If the only Vines and Instagram videos you’re looking at are the ones your friends are making of their cats, you’re missing out. There’s a whole world of snapshot auteurs out there that can make you laugh, think, and feel six (or 15) seconds at a time. And Vinstavids has done you the service of…
Toby Melville-Brown began his Tower series as a fanciful mishmash of his favorite architectural styles. But as his towers grew more elaborate and fanciful, he began to imagine the futures in which these buildings might exist. Melville-Brown explains that he is fascinated by the “synthetic landscape” of human civilization, and to that end, he imagines…
Tanya Shukstelinsky’s Cocoon project is a whimsical take on urban housing, imagining a world in which skinny dwellings are made from cleverly segregated sheets of fabric. Shukstelinsky created this prototype, which she describes as “temporary living spaces for urban nomads,” as part of her final year project Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design in Jerusalem.…
The fact that the number of days in a year doesn’t perfectly match up with the Earth’s rotational cycle has posed a problem throughout history. Pope Gregory’s attempt to combat some of the complications of that problem caused riots in what has to be the first time battle in history. In 1583, Pope Gregory had…
To better understand why bats are the only mammals capable of sustained flight, a team of biologists at Brown University is examining ultra high-speed X-ray videos of fruit bats as they launch themselves into the air. Led by Nicolai Konow, the team used X-ray Reconstruction of Moving Morphology (XROMM), a technology that integrates 3D renderings…
James Cameron was recently sued yet again for Avatar, the latest in a long line of plagiarism accusations against the director stretching back to Terminator. But is Cameron a serial plagiarist, or just a popular target for copyright lawsuits? There are certainly some cases (Sally Mann’s in particular, and given the similarities between the openings…
If you happen to see a bat flying around you in real life, it’s easy to panic and not see much of anything but a vague blur as you cover your head and cower. But they’re actually pretty graceful when you really look at them. And new slow motion, x-ray footage just goes to show…
We’ve all got that record, the one we discovered early on that completely changed the way we look at music. Mine was Operation Ivy’s 1989 effort Energy, and I’m proud to say that—I think—it still holds up. I loved pretty much that whole album to death, but it was “Sound System” that really blew my…
Rendering CGI faces that look close to real is hard, but we’re starting to see hardware that can pull it off. Then, the problem becomes the source material; you’ve got to have models that look good enough to pass for real. For that, a new kind of facial scanning is going to come in handy,…
There’s no denying that the Xenomorph queen is terrifying in Aliens, but she doesn’t seem quite has bad when her lifeless head is just sitting on a table in its earliest form, not quite sculpted into the horrifying finished product. She’s still no looker, though. Stan Winston School brings us yet another fantastic behind-the-scenes look…
Artist Andrew Kolb pays tribute to Calvin and his indefatigable imagination with a pair of seasonal prints. Whether it’s summer or winter, Bill Watterson’s duo can travel through space and meet up with dinosaurs, UFOs, giant robots, and, of course, those mutant snowmen. These pieces are part of the RED gallery show that opened last…
There are currently not one, but two ebook bundles that let you pay what you want for a bunch of science fiction ebooks. Head over to the Humble eBook Bundle and StoryBundle to grab several books for potentially little money. Humble Bundle is running its second ebook bundle with Cory Doctorow’s Little Brother, Cherie Priest’s…
Regardless of what you think of its icons, iOS 7 is a big design shift for Apple, and it’s here to stay. When the new OS finally hits consumer phones everywhere, it might be a little surprise for some, but there’s one demographic it’s really going to flummox: babies. The clip pretty much speaks for…
With Google Reader finally dead and gone, it seems like as good a time as any to rethink the way we all look at the web. There’s a whole wealth of browsers and widgets and apps and extensions out there that will try to alter your browsing experience. Some of them will change your life,…
There’s a great paper cutout feel to Thomas Plaete’s short film Nimbus Machina. An engineer in a monstrous steampunk vehicle must flee the storm he created. Plaete uses his monochromatic palette to a nice industrial effect, while employing a limited geometry to create a grand sense of scale. There’s also some rather gorgeous concept art…
As part of his Masters of Branding study at the School of Visual Arts, Tyler Adam Smith is creating 100 covers for books that should be written, from goofy snarks at popular authors to imagined sequels to beloved books. Designer Debbie Millman, who chairs the branding department, charged each student in the program to come…
Happy Independence week. There were a lot of explosions, but some other things managed to happen too, and we’ve rounded up a festive smattering of them. Consider it GizBQ sampling plate. I’m talkin’ about an exploding-building-GIF salad, some iOS7-calendar-icon-rant slaw, some hot, takin’-good-care-of-your-smartphone-battery burgers, and more. Dig in. How To Take Care of Your Smartphone…
There are plenty of things that can make a ghost town, from dam projects, to nuclear disaster. The folks over at BuzzFeedVideo put together a rundown of some of America’s finest—and most unsettling—from a town built on a hellish inferno, to a city buried beneath Seattle. So take a look, and appreciate the ruinous beauty.…
Retired from the tracks, many old trains find themselves in glorious graveyards, filled with car upon rusted car. Photos of these scrapyards let us witness the magnificent decay of these mighty vehicles. The last stop before the scrapyard, a railway ferry harbour built in the 1980s, somewhere in Germany (via Eike Ramba) Uyuni Train Cemetery,…
The Saturday Comic-Con schedule is now up, with panels on Catching Fire, Thor: The Dark World, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Futurama, True Blood, Arrow, The Vampire Diaries, and much, much more.
