Cold Turkey
Ok….now I’ve officially passed the one week mark without internet service. All the symptoms of withdrawal are present: lack of concentration and focus, appetite loss, continuous thought of shortcuts, and no posts. Sorry….Be patient, I’ll be back.
Kill the Labels
iTunes iSbogus is a mock-up of the iTunes site. It explains what goes on behind the scenes, and where the money goes. Revolutionary new distribution system? Not at all, buying songs for 99 cents a pop is still too expensive. For that kind of money you are not getting liner notes, no CD, and crappy compression. Why do we have to pay for the producers coke habit, or for that matter, all the other acts that don’t sell well and still get a huge mega publicity campaigns?
Damn My ISP!!!
I still don’t have a connection! It’s been four days, and now the ISP says I have to wait for a month or more, for a mistake they made. I’d still have to wait that long even with a new provider….Internet services in Italy are lagging years behind the rest of the world. I am sorry for the lack of posts, but I’ll have to solve this first. Thanks for reading and take a look at the archives…They are full of nice, good things!
I’ll keep you updated…
Space Flames
Flames in microgravity are a strong blue color and are perfectly round. They have none of the turbulence and changing colors associated with fire on earth. I’d love to see a large scale fire in space (a controlled experiment, not a burning space station!!). You can find more info at CFM in Space. It explains in detail many experiments conducted in the Space Shuttle and MIR on candle flames.
Frong 2
Ok, ok here goes Frong #2….a lot different than #1…
Listen, and tell me what you think!
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Discovering New Languages
The Alphabet Synthesis Machine is an online font creator. It allows you to create and design the font of an imaginary civilization. Basing the look on a seed you draw, the creator evolves the shapes according to certain interactive parameters. But the really fun part is downloading your creation in True Type Font format and using it in your own projects. Cool!
Fractality
When I turned 11 or 12 years old, my grandfather gave me a year subscription to Discover Magazine. (it wasn’t actually a subscription, he would buy it from the newsstand and then give it to me!) Every month I would wait patiently for the next one. I didn’t understand most of what I read, but I do remember a lot of the articles. The one I found the most fascinating was about fractals with its beautiful images, irregular curves or shapes which could be magnified many times and still see the same shape. Yesterday I was on the lookout for a fractal generator, and found Fractal Explorer. It is a great piece of software with many features, plus the graphics are simply breathtaking. Give it a try. It is easy to use, and can be extremely powerful on the hands of a pro. I rendered some images; Ill post new ones when I get better, these are almost default settings!
So there you go grandad…thanks for the scientific spark!
click for Hi-Res
Zombie Infection
SARS, West Nile, Ebola. Contagious viruses….Watch in real time as zombies infect the rest of the population in this amazing simulation. Using very simple rules zombiness can spread like wildfire!
Did you know?
Alexander Calder rigged the front door of his Paris apartment so that he could open it from his bathtub.
Stool +
A simple stool with an added bonus: a revolving container to store things!
It is constructed in wood, and the revolving container is in plastic. To be offered in a variety of colors. If you are interested in producing this stool, send me an email.
Click for animation!
This piece was presented at a Future Vision Workshop organized by the Future Concept Lab during the Salone Internazionale del Mobile. The name of the seminar was New Basic, New Luxury. Here is what they said about Stool+:
One is witnessing the emergence of a new classicism as an archetype that gives rise to forms and aesthetics that are universally shared and usable. To this is added the absence of genres in a quest for absolute aesthetic values that are expressed through the rediscovery and implementation of the classic lines for a new modernity.
So there you go…contemporary classic!
I redesigned this piece: check it out here.
Thrash
Mega violent .gif animation. Amazing what can be done with only a GIF. I’d love to know what they are saying…
Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)
The Fever Nightmare Generator doesn’t actually live up to its name, but it is nonetheless a very cool interactive animation. Be sure to try several different nightmares.
My fever dreams are a bit different than this, they actually have problems of scale, were I feel that everything pressures against me and my head! Big shapes, magnified, no parallax….ahhh, forget it. Nobody understands your dreams anyway.
Map for Thought
click for Hi-Res
From 1927 to 1954 Buckminster Fuller worked on what would become the Dymaxion Map. As you may well know the mathematics involved to turn a sphere into a flat surface are very complex, and the maps we usually use have a great margin of projection errors.
Fuller was looking for a way to produce a distorsionless map. The method he used, an unfolded icosahedron, results in nearly no distortion of either size or shape of the landmasses. Click here for an animation.
Dada Tech
I sure wish the dadaists had lived long enough to see what is possible with todays technology. Webcollage takes random pictures from the web and makes collages out of them. Clicking on one of the images in the collage will take you to the page on which it was found. It updates the image once a minute.
Stubborn Genius
15,700,003 Model T Ford’s were manufactured, and all shared one thing in common: they were all painted black. Black paint dried the fastest. Henry Ford is reputed to have made the statement: “Any customer can have a car painted any color that he wants so long as it is black.”
Bullet with Butterfly Wings
Today we went to the Museo Nazionale della Scienza e della Tecnologia. The place is a wreck but it is full of beautiful examples of Italian ingenuity. Walking along the exhibits we spotted this magnificent rocket car. It had a top speed of 200 kph, but they only took it to 150 because it has no suspention. Just imagine going at that speed in a bathtub! More photos.
If you plan to go do not miss the Leonardo da Vinci Gallery. It has most of Leonardo’s inventions in scale models.
PENDOLO magazine hanger
Pendolo is a magazine holder that can be fixed to the wall with screws or double-sided tape. To use it open a magazine (you can even mark your page this way) and hang it on the metal cable. The wood stops come from the holes in the main body, so it fits in a nice small box. You can buy them from Banal Extra.
“I’ve been playing guitar since I was 11 years old, and was always fascinated by the way the strings are fixed to the bridge: A wire string with a cylindrical end. Pendolo is inspired in this, it even has six “strings” just like a guitar”.
Behind the Products
Have you ever imagined how denim, chocolate, or glass bottles are produced? How Everyday Things are Made has videos showing factories producing those things. We never give much thought as to how many steps are needed to arrive at the finished product, and seeing it gives insight as to how complex the methods can be.
It’s amazing how just changing the order of things can make them different. In school, I was taught that changing the order of the factors does not change the product. Yeah right… Just take a look at this lovely mermaid by Rene Magritte!
Just Enough
Research by Brian Coe. Published in the book Fantasia, by Bruno Munari – 1977.
Let me know if you find the original font and info about it!
#@]
If anything can go wrong, it will.
Most of us assume that the above phrase is Murphy’s law. But everything that could go wrong did and Finagle’s law became Murphy’s law. The original Murphy’s states:
If there are two or more ways to do something, and one of those ways can result in a catastrophe, then someone will do it.
Nth update X2
I am sorry for the lack of posts….Like i said before I started a Small redesign of the site, and it’s taking a bit longer than expected.
Some of the new features:
- I now have the webcam in the main page. That way you can see my pretty face!
- Made a new music section; an easier way to find my songs.
- Made a design link where I’ll put my projects on.
- Took out most of the clutter on the main menu.
- Some other non visible stuff.
Hope you like it…send me your comments…
Tomorrow I am back with POWER!
Nth Update
Ok…I didn’t write much this weekend….I was just updating the look one more time. Will I ever be happy with the design of my website. You guessed it: NO!
Closed Source
The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources.
Crash Avoidance
Samorost is a very nice flash adventure game. Help the little man avoid a crash! If you are stuck, post a comment…it really isn’t hard, though.
Frong 1
I rarely finish the songs that I start. So I am challenging myself to post a new short song every Friday. Let’s see what I can come up with…
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
ps. frong= friday song
Amore e Piombo
Cool collection of 70′s Italian illustration. These racy images were used as covers for pulp comics. It’s a pity that the images are small though!
/2 You
Did you know that when you look at yourself in a mirror your reflection is half the size as the real you? Try measuring your face, then do the same for the image in the mirror….hmmm I must have a huge head then!!
The Tube
Nice animation of how the famous London Underground map matches the real map. You’ll never see London the same way again!
MHz of Sound
I am tired of listening to music lately. I just can’t seem to find something that is different enough to spark my interest. A solution, at least until the gimmick wears off is Eingenradio….
Eigenradio plays only the most important frequencies, only the beats with the highest entropy. If you took a bunch of music and asked it, “Music, what are you, really?” you’d hear Eigenradio singing back at you. When you’re tuned in to Eigenradio, you always know that you’re hearing the latest, rawest, most statistically separable thing you can possibly put in your ear.
Well, that sounds good to me!
