I absolutely love this video. The costume is so life-like, and it’s really funny to watch the kids get scared, then see them getting bold, only to be scared again. Even though they know it’s fake, it’s obviously hard to separate what they know with what they’re seeing, especially when it roars at them.
The T-Rex made a visit to promote the show Walking with Dinosaurs.
Wow — I am enthused about the possibilities in this. Using a special material that is designed to melt at 140 F, these stainless steel “Joulies” absorb excess heat from fresh coffee, cooling it down to the perfect drinking temperature more quickly.
As someone who drinks his coffee dead black, I’ve often complained about how coffee can be served way too hot — presumably so that it is still hot enough to comfortably drink when people add double creams to it.
But the Joulies are for more than just cooling your coffee — because they absorb a lot of heat, they can also re-release that heat as your coffee begins to get too cold. In effect, they buffer your coffee, keeping it near the optimal drinking temperature for an estimated three times longer.
That’s awesome.
The two engineers who came up with Joulies have been making them by hand, but they want to ramp up production. So head on over to Kickstarter and pledge!
According to Boing Boing, the inventors seem confident that they can deliver a first batch of orders within 12-16 weeks.
This is one of those things that makes me with I had a coffee shop. Would be an easy add-on to sell at the counter.
Why yes, I would like to post this seven-foot-tall chart along my wall, and mark in pencil when I finally was taller than Yoda, or R2-D2, or even Leia.
And that’s what one self-proclaimed “Geeky Dad” did for his daughter, who is about to turn one, and is therefore probably a little taller than the tribbles that litter the bottom of the chart
My daughter is turning one soon, and I decided we needed a growth chart as awesome as she is. After a bit of tinkering in Pages, and a bunch of hemming and hawing, this is the result. As a friend pointed out, all that’s missing is Batman.
…
If you enjoyed this chart, and would like to make a donation, we’ve set up a Paypal account that feeds into our daughter’s college fund.
You can download a full-size PDF from Scribd, here.
Sit back, relax, and enjoy Cry Baby: The Pedal That Rocks The World from Joey Tosi on Vimeo.
Further proof that everything in the world is better with a cat.
See more about how it can work at Corentin. For example, they suggest flipping it around, so the staircase is against the wall, where it would become like a hidden passageway for your cat, mystifying guests who will wonder what kind of cat can shimmy up behind a bookcase to get on top.
(via tdw)
This is a really near hack to get footage from an old film into a modern digital format. James Miller has perfected a method to run the film past flat white LEDs and project it through part of a lens so that it falls perfectly on the sensor of his Canon 5D.
Well done, sir.
A documentary about product placement — funded by product placement in that very documentary?
I love this! This is exactly the kind of po-mo meta exercise that I can’t get enough of. It’s like a Borges short story, but in documentary form and about advertising.
It’s both wonderful and awful and I can’t wait to see it.
(via tdw)
A well-executed main title sequence is one of my real pleasures in watching a movie. Especially on the big screen. What a treat to see so many put together in a meta-sequence, set to that funky music (by RJD2).
It was done by Ian Albinson, the editor-in-chief of Art of the Title, for SXSW.
(via Coudal)
The founder of Craigslist, one Craig Newmark, says he is going to devote the next two decades of his life towards grassroots support of organizations that do good.
He has founded a website called Craigconnects to do just this.
He tells BoingBoing:
Hey, I know I say “this is a big deal” a lot, but this really IS a big deal. I’ve decided what I want to do for the next 20 years, which is to help connect and protect organizations that are doing good through a program I’m calling craigconnects.
I need your help. Together, we can make a difference.
Today the new craigconnects website launched:
* Craigconnects is about calling attention to and connecting good, effective nonprofits and other organizations that get the job done.
* Craigconnects is also about protecting organizations, and the public, from fake organizations that have a good story, but actually end up hurting the people they profess to serve.
On the “purpose” page of Craigconnects, he says:
craigconnects is a…
- vision of getting everyone in the world together for the common good via the Internet.
- plan to support sustainable efforts; ones that are socially responsible, self-perpetuating and replicable.
- service to connect and protect organizations and individuals that can help make that vision come true.
- program that, for its first year of operation, is focused solely on the areas of support defined on this website, even though I know there are many other worthy efforts that might be worth support in the future, as craigconnects grows.
- way to make this all happen, and I know some things will work, some not, but along the way maybe others will be inspired to join in.
- channel through which my support — as a speaker, board member, social media champion, traditional media source, etc. – can be solicited. I tend to be overwhelmed with requests and craigconnects will help me manage this so I can do a lot more.
craigconnects is not…
craigslist OR a grant-giving organization, although I will, personally, continue to consider making modest personal donations to some worthy causes and, when appropriate, might ask others I know for their support as well.
This sounds quite exciting to me.
(via BoingBoing)
Every year I stumble into the Tournament of Books as it is about half over. That disappoints me. But not this year, when I am ready to follow along right from the first day!
The Tournament of Books, arranged by The Morning News, is like a sports tournament, but for reading. Yes, there are 16 “finalists” and they’ve all been seeded into brackets, from which they will fight to the death (or, a judge will decide) as the move up to become the year’s champion.
The 16 books this year include two that I’ve read, and 14 that I’ve not. So it’s a good chance to read some erudite opinions on these books, and figure out which of the unread might be good candidates for a flip-through.
The first bracket — featuring a matchup between Jonathan Franzen’s “Freedom” and Teddy Wayne’s “Kapitoil” — gets underway tomorrow. I’ve read “Freedom” but I’m not sure if I’m rooting for it, or against it. I’m a bit of an underdog lover, you see.
Follow along! At the Tournament of Books.
In the early stages of our relationship, Grant and I would make each other mix tapes. Well, mix playlists, really, for our respective Ipods, but the sentiment was the same.
It’s kind of a lost art, the mix tape. I remember making them from songs on the radio when I was younger, waiting and listening all night until I got the song I wanted. And I would always be so angry when the DJ kept talking over the intro of the song. Actually, I still hate that.
Luckily, there are a certain group of people who are still making mix tapes (and I just realized how funny it was that we still call them “tapes”) and sharing them online. Mostly I think it’s people who grew up making tapes for their friends, who are now utilizing the Internet to keep sharing. Heather over at I Am Fuel, You Are Friends, makes awesome mix tapes. Then I came across a cool project from Tyler Hellard, the writer (and fellow Canadian!) of the blog Pop Loser.
Tyler too loves the mix tape. It’s such a personal and special way to share the music you love with the people you love. So he decided to start 52 Mix Tapes, where he will post (with the help of contributors) a different mix tape every week. It’s been really cool to see the variety of mixes, from Metal, to “Ones” which is all side one, track ones, inspired of course by High Fidelity.
I definitely encourage everyone to check it out, just to see the variety of music people enjoy, and the different themes they work in.
At least, this is what you missed if you live in a city, or spent the night indoors.
From the video description:
Time-lapse of a whole night at the ALMA Array Operations Site (AOS), located at 5000 meters altitude on the Chajnantor plateau, in the II Region of Chile. As the Moon sets at the beginning of the night, three of the first ALMA antennas start tests as part of the ongoing Commissioning and Science Verification process. Because they are pointing at the same target in the sky at any moment, their movements are perfectly synchronized.
As the sky appears to rotate clockwise around the south celestial pole (roughly on the upper left edge of the video), the Milky Way goes down slowly, until it is lying almost horizontal before sunrise. The center of our galaxy becomes visible during the second half of the night as a yellowish bulge crossed by dark lanes in the center of the image, just above the antennas.
The flashes on the ground are the car lights of the guards patrolling at the AOS. ALMA, the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array is the largest astronomical project in existence and is a truly global partnership between the scientific communities of East Asia, Europe and North America with Chile. ESO is the European partner in ALMA.
Watch another video taken at the same time and location from a different viewpoint: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3GZkHUWBOuY
credit: ESO / José Francisco Salgado – http://josefrancisco.org
source: http://www.eso.org/public/videos/alma4anttimelapse1/
Sometimes I worry that, because more and more people live away from the awe-inspiring natural world — like the night sky, but also any wilderness — we’re losing our sense of wonder. Could this be one of the reasons that “smart kids” now get into business, rather than science?
The first half of this clip is a Pabst Blue Ribbon television ad from 1976. The second clip appears to just be unrelated rocketbelt video with unrelated-to-that-even audio from “To Tell The Truth.” I like the non sequitur.
Also: I miss stubbies. But I had no idea that American beer used to come in a stubby!
(via Coudal)
Now this is pretty cool! Only a couple more launches left if you want to make the trek.
