Wall-E: Descendant of iPod

The talk of the town these days is Wall-E, the more than adorable creation of Pixar. And why does it look familiar? Look at this post and you'll understand - from NOTCOT

Also there's a nice set of Adium icons here.

iPhone WILL be BIG in China

iPhone will (hopefully) come into the Chinese market with China Unicom in August. But do you know how many iPhones are ALREADY in use in China? 400,000! And that is just the lower end of the number. A $400 iPhone could easily be sold in China at a price tag of $600. And the Chinese consumers' craze for posh is never-ending. A picture says all:

Looks like the iPhone will make it to mainland China, after all

Jesus Probably Rode Dinosaurs.

Jesus Probably Rode Dinosaurs

(Thanks to Coudal's blog, which always makes my day a bit brighter and my brain a bit smarter.)

Self-efficient Amphibian City for Climate Refugees

You are probably tired of hearing about climate change, but millions of people will become homeless because of rising sea levels and mutated ecosystem. International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) estimated 150 million environmental refugees by 2050, 20 million alone from Bangladesh. Now maybe this Vicent Callebaut's Lilypad offers a haven for these future climate refugees?

According to Archinect:

LILYPAD is a true amphibian - half aquatic and half terrestrial city - able to accommodate 50,000 inhabitants and inviting the biodiversity to develop its fauna and flora around a central lagoon of soft water collecting and purifying the rain waters. This artificial lagoon is entirely immersed, ballasting the city. It enables inhabitants to live in the heart of the sub aquatic depths. The multi functional program is based on three marinas and three mountains dedicated to work, shopping and entertainment. The whole set is covered by a stratum of planted housing in suspended gardens and crossed by a network of streets and alleyways with organic outline. The goal is to create a harmonious coexistence of humans and nature, exploring new modes of cross-cultural aquatic living.

Sounds great, now let's wait to see the price tag.

Aerial views of the maldivian atolls


The three mountains are ecological niches, aquaculture fields and biologic corridors

Aerial view of the Principality of Monaco

Night view of the Lilypads from Monte-Carlo

(images from Pixelab and yatzer.)

Lost in Emoticons.

I've had a bad day, but this site just made it way better.

Lost in Emoticons is a collection of IM's between a young girl living it up in NYC and her Chinese mom's attempt to communicate with her. – yesbutnobutyes



Lost in Emoticons

Matt & Tina's Weddling Slideshow

Click here to view a slideshow of images from Matt & Tina's wedding day

Photo M&Ms.

I can't say it better than Photojojo:

Friends, we have seen the future. And it has a thin candy shell.

Seriously. So cool.

Photojojo : An Itty-Bitty Picture That Won’t Melt in Your Hand? (:-O) Say Hola to Photo M&Ms!

12 Books in 120 Seconds

Incredible book trailer for 12 books of A Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket . No matter how hard I tried to refrain myself from watching this children book promotion video again and again, I just can't stop enjoying the pace, the illustration and the overall fun clip.


from JermiahTolbert.com

Vintage Smokey Bear commercial.

It's a shame there are no sweet, simple commercials like this first one anymore. It'd be a nice break from the norm now.



Ad Council Creative

Be an eco-friendly design nerd.

Sam Hecht of Industrial Facility says of the bag concept; “its nice to be on first name terms with design”.

Only £5.00. Nice.

twentytwentyone :: organic cotton cloth bag

Fun chest of drawers.

Probably not as functional as it is fun, but I'd love to have one of these.


These individual, mulit-coloured, floating drawer units are built up to different heights, creating a tower of drawers that can be pushed and pulled in both directions.
twentytwentyone :: stack

Recent Worth-Seeing Exhibits @ MoMA

The designer of the New York City waterfalls, Olafur Eliasson, has an exhibition "Take Your Time" at MoMA through June 30.

Israeli artist Sigalit Landau’s DeadSee (2005). Her other projects are on view at MoMA through July 28.

Also, as a reminder, "Dalí: Painting and Film" will be on display from June 29 to September 15, 2008.

See the Waterfalls Tomorrow

If you want to see the 4 New York City waterfalls designed by Olafur Eliassonwhich, which will start running tomorrow morning, here's a map and some viewing tips from Gothamist. (I personally wouldn't rush to see them though, after all, I haven't even been to the Statue of Liberty, and the only time I went up the Empire State Building was accompany some friends from France. And I believe I'm not alone in this=)

Olafur Eliasson's Waterfalls start flowing tomorrow morning-- perhaps as early as 7am, but sadly, the Circle Line tours of the bay don't start until Friday. So if you want a good view (or a good picture) of these babies, you're going to have to view them from land. No problem: we've marked the best viewing spots for each one on the map above.

1. Governors Island-- this is the toughest one to view without a boat. Best spot is from the piers next to the Maritime Ferry Building at the tip of Manhattan. For a closeup, bring binoculars or a telephoto lens.

2. Brooklyn Piers-- for the angle shown above, you'll need to be on the Manhattan side, on the waterfront by the Helicopter terminal. If you don't mind seeing the back of the falls, you can get a closeup view from the Brooklyn Promenade, or from Empire State Park, north of the Bridge.

4. Pier 35-- this waterfall is best seen from the path right under the FDR that runs alongside the water, or from above, on the Manhattan Bridge Bike Path (north side of the bridge-- be careful of bikers!)

Timing: in the morning, the light will be coming from the East, so you'll get better photographs on the Brooklyn side. In the afternoon or at night, the light will be from the west, and the falls will be lit up with lights, so it's better to shoot from the Manhattan positions.

A block of open space is being developed into a public park for better waterfall project viewing. Pier 1, just south of the Fulton Ferry Landing (map), will be the best spot to see all 4 waterfalls at once.

Music on Paper

These are miscellaneous findings at bibliodyssey - book illustrations relating to music and musicians.





from a 1672 Salzburg manuscript, Speculum Muscio-Mortuale by baroque composer Abraham Megerle(s). The above Megerle images are nearly the total on display at the Universitätsbibliothek Salzburg (translation page)




'Cantorinus ad Eorum Instructionem' Luce Antonii Junte, 1540.






Pablo Casals (lithograph, 1955), by Lorenzo Homar





Composición Atonal, by Lorenzo Homar
(Pen and ink on paper, 1962)
John Kennedy, Spanish ?Head of State, Pablo Casals, Dean Rusk, General Franco





Sgt. Everett Gould, Fitchburg, Mass., by Lorenzo Homar
Homar 44 New Guinea
"By his looks and playing, I'd say he belongs with Hackett at Nick's"
(Pen and ink, watercolor, pencil on paper)

If you can only access 3 websites in the world, what will they be?

As I was reading the RSS in my Google Reader and complain about China's block on feeds, a random question came to my mind:

If you can only access THREE websites in the world (for the rest of your life), what will they be?

(excluding RSS reader, start-page, etc., which contain contents from multiple sources)



Google, my most often used website is out of the question because it doesn't really contain anything on its own. Even Google Books don't really have many full-length ones to my interest.

My second thought is New York Times. It's rich in information, and a good combination of hard news and leisure reads.

Then naturally came BBC. Sometimes I think the amount of stuff available on BBC is crazy: from streaming music and videos to language learning, to history and technology. Britain doesn't need an open university, every piece of learning is contained in BBC. If BBC is more political-biased, it might just become a Big Brother. This thought is scary, really. Because if I'm only going to use 3 websites in the world for the rest of my life, I don't want to desperately fall into the hands of the Brit-Americans.

In the meantime, a couple of music websites slip through my mind, like Naxos Library, where, with a subscription, you can streaming millions of classical and jazz CDs. Also YouTube, with a considerable and growing collection of education materials, documentaries, and classical music.

I also lingered over some shopping websites like Amazon, ABE books, Etsy, etc. that used to save my so much trouble (and give me so much delight) - living without them will be hard.

And should I throw in Apple.com? I still have to update, right? Or... if I can only use 3 websites, maybe I don't need updates at all, after all, where are the risks?



The decision has been made. Okay, the Great Firewall of China, take the rest and leave me:

1. Zenbe (it's a beta email service with gorgeous interface, build-in easy-access To-do-list and calendar, and incoorperated Zenbe page which allows you to share stuff with friends, etc. Overall much better than Gmail. I might blog about it next time)

2. BBC

3. iTunes Music Store





Now, what's your selection?

Send Your Name to the Moon.

Hopefully, this won't bite me in the butt later. You'd better act responsibly, NASA. No pillaging resources (moon cows, moon ferns, moon cheese, etc.). No fast food restaurants. Put everything back where you found it. Thank you.


Sign up to send your name to the moon. Names will be collected and placed onboard the LRO spacecraft for its historic mission bringing NASA back to the moon. You will also receive a certificate showcasing your support of the mission.

The deadline is June 27, 2008 for the submission of names.

LRO :: Send Your Name to the Moon

More about NASA's Lunar Reconaissance Orbiterhere.

(via Coudal)

Joshua and Brittany's Album

.... here is Joshua and Brittany's Wedding Album!

Me, too.

lonelysandwich

(The Nellie McKay link goes here.)

Golden Rules of Design - 2 Words

White & Simple. period.

Just look at the designs these days, I don't even have to post them all, but almost every design is going the "iPod" way - white and simple.


Architecture:
Museum of Middle East Modern Art (Dubai), Architect: UNStudio

from Yanko Design



Product Design:
Table service; Architect Jan Kaplicky of Future Systems

from dezeen by Marcus Fairs

Kitchenware; Designer/artist Re Jin Lee



from the style files by Danielle

Booknotes: The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

Far from such din, when blessed silence returns, I can listen to the butterflies that flutter inside my head. To hear them, one must be calm and pay close attention, for their wingbeats are barely audible. Loud breathing is enough to drown them out. This is astonishing: my hearing does not improve, yet I hear them better and better. I must have butterfly hearing.

From Jean-Dominique Bauby, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

No birds were harmed for this art.

I love it when I see any piece of art that makes me look twice, makes me assume something terrible, then teaches me something really lovely.




Ornithologists now use mist nets instead of shotguns for data that cannot be obtained with the help of binoculars, microphones, or telephoto lenses. These nearly invisible nets are set up like fences and function as huge spider webs, catching unsuspecting birds. The researcher carefully extracts the bird from the net. Each bird is measured, aged, sexed, and banded with an individually numbered anklet (Audubon’s philopatry experiments with Eastern Phoebes was likely the first bird banding done in the United States). Then the bird is released, unharmed.

Todd Forsgren - Bird Banding Project

TRY TO CREATE A WIN - WIN SITUATION.

Markus Hofer - TRY TO CREATE A WIN - WIN SITUATION

(via VVORK)