Culture

S.

Staring at the Wall

By In Art, Blog, Books, Culture, Technology0 Comments

YouTube

Youtube (Staring at the Wall) by Helmut Smits
Youtube (Staring at the Wall) by Helmut Smits

Year: 2010
Materials: nails in different sizes, wall
Dimensions: 3 x 3 cm

Apple

Candlelight by Helmut Smits
Candlelight by Helmut Smits

Year: unknown
Materials: Tape, MacBook Pro
Dimensions: 15″

Google Earth

Dead Pixel in Google Earth by Helmut Smits
Dead Pixel in Google Earth by Helmut Smits

Year: 2008-2010
Materials: burned square, grassland
Dimensions: 82 x 82 cm

Make sure you check out all the inspiring ideas by Helmut Smits at his web site or in his book “123 Ideas by Helmut Smits”:

123 Ideas by Helmut Smits

And if you are lucky one of them flies by…

Title: Pamphlet
Year: 2006
Materials: computer, software, printer
People could type a message on the laptop. By pressing ‘send’ a pamphlet was printed and dropped from the 10th floor.

S.

Short.ly about Libya

By In Blog, Culture, Technology0 Comments

1 Geography

The Great Socialist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya is a country located in North Africa. Freedom of speech, press, assembly, association, and religion are restricted. Independent human rights organizations are prohibited.

2 Country Code Top Level Domains

.ly is the Internet country code top-level domain for Libya. Unlike top-level domains (.com, .net and .org), country-code top level domains (ccTLDs) aren’t regulated by the International Corp. for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). Each country can set up its own rules.

(c) John Yunker of Byte Level Research LLC. (Poster available at historyshots.com)

3 Linguistics

In the English speaking world the suffix -ly changes an adjective (describing a noun) into an adverb (describing a verb). Adverbs typically answer questions such as how?, in what way?, when?, where?, and to what extent?

English Language World Map

4 URL Shortening

URL shortening is a technique on the WWW making an internet address shorter in length. This is especially useful on microblogging services such as Twitter.

3 popular URL shortening services are registered in the .ly domain: bit.ly, ow.ly and 3.ly. The most successful service, bit.ly, gets 1.5 billion clicks a week and is the standard Twitter link shortener.

5 Is ccTLD use for generic websites a good idea?

ccTLDs may be useful to create nice and memorable internet addresses, just think of nyti.ms (Montserrat, a British Overseas Territory), tcrn.ch (Switzerland), and goo.gl (Greenland). But county code TLDs were initially intended for use by people within the country of origin. Each country has the power and authority to change the rules for it’s ccTLD at any time.

“It’s not a problem to us if a country wants to restrict its domains to individuals living there,” says Kim Davies from ICANN, the International Corp. for Assigned Names and Numbers that regulates top-level domains (.com, .net and .org). “The original intention was you only register with the country you’re in.” In this regard the handover of power from ICANN to countries seems logical but may especially be a concern with ccTLDs operated by questionable governments.

Libya, for example, remains a dictatorship to the present day. The judiciary is controlled by the government, and there is no right to a fair public trial. Libyans do not have the right to change their government. Freedom of speech, press, assembly, association, and religion are restricted. Independent human rights organizations are prohibited.

The country has absolutely no problem with blocking several foreign-based sites reporting on Libya, and the entire YouTube site. “These web sites were the one recent sign of tangible progress in freedom of expression in Libya. The government is returning to the dark days of total media control.” says Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director of Human Rights Watch. Last month Libya’s regulators blocked another site, vb.ly; its main feature was that it does not filter out, or post warnings to, links with adult content.

What if Libya suddenly decides to pull the plug on other successful sites like bit.ly due to disagreements over content it points to?

What will then happen to your link archive and your Twitter messages (short) linking to other web sites?

Can linguistical gimmicks accidental.ly interfere with the freedom of expression?

P.

Paris vs NYC

By In Art, Blog, Culture, Visualization0 Comments

A visual but friendly match between those two cities seen by a lover of Paris wandering through New York’s infinite details, clichés and contradictions.

Paris vs NYC - Pierre de taille vs Brick
(c) Vahram Muratyan - parisvsnyc.blogspot.com

Vahram Muratyan, a curious mind and talented designer, reduced the differences between Big Apple and the City of Light to the essential. As a result he shows us great visualizations of urban lifestyle on both sides of the Atlantic. I appreciate his minimalist approach amongst all those overloaded infographics of our days.

It would be interesting to see other cities matched, too. Berlin could be especially funny, with “Mietskaserne”, “Kaffee Latte”, “Trinkgeld”, “Grünanlagen”, “Mülltrennung” etc.

For many more matches between the two cities have a look at parisvsnyc.blogspot.com and follow @parisvsnyc on Twitter!

Paris vs NYC - Espresso vs Americano
(c) Vahram Muratyan - parisvsnyc.blogspot.com
Paris vs NYC - Pourboire vs Tip
(c) Vahram Muratyan - parisvsnyc.blogspot.com
Paris vs NYC - Espace vert vs Go green
(c) Vahram Muratyan - parisvsnyc.blogspot.com
Paris vs NYC - Tri sélectif vs Recycling
(c) Vahram Muratyan - parisvsnyc.blogspot.com
T.

Top 10 TEDtalks

By In Blog, Culture, Education0 Comments

[yframe url=’https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyyjU8fzEYU’]

Here is a short list of what TEDsters liked most over the past few years. These are really inspiring ideas on education, motivation, mind, creativity and passion. If you can’t get enough of that you should definitely have a look at our complete list of 750+ TED talks.

1) Jill Bolte Taylor
My Stroke of Insight
2008
Jill Bolte Taylor got a research opportunity few brain scientists would wish for: She had a massive stroke, and watched as her brain functions — motion, speech, self-awareness — shut down one by one. An astonishing story.

https://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/229

 6) Dan Pink
Surprising Science of Motivation
2009
Career analyst Dan Pink examines the puzzle of motivation, starting with a fact that social scientists know but most managers don’t: Traditional rewards aren’t always as effective as we think. Listen for illuminating stories — and maybe, a way forward.

https://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/618
2) Patti Maes and Pranav Mistry
Sixth Sense Demo
2009
This demo — from Pattie Maes’ lab at MIT, spearheaded by Pranav Mistry — was the buzz of TED. It’s a wearable device with a projector that paves the way for profound interaction with our environment. Imagine “Minority Report” and then some.

https://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/481

 7) Hans Rosling
The Best Stats You’ve Ever Seen
2006
The Swedish professor dances through a spectacular animation of world development. With the drama and urgency of a sportscaster, statistics guru Hans Rosling debunks myths about the so-called “developing world.”

https://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/92
3) Ken Robinson
Schools Kill Creativity
2006
Sir Ken Robinson makes an entertaining and profoundly moving case for creating an education system that nurtures (rather than undermines) creativity.

https://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/66

 8 ) Benjamin Zander
On Music and Passion
2008
Benjamin Zander has two infectious passions: classical music, and helping us all realize our untapped love for it — and by extension, our untapped love for all new possibilities, new experiences, new connections.

https://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/286
4) Tony Robbins
Why We Do What We Do
2006
Tony Robbins discusses the “invisible forces” that motivate everyone’s actions — and high-fives Al Gore in the front row.

https://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/96

 9) Barry Schwartz
The Paradox of Choice
2005
Psychologist Barry Schwartz gives a profound, witty discourse on why more freedom doesn’t equal more happiness. In Schwartz’s estimation, choice has made us not freer but more paralyzed, not happier but more dissatisfied.

https://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/93
5) Elizabeth Gilbert
Nurturing Creativity
2009
Elizabeth Gilbert muses on the impossible things we expect from artists and geniuses — and shares the radical idea that, instead of the rare person “being” a genius, all of us “have” a genius. It’s a funny, personal and surprisingly moving talk. The best-selling author bares her struggle to repeat the success of Eat, Pray, Love.

https://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/453

 10) V.S. Ramachandran
On Your Mind
2007
A brain scientist in a leather jacket tell us how “this 3-pound mass of jelly … can contemplate the meaning of infinity.” Vilayanur Ramachandran tells us what brain damage can reveal about the connection between celebral tissue and the mind, using three startling delusions as examples.

https://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/184

www.ted.com

7.

7 days, 7 levels, 8 Bit – An Animated History of Creation

By In Art, Blog, Culture0 Comments

SUPERNATURAL CREATOR 2 on Vimeo.

This simple, minimalistic and therefore even more impressive animation was created by Mareike Ottrand during a workshop with only 3 days for conception and realisation at the F2F International conference.

The animation is based on the “ex nihilo” version of the creation myth, known from Genesis I in the Bible in Judaism and Christianity, and from the Koran’s Sura VII in Islam. The funny and creative idea was to match the seven days of the creation week with seven levels of a video game called “Supernatural Creator 2”:

  • 1st day / Level 1: “Let there be light!” The light is divided from the darkness, and “day” and “night” are named.
  • 2nd day / Level 2: “Let a firmament be…!” God creates a firmament to divide the waters above from the waters below. The firmament is named “skies”.
  • 3rd day / Level 3: God commands the waters below to be gathered together in one place, and dry land to appear. God commands the earth to bring forth grass, plants, and fruit-bearing trees (the fourth command).
  • 4th day / Level 4: God creates lights in the firmament to separate light from darkness and to mark days, seasons and years. Two great lights are made, and the stars.
  • 5th day / Level 5: God commands the sea to “teem with living creatures”, and birds to fly across the heavens. He creates birds and sea creatures, and commands them to be fruitful and multiply.
  • 6th day / Level 6: God commands the land to bring forth living creatures. He makes wild beasts, livestock and reptiles. He then creates humanity in His “image” and “likeness”. They are told to “be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it.” The totality of creation is described by God as “very good.”
  • 7th day / Level 7: God, having completed the heavens and the earth, rests from His work, and blesses and sanctifies the seventh day.

A particularily strong moment arrives, when the creator is asked the common video game question “Try again?” and chooses: “No!” before taking a rest in Level 7.

Nice idea, minimalitic graphics and sounds, great work!