Bullet time surfing
Using a rig of 30 GoPro cameras, these guys captured surfers in Matrix-esque bullet time.
(via petapixel)
The secret train platform beneath the Waldorf=Astoria
Gothamist has a collection of photos of the abandoned train platform underneath the Waldorf=Astoria.
Over the weekend we had a chance to visit the long-abandoned Waldorf-Astoria train platform, which allowed VIPs to enter the hotel in a more private manner -- most famously it was used by Franklin D. Roosevelt, possibly to hide the fact that he was in a wheelchair suffering from polio. The mysterious track, known as Track 61, still houses the train car and private elevator, which were both large enough for FDR's armor-plated Pierce Arrow car. Legend has it that the car would drive off the train, onto the platform and straight into the elevator, which would lead to the hotel's garage.
Photos by Sam Horine.
The shoe makes the dancer
A short but fascinating look at how changes in ballet shoe technology altered the way ballerinas moved and even how their bodies looked.
In the 1840s, when Marie Taglioni went on pointe for a few seconds in La Sylphide, her momentary weightlessness became an icon of the transcendent power of ballet. A pair of her shoes sold for 200 rubles and was cooked and eaten by her admirers.
(via @alexismadrigal)
Updates on previous entries for Nov 7, 2011*
Stephen Fry vs Christopher Hitchens orig. from Nov 07, 2011
* Q: Wha? A: These previously published entries have been updated with new information in the last 24 hours. You can find past updates here.
M83 vocal audition
If you like M83 and have listened to their new album, Hurry Up, We're Dreaming, you'll probably love this M83 backup singer audition video.
I literally LOL'd when he started singing. (via stellar)
The Pixar of the iPad age
From Sarah Rich and Alexis Madrigal, a story on a company that might be "the Pixar of the iPad age", Moonbot Studios. Moonbot made a wonderfully inventive iPad book called The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore.
Morris Lessmore may be the best iPad book in the world. In July, Morris Lessmore hit the number one spot on Apple's iPad app chart in the US. That is to say, Morris Lessmore wasn't just the bestselling book, but the bestselling *app* of any kind for a time. At one point or another, it has been the top book app in 21 countries. A New York Times reviewer called it "the best," "visually stunning," and "beautiful." Wired.com called it "game-changing." MSNBC said it was "the most stunning iPad app so far." And The Times UK made this prediction, "It is not inconceivable that, at some point in the future, a short children's story called 'The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore' will be regarded as one of the most influential titles of the early 21st century."
Stephen Fry vs Christopher Hitchens
This Wednesday, FORA will host an online video conversation between Stephen Fry and Christopher Hitchens.
For over forty years Christopher Hitchens has written and spoken with passionate commitment on matters that others fear to broach. His life has been one of defiance, wit and humility. Now his life is threatened by cancer, but his devotion to the truth and his extraordinary courage are undiminished. In this special event for Intelligence^2, Hitchens will be in conversation via satellite in Washington D.C. with his friend Stephen Fry who will be onstage at Southbank Centre's Royal Festival Hall, London, in front of a sell-out audience of 2,500. Don't miss this chance to hear one of the great public intellectuals of our age discussing politics, literature and, as he puts it, "the things that make life worth defending - foes like faith and false consolation".
It's £5 for a live-stream and 30 days of unlimited on-demand viewing.
Update: Nuts, Hitchens has pneumonia, so Fry will be joined instead by Martin Amis and Richard Dawkins.
They will be examining their own and Christopher's ideas of what constitutes the good life and the good death -- seen against the backdrop of Christopher's career, the causes dear to his heart, the controversies that he has so enjoyed provoking and the things that make life worth defending.
Unusual Yelp reviews
For Gourmet, Todd Levin imagines the Yelp reviews for the world's worst restaurant, Mama Mia That's Italyen Authentic Food Café.
I was planning on suing this restaurant but kept driving past it. Later, the mold in my ravioli also triggered a rare neurological disorder called "Geoagnosia." It's an inability to recognize or remember familiar places, like my home or office.
DO NOT EAT AT THIS RESTAURANT IF YOU WANT TO LIVE OR PERFORM LONG DIVISION OR REMEMBER WHERE YOUR CAR IS EVER AGAIN.
And Cormac McCarthy of all people has a Tumblr where he posts his Yelp reviews of places ranging from Taco Bell to Chez Panisse. Here's his three-star review of a Cheesecake Factory in Houston, TX:
There were a variety of cakes and sweet things there. The desserts paraded by in their desperate decadence, at once a fading and colorless memory.
A Bavarian chocolate cake stood apart, on a simple plate. Like a rancher's wife it was seasoned by hardships and nature's brutal arithmetic. Flourless, it awaited a lonely fate.
A Tiramisu teetered like the oldest prostitute in a mining town, reeking of saccharine liqueur. The faint scent of virtue lost amid the hellish musk of ten thousand outrages.
A torte, covered in glistening fruit, a lie as old as memory. Its flavor joyless, a pyrrhic dessert atop a mountain of meaningless artifice. Hasn't been real sugar in this torte since before the highway was built here. Since before the first settlers came through with bibles and Henry rifles. The slow mockery of corn syrup.
He reached for the Tiramisu with a hand that had been dried by the sun and wind and bathed in the steaming blood of another human being. All that now was behind him.
Do the dishes like nobody's watching
Be honest...isn't this how we all do the washing up when no one's around? (via interesting)
Steve Jobs, tweaker
In a review of Walter Isaacson's biography of Steve Jobs, Malcolm Gladwell says that Jobs was much more of a "tweaker" than an inventor...he took ideas from others and made them better.
Jobs's sensibility was editorial, not inventive. His gift lay in taking what was in front of him-the tablet with stylus-and ruthlessly refining it. After looking at the first commercials for the iPad, he tracked down the copywriter, James Vincent, and told him, "Your commercials suck."
"Well, what do you want?" Vincent shot back. "You've not been able to tell me what you want."
"I don't know," Jobs said. "You have to bring me something new. Nothing you've shown me is even close."
Vincent argued back and suddenly Jobs went ballistic. "He just started screaming at me," Vincent recalled. Vincent could be volatile himself, and the volleys escalated.
When Vincent shouted, "You've got to tell me what you want," Jobs shot back, "You've got to show me some stuff, and I'll know it when I see it."
Watch Bill Cunningham New York on Hulu for free
Bill Cunningham New York, the documentary on street fashion photographer Bill Cunningham, is available to watch on Hulu for free. (US-only probably.)
Dam breached, reservoir drained
On October 26th, a hole was blasted in the base of 125' tall Condit Dam on the White Salmon River in Washington. In less than 2 hours, the reservoir behind the dam drained completely and the White Salmon flowed unimpeded by a dam for the first time in 100 years.
The time lapse at the end of the reservoir draining is awesome. (★interesting)
If the Nazis conquered America
Matthew Porter's photo composite Empire on the Platte is arresting.
Pairs nicely with Melissa Gould's Neu-York, "an obsessively detailed alternate-history map, imagining how Manhattan might have looked had the Nazis conquered it in World War II".
In 1942, Life magazine speculated about what an Axis invasion of North America might look like.
Payment in your pants
Square's Card Case app for iPhone or Android automatically opens a tab for you at your favorite spots (using your phone's location) and you just pay by saying your name.
Koyaanisqatsi
Saw Koyaanisqatsi last night (with great seats), accompanied by the New York Philharmonic and the Philip Glass Ensemble...Glass played one of the emsemble's two keyboards. It was really fantastic.
KOYAANISQATSI, [Godfrey] Reggio's debut as a film director and producer, is the first film of the QATSI trilogy. The title is a Hopi Indian word meaning "life out of balance." Created between 1975 and 1982, the film is an apocalyptic vision of the collision of two different worlds -- urban life and technology versus the environment. The musical score was composed by Philip Glass.
Franzen's The Corrections on HBO
HBO is doing a show (or is it a movie?) based on Jonathan Franzen's The Corrections.
With 2 Oscar winners, Chris Cooper and Diane Wiest, already cast as the leads, this was a no-brainer, but it's now official: HBO's drama pilot The Corrections is proceeding to production.
A collection of starlings is called a murmuration
I wish the video were of better quality, but it's still something to see.
(via @daveg)
Do a barrel roll
The most fun on the internet right now: go to Google and search for "do a barrel roll" (no quotes). Whee!
Knives, made by hand
Another excellent video by Made By Hand: The Knife Maker.
Writer turned knife maker Joel Bukiewicz of Cut Brooklyn talks about the human element of craft, and the potential for a skill to mature into an art. And in sharing his story, he alights on the real meaning of handmade-a movement whose riches are measured in people, not cash.
At Cut Brooklyn, Bukiewicz also does knife sharpening, holds open shop hours in his workshop, holds knife skills classes, and has various knives for sale.
Made By Hand's first video was about the Breuckelen Distilling Company.
Sword dancing
Dancing skills + sword fighting skills + old lady sitting motionless in a chair skills + huge boom box skills + dog almost gets beheaded skills + it gets magical around 52 seconds =
(via @thanland)
An oral history of MTV
Pitchfork has an excerpt of I Want My MTV, an oral history of the first decade of MTV.
I got word that Pepsi had bought the first spot in the 1984 Grammy telecast and they were gonna play a new Michael Jackson Pepsi ad. I'm like, "Michael Jackson belongs to MTV, not the Grammys." I wasn't gonna let it happen. So I called Roger Enrico, the head of Pepsi, and said, "Roger, I've got a major problem. This Pepsi Michael Jackson spot that's gonna run in three weeks on the Grammys? That should run on MTV first."
"Well, Garland, I've already made a deal with the Grammys." I go, "Wait a minute. You know how we do world premieres of videos. What if I world premiere the commercial? And what if I give you 24 promos a day for two weeks leading up to it? Would that interest you?"
He goes, "How much do you want for this?" I said, "Nothing." He goes, "What? You're telling me you would promote a commercial 24 times a day for two weeks before playing it? Garland, I like your style. Done." So it played for the first time on MTV.
(thx, jon)
Speedometer design
A collection of Chevy speedometer designs. My favorite is this one, from the 1970 Nova:
My dad had a bunch of different cars when I was growing up and I remember staring at this particular speedometer for hours...I loved the way the numbers scrunched together in the middle. (via ★vuokko)
It's just apps on apps on apps
Riffing off of a short observation I sent him, John Gruber speculates about what an Apple TV ecosystem might look like.
Why not the same thing [as Newsstand] for TV channels? We're seeing the beginnings of this, with iPhone and iPad apps like HBO Go, Watch ESPN, and the aforementioned Bloomberg TV+. Letting each TV network do their own app allows them the flexibility that writing software provides. News networks can combine their written and video news into an integrated layout. Networks with contractual obligations to cable operators, like HBO and ESPN, can write code that requires users to log in to verify their status as an eligible subscriber.
This smells right to me...it's a very Apple-y way of approaching the TV/movie problem. Rather than fight with the studios and networks over content sold through the iTunes Store (where the studios control the licensing rights), just provide a platform (iPhone + iPad + iTV + App Store) controlled by Apple and if the studios/networks want to reach those customers, they need to provide an app...with Apple taking a 30% cut of the App *and* content sales.
Robot more human than human?
You remember the BigDog robotic prototype constructed by Boston Dynamics? Now they have a human robot that can run, do push-ups, and just generally acts pretty human.
Take this robot, some super-realistic human masks, and a Siri-powered iPhone 4S, and we're in Terminator territory. (via ★interesting)
Thailand flood photos
The worst floods in 50 years have hit Thailand Bangkok...the Big Picture has photos of the flooding in Bangkok while In Focus has a collection from all over Thailand.
Accurate short-term weather prediction
Predicting the weather is really hard...butterfly wings flapping and all that. But often we only care about the very short term weather: Do I need to take an umbrella to the store? When's this rain gonna stop? Is it going to start snowing before I get home? Enter Dark Sky, an iOS app currently in development.
Dark Sky is an app for the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch that predicts the weather.
Using your precise location, it tells you when it will precipitate and for how long. For example: It might tell you that it will start raining in 8 minutes, with the rain lasting for 15 minutes followed by a 25 minute break.
How is it possible predict the weather down to the minute? What's the catch?
Well, the catch is that it only works over a short period of time: a half hour to an hour in the future. But, as it turns out, this timespan is crucially important. Our lives are filled with short-term outdoor activities: Travelling to and from work, walking the dog, lunch with friends, outdoor sports, etc.
Houdini speaks
In this recording from 1914, Harry Houdini talks about his Water Torture Cell trick.
The audio was recorded on an Edison wax cylinder; one of six used that day by Houdini and now the only known recordings of his voice to exist.
(via ★thoughtbrain)
DIY satellite imagery
With a computer, some software, and a couple hundred dollars of hardware, you can pull down your own satellite images from satellites managed by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) manages a few satellites in low earth orbit. There are three actively transmitting APT signals at the moment, NOAA15, 17, and 18. Each of these satellites passes overhead a few times a day. I've been interested in learning how to receive their signals for a while now, and I've finally succeeded!
