Posts – page 3 of 74

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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.

When the selfie stick burst on the scene a couple of years ago, I assumed it was an elaborate Internet hoax. It seemed like one of those fake products that was a social commentary on narcissism, consumerism, or some such thing. It turned out that they’re real and becoming more popular.

Mark Zuckerberg announced that one billion people used Facebook in a single day for the first time.

On Monday, 1 in 7 people on Earth used Facebook to connect with their friends and family. […] I’m so proud of our community for the progress we’ve made. Our community stands for giving every person a voice, for promoting understanding and for including everyone in the opportunities of our modern world. A more open and connected world is a better world. It brings stronger relationships with those you love, a stronger economy with more opportunities, and a stronger society that reflects all of our values.</blockquote>

The best technologies are the ones that enhance your natural abilities rather than replace them. These are the innovations that have historically had the biggest impact on what humanity can accomplish, and this is the factor to watch for when deciding what emerging technologies to get excited about. Sep Kamvar, writing about the power efficiencies of a human brain and body vs. that of a super computer, points out how energy efficient a car is compared to a person on a bike.

A midsized car gets a little over half a mile per kilocalorie of energy. A human walking gets 10 miles per kilocalorie. Even if we exclude the cost of the car, the cost of the road, and the cost of the infrastructure we build for fueling, walking is still 20 times as efficient as driving.

Tom Fishburne, the Marketoonist, tweeted this cartoon today:

The joke in the comic is too true. Numbers in a PowerPoint are rarely called into question—even though challenging the assumptions of a presentation is an easy way to appear smart and insightful. However, there is little incentive to question any data that doesn’t conflict with one’s currently held beliefs. On the other hand, if there is conflict, even additional evidence beyond the charts and graphs will rarely change someone’s mind, so the numbers—even if accurate—may as well be made up.

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I made this emoji-based-mosaic of my avatar using this clever JavaScript tool by Eric Lewis.

According to articles published in the Daily Mail, one surefire way to affect your odds of developing cancer is to drink wine. Here are a few examples of articles against drinking wine:

…and here are a few in favor of the beverage:

I first came across the Kill or Cure list of Daily Mail cancer articles back in 2010 and was amazed to see all the expert research pointing to the adverse or beneficial effects many ”inanimate objects” have on one’s chances of developing cancer.

This video edited by Dmitry Pisanko compiles times lapses shot from the International Space Station.

There is also a collection of high resolution gifs from this video on Imgur that loop details of the 4K footage.

The ISS is impressive to behold, and the images of Earth taken from it are truly captivating. Seeing the world from this perspective is very eye-opening. The world is big and we take up such a very small part of it. 

Chess Academy is the latest addition to my phone’s home screen. The app is an addictive tactics trainer that presents a series of chess puzzles to solve. There is no time limit for each puzzle. If you enter the correct series of moves, you gain points, and if you make a wrong move you lose points. After making a mistake, you can try to solve the puzzle again, but if you’re still stuck after trying every combination you can think of, you can ask to be shown the solution.

The current feature set in the app is quite limited. While the Chess Academy website has multiple interactive lesson tracks, tactical training, and practice games, the iPhone app only lets you practice tactics. I don’t know if their development roadmap includes adding more of the desktop features. It would be a nice touch, but even if they don’t add them, the tactical training has plenty to keep me busy and entertained.

Alan Taylor from the Atlantic posted the winning pictures from the 2015 Traveler’s photo contest.

NASA recently published an amazing set of images from the far side of the moon. The photos show the moon passing in front of the sunlit surface of the earth.

This animation features actual satellite images of the far side of the moon, illuminated by the sun, as it crosses between the DSCOVR spacecraft’s Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera (EPIC) and telescope, and the Earth - one million miles away. Credits: NASA/NOAA</blockquote>

My little girl turned two today. She has gotten so big so fast. It seems like she was just a baby—fitting snugly into the crook of my arm—but now she has grown into a beautiful little girl. She was the smallest of my three kids at birth but now has no trouble keeping up with her older brothers’ shenanigans.

We were a family before she came to join us, but I can’t imagine how we could be a family without her. She makes our family whole.

Caffeine doesn’t affect me. It’s not having caffeine that affects me.

Remember that time when 30 symphony orchestras, 29 conductors and 9 pianists got together to perform The Rite of Spring? We don’t either, but we’d like to imagine what this meeting of minds and talents might sound like. Stitched together from 46 different recordings - a grand total of 64 musical cuts - Q2 Music presents the iconic “Augurs of Spring” performed by as many ensembles and soloists as could be squeezed into 3 minutes and 19 seconds.

Part of Q2 Music’s Rite of Spring Fever at http://www.q2music.org/springfever/

There is a lot to be excited about in the latest Star Wars trailer, and I am glad The Incomparable has another 1 and a half hour podcast to discuss the 1 minute 50 second teaser. The first installment, Forcegiving, was such a delight.

Last week, Marco Arment posted a list of popular movies he hasn’t seen from the past 15 years.  His lack of familiarity with popular movies has come up on several episodes of his podcast, so his list didn’t surprise me. What did surprise me is how many popular movie I have seen. I don’t feel like I watch that many movies now, but based on the results below, I do (or at least I have).

The list below consists of each year’s Academy Awards best picture nominees and the top 10 grossing movies. That provides a good balance of critical and commercial popularity.