• Animal of the Month: Drunk Animals in Africa [3:54] (via: DRB)

• mushrooms!
  • YouTube Search: time lapse mushroom
  YouTube – ??? ?????? ????? [2:11]
  YouTube – Psilocybe cubensis “Puerto Rico” time lapse [1:10]
  Metacafe – Mushroom time lapse Amanita Muscaria [1]
  YouTube – Blue Oyster Mushroom Time Lapse Video [1:03]
  • Cool Tools – Mycelium Running
  “Mushrooms as solution. Fungi as ninja warriors.”
• Rapid Evolution Gives Sperm the Advantage | LiveScience
Competition between male fruit flies could drive fast evolution of proteins in their semen.
• YouTube Search – Huutajat: The Finnish Screaming Men’s Choir
Watch a video or two. It was exactly what I thought it would be, but that did not make it any less interesting.

technology

• New Inventors: Electric Nomad (via core77)
  The Electric Nomad is a standard sized electric guitar that features all the usual features usability and playability of a normal electric guitar however it is designed so that it collapses.
• Toilet Tech
  • Cool Tool: GoBidet
  • Cool Tool: Toto Washlet Toilet
    “…The ‘Incredible Squirting Toilet’ has achieved almost total market penetration…”  …
• AfriGadget: 18 year old self-taught electronics “genius” invents mobile phone-based vehicle anti-theft system.
  Awesome blog, and blog name.
• Ventomobile: Sailing without sails. On the land. – Core77
• Seeing is not believing
  • Death Star over San Francisco [2:43] (via)
  Current TV story, Death Star over San Francisco, Imperial Fleet Week SF
  • Design42day.com – Lifelike animation heralds new era for computer games
  Read up on this tech in the above link and also go to YoutTube [1:49] to watch the demo in hi-def.

design

• Fleshmap: Studies of Desire [nsfw] (via information aesthetics)
  Crowdsourcing Sex
• Emotionally}Vague Survey Results – (via information aesthetics)

• Whippet Chair by Hugh Thomas – Core77
I like this chair.
• Good Experience Games – good games, fun games
A really nice list of well designed games.

random stuff I think is of interest

• New York
  • How Polite Are We?
  A survey where NYC comes out as the MOST POLITE city. I am actually unsurprised because it takes more time to argue than to be polite.
  • City Fits, Eventually, for New Arrivals – NYTimes.com
  “Sometime over the course of new arrivals’ first year in the city, they find themselves becoming New Yorkers.” Also confirms above survey with anecdotal evidence.
• writing_philosophy.pdf
  Two and a half pages on how to write better, not just for philosophy.  I like, “You should assume that the first draft of each sentence will have to be fixed up.” (my emphasis)
• Shareholder Letters
  Warren Buffet’s letters to his shareholders. Makes for surprisingly good reading… I just wish I had his sort of bad news, like, there’s no way you can expect us to keep doing this well. – I’m sorry that our predictions from last year were off. Of course, we did much better this year…
• I recently had a discussion with Mr. R. Brown about eating meat. He tried to maintain that vegetarians have the moral high ground. Even though I successfully defended my omnivorous position (even against his cannibalism tack), I’m thinking Zizek’s ad hominem is now the way to go (26s) [via]:
• Last but not least: Fox Developing Cowboy Bebop Live-Action Feature Film
  Please let this not suck.

 
… you don’t want to know how long it takes to put these link pages together.

Secondly Nintendo has recently come out with the Wii Balance Board. This peripheral can accurately measure your weight distribution.

If we combine the potential of head tracking with weight distribution it would be possible to create a very accurate Matrix-style dodging bullets experience, simulating what is seen in this clip:

This would be a damn sweet feature if integrated into a full action game. It could likely be accomplished with head-tracking alone, but the combination of board, head-tracking, and Wii Motion Plus makes for near full body integration. The Matrix franchise is perfectly positioned to take advantage of the technology, seeing as everyone wears sunglasses in the movie anyway.

Interaction Design, Etc.

• Virtual Cable Car Navigation
  The future of GPS.
• Design Probes – Tattoo
  Tattoos that actively respond to stimulation
• The Miracle Fruit, a Tease for the Taste Buds
  A small red berry called miracle fruit temporarily rewires the way the palate perceives sour flavors, rendering lemons as sweet as candy.
• How to select and ripen a mango
  How to interact with one of my favorite fruits.

Science, Etc.

• Is Breast pain in Women Linked to Breast Wobbling?
  

  A study conducted by Britain’s First Research Group for Breast Health attached to the University of Portsmouth could throw some light on the little understood causes of ‘Breast Pain’

  … you know there was some lucky male lab assistant required to measure breast motion

• Replaying Evolution
  “Scientists show that happenstance mutations matter”
• Student isolates microbe that lunches on plastic bags
• Isolated tribe spotted in Brazil
  One of South America’s few remaining uncontacted tribes is photographed from the air on the Peru-Brazil border.

Aesthetics, Etc.

• 19 Artists You Can’t Afford To Miss Out On
  “From half-naked pink girls to Isometric grinning trees, these artists are sure to satisfy the sucrose cravings in your eyeballs. Check them out before they get too famous and start making stuff nobody gets.”
• Brad Pitt: “Architecture is my passion”
  It would be easy to hate on Mr. Pitt for everything he has going for himself. I say cheers.

I’ll be gone for a week visiting my bro in the Southwest… at least y’all will have something to do in my absence.

Now using the balance board to monitor weight distribution is somewhat obvious. However, very accurate motion sensing from the controller would also be required to really pinpoint the motion of the swing. By some pretty basic reasoning about cost and manufacturing I heard once, it is fair to say that Nintendo is providing middle of the road accelerometers- they are good, but there is still a lot of noise (inaccurate random data) to be dealt with. Lots of noise means that a lot of processing of the data from the motion sensors is required to get a clear picture of what is going on, and if lots of processing occurs, then the nuances of the motion are also getting smoothed over. My solution is to connect the nunchuck controller to the main controller in a rigid way.

A mockup of the connected remote and nunchuck in the shape of a traditional controller.

The nunchuck controller is incredibly light and would add almost no bulk to the main controller, while doubling the number of accelerometers. With double the accelerometers, a clearer picture of the motion would be provided.

Secondly, to get a more complete picture of the orientation of the Wii controllers, the sensor bar which is normally placed near the television should be placed on the floor where the golf ball ought to be. With the sensor bar on the floor where the golf ball should be the controllers would be able to pick up the location of the sensor bar and provide non-inertial data about its velocity. As the controllers swing past the sensor bar, the location of the infrared lights would act as fixed points with which to measure velocity.

A picture of someone on a Wii balance board with the sensor bar on the floor.

All on-screen menu navigation can be done in the traditional way by using the directional keys; pointer-enabled functions are nice but unnecessary for this sort of game. Moving the sensor bar around the room would be a clever way to also have a swing trainer for baseball.

Interactive audio effects would be crucial: recorded voice acting for characters, dynamic background music and sound effects (e.g. when a marionette hits a wall, a thud could be made), with karaoke-style text of the characters’ lines scrolling across the screen, as an option (voice recognition, if possible). A scene/play creation mode would allow players access to creating their own sets, characters, and lines, giving the game infinite replay value (online sharing of new sets, characters, etc., and entire plays, if possible). Buttons could trigger effects on stage, change the motion control to different characters, have the marionettes pick objects up, change camera angle, etc.

If saving a marionette performance and text-to-voice is included (with user-defined manipulations – angry, soft, loud, etc.) a playwright could produce his or her play on the Wii and immediately distribute its virtual staging. This could be done by recording the output of the Wii, but if the Wii could upload and download complete performances, it would become an artistic platform.

A good puppet show is something amazing. Check out these scenes from Being John Malkovich done by Phil Huber:

A Chat with the Designer of the Google Logo | WebProNews

Advice posters 2007 – a photoset on Flickr

Clarence Larkin Dispensational Charts Really well made charts for explaining heaven and the like.

Shaker’s sweet success – Los Angeles Times: CONSIDER this humble sugar shaker, a staple of kitchens and coffee shops across the land. About 35 million have been sold — maybe double that if you include all the knockoffs — and not one of them labeled a work of art.

Interaction Design:

“Guitar + Vox + OhMiBod” on NOTCOT

Clever interaction design in this DJ equipment to go

Core77 – Interaction Design and ID: You’re alreay doing it…don’t you want to knowwhat it’s all about?: Interaction Design and ID: You’re already doing it…don’t you want to know what it’s all about

Other:

Frozen Grand Central at Improv Everywhere We Cause Scenes (Improv Design?)

BBC NEWS | Education | McDonald’s ‘A-level’ is launched

The world’s rubbish dump: a garbage tip that stretches from Hawaii to Japan – Environment – Independent.co.uk

Happiness is a state of mind :A quick cartoon.

fig crumbs: One each Watch the video below after reading this (only 4 lines long) to counteract the effects.

Here’s what I said:

Creativity comes from ruthlessness.

Being thoroughly ruthless with what you have and what has been done will allow you to create something new. If there is something that is equal to your abilities, i.e. you do not have command of it, then that thing is something new, at least for you.

If you are unwilling to be ruthless then you will know that the work you are doing does not require your full attention and you will be selling yourself and your creativity short.

props

The Theory of Artificial Selection, also known as ‘Selective Breeding’, begins with domestication and husbandry of animals. Many species have changed over the course of history as a result of humans choosing animals to mate. Humans did this to produce offspring with desired traits, e.g. cows that produce more milk or sheep with a fuller fleece. This practice eventually was expanded to include plants such as corn, wheat and rice. Artificial Selection refers to all breeding practices (both plant and animal) in which humans mate certain (select) organisms to obtain individuals with specific desired traits.

Artificial Selection represents a theory of Intelligent Design because the human intelligence designs and creates new organisms.

Darwin then turns to Natural Selection:

As man can produce and certainly has produced a great result by his methodical and unconscious means of selection, what may not nature effect? Man can act only on external and visible characters: nature cares nothing for appearances, except in so far as they may be useful to any being. She can act on every internal organ, on every shade of constitutional difference, on the whole machinery of life. Man selects only for his own good; Nature only for that of the being which she tends… How fleeting are the wishes and efforts of man ! and consequently how poor will his products be, compared with those accumulated by nature during whole geological periods.

Notice the heavy personification of Nature in this passage. Nature selects as a breeder selects: intelligently for the continued life of the species. Darwin compares nature to a breeder to exploit our understanding and acceptance of domestication and breeding practices as an underpinning Natural Selection. Hence Darwinian Natural Selection is derived from, and inherently is, a theory of Intelligent Design.

However, Darwin also says evolution works through a random process, apparently contradicting intelligent design. This is only an apparent contradiction though: if nature is intelligent it is more intelligent than we are. And if something is more intelligent than ourselves, we will not understand how it acts, i.e. its actions will appear random to us. Since we have to work very hard to understand the natural world, nature is smarter than we are and hence it follows that we view nature as random.

In conclusion, Darwin’s Evolution is a kind of Intelligent Design. Unlike other theories of ID, however, evolution is intelligent design based upon nature and not a supernatural agent. This reveals that both the supporters and opponents of Intelligent Design are arguing erroneously. ID’s supporters argue that the supernatural is needed to explain design found in nature whereas ID’s opponents argue that evolution is not intelligent design, and neither is correct. Personally, I prefer my evolution sans design, sidestepping these and other serious issues entirely.

Darwin likely knew all this when he placed this quote at the beginning of the second and subsequent editions of On the Origin of Species:

The only distinct meaning of the word ‘natural’ is stated, fixed or settled; since what is natural as much requires and presupposes an intelligent agent to render it so, i.e., to effect it continually or at stated times, as what is supernatural or miraculous does to effect it for once.

–Butler: Analogy of Revealed Religion

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As always, comments are highly appreciated (login no longer required!) . I apologize to my readers outside the USA for the recent US centric posts. I’m going to start posting some ontology soon (I will explain that Xmas post) and I doubt I could make ontology provincial even if I tried.

Play Creation Museum Commercial