Merging history with today
In these pictures, photographer Sergey Larenkov has layered old photos over his own new ones, and the result is highly interesting. Like seeing ghosts, or looking through a portal to the fourth dimension. Amazing.
See more of these at sergey-larenkov.livejournal.com – well worth a visit!
Thanks, Mr. Buan!
Ingenious baby bed
Colour photographs from 1940s nazi Germany
LIFE Magazine has made a compilation of amazing colour photographs showing nazi soldier and officers, and also civilians – all taken in the late 1930s / early -40s. Spectacular and highly interesting. Click the image below for more photos.
Photo: LIFE Magazine
via 2leep
Award-winning short film “Nuit Blanche”
This beautiful little thing was made by Arev Manukian, and won a $100.000 prize at LG Life’s Good Filmfest.
Make sure to choose full HD and fullscreen it The film is 1080p HD quality, but be sure to fullscreen it.
via DarkRoastedBlend
Discworld in LEGOs
An awesome MOC (My Own Creation) series showing famous and unforgettable characters from Terry Pratchett’s Discworld novels. Made me smile quite a bit, and made me want to read more Pratchett.
Creator is Flickr user captainsmog. Well done, captain!
Complete set here.
The Ankh-Morpork City Watch.
Thanks, herrTevik!
Dreaming of Miapolis
With the Burj Khalifa (previously known as the Burj Dubai) rising 828 meters in the air as the tallest building on Earth, it stands as a challenge to every new tower planned. I’ve seen a good few plans for taller towers, but the prospect of Miapolis is one of the more interesting. Sure, it looks monstrous, but it’s American after all. It would demand hovercars though.
Plans drawn by architectural design firm Kobi Karp, the Miapolis is to be a 975 meter high tower, built on Watson Island in the port of of Miami (hence the name). If realised, the giant set of tweezers will hold an amusement park, an observatory, a good few restaurants, shops, apartments, offices and a 792-room hotel. What, no spaceport? I blame the financial crisis.
via TheDesignBlog
Colour picker pen
This is kind of cool, although I’m not sure I see the use for it. Place the top side of the pen against any object, press the scan button, and the pen automatically mixes its three RGB colours to give you the colour you scanned. Or something close in range at least.
The colour given would depend a great deal on lighting, and although you’d get a blue colour pointing at something blue, I think it could be more useful if it came with a colour chart that the pen was calibrated to. Of course, now you could argue that it would be easier with a menu system inside the pen, saving you from carrying the chart around, but… Argh. It’s a nice idea. Clever and cool.
Even if it looks like a pregnancy test.
Designer: Jinsun Park
via BitsAndPieces
Wonderful ’shopped artwork by Erik Johansson
Everyone who’s spent a few hours in front of an image editing program knows it’s not as easy as it looks. Not only do you need the skills, but you also need an artist’s vivid imagination for something to look good. Swedish Erik Johansson has both, no doubt, and is a brilliant photographer too. These are taken from his colourful portfolio on his homepage alltelleringet.com:
Photo: Erik Johansson
Photo: Erik Johansson
Photo: Erik Johansson
Photo: Erik Johansson
Photo: Erik Johansson
Photo: Erik Johansson
18 clever logo designs using negative space
Over at WebUrbanist.com, Steph has collected a nice set of company and organisation logos that makes good advantage of “negative space”, using background colour actively to form the logo and add optical effects (like the nice 3D effect in Harris’ logo above). Taking your time to look closer at these seemingly simple shapes and forms makes you realise just how much thought is put into it. Sometimes, it almost seems as they’re designed to appeal to your subconscience. Can you honestly say you’ve noticed the arrow in the FedEx logo before? Well, you might have, subconsciously.
18 clever logo designs using negative space @ WebUrbanist.com
How to: build a snowman
Snow people reproduction is SFW
WikiHow has many interesting articles. And some that just plain ruins the fun.
This “howto” for building a snowman (or snowperson is more politically correct I suppose) will probably do the trick for those lacking imagination though:
1. Before you start, plan where you want the snowperson to go, and how big you want it to be.
2. Find a nice big patch of snow which you can use to make big snowballs with. Snow that is very icy or very fluffy will probably not work very well.
3. Gather a handful of snow and pack it tightly with your two hands, shaping it into a ball. Place the ball on the ground and roll the ball along your snowy patch. As you roll, the ball will pick up more snow and will grow larger and larger as the snow from the ground sticks to it.
4. Make one very large snowball. A height of 1 foot to three feet or more is recommended.
5. Make another snowball a little bit smaller. This will become your middle section.
6. Make another snowball which is smaller still. This will be the head.
7. Stack snowballs up from largest to smallest, being careful to pack tightly and balance them so they won’t fall down.
8. Place a carrot in the middle of the head to act as a nose.
9. Use buttons or pebbles and place them above the carrots to represent the eyes.
10. Use a row of pebbles or coal to show a dazzling smile beneath the carrot nose.
11. Top off the snowman with a hat and place a purple scarf around its neck.
12. Voila! You have now built a snowman that is wonderfully amazing!
My very own howto is even easier:
1. Use snow
2. Build a man
Amazing juggling by Michael Moschen
I have to admit, I have never heard of Michael Moschen or seen this show before, but I can easily see how he is considered one of the world’s top jugglers. A most original and fascinating act, this. The thing that impresses me the most is how he juggles the one ball with his feet. Such discipline.
For insight of how his magic works, here is a 37 minute video from TED.com:
Shadow art ad for the Solaria Plaza Hotel
Ingenious and very tasteful Christmas advert for the Solaria Plaza in Fukuoka City, Japan.
 Link Scroll down for today’s pictures & links. Shadow Play Ingenious and very tasteful Christmas advert for the Solaria Plaza in Fukuoka City, Japan. Pop-out Today’s pictures & links: Tsunami of Fog
Another somewhat chilling image of storm clouds, often called “the cloud roll”:
———— Crazy About You
———— Dramatic Sculptures The frightened one:
The love-sick pair:
———— Rubbing Elbows Happy romantic couple, cruising:
———— Mixed fresh links for today: Sinister Nuclear Football, more, pics – [interesting] ———— Fantastically Strange Trucks If you remember our article about Scary Trucks and Truck Trains, here are a couple of incredible trucks we found recently: Two-headed MAN fire truck – more info:
This is the two-headed tunnel washer that works in the Mont Blanc tunnel. Having two cabs allow it not to turn around in the tunnel. Le Tourneau US Army Load Carrier – more info
This is “the 1962 US Army’s 13-unit electric hub motor all-wheel-drive Overland Train MkII, built for the US Army Transportation Research and Development Command. A ‘mere’ 382 tonnes GCW and ’small’ 137 tonnes payload.” ———— I’m always late anyway:
———— A new “creature” from Sam Van Olffen Sam Van Olffen’s work we featured before. Today he returns with - The Obama-Machine!
———— Extreme Graffiti News We are long overdue for the full-length article about graffiti since our last Graffiti Showcase. In the meantime, here are some eye-catching examples:
See other awesome graffiti on this page. ———— Steampunk Animals by James Corbett, The Car Part Sculptor John Davies Gallery has the exhibition of works by James Corbett, each a unique, somewhat whimsical structure built from car parts:
———— Big Heads Click to enlarge – really bizarre ad campaign by DDB London Agency. I feel uncomfortable just looking at these:
———— Another one of these “get rich quick” schemes? Sell these, together with a 30-day course of starting a donut farm.
———— Whaaaat?
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Rotating kitchen art installation
The rotating kitchen will continue to rotate until February 28th. Upon which it will have become a complete mess.
rotating kitchen from Zeger Reyers
via BoingBoing
52 jaw-dropping photo manipulations
Photo: Anthony Harmon
Follow link for more computer enhanced artwork, by various artists.
Anthony Harmon homepage
via WebUrbanist
Radical-and-vintage-looking eco friendly ATV
Image: Tristan Hipps
This is the KTM RC4 concept ATV. Sooo cool.
The artist is designer Tristan Hipps, who’s got a stunning portfolio well worth a look.
Pivoting through corners on slicks running on lithium battery power, this thing would be perfect for city life. Now, if someone would just make one…
via thedesignblog
Assassin’s Creed II is bloody brilliant
I played Assassin’s Creed a bit earlier this year. A game that had huge potential, but got a bit monotone after a while. Animations were brilliant, atmosphere was brilliant, game controls were alright. But after a while it became repetitive and lost its charm.
Yesterday, hoping Ubisoft would take what was great about Assassin’s Creed and add a bit of variety, I set myself back in the recliner with the PS3 DualShock controller.
Fair enough, to begin with, it was slow. But then, colour! Set 200 years later than the original Assassin’s Creed, it takes place in 15th century Italy. The dialogue and story is vastly improved. Graphics are a bit better, especially seen in non-player-characters’ clothes and gear. Animations are the best you can get. Seriously. Yesterday I’d played Star Wars: Force Unleashed, and when playing Assassin’s Creed 2 later that day, I thought to myself: “Why couldn’t Darth Vader have had this kind of animation? Vader deserves this animation!”.
Assassin’s Creed 2 is the best PS3 game so far, no doubt!
And yes, I’ve played Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. No competition in my opinion.
(Tagged “Computers”, “Games”, and, as I feel it very much deserves it, “Art”)
View from the top of the Burj Dubai
Photo: Wikipedia Commons
Goodness.
Some monsters are said to feed on ones fear. If so, I could probably power a small monster town with my fear of heights. That said, I am still fascinated and awed by this video.
The Burj Dubai will be the tallest building in the world when it is finished January 2010, towering 818 meters (2650 ft.) into the air.
And for those of you who feel shite when riding elevators: the colossus will also feature the world’s fastest elevators, doing 18 m/sec (40 mph)!
