Excellent, thoughtful post from Jodi Rhoden on finding community in unexpected places.

On Community: Dorothy Day, ACRC, and Elementary School | Short Street Cakes.

[This is so goddamn awesome. -egg]

extra memory.

This machine allows anyone to work for minimum wage for as long as they like. Turning the crank on the side releases one penny every 4.97 seconds, for a total of $7.25 per hour. This corresponds to minimum wage for a person in New York. This piece is brilliant on multiple levels, particularly as social commentary. Without a doubt, most people who started operating the machine for fun would quickly grow disheartened and stop when realizing just how little they’re earning by turning this mindless crank. A person would then conceivably realize that this is what nearly two million people in the United States do every day…at much harder jobs than turning a crank. This turns the piece into a simple, yet effective argument for raising the minimum wage.

(Source: bencrowther, via bokononish)

Bottlenose v0.1 – Grindhouse Wetware.

The Bottlenose takes in a large range of data such as sonar, UV, wi-fi and thermal information and translates it to a magnetic field via induction where it interacts with an implanted magnet (usually in the finger). Grindhouse Wetwares also sells a haptic version of the Bottlenose, which does not require a magnet implant. The haptic model vibrates with varying intensity in the presence of sensory information. Any sensor can be substituted or added to the provided kit – instructions on how to do this is provided in the video below.

While many of us in the west love Asian food most of us have no idea how to cook it for ourselves – past a simple stir-fry that is. In Sweden, however, a leading supplier of oriental food has come up with a clever way of helping people keen to give it a try.

Instagram

Ask CT Food is a new service people can use through Instagram to find out the ingredients and methods of cooking Asian food. If you’re at a restaurant and want to know how to make the Sushi that you’re about to eat, you can take a photo of the dish and CT Food will tell you how…

Reverse engineering the food in front of you.

riotclitshave, Photograph by David Wilkie, from The Cultural….

Why Americans Are the Weirdest People in the World
http://www.psmag.com/magazines/pacific-standard-cover-story/joe-henrich-weird-ultimatum-game-shaking-up-psychology-economics-53135/

(via Instapaper)

http://bigfok.bandcamp.com/

‘Big Fok is a beatmaker/producer from Durham, North Carolina. He was brought up listening to many different genres of music and his music reflects that. His sound has been described as “dark, cinematic and refreshing”. His music is based in old school and southern hip hop but you also can hear influences of blues, electronica, ambient, trance, soul, and shoegaze as well as his own original sound. ‘

[Yet another ridiculously good essay by James Bridle. The man blows my mind. -egg]

The process of laying cables across the ocean is a fascinating and venerable one, that proceeds in stages out into the deep ocean and back, ploughing trenches into the littoral to lay fragile cable under the sand in shallow areas, and paying it out across the deep seabed far from shore. These cables are fat bundles of optical fibers – millimetre-thick strands of glass, through which light is bounced all the way to its destination.

The most resonant moment comes when the ship reaches shore. When a cable-laying ship is a few hundred metres off shore, the last segment of cable is put on a small boat and brought to the beach. And there, thousands of miles from its origin, a man emerges from the ocean, carrying the internet over his shoulder. Sunbeams, indeed.

The Secure Transport of Light | booktwo.org.

The New Aesthetic — “In 2010, economists Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth….