September 2015
Star Wars up close
There is a gallery on Imgur that shows close up photos of many of the models and sets used in the original Star Wars trilogy. It is amazing to see the care and craftsmanship that went into each model–even the ones that only get a few second of screen time. There are a couple of examples below, but the whole gallery is worth exploring.
There was so much great art and care that went into the production of the three original Star Wars films. And now, 30 years later, there are still new and imaginative remixes and fan creations–like this Auralnauts video that made Gabi and I laugh and laugh last night–keeping the work as fresh as ever.
Stock market-sized countries
This world map shows countries by the proportional size of their stock markets.
Created by Bank of America Merrill Lynch’s Chief Investment Strategist Michael Hartnett, this illustration shows “free-float equity market capitalization” in billions of dollars.
Simon Koay's Superbet
My kids and I really enjoyed this superhero alphabet by illustrator Simon Koay. They were able to identify almost all the comic book characters, which is impressive for a six and three-year old.
Here is Koay’s description of the project:
Pluto
A synthetic perspective view of Pluto, based on the latest high-resolution images to be downlinked from NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft, shows what you would see if you were approximately 1,100 miles (1,800 km) above Pluto’s equatorial area, looking toward the bright, smooth, expanse of icy plains informally called Sputnik Planum, in this image taken July 14, 2015 and released September 10, 2015. The images were taken as New Horizons flew past Pluto from a distance of 50,000 miles (80,000 km).
Bottle shot
It doesn’t matter how many attempts it took Jonathan Toews of the Chicago Blackhawks to make this trick shot. It is amazing how he pops the bottle of the top off the net and then hits it out of the air with the second puck. Here’s the shot again from another angle.
The first shot:
And another view:
Web design is easy when every site looks the same
#TBT: Natalie's Baptism
Two years ago, Gabi and I had our sweet little baby girl baptized.
She’s not so little now but still very sweet.
The home stretch
Art by Pascal Campion.
Baby name explorer
The webapp, Baby Name Explorer, lets you see a graph of the popularity of baby names over time. The site was created by Randal Olson, a researcher at the University of Pennsylvania Institute for Biomedical Informatics. The app makes it easy to see when common baby names were most popular.
It looks like my parents picked my name right at he height of its popularity.
This makes me laugh so hard
https://vine.co/v/eIXejbQ2utM
Ancient Egypt's Fury Road
Artist and illustrator Takumi created this Egyptian-styled telling of the story of Mad Max: Fury Road (which you should totally see or see again).
Via Kottke.
