You may remember string art from your elementary school days. If so, it probably makes you think of the 2D geometrical designs that took every ounce of patience you had as a kid. Or those laborious curve stitch drawings, which string art was actually birthed from. But thanks to some innovative modern artists, string art has gotten a lot more interesting. Here are some of the most creative applications so far.
Whether it be through a window, a puddle of water, the ground or a car mirror, reflections occur with just the right amount of light and the proper surface. For this week's Phone Snap Reflection Challenge, post your submission to the corkboard by Monday, January 23rd at 11:59 pm PST for a chance to win a Grassy Lawn Charging Station.
Erik Demaine is a Professor of Electronic Engineering and Comp Sci at MI, but he is also an origami folder who has had work displayed at the Museum of Modern Art in NYC. He makes some beautiful models and intricate puzzles, but in my opinion the really inspirational work is the curved creased models. In Erik's own words describing the above models: "Each piece in this series connects together multiple circular pieces of paper (between two and three full circles) to make a large circular ramp ...
Scrabble Bingo of the Day: NOSEGAY [n] A nosegay is simply a bouquet of flowers, typically given as gifts. It comes from Middle English, from the words nose and gay, which in this case means brightly colored and showy. It does not reference homosexuality; the modern sense of gay.
DIAPSID 61 points (11 points without the bingo) Definition: a reptile with two pairs of temporal openings in the skull [n]
Art Babble is a video network for artists and art lovers alike, launched by a group of curators at the Indianapolis Museum of Art. The site is divided into channels, series and partners, with a wide variety of top notch videos from institutions far and wide. The Getty Museum has posted some especially fascinating content, most notably their series on modern artisans and craftsmen demonstrating antiquated art techniques.
Meet DareDroid: sexy nurse, geek couture and mobile bartender, engineered into an all-in-one technologically advanced garment. Created by fashion designer Anouk Wipprecht, hacker Marius Kintel, and sculptor Jane Tingley, the team calls themselves the Modern Nomads (MoNo), and their series of garments fall into Wipprecht's invented family of "Pseudomorphs". Pseudomorphs are tech-couture pieces that transform into fluid displays—which is exactly what DareDroid does.
Apple's newest version of their Final Cut Pro software was just released today, built from the ground up for modern 64-bit Mac computers, capable of handling 4K video and featuring the new Magnetic Timeline. But this time around Apple is doing something totally different when it comes to sales, making Final Cut Pro X a download only program from the Mac App Store, meaning no more trips to the Apple Store and no more boxes and discs to keep track of—just purchase from the comfort of your own c...
Ikebana, the Japanese art of flower arrangement, dates back to over 500 years ago and is still practiced as a highly respected cultural art form in modern-day Japan.
Child Safety Window Treatments
In the past, geocaching has been an activity overlooked by most. Partly because nobody really knew what it was and partly because you needed a GPS-enabled device to participate, like a Garmin. But now, thanks to GPS-enabled Android and Apple devices, geocaching will finally be noticed by the masses in Garmin's own OpenCaching.
It seems the French have carefully observed the hacking achievements of one super clever Carnegie Mellon grad, turning his hack into a modern iPad application-to-be.
Back in 1982, the Commodore 64 home computer was released by Commodore International for $595 (which would now be close to $1,300). It featured an 8-bit microprocessor, 16-color video microchip, awesome sound chip, parallel and serial capabilities, and a whopping 64 kilobytes of memory, all of which helped make it the best selling home computer from 1983 to 1986. It surpassed anything IBM had out at the time. Its greatest competitors were the Apple II and Atari 8-bits, 400 and 800. And it had...
These magical beans can keep your coffee hot for hours. Not blazing hot, burn your tongue on the first sip, and not disappointingly lukewarm, but coffee fit for every baby bear—just right. Genius.
Meet Newstweek, a hidden device engineered to hack news items being read at public WiFi hotspots (cafes, libraries, airports, etc.). Both nefarious and tech-saavy, the ingenious mechanism wasn't fathered by a group of web hackers, but rather a pair of Berlin artists, Julian Oliver and Danja Vasiliev. The duo are interested in exploiting the "trustworthiness" of big media outlets in order to demonstrate the vulnerability of relying on just a few dominant networks.
Ever wonder what your brain looks like on video games? Below, Matt Richtel of the New York Times lies in a $3 million M.R.I. scanning tube while playing a simple driving game, as researchers sit by and observe the real-time images inside Richtel's brain.
The New Yorker profiles Shigeru Miyamoto, the father of modern video games, whose spawn includes world-changing classics such as Mario and Legend of Zelda:
Professor Wafaa Bilal of New York University plans to soon undergo a surgical procedure that would temporarily implant a camera in the back of his head. The project is being commissioned for an art exhibit at a new museum in Qatar. The Iraqi photographer will be a living, breathing cyborg for an entire year, during which the implanted camera will take still photos every minute, simultaneously feeding the images to monitors at the museum.
Here's another slightly under-the-table D.I.Y. project for you (though much less gritty than today's earlier example).
Want a dress that's so eco-friendly you can literally make it disappear after the ceremony? This new gown, from British researchers at Sheffield Hallam Unniversity does just that. It actually dissolves in water, reports the U.K.'sTelegraph. The dress is made with polyvinyl alcohol -- the same stuff found in laundry bags and washing detergents -- sewn into the fabric. That basically makes it water soluble, and dissolves it without harming the environment.
Tetherd Cow Ahead posts an interesting science experiment. All you really need is a little bit of iron powder and a magnet, and you can unveil the info behind the magstripe on a credit card.
Whoever said crime doesn't pay? Norway's luxury Halden prison may very well be nicer than your home.
I don't know what they are feeding the kids in Canada but there are so many great bands coming out of there. Vancouver's Terror Bird are no exception. Made up of Nikki Never (Modern Creatures) and Jeremiah Haywood (Twin Crystals), these two have released a few cassettes and a couple singles now. "Sociopaths are Glam" is my favorite so far. This was a cassette release on Night People out of Iowa City. The music is dark and murkey, lo-fi synth pop. They pull from mid 80's dark wave but their m...
The New York Times magazine posts a fascinating feature on a Chinese cultural phenomenon known as human flesh search engines. Out of China has borne cyberposses, internet vigilantes, who target everybody from twisted individuals violating social norms to government corruption.
Kirsten Dunst is turning Japanese in short skirts and thigh highs. The art world crashes Hollywood in this video piece starring Dunst, directed by McG and produced by world renown Japanese artist Takashi Murakami.
I love my iPhone 8 Plus, but the allure of modern iPhone gestures is sometimes more tempting than I care to admit. I imagine many of you with a home button iPhone feel the same. What if I told you, however, that your iPhone is capable of iPhone X-like gestures? In fact, you can use a gesture to switch between apps. Welcome to the future.
Copying text is as much an iOS staple as anything else. From its inception in iPhone OS 3.0 (yes, the first two iPhones shipped without copy and paste) until iOS 12, the copy function has stayed exactly the same. While the option is still present in your iPhone's contextual menu, iOS 13 introduces a modern way to copy text using just a gesture.
Here's a rumor for any LG fans out there — the G7, successor to the G6, may be released as early as January 2018. This is crazy news considering the G6 just came out in March. It seems a little fast, but then again, that's our modern technological culture.
Pie and pi lovers rejoice: whether you like eating pies or calculating their area, 3/14 is your day. March 14 is a holiday for both bakers and math nerds: Pi Day, where the day and month correspond to the first three digits of the most famous mathematical constant.
Biking at night is dangerous. Seriously. If you've ever taken a night ride, you've probably experience a few close encounters with a set of headlights. Which is why you use bike lights—to make yourself more visible. Problem is, unlike modern car lights, bike lights don't turn themselves off when you're done riding.
Did you miss that new episode of your favorite show? You could get a hulu or a netflix account, but then you have to pay per month. Here are some free alternatives. Like always I am not responsible for anything that happens.
I have lived in china for 9 years now. I have lived in Shanghai and Hongkong. To me, I think Shanghai and Hong Kong are both very diverse places. Shanghai and Hong Kong have definitely modernized over the years and they are filled with people. Shanghai has been rapidly modernizing as a while back when I came to Shanghai, it wasn't as modern and there weren't as many people. When I came back, it was packed with people. Many young people here go to the clubs and shop along the road sides. The s...
Austrian composer Peter Ablinger has created a "speaking" piano. Ablinger digitized a child's voice reciting the Proclamation of the European Environmental Criminal Court to "play" on the piano via MIDI sequencer. Apparently, the computer is connected to the piano, which analyzes the human speech, and then converts it to key-tapping.
We encourage everyone (especially breast owners) to please watch. Intently. The UK's Channel 4's fantastic program Embarrassing Bodies is serving up lifesaving health advice. This segment does not sacrifice any details (nipple shots, etc.) to accommodate conventional prudes or censorship. We do not intend to either.
There are very few legends in this world. When it comes to beatboxing, Doug E Fresh is the O.G. legend. Below is an old school video of Fresh with Slick Rick performing 'La Di Da Di' in New York. At 3:52 Fresh goes off the hook, so be patient. There are very few legends in this world.
This one starts out pretty tame with the water prank. But rest assured, the second round pen prank satisfies. We very much appreciate the 'safety' of adding water to the pen body in case the flame gets out of control. Nobody laughs at third degree burns.
WonderHowTo is game on. Note for the devoted gamers with a code of ethics: spoiler alert. This cheat exemplifies the argument that video games are modern social commentary. Just when you thought this game was only about shooting hookers and scoring drugs. This odd Easter Egg gets to the heart of Liberty City, literally.
Most wouldn't think that "modern-boho" is appropriate for the office, but you can transform your gypsy garb into something professional and chic. In this video, Sydne Summer shows you how to do just that. Take cover
There's a lot that goes into making a nice crystal radio set, so this is going to have to be broken down into two parts. The first part is the actual making of a functional radio, and the second part is making the whole arrangement look nice. In this part, I'm actually going to tell you more than just how to make a crystal radio, but I'm also going to explain how and why they work. Crystal radios are pretty Steampunk in and of themselves, since they were first developed in the late 19th centu...
Fencing is a fun sport and a great activity for kids to be involved in. It teaches critical thinking and improves reaction time, and this video will give you an introduction to the world of fencing, learning about the épée, foil or sabre sword and even the rapier.