We would like to present you, a relaxing video of an adorable little kitten playing in the garden. It’s filmed entirely on the Phantom HD with framerates ranging from 400 to 800 frames per second.
Author Archives: caitlinburke
In Focus with Alan Taylor
Alan Taylor created The Big Picture at Boston.com when he was working at the site. He’d been monitoring the wire services for photos for years, finding them a rich source for telling stories of the day in a dense and moving way. The site agreed, and he built the feature, assembling wire (and some other) photos into essays that are beautiful but also thoughtful and honest.
The Atlantic, a old media publication that has been embracing the Web with stunning effect, has been assembling an incredible team of voices for its site, and it wisely snapped Taylor up this year.
Now Taylor’s new home is live. I think you’re going to want to follow it.
In Focus with Alan Taylor [web]
In Focus with Alan Taylor [Twitter]
Giving Furniture a Taste for Blood
Auger-Loizeau is making pet robots. Sort of.
To satisfy the basic robot criteria, each one has been given a normative utilitarian aspect, performing basic services for their human hosts:
1. Mouse Trap combined with coffee table Robot.
2. Flypaper combined with Robotic clock.
3. Pest Control combined with lamp shade Robot.
4. Fly Stealing Robot. (this is a pure entertainment robot)
5. U.V. flykiller Parasite Robot.
The CDERs are autonomous as a consequence of using the Microbial Fuel Cell (MFC) as energy source.
Their motivation, via programming, to capture biomass gives them agency.
They move or have mechanical moving parts.
They can sense their environment.
In other words: Trouble brewing.
More at Carnivorous Domestic Entertainment Robots
Update: Robots to get their own internet: “Wikipedia is something that humans use to share knowledge, that everyone can edit, contribute knowledge to and access,” he said. “Something like that does not exist for robots.” … RoboEarth is likely to become a tool for the growing number of service and domestic robots that many expect to become a feature in homes in coming decades. So … calorie counts and so on? Terrific.
The Best Star Trek Movie Ever Made
I am speaking, of course, of Galaxy Quest. I saw it on a whim while I was visiting my brother – neither of us had heard anything about it, and our expectations were low. It was a great experience.
E! broadcast a mockumentary about the “history” of the show around the time the movie was released, and a kind soul has uploaded it to YouTube. This is segment one of three:
I’m going to go ahead and put it out there: don’t watch this little confection expecting to see a lot of Tony Shalhoub. Alan Rickman, however, is as perfect as you expect (as are Tim Allen and Sigourney Weaver).
Parts two and three are linked from the YouTube page for Part 1.
Super Bowl Ads 2011
Hate football so much you can’t even sit through one game a year so you can see the most fussed-over, expensive ads unveiled on television? Never fear: Fanhouse has em all.
Marvel at the just plain weirdness of the Coke Dragon ad (and Coke’s complete redemption with Border Guards). Recoil at the crass commercialization of Tibetan suffering by Groupon. Contemplate whether Darth Vader kid in the VW ad is a girl or boy.
Gotta watch ’em all.
Maybe.
If you’d rather read something thoughtful and insightful, here is a bonus link about advertising, sort of: an excellent article discussing how meta Mad Men really is.
Lazarus Hen
And what’s not to love? There’s something intrinsically happy about a chicken. The name: a little hiccup in the mouth. The shape: a jaunty upswing of feathers, a grin. The ceaseless bobbing, scratching, pecking. It’s nearly impossible to feel melancholy in the company of chickens. They are a balm for the weary urban soul….
Imagine our dismay last June, then, when Gertrude, a Rhode Island Red and our prize layer, was stolen.
High Tea
The Wellcome Collection has introduced an online game called High Tea. You obtain opium in India and smuggle it into China, where you trade it for silver to buy tea. Millions in England are counting on you!
It’s not all that easy to play! Also, I really want a cup of tea now.
The High Society exhibition also offers a quiz, an image gallery, information about drug use in Victorian England, a companion book, and related reading.
Typewriter Strokes
Keira Rathbone puts ASCII art in its place.
Follow the link to see that, yes, those are punctuation marks and other symbols. She makes these intricate illustrations using a typewriter.
Happy New Year!
I’ll Take Three
My Staircase is a shelving unit that combines a bookshelf with a pullout stair system in the bottom three shelves. The shelving unit is 2.6 meters high and the top shelves are accessible by using the bottom shelves as steps for accessing the higher shelves. —Danny Kuo