoolers, for the first time since the early ’90s, you can make a case that the NBA finally has enough talent to stock every one of its teams. Recently, I watched my Celtics almost lose to Memphis and found myself thinking, “Wait a second … is Memphis secretly good, or did my wife spike my drink?” And they’re 10-14. Really, there are only two hopeless teams right now: Minnesota and New Jersey. Every other team has enough talent to beat any other team on any given night.
And Christ, Gladwell has never seen Boogie Nights? Maybe he’s a hack after all.
NASA is a middle-aged baby boomer dad
Born in the 1950s, raised on comic book dreams of exploring deep space in a rocket ship, NASA showed a lot of promise as youngster. As NASA grew up, everyone told it to be realistic, focus on practical things closer to home: Velcro, Tang, pens that work upside down. Sure, it was taking care of its responsibilities, but its dreams faded away. Where did the last three decades go?
That’s from Modcult.
Update: See also Ron Planet. (thx, craig)
Lines that defined the decade
Jenni, I don’t want to step on your toes here, but I’m hoping that Scott Lamb’s excellent One-Liners of the Decade — from “Wassap!” to “Brownie, you’re doing a heck of a job” to “I drink your milkshake” — ends up on the Noughtie List.
Best media errors and corrections of 2009
Regret the Error presents its annual list of media errors and corrections. These are two of my favorites:
An article on Aug. 2 about older alumni who have been helped by university career counselors referred imprecisely to comments by a 1990 graduate of Lehigh University who lost his job in February when his company was downsized, and a correction in this space last Sunday misspelled his surname. As the article correctly noted, he is David Monson, not Munson, and he was speaking generally — not about himself — when he said that newly unemployed people sometimes mope around the house in sweatpants.
—
ON 17 July 2008 in our front page article “Ron the Lash” we falsely reported that whilst recovering from an operation to his ankle Cristiano Ronaldo had “gone on a bender” at a Hollywood nightclub where he splashed out pounds 10,000 on champagne and vodka and threw his crutches to the ground and tried to dance on his uninjured foot. We now accept that Cristiano did not “go on a bender”, did not drink any alcohol that evening, did not spend pounds 10,000 on alcohol, nor throw his crutches to the floor or try to dance.
(via df)
Why the Phantom Menace sucks
I confess that I only had time this morning to watch the first 10 minutes, but from that viewing I can safely conclude that this is the best 70-minute video critique of The Phantom Menace that exists in the world. If the first 20 seconds don’t get you, stick around until “protagonist”. Or don’t take my word for it; here’s Lost’s Damon Lindelof’s reaction:
Your life is about to change. This is astounding film making. Watch ALL of it.
Part the first:
After watching the last 3-4 minutes of this first segment, I wanted to give Lucas a hug because I feel so bad for the guy for failing in public in such a huge way. (thx, scott)
Inglourious Basterds
This is pretty much the point at which I knew I was going to love Inglourious Basterds:
Although I can sure see why someone might hate it; the film rode that razor’s edge all the way through.
Enhance your hyperspace
A bunch of clips from movies and TV that show people enhancing things on computer screens:
And a more artful collection of hyperspace scenes from movies:
Both are via Andy, Mr. Supercuts himself.
Top 10 astronomy photos of 2009
One of the better lists out there: the top astronomy photos of the year. From the list, this is a more detailed view of the Martian landscape than we’re used to seeing:
My personal favorite, the photos taken by the LRO of Apollo 11’s landing site, made the list as well.
The future of magazines, maybe, pt 2
Magazine publishers Bonnier and BERG, a London design consultancy, have collaborated on a digital magazine prototype called Mag+. The conceptual device is impressive in its restraint and its truth to form and function.
We find that the graphical page-turning metaphors that you see quite frequently in web-based e-magazine readers are not terribly believable, and they don’t feel very honest to the form of the screen. […] Scrolling systems are more appropriate to what we’re dealing with.
Sing it, brother! Also of note is the way that the video takes the conventional “let me talk over some graphics” screencast and presents it in a much more compelling way.
3-D effect in CSS
Roman Cortes took Diego Velázquez’s Las Meninas and applied a pseudo 3-D parallax effect to it using only CSS. Awesome. Now redo The Kid Stays in the Picture entirely in CSS.
The sun never sets on Shake Shack
The Shake Shack is turning into Danny Meyer’s accidental fast food empire.
“A hamburger stand is a very democratizing amenity,” he said. “We hope that each new Shake Shack can become both a citizen of, and mirror of, their communities.”
The Known Universe
The Known Universe zooms out from Tibet to the limits of the observable universe. Dim the lights, full-screen it in HD, and you’re in for a treat.
Like Powers of Ten, except astronomically accurate. It’s not a dramatization, it’s a map; the positioning data was pulled from Hayden Planetarium’s Digital Universe Atlas, which is available for free download.
Since 1998, the American Museum of Natural History and the Hayden Planetarium have engaged in the three-dimensional mapping of the Universe. This cosmic cartography brings a new perspective to our place in the Universe and will redefine your sense of home. The Digital Universe Atlas is distributed to you via packages that contain our data products, like the Milky Way Atlas and the Extragalactic Atlas, and requires free software allowing you to explore the atlas by flying through it on your computer.
Why shoot a gun with a side grip?
Because that’s how they did it in Menace II Society.
Journalists and gun experts point to the 1993 Hughes brothers film Menace II Society, which depicts the side grip in its opening scene, as the movie that popularized the style. Although the directors claim to have witnessed a side grip robbery in Detroit in 1987, there are few reports of street gangs using the technique until after the movie came out.
But the side grip can also be practical:
During the first half of the 20th century, soldiers used the side grip for the express purpose of endangering throngs of people. Some automatic weapons from this era —like the Mauser C96 or the grease gun — fired so quickly or with such dramatic recoil that soldiers found it impossible to aim anything but the first shot. Soldiers began tilting the weapons, so that the recoil sent the gun reeling in a horizontal rather than vertical arc, enabling them to spray bullets into an onrushing enemy battalion instead of over their heads.
But mostly it just looks cool.
Update: TV Tropes has an entire page dedicated to the Gangsta Style shooting technique. (thx, grant)
Updates on previous entries for Dec 16, 2009*
Selling Wants to buy Haves orig. from Dec 16, 2009
* Q: Wha? A: These previously published entries have been updated with new information in the last 24 hours. You can find past updates here.
Selling Wants to buy Haves
I love this project: a couple of NYC artists do paintings of items that they want and sell the art to buy the items.
Each painting shows one thing we want, and sells for the price of the real item. So you can buy A Slice of Pepperoni for $3.00 or Dinner at Nobu for $152.00. When the painting sells we use the money to go out and buy that thing.
The other half of the project is the documentation of the purchase/enjoyment of the item; here’s the outcome of “Custom Adidas”. (via clusterflock)
Update: C.J. Cubitt reminded me of J.S.G. Boggs, an artist who draws realistic-looking money and trades it for goods and services…the goods, receipt, and any change become the artwork. Here’s one of his hand-drawn bills:
Update: Dorothy Gambrell of Cat and Girl solicits donations and then draws the stuff she buys. (thx, sean & seth)
Update: The same artists also do Needs for Sale…the sales benefit charities.
What’s the deal with fish oil?
So says the first line of Paul Greenberg’s story on fish oil. Which is weird for me because I had been wondering this very thing in my bathroom the other day while staring at my wife’s bottle of omega-3 pills.
Nearly every fish a fish eater likes to eat eats menhaden. Bluefin tuna, striped bass, redfish and bluefish are just a few of the diners at the menhaden buffet. All of these fish are high in omega-3 fatty acids but are unable themselves to synthesize them. The omega-3s they have come from menhaden.
Menhaden are also top-notch algae eaters and, no surprise, overfished. (via djacobs)
Update: Bad Science questions whether fish oil is actually beneficial. (thx, phil)
The Noughtie List highlights, pt 2
Hi there again, it’s Jenni. You may have noticed some slight changes to the list. We’ve made it easier to tell whether something has been recently added to the list; there is a red asterisk next to links less than three days old. Also, if you are curious, there is a counter that says how many links are listed. Nice.
Last week I highlighted defining the decade. This week I’m going to jump around the list a bit and highlight some of the cool finds that have come in through the inbox and my research.
One of the things to have come out of this decade is great TV shows. The quality of these shows were often better than movies. This decade is when TV became art.
But as this decade began, it had already begun to dawn on viewers that television was something that you could not just merely enjoy and then discard but brood over and analyze, that could challenge and elevate, not just entertain.
It feels like there was more music than ever produced and which albums, groups, and songs made the biggest impact is hard to choose. The lists vary dramatically about the number one album of the decade. Simon Reynolds dissects this musically fragmented decade.
More and more good-to-excellent music is getting produced but that very fact is thwarting the emergence of the great, smothering it. The bigger the spread, the more “we” are spread. And the less impact any given record can have.
I was told by readers (thanks Matt & Eric) that Greg Wyshynski aka Puck Daddy has a great collection of hockey Top 10, including the 10 best hockey games. But my favorite is the 10 best hockey fights, which includes video. Enjoy.
Most exciting film scripts of 2009
The Black List is the collection of scripts that got movie executives most excited in 2009. Here’s #1:
1. The Muppet Man By Christopher Weekes
What it’s about: The life and times of the late Jim Henson, the man behind Sesame Street and The Muppets.What it’s like: The Andy Kaufman biopic Man on the Moon, but with puppets. This moving story depicts the life of a creative genius, with occasional surreal appearances by the likes of Kermit and Miss Piggy.
(via subtraction)
I.D. Magazine no more
I.D. Magazine folds after 55 years of publication ; the design world mourns. The staff didn’t even know it was coming.
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