The Impact of Kickstarter, Creative Commons & Creators Project

PBS Off Book—In the art world, traditional funding models are dissolving, new forms of expressing ownership have arisen to accomodate for remix culture, and artists are finding ways to connect physical art experiences and traditions to the internet.

In the digital era, the experience of art from the perspective of the artist and the art audience is shifting rapidly, and bringing more people into the creative process.

Safety Not Guaranteed

safetynotguaranteedmovie.com—When an unusual classified ad inspires three cynical Seattle magazine employees to look for the story behind it, they discover a mysterious eccentric named Kenneth, a likable but paranoid supermarket clerk, who believes he’s solved the riddle of time travel and intends to depart again soon.

The ‘ish’ Watch

Bike World | 25 March 2012

World 5018

The Antikythera Mechanism

antikythera-mechanism.gr—More than a hundred years ago an extraordinary mechanism was found by sponge divers at the bottom of the sea near the island of Antikythera. It astonished the whole international community of experts on the ancient world.

For decades, scientific investigation failed to yield much light, however research over the last half century has begun to reveal its secrets.

The machine dates from around the end of the 2nd century B.C. and is the most sophisticated mechanism known from the ancient world. Nothing as complex is known for the next thousand years. The Antikythera Mechanism is now understood to be dedicated to astronomical phenomena and operates as a complex mechanical “computer” which tracks the cycles of the Solar System.

Casey Neistat | Texting While Walking

Casey Neistat’s cautionary video warns of the dangers of composing text messages while walking.

Hublot | 5 Million Dollar Watch

Randolph Jonsson, gizmag.com—Hublot says that the unique diamond-crusted Big Bang watch is the most “precious” timepiece it’s ever created in its 32-year history.

So just what goes into a US$5 million watch? For starters, the 1.73-inch (44-mm) diameter 18K white gold case is packed with 302 baguette diamonds. The 18K white gold dial holds another 179 baguettes. The 18K bracelet that holds it on the lucky owner’s wrist is set with a staggering 782 more baguette diamonds, plus an additional six emerald-cut diamonds, all greater than 3 carats each. Throw in the 18K white gold crown’s 1.06 carat rose-cut diamond, plus its 12 additional baguettes and you have a market-cornering 1,282 diamonds in total, more than 100 carats in baguettes alone, and all of grade A VVS clarity.

After a year spent searching for the largest stones, Hublot, in collaboration with Geneva’s Atelier Bunter, spent 14 months total on the Big Bang's construction. This included the efforts of 12 cutters and five setters who worked on it full-time for seven months!

Alas, if you had any designs on acquiring this marvel for yourself, you're too late. The Hour Glass, a luxury watch dealer in Singapore, took that honor and plans to display it in its Asian stores. If you want a look at Hublot's finest, evidently you'll just have to follow the money.

Jarno Smeets Flies Like a Bird

humanbirdwings.net—Jarno Smeets, a mechanical engineer from the Netherlands, wants to fly.

“When I was younger, my granddad was actually working on some sketches for a flying bicycle. A helicopter, human powered by a bike mechanism. As a child I was always very intrigued by these drawings, back then I really believed that my granddad would once be able to fly on this bike. Only later I realized that this would be a very difficult thing to accomplish. The images of his flying bike have always been floating around in the back of my mind. So, for that great dream my grandpa gave me, he is still my biggest inspiration for starting this ‘Human Birdwings’ project.”

Jarno’s Grandad’s sketch

“When I was studying in England, my knowledge about mechanical and electronical engineering started to expand. I soon discovered that flapping wings without external powersupport would be impossible. During the more boring lectures I started sketching and writing down ideas about how wings could be powerassisted by actuators during their flapping movement. Back then there were no easy accessible components to, for example, collect arm movement data. The last few years a lot of exciting consumer devices, like Wii controllers and Smartphones, have been developped which changed my original ideas drastically.”

Making the wings in the workshop.

Jarno tests the flapping of the wings with the electronic mechanism with the Wii controllers. It works! He can fully control the wings with his arms.

An HTC phone and a Wii remote are programmed to work together in order to let them flap the wings at the precise movement.

Jarno talks with Bert Otten professor in Neuromechanics at the Univeristy of Groningen about the ability to fly like birds.

Sipho Mabona | The Plague

Mabona Orgami—In his latest installation The Plague, Sipho Mabona materializes the hypnotic ambivalence of money: the quotidian dollar-bill which accomplishes our daily business begins folding in on itself, gains awesome complexity and takes flight as a foreboding swarm of monetary locusts.

Money has gone from being an elementary medium of exchange to being a means of exploitation: a colossal cloud of hot money [and incomprehensible financial instruments] buzzes above the global economy like a biblical swarm of locust. Thus money as bane. Yet money per se, plain as the one-dollar-bill, always retains its basic ability to function as a pragmatic unit of accounting for goods & services. Hence money as blessing.

Each single specimen was folded from an uncut square of (US) currency sheet and took Mabona 4 to 5 hours to complete.

Dutch Chain Selexyz Opens Bookstore in Church Built in 1294

Architecture and photos: Merkx+Girod

At 14, African William Kamkwamba Built His Own Windmill

When fourteen-year-old William Kamkwamba’s Malawi village was hit by a drought, everyone's crops began to fail. Without enough money for food, let alone school, William spent his days in the library and figured out how to bring electricity to his village.

Persevering against the odds, William built a functioning windmill out of junkyard scraps, and thus became the local hero who harnessed the wind.

If you read The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind: Young Readers Edition online on We Give Books, the Wimbe community lending library, where Kamkwamba’s journey began, gets a new book, up to 10,000. Despite serving some 1,500 pupils, the library currently has no picture books.

The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind: Young Readers Edition at amazon.com.

The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind: Creating Currents of Electricity and Hope (adult version) at amazon.com.

Changi Airport | The Slide@T3

Some humans are waking up to the idea that slides are an energy efficient way to travel and they are fun, fun, fun.

The Slide@T3 is a four-story slide in the Changi Airport in Singapore. Airports could definitely use more fun.

Photo: Fans of Changi

Aboday | Playhouse

Photos: Happy Lim Photography

Owners of the two-story Playhouse near Jakarta built by Indonesian architects Aboday have their choice of stair or slide when traveling from floor to floor.

A Light Filled House in Kauai

All photos: Linny Morris

Tanya and Chris Gamby built an experimental home in Kauai with guidance from local architects Ben Sullivan and Tony Hatto using cement boards for the walls and translucent polycarbonate roofing which fills the house with light and amplifies the sound of the rain. Continue reading and see more photos at Dwell.

In Search of Moebius

French comics artist Jean Henri Gaston Giraud aka Mœbius (8 May 1938 – 10 March 2012) was one of the founders of Heavy Metal magazine and contributed designs to numerous science fiction and fantasy films, including Alien, Willow, Tron (1982), and The Fifth Element.

In Search of Moebius - Jean Giraud _clip2/3 by foivosloxias


In Search of Moebius - Jean Giraud_clip3/3 by foivosloxias

Juvet

The Juvet hotel, a five hour drive north of Oslo, Norway, consists of seven simply furnished secluded cabins with panoramic windows overlooking a river bank nestled among birch, aspen, pine and boulders.

How To Make Masala Chai

High Beam Media

Wayne White | Beauty Is Embarrassing—Bringing Humor to Fine Art

beautyisembarrassing.com—Beauty Is Embarrassing is the story of Wayne White, an American artist, art director, illustrator, puppeteer and much, much more. Born and raised in Chattanooga, Wayne has used his memories of the south to create inspired works for film, television and the fine art world.

After graduating from Middle Tennessee State University Wayne traveled to New York City where he worked as an illustrator for The East Village Eye, New York Times, Raw Magazine and the Village Voice. In 1986 Wayne became a designer for the hit television show Pee Wee’s Playhouse and his work was awarded with three Emmy’s.

After traveling to Los Angeles with his wife, Mimi Pond, Wayne continued to work in television and designed sets and characters for shows such as Shining Time Station, Beakman’s World, Riders In The Sky and Bill & Willis. He also worked in the music video industry winning Billboard and MTV Music Video Awards as an art director for seminal music videos including The Smashing Pumpkins’ ‘Tonight, Tonight’ and Peter Gabriel’s ‘Big Time’.

Wayne has had great success as a fine artist and has created paintings and public works that have been shown all over the world. His most successful works have been the world paintings featuring oversized, three dimensional text pain painstakingly integrated into cheap landscape paintings he buys at flea markets and thrift stores.

Wayne has also received great praise for several public works he has created recently including a successful show at Rice University where he built the world’s largest George Jones puppet head for a piece called ‘Big Lectric Fan To Keep Me Cool While I Sleep’.

14-Year-Old Girl Buys A House In Florida

Willow Tufano, landlord. Photos: Chana Joffe-Walt/NPR

National Public Radio—Meet Willow Tufano, age 14: Lady Gaga fan, animal lover, landlord.

download mp3

One day, Willow’s mom, Shannon, saw a two-bedroom, concrete-block home on auction for $12,000—down from $100,000 at the peak of the bubble. Shannon was telling her husband about the house, when Willow piped up.

“I was like, ‘What if I bought a house? That would be crazy,’ ” Willow says.

Willow wound up splitting the house with her mom. Willow plans to buy her mom out in the next few years, and put her name on the title when she turns 18.

Willow and her tenants, in front of the house Willow bought with her mother.

Kara Prototype

Tongole Wilderness Lodge

You can fulfill your wilderness fix at the Tongole Wilderness Lodge on the forest-clad banks of the Bua River in Malawi, Africa.

Biggest Public Food Forest in the USA

fastcoexist.com—The Beacon Food Forest is a seven-acre oasis of edible shrubs, trees, and plants that makes it a lot easier for Seattle residents to freely take what nature has to offer.

Set to be the largest public food forest (or you could call it the largest public edible landscape) in the country, the forest will feature chestnuts, walnuts, apple and mulberry trees, berry shrubs, vegetables, and all manner of herbaceous plants. The forest, which is being built with help from a $100,000 local government grant, will also contain edible arboretums, community garden plots, and tree patches (garden plots containing trees).

The whole thing will be built using permaculture design, which aims to imitate wild food landscapes, minimizing hard labor by humans. In permaculture, certain plants are included because they attract insects that can provide natural pest management, for example. Other plants alter the soil to provide nitrogen and mulch. The end result is a landscape that largely--but not entirely--takes care of itself.

National Parks Street View

Granola connoisseurs Nature Valley have teamed up with hikers with a google-like street view camera to publish Trail Views of the national parks.

Kinect Grocery Cart at Whole Foods

WIRED—Grocery chain Whole Foods is testing the Smarter Cart from Chaotic Moon. The cart comes with a tablet and a UPC scanner that can match items to a pre-made shopping list and eliminates the need to check-out.

Using Kinect, it can follow shoppers around the store and even guide them to the products that they’re trying to find.

Stuxnet: Computer Worm

CBS News—The most pernicious computer virus ever known wasn’t out to steal your money, identity, or passwords. So what was the intricate Stuxnet virus after?

Feadship Qi

Live in style on the high seas aboard the Qi by Feadship Royal Dutch Shipyards with spacious interior, gym/spa, movie theater and a topside fire-pit in the jacuzzi.

L'Eroica

Edouard Sepulchre—L’Eroica recalls the golden days of cycling on ancient scenic dirt roads using vintage bikes with riders dressed in woolen jerseys and leather shoes fueled by lavish food and local Chianti.

Free the Network

motherboard.vice.com—Free the Network follows the trials of a pair of college dropouts who head up the Free Network Foundation, a peer-to-peer communications initiative seeking to liberate the global Internet from corporate clutches by building their own decentralized, cooperatively owned, free network (that can’t be censored or shut down), one wifi hotspot at a time.

Jam Cell Phones for Silence

NBC10—Imagine you are on a public bus trying to call home. Your cell phone has no signal. But soon you realize it’s not a dead zone, you can’t make the call because some guy is zapping your phone with a high-tech device.

Eric says he doesn’t want to hear people talking on their cell phones in public.

“It’s still pretty irritating, and quite frankly, it’s pretty rude,” said Eric.

“A lot of people are extremely loud, no sense of just privacy or anything. When it becomes a bother, that’s when I screw on the antenna and flip the switch,” said Eric.

Julijonas Urbonas | Euthanasia Coaster

sciencegallery.com—Is life too long? Are you over worried about population control? Now you can exit in style with an intense feeling of ecstasy, joy and excitement with Julijonas Urbonas’s Euthanasia Coaster which is engineered to humanely take your life with elegance and euphoria.

Riding the coaster’s track, the rider is subjected to a series of intensive motion elements that induce various unique experiences: from euphoria to thrill, and from tunnel vision to loss of consciousness (through prolonged cerebral hypoxia—insufficient supply of oxygen to the brain) and eventually death.

Thanks to the marriage of the advanced cross-disciplinary research in aerospace medicine, mechanical engineering, material technologies and of course gravity, the fatal journey is made pleasing, elegant and meaningful.