Kiel Johnson and Klai Brown recently built a fantastic 8-bit costume for a Toshiba commercial. They cut the ‘pixels’ from large sheets of high density foam and glued them to an articulated cardboard suit structure. Kiel says, ‘I think I cut around 4000 pixels. Not all used for Gary… we are building two more characters for a video project.’ He’s posted a posted a slew of terrific images from the build and commercial shoot.
‘8-Bit Gary‘
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Givenchy fashion inspired by anatomy: “
Fashion designer Riccardo Tisci’s latest couture collection for Givenchy was inspired by Frida Kahlo’s obsessions with religion, sensuality, and human anatomy. What, no menswear!? From Style.com:
The zipper pulls were little bones, a belt was a spinal column re-created in porcelain. The dominant motif of the collection was the skeleton, laid out flat in the lace appliquéd on a long tulle column, or rendered in three dimensions in obsessively dense clusters of crystals, pearls, and lace on the back of a jacket in double silk duchesse satin. Nestled in the middle? A tiny ceramic skull sprouting angel wings. At one point during his presentation, Tisci rather tellingly muttered, ‘A romantic way to see death.’
Givenchy Fall 2010 Couture Collection (Thanks, Kelly Sparks!)
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Pocket Kite: “
I’ve collected quite an assortment of logo emblazoned pens, mousepads, stress balls, and other tchotchkes at professional conferences, but far and away the most fun and useful (as in, it gets used) item I have picked up is the pocket kite. The pocket kite is a small sled-style kite that is kept in a small zippered pouch attached to a key ring that also contains a little reel loaded with kite string.
The kite is very easy to fly, but doesn’t have any wooden supports or anything else that could break. The pouch is barely 3 inches across and weighs next to nothing, so it is easy toss into a backpack for a hike. I keep mine in the courier bag that goes with me everywhere. It is really fun to bust it out when unexpected kite flying opportunities arise. Day at the beach; reaching a summit; dull company picnic. Unless you are a hardcore kite nut, you probably aren’t hanging around waiting for a windy day so you can drop everything and go fly a kite. A pocket kite is ready when you are. And it’s cheap, so when it inevitably gets stuck in a tree, it’s not the end of the world.
— Toby Plewak
Stow’n Go Pocket Kite
$5
Available from Uncles Games
Manufactured by Toysmith
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DFS: “
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Do we play Farmville because we’re polite?: “
Mental Floss clues us into an interesting article on MediaCommons about why we play Farmville — basically, because we’ve been trained to not be able to ignore social obligations.
The secret to Farmville’s popularity is neither gameplay nor aesthetics. Farmville is popular because in entangles users in a web of social obligations. When users log into Facebook, they are reminded that their neighbors have sent them gifts, posted bonuses on their walls, and helped with each others’ farms. In turn, they are obligated to return the courtesies. As the French sociologist Marcel Mauss tells us, gifts are never free: they bind the giver and receiver in a loop of reciprocity. It is rude to refuse a gift, and ruder still to not return the kindness.[11] We play Farmville, then, because we are trying to be good to one another. We play Farmville because we are polite, cultivated people.
I don’t play Farmville, but I do keep my Facebook page pretty app-free because I fear getting entangled in such obligations.
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Steam offers deep-discount game sale: “
PC (and now Mac!) digital download service Steam has kicked off a site-wide sale offering big discounts on everything from AAA to indie, including bundles like the ‘Northern Lights’ pack (above) — which includes Crayon Physics, the aforementioned Saira and the excellent UK indie Plain Sight — and the Best of the Underground pack.
Also of note, all the games from Darwinia creators Introversion are bundled for $5, and even recent releases like BioShock 2 and Borderlands are around half off (and available in their own 2K bundle).
The Steam store site has the full listing of discounted items, which remain on sale until July 4.
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f.lux: “
f.lux is a free piece of software that slowly shifts the color temperature of your computer monitor throughout the day in order to adapt it to the natural rhythm of light. I first downloaded it after reading about Seth Robert’s self-experimentation involving sleep. As Roberts points out, research indicates that certain color temperatures stimulate wakefulness and affect circadian rhythms. This is why people with Seasonal Affective Disorder use blue light devices that supposedly mimic the blue sky of summer. By using f.lux to shift the temperature of a computer monitor away from blue light and towards red after natural light has faded the idea is that it will diminish the unintended wakefulness caused by the screen and allow for a more restful sleep.
While I am not as careful a self-experimenter as Seth Roberts, I have noticed that when I use f.lux not only do I get sleepier sooner but that I also awake earlier. By simply disabling the program for an hour (an option that is built into the software) I also notice an immediate sense of renewed wakefulness. The shift in color temperature is significant and immediately noticeable when I use my computer at night, but not in a way that negatively impacts the quality of the image on screen (and when it does, or if I need to edit photos, I simply disable it).
The program is available for Mac OS X and Windows XP/Vista/7. A similar program called Redshift is available for Linux users.
— Oliver Hulland
f.lux
Free
Available from f.lux
Produced by stereopsis
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As usual, Charlie Stross pretty much nails it.
“In a nutshell: the iPhone swallowed the iPod, the satnav, the phone, and the pocket camera. The iPad swallows the PMP, the ebook reader, and the netbook.”
…
“As for the big picture: this thing is roughly where the Macintosh was in late 1984. Which is to say, a lot of people don’t get it, and think it’s a toy — and in truth, there’s a lot of stuff it doesn’t do properly yet. But it’s an astonishingly promising toy. And what it promises is an entirely new way of getting stuff done. I think it’s going to be Macintosh 2.0. And today, even if you’re reading this in Internet Explorer on a desktop PC, your PC is a Macintosh clone: because the mouse-and-window based Macintosh user interface won.”
Modern gadgets made in 1977: “
Alex Varanese’s sunset-hued walnut burl wonderland is a place I’d be happy to spend my evenings. From a blog post announcing his latest trip to the old-school:
This project is undoubtedly my most conceptually ambitious work to date. It comprises 14 full-sized, 18×24′ prints that explore the awesomely absurd idea of time travelers who return to the late 1970’s to release the technology of 2010 and dominate the world of consumer electronics. I re-imagined four modern products as if they existed over 30 years ago and tried to bring them to life through fake print ads, abstract glamour shots, and even a characteristically pretentious type treatment or two.
It also shows how modern ‘retro’ gadget designs are often quite half-baked compared to the real (fake) thing. If you’re going to go retro, you should either be so good at understanding the timeless that few even notice what you’re up to (consider how Apple often channels Braun) or basically do what Alex did here, which is make everything out of wood and spidery LEDs.
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