If you don't watch True Blood, then this clip might make little, if any sense to you. Even so, you can't deny the hilarity and charm that Jim Henson's pet child has when taking on the big people's television shows. In this round of kids' parodies we've got the Sesame Street characters playing out a scene in a fictional bar, where the delicacy isn't blood, but mud. No fangs, grotesque rituals, supernatural entities or political undertones here. It's just pure fun and a nice mudbath for one of the Grouches. I can't say that I wouldn't watch another episode of this or that the fake Sookie isn't spot on with her mannerisms. Whatever the case, check out the Sesame Street spoof....
Outward perceptions when it comes to interpersonal relationships usually don't mean much considering that no one can truly tell what another person is like unless they... know. On a much grander scale, such as national perception, it's easier to let one's perceptions turn into full blown stereotypes. Such is the case with Yanko Tsvetkov's maps of international perceptions of Europe, starting with the stigmas attached to the old world by us, the United States. The results are hilarious, if not hurtfully true to what a hefty amount of Americans really think of our neighbors across the pond. Tsvetkov did 'stereotype maps' for Great Britain, France, Italy and a few other European countries (see them here), but the US one really was an eye-opener. See if your preconceived notions match up with the map...
Honestly, not much can be said about this video, aside from stating that Ken Block is the best driver I have ever had the pleasure of watching. The man simply maneuvers a rally car in ways that are unfathomable. In this particular video, Ken is in Paris at a 1.58 mile oval track with 51-degree banks (much higher than NASCAR) and a number of obstacles that he performs mind-blowing Gymkhana tricks around. To say Ken Block is ridiculous is an understatement. Just watch the video and get ready to put your OH face on...
If I told you that the old ideas about 'the Future' from movies would come true in the next decade, would you believe me? Now that I think of it, I might not believe you either. The fascinating technological concepts of movies such as Minority Report, the Matrix and the latest Star Trek, always seemed farfetched, considering how slowly companies are to unveil their future plans. However, that doesn't mean those pipe-dreams can't or won't be achieved in time for my generation to care or take advantage. Swedish tech startup, TAT, commissioned a bunch of designers, tech people and computing engineers to design a realistic and aesthetically-captivating model of the future of the touch screen, called Open Initiative. The result is quite astonishing, to say the least. The video above shows a rendering of what the future holds for us, computing-wise. From alarm clocks you don't have to fumble around the snooze button for, to mirrors that show news headlines, to wireless collaboration and sharing over touch-friendly user interfaces, it seems as if the sky is the limit. It will be interesting to see if companies pick up this model or can run with it at all, because this simply looks cool. The fact that it's integrated in regular life, but not hindering it by being too (there is such a thing; think robot vacuums) has me thinking the future won't be as automated as we think. My only concern is how integrating all of the networks we have will work out. That's neither here nor there at the design point, though. Check out the video, and see what the next generation is looking like...
It's always refreshing to see two different mediums mashed together in a coherent fashion. In this case, we've got the superheroes of yesterday in their comic form with some classic hip-hop albums from yesteryear. The result is one of the most creative graphic design works I've seen in damn near forever. I won't kill you with words, because the images speak for themselves. Just try to guess what superheroes and what albums these are. 1000 e-points to anyone who can guess all of them. Check the rest out after the jump, and comment below if you can figure any of them out!!
Funny diagram, but it's so simple.. How did we not think of this before???
One thing that I hate about being in public is using public restrooms. Obviously, for men the experience is a little less unsanitary than for women. Nonetheless, the nastiness and grime that I see in people's bathroom behavior is reason enough for me to think cholera and dysentery will rear their ugly heads again. No one washes their hands! And if they do, it's a small splash of water. In the most plain terms, that don't work! It seems like people need to be reminded left and right that keeping your hands clean is the easiest route to not spending two days cuddled up with some tissue and Benadryl (much like I was yesterday). I guess the good people over at Yanko Design felt the same way, because they've come up with a combination urinal with both a urinal and faucet built in. Not only does the 'Eco Urinal' create incentive to wash your hands (the sh*t is literally in front of you), it also saves water. The water you use to wash your hand gets siphoned down in to the urinal portion to wash away whatever excrement you put out. Somehow, I think this design can change the whole public bathroom game from a nasty, potentially disease-ridden affair, to something less nerve-wracking to germaphobes. Check out a rendering of the invention, and make sure you WASH YOUR HANDS!!
*cues Jaws theme music* I can't ever say that I've wanted to ride a shark, though the prospect would be a hell of a story for the kids. Unfortunately, I enjoy my limbs, and haven't grown any gills yet, so finding my way near one of these beastly fish is more unlikely than a Ja Rule comeback tour. Even so, the allure of the shark is undeniable: powerful, vicious, and apparently tasty with some lemon pepper and olive oil. The folks over at Innespace, an aquatic engineering company, have designed the Seabreacher X, the latest in their line of 'submersible watercrafts'. The Seabreacher obviously takes the form of a great white shark, but seats two, for those romantic nights on the water, travelling at break-neck speeds. It boasts a 260hp supercharged engine, propelling the vessel to a top speed of 50mph on the surface and 25mph below. Below? Yes, below. The Seabreacher X is capable of dipping under the water for a unique experience. The best part, though, is the actual breaching, where the Seabreacher can literally 'jump' out of the water. This looks like one hell of an idea, but for $60,000 and up, Innespace can keep them. Doesn't hurt to dream though...
Everyone loves the Peanuts. If you don't, then I'm not sure what planet you're from, or if you have a heart. 60 years ago, Charles Schultz started penning what would become the most popular comic strip in the world (sorry Boondocks), running from October 2, 1950 to February 13, 2000, now in syndication. From Lucy's constant bullying of Charlie Brown, to Linus' love affair with his blanket, to Marcy and Peppermint Patty's questionable relationship, the strip could captivate even the surliest of readers. To commemorate the anniversary, the good folk at Lacoste decided to team their iconic crocodile (not alligator) with Schultz' rag-tag bunch of baseball-playing suburban kids on their classic white polo shirt. The result is a nice set of shirts that have charming written all over them. The only thing is, they're available exclusively at Dover Street Market in London. That means you'll have to get your overseas connects up to get your hands on one of them... Either that or eBay. Whatever the case, the concept is dope. Check out the Peanuts x Lacoste 60th Anniversary Collection...
What does it really take to redesign one of the oldest concepts in the book? Some try to make the old design better by adding on to it and trying to make more out of it. Others, on the other hand go forward by going backwards, simplifying the design. That's the case with Yaniv Berg’s Digital Reflex Camera. Instead of being a typical box-shaped camera with a lens protruding out, the Reflex Camera has a periscope-like design, enabling all you photographers out there to take pictures from a different angle and stance. The designer, Yaniv Berg, took a hint from the cameras of olden days that had their eyepieces at the top of the camera instead of the back. The camera also can be turned on its lens for a unique photo-viewing experience. I know some of you photographers that read the blog wouldn't mind getting your hands on one of these. No word on whether it'll hit the streets, but you can ogle these pictures until we find out...
I'm not going to lie. I love my space, as do most people. One of the ways that manifests itself is in seating and seating arrangements. Whether taking the bus or train or sitting in a public facility, I usually don't like sitting in close proximity to people. A bunch of you probably feel the same way. There's an effective and funny way to hold your spot down while you go about your business, or detract potential seat mates from invading your personal bubble. The good people at Shockblast created Seat Savers with nothing more than high-grade rubber. As you can tell, the effect is pretty realistic... a bit underhanded, but realistic enough to serve its purpose. If not that, it's a pretty good prank. Check out some of the different Seat Savers...
You ever wonder where everyone's internet allegiances lie? By that, I mean the random social networks and websites that everyone frequents. Well, here it is people. The Internet World Map. On this map, there lies every major social network and website, complete with a bunch of different municipalities, bodies of water and populations of each. This is so funny because it makes the internet look like an imperialist world, which it is. Companies vie for bragging rights and revenue as they try to increase theit populations and conquer their nearby rivals. Notice, that Google has an outpost almost everywhere in the internet world. That's not a coincidence... Nor is the massive amount of land they have compared to the rest of the internet. If I had to put money on who is winning the Internet World War, Google would be my guess, though Facebook might put up a pretty good fight. Whatever the case, check out the Internet World Map, and see where you would reside if websites were countries...
Having lived in cities for all of my life, I've noticed two distinct problems that plague every city: traffic congestion and public transportation. Some cities have so many cars on the road that public transportation suffers, while other cities have so many cars that everyone suffers. The amount of vehicles (cars, trucks, motorcycles, bikes) on the roads today make finding sustainable ways to keep our cities' roadways moving a high priority. That said, few people have found good methods to lessen the congestion while keeping costs down. Until now. Shenzhen Huashi of China has developed an ingenious, yet remarkably simple concept to ease congestion in cities: the Straddling Bus. The bus uses the space in between different lanes on a street, and literally straddles the road, going over cars, other (smaller buses), trucks, small motor vehicles and pedestrians. It would use electric and solar energy to run, as well as be easier to construct than, say a subway. People would enter and exit the straddling bus through ladders on the side or through overpasses. Plus, the straddling bus (in the demonstration) has a capacity of 1200 people per bus, which dumps all over any other modern transport system in the world. All in all, this is an brilliant idea because it's so simple. It almost makes you wonder 'Why didn't I think of this?'. The straddling bus already has over 186 km of track ready to start construction next year, so this concept is about to make it to practice really soon. Check out the video and some flicks...
Seriously, I'm signing up for 2011 Comic Con tickets TODAY. The San Diego Comic Convention has become something of a cultural experience, where movies, music, games, television, graphic novels, and of course, comics mash together to keep our inner nerds occupied for four days straight. Add that to the fact that the divide between different media interests has become parchment-thing, and you have my heaven. This go around, we've got adidas collaborating with the people behind Tron: Legacy to create a new line of Tron-themed, futuristic apparel. The first pieces we'll see drop are two pairs of the adidas Heat Check, the company's new signature shoe. Both feature reflective stripes, along with screen-printed graphics on the upper and toebox, reminiscent of the glitzy, high-tech feel in the of Tron. The hoodie below will be self-illuminated, just like the movie. Oh, and in case you were wondering, this collab is set to hit shelves in December, right on time for Tron: Legacy's release. Check out some flicktures of adidas x Tron: Legacy, as well as a new trailer for the movie, which is starting to look sicker and sicker by the day...
Sometimes fanaticism doesn't have to be about weird costumes and camping out all night to get into Comic-Con. In fact, sometimes the biggest fans have other, more palatable interests that actually turn out to be useful for the fan. I guess you could say that's the case with this California man (all the random, cool stuff is always in freaking Cali, isn't it?) who took his love for Batman, and made his own custom Bat-Pod replica to cruise around on. The chopper is fully functioning, aside from the machine guns, and other classified gadgets only Bruce Wayne's rich behind can access. I'm not really sure how fast the replica can go (not that it matters; we can't disobey traffic laws like Batman), but it definitely looks like it can haul ass on a straightaway. Check out some closer flicks, and a video of the Bat-Pod in action...
If you want to see how someone's day is going, chances are you can check their Twitter and get a pretty good idea. That said, aside from your own personal friends, it's really impossible to get a serious feel for the rest of the world's affect (look it up) at any given time... Until now. Computer scientist Alan Mislove from Northeastern University and his colleauges in Boston have done a study that finds that the west coast is happier than the east coast, and across the country happiness peaks each Sunday morning, and hits a low on Thursday evenings. The study is called 'Pulse of the Nation'.
Mislove took all public tweets between September 2006 and August 2009, filtered out users from outside the US (and those with no location listed), then filtered them against a psychological word-rating system called Affective Norms for English Words. ANEW ranks lower scoring words as negative and higher ones as positive. Positive words like 'love', 'diamond', and 'paradise' have higher scores, while negative words like 'funeral', 'rape', and 'suicide' have lower ones. He then took those scores, calculated the average mood of all the users in a state hour by hour, and plotted the scores on a 'mood map'. The mood map transforms every hour based on how many users in a state are tweeting, and how that state is tweeting (happy or sad). The result was the video above, a 24-hour map of the emotional ups and downs of Twitter.
The dope part about this study is that you can see where you fit in as a regular Twitter user. Weekends are usually fairly happy, while the middle of the week is pure drudgery. Also, the West Coast's overall happiness compared to that of the East Coast is dumbfounding. Even crazier is the fact that the Midwest seems to always be somewhat unhappy (sorry Detroit). It's interesting to see such a wide base of data being portrayed so simply. If you want to see an extended write-up with more infographics, click here. Other wise, check out the video and see how your mood fits into the pulse of the nation...
In about 200 years (pending the End of Days, 2012 and any catastrophic world disasters), when we look back on the cultural and biological makeup of humanity, this will be considered the beginning of a society of homogeneous people. This letter is weird to write, for two reasons:
A) How easily skin pigmentation fragments us. No matter how much people want to say that they are color blind, the skin (and it's color) are the first thing that one sees. People take skin color to indicate much more than it should, even in today's 'post-racial society'. That a newborn child has more or less broken every rule we knew about genetics, and skin color, is a shock to most people nor an easy pill to swallow. The birth of this 'white' baby to these 'black' parents (note the quotation marks) is the beginning a new era in human genetics: that of racial ambiguity. Because of you, the entire notion of skin color will die in a matter of centuries. People won't be too happy about that either. For many, skin color is a delineating mark. With your advent, there is one less marker for people to judge with.
B) As a black person, proud of my heritage, it's exciting, yet disconcerting to think that race may die out. Where will the culture and folklore I've grown to know end up? Will they be celebrated as a part of your new hold on humanity, or will some cultures scatter like dust in the wind? Will some parts of your 'new race's' culture hold still, while other parts get discarded as useless or classless or outmoded? How can we be sure that in 200 years black or Hispanic or Asian culture won't die out or that one won't be held up over another?
Both A) and B) are legitimate concerns, but this birth signals a pivotal time in humanity. Racial ambiguity, you've long been a heralded black sheep in genetics. Your tendency to make people 'universally beautiful' is lauded, yet people chafe at the racial issues that come into play. I can only imagine the kind of internal strife that this child will experience in it's post-latent years. From taunts to questions to weird looks, that baby's blond hair may be as much a bane as it is a blessed surprise. Then again, in this post-racial society, where your presence is heralded, she may very well be a golden child. Who's really to know at this point? What we do know is that somehow two black parents, with two black children, birthed a child who would be considered traditionally white. Racial ambiguity, it stands to say that your shroud will still be appreciated in a post-racial society, though it still may not hide you from criticism. You're something that people fear but secretly lust after. That this child achieved it through natural birth is incredible. Hopefully by the time she's old enough to write, her racial identity will be solid and understood to her, but really won't even matter any more...
Today I got the chance to go to a concert in Philadelphia. Philly doesn't have many concerts, or at least many good hip-hop ones. So with that in mind, any good accessible concert needed to be attended with the quickness. Cole, as soon as I heard you were performing in Philly, and for free at that, I had to attend. I copped the tickets that day, and waited patiently to see if your performances live up to your music. That's a hard feat in today's rap game. Not every rapper can perform. You've got guys who just stand there waving their hand (coughcoughDrakecoughcough) and rapping. You've got guys who can't keep up with their own lyrics. The only good performers I can see today are Jay-Z, Lupe, The Clipse and Kanye. The rest just don't entertain as well. You came on stage to 'We On', and got the crowd pumped, even though most of them didn't know the lyrics. Then you made a great move by bringing Freeway out, especially because we're in Philly. The crowd started pulsating, they were screaming so loud. I swear you could hear it on my camera. Free made everyone get rowdy with 'Roc the Mic' and 'What We Do', and then you moved on to 'Who Dat' and had everyone involved. Closing out the show with 'Young Simba' was a good move, too. One thing, though... Why was your set only 27 minutes long? There were definitely more tracks you could've performed, instead we got a little under a half an hour of performance compared to an 45-minute Jazzy Jeff and Skills set. Not that I'm complaining (after all, it was free), but heads were standing there for 4 hours waiting for you. Regardless, 'twas a good show. You could've been utterly robotic with everything, but turned out a good performance. Now, if only Philly can get some more marquee shows out here...
I thought it would be only right to post this considering we're witnessing the advent of one former phenom into the limelight. Then again, you have to admit that it's a bit sick how society, or sporting society, is weeding out the prodigies at younger and younger ages. Dakota Simms is only 9 years old, yet is being looked at for college basketball already. He's ridiculously talented for his age, but does that mean we should start to sap the fun out of his livelihood and start surrounding him with people who only care about him because of a gift? Dakota looks like he would love nothing more than to shoot around and dribble all day. The business side of sports should have no business in his business at this point. At the same time, it's still exciting to see what the future of the sport of basketball holds. I'm thinking a 7-year $500 million deal in 2025. Something tells me Dakota and the young man below will be seeing a lot of each other down the road. Check out both of the next to be next up in basketball...
This is just crazy, to say the least. Filmmaker Rob Spence, who lost his right eye in a shooting accident as a teenager has found a new way to bridge the gap between man and machine, and in an eerie way. He calls it the eyeborg and it is, simply put, a tiny digital camcorder embedded in his false eyeball. Spence found that people are much less receptive to speak freely and plainly with an actual camera in their faces (big surprise). That said, he founded the Eyeborg Project to make more movies using his eye-cam. The camera transmits directly to a computer, though it isn't directly connected to his brain, which would be incredible. Spence claims the mission of his eye, and the subsequent documentary are to raise awareness of constant surveillance in society and to get people talking unselfconsciously. I can't say that I disagree with his plan, but it's gonna be a bit creepy for people to see themselves on candid camera, when they thought they were just talking to a guy with a false eye. Guess it's a catch-22 either way. Check the video...
I never understood why the simplest of games never made the transition from physical to digital. In this video, the good people at Nike threw together one of the world's first digital pinball machines. Using an LCD screen along with a traditional pinball setup, they were able to replicate the regular pinball motion with soccer features for their store in Madrid. A part of Nike's 'Write the Future' campaign, they used soccer cleats as the flippers and obviously the soccer ball as the pinball. The action comes pretty damn close to the actual game. Check out the video and pray that they throw together something similar for the states. It'll make me want to hit up Niketown, that's for sure...
