Month: February 2011

• Visualizing the wealth of America's super-rich ruling class
  A series of 11 infographics from Mother Jones vividly illustrate the widening gap between America's rich and poor, and how skewed Americans' views of this inequality are. The myth of the American dream has led plenty of ordinary Americans to believe that they are rich-people-in-waiting, leading them to support policies that benefit the rich at their expense (see the chart after the jump for more). It's the Inequality, Stupid (Thanks, Mmechanic, via Submitterator!)  Santa Fe Institute economist: one in four Americans is employed to ... Much of what investment bankers do is socially worthless - Boing Boing UK's super-rich get even richer - Boing Boing Florida foreclosure mill owner who chucked out 70000 families in ... A pictorial day in the life of a Tijuana millionaire's wife ... Winner-Take-All Politics: how America's super-rich got so much ......

  
  

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• Baby trashes bar

  [ Video Link ]
  Trailer for the short film "Las Palmas" by Johannes Nyholm, which is due out later this year. (Thanks, Susannah Breslin! Music: "Låt i H-moll" by Björn Olsson, from the record "The Lobster" released by Gravitation.)
  

  
  

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• Castle Grayskull igloo in Brooklyn

  Brooklyn artist Kilroy III celebrated the snowmageddon by building a huge, magnificent Castle Grayskull (of He-Man fame) igloo. It's the artist's second attempt at a Grayskullgloo, the first being one he attempted in the 1990s in Ohio. The primary sculpting tools were a Korean soup bowl and a spoon.

  SPOTLIGHT: Snowmageddon Spawns Castle Grayskull by Kilroy III & Friends | Brooklyn Igloo

  Castle Grayskull | Snowmageddon | Kilroy III (Flickr)

  (via Geekologie)

   

  • Mike Huckabee congratulates Canada on its "national igloo" - Boing ...
  • An Igloo in Madison, WI (Neat picture) - Boing Boing
  • Bed built into an "igloo of books" - Boing Boing
  • Boing Boing: Igloo-making tool

  
  

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• Making music with the Large Hadron Collider
  

  Last week, guest blogger Lee Billings told me about something really cool—just about any collection of data can be converted into sound. Really, this is one of those things that should have been obvious. Geiger counters have been turning information into noise for more than 100 years. But I hadn't really realized that this practice, called sonification, was so widespread and so useful.

  We're all familiar with the powers of data visualization, which allows you to take a confusing jumble of facts and turn them into an easily readable picture. Sonification is the same thing, just applied to the audio world, rather than the visual one. Both data visualization and sonification make it easier to spot patterns, understand trends, and grok what the data is really telling you.

  One place where sonification is put to good use: The Large Hadron Collider. Better yet, the resulting sound clips are available to the public. And you know what that means: Remix time. The Synthgear blog is hosting a contest to see who can make the best music out of sonified LHC data.

  At their site, you'll find all the sounds of the LHC, along with explanations, so you can apply some meaning to the notes. Twist them, mix them, and submit your entry by February 28th. I'll be watching that blog to see when they announce a winner, and will post a link here. I'm really looking forward to hearing what the entrants come up with!

  Thanks to mattd for Submitterating!

  Image: CERN/LHC/GridPP

  
  

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• Watching a Video Shot in 2,564 Frames per Second is Mind Numbingly Amazing [Video]
  
  
  

  Tom Guilmette was playing around and testing out the Phantom Flex camera in his hotel room one night and had so much fun he never got any sleep. Watch coins fall, water drip and, my personal favorite, a BlackBerry jiggle in the video above. I wish we could slow down time like this whenever we wanted to. [Vimeo via Engadget] More »

  
  

  

  

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• Pigeons In Zero Gravity [Video]
  
  
  

  What would it be like if we brought pigeons into outer space? Well, you'd have a lot of crazed and confused pigeons, that's what. How come more of our space budget can't go towards projects like these? More »

  
  

  

  

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• Today in Crazy Internet Brilliance

  Steve Reich's Clapping Music, as performed by Lee Marvin and Angie Dickinson.

  Thank you, Metafilter and Kyle Gann.

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• So, Uh, What Is Reality? [Video]
  
  
  

  Ready for your Tuesday-morning mindfrak? Here's a whirlwind tour that takes apart almost everything you thought you knew about reality. If those BBC accents weren't so soothing, I might actually be pretty freaked out by now. More »

  
  

  

  

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• Learn to Code: The Full Beginner's Guide [Night School]
  
  
  

  If you've been looking to learn how to code, we can help you get started. Here are 4.5 lessons on the basics and extra resources to keep you going. More »

  
  

  

  

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