sundance

Next green car technology hub: Starkville, Mississippi?

If you’re a betting person, what university would you wager on for creating the next generation of cleaner vehicles? MIT? Cal Tech? Stanford? Turns out you may want to look a little further south… the student team from Mississippi State University took the flag at the second year of EcoCAR: The NeXt Challenge.

This old ecohouse

After a painstaking deconstruction process the Australian firm Riddel Architecture successfully built a new riverfront home in Brisbane with 95% of the materials from the previous house. The Hill End Ecohouse, as it’s called, is fully self sufficient in both water and power and has a monitoring system to measure the use of energy, gas and water as well as temperature and humidity. The north-facing roof has 3kW photovoltaic panels which generate more than enough energy for daily household requirements.

Single greatest photo you will see today

Google Lab’s creative director Ji Lee (previously) tweeted the above image, which is the single greatest and inspiring photo I’ve seen today (and a candidate for a top 10 list of best photos ever). Anyone know the photographer, source and/or background behind it?

National Hamburger Day – Today, May 28

Today is National Hamburger Day (thanks Lynda for the head’s up!) and in honor of the carnivore’s delight and one of my favorite things to consume, here are a few fun related links. Artist Yuken Teruya made this neat tiny tree from a Burger King bag. The world’s biggest burger was unveiled last September at [...]

Laura Keeble: Urban Interventions

Gestalten’s latest release, “Urban Interventions” is really just a nice way of saying pranks. Artsy pranks, in this case. Simple, clever, public attention-getters like a banner on the side of a building that reads: The secret of happiness is t- before the rest is torn off. Like all good art there’s something deeper at work, but the important thing about these pieces is that they’re fun and playful, like the giant wad of gum stretched out between two buildings.

OMD, OMG!

OMD is back. Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark, the duo of Andy McCluskey and Paul Humphreys, first took to the stage in 1978, over three decades ago. And while the 1980s made them pop stars, they never quite achieved superstardom like their contemporaries. This is a shame because their body of work is remarkable and [...]

Mark Zuckerberg is a Wiener and the BP Oil Spill Sucks

A sign warns the public away from the beach on May 23, 2010 on Grand Isle, Louisiana. With oil covering many of the beaches, officials closed them to the public indefinitely on Saturday. Officials now say that it may be impossible to clean the coastal wetlands affected by the massive oil spill that continues gushing [...]

FULL FRONTAL FASHION highlights

(L-R) SEX AND THE CITY stars Kim Cattrall, Kristin Davis, Cynthia Nixon, and Sarah Jessica Parker attend the film’s premiere We wouldn’t be doing our job if we couldn’t give you the inside scoop on SEX AND THE CITY 2. Don’t miss Lynn Yaeger’s salacious fashion notes from the exclusive advance-screening. From navel-grazing chandelier earrings [...]

NATURE BY NUMBERS

NATURE BY NUMBERS is a short film by Cristóbal Vila, which is “inspired on numbers, geometry and nature.” It’s mesmerizing visualization of mathematical concepts and how their patterns are revealed in nature. Relatedly, earlier this spring, the New York Times published a neat online series by Steven Strogatz, a professor of applied mathematics at Cornell [...]

The two best Lost-related Internet jokes!

The ending of Lost, which is the 55th most watched finale of all time, provided material for some funny bite-size comedy on the Internets that could be appreciated even by, or especially by non-Lost fans. I’ve compiled a couple of my favorites below. My favorite: A GIF of how Lost should have really ended. Michael [...]

Return to Sender

Good design seems to have penetrated every market from light sockets to whole communities, but there remains one product that has, until now, escaped its loving touch: coffins. The ubiquitous plush and pearlescent models are big, expensive and just plain ugly. It’s hard to imagine any believer or practitioner of good design being buried in [...]

Green tech finds (5/27/10)

Energy to ice, and cardboard to energy… and much more. Here are your green tech finds for the week:

• Nokia still tops in greener electronics: That’s the word from Greenpeace, which released the latest update on its Guide to Greener Electronics. The Finnish company has stayed ensconced in that position; the biggest mover this time was Toshiba, which dropped from 3rd place to 14th. (via Fast Company)
  
  
• Alabama airships: 21st Century Airships, a division of E-Green Technologies, will build its updated versions of the blimp (they prefer airships) in Alabama… so another win for the green jobs push. The vehicles can be used for transporting cargo and people very efficiently, and could even be employed by the military for high-altitude observation.
  
  

Will teary-eyed, face-holding, baby-making sex become obsolete?

According to a new report in the journal Reproductive BioMedicine (what, you’re not a subscriber?), IVF conception could become routine for thirty-somethings within a decade. Buh-bye, baby-making sex, hello doctor! The report claims that IVF technology is advancing so quickly that soon it will be possible to produce embryos with almost a 100% success rate — and even horny 16-year-olds who are being stupid about birth control don’t have that kind of outcome. “Natural human reproduction is at best a fairly inefficient process,” says John Yovich, a co-author of the report. “Within the next five to ten years, couples approaching forty will access the IVF industry first when they want to have a baby.”

Pee-wee’s NYC adventure

When Pee-wee Herman took to Twitter last week to announce his show, which I wrote about last year here, was coming to Broadway I nerded out in a major way. I view Herman as a style icon. His look and his show brought freaks even more mainstream. Via his TV show he taught kids of [...]

Jacques Audiard’s A PROPHET

A PROPHET recently played at my local art house, and as usual here in fly-over Ohio, my husband and I were the only people in the theatre (okay, two of five). Hey, no matter, this movie rocks. Premiering in the U.S. at Sundance in January and internationally last year at Cannes, where it was the darling of the festival, this amazing film continues to open around the world – so who cares about the Oscar it didn’t win for Best Foreign Film? It’s the gangster film you’ve been dreaming of, in that, it both adheres to and also twists the genre. You end up satisfied by the tacit narrative promises (you know, spurting blood, revenge, power structures) but also surprised by the absolutely creative turns it takes in both style and tone.

History of uniform typos

Here’s something for the sports fans: Apparently misspellings on professional and college sports uniforms over the years aren’t uncommon (more photo examples), occurring as recently as in April where the jersey of San Francisco Giant’s Eugenio Velez misspelled the city’s name (see photo above). ESPN.com had a fascinating column on this issue with some interesting [...]

Delicious brand logos

Italian born, now New York-based photographer Massimo Gammacurta gave the fashion and design blogosphere a sugar rush when he created these sweet lollipops in the shape of various globally recognized logos. These have now been compiled into a book, “Lolli-Pop” and they are also currently on display at the Visionairs Gallery in Paris, France through [...]

Square root table

In a venn diagram of the modern architecture and design magazine Dwell and Mathematica Journal, this coffee table shaped like a square root symbol would sit in that diagram’s overlap area. The designer Josh Tuminella explains: It was inspired by the mid-century bent ply tables. One of its key features – the magazine rack – [...]

Pay as you save: British coalition government floats energy plan

At the federal level, the US tends to rely on various forms of tax incentives to spur consumer demand for energy efficiency and renewable installations. States and cities have tended to be a bit more creative in providing forms of up-front cost support, such as property tax financing and loan programs. Perhaps the feds should take a look at approach the new British government floated in yesterday’s Queen’s Speech: a “pay-as-you-save” loan program.

The Double-decker gets a makeover

There’s a lot of to love about the London bus of the days of yore – the charming, iconic red double-decker has provided commuters and tourists alike with an upper deck view of the city since 1956. Design, however, has never been one of its stronger points. The Routemaster, as it’s officially called, really does look as if someone had simply taken the wheels off of one bus and placed it atop another.

Miss Ross returns

Forgive me while I queen out, but I have to tell you about an experience I had last week. It was a religious experience, perhaps never to be repeated in this lifetime. I listen to a lot of music and I, of course, love all the obvious gay icons. I know, I know. But I [...]

Perez Hilton says something smart

We never thought we’d say this, but Perez Hilton has a point. We’re usually not fans, but he’s got a good bit on the importance of coming out on the fabulous site Big Think, which interviews hundreds of experts, from hedge-fund managers to neuroscientists, to help us plebs make better decisions and form more erudite [...]

Pre-Handshake Handshake Device

Dominic Wilcox’s “Pre-Handshake Handshake Device” is an art piece that is also totally functional for many germophobes. The artist explains: This device aims to help those who are at odds with each other make a first move toward reconciliation. A traditional handshake can sometimes be just too big a step for those entrenched in their [...]

Zohar Nir-Amitin, Unexisted things exist in my head

Upon seeing this 17 minute video art installation (watch here), “Unexisted things exist in my head” by Zohar Nir-Amitin, my immediate response was to say “Woa, that is cool!” I love how the artist takes a classic children’s toy and uses it to create a meaningful and expressive experience. This work deals with the rituals [...]

The Big Butt Book

A note to all the ladies trying to lose that butt before bikini season is officially on: maybe you don’t have to after all. At least not if it resembles the back side of any of the women featured in Taschen’s “The Big Butt Book,” an ode to our “awe, fantasy and slavish devotion” to [...]