"Romance."

(Last Conan! for a while, I promise.)

"Glazing."

Warren Ellis dot com. Good afternoon. And this is the work of my "friend" Chip Zdarsky.

You’re welcome.

Scientists have been able to reach into the mind of a brain-damaged man and communicate with his thoughts.

A bit of brilliance from one Samuel Arbesman, via Discovery:

Derek’s illustrations are always entertaining, sometimes surreal, sometimes revelatory. Here’s today’s, complete with his caption quoted below:

Remember Ultraman? Remember how he had that thing where he could grow really large to fight monsters, but only for three minutes, and then he shrunk again?

Turns out he was stuck with that deadline even when there weren’t any monsters.

Sometimes surreal, sometimes revelatory… and, yes, sometimes dick jokes. But very well drawn ones.

Wonderful language in a news story about land use and a new waterfront city in Singapore:

The committee said there is also a need for an underground master plan.

It said the government should catalyse the development of underground space over the next decade.

The committee also emphasized a need to develop subterranean land rights, a valuation framework and to establish a national geology office.

(Thanks, Fritz)

"Young Blood Reverses Signs of Aging in Old Mice."

Fascinating. Designed by Lynne Bruning, "Bats Have Feelings Too" is a fashionable haptic coat for the blind, or, in her term, "a wearable cane."

Materials | lilypad arduino, conductive thread, ultrasonic range finder, vibration boards…

And, also at that link, a clickthrough to instructions for making one yourself.

PechaKucha is:

…an event where young designers could meet, network and show their work in public. Over time, it has evolved into a massive celebration of creativity, with events regularly being held in over 270 cities. Last year, more than 6,000 presentations will given at +600 PechaKucha events. Drawing its name from the Japanese phrase for the sound of conversation ("chit chat"), the PechaKucha format is simple – 20 images x 20 seconds – and designed to keep presentations concise and moving at a rapid pace.

Jan Chipchase just sent me this: PechaKucha Global Day for Haiti:

In a matter of seconds, thousands of lives and dreams were destroyed in Haiti. In response, the global PechaKucha family is coming together with Architecture for Humanity to lend a hand in rebuilding Haiti. Please help us spread the word about our global event in February: 20 images, 20 seconds, 200 cities, 2,000 presentations, 200,000 people.

On Feb. 20, the cities that host PechaKucha events worldwide will converge to present one continuous 24-hour edition of PechaKucha Night. Kicking off at SuperDeluxe in Tokyo, where PechaKucha Night was first conceived, the presentation wave will travel eastward, with cities presenting one after the other. Crossing all times zones and cultures, the event will be streamed live online and then finish in Tokyo the following day.

These intended viral teasers have been showing up on YouTube since the end of last year, apparently. I just fell over them today. Some people say it’s Xtina, some people say it’s Goldfrapp. There is a flavour of Floria Sigismondi in places.

An early birthday present from the sainted Cherie Priest and her other half, Aric The Roastmaster of the Fremont Coffee Company. If you live in the continental US, you can buy coffee from them online. I’m here to tell you: DO IT. Aric releases God from the Bean with Fire.

Additionally: Fremont Coffee Company, unsurprisingly to be found in the Fremont area of Seattle, will soon be instituting art shows on their premises. Given the number of art weirdos I know in the area alone, I imagine the place will repay regular visits.

(via Jess Nevins)

For some men? Just getting rid of the damned thing.

A particularly reasoned note in the comments section of the above link, by the post’s author Sean Philips:

…here are a few explanations I have heard over the years (none from this guy in particular).

-Wanting to make the ultimate commitment to being a gay bottom.
-Feeling they do not deserve sexual pleasure.
-A “simpler” means of achieving a more feminine form when compared to the cost and screening required for a proper sex change operation.
-Some men feel that without their penis their other parts become more sexually alive.

I am sure there are several other explanations as well if you were to ask around some. I find these motivations fascinating myself.

For further reference, investigate the terms Nullo or nullification in this context.

I need to sleep, but before I do, here’s a find. The BBC do make music documentaries very well. Particularly of this archaeological type. Doesn’t matter if you like the music itself: the BBC always find people who can dig out the stories. And lurking on YouTube, cut into nine bits, is a BBC Four docu about Hawkwind. Which begins with dear old Mike Moorcock haing a laugh.

Also, Lemmy. And everyone loves fucking Lemmy, right?

Aha. Newspaper-printing service, the Newspaper Club of London, has produced their price list.

The way it’s going to work is that you upload a PDF or use their online authoring tool, pay the whack, and within several days someone’s going to drop a pallet of your newspapers wherever you told them to.

A colour 12pp newspaper? Five hundred copies for five hundred quid to you squire.

Five thousand colour 12pp newspapers? A grand and a half.

I have a feeling that several friends and acquaintances of mine will be availing themselves of this.

Michael Paukner is a graphic designer and art director working out of Vienna. Felipe Sobreiro just pointed me at his stuff. Look at this.

This is a link to his Flickr stream. This is a link to a set of images that can be purchased as prints. And this is a link to his print shop.

There is a secret town in Kamchatka. One can get here only by sea or a helicopter…

Yet another amazing photo-essay at English Russia, this time depicting the abandoned "submariners’ town" of Bechyovinka:

Pure post-civilisation artporn.

(via Suckerpunch)

Speculative architecture from design team Chimera:

our vision is to define an urban ecosystem which supports housing and cultural programs and has the ability to adapt, transform, mutate and adjust according to the specific urban and social character of the site and of manhattan. this urban ecological system is taking as a model an organism in nature, specifically the mangrove plant. the mangrove plant and its collective the mangal, provide examples of social associative principles as well as structural capacities and hybrid responses to environmental and contextual conditions.

Interview and more images at the link.

"For the eleventh time, Inkwell rings in the New Year with a visit from Bruce Sterling, to address the State of the World and Things Various and Sundry…"  Always good fun.

Well, probably not that Ministry Of Space. But:

Britain is to get its own space agency more than 40 years after the Apollo project landed the first astronauts on the moon. The agency will come into being next year and replaces the existing British National Space Centre as a single co-ordinating organisation for the nation’s space exploration activities.

The announcement coincides with the publication of a government review of space exploration that warns the nation is "at a critical point" in deciding its future in the space business.

Britain has a long-standing policy of not contributing to human spaceflight programmes and instead supports robotic and satellite-based missions. The review urges ministers to consider backing a space programme that involves both robotic and human explorers…

Shots from the photographers who accompanied Scott and Shackleton’s teams:

I love the blog Merlin In Rags, not just for the obscure and ancient music it digs up, but also for the wonderful record covers it finds. Here’s a selection of images posted there over just the last few days:

(more legible larger size)

Fun little photo essay at English Russia:

Do projects. Books and art and things. Available as paid print object or free digital object.

Do is Nurri Kim and Adam Greenfield, "accompanied by a loose network of friends and collaborators", and I love their statement of purpose:

Some of our ambitions are to:

- develop words and images that make the people who encounter them re-see themselves and the world around them;

- find the most appropriate containers for our ideas;

- craft the kind of books that please their readers in the details of their conception, design and construction as much as in the things they say;

- and figure out what “do-it-yourself” might mean in an age when new production technologies, informational and logistical networks give the independent amateur producer unprecedented power to reach out and make things happen.

First up is Nurri’s TOKYO BLUES:

Now available for purchase or free download, Tokyo Blues is a photographic record of Nurri Kim’s 2002-2003 investigation into this humble industrial material and the very wide variety of uses to which it’s put in the everyday life of Japan.

From construction sites and homeless settlements to cherry-blossom viewing parties in the park, the ubiquitous blue tarp is a constant of Japanese life and a bearer of multiple registers of meaning. In sixty-four images from the boulevards, alleys, sidestreets and interstitial spaces, Tokyo Blues explores these dramatically different contexts, returning something “we see too often, and then forget to see” to full, vivid visibility.

(thanks to Andrew Ducker for making me look at this, you fucking bastard)

Ariana got the shouting out of her system in re: whining about how making stuff and showing it to people is too hard.

Now she’s moved on to: how to start thinking about making a project.

…if the feedback I’m getting is any indication (and I’ve got comments disabled here because they don’t suit me, but I do pay attention to Twitter and I read everything on Whitechapel) — there are a LOT of you right. on. that. cusp. of taking the first step. So look, I know I’ve been giving you lot a hard time about “just getting it done,” but before I get into my list of Stuff What I Learned Working With POD sometime tomorrow, I wanna back up a step and talk to you.

Here’s what you need to do, right now, tonight. No, NOT tomorrow morning, or this weekend, or once your work rush has let off a little, or after the holidays, or sometime in the New Year: Right. Fucking. Now….

And from there to book-specific notes and observations about working with a POD system:

…how you go about putting your book together is completely up to you, and what you’re comfortable with. The Lulu templates will give you a bit less control over what the finished product looks like, but it’s a really good place for the people that are just starting out. Do you already understand why your inside margins need to be a titch wider than your outside? If that question just kinda terrified you: that’s all right, but you probably want to start with the templates. Trust me, your book is still going to be lovely, the important thing for you is just getting your content into a pretty and readable format.

And, today, the begininngs of how we run FREAKANGELS the way we do.

Wil’s been all over Ariana’s THIS IS HOW WE FIX SHIT WITH WRENCHES posts during this week, and has a distillation of what he’s taken from them at this link here:

This is incredibly inspiring to me, and I hope that it’s just as inspiring to indie artists everywhere. Why not take a creative risk and see if it works out? Unlike the old days, when we had to purchase a lot of stock ahead of time and hope we could sell it, we can just Get Excited and Make Things, knowing that the very worst that can happen is that nobody likes that thing we made as much as we thought they would…

Excellent article from Julian Smith for New Scientist about wingsuited skydivers trying to cut the last cord from old-style jumping, and effect chuteless landings. Excellent quote therein:

Von Egidy sees her suit as a step towards a grander vision of people soaring like birds, not just gliding. "There could be nothing more challenging on Earth than to explore the limits of direct human flight. We are in fact far better suited to flight than we believe."

Now that’s how to write a fucking lede.