Passive Aggressive Anger Release Machine

The Passive Aggressive Anger Release Machine is a vending machine full of breakables.  Insert money, smash something.  Brilliant!  Unfortunately this is just an interactive sculpture created by Yarisal and Kublitz. I say unfortunately because I would really get good use out of one of these.  They could put one in my office next to the regular vending machine, and charge $50 per plate.  I can't think of a more satisfying way to release some afternoon frustration. (Found through Thriving Too).

Reminds me of Smash Shack.

Where Does the Internet Come From?

Sometimes when I have nothing better to ponder, I think about how amazing it is that communication cable run under the ocean.  I'm not kidding, I've spent hours thinking about this.  How did they get them down there?  How do they make repairs?  What do the fish think?  It keeps me occupied because it is so incomprehensible.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who finds this fascinating.  GOOD magazine has an article entitled Where Does the Internet Come From? which addresses how amazing our reliance on the semi-archaic submarine cable system is.

"And, while the internet might seem like the cutting edge of technology, it’s interesting to note that information has been traveling this way since the first telegraph cables were laid across the Atlantic ocean in the 19th century."

Follow Cost

Ha!  I'm not sure if this website is made in jest or not, but it makes me giggle.  Follow Cost calculates just how annoying it will be to follow a particular user on Twitter.    Annoyance is measured in milliscobles, or 1/1000th of Robert Scoble's Twitter output (twitter.com/scobleizer).  For example I (twitter.com/onefloorup) am only 40.82 milliscobles of added annoyance to your life, where as Guy Kowasaki (twitter.com/ guykawasaki) is 1661.68 milliscobles of annoyance (no offense Guy).  In case you don't find a lot of tweets annoying, they also show the percent of recent tweets that mention politics and the percent of tweets that are @ replies.  Ha!  This would be much better if you could specify that things that found annoying and then rate each user based on your criteria.

Twistori

Twistori is an emotive collector (heavily) inspired by Jonathan Harris' fantastic project We Feel Fine.  It pulls and displays Twitter content containing the words; I love, I hate, I think, I believe, I feel, or I wish.  It is easy to get caught up reading the tweets around any one emotion.

My favorite is I Hate.  I was expecting it to be super negative, but it is actually very amusing and uplifting in a round about way.  (Thanks James!)

Decaying Paintings

Humans have a tendency to want to fight time and create things that last forever.  But there is something very beautiful about how a fragile material ages, and changes over time. 

Valerie Hegarty challenges the way we think about art by creating pieces that are already decaying and decrepit.  Her art is battered, torn and damaged.  It has already been burned, shot, drowned or eaten by bugs... so now you don't have to worry about it, just enjoy it.  (Found through My Formative).

Everything I Have

Artist Simon Evans has taken inventory of all his worldly possessions in his piece, Everything I Have.  The image was created out of pen, paper, scotch tape, and white out.  I have so many questions...

This idea definitely makes you reflect on your own belongings and consumerism.  I'm trying to imagine how big or small an inventory of everything I own would be, and just how long it would take to catalog.  I'm sure at the end of the process I would want to give away everything and move to a hut on the beach.  I'll add this to my To Do List, just in case.

You can see Simon's work in NYC at the James Cohan Gallery, now until  April 4th.  (Found through PSFK).

Augmented Twitter T-Shirt

The geeks (and I mean that in the nicest way) at Squidder have combine their favorite things; t-shirts, Papervision and Twitter, to create this live status t-shirts.  The shirts have fiduciary markers, translatable by webcams or camera phones.  The markers are encoded with your user name, to look up and display your latest Twitter post in a movable 3D format in front of your chest.

Ways to be Cool

I was considering working on a Manifesto, but I've decided to scrap that idea and just work on a list of ways to be cool.  Inspired by this list.  It is funny how some things are just eternally cool and others are very temporal.  I wonder who Steve is...  (Found through BB-Blog).

The Quick Brown

The Quick Brown is a website that tracks changes made to Fox News headlines over time.  It notes and visualizes text that has been removed and added to the online articles, creating a time stamp for each round of edits.

This is totally fascinating to me.  I guess I assumed that this went on, but I never really thought about the scope of the manipulations changes made.  (Found through It's That Nice).

Catnip Eyeballs

Creativity + a sense of humor is always a rewarding combination.  HannaPt's Etsy shop is selling Catnip Eyeballs.  Love it!  I mean, why would you want your cat playing with a plain old ball, when you could have the joy of an eyeball being dropped on your lap?  I'm buying some immediately.  (Found through Moderncat's Etsy Faves).

Golden Hook

There is something so, so, right and so, so, wrong about this idea.  Golden Hook is a French company that allows you to customize your own knit hat, from a variety of hat styles and beautiful yarn colors... and then choose the Granny that you want to knit it.  Ha!  You can even send the Grandma special demands, I mean, requests.  Or  ask her to write your name on the label:  knitted by Simone for Clemence.  (Found through Springwise).

Character Study

Ever wonder what is beneath the smiling faces of your favorite cartoon characters?  Well thanks to the arguably twisted mind of artist Michael Paulus, you don't have to.  He has created skeletal studies of 22 cartoon characters.  In his own words:

"These Icons are usually grotesquely distorted from the human form from which they derive.  I decided to take a select few of these popular characters and render their skeletal systems as I imagine they might resemble if one truly had eye sockets half the size of its head, or fingerless-hands, or feet comprising 60% of its body mass."

Buttercup, Bubbles and Blossom, you still look cute to me.  (Found through Street Anatomy).

Painting Facebook Portraits

Matt Held has found a timely twist on portraits - basing them off Facebook profile images. I've been thinking a lot the past few days about Michael Surtees' article about Face pics being the new logo.  In some ways I hope this isn't true.  The pictures people use for their profiles all seem so calculated and unreflective of a person's dynamic self (mine included).  All that aside, Matt's portraits are very alive and flattering.  I would love one.  If you are interested in getting your portrait painted, just join Matt's Facebook group.  Oh, and of course they are all square. (Found through Double Takes).

So Amazing Right Now, But Nobody is Happy

I got a big smile from this rant about not appreciating technology by Louis C.K. on Conan O'Brien.  His point is that everything is amazing right now (thanks to advances in technology) and yet nobody is happy.  My favorite quote is "Like how quickly the world owes him something, he knew existed only 10 seconds ago." - it's so true.  I think I'm going to need to watch this once a week from now on.  Enjoy.  (Thanks Nicole!)

How Benjamin Button got his Face

I really enjoyed the movie The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.  Particularly because I was so enthralled by the special effects used to make the actors look younger and older.  They were amazingly well done.  I just watched Ed Ulbrich's TED talk about how Digital Domain created Benjamin's face, and now I'm even more impressed.  His head is computer generated for the first hour of the film.  The process that they created to make the effects realistic is pretty incredible.  They innovated by using "technology stew" - combining little bits of relevant technology gems from gaming and medical imaging.  I recommend listening to the explanation.  They had me at phosphorescent makeup...

We're All Gonna Die

Photographer Simon Hogsberg has created a beautiful, explorable, 100 meter image, of people crossing a railroad bridge.  The project is called We're All Gonna Die.  The subject of the photos are 178 pedestrians, photographed over 20 days in Berlin.  The photos are stunning.  You can't stop looking at the people.  Some of the people clearly notice their picture being taken, and others are so lost in their thoughts that you can't help wondering what they are thinking about.  I'm going back to look some more...  (Found through Cool Hunting).

Edible Prints

Mmmmmm, paper.  My mouth is actually watering at the thought of these Edible Prints by Sawa Tanaka.  So much thought has gone into the descriptions of the flavors and the method of eating, that you can't help but get drawn into the illusion.  (Found through the always inspiring DesignNotes).

Hamburgerpanda

Hamburgerpanda is an Etsy favorite of mine.  I haven't bought anything yet, but I plan to.  Hamburgerpanda prints and cards are scientific-cute, if such a category exists.  Cindy Yep is the San Francisco artist behind Hamburgerpanda.  She says she is inspired by science fiction, nature, and Asian pop culture.  I particularly like her underwater robots, like Roboctopus and Turtlebot.

People Who Hug Things

I've been enjoying Alex Who Loves Vinyl (And Wombats, of Course)'s photostream.  Gosh... I feel like I don't even need to say more after that user name.  Alex has some humorous sets within his collection.  I really like the People Who Hug Things photos, and the People Who Take A Nap series.  Fun stuff.  (Thanks Jenny).

10 Principles that Might Make Your Work Better

As previously announced, Frank Chimero is my new source of design wisdom.  I read his 10 Principles that Might Make Your Work Better or May Make it Worse, last week, via Aisle One.  And it has been on my mind ever since.  It is full of good advice.  My favorite is number 6: Embrace the subconscious.  Frank - Please publish this as a pamphlet so I can have it on hand at all times - Thanks.