Ihr habt’s vielleicht mitbekommen: Wissenschaftler haben zum ersten mal ein realistisches Model eines Dinosauriers gerendert (via Neatorama), komplett mit korrekten Farben und… Federn. Wulff Morgenthaler hat sich jetzt mal ausgedacht, wie Jurassic Park ausgesehen hätte, wäre der Film einigermaßen realistisch gewesen:
Und ja, ich habe ein eigenes Tag für Riesenhühner.
(Youtube Direktdinos, via io9)
Nazis erwecken Dinosaurier im zweiten Weltkrieg, die man im Half Life 2-Mod „Dino D-Day“ plattmachen muss. Klingt für mich so ein bisschen wie ein Prequel von „Dead Snow“ (Trailer), in dem Nazi-Zombies eine Gruppe Urlauber dezimieren.
You’ll play as Sgt. Jack Hardgrave, a renowned paleontologist who thought he put his career on hold to go to war…then Hitler resurrected dinosaurs and unleashed them on the Allies in 1942. When the Fuhrer’s monster army saw battle for the first time in North Africa Hardgrave was on the front lines – nearly getting eaten alive by beasts he spent his life studying.
Crosseyed Cyclops hat die Topps Sammelkarten „Dinosaurs Attack!“ gepostet, die es bislang online nur in Mini-Auflösungen gab. Ich hab die Scans mal aus dem CBR-Archiv-Schnickschnack befreit und bei Flickr hochgeladen. Jede Menge teils supergorige Dinosaurier-Action.
Schönes Detail übrigens: Als Warner damals die Rechte an deren „Mars Attacks“-Serie kaufte, haben sie die Rechte für „Dinosaurs Attack!“ gleich mitgekauft. Vielleicht geht da ja mal was.
Vorher auf Nerdcore:
Dinosaurs Attack! Trading Cards
Mars Attacks Topps-Trading Cards von 1962 online in High Res
Etsy, das Shop-System für Leute, die zuhause komische, tolle und irre Sachen selbermachen, dürfte bekannt sein. Dass dort nicht immer nur komische, tolle und irre Sachen, sondern auch weniger tolle. Masturbierende Dinosaurier will sich zum Beispiel nicht wirklich jemand an die Wand hängen, oder?
Ich liebe die Dino vs Robot-Prints im Etsy-Shop von Excape Artist. In einer Zukunft, in der Menschen von Maschinen ersetzt wurden und diese die Dinosaurier geklont haben, wird es genau so aussehen. Nur bunter.
Dinosaur vs. Robot (via io9)
Das Seed Magazin hat einen fantastischen Artikel und eine noch fantastischere Bilderstrecke mit Behind the Scenes-Fotografie aus dem American Museum of Natural History. Das da oben sind Dinosaurierknochen aus der Kreidezeit, circa 75-65 Millionen Jahre alt, die immer noch in genau die 100 Jahre alten Zeitungen eingepackt sind, in die sie nach ihrer Ausgrabung eingewickelt wurden, und das hier unten ist ein Schrank voller 100 Jahre alter Elefantenfüße.
“You’ve never been back here?” Kellner asked. The answer was obvious; I was staring like a gob-smacked tourist at the rows of storage cabinets, which loomed overhead like wardrobes for giants. I knew that natural history museums kept fossils and other objects in storage, but I assumed that most of their material was on display, back in the other world. As we walked down long hallways, with drawer after drawer pressing in on either side, I realized how wrong I was. We could look into rooms as we passed, most of them with cabinets and drawers of their own. Kellner reached out to a hallway drawer and opened it. A hip bone from a dinosaur sat inside, knobbed and flared like a Calder sculpture.
It was the first of many journeys I’ve since taken to the other side of museums. Scientists love to show off their collections by pulling drawers open at random, the way Kellner did — exposing me to an army of flies from Peru neatly pinned to slips of paper, or a flock of lyrebirds lying on their backs as if dozing in a collective nap. I’ve gawked at fossil whale feet and jars of tapeworms, at leeches and Mesozoic ferns. But Justine Cooper’s photographs at the American Museum of Natural History take me back to that first shock. They capture the crowded stillness of those halls, the unexpected treasures. The seals in the attic.
Visiting the hidden side of natural history museums, where the vast collections of scientific specimens are kept, Fotogalerie (via Dangerous Minds)
Die Worte „in Lebensgröße“ sind für irgendetwas mit Dinosauriern ja irgendwie absurd, aber so heisst das nunmal. Sayaka Yamamoto hat diese Kissen in Form von Dinosaurierknochen gebastelt und wären sie tatsächlich irgendwo zu kaufen, ich würde mich den ganzen Tag in T-Rex-Schädeln und Bracchiosaurus-Wirbelsäulen wälzen.
living with dinosaurs (via OhGizmo)
Zina Saunders wunderbare Illustrationen mit John McCain als Frankenstein und Miss Alaska riding a Dinosaur, unter diesem Bild schreibt sie:
In keeping with Creationist theory, Palin is quoted as saying that humans and dinosaurs co-existed on Earth a mere 6,000 years ago. Yee-HAW Sarah!
PCL Linkdump hat diese wunderbar splatternden Sammelkarten von Topps gepostet, die 20 Jahre nach den berühmten „Mars Attacks“-Sammelkarten produziert wurden und genau den gleichen Fun-Horror-Geist versprühen, wie die Aliens from outer Space. Dinos eating Rockstar-Hair, breaking into Classrooms, eating Kids, hell yeah! Die Rückseite der Dino-eats-the-Rockstar-Karte liest sich so:
It was crazy, man! Some *#!#*! dinosaur jumps on the stage and starts tearin’ my hair out! Heavy. Apparently the plant-eating creatures mistook the hair of these rock performers for the tops of trees they fed upon a hundred million years ago!
Dinosaurs Attack! (via PCL)
Die Tetris-Eiswürfel neulich waren ja ganz nett, der Knaller sind allerdings diese Eiswürfel in Form von Dinosaurier-Knochen. Grade an Hundstagen wie heute, an denen man schwitzt, wenn man mit dem kleinen Finger wackelt, hätte ich gerne einen Ventilator (check) und eiskalten Eistee mit Eis-Knochen eines Miniatur-T-Rex aus Eis.
Link (via Boing Boing Gadgets)
Aaaaaw! Die Mona Lisa als Velociraptor und Van Gogh als Triceratops in diesem wunderbaren Photoshop-Contest auf Worth1000. Und mein Netzteil geht auf wundersame weise wieder, nachdem ich eigentlich gedacht hatte, dass ich es grade vor einer Stunde erst gefetzt hätte. Und Sarah Kuttner läuft grade in der ARD. Heute ist ein guter Tag und morgen guck ich Wall-E. Aaaaaaw!
The tech production team crew t-shirt for Pixar’s Toy Story 3 featured a parody of the logo for Jurassic Park.
Scientists have put more meat on the theory that dinosaurs’ closest living relatives are modern-day birds.
Molecular analysis, or genetic sequencing, of a 68-million-year-old Tyrannosaurus rex protein from the dinosaur’s femur confirms that T. rex shares a common ancestry with chickens, ostriches, and to a lesser extent, alligators.
The dinosaur protein was wrested from a fossil T. rex femur discovered in 2003 by paleontologist John Horner of the Museum of the Rockies; the bone was found in a fossil-rich stretch of land in Wyoming and Montana.
The new research results, published this week in the journal Science, represent the first use of molecular data to place a non-avian dinosaur in a phylogenetic tree, a “tree of life,” that traces the evolution of species.
Something strange is going on. Jetpacks on Brontosauruses! From Flashbang Studios, whose design process goes like this:
As for our creative process? Alcohol > Joke > Prototype > Art > Holy Crap This Is Fun And Pretty > Game > Internet Glory.
Die ganzen Fan-Filmchen, die im Zuge des „Be Kind Rewind“-Contests da entstehen, finde ich ja eher so gähn, nur der Star Wars-Film neulich, der war klasse. Und jetzt eben auch die Papp-Saurier aus dem geschwedeten Jurassic Park. Roar nach dem Klick.
Gib mir den Rest, Baby…
Using tiny brushes and chisels, workers picking at a big greenish-black rock in the basement of North Dakota’s state museum are meticulously uncovering something amazing: a nearly complete dinosaur, skin and all.
Unlike almost every other dinosaur fossil ever found, the Edmontosaurus named Dakota, a duckbilled dinosaur unearthed in southwestern North Dakota in 2004, is covered by fossilized skin that is hard as iron. It’s among just a few mummified dinosaurs in the world, say the researchers who are slowly freeing it from a 65-million-year-old rock tomb.
During the Age of Dinosaurs – the Mesozoic era’s Triassic, Jurassic, and Cretaceous periods – large reptiles ruled the prehistoric Earth. They roamed the land but also prowled the open oceans and inland seas. By the end of the Mesozoic, however, many of these sea monsters were extinct and new animals began to populate the planet.
On March 8, moviegoers will jump back in time to an age of mammoths, saber-tooth cats and Stone Age humans fighting for survival in “10,000 BC,” the latest movie from director Roland Emmerich.
It probably won’t be a paragon of scientific accuracy, judging by Emmerich’s previous track record on “Independence Day,” “The Day After Tomorrow” and “Godzilla.” But Hollywood has a history of mining prehistory for entertainment value over archaeological exactness — or, as legendary animator Ray Harryhausen once put it, “professors probably don’t go to the cinema anyway.”
To extend your travels through the ancient world, here are some earlier high points of Hollywood’s trips back to the ages of cavemen and dinosaurs.
We now have a robust understanding of how sexual pressures — the pressures to find, impress, and seduce a mate — influence the evolution of males and females. So much so that if you tell me a fact, such as the average size difference between males and females in a species, or the proportion of a male’s body taken up by his testes, I can tell you what the mating system is likely to be. For example, where males are much bigger than females, fighting between males has been important – which often means that the biggest males maintain a harem. If testes are relatively large, females probably have sex with several males in the course of a single breeding episode.
The new fossil, which was discovered in 2004 in western Liaoning province, China, is about 120 million years old.
The specimen is an almost complete, articulated skeleton with a wingspan of just 25 centimetres, making it about the size of a swallow, says its discoverer, palaeontologist Xiaolin Wang of the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing.
Klickfest: Scans von Büchern wie „The Usborne Book of the Future“ oder „Usborne World of the Unknown: UFOs“ oder von Spaceship-Quartett-Karten inklusive falsch benannter StarWars-Vehikel oder die Horror-Charakter-Karten oder das Dino-Quartett oder das „How it works… the Computer“ oder „The Doctor Who Technical Manual“… yay!
(via)
This One’s For Joe: Punk Rock War Lord compilation
In tribute to Joe Strummer and 5 years since his death on Friday, I’ve organised This One’s For Joe, a compilation featuring the great and the good of the mashup/remix world dedicated to Joe and the ideals he inspired in myself and others – the love of music of all types, politics, people and action.
David Byrne and Thom Yorke on the Real Value of Music
Byrne: OK.
Yorke: [To assistant.] Shut the bloody door.
Byrne: Well, nice record, very nice record.
Yorke: Thank you. Wicked.
Byrne: [Laughs.]
Yorke: That’s it, isn’t it?
Byrne: That’s it, we’re done.
The Workspace of Danger Mouse
Some musicians spend years working on their studios, trying to make a homey space they’ll want to keep forever. But the Grammy-nominated producer Brian Burton , left, who is also known as Danger Mouse and half of the alt-pop duo Gnarls Barkley, thinks a temporary setup keeps him most creative. “I change spaces all the time,” he said. “Every four or five months.” He said that he has always moved around a lot, so the idea of being unsettled “kind of creeps into relaxing me when I work.”
MTV-Dreiteiler über die Zukunft der Musikindustrie:
1 – Madonna Ditches Label, Radiohead Go Renegade: The Year The Music Industry Broke
In the first installment of our three-part series on the future of music, we take a look back at what went wrong and when.
2 – In The Age Of Viral Video, Downloads And Plummeting CD Sales, What Makes A Star?
‘If you’re some schmo in Nebraska, this is your chance right now,’ Fall Out Boy’s Pete Wentz says in the second installment of our three-part series on the future of music.
3 – If The Old Music Business Is Dead, What’s Next?
Paramore, Fall Out Boy and experts weigh in on what the next few years may hold.
The band KISS, if it was made up of “Famous French Dudes”
Battlestar Galactica Propaganda Poster Set
Join the battle against Cylon tyranny! Show your true colors and support the cause by displaying these posters in the common areas of your ship.
5 Awesome Sci-Fi Inventions (That Would Actually Suck)
Remember all those Star Trek gadgets you wished you had because they looked so cool? Well, it turns out looking cool is about all they’d be good for. Here’s five inventions that will be available some day … even if nobody wants them.
Original vs Remake
Anhand der Filmposter. Nett.
John Waters Thinks We Should Smoke in Movie Theaters
This clip is an old, retro short where Waters tells theater patrons that they can’t smoke — as he delightfully puffs on his cigarette. He begrudgingly tells the audience to refrain, while giving Waters-rationale about why smoking should be allowed. I wish more pre-movie clips could be this fun. There’s only so many times one can stomach the irony of those pirating warnings that are shown to those who actually pay to see the feature.
Robotic Jurassic Park
The idea of Jurassic Park has always intrigued me. After taking the splash on the theme park ride at Universal Studios in Hollywood, I often wondered why a whole theme park couldn’t be created around this idea. And now it is finally happening. A new $1.1 billion Jurassic theme park called Restless Planet, is being built in Dubai.
Why 2008 Will Be An Awesome Year For Movies
I can now say that 2008 looks way more appealing at this moment than 2007 did at the same time last year. This could be the year that we see revolutionary new changes in Hollywood, not only as the Writers Strike ends but as we encounter films like Cloverfield, Speed Racer, and The Dark Knight. Let’s take look at 54 reasons why 2008 will be an awesome year for movies and an even better year than 2007.
Pulp Fiction Geoms Mini Figures: The Gimp Set
For the first time ever, the characters from Quentin Tarantino’’s Pulp Fiction come to life as 3-D collectibles! This series features four unique figure sets, each packaged in window boxes. The figures stand approximately 3″ tall, come with their own movie accessories, and feature many points of articulation. This set includes Butch, The Gimp, Zed, and Marsellus.
Spiderman 3 in 30 Seconds. With Bunnys.
Home porn gives industry the blues
America’s adult entertainment workers claim their $13bn industry is in trouble. Sales are down by as much as half as customers learn that what they once paid for can now be free. Pirated pornography is flooding the internet while thousands of ‘amateurs’ post their activities on websites such as YouPorn.
Schwarzenegger returning to films?
A few high-profile writers of action films who wished not to be ID’d (you know how that is) were heard conferring that before the strike hit, agents were putting out feelers for material and pitches to develop projects with Schwarzenegger in mind. Nothing specific yet. All just preliminary stuff.
Design at the Centre of the new London Transport Museum
The London Transport Museum has recently opened its doors to visitors once again and CR was lucky enough to have a good look around. Of particular interest is the new design gallery which, if its placing in the middle of the museum is anything to go by, now takes centre stage among the tube trains and buses that fill up the floor space. Design, it seems, has always been at the very heart of London Transport and this is now something the new-look museum aims to celebrate wholeheartedly.
Trajan is the Movie Font
The Monolithic Rule of the Tyrannical Trajan Font in Entertainment Advertising has to come to an end.
Die Font-Welt Anfang der 90er
Von der »faszinierenden und frustrierenden Welt der Fonts« im frühen Desktop Publishing berichtet diese Folge von Computer Chronicles aus dem Jahre 1991. Die Sendung fällt genau in die Zeit des so genannten »Font Wars«, in dem Adobe und Apple versuchen, ihre konkurrierenden Schriftformate PostScript Type1 und TrueType zu etablieren.
ASCII Poster Maker
ASCII Poster converts any image into a giant PDF poster suitable for mounting on your wall. Each poster is made completely from ordinary letters and numbers.
All-TIME Graphic Novels
“Graphic novel” is a vague moniker that gets applied to any extended form of comics, including non-fiction and short story collections. But here, at least, the term fits. Following the rules of the All TIME 100 books — focusing exclusively on book-length fictional stories originally written in English — here are the All TIME top ten graphic novels, in alphabetical order by title.
Falling back to earth, alone
In 1960, U.S. Air Force pilot Joe Kittinger flew 30km straight up into the sky using a pressurized, high-altitude balloon. This very nearly made him the first man in space. He then jumped.
Mystery of the Prehistoric Stone Balls
As the unscientific wife of a scientist, who for years has tagged along on archaeological expeditions, I have witnessed many seemingly unexplainable discoveries, but none has provided a greater challenge or teased my imagination more acutely than the unbelievable stone balls found in Central America. The riddles they pose would threaten the deductive powers of a Sherlock Holmes.
Huge ‘Ocean’ Discovered Inside Earth
Scientists scanning the deep interior of Earth have found evidence of a vast water reservoir beneath eastern Asia that is at least the volume of the Arctic Ocean. The discovery marks the first time such a large body of water has found in the planet’s deep mantle.
NASA finds “Death Star” galaxy—complete with energy weapons
When NASA labels something a “Death Star,” you can pretty much rest assured that it will be cool—at least in an astrophysical sense. The recent discovery of a pair of neighboring galaxies, both with supermassive black holes at their centers, inspired the label after NASA researchers found that one galaxy was literally blasting the other with bursts of energy.
Intimate pictures hidden for 40 years capture the innocence of the Kennedy era
What a wonderful era of hope it seemed to be. When JFK, with his glamorous wife Jackie as First Lady, was elected President of the United States in November 1960, an entirely new feeling of elation and idealism was brought to the drab post-war world.
Soviet Underground Submarine Base
Until the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 Balaklava was one of the most secret towns in Russia. 10km south eas of Sevastopol on the Black Sea Coast, this small town was the home to a Nuclear Submarine Base.
Ich weiss, was du letzten sommer getan hast
Schäuble-Streetart… hihihi…
Warp Drive, When?
Have you ever wondered when we will be able to travel to distant stars as easily as in science fiction stories? NASA Glenn’s Marc Millis (pictured above), who has taken a break from Project Management for NASA’s Breakthrough Propulsion Physics (BPP) Project to return to conducting research, offers this assessment of the prospects for achieving the propulsion breakthroughs that would enable such far-future visions of interstellar travel.
Music Snob Shirt
Nothing is any good if other people like it. We’ve just proven it mathematically. I have a theory that the only thing cartoonists bothered learning in math class was Venn Diagrams.
The Pirate Bay Introduces Music Discovery Feature
The Pirate Bay just rolled out a new feature to their music section that makes it easy for users to find similar artists, more albums from the same artist and upcoming concerts. The data they are using comes from the popular music community website last.fm and is fully integrated into the website.
How to Start a Post-Rock Band
Are you the only person in Canada who owns a guitar and hasn’t appeared on a Broken Social Scene album? Jeff “Mogwai” Merrion reveals his step-by-step guide to becoming a successful post-rock star.
The Boy With The Incredible Brain
This is the breathtaking story of Daniel Tammet. A twenty-something with extraordinary mental abilities, Daniel is one of the world’s few … all » savants. He can do calculations to 100 decimal places in his head, and learn a language in a week. This documentary follows Daniel as he travels to America to meet the scientists who are convinced he may hold the key to unlocking similar abilities in everyone. He also meets the world’s most famous savant, the man who inspired Dustin Hoffman’s character in the Oscar winning film ‘Rain Man’.
Cool Stuff: Back to the Future Flux Capacitor Replica
Without the Flux Capacitor, Time Travel would not be possible! Diamond Select has begun taking preorders for a officially licensed Back to the Future prop replica of the Flux Capacitor (DeLorean Time Machine Not Included) from the 1985 classic Back to the Future. All you need is 1.21 jigowatts of electricity and 88mph, and you too can go back in time like Marty McFly.
Wie “YouTube” und Terrorangst unsere Welt verändern
Morgen Abend läuft um 21:00 Uhr auf Phoenix die Dokumentation “Das Ende der Intimität – Wie “YouTube” und Terrorangst unsere Welt verändern“: Die Terrorismusangst macht es möglich: Immer mehr Bahnhöfe, Flugplätze, Autobahnraststätten und Privathäuser werden mit Videokameras überwacht. Der gläserne Mensch wird Realität. Zugleich boomen Internet-Plattformen wie “YouTube” und “My Space”, auf denen sich der “Exhibitionismus von unten” selbst feiert. Warum verschwinden die Grenzen zwischen “öffentlich” und “privat” immer mehr?
A Preview of HTML 5
The web is constantly evolving. New and innovative websites are being created every day, pushing the boundaries of HTML in every direction. HTML 4 has been around for nearly a decade now, and publishers seeking new techniques to provide enhanced functionality are being held back by the constraints of the language and browsers.
To give authors more flexibility and interoperability, and enable more interactive and exciting websites and applications, HTML 5 introduces and enhances a wide range of features including form controls, APIs, multimedia, structure, and semantics.
Work on HTML 5, which commenced in 2004, is currently being carried out in a joint effort between the W3C HTML WG and the WHATWG.
Erbarmen für die Niedlichen
»Leistung soll sich lohnen«. Wer würde dem widersprechen? Wenn ich es vorziehe, nur halbtags und dünne Bretter bohrend zu arbeiten, erwarte ich nicht, damit reich zu werden. Wenn ich hingegen rund um die Uhr schufte, möchte ich auch, dass diese Arbeit Früchte trägt. Das ist eigentlich keine politische Forderung, das ist auch kaum eine These, das ist common sense.
Die Tatsache, dass es trotzdem immer wieder betont wird, zeigt daher, dass sich mehr dahinter verbirgt. Zum Einen natürlich unterstellt die Aussage, dass Leistung sich gegenwärtig nicht lohne, wodurch wiederum ein Glauben an die Notwendigkeit weitreichender Veränderungen in die Sprache und damit in so manches Hirn gepflanzt wird. Doch das genügt noch nicht, denn Veränderungen sind viele vorstellbar, und wer heute betont, Leistung solle sich lohnen, will Veränderungen in einer ganz bestimmten Richtung. Was dem Satz in diesem Sinne seine Richtung und seine Giftigkeit verleiht, ist, dass er tatsächlich gar nicht auf den zielt, der etwas leistet, sondern im Gegenteil auf den, der nach Meinung des Propagandisten eben nichts leistet. Die Forderung, dass Arbeit bezahlt werden und Einsatz Früchte tragen solle, hat rein gar nichts Innovatives an sich. Umso mehr der eigentlich gemeinte Umkehrschluss: »Wer nicht arbeitet, soll nichts bekommen«, und, da es unendlich viele Definitionen für »Arbeit« und »Leistung« gibt, im zweiten Schritt: »Wer zwar arbeitet, aber nicht genug«, oder »wer arbeitet, aber meinen Ansprüchen nicht gerecht wird, soll nichts bekommen.« Der Satz präsentiert zweierlei Positives, nämlich Leistung und Lohn, meint aber etwas Negatives; er will nicht mehr Rechte für die einen, sondern eine Entrechtung der anderen.
Ausdrücklich sagen das übrigens die, die wiederum mit common sense argumentierend und so gesehen auch zu Recht einen gewissen Einkommensabstand zwischen Arbeitenden und Empfängern von Sozialleistungen fordern, aber um diesen Abstand zu etablieren keineswegs etwas gegen Hungerlöhne tun, sondern den Lebensstandard der Armen weiter senken wollen. Lustig dabei, dass ausgerechnet sie, die meine Arbeit belohnen wollen, indem sie anderen etwas wegnehmen, sich über Neiddebatten beklagen – verlöre dieses Verständnis von Belohnung ohne Neid doch jede Logik. Weniger lustig dagegen, dass diejenigen, die nach den Maßstäben der Marktradikalen nichts leisten, sich schon jetzt aufs Existenzminimum herabgedrückt finden, was der Botschaft, die als blinder Passagier mit dem trivial-vernünftigen »Leistung soll sich lohnen« mitreist, ihren eliminatorischen Kern gibt: Wer nicht mithalten kann, soll auch das Existenzminimum nicht mehr haben, soll also, mit geringfügig anderen Worten, nicht existieren.
Rare Mummified Dinosaur Unearthed: Contains Skin, and Maybe Organs, Muscle
Scientists on Monday announced the discovery of what appears to be the world’s most intact dinosaur mummy: a 67-million-year-old plant-eater that contains fossilized bones and skin tissue, and possibly muscle and organs.
Preserved by a natural fluke of time and chemistry, the four-ton mummified hadrosaur, a duck-billed herbivore common to North America, could reshape the understanding of dinosaurs and their habitat, its finders say.
Google Immortal: Unsterblich mit Google
The loss of a loved one can be a troubling thing. The grief, inconvenience, and loneliness brought on by the sudden separation from a spouse, colleague, or even a casual acquaintance often causes a profoundly negative effect on productivity and quality of life. However, here at Google we have a solution: Google Immortal (or Gmortal).
Beijing restaurant serves “Wikipedia”
Jim Benson enjoyed his “stir-fried wikipedia,” served at a restaurant in Beijing.
Google Reveals 2008 Plans For Google Apps
Google is usually fairly tight lipped about future product releases. But they were surprisingly revealing about upcoming plans for Google Apps at an event in Ann Arbor earlier this week.
Britain, 100 years ago – in living colour
These remarkable photographs show Britain at the dawn of the 20th century in a way that has never been seen before.
A photographic record of the country in 1900, from Clacton Pier to Dumfries, the delicate colours bring the scenes to life in what was then a revolutionary photographic technique invented by the Swiss printer Orell Fussli.
Basiswissen Journalismus: Darstellungsformen – Schreib das auf! Aber wie?
Basiswissen Journalismus: Der richtige Artikelaufbau – Pyramiden und Erdbeben
Basiswissen Journalismus: Presserecht für Journalisten und Blogger
Basiswissen Journalismus: Recherche für Blogger
Monkey brains use web link to control robot legs
Would you believe that brain signals from monkeys in North Carolina can control a pair of robot legs in Japan?
Retro-Future: Glorious Urbanism
That gleaming Metropolis on the horizon? – Something to aspire to, the glorious destination to dream about, to shape your life accordingly and reach it as the utmost reward… Such ideas were popular in the infant days of futurism, in fantastic literature on both sides of the Atlantic.
Thankfully the “mega-urbanism” dream is replaced today by quite the opposite idea of an affluent living in the country – but frankly, both seem to be unattainable, clean-cut ideals that’s only pretty to look at. And look at them we will – presenting again the rarely-seen examples of urbanism and architecture, some from the Eastern Bloc “popular science” publications and promotional literature.
2000 Best Of Lists: 2007 Year-End Online Music Lists
2007 is winding down, and as “best of” music lists appear online I will post them here.
Live Music Revenues Could Exceed Music Sales
Two of the main trends in the music industry right now are the decline in music sales and the simultaneous increasing revenues from live music. Combine those two trends with the right data, and you can estimate when live music revenue will eclipse recorded music revenue, assuming current trends continue.
GBox: Digital Music Wishlists for Blogs and MySpace Profiles
The process fairly simple; you create an account, search for the music you want people to buy for you, add it to the widget, and then embed that anywhere HTML is used (custom code is available for Campusbug, Classmates, Friendster, MySpace, and myYearbook, or you can use the standard one). Each track runs the buyer $0.99.
EMI Could Sell Recorded Music Business to Google, Warner, or News Corp.
The smallest major record label, EMI, was acquired by Terra Firma earlier this year, and according to a document the company sent to potential investors, Terra Firma may be looking to get out of the recorded music business in 5 years.
Wal-Mart, Pepsi und Amazon.com bringen Major Labels in die Bredouille
In den USA wächst der Druck auf die großen Plattenfirmen, künftig digitale Musikstücke ohne Digital Rights Management (DRM) anzubieten. Wie das Musikbranchenblatt Billboard berichtet, habe der Einzelhändler Wal-Mart den Major Labels Warner Music Group und Sony BMG ein Ultimatum zugestellt, den Online-Musikladen walmart.com mit DRM-freien MP3-Stücken zu beliefern.
EMI: Auf dem Boden der Tatsachen
Internet piracy has played its part in bringing down the major labels, but Edwards says the executives must share the blame. Born in the 1950s, the first pop record labels were small businesses run by tough, hard working owners. When mass music began to produce big profits in the 1970s, the labels were still controlled by founders – men like Chris Blackwell at Island Records, Chris Wright at Chrysalis and Richard Branson at Virgin Records. These were entrepreneurs, who had their own money invested in the business, understood how to control wayward artists and kept an eye on the costs.
Mein Traum: Musik online hören und kaufen
Als Musikhörer im Jahr 2007, der seine Einkäufe und Entdeckungen zum größten Teil online macht, ist das Leben nicht immer einfach. Es gibt tolle Angebote wie das Community-Portal Last.fm, es gibt YouTube, eMusic und den Branchenprimus iTunes. Aber das Entdecken und Kaufen von Musik ist oftmals müßig.
Ich lese zum Beispiel etwas über ein neues Album auf einem Blog oder in einem Magazin. Ich schaue mir die Seite der Band an und besuche deren MySpace-Profil. Mit etwas Glück kann ich dort in ein paar Stücke des neuen Albums reinhören. Oder ich besuche den Luisterpaal. Sollte mir das Album gefallen, dann möchte ich es vielleicht kaufen. eMusic hat es noch nicht oder bekommt es auch nie. Tunetribe bietet diesen Künstler nur im WMA-Format, Bleep und Finetunes liefern keine Ergebnisse, akuma hat das Album auch nicht. iTunes hat zwar seit diesem Jahr iTunes Plus, nur leider nicht die Musik dieses Labels. Und wo bekomme ich das Album schließlich ohne Probleme? Als Torrent-Datei oder in einer Tauschbörse.
The Science of Sleep Disasterology Calendar
One of the coolest movies of last year came and went relatively fast, and was virtually unnoticed by mainstream audiences. I’m talking about The Science of Sleep, Michel Gondry’s quirky romantic dramedy about a young man, entranced by his dreams and imagination, who becomes lovestruck with a French woman and feels he can show her his world. If you haven’t yet seen it, I highly recommend you add it to your Netflix queue.
10 Things I like about Return of the Jedi
I consider Return of the Jedi to be the weakest of the original Star Wars movies, primarily because you can see the beginnings of the annoying cutesy shit that plagued the prequels even as far back as this. However, that’s not to say the film isn’t enjoyable—it’s just not quite as good as the first two in my book. I mostly blame the Ewoks for this.
Television History – The First 75 Years
Once you are inside a major time period, you will find photographs of television sets from around the world, year-by-year links to important facts, magazine covers and advertising. See examples of the world’s first television sets, up to and including HDTV models.
Zerstört die Netzkultur den musikalischen Film?
Die aktuelle Netzkultur mit ihrer multimedialen Zerstückelung und Chaotisierung von Daten schwankt zwischen Einfalt und Vielfalt. Sie hat speziell das Medium Film und die Vorstellung von Filmmusik in einer Weise durcheinander gebracht und einer ästhetischen Trivialisierung unterzogen, die bisher noch nicht angemessen analysiert worden ist.
Star Wars Deleted Magic
STAR WARS DELETED MAGIC (2005?) is a version of STAR WARS (1977) that’s full of filmed alternate takes, actors speaking through imperial soldier masks and c-3PO masks, and deleted scenes re-cut in according to early existing script drafts.
The Return of Max Headroom
Channel 4 is to bring back 1980s creation Max Headroom to front a series of TV ads to raise awareness of the digital switchover. The campaign, which breaks this Saturday, features Matt Frewer, the actor who played the original Max Headroom. Ads will feature Headroom criticising Channel 4, which created the stuttering digital host in the 1980s, for ignoring his vision of a digital future.
Brain visualized as an island map
The designers at New Zealand’s Unit Seven created this New Brainland Map that visualizes and, er, maps out various neural regions. They used a reference photo of a human brain to model the 3D terrain.
Reissued German Educational Charts that were illustrated in the 1950s and 60s.
AT-AT Gamecube mod
There are mods, and then there are works of art. Without question, the item you see above falls squarely into the latter category, and it’s likely to give any devout Star Wars fan a chance at fainting upon first glance. The AT-AT Gamecube mod (also referred to as the AT-GC in some circles) was built a few years back, but now the proud creator has decided to cash out and let the highest bidder take ownership. (Danke Sebi!)
Dinosaurs Attack!
DINOSAURS ATTACK! is a 1988 collector card series from Topps containing 55 cards and 11 Stickers.
Radiohead.tv
Für alle, die den Webcast verpasst haben: Ready for some YouTubes from the telecast? We’ll start with Thom (with Jonny on moral support) talking up thumbs_down. It’s a celebration, bitches!
The New Deal: Band as Brand
Paramore is undeniably ascendant: after three years of tireless runs through clubs and festivals, the band, from Franklin, Tenn., has built a passionate audience that has snapped up more than 350,000 copies of its recent second album, “Riot!,” more than doubling the sales of its debut. And now the band is selling out theaters on its biggest tour to date.
Though its success is in large part due to smart pop songwriting and a fashion-forward frontwoman, music executives and talent managers also cite Paramore as a promising example of a rising new model for developing talent, one in which artists share not just revenue from their album sales but concert, merchandise and other earnings with their label in exchange for more comprehensive career support.
If the concept takes hold, it will alter not only the way music companies make money but the way new talent is groomed, and perhaps even the kind of acts that are offered contracts in the first place.
Interview: The Hold Steady / Art Brut
We recently spoke to Art Brut’s Eddie Argos and the Hold Steady’s Craig Finn, and it took like 10 seconds for booze come up in conversation. They also talked about music, their disdain for irony, and their love of the Mountain Goats.
eMusic sieht sich als Nummer zwei hinter Apples iTunes-Store
Der nach eigenen Angaben größte MP3-Onlineshop für Musik abseits der Major Labels, eMusic, sieht sich selbst als weltweite Nummer zwei hinter iTunes. Mit inzwischen über drei Millionen Songs von 20.000 Labels wartet eMusic mit dem größten Independent-Katalog der Welt auf. Jüngst hatte der Anbieter um das Material weiterer 30 Independent Label erweitert – darunter Rough Trade und Shout! Factory.
Movie Title Screen Page
Browse and admire title and logo designs, check out movies that have completely different titles in different release prints (see Battle of Britain or The Premature Burial for good examples), check out the differences in multiple releases of the same title (see Aliens or Invasion of the Body Snatchers for a good example), check to see just how “wide” is the widescreen (width/height=aspect ratio… and does it match the sleeve description?)… use the logo when designing a web page for your favourite movie…include the title screens in your video database… the possibilities are… well, not endless, but many!
Interview mit Patrick de Funès: “Er gab halt nie Ruhe”
Er patroullierte mit 30 Schlüsseln durch sein Schloss, ließ Freunde mit Armeehubschraubern retten und gefiel sich als gnadenloser Snob-Schreck. Patrick de Funès erzählt von seinem Vater Louis.
BBC – Horizon – A War On Science (God vs Science)
This is an documentary about God vs Science. Is it right to teach kids that God made us?
Urban Typography
Folie, Filz und Klopapier: Typo-Workshop zigzag zombie. “‘Alles geben’ is for sure something which counts for our workshops. This German saying means as much as ‘100% energy’, ‘go straight forward’, or ‘complete concentration’. Maybe that is just the way we work ourselves, and that is what we expect from other people as well. If we manage to get other people enthusiastic, we get enthusiastic ourselves as well.”
LEGO Education – Building Asia Brick By Brick
The Building Asia Brick By Brick project wants to raise awareness for traditional architecture in a more playful way: Architects from China, Japan and Thailand amongst others were given kits of white LEGO building blocks and told to have just fun. The results, from Asiatic temples to futuristic towers to sustainable old-and-new city plans are currently touring Asia.
R/C Robot T-Rex
This remote controlled dinosaur comes with three different moving modes: walking, running and predatory. It also features movable arms, a swiveling head, a sweeping tail, a chomping jaw full of pointy teeth, and it’s loaded with a bunch of dinosaur sounds. The infrared vision makes sure he doesn’t bump into any obstacles on the way.
Val Kilmers Treehouse
For some celebrities living the high life means getting a mansion in Beverly Hills or a penthouse in New York City. For Val Kilmer its having a tree mansion on his ranch in New Mexico.
Spielleiter in Online-Games – Von Beruf Halbgott
Gamemaster sind die Aufpasser in Online-Rollenspielen. Sie können sich teleportieren, unsichtbar sein und manchmal sogar ein Leben retten. Doch eigentlich dürfen Gamemaster nicht über ihren Job sprechen. Dieser hier packt trotzdem aus.
Durchbruch beim Klonen von Primaten
Wissenschaftler konnten die Möglichkeit zeigen, Primatenembryos zu klonen, während ein UN-Bericht dringend fordert, das Klonen von Menschen international zu regeln
Human Clones: New U.N. Analysis Lays Out World’s Choices
The world community quickly needs to reach a compromise that outlaws reproductive cloning or prepare to protect the rights of cloned individuals from potential abuse, prejudice and discrimination, according to authors of a new policy analysis by the United Nations University’s Institute of Advanced Studies.
Kunstprojekt picidae durchbricht die chinesische Mauer
Mit ihrem Kunstprojekt Picidae schlagen die Netzkünstler Christoph Wachter und Mathias Jud ein Loch in die virtuelle chinesische Mauer. Anstatt gegen den Textfilter der chinesischen Regierung anzukämpfen, umgeht picidae ihn einfach. Picidae wandelt die Textinformation in Bilder, die wiederum von der chinesischen Firewall nicht erfasst werden. Das System ruft über ein Netzwerk von Servern im Ausland die gesuchte Website auf und schickt einen Screenshot davon zurück an den Nutzer und schlagen dem chinesischen Politbüro so ein Schnäppchen.
How Crime-scene Clean-up Works
Crime-scene cleaners charge up to $600 an hour for their service, and most people would pay a lot more. In this article, we’ll find out what crime-scene clean-up involves, what special knowledge the cleaners need to have and who in the world would be able to do this job.
Americas craziest Laws
You may not have more than two dildos in a house.
Dadx
Dadx is an online video search engine which search for Videos from about 20 online video sites such as YouTube, Google Videos, metacafe etc.
Radio Clash Podcast: Grand Theft Scratchy
Not the Itchy and Scratchy show, but there is random violence and cartoon emotion…
Mashup in Heaven
Aaaaaw: Norwegian Recycling from Norway created again a wonderful boot, called “Mashups In Heaven” and the title say everything about the track. It’s a great mix of some classic tracks like Eric Clapton’s “Tears In Heaven”, Lionel Richie’s “Say You, Say Me”, Bob Dylan’s “Workingman’s Blues #2″, Aphrodite’s Child’s “Rain and Tears”, Blues Traveler’s “Hook” & Fredrik Kempe.
Music DRM ‘dead by next summer’
Killing DRM is saving digital music, reckons British retailer 7Digital. The company says DRM-free music sales now outnumber sales of DRM-enumbered music by 4:1 , and credits EMI with the shift.
Sub Pop Begins To Sell MP3s
You’ve got to hand it to Sub Pop. They’ve maintained a killer roster, have continued to crank out vinyl at a reasonable cost, and have now started selling MP3 albums from their catalog. The Seattle indie opened up their MP3 shop last week, which now includes around 200 titles or so.
Torrent Wars: Demonoid Torrent Tracker Site Shut Down by Canadian RIAA
The Demonoid torrent tracker has gone the way of OiNK and (apparently) Albumbase before it, after the CRIA (Canadian Recording Industry Association) started playing hardball with the site’s hosting company.
UK music store: DRM-free music outsells protected tunes four to one
DRM-free music sells at a much higher rate online than protected music, according to UK-based digital music store 7 Digital. In fact, customers buy it four times as often as they do DRMed music. As a result, almost 80 percent of the store’s sales are of DRM-free content. 7 Digital may not sound familiar to some, but it carries over 3 million songs and has many selections from major artists in addition to independent labels.
C-3PO Vinyl Collectible Doll
It doesn’t happen often, but every now and then this golden protocol droid steels the show from R2-D2, Darth Vader and other Star Wars celebs. The C-3PO collectible doll is 21 cm (8.26 inches) tall and made of soft vinyl. It can be pre-ordered for $58 and will start shipping in February 2009(?!).
Aliens inspired Lego spaceship corridor for sinister things to hide in
Glass Octopus – with suckers
Art Glass Collection an absolutely gorgeous US artist / designer creation of an octopus in blown and sculptured colored glass
Big Active
Tonnenweise Designportfolios
YOU_ser Art – Benutzerkunst oder Kunstbenutzer?
Das ZKM präsentiert seit dem 21.10.2007 eine neue Ausstellung mit dem hippen Titel YOU_ser: Das Jahrhundert des Konsumenten. Das klingt erst einmal spannend: Ich bin Konsument, ich bin Nutzer, ich bin Web 2.0-tauglich, ich fühle mich angesprochen. Und wie man es sich nicht schöner hätte denken können, ist man sofort nach Eintritt in die ehemaligen Fabrikhallen des ZKM umgeben von Technik. Gleich am Eingang zur Ausstellung wird jeder, der die Ausstellung betritt, mit einem kräftigen Paukenschlag begrüßt. Damit man sicher sein kann, dass dieser Begrüßungspaukenschlag wirklich einem selbst gilt, erscheint wie durch Zauberhand das eigene Konterfei auf der Pauke. Das Kunstwerk, so lese ich, heißt deshalb auch bezeichnenderweise “Greetings” (Stephan von Huene). Noch keine drei Sekunden sind vergangen, seit die nette Frau am Eingang die Karte abgerissen hat, und schon bin ich mittendrin im Kunstwerk, statt wie so oft nur dabei. Das lässt hoffen.
Manga Toilettenpapier
Lesen bildet ja bekanntlich und warum sollte man die wertvolle Sitzungszeit auf dem stillen Örtchen mit dem Lesen der Tageszeitung vom Vortag oder der bereits vollgestunkenen P.M. Ausgabe verschwenden, wenn man die heutzutage so knapp bemessene Ruhezeit auch anders nutzen und dabei noch seinen Horizont erweitern kann. Wie etwa mit der Lektüre eines mehr oder weniger anregenden Ero Mangas, der praktischerweise gleich auf Toilettenpapier gedruckt wurde um nach der “Benutzung” umweltfreundlich Richtung Kanalisation entsorgt werden zu können.
Open-Source 3D Printer, Lets Users Make Anything
Hod Lipson didn’t set out to revolutionize manufacturing. He just wanted to design a really cool robot, one that could “evolve” by reprogramming itself and would also produce its own hardware—a software brain, if you will, with the ability to create a body.
Weird and wondrful foreign phrases that just don’t translate
Kaelling – Danish: a woman who stands on her doorstep yelling obscenities at her kids.
In the Air tonight – ohne Gorilla
Wonderbra apes Cadbury’s gorilla ad in this enjoyable spoof, and attempts to improve on the original by featuring a much less hairy drummer and lots of gratuitous boob-bouncing.
The History of Super Mario Bros.
It’s-a Mario! A look back at the greatest franchise in gaming.
The Mafia’s ten commandments vs. Cowboys ten commandmends
The BBC reports that when Italian police searched a Mafia boss’ hideout, they found a list of ten rules for proper mafioso etiquette.
3. Never be seen with cops.
Stacking Eggs into a City
Unfassbar!
Archaelogists Found Evidence of Zombie Attack in Ancient Egypt!
Zombie attacks are a very, very serious matter. So it’s only right that the Archaeology, a publication of the always serious Archaeological Institute of America, delved into the evidence of a zombie attack, caused by the Solanum virus, in 3000 BC Egypt: „… in 1892, a British dig at Hierakonpolis unearthed a nondescript tomb containing a partially decomposed body, whose brain had been infected with the virus (Solanum) that turns people into zombies. In addition, thousands of scratch marks adorned every surface of the tomb, as if the corpse had tried to claw its way out!“
Animals In Formalin Preservation
In the preservation of animal specimens for study, animals are usually preserved using formalin where the whole body would be immersed in the posture in which it is supposed to stay permanently because it will be hardened. The ratio of formalin to carcass must at least be 12 to 1 to ensure a good fixation.
Half Life (und Micky Mouse) auf den Straßen Georgiens
