xkcd: AirAware.

[Damn, these are just incredible. Is he using really powerful spotlights to be able to shoot with such a short shutter speed? -egg]

Liquid Sculptures: Powerful Waves Photographed by Pierre Carreau Seem Frozen in Time | Colossal.

When we last looked at Curiosity — What’s Inside the Cube?, we were curious to know why half a million people were compulsively working together to tap and destroy the imaginary green cube in this iPhone app.

A few months later, they haven’t stopped. In fact, ten times that many people are now taking part in this “experiment.” Some are drawing crude pictures on the cube’s surface. Others are just trying to break the cube and get to its center. Still others are paying real money in an attempt to thwart them by adding layers back onto the cube. Today, its developer told Wired that just 50 layers of the cube now remain.

The end is near. But what happens when Curiosity‘s cube is gone?

After Billions of Clicks, Players Near the Center of Peter Molyneux’s Cube | Game|Life | Wired.com.

A team of scientists at the Boston Children’s Hospital have invented what is being considered one the greatest medical breakthroughs in recent years. They have designed a microparticle that can be injected into a person’s bloodstream that can quickly oxygenate their blood. This will even work if the ability to breathe has been restricted, or even cut off entirely.

This finding has the potential to save millions of lives every year. The microparticles can keep an object alive for up to 30 min after respiratory failure. This is accomplished through an injection into the patients’ veins. Once injected, the microparticles can oxygenate the blood to near normal levels. This has countless potential uses as it allows life to continue when oxygen is needed but unavailable. For medical personnel, this is just enough time to avoid risking a heart attack or permanent brain injury when oxygen is restricted or cut off to patients.

via Scientists Invent Oxygen Particle That If Injected, Allows You To Live Without Breathing | TechWench.com.

What would you say to someone worried about age taking a toll on his or her appearance?

Debra: Wrinkles? If you have wrinkles I’d say… So what?! If you eat right, you’ll feel right. You have to keep this consciousness into your 40s, 50’s, 60’s and on…

MaryAnn: In order to keep looking young you have to do youthful things, like dressing with expression. If you feel young mentally, you will look young.

Debra: As you get older you have the confidence to take different style risks, which is inherently youthful.

via ADVANCED STYLE: Should We Ever Stop Playing Dress Up?.

Goggles is the image search feature in the Google mobile app, and by layering the app’s best attempts to match his photos, Bland has created an artistic view of the world as seen through Google’s eyes.

His first experiment with it, for example, was a picture he took of a tennis racket. Google sent back a series of pictures that, while similar in tone and shape, had nothing to do with tennis. There was a polar bear, a nuclear missile launch and stock photo of a box of pills, among other things. Instead of being disappointed, Bland was fascinated. He liked that Google was confused.

“The way humans beings understand images is often through their content,” says Bland, a photographer and videographer who lives in London. “We have an instant emotional or intellectual reaction, whereas Google couldn’t see any of that.”

That first experiment happened in 2012. Since then, Bland has been shooting and then building collages with the results (he now uses Google’s web-based image search because it allows him to upload higher-res photos from his DSLR). Layering the photos makes cool art, but it also allows him to further investigate what the app is keying in on. Sometimes color is all it seems to chase; other times it gravitates to a random object in the corner of the frame.

via Google Is Alive, It Has Eyes, and This Is What It Sees | Raw File | Wired.com.

That is, “LOL” no longer “means” anything. Rather, it “does something” — conveying an attitude — just as the ending “-ed” doesn’t “mean” anything but conveys past tense. LOL is, of all things, grammar.

Of course, no texter thinks about that consciously. But then most of communication operates below the radar, where things tend not to mean what they would literally. Over time, the meaning of a word or an expression drifts. “Meat” used to mean any kind of food. “Silly” used to mean, believe it or not, blessed.

via Opinion: LOL isn’t funny anymore – CNN.com.

This week conceptual artist Florentijin Hofman brought his gargantuan Rubber Duck artwork to Victoria Harbour in Hong Kong. The huge inflatable duck measures nearly 46 feet tall and 55 feet long and is shown above being pulled by a tug boat only a fraction of its size. Hofman is well known for his grandiose and whimsical sculptures that seem born with the primary goal of inducing as many smiles possible. Via the artist’s website:

The Rubber Duck knows no frontiers, it doesn’t discriminate people and doesn’t have a political connotation. The friendly, floating Rubber Duck has healing properties: it can relieve mondial tensions as well as define them. The rubber duck is soft, friendly and suitable for all ages!

via The World’s Largest Rubber Duck Arrives in Hong Kong | Colossal.

[Oh hell yeah. Don’t miss the video. -egg]

The artist considers it important to escape from human bondage in order to achieve harmony between men and machines. He thinks this harmony can be achieved through the process of religious practices and spiritual enlightenment. In Buddhism, the Bodhisattva of Compassion helps people attain enlightenment, Arhat is a spiritual practitioner of asceticism, and Buddha is a being who reaches the highest level of enlightenment. Through them, the artist intends to follow the path of enlightenment, breaking away from anxiety, agony, and pain. The artist has no intention to emphasize religious connotations through these Buddhist icons but to reflect his own or our own existence between utopia and dystopia.”

via Mechanical Buddhas Bring Motion into Harmony.

Iron Shoes || Hauschka – YouTube.