Ant Blog

#154; small world

2012-02-11T21:01:00.001Z

Wired has a selection of videos from the Nikon Small World In Motion competition. Go check out all of the videos. Here's the winner - Ink injection into blood vessels:

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Sticking on the micro-theme, look at these amazing photographs of insects peeled off a car's windshield. By Voker Steger

VIA

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Have a look at Minjeong An's art. A lovely mix of dataviz, mathematical and scientific abstractions and artistic flair.

VIA
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I mentioned it a while ago, but I only just got around to going to the London Transport Museum's Painting By Numbers gallery. A small but brilliant selection of classic data visualisation posters from around the 1930s. The visualisingdata flickr stream has some images. It's well worth a visit (despite the £13 entrance fee). The best part is that after taking in the classic data posters, you move through to the "Sense and the City" exhibition, that looks towards how transport will change in the future, and how we can harness movement data to improve services. This section of the museum has some stunning modern data animations, and the movement from the 1930s design to modern work is splendid.

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Finally, if you only read one online article today, make it this one about the impact of spending too much time absorbing internet crap on our happiness. It uses as its springboard a study that showed that excessive time online leads to reduced happiness and"social well-being" in 8-12 year old girls. While studies like that always need to be read with a significant degree of caution, this article regardless raises points about online (and, really, any consumption) that are well worth thinking about.

#153; Videos

2012-01-20T22:31:00.000Z

Watch this video. It's a trailer for "Getting Up". I'm a huge fan of graffiti & street art. It's not often that that interest falls in line with amazing innovation and scientific progress, but this looks like an incredible story:

VIA Wooster
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While I was at university I did a research project on bird flight using video cameras strapped on pigeons' backs (you can read it all here, if you're that way inclined), but the jerky, grainy footage I was using didn't quite match up with what you see in this clip, from BBC's new(ish) series, Earthflight. They've managed to get some stunning footage, and although the actual series itself isn't quite as entertaining as i'd hoped, this is remarkable:

On a related note, Wired have a great gallery of amateur high-speed flight clips. This is my favourite, but go check out the whole gallery:

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Continuing the theme of beautiful videos of nature, take a look at Drew Berry's animations of the unseen beauty of biology:

via

#152; Pretty science stuff

2012-01-06T23:06:00.002Z

A sciencish post today:

If you have an iPad, download the NASA visualisation app now, from the brains at the "scientific visualisation studio". It's lovely.

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A new study has drawn detailed new maps of science based on online "clickstreams" to determine the links between science journal topics. Interesting stuff.

VIA

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Scientific American's top 5 animal videos of 2011. The gorilla video is well worth a watch, but my personal favourite is this peacock spider mating dance. Unusually good music selection in this video, too, I thought:

VIA

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Finally a beautifully calming video from Malaysia:

VIA

#151;

2011-12-30T10:52:00.004Z

The London Transport Museum may not be somewhere I'm particularly well acquainted with, but I'll definitely be heading to the Painting By Numbers exhibition from January 6. Classic data visualisation posters:

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Wired runs out the top scientific discoveries from 2011. Particularly interesting is the "Intelligent Animals and Emotional Bees" bit, but all good stuff. Click here.

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Finally for now, lovely stop-motion animation music video detailing the history of the planet.

VIA

#150; Phwoar, Feynman

2011-12-16T22:23:00.000Z

There is nothing better you can do with the next 90 minutes of your life than watch this. It's a BBC Horizon documentary about the Nobel prize winning physicist Richard Feynman. If you're not sure who he is, or if he's worth finding out about, click here and warm up with the videos from the Feynman series. Then settle down and watch this. It seems to be two documentaries plonked in one video, but it's great from start to finish. Watch it.

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While you're in science video mode, go check out the new video site from the Royal Institution - RI Channel. As well as a host of videos they've made themselves, including the archive of Christmas Lectures, they are developing a tasty selection of videos from around the internet. Well worth your time.

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The always brilliant Big Picture has a great selection of nature photography. Phenomenal stuff.

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A great little short film/animation.

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Hypnotic visualisation of the planets orbits. Click here.

#149; Phwoar, Attenborough

2011-12-08T09:31:00.001Z

Frozen Planet ended last night, and immediately after the last episode, this advert was played. I think it's fantabulous. Attenborough's Wonderful World. Be sure to watch this in full, 1080 HD glory:

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Remember those little riots in London in the summer? One feature of them was the way information, and misinformation, spread rapidly across the internet. The Guardian has visualised the spread of some of these rumours in a beautiful interactive graphic. How long did people believe that a tiger had been released, and was running rampage across Primrose Hill? Go check it out.

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Flying robots zooming in, taking all our jobs...

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The Journey of Mankind. Ever wanted to see the path early man took to spread across the world? Well take a look at this. It's not the prettiest program in the world, but fascinating nonetheless.

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The 10 weirdest new species from 2011. Well played, National Geographic. Check out Cyclops Shark:

I'm not sure where I found all of the links this time around, but if you're looking for the sources, the "Links I Love" on the right is a good place to start.

#148; David Mitchell and Snails

2011-11-28T09:51:00.001Z

David Mitchell narrates 6 lovely animated "Adventures in Thought". Entertaining and informative. Tasty:

VIA
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Take a picture of the sky every 10 seconds for a year. What do you get? This awesome time-lapse grid thing.

VIA
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For some visual bio-porn check out the BioScapes gallery.

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And finally some shelly fun. As Marcel The Shell With Shoes On returns to our lives, I stumbled across this sweet snail advert. Heh.

Sequoia Snail - Les Andy's - WIZZprod from WIZZprod° on Vimeo.

VIA

#147; lots of videos, & some other stuff

2011-11-15T10:30:00.001Z

Wazzup?

The Atlantic has an incredible selection of photos from the National Geographic Photo Contest 2011. Click here to take a look at all the images in their full size - it's a brilliant collection.

A tree enveloped in spiders webs, as spiders fled the floods in Pakistan.

and I love this portrait:

Via

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This is a stunning video of an epic operation by the WWF to relocate Black Rhinos in South Africa.

Flying Rhinos from Green Renaissance on Vimeo.

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Another amazing video. This super-slow-mo film shows how hummingbirds stay dry in the rain - a deceptively crucial skill when you weigh just a few grams, and the careful balance of hovering is essential to your continued survival. This video shows a hummingbird shaking water off itself like a dog, while hovering. For more detail, click here (Wired).

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Take 5 minutes, click on the HD option, and go fullscreen for this incredible time-lapse view of the earth from space.

Earth | Time Lapse View from Space, Fly Over | NASA, ISS from Michael König on Vimeo.

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Got even more time to waste? Watch this video, showing how the Dutch National Ballet created the awesome TedX Amsterdam poster image:

via

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Beautifully filmed clips of skyliners. Also, if it's your kind of thing, for one of the most impressive base jumping videos I've seen in a while, click here.

I Believe I can Fly ( flight of the frenchies). Trailer from sebastien montaz-rosset on Vimeo.

via

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And to end on some fantastic frivolity, a great collection of dweeby-sexy illustrations. "Nerdy Dirty". Fantastic:

via(again)

#146; Silver lining

2011-11-05T13:01:00.003Z

I'm ill. Truth be told, I don't respond well to being sick. I pretty much crumble at the first hint of a sniffle, and I'm now suffering from a full-on case of the snuffles. Bad times, I assure you, but if there's any positive news to take from my near-death condition, it's that I've finally got round to absorbing a few things on my "to-watch" list. Here are some gems that have risen out of my snot-filled misery:

First, the latest fantastic nature programme, Frozen Planet. The whole thing is brilliant, and this clip here is the perfect example. Frozen Planet has more comedy than most sitcoms and far more drama than Eastenders - brilliant.

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Next, if you have an hour to spare, watch this talk from the co-creator of GOOD, Casey Caplowe. GOOD is my absolute favourite website, and a great magazine, that fuses engaging and educational information with actionable endeavours to improve the world. This talk outlines the thinking behind the organisation. Particularly interesting is the part where he talks about profit; GOOD isn't a charity, and it is trying to make a profit. I love the philosophy that making money and doing good don't have to be enemies. Anyway, although Caplowe has that unforgivable problem of lifting his voice at the end of every sentence, making each statement a half-question, it's all interesting stuff, and the opening mantra of "love it or fix it" is brilliant.

VIA here

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This video is just awesome. Watch a dam being breached, and a reservoir drained. Amazing footage:

Explosive Breach of Condit Dam from Andy Maser on Vimeo.

VIA here

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A short documentary about Dreamworks animators. This fills me with admiration, inspiration, and furious jealousy.

Moonshine : Artists after dark from alexis wanneroy on Vimeo.

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Finally, check out these brilliant images from the new book, Science Ink. If I was ever to get a tattoo, it might well be one of these:

The Periscope Post

2011-11-03T11:55:00.000Z

Here are a few samples of writing done for online news and opinion site, The Periscope Post. I've written over 70 articles for the site, so if the selection here isn't enough for you, let me know and I'll point you at more, covering everything from football to the Occupy movement, and internet hackers to viral videos.

World News

Population Explosion - Can the planet cope with 15 billion humans?
Gadaffi is dead - What does the Libyan dictator's death mean for the Middle East & Arab Spring?
Eurozone rescue deal: the backlash - Not everyone is convinced by the eurozone rescue deal.
Alleged Iranian assassination attempt - Gangsters, ambassadors, assassinations - what does this accusation mean for global relations?

Science & Health

New malaria vaccine - Far from perfect, but could save millions of lives
The planet is warming - Study by climate change sceptics confirms that temperatures are rising, but does it really show anything new?
Mobile phones don't cause cancer, after all - no link found between phone use and tumour development.
Arctic ozone hole in sudden expansion - Time to ready the evacuation rockets?

Technology

Ice Cream Sandwich unveiled - Can the new Google Phone compete with the iPhone?
Nokia reveal new Lumia Phones - Is Nokia's latest Windows Phone any good?
iPhone 4S - Is Siri a game-changer or gimmick?

#145; words, flying balls, dinosaurs

2011-11-02T23:01:00.000Z

A dearth of recent posts is a sign of how busy I've been lately, but with a bit more free time comes a new post, and some morsels of interestingness and fascination for you.

First up, a clever little table reminding scientists what some of their terms mean to the public. Original paper here.

VIA nice figure.

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Microsoft have unveiled a little prophetic view into the future, showing the form they believe technology of the coming decades will take. I love this sort of video, although it makes me feel somewhat insecure about my feeble blackberry and iPad...

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There's been a huge amount of excitement and pomp surrounding the news that there are now (or there will soon be) 7 billion people cluttering up the planet. One of the most interesting interpretations is from the Guardian's data blog. Click HERE for their nice interactive visualisation showing how the population is expected to grow in the coming years.

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Next up a mesmerising visualisation of a bit of Bach. This gets even better when you check out the full website, which lets you play with the visualisation yourself.

Baroque.me: J.S. Bach - Cello Suite No. 1 - Prelude from Alexander Chen on Vimeo.

VIA curiosity counts

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Now for a flying ball from Japan. This is incredibly alien-seeming (I assume it also represents a substantial achievement). ooohhh:

VIA It's okay to be smart

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And finally a brilliant new Aardman short. Pythagasaurus. Watch it.

VIA creative review

#144; videos

2011-10-16T10:38:00.000+01:00

No science, just frivolous visual treats today. Perfect for a lazy sunday morning.

I love this - little monsters of the forest:

HAERSKOGEN from David Luepschen on Vimeo.

Really nice fan-made intro titles for tintin:

The Adventures of Tintin from James Curran on Vimeo.

And this is a fascinating video about photojournalism. A photographer puts those dramatic, shocking conflict images into perspective:

Photojournalism Behind the Scenes [ITA-ENG subs] from Ruben Salvadori on Vimeo.

#143; Visualisation

2011-10-09T12:25:00.001+01:00

Some links for your Sunday viewing pleasure:

First up, for the dweeby design-lovers of you, nicefigure.org. "A roundup of the nicest figures recently published in scientific journals." Simple concept, but really highlights just how good some of the visualisation in science are:
On visualising the predictive accurace of a breast cancer screening test:

and recurrent mutations in leukemia. Nice website.

VIA @m_wall, VIA

Next up: a bizarrely interesting collection of letterheads. Sounds boring, but it's strangely absorbing. Letterheady.com

You are not so smart. This is a very well made promo. I love the animation, the ideas are interesting, and the phrasing is all very nice. Future Me and Now Me never get along. This is why:

Finally, the definitive guide to getting a seat on the train. Vital life skills:

The Overground train arrives and dazed commuters spill on to the platform. Everyone stands aside to let them pass. But this act of kindness is the exception, not the rule. Once you all step into the carriage the competition for seats begins. You are now in a theatre of war.

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And don't forget to keep checking out the goings on at The Periscope Post - my latest nuggets of news have been on the "world-changing" Siri & iPhone 4S, cancerous blowjobs, Denmark's "fat tax", and the delightful Human Centipede 2, as well as some James Bond rumours, a Johnny English review, a heap of Steve Jobs stuff and a bunch of other things. Go have a nibble on on the best "viewspaper" around.

#142; Get your headphones out.

2011-10-04T20:55:00.002+01:00

Set aside the next 10-15 minutes, plug your headphones in, hit full screen, and watch these three videos. Great images, beautifully arranged, and one of those voices you just can't help but trust and be inspired by. I love this shit:

Beauty

Honours

Curiosity

(via)

Then go and watch the Sagan videos, too, because they're even better.

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On a more personal and less interesting note, I'm interning at The Periscope Post at the moment, which means lots and lots of rapid writing and subbing. Some of the work so far has been on the new ozone hole, the Ig Nobels (which I think are a fantastic thing) and the real Nobels. Eventually I'll put up a full list of all the articles, but for now I'm posting them on my twitter as I go. Go check it out if you're interested.

#141: Trolls - a species profile.

2011-09-29T19:11:00.000+01:00

This piece has also been published over on the new science communication site, Scientific Kitty.

Troll Hunter is the documentary that exposes the existence of trolls in the Norwegian mountains. I cast a biologist's eye over these elusive giants. (May contain spoilers)

With their 1000-year lifespan, rock eating tendencies, and slight aversion to light, Øvredal’s trolls are the most unlikely of creatures. But it turns out that they do exist, and have just been hiding in the mountains of Norway. So let’s suspend our disbelief and take at look at the biology of these beasts.

Fundamentally, there are two types of troll, which constitute at least two unique species – the mountain and forest dwellers. Where the troll species line is drawn, however, is unclear, with a variety of sub-types of troll within each general group. Trolls are fiercely territorial mammals, living either as lone individuals or in close social groups. They “eat, shit, mate with and devour everything around them.” Mostly rocks.

Evolution
A major question that arises as we consider the trolls’ existence is their evolution. With an incredibly slow lifecycle and very lowreproductive output (lifespan: 1000-1200years, average offspring produced: 1), adaptation will have been anincredibly slow process. Their life history falls at the extreme “k-selected”end of the spectrum, and their adaptation to environmental and situationalchanges will have been very slow. Furthermore, small population sizes (and associated low geneticdiversity) caused by very large territories, and a constant vulnerability tobasic elements (light), mean that their evolution is almost miraculous. It islikely that they expanded into their current lifestyle and size around theearly Cenozoic period, following the demise of the dinosaurs.

The trolls’ greatest asset, that has undoubtedly been aprimary reason for their survival despite the evolutionary constraints of theirslow life cycles, is their nutritional versatility. That is, “when you eatrocks, it isn’t hard to survive”. Of course above all, the major barrier thisfascinating species has had to overcome is their susceptibility to explosionwhen exposed to light. They therefore have an obligate nocturnal behaviouralpattern, and this may in fact have allowed them to exploit night-time resourcesand avoid conflict with other megafauna during their early evolution.

Being confined to darkness has lead to a strong reliance ona powerful sense of smell, as can be seen by their capacity for sniffing outthe scent of people of certain beliefs (although it is as yet unclear whetherthis penchant for religious folk extends beyond just Christianity – furtherresearch is needed). Trolls are not, however, totally blind, and the extraheads grown by certain troll variants reveal the importance of visualcommunication in social situations. These “protrusions” (for they are not fullyfunctioning heads) primarily play a role in mating rituals and intra-specificconflict, and are likely to have evolved along a similar evolutionary pathwayas that of the peacock train and battle cries of red deer stags.

Living underground and deep inside mountains means that trolls are likely to share certain characteristics with burrowdwelling rodents. Living in enclosed environments brings problems of temperaturecontrol and oxygen access, and as such they will have specialised respiratoryphysiology.

One defining feature of the troll life history is likely tobe a huge amount of parental investment, both before and after birth. With agestation period of 10-15 years, the parental investment is huge, and giventhat most trolls reproduce only once in their lifetime, the expenditureafforded on offspring is large. Parents will defend their offspring withviolent determinism, and likely prioritise the life of their child above theirown, with young trolls likely only becoming fully self sufficient after a fewhundred years. The role that social interactions in communal dens may play inparental care is unclear, although given the species characteristics,cohabiting groups are likely to have a high degree of relatedness and hencealtruistic care of offspring is not unlikely.

These trolls present a truly unique case of evolution, andrequire a great deal of study to see how they managed to overcome the problemsof their lifestyle. It is unclear where their closest extant relations are, andwhether they are more closely related to the bears or primates, or amonophyletic taxa unto themselves. The benefits of being huge and able to eatalmost anything seem to have outweighed the issues they face. It is hard to seehow their fragile lifestyle ruled by an inability to deal with vitamin D hasallowed them to flourish, but seemingly it has.

On a worrisome note, however, I fear that the trolls face atroubled future. As mentioned above, they will adapt very slowly to largechanges in the environment, and as global warming rapidly alters their habitat,it is hard to know if they will be able to amend their behaviour to fit withthe new landscape. They’re unlikely to take up sunbathing and bask in the joyof a warmer world. If ever there was a good reason to curb emissions and thinkabout the planet, this is it. Save the trolls, before it’s too late.

Troll hunter is in cinemas now, and provides a witty, original and entertaining break from the norm. Go check it out.

#140; New website and some links

2011-09-25T10:27:00.002+01:00

First things first - new colour scheme, and layout. This is to match the update to my website. It's now got a couple of pieces of writing (hopefully a few more pieces will be going up in the next couple of weeks), a bit more about me, and a link to a gallery of my graphic design work all in a shiny new layout. Go check it out, amigos.

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Want some brain food from around the internets? First up, let your mind be totally confuzzled by this "audiovisual illusion". Amazing how the brain tries to reconcile conflicting info from the eyes and ears:

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Next up, a nice complement to my ramblings about mind control, understanding the brain, and harnessing it's power. Researchers have been able to reconstruct an image you're seeing by reading your mind with a working "brain probe". More here.

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If you've got a few minutes to spare, there's a fascinating piece focused on an autistic man, Justin Canha, in the New York Times. Particularly good are the links within to the art and images of Justin, and the video content. Great, personal journalism. Read it here.

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Finally, go look at this gallery of early internet images. Amazing how it's changed, and how the sites we know today started:

#130; Lyre Lyre...

2011-09-19T18:09:00.003+01:00

This is incredible. Gets crazy around 1:50

Via

#129; Back off, I'm a scientist

2011-09-17T10:17:00.002+01:00

Ever wondered why your fingers wrinkle when wet? It's because your skin absorbs all the water, or something, right? Well, now some science folk say that it's actually to give you better grip in wet conditions. Interesting stuff.

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You may have already seen these, but they are beautiful. Dinosaur feathers found in amber. See the slideshow here.

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A pretty engaging video about doubt & climate change from the climate reality project. Obviously, it is itself propaganda, just in a different direction, but it's very good:

VIA

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I'm sure you've heard about the scientists in Italy who are being charged with manslaughter having failed to adequately predict & inform the public about an earthquake in 2009. A bizarre and genuinely concerning series of events, and Nature has summarised the situation very well here

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Anyway,

VIA

#128; Camouflage

2011-09-10T10:59:00.001+01:00

Amazing video about octopuses playing hide & seek. Incredible stuff

VIA the kid should see this

#126; In search of a super suit

2011-09-07T09:29:00.001+01:00

"First you usemachines, then you wear machines, and then…?" - John Brunner, Stand onZanzibar (1968)

"Where can I getmy hands on some sort of bionic strength-enhancing robot suit?” It’s aquestion we’ve all asked ourselves at one point or another. For me, at thetender age of 8, I lost an arm wrestle to a girl in the playground. As the backof my trembling hand was forced down to the ground and tears of shame startedto blur my vision, my panic-stricken mind turned to the obvious solution to myproblem of pre-pubescent scrawniness – bionic enhancement.

It's been 13 tough years since that day, and a super-suit ofsome sort remains near the top of my list of fantasy acquisitions, alongside atime machine and iHouse. Films like Iron Man have done nothing to dampen my expectationsof what a wearable robot suit might do, and I think it's time to sit down andthink a bit more seriously about this Super Suit. It seems it's not quite asfar off as I feared.

The majority of developing work is driven by military and medicalendeavours, and useable, wearable machines designed to enhance human physicalcapabilities are finally being made: In 2008, Yves “Jetman” Rossy flew acrossthe English Channel wearing a "homemade" jetpack;"exoskeleton" suits claim to increase people's strength by up to 17times; and some prosthetic legs have now become so advanced that they areconsidered to give amputees better mobility than human legs themselves couldachieve. So where to begin?

To the casual user like myself, flight is undeniably one ofthe most appealing qualities of a super suit, and there are a few options. Themost basic and visceral is the Wingsuit- a jumpsuit with extra material between the legs and under the arms thatallows the wearer to glide seamlessly through the air (Video 1 below). One ofthese will set you back a relatively reasonable £1000, but, if we're beingpicky, only really offers slightly more control over your long-distance falling– not ideal. Jetman's suit is a step up, consisting of a fixed Buzz Lightyear-stylewing and powerful jet pack which fires him through the air, but again requiresa parachute landing, a very high take-off point, and lots of fuel (V2).Finally, the "Martin Jetpack" is yet another option, which uses twofans to provide lift and can fly for about half an hour up to a height of 8000feet. Not too shabby, and a snip at $100,000 a pop (V3).

So, that's flight sorted (ish). Next, it would be nice to besuper strong. This seems to be where military funded projects are leading theway. The XOS 2, an exoskeleton suitbeing developed by Raytheon in theUSA, claims to increase a wearer's carrying strength by 17 times, so a soldiercarrying a 170kg pack would only have to exert the effort normally required tocarry 17kg (V4). And this isn't the only strength enhancer - competition isdriving the development of suits across the world, particularly in Japan. Forexample, the "AgriculturalExoskeleton" is being developed in Tokyo to help ageing farmers worktheir land, while the "Powerloader"has been designed with factory workers in mind, helping labourers lift heavierobjects higher.

Perhaps thebrightest prospect is the HAL robot suit, produced by Cyberdine and currentlyin use in Japan and available for rent for roughly $2000 a month. This is designedas a rehabilitation and mobility aid but has clear applications in a wide rangeof fields (let your imagine run wild), and with 500 being churned out eachyear, this is a relatively accessible mass-market product, despite theconcerning appellation. So are these suits what I've been waiting for? Willthey transform the wearer into a lightning-fast, superstrong being capable ofamazing feats? Well, sort of. A quick trip to YouTube (or the bottom of this post)will reveal that we're not quite there yet, while many problems (such as alightweight, reliable power source) are yet to be fully overcome. The suits arecumbersome, experimental, outrageously expensive, and not really designed forthe recreational joy-rider.

Artificial exoskeletons are starting to show great potentialfor enhancing the quality of life of people with restricted mobility, and thisrightly remains the focus of most of the development, but how long will it bebefore every kid is asking for a flying, weaponized robot suit for Christmas? Alittle while yet, as these suits will remain out of reach of all but thelottery winners among us for now. In a sense, these advancements are merely thenatural development of currently mainstream technologies such as wheelchairs,planes and SCUBA suits. Are they even such a far stretch from a knight’sarmour? Technology is outpacing evolution, and impatient humans will useanything we can get our hands on to push the limits of our capacities. We won’tbe flying to work and vanquishing our foes with in-built grenade launchers anytime soon, but the human urge to reach for the skies means that it might not betoo long before you see a man fly like a bird, run like a cheetah, andarm-wrestle like a god.

Don’t believe me? Thesevideos show some of the suits mentioned:

Video 1 - Wingsuits:

Video 2 - Jetman

Video 3 - Martin Jetpack

Video 4 - Raytheon XOS2 Exoskeleton

Video 5 - Cyberdine HAL robot suit

#125; Google Correlate

2011-09-06T15:44:00.002+01:00

Clever new tool from Google. Instead of finding data for a topic, find a topic for data.

You draw a line on a graph, and google tells you what was being searched for at the times you specify.

via kottke.org

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Also, nice light video from New Scientist about healing yourself with your mind. Reminds me of the placebo video from a while back.

#124;

2011-08-28T15:45:00.002+01:00

Back from holiday and now on with the business of real life. Over the next two months, while searching for a job, I'll be producing a number of pieces of writing and design which will ultimately go up on a new site. Until then, keep yourselves busy with this lot:

Just before I went away, in the midsts of the riots, the Guardian made these great before-and-after interactives. Check it out:

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In a lecture on flight dynamics I remember being shown a similar clip to this. Awesome slow-mo clip of an eagleowl landing. Footage like this forms a huge part of the development of the science regarding flight dynamics, which is then used in plane design etc etc. Terrifying:

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One of the pieces of writing I've got planned is about dinosaurs; this little video is the perfect warm-up for that. Really great - "Jurassic Park Infographics"

Raptor from Tal Moskovich on Vimeo.

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I've watched this promo from the BBC 3 times - beautiful animation:

BBC KNOWLEDGE 60 from iamrader on Vimeo.

Also, check out that users other videos on vimeo for some nice little animations.
THIS, AND THE LAST 2, VIA CURIOSITY COUNTS.

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Lastly, some sexy stats for you, presented fantastically. Click below to go to the interactive results of the "Sexperience" survey.

#123; holiday and a website

2011-08-08T11:08:00.001+01:00

I'm off on holiday to Switzerland for three weeks, so things will be quiet here. But do not fear - September will (hopefully) bring a revamped website and blog, so stay tuned, amigos.

Until then, check out my latest project - the design of Cambridge writer Matthew Pink's website.

#122; photographs

2011-07-29T00:42:00.000+01:00

Take a look at this new technology that allows you to take photos and then focus them later. Amazing stuff. Read this post from the great Symbiartic Blog for more detail, but first have a play with these two images (click to focus on different areas). Amazing stuff:

#121; type, self-monitoring, WWF & BBC

2011-07-27T13:57:00.000+01:00

First up, a great, seemingly endless, collection of typographic beauty. Really nice.

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Next up a feltron-esque bout of self-recording and lovely design from Ben Willers. Monitoring all your activities and creating huge data sets about your actions is a surprising thing to be catching on, but very interesting. I'm not sure I'd have the discipline and patience to record meticulously enough, though. This is very nice though:

What would our lives look like if every tiny, seemingly insignificant detail were to be visualised?
Every calorie, every step? Every minute and every penny?

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For those that way inclined, a review of the BBC's science coverage has been published. Quite interesting, though perhaps the more digestible approach would be to read the Guardian's comment piece on it. As ever, the comments at the bottom are as interesting as the article itself.

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And lastly, a very nice short advert from the WWF:

The world is where we live from WWF on Vimeo.

via curiosity counts

#120; The Botskers

2011-07-23T14:28:00.000+01:00

The New Scientist has a great report from the first "Robot Film Festival".

A strange idea, and it aimed to...

...inject a sense of playfulness into traditional science and engineering and explore new frontiers for robotics before the technology is even possible.

Sounds mostly like it is trying to raise the profile and get people talking about robots, and sounds like fun to me. Here are two of the films - the first is the "best film" winner, and the second shows the winner of the "Best Human Playing A Robot" character. Good stuff:

THE MACHINE from Bent Image Lab on Vimeo.

#117; Superhero Dinosaurs

2011-07-22T15:51:00.000+01:00

Fairly unrelated, but totally wicked-awesome:

#116; Poo Chat

2011-07-21T13:47:00.001+01:00

VIA

Not quite as much actual info about how the toilets will actually do what they promise as I might like, but very interesting, and promising, stuff nonetheless.

#115; Fonts for dyslexics, Alcohol is healthy...

2011-07-13T21:54:00.001+01:00

Dyslexie

Typography x medical research = awesome.

(VIA IT'S OK TO BE SMART)

Why Alcohol Is Good For You

"It’s one of those medical anomalies that nobody can really explain: Longitudinal studies have consistently shown that people who don’t consume any alcohol at all tend to die before people who do. At first glance, this makes little sense. Why would ingesting a psychoactive toxin that increases our risk of cancer, dementia and liver disease lengthen our life span?"

Improved social lives and reduced loneliness seem to be the main explanation proposed. Really interesting stuff. Drink up
(VIA LONE GUNMAN)

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One for the reading list - the gallery on Wired.com makes this book look incredible - Field Notes on Science & Nature.

Data Viz

Over at Visualising Data a fantastic set of resources, from tools to visualisation communities.

After a big build up Visual.ly has launched, and looks like being fantastic. "Explore, Share, Create". Exciting times.

#114; Migration

2011-07-10T19:25:00.000+01:00

Great visualisation project showing how people move between countries. Kinda hard to identify the countries you're interested in, but still really interesting. Click here to check it out.

113; Viruses and Censorship

2011-07-03T23:18:00.000+01:00

Two great videos. Firstly, beautiful and informative video about Stuxnet, and the "anatomy of a computer virus"

Stuxnet: Anatomy of a Computer Virus from Patrick Clair on Vimeo.

And an amazing video about internet access and censorship across the world. Fascinating - the "Soft War"

Both are concise, interesting and informative. Great.

112; Uncontacted tribes and scientific illustrations

2011-06-24T21:08:00.001+01:00

Uncontacted tribes are an incredible rarity in the world today, and apparently a new group has been identified in Brazil.

The group lives in the Javari valley, a South Carolina-sized region set aside by the Brazilian government for its indigenous people. About 2,000 uncontacted people are believed to live there, making it the last great stronghold of groups who've utterly eschewed industrial civilization.
"There are about seven groups who have been contacted, and what the Brazilian government says is that they've found references to about 14 uncontacted indigenous groups," said Watson. "Some of those groups may be the same people. It's hard to say exactly how many there are."
The most recent contact was made in 1996 with a group of Korubo tribespeople. Though government policy is to avoid contact altogether, they were moving toward an area occupied by loggers, making it necessary to warn them away.

Check this video from 1996:

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On a very different note, I thought I'd point you to a lovely Tumblr:

Scientific illustration:

#111; Football and stuff

2011-06-24T20:56:00.002+01:00

Let's kick things of with this: Data in Football:
Giles Revell tried to visualise the Champions League final for the FT Weekend Magazine. Here are some of the results:

The visualisations are done from the point of view of an artist rather than an interested fan or follower of football. The article itself is fascinating and well worth a read, but I'm disappointed that it is accompanied by superficial visualisations which are interesting aesthetically but of no use practically. The story being told in the article focusses on the use of statistics and data in football, so it seems odd that instead of visualising this data in an informative and revealing way, they have opted to create static artwork that fails to say very much at all. Either way, great article and interesting (despite being of little practical use) illustrations.

(via)

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Next up, a really interesting infovid about the environmental impacts of internet use. Pretty, too:

How Green Is Your Internet? from Patrick Clair on Vimeo.

(via)

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Geeky design greatness - minimalist typography film posters:

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Finally a quick nod to what looks like it might be a crazy interesting event in Brighton in November, which is taking submissions at the moment. Visualising Science & Environment:

From the DNA double helix, to climate model simulations, to media footage of environmental protest, images play a central role in the construction and communication of scientific and environmental matters. However, the visual dimensions of science and environment communication are often overlooked in research. What forms of knowledge and understanding do images produce, facilitate and/or constrain when it comes to issues of science and the environment? How are the visual dimensions of science and environmental communication approached differently across diverse fields such as the physical sciences, the social sciences and the humanities? This symposium will explore the visual dimensions of science and environmental communication by addressing questions of knowledge, understanding, practice and power, through the visual.

Get involved.

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#110;

2011-06-05T18:30:00.000+01:00

The last few months of my life have been dominated by looming, impending, miserable final university exams. They are now done, and I am now free to turn my attention to the future and more cheerful things.

What will life post-Oxford hold for me? I'm not sure, but maybe I should move to Switzerland for my health, Luxembourg to earn a lot of money, or Denmark for the best "life satisfaction". Go check out the beautifully designed and really interesting OECD better life index. Interactive, informative, fun.

In a similar vein is the 2011 Global Peace Index. The video below runs through some of the big trends in global peace. Quantifying peace is a little like quantifying happiness - you can be happy in the worst place in the world and at war in your own home in the most peaceful country, but there's some nice stats here. You can go and take a more detailed look at each country here.

2011 Global Peace Index from Vision of Humanity on Vimeo.

Want some facts about the internet in 2015? Check out this video. In truth the presentation of this fails to really highlight the most important changes and tell the stories of the predictions, which is a shame considering how pretty the design is & how carefully it has been animated. Some nice stuff, regardless:

Digital Life: Today & Tomorrow from Neo Labels on Vimeo.

And two sciencey videos to finish, because they are both a few minutes of visual loveliness.

First take a few minutes, hit full screen and marvel at this compilation of NASA images, beautifully compiled by a fan:

CASSINI MISSION from Chris Abbas on Vimeo.

And sometimes it's nice to sit back and admire nature's beauty. There's No Such Thing as a Jellyfish. Pretty AND educational. "Are jellyfish rare and elusive or poised to take over the world?":

So should I move to Iceland in search of national peace or sit around and think about jellyfish in space? Time will tell, while my single ambition remains to spend my life doing things that I want to do. I want to be interested and entertained by what I do. That's possible, right? Soon I'll be rebuilding my personal website and looking at working on some personal projects, but for right now I'm pretty happy to sit in the sun drinking beers.

-Ant.

Mind Control

2011-06-02T22:15:00.000+01:00

Scenario i: You’reat the zoo. You’re enjoying an ice creamand watching the lions in their enclosure below. You jump over the barrier anddown into the lion pit. Your limbs are clinically detached and jaws around yourneck squeeze the life out of you. Over the screams of children and theirmothers from above, your last thought is “whydid I do that..?”

Scenario ii: Youare a man. You are several months pregnant. Maternal hormones course through yourbody and, despite your confusion, you cannot help but protect the growing bulgeon your belly with a natural mother’s instinct.

Scenario iii: It’sSaturday. You stroll into Trafalgar Square, climb Nelson’s Column, secureyourself firmly at the top, and cheerfully die.

What’s going on? Mind controlling parasites are having theirway with you. Toxoplasmus gondii hadyou deliver it into the body of a lion so that it could reproduce; That babygrowing in your belly was actually a parasitic barnacle, Sacculina, using you to provide a warm, cared for home; And a day ortwo after you died at the top of Nelson’s Column, fungal shoots sprouted out ofyour brain and body, and a few thousand Ophiocordycepscamponotibalzani spores rained down on the happy tourists of TrafalgarSquare.

It may sound like low budget horror flick fodder, but thishappens everyday, albeit with rats, crabs and ants, respectively, rather thanhumans. Nature has long since mastered the art of mind control, and craftymicrobes like these have been pushing around animals for millennia. Well,anything nature can do, we can poke our fleshy digits, pointy scalpels andelectromagnets at, and over the last few decades we’ve tried our hardest tofigure out how to control the minds of others, & harness the full potentialof the human brain.

First came “brainwashing”. The word and concept first poppedup in the Korean War in 1950, when captured US soldiers emerged from war campsas converted Communists. Everyone from the CIA to contemporary cult religionshas since allegedly attempted brainwashing, wherever a group has decided thatits mission, beliefs, and principles are more important than those of theindividual.

The concept has been engrained in the public consciousnessby countless films and books, from 1984 to AClockwork Orange, and, if you believe everything you read, a “hideousand insidious enslavement agenda … today threatens virtually all of humanity….In fact, life in the United States will soon become a carbon copy of NaziGermany of the late 1930's, just a lot more high tech and much more lethal."A chilling prospect, and while this may be more hysterical conspiracy theorythan measured fear (see my piece on fear & threats), the prospect ofbrainwashing does not sit well with everyone.

For the most part, however, we have, with time, moved awayfrom the classic brainwashing techniques of the 50s and into more elegant andsophisticated methods of mind manipulation. Conventional “thought reform” isnow a rarity. Psychological mind play does persist through, if nothing else,the omnipresent advertising we experience and performers such as Derren Brown,although here the “brainwashers” are restricted by an obligation to stick to afine code of conduct as they attempt to direct and manipulate people with a bitmore subtlety than can be achieved with an electric chair or wooden mallet.

Today, scientists are turning to drugs, electricity andgenetics to tinker with the brain. Nature’s puppeteering parasites themselves employa variety of methods to control their victims, but predominantly use a cocktailof hormones, proteins and assorted chemicals. Recent work has tried to revivethe use of mind-altering drugs for potential medical uses (Grob et al, 2011), although this is not yetan exact science. Any work using illegal drugs or mind-fiddling technologies iscontroversial. Such societal tensions present a major barrier to thedevelopment of our understanding, but is a barrier worth pushing past if we areto truly understand the power of the brain.

This topic presents a fusion of biochemistry, neurology,psychology and philosophy. Your mind isconstantly adapting, contorting and changing, and much of it remains a mysteryto us. We humans, however, are not the sort to let a little complexity dampenour spirits as we try to truly understand how the brain works and figure outhow to control it. What's more, the direction of scientific progress is finallytowards positive, useful and ethical mind manipulation, rather than that ratherold-fashioned brainwashing and oppressive mind control.

In 2008 the journal BrainStimulation was launched, to cover "noninvasive and invasive techniques and technologies that alter brainfunction." Research is advancing apace and our scientific poking andprodding is starting to reap rewards. So what methods exist today to mouldpeople's minds?

We’re starting to get a grip on how the brain works, andunderstanding that is the key to enhancing and altering it. Take the "ThinkingCap", a device which selectively stimulates some areas of the brain anddampens others by pushing electricity through the skull. Researchers claim itcan boost creativity and enhance the wearer's inventive capacities. Or howabout a bit of repetitive transcranialmagnetic stimulation (rTMS)? Using electromagnetic conduction,experimenters have managed to reduce racial prejudice in subjects (Gallate et al, 2011). At theflick of a switch can we unlock the Picasso inside ourselves, or eradicateracism and hatred?

In the past, invasive electrodes implanted into the brainhave been required to alter behaviour. For example, using "deep brainstimulation", specific areas of the brain have been stimulated ordisabled. But now we don't even need to go messing around with scalpels anddrills. Ultrasound has been used to alter the behaviour of specific neurons,making mice move in certain ways. Electrodes on the scalp itself ("transcranial direct current stimulation",if you're a fan of techno-jargon) have been used to improve language skills(Baker et al, 2010), and even boost mathematical abilities (Kadosh et al, 2010). Pop a few electrodes on your skull and soon you could beworking out equations like Einstein. Going even further into experimentalterritory, New Scientist reports that using "optogenetics" we canturn specific individual neurons on and off using just different colouredlights. Total control over individual neurons is an incredible step, but with100 billion neurons in the brain, we should probably make sure we know whatdoes what before we get too trigger happy with the on-off switch. Wouldn’t wantto cut the wrong wire.

Reducing racism and boosting the brain seem like much moreproductive and tolerable uses of mind-fiddling technologies than politicalconversion, but any mind meddling will always provoke debate. Who are we toremove someone's prejudices? Would that be a nobler act than converting someoneto communism and brainwashing them into submission, or does it all fall underthe same umbrella of free will restriction. If we were to truly master mindcontrol technologies, who would we trust to use it properly?

Deep questions indeed, and certainly ones with nostraightforward answers. So let’s wade out of the murky waters of mind control andinto the shining light of controlling withthe mind. This is where the science becomes more than a little X-Men, and withsensational results. As neurobiology and technology has advanced, and our understandingof how the brain transmits signals develops, we are starting to be able to usethe power of the mind to control the world around us.

Picture awoman sitting deadly still, focussing on a screen. Without her moving a muscle shemoves small cursor on the screen and selects various options. In another room,a motionless man sits next to a robotic arm, which picks up and moves a glassas he silently instructs. All the while, a man can move his wheelchair throughthe corridor just by thinking about it. These are all now a reality. In Aprilof this year a paper was published showing that a Braingate^® computerchip implanted in a woman's skull was still allowing her to telepathicallycontrol a computer screen 1000 days after implantation. With just the power ofour minds, we can now move through a virtual reality world, control a computer,and even interact with our environment without lifting a finger. Thesignificance of these breakthroughs for paralyzed and immobilised individualsis unbelievable. This is science fiction technology being developed and usedright now on real people, to fantastic effect. (Don’t believe me? Have a lookat the videos below.)

History, not to mention cinema, has taught some fairlydramatic lessons about the potential and dangers of mind control. Twisting thehuman mind to the whims of one person or another is a risky game to play, andthe ethics involved are complex enough to be the subject of a whole book. Themore we understand about the psychology and neurology of the human brain, thegreater our ability to control and harness its power will become. There is alurking threat posed to the most fundamental of human rights – free will – andwe must proceed with caution, but truly great things could be achieved by thisfascinating science.

Take solace, then, in the fact that the drivingforce of this research today is in medical fields and productive developmentareas. We're learning more about the brain every day, both in terms of itsfunction and potential capacity. I personally look forward to the day when Isit in my living room, turnon the TV with my mind, and, while watching the latest episode of RobotbobSquarepants, use my super-enhanced mind to solve a few unsolvable equations. Hell,I’m just grateful that at least the parasites haven't turned on us, yet.

Extras:

Some great extra reading:

Terrorism and Mind Control, by the author of Brainwashing: The Science of Thought Control
New Scientist:

#109

2011-05-23T23:27:00.002+01:00

First, this is nice. All our trips to Mars, visualised. Particularly interesting is the change in countries involved, and the improving success rate. Click here for a larger version (or, while we're talking space & stuff, here's what to do if you bump into an alien.)

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Secondly, these visualisations are quite clever. If the world was just one hundred people...

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This video is weird geeky awesomeness. I don't understand it, but I like it:

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Google's Science Fair finalists have been released. I think this is great, and there are some really clever ideas in there. Love everything about it, really. Go check that shit out.

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I love great data visualisation and the trend of data journalism and design and general enthusiasm is fantastic, so I thought this talk would be great - Aaron Koblin: Artfully visualizing our humanity. There are some very pretty visualisations of flight traffic at the start, and it's worth watching just because this guy was involved in the incredibly good Arcade Fire thing, but in truth most of the projects he discusses are fairly pointless, and fail to make any truly interesting products or reveal anything. It may be impending exam dampening my enthusiasm, but this to me shows that getting lots of people involved in something that is cleverly designed and built is no guarantee of making anything truly worthwhile.

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On a much cheerier note, this isn't the very best or most exciting timelapse video in the world, but it's about London, and it made me smile:

You've Got to Love London from Alex Silver on Vimeo.

#107; Rings & Oil

2011-05-08T22:50:00.000+01:00

What would it be like if the earth had rings like Saturn? This video starts slowly, but skip to 1:00 for some very cool imaginings of what the rings would look like from earth.

This is a video about our use of oil and the Deepwater-Horizon oil spill. I'm mostly posting it because I love the animation. It's all slick and beautiful. Some of the stats are very nice, and although it gets increasingly preachy as the clip moves on, it makes some good points. Worth remembering that oil spills themselves don't tend to have anywhere near the long-term environmental impacts that they are perceived to - public hysteria surrounding spills is huge relative to the long term ecosystem effects that tend to be seen. Anyway, very nice animation:

Oil'd from Chris Harmon on Vimeo.

#106; Videos

2011-04-30T00:33:00.001+01:00

A selection of clips for today:

Watch this video (if you're not a fan of spiders, I'd skip past this one). For the first minute it's an oddly absorbing and eerie clip of a spider immobilising an ant, but make sure you keep watching till the end. It's worth it:

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Complicated physicsy stuff is generally too much for my biology-orientated brain, so this animated comic on dark matter is great. They highlight how little we actually know about the fundamentals of our universe

"We have no idea! we're only now, by looking at the details, realising what the questions we should be asking are. There's a huge amount of exploration left to do."

Exciting times:

Dark Matters from PHD Comics on Vimeo.

Isaac Asimov's three rules of robotics - a man ahead of his time. I want to feature the second part of this interview, but can't find it on Youtube. Go watch it HERE (it's only a minute long!)

"It seems to me that as robots become continually more advanced that people will not try to keep it entirely a matter of metal and electrons, that there will be cases in which attempts will be made to make use of the very great flexibility and minituarisibility of organic living tissue. At the same time we will have human beings who will make more and more use of artificial organs of metal and plastic. We may have a society in which robots will drift away from total metal toward the organic. And human beings will drift away from the total organic toward the metal and plastic. And that somewhere in the middle, they may eventually meet."

That's from 1965 - I love predictions of the future from the past. When you look at BrainGate & the TED talk I posted in the last entry on this blog, you can see that maybe we are going in that direction. Interesting stuff:

And finally in a science-heavy post, this TED talk is well worth a watch. It's concerning the direction of evolution in contemporary humans. Are we now entering a stage of human-driving evolution? Great stuff here, and also notice how elegant, simple and beautiful his visual aids are. A great talk with the perfect slides to accompany it:

#105; Mind control, Placeboes, Happiness, Data. What more could you want?

2011-04-21T14:57:00.001+01:00

Very nicely done, and really interesting video about the Placebo Effect. I find this fantastic. The body's own ability to heal itself is amazing:

via COUDAL

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The scale of some things are completely impossible to fully understand. CLICK HERE for Nikon's "Universcale". This sort of thing exists in many forms, but this one is very slick.

Similar, but better, is this. CLICK HERE and play with the solar system. Solar System Scope. Wicked.

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As Infographics continue to be the supercoolest thing around, Visual.ly is launching, and this is a very pretty video all about it. The smooth animation and typography make me happy:

Very much related, this page here has a lovely collection of visualisations.

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Space Quotations is a great assortment of quotations from people looking on earth from space

It suddenly struck me that that tiny pea, pretty and blue, was the Earth. I put up my thumb and shut one eye, and my thumb blotted out the planet Earth. I didn't feel like a giant. I felt very, very small.
— Neil Armstrong

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Action for happiness is a new, interesting, and beautifully designed initiative. I love the idea of using science and our developing understanding to help the most important thing - people's happiness. And these posters are lovely. Simple, obvious advice, but things that everyone would benefit from considering a bit more:

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I can't get over how incredible BrainGate is. The Observer this weekend had a feature on this new technology that's allowing totally paralysed people to move objects with their mind via a chip in their brain. Science fiction becomes science fact, and this is going to make lives infinitely better. Amazing stuff, read more HERE - you won't regret it.

Reminds me of this TED talk - slightly less impressive, but still amazing (perhaps the fact that this is comparatively unimpressive is evidence of how incredible these developments are:

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For science writers, the now classic science writing bible.

"Beware of long and preposterous words. Beware of jargon. If you are a science writer this is doubly important. If you are a science writer, you occasionally have to bandy words that no ordinary human ever uses, like phenotype, mitochondrion, cosmic inflation, Gaussian distribution and isostasy. So you really don't want to be effulgent or felicitous as well. You could just try being bright and happy."

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Got 9 minutes to spare? You couldn't spend it any better than watching this. Seemingly damming of humans for much of the video, Carl Sagan ends with fantastic optimism and foresight. So absorbing:

VIA BRAIN PICKINGS

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Finally, I love this. Superhero alphabet. Brilliant:

That's all for now. I mean to post all of these as I find them in a more constant stream, with proper thoughts on each item, but with exams approaching I haven't really got time, so they all come out in occasional vomit-like bursts. I trust my loyal readers will forgive me...

Oh, and

LOL. via It's OK To Be Smart

#104; How To Be Boring

2011-04-05T17:56:00.001+01:00

Some very helpful advice on how to write boring scientific literature...

Avoid focus

Avoid originality and personality

Write l o n g contributions

Remove most implications and every speculation

Leave out illustrations, particularly good ones

Omit necessary steps of reasoning

Use many abbreviations and technical terms

Suppress humor and flowery language

Degrade species and biology to statistical elements

Quote numerous papers for self-evident statements

I love this - directly addressing so many science journals' refusal to embrace engaging writing, opting to instead favour bland and depressingly functional literature. There's no need for cutting edge science, which should be the most exciting and engaging thing around, to be dull. (via Lone Gunman)

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You know those incredible Hubble images you see all the time? Well, here's how they're actually made:

Turns out it's not quite as simple as just a camera with a super long zoom.

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A very nice video about the value of biodiversity:

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I've updated my website with a little bit of new work:

Like this illustration for an article about Pixar:

Go take a look at the rest of the website, as well. It'll make you a better person.

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And to finish, here's some stuff to warm your heart:

First, Jack Draws Anything, and raises over £10,000. Awwwesome.

And a nicely filmed, fantastic story about a football team from a floating village:

#103

2011-04-02T13:32:00.000+01:00

Some cool things from Wired. First, these city posters are just wickedawesome:

Go check out the rest.

Also, in this month's edition, they give advice on how to discover new species. My dreams of discovering a new species of tiger and calling it the SuperAnt live on.

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Blue Peter gets a little bit sneered at these days, but its been enthusiastically encouraging young people for so long, and I like this story:

A boy called Anthony, from London (NW11... that's where I live) wrote to Blue Peter asking for help in his attempts to "make people or animals alive". He is now a record-breaking tissue engineer, and says of Blue Peter's reply:

If [Biddy Baxter's] letter had shown any hint of ridicule or disbelief I might perhaps never have trained to become a medical scientist or been driven to achieve the impossible dream, and really make a difference to a human being's life. I remember being thrilled at the time to have been taken seriously. Actually, even nowadays I am thrilled when people take my ideas seriously.

It's all just lovely. Here are the letters (from Letters of Note):

Dear Val, Jhon, Peter and Lesslie,

This may seem very strange, but I think I no how to make people or animals alive. Why Im teling you is because I cant get the things I need.

A list of what I need.

1. Diagram of how evreything works. [inside youre body.]
2. Model of a heart split in half. [both halvs.]
3. The sort of sering they yous for cleaning ears. [Tsering must be very very clean.]
4. Tools for cutting people open.
5. Tools for stiches.
6. Fiberglass box, 8 foot tall, 3 foot width.

[DIAGRAM]

7. Picture of a man showing all the arteries.

Sorry but in number 6 in the list the box needs lid. If you do get them on 1st March I can pay £10, £11, £12, £13 or £14.

Send your answer to me,

Love from Anthony,
London, NW11

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Dear Anthony,

Thank you very much for your letter. It was nice to hear from you again after such a long time and we are sorry we have been delayed replying.

We are receiving over 4,000 letters every week and are having difficulty answering them as quickly as we would like.

We were interested to hear that you think you know how to make living people - and your list of necessary items intrigued us!

We are sorry we can't help you at all, but we wondered if you had thought of talking to your family doctor - he might be glad to help you with some diagrams and other information.

We are sending you a photograph of the "Blue Peter" team - it has been signed specially for you.

With best wishes from Valerie, John, Peter, Lesley and all of us on the programme.

Yours sincerely

B (Biddy Baxter)
Editor
Blue Peter

I hope they are still taking the time to reply to letters as personally as this - just look what difference it can make.

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In completely unrelated news, what a great use of facebook this is:
The Smithsonian had too many fish to classify, so crowdsourced it, and got 5,000 samples identified in 24 hours.

They created a photo album of the catalog of the specimens they had collected on Facebook, and asked their fellow colleagues for help. Of course, these weren’t any kind of friends. “The majority of people commenting held a PhD in ichthyology or a related field, and hailed from a great diversity of countries including the United States, Canada, France, Switzerland, Colombia, Peru, Venezuela, Guyana and Brazil,”

Clever.

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Finally, technology like this is incredible:

I can't wait till I can order my very own Iron Man suit.

#102; things

2011-03-22T23:00:00.001Z

First, today on the Guardian website a great interactive visualisation of the Middle East protests popped up. It's easy (well, I find it easy) to get lost with the sequence of events that lead to the explosion of activity, and this is so clear, and so easy to use. I like it. Click on the image to go check it out.

Next, the increasingly furious debate over the ethics of the various "Help Japan" posters is fascinating. Look at these:

Are they helping to raise awareness, and designers using their skills to do what they can for a good cause? Or are they indulgent, self-promotional and innapropriate? These posters (and many others like them) have raised thousands of pounds to help the relief, but some people feel uncomfortable, and suggest that they imply that people should need a reward (a poster) to encourage them to donate. Different opinions are all over the place (1 and 2, for example. The comments in the articles are equally, if not more, interesting than the articles themselves). One major, and reasonable, complaint is that these posters (/t-shirts etc) are raising awareness for something that isn't lacking attention (at the moment - perhaps the best role of these pieces is in overcoming the drop in attention that is inevitable of the news cycle), and are as self-promotional as charitable. I think the important thing here is that every single designer selling work for this cause is raising vital money, and I have no hesitation in assuming that their motives are entirely admirable. The best argument I've seen on this is here (via @brainpicker) - the point is, everyone wants to help, everyone feels helpless, and people really are just doing what comes naturally. Completely good intentions should be appreciated as such, I think. That said, it might best best, perhaps, if the designers refrain from putting their logos/websites at the bottom, no matter how small, and instead have a call to action (eg donation phone lines etc). Anyway, interesting ethical stuff.

On a lighter note, this video makes me feel that my doodles in my biology lectures were inadequate. Skip to about 2 minutes in for the great stuff:

(notes on) biology

absolutely awesome.

#101; More National Geographic

2011-03-07T23:57:00.003Z

Remember this? National Geographic have done it again. I LOVE these videos:

UPDATE:
National Geographic making me smile again today. It's no secret how great I think Pixar are, and this little experiment is wicked-cool:

#100; A big post

2011-03-01T23:24:00.001Z

100 posts and still stuttering on. Here's all the stuff I've stumbled across in the last month. There's absolutely loads here, and I realise that nobody would ever be able to wade through this whole post. Either I'm wasting too much time on the internet, I'm very easily pleased, or I have an insatiable curiosity. I'll let you decide which:

SCIENCE(ish) etc.

I can't embed it, but click here to go check out the really nice slideshow of microscopic images. Science/art. Scart.

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Carl Sagan has one of the best voices I've ever heard, and he seems to have some great things to say with it. This mash-up of his voice-over and some images from the egyptian protests is completely absorbing. I'll be seeking out his work/tv shows as soon as I can (probably when I don't have a degree to do):

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The Loneliest Whale In The World

"a lonely whale with vocal problems whose love song supposedly chases lady whales away."

On the one hand, this is the sort of humanising of nature that I'm not awlays a huge fan of, but on the other hand it's the kind of great (/so sad) story that can engage and excite people who might normally not have much interest. Interesting story either way.

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I love this story:

State censorship won't keep North Koreans from learning about the civil resistance in North Africa and the Middle East. Thousands of helium balloons will be soon released over the Korean border with information about the uprisings that toppled the Tunisian and Egyptian governments.

Fantastic persistence and noble intentions. Here's the full article.

ANIMATION etc.

Lovely titles for "the pillars of the earth" - whatever that is:

The Pillars of the Earth - Main Titles from Acme Filmworks on Vimeo.

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Pure, simple fun from the Despicable Me gang. I shamelessly love this:

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I haven't read the book this is based on, and I know nothing about it, but this short concept clip (explained here) is really nice:

The Escapist v.s. The Iron Gauntlet from Jamie Caliri on Vimeo.

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Watch cityscapes form from keyboards. Unusual:

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Oddly mesmerising music video.

Professor Soap - Spirit Quest Journey from Professor Soap on Vimeo.

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This video is really nice. There's lots of good time-lapse videos knocking about, but this is one of the best I've seen:

NYC - Mindrelic Timelapse from Mindrelic on Vimeo.

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Imagine having the patience to make this:

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INTELLECTUAL CURIOSITY etc.
There's an interesting essay by George Orwell - Why I write - that starts with this:

"From a very early age, perhaps the age of five or six, I knew that when I grew up I should be a writer"

That makes me wonder if the very best people at anything are just built that way and achieve greatness through an internal drive and ambition. Maybe not, but an interesting thought. The essay makes for good reading anyway - well worth it if you have a minute.

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In a similar vein, watch an interview with Isaac Aasimov (this is part 2 - CLICK HERE for all the other bits) Really nice ideas about learning and computers etc, and interesting to see how he imagines the internet and computer access will drive people to control their own learning, and hence develop a true passion and enjoyment for learning.

"Once we have computer outlets in every home, each of them hooked up to enormous libraries where anyone can ask any question and be given answers, be given reference materials, be something you’re interested in knowing, from an early age, however silly it might seem to someone else… that’s what YOU are interested in, and you can ask, and you can find out, and you can do it in your own home, at your own speed, in your own direction, in your own time… Then, everyone would enjoy learning."

The main problem in what he says is that he imagines that everyone has the same capacity for loving learning that he does, but maybe not everyone does. He is right, though, that there's an enjoyment that everyone gets from learning in at least some respects, and people like the power and comfort that knowledge gives them - that's often underestimated when we consider modern education. He makes tons of interesting points, and it's great to hear a such great hopefulness and energy. He talks fantastically and says loads of things that still apply today. Also go and watch part 3 - you get a bit more about his personal approach to life, and it's really entertaining:

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Beautiful video raising a potentially big issue:

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If you have more time than me, I suspect there's a universe of great stuff in the Lone Gunman's Year In Review.

ART, DESIGN + MISCELLANY etc.

Hilarious (and nicely photographed) American streets named after English places, badly:

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Click on the image below and go through the slideshow of "Pictures of the Year":

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Fire insurance maps from 1880-1920. Sounds horrendously dull, but check out the covers. Bloody brilliant:

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Finally, remember the London Olympic logo that everyone loves so much? Apparently it's not just ugly, but actually offensive. Iran threatening to boycott the olympics due to the racist logo that reads "zion". Read more here. Classic.

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Phew. See my "best of" post for the usual sources - particular note that many of these came from Brain Pickings/Curiosity Counts; Coudal Partners; Animade; New Scientist; etcetcetc.

#99; Music, data, film

2011-02-12T14:03:00.000Z

This is a really nice video, for a really nice song, from a really nice album:

Happy Camper - Born With A Bothered Mind (featuring Bouke Zoete) from Job, Joris & Marieke on Vimeo.

The latest Feltron Report is out and is, as always, lovely. This one looks at the whole life of his late father, so takes on a slightly different meaning.

Also, this talk he gave about his previous projects is quite itneresting:

Nazi Graphics - really interesting:

Via FlowingData, two cool visualised interactive data thingys:

European energy consumption. Click on the image and have a play

and watch the world get fat - alarming (click the image again):

aaaaand lastly, this little video is mesmerising:

Kurz und Schön opener from errorone on Vimeo.

#98; New Website etc

2011-01-30T11:24:00.001Z

In attempting to update my website I somewhat broke it, so it's now been updated with a shiny new wordpress layout. Lots of new design work up there, too, so go check it out: www.anthony-lewis.com

Other things:

This is a lovely video explaining a really interesting idea. Watch it.

NY Times - Turbine-Free Wind Power from Antfood on Vimeo.

In similar style, this music video is wicked-cool:

D-Twice’s Rock & Fall band – I.G.L.W.Y (Beat Torrent Version) from joshua catalano on Vimeo.

both of those videos come from Curiosity Counts - a really well curated site.

This is only 5 seconds long, but is fantastic:

5 Second Project - Reverse from Ross Phillips on Vimeo.

97; A Love Letter for You

2011-01-18T17:39:00.001Z

Brain Pickings has the backstory here, but these mural are just fantastic:

96; Misc.

2011-01-14T17:49:00.000Z

Title scenes to films are so often so clever. Making them would be one of those fantastic jobs I'll never do.

Watchmen has one of my favourite scenes - particularly if you've read the novel and recognise the images. Won't let me embed, so see here.

_____________

What do you get if you add Google, Lego, CERN, National Geographic & Scientific american? The biggest Science Fair ever, apparently:

____________

Animated Typographic Coolness:

Make it better from Sebastianbap on Vimeo.

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I'm not sure why, but I really like the look of this (foreign) trailer. However, as much as I like that, the still promo image is so much more persuasive, somehow. Nice:

___________________

That's all for now - nothing spectacular today. Updates to the Website soon, hopefully.

95; Stuffs

2011-01-10T16:34:00.001Z

Things I like:

Best movie posters of 2010, such as:

Starbucks are updating their logo:

So much more simple and elegant, I'm a big fan

This is quite cool, but mostly just reminds of the fantastic Arcade Fire thing from last year.

And finally, wicked good Lurpak ad:

#94; 7 Billion People

2011-01-05T11:30:00.000Z

Beautifully made video from National Geographic

#93; It's Christmas - Noodle Man Is Here

2010-12-03T16:02:00.002Z

#92; An assortment of crap

2010-11-23T23:27:00.003Z

Been a while since the last post so I've got a lot of stuff to stick up here, which I'm just going to rattle through.

First, if you like comic books/comic book art, check out Two Page Spread. Showcasing great comic book artists in double page spread form. Really cool:

I like this ad:

Andreas Nilsson - SPP "Live Now" from BLDG//WLF on Vimeo.

As creative review points out, it's a very standard and common idea, but executed very nicely.

This video is surprisingly awesome. Break dancing to (great) classical music:

I've tried a variety of productivity helping tools and blogs etc. This one is as good as any of them.

This video is one of the very first film animations. I couldn't make this today. It's really cool, considering when it's from:

Typographic beauty (shop, website, making of):

The consistently entertaining and good blog, ITIABTWC, just finished a really good "hall of fame" of ads from recent (&not so recent) years. Go check it - here are some of my favourites from his selection:

Ok, enough stealing videos from someone else's site.

This is nice, isn't it:

Finally, a brief rant about Apple. If you went onto the Apple site a few days ago there was one big message saying "tomorrow is just another day. That you'll never forget." That should've meant a new thing like an ipad but better, like an iHover (yes, that would be some sort of white personal hovering transport thing). But instead Apple revealed that the Beatles' music is now available from iTunes. The Beatles were/are great, and this was obviously a big deal for apple, but they seem to have confused their personal triumph with things that other people care about. All that music has been readily available to everyone who wants it for ages. Don't big up stuff that people don't care about, because it makes you look stupid. That's what I think, anyway.

Vomit over, I'm done for now.

#91; Type, OKgo, etc

2010-11-12T17:57:00.001Z

I might have posted these before, and they may not be of any interest to anyone else, but I love these archives of hand painted type and street signs etc. This one (click here) is best, and there's also this one, too (click here). Here's some of my favourites:

Ok Go have plopped out another wicked cool video. Their videos make me hate all of the standard music videos even more. Why aren't more music videos clever and inventive like this? hmph. Toast, animated:

Which just reminded my how much I liked the one with the dogs:

I also like this map. When you order it you get it in two colours. I think it's nice. I would like one.

Also, go here for some clever images, here to encourage Omar (clever interactive special Olympics promo), here for yet more Old Spice rip-offery - this time with boobs, and here for wickedawesomegreatness.

#90; Zombigotchi!

2010-11-10T15:07:00.000Z

I like this little video, promoting a new iphone game:

Zombigotchi! from Michael Please on Vimeo.

You can make your own here

#89; Two weeks' worth of things

2010-11-05T22:16:00.001Z

To repeat the same old excuse, I've been crazy busy with all of this Biology Degree rubbish, so haven't posted anything for two weeks now. So much for the original plan of posting every day...

Anyway, here's a selection of new ads etc that I quite like.

First, check out this website for a Monet exhibition in Paris. It's beautifully done. Click on the "journey". Very nice: http://www.monet2010.com/en#/home/

New Skoda Ad. Remember that advert where they make a full size car out of cake? They've released an update. I went to a talk by someone from Fallon (the agency behind this) the day before it's release to the industry, so saw it early. I felt like a "industry insider" for at least 3 minutes. Exciting stuff.

Another follow up - remember this great word association video? They've updated it, using just Youtube footage. It's not particularly an improvement on the original, but it does show that clever ideas are as important as technical know-how and fancy filming.

Re:WORDS from Everynone on Vimeo.

And on the subject of word play, Scrabble ad anyone?

Scrabble : THE BLOCK PROJECT from paranoid on Vimeo.

Update: Go look at these incredible migration photographs. Nature photography at it's best from the always brilliant Big Picture.

#87; Stuff

2010-10-23T09:46:00.000+01:00

Cool shit:

On the arty side, I just think this is quite clever:

#86; My info

2010-10-19T01:36:00.000+01:00

Been a week since the last post - it's also been a week since the first term of my final year at university started, which is why I've been so busy. To make up for it, here are some infographics I've made for Cherwell (as well as a photo of them in action), and a logo I made for a college ball.

An investigation into the prices at local supermarkets yielded these results:

Some stats from the Browne Review:

All in the paper:

And St Catz Ball logo:

I'm mad busy at the moment, and it's late. Will do my best to keep posting things as and when I can.

#85; Sesame street for grown ups

2010-10-11T21:17:00.000+01:00

Check out these. Every letter, featured in a little animation. Here's 'B':

B from Daniele Manoli on Vimeo.

Also, to keep with the Sesame Street theme, Grover does Old Spice. Lol.

Also, my work is being featured on the OxAdSoc homepage at the moment. Go check it.

#84; Data visualisation

2010-10-05T16:50:00.000+01:00

I love good infographics and clever visual representations of data. I think they play an important role in conveying ideas and data, and love their recent rise in popularity. Anyone interested check out Information is Beautiful, FlowingData, the Guardian Data blog and the Feltron reports(one man's life, visualized beautifully).
Then watch this film - very interesting (if you're interested in this sort of thing...). More info & notes are here, too:

Journalism in the Age of Data from Geoff McGhee on Vimeo.

#83; Animation & advert

2010-10-02T17:50:00.000+01:00

Nice stop motion video:

Bottle from Kirsten Lepore on Vimeo.

and an interesting new ad. Well, really cool visuals created in an interesting way, preceded by some advertising flouncy language. Fast-forward to 2.30 for the ad:

Canon Pixma: Bringing colour to life from Dentsu London on Vimeo.

#82; lots of stuff

2010-10-01T11:17:00.000+01:00

Several things have caught my eye recently. Just moved back to Oxford so have been mad busy and not put anything up for a few days, so here it all is:

Firstly, a very cute and clever animation. Very simple idea, done really well. This is sweet:

Le vilain petit carré / The ugly square from Tout Court on Vimeo.

The Guardian released this ad for its film season. 26 films featured, how many can you name? I can get about 15...

Eye Magazine have written a post about some great Aids awareness posters, like this one:

Lots more on the site - go read!

I LOVE these, from Aaron Leighton:

And finally,

Someone called Johnny Selman is designing a poster every day for a year, based on the day's BBC headline. Appropriately called BBCx365, it started in September and he's already made some great images. Go Look:

Toodles

Ant Blog - A summary

2010-09-30T10:49:00.005+01:00

Why & what gets posted?

I'm a sucker for fascinating science great design and anything that can combine aesthetic perfection, scientific rigour and top-class entertainment will fit right in here. I'm a huge believer in the entertaining communication and sharing of science as widely as possible, and I'll post anything I find that relates to that. It's not all science, and I put up anything that catches my eye.

Science stories and intellectual curiosities:

European energy consumption. Click on the image and have a play:

The science of Big Bird:

Making science fun:

If you can combine great presentation/animation with interesting science or anything educational, I love you:

NY Times - Turbine-Free Wind Power from Antfood on Vimeo.

Posters/designs I love:

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I Love a Good Animation:

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Miscellaneous Greatness:

These murals are just fantastic:

Stuff I’ve written and designed. Go to anthony-lewis.com for a whole world more stuff:

Or check out my writing on super suits, mind control, trolls, and loads more.

-Ant.

#81; Strangers

2010-09-24T20:22:00.000+01:00

No real explanation needed here - I just think it's clever and quite nice.

(from here).

#80; bus pass design

2010-09-22T21:12:00.000+01:00

Super quick post - the geeky designer inside me loves this set on flickr of great old bus passes. Really nice designs.

#79; Wild Things

2010-09-18T17:14:00.000+01:00

Another unorganized pile of stuff. Like an online car boot sale, with only good stuff, and all for free.

This is a super sweet tribute to Where the Wild Things Are. I really like the animation in this. Really subtle, and tells a sweet story.

Buildings & Vampires from Nico Casavecchia on Vimeo.

This is a very short wordless film - possibly advertising boxing on HBO in the US, but it's pretty effective:

And Street Art made out of colourful tape:

TapeArt - Stella & Rex & Jurij Lozic from Multipraktik on Vimeo.

#78; Another Mixture

2010-09-16T21:10:00.000+01:00

Again, today I'm just going to vomit out a series of things I like. As usual, using this place as an archive of personal favourites as much as anything else. For a slightly more practical post, I've written another post for Wisdom London. Continuing their "ever wondered about..." series. This time, Paper.li gets the treatment. (previous posts were on Issuu & Android)

The Walls Are Dancing (there's a "Making Of", too):

I've posted similar things to this before, but I love this Hero/Villain series. This one - Batman/Penguin. It's Very clever...

This ad made me smile. I think it's clever, funny, and gets its message across well:

And finally, another ad. Not quite sure how it gets any real message about Samsung across, to be honest, but I do love the video, regardless:

#77; A mixture

2010-09-13T20:58:00.000+01:00

Just a bunch of things that I like:

First, I really like this animation, It's very clever, and cutely animated:

Umbra (HD - 2010) from Malcolm Sutherland on Vimeo.

These images are clever. One of those things I wish I'd thought of first:

And for anyone who followed the consistently entertaining @BPGlobalPR, here is an interview with the man himself.

#76; Vincent, Tim & toys of the future

2010-09-12T18:47:00.000+01:00

A nice little tribute to Tim Burton's classic Vincent reminded me to re-watch the original, which really is great:

Tim Burton's Vincent:

And the tribute, TiM:

TiM from Ken Turner on Vimeo.

good stuff.

Totally unrelated. A video about potential future screen technologies. I want all of these things, right now, please. I think the best thing is the expandable handheld tablet phone thing. All very exciting:

#75; Ikema

2010-09-10T19:16:00.000+01:00

Two nice ads. First, Ikea set loose 100 cats in the store near me:

and, for those that way inclined, quite a good "making of" video:

Then, a really cool puma advert. I've always quite liked puma and felt they could do a lot better at advertising themselves. This is good:

#74; A post full of Wisdom, and a building with a face

2010-09-09T20:16:00.001+01:00

There's a post written by me over on the Wisdom London blog today. It's basically an explanation of Issuu - a great tool that I've used for a variety of things. Predictably, having gushed about how easy to use it is, we couldn't get it to do what it is meant to and embed a file on the blog. C'est la vie.

In other news, a skyscraper in Taiwan got a little makeover:

Why isn't there more stuff like this? One day, when I own an entire city, all of the buildings will look as fun as this.

#72; Pixar

2010-09-08T22:19:00.001+01:00

Again, no wicked-cool "stuff" to show today, but a post I read about Pixar has got me thinking a bit. To satisfy the visual thirst/hunger of my millions of loyal readers, here is a quick behind the scenes of the short Day&Night, played before Toy Story 3. If you haven't seen Toy Story 3, you're an awful person.

Now really, I could easily post absolutely anything that has been produced by Pixar, because they have never once missed a beat. They have now had 11 (I think) consecutive critical and commercial successful films. That is absurd. Their worst film (Cars? Must admit, have not seen Ratatouille) is still good competition to the very best that anyone else has produced in the same genre. In terms of modern animated feature films, those that can compete with Pixar in terms of entertainment, story, humour and visuals are few and far between.

So how do they do it? And why isn't everyone else doing the same!? I am determined to end up working somewhere that I truly enjoy, partly because I want a happy life, and also because I think that's the way to get the best work done. I think we are at our best when we are doing what we want to do. Read this (or watch one of the Pixar documentaries etc etc). It seems to me that this is why Pixar creates such great stuff. People are working in an environment they love, on things they love, unrestricted, and with a dedication that means that nothing but the very best will do. Time, care and love is given to everything. The studio doesn't whizz out several films a year, but carefully crafts one or two, but makes sure they're good. Quality over quantity.

So much to be learnt from the way they do things, regardless of your industry. I don't think there's an organisation in the world that couldn't benefit from adopting a little bit of Pixar's philosophy.

One day, I want to work somewhere that I love as much as I imagine the Pixar folk love it there, and I want to have that feeling of pride and ownership over what I'm doing.

PS: Watch Cloudy with A Chance Of Meatballs. I was put off by the silly title and colourful images for ages, but it's great. Not Pixar at all, but great. Trailer.

#71; Big Promises

2010-09-07T21:46:00.000+01:00

I haven't found any great, hilarious or fascinating things in the last couple of days, so will instead ramble a bit about the new campaign that UBS have launched. As always, I'm just using this space to vent opinions as they occur to me - this isn't a carefully considered critique, but more a gut reaction.

I've just started a 2 week internship at Wisdom London, and yesterday morning Kate mentioned having seen one of these ads. UBS are running the line:

"We Will Not Rest..."

The point made was that this is a very big promise. Is it too big? Should companies promise unrealistic things? Does this just build distrust in ad campaigns and brands themselves?

Of course, grand promises that aren't followed through are detrimental for everyone involved, and companies should only ever promise that which they know they can deliver. I completely agree that if this sort of campaign isn't coupled with genuine internal change and a massive introspective effort, then it is something that should be criticised and which will ultimately fail.

However, consider the context of this campaign. The bank's image is in a dire position. Globally, public trust of all large financial bodies is very low, while the situation for UBS has been worsened by a very public tax dispute in the US. UBS need a big, powerful message to win back the public, and this is it. This puts major pressure on themselves, but I think that's a good thing. This shows self belief and genuine commitment. The very personal statement of intent from the CEO, in which he says that this is "much more than a simple advertising campaign" augers well. He suggests that, starting with himself, the whole company will take this as the attitude and approach to all that they do.

It may be my naive and overly trusting view of these things, but I'd rather an organisation come out like this and show that they are willing to work hard and commit to winning people back, than have them show a weak and half hearted attempt. This is a huge commitment, and perhaps UBS have made life hard for themselves. But doesn't the fact that they are willing to put this pressure on themselves merit our admiration?

If they do not deliver on the promise then it will be their own downfall, and I will sheepishly admit that this is not a case of a brand being ambitious and commited, but deceitful and short-sighted. But I like to see a company put itself on a limb like this. If they didn't trust themselves enough to carry this out, then why should we trust them to do anything?

There is no reason or excuse for making promises that can't be kept. But putting yourself under pressure, and publicly committing to change and effort seems like a good thing to me. After all, if you don't deliver, it'll be you that suffers the most.

#70; Clever uses of the internet

2010-09-03T23:33:00.000+01:00

Two things. Just like yesterday, I can't embed them, but you absolutely should go look.

First, Arcade Fire's GREAT promo trick. No idea how it's done, but it's very clever, and very very good.
Go HERE and type in the name of the street you live on.

Then, on a similar note, go check out the new tip-ex ad. A bit new, a bit clever. I like.

#69; Animated Typography

2010-09-02T22:12:00.000+01:00

For some unknown reason I can't embed this video, so you'll just have to CLICK HERE.

A really nice video of a font. It's better than it sounds...

#68; King of Kong & an animation

2010-09-01T12:11:00.000+01:00

First, a film recommendation. Watch King Of Kong. The trailer gives you the idea:

Basically it is a documentary style film which follows the attempts of someone who is presented as being an incredibly nice, unassuming guy to break the world Donkey Kong record, which is held by one bizarre "god of the game". This film is hilartious, moving and entertaining. Watch it. It's great.

Then watch this fantastic little animation, which was posted on the consistently high standard animade blog. The character of the two circles, the visual animation & the music are all perfect. I wish I could make things like this:

Spheremetrical (Here With You) from impactist on Vimeo.

#67: quickie

2010-08-30T23:30:00.000+01:00

Also, I just stumbled upon this. I don't know how to embed it, so just CLICK HERE. lol.

#66; Information Is Beautiful

2010-08-30T22:57:00.000+01:00

I'm sure I've mentioned Information Is Beautiful before (and was pleased to see it in Time's top blogs of 2010), and recently a nice talk by David McCandless popped up on the TED site. He may not be the greatest speaker in the world, but he's no fool, and I really really like what he produces. He's all about the value and worth of clever infographics as ways of representing data in digestible and attractive ways (to the extent that he was apparently on Newsnight the other week discussing their pros and cons). Worth a watch:

#66; Two Good Things

2010-08-29T20:54:00.000+01:00

Two good things that I thought were worth mentioning today.

First, Longshot Mag has just finished Issue 1. This was formerly the 48hr magazine, which I may have mentioned last time around. Basically, in exactly 48 hours a theme is released, people from around the world submit content in the form of photography, written articles, infographics and illustrations, and it is edited, designed, and published. It is done with such a brilliant well-spirited attitude, and produces such great material that I am a huge fan. This time round the them was Comeback (perhaps a not-so-subtle reference to the troubles they had after the first issue as 48hr mag), and will be available soon. I advise getting on their mailing list and being ready and raring to go to submit something for their next issue. I know I will be.

The other Good Thing I wanted to point you in the direction of is Coudal's Layer Tennis. On Friday afternoons, two talented creatives pass back and forth a photoshop (or similar) file, and take turns working into what their opponent did next. This is all published live, so every 15 minutes a new image gets posted up, along with a bit of commentary. The file goes back and forth, and the ideas grow and develop as the two players battle it out for the votes of the viewing public.
Again, the reason I love this is that it's great, light-hearted fun. Genuine, innocent enjoyment of today's technology in a creative and exciting way. Well worth tuning in this Friday.

#65; More Science and Advertising

2010-08-28T00:03:00.000+01:00

First, a quick note: I've abandoned my old numbering system (if you look at older posts, they are mostly numbered with a letter or two letters. Even I was confused by this.) Now it's all just numbers. This is post number 65.

The deeper I get into the world of advertising and business, the clearer it becomes to me that science is of huge relevance to business and advertising, and vice-versa (as is design - but I'll save design and science for another day). For now, How Big Brands Can Save Biodiversity:

As; Science & advertising

2010-08-25T20:50:00.000+01:00

As someone studying biology but with a real interest in advertising, this article is right up my street.

How could science benefit from a bit of PR attention? As is so often the case with online articles, some of the most interesting stuff is in the impassioned comments at the bottom. They range from hugely idiotic to quite insightful. The comments are based on two main discussions: One argument is based around the existence/importance of human-driven climate change, but the other is about whether advertising would corrupt the whole point of science. The idea suggested by some is that "spinning" scientific findings and ideas would defeat the point of the "here are the facts, do with them what you will" approach many scientists have.

There seems to be a large voice of people damning the author for suggesting that science could benefit from some PR. My opinion is that if the scientific community doesn't take responsibility for this itself, then it predominantly falls to the media to pass judgement on the work. Since the vast majority of people won't look to the empirical evidence or source papers, if scientific work wants to be presented in the right light then it has to consider the way it is presented. I agree that the danger of polluting scientific work with spin and misleading implications is very real, but isn't it the case that it's so important that science be presented in the right way and to a wide audience that we cannot afford to ignore the importance of marketing and advertising.

I know I would rather the scientists involved in carrying out work took more care in the way it reaches a wide audience of newcomers to the subject than have it be interpreted by other people in any biased way. Is there a danger of corrupting the scientific work? Yes. But the need to make science more accessible, and improve the communications between scientists and the public is far too great to ignore the potential benefits of careful PR and advertising.

Ar; Typographic music videos

2010-08-23T23:06:00.000+01:00

At least 3 blogs and feeds I read have already linked to this, and I can see why - lots of fun, catchy tune, nice video:

Then this link turned up. So many nice type-based music videos. Here's my favourite:

Aq; Animated Adverts

2010-08-22T16:42:00.000+01:00

Two nicely animated short ads.

Innocent Orange Juice - A very nice little concept, executed brilliantly.

Innocent Orange Juice from Sumo Science on Vimeo.

and a Weetos ad. It just made me laugh:

Weetos 'Boxing' from Sumo Science on Vimeo.

Lots more good stuff on from Sumo Science here

Ap; Beer

2010-08-21T12:00:00.000+01:00

I like this. Not entirely sure about its merits as an advert - beer spilling mostly - but it's great to watch.

Ao; Marcel and Danny & Annie

2010-08-20T08:39:00.000+01:00

This is great, and made me laugh:

MARCEL THE SHELL WITH SHOES ON from Dean Fleischer-Camp on Vimeo.

Also, there's this animation:

Danny & Annie from StoryCorps on Vimeo.

Looks like a radio station recorded interviews with people, and they've now been animated. I'm not sure the animation adds anything much - I'm fairly sure these two interviews would be equally affecting without the visuals, but regardless, this is very very sad and good.

An; Words

2010-08-17T23:53:00.000+01:00

Brilliant:

WORDS from Everynone on Vimeo.

Am; Animation

2010-08-16T22:29:00.001+01:00

As seems to be the general trend these days, no real time to comment, but watch this, is nicely animated:

"The Owl" by I Love You But I've Chosen Darkness from Secretly Jag on Vimeo.

Al; Your Lucky Day

2010-08-14T22:55:00.000+01:00

Very good short film on Vimeo about a winning lottery ticket.

Your Lucky Day from Dan on Vimeo.

Playing with a new camera; working on something for a new project. Just thought this photo might make you smile...

Ak; Music & words

2010-08-13T21:32:00.000+01:00

Evening,

First, remember when I half-heartedly made this one morning? well, I had vague intentions to expand on that idea, but it seems someone already has... and much better than I ever would have. Check it:

Your favourite books, as a text poster but, illustrated with white space. Brilliant.

Then take a peak at the Levi Pioneer Sessions. Some really nice tunes, and another example of brands recognising the cultural power of music. Red bull are very well known for this, and who could ignore O2. At the agency I'm interning at at the moment this is something that recent pitches to "cool" brands almost always seem to include. Cultural groups are so often defined by the music they listen to. When I was younger, the "Grunge" (Skater-ish) kids listened to certain music, while "Indie kids" are a force unto themselves these days, with the core unifying source that groups them together being the music they listen to. Getting at potential consumers via music is all over the place, and on the up, regardless of any fears of a suffering music industry (a fear which, for different reasons, I believe to be entirely unfounded).

Aj; Japanese subway posters

2010-08-12T00:02:00.000+01:00

Mad busy, not a lot of time to post clever ideas and musings, so for now you get this link. Some of these old subway etiquette posters from Tokyo are just brilliant:

What not to do on the subway - rude monsters.

proper posts when I can find the time!

Ai; Social Networking Map

2010-08-09T22:09:00.000+01:00

Clever & well executed

Ah; Nice animation

2010-08-08T23:25:00.000+01:00

Insert usual apology for not being true to "ant every day".

This Vimeo user has a really nice little collection of his animations. This is my favourite. Only 52 seconds, but I think it's really very sweet:

coExist from Eran Hilleli on Vimeo.

Trying to teach myself how to make a proper website at the moment, and struggling for free time, so that's all for now.

Ag; National Geographic & Graboids

2010-08-04T22:00:00.000+01:00

There's a really nice look at the design of National Geographic here. I think that magazine shows how incredible longevity and consistency can lead to an international acceptance of a certain character. However, for me, the main reason the brand has been able to be maintained so well over time is it's consistency in quality. I was a subscriber of National Geographic for a few years, and looking at recent or the very old issues on the web, you can see the standard of presentation and photography has been maintained unwaveringly.

Consistency builds trust, and when that is coupled with a clear visual identity maintained over time, great things happen.

I like educational but inventive videos. As a semi-scientist, I love it when people can find a creative way to teach. I'd like to see more of this (although is this great only because it's about Graboids, instead of something real...):

Monstrous Wildlife from Frank Robnik on Vimeo.

Af; Bad Handle, nice logo

2010-08-03T20:53:00.000+01:00

First, a complaint. I saw this on one of those "interesting design" sites, with the title "creative toolbox handle design":

I usually really like the things that follow titles like "creative handles, chairs, lamps, coathangers" etc, because they show a fresh and exciting or useful new approach to something. This initially seems the same, but for me the fact that as soon as you remove the hammer you lose the handle makes this totally ridiculous. I love a good toolbox, but it seems to me that very often you might not have the hammer inside the box while you move it. This layout doesn't particularly save space, and is a gimmick that will ultimately make the box less practical. As soon as you try to move it without the hammer in it, it becomes harder to carry than a normal box. Rubbish.

On a totally separate note: Interesting debate going on over at Brand New about this logo:

I personally really like it. I agree with some of the comments that the circle hasn't been formed in the most careful or considered way, and may have benefited if the bubbles made the circle naturally, rather than being cut off at the edges, but I think it is in general powerful, nicely executed and attractive. I'm a fan. What I'm not a fan of is "Year of Youth". That seems to shout to me "Events organised by adults, for other adults to make their "youths" go to". One of the commenters makes the point that no young people call themselves youths. I think that's true. I get the feeling that as soon as the organisers spotted a bit of potential alliteration they got all excited and didn't consider that if they want to appeal to young people, Youths isn't the best word.

Maybe that's just me. I've never liked that word - maybe it's just personal. I still like the logo.

(actually, a look at the associated website changes my opinion of the whole campaign... It may be that the whole thing isn't aimed at kids at all, but is really for the decision makers and grown-ups, judging by the tone of the website design. That would mean my complaint about the "Year of Youth" title is a little less valid. Either way, relatively nice main image, but the rest of it -website, typography etc - lets it down).

My uneducated ramblings for the day are done. To make up for all of that twaddle, check this out for more of this:

'Till tomorrow (or the next day... I concede that "Ant Every day" is a slight exaggeration)

Ae; Sweetheart

2010-08-02T21:01:00.000+01:00

Long, tiring day means a short, unexplained music video:

The Wave Pictures - Sweetheart from Ben Reed on Vimeo.

Also, in sad news, Lindsay Lohan is out of jail, so gets no more letters.

Ad; Toilet Magic

2010-08-01T23:13:00.000+01:00

Apologies for lack of posts.

Great creativity (stolen from BrainPickings, where there is much more info):

My laziness and lack-of-posting will be fixed soon. Honest.

Ac; A Nice Tool

2010-07-29T18:57:00.000+01:00

In a mad rush today, so just a quick link to this. Really interesting little thing, worth spending a minute with

Ab; Rory Sutherland

2010-07-27T20:49:00.000+01:00

I really like the basic idea here (except for his small point about online banking, which I disagree with), not only when applied to marketing, but to almost every field. Don't overcomplicate:

Aa; lots of stuff

2010-07-26T20:46:00.000+01:00

Quick note about my numbering system: I've been labelling posts about things I've actually made or created with numbers, and posts that are just links to other stuff or wordy opinions etc have been labelled with a letter. It turns out that this was either short-sighted, or that my expectations were too low. I have now got through the alphabet...
This post is therefore Aa, in a pathetic attempt to persevere with my flawed, useless numbering system.

Lots that I've found over the weekend:
First, totally irrelevant to the usual theme of the blog, so I'm just mentioning it very quickly. The Voice Project has some very nice songs, apparently for a good cause. Nice music.

Second is this. I want it:

Funny, clever, interesting, great.

Two nice animations. One very simple, but very entertaining:

Elvis Presley- King Creole from BillCanoni on Vimeo.

and two a bit of "3d graffiti". Some people complain that this sort of thing defeats the point of graffiti and the culture that created this sort of image, but I think this is just an interesting way of expressing a great style of art:

3d graffiti - 'After from Graffiti Technica on Vimeo.

And now something actually thought provoking. A talk from Starbucks about their hugely successful social strategy. For me, the most significant thing from this is the importance of interaction to communication in a digital world. It's not just about sending a message out, but about incorporating your consumers, involving them and listening to the things they are saying. The variety of the strategies employed, combined with the consistency of the underlying philosophies has built a fantastic communication history and network:

That's all folks (sorry it's so long today...)

z; youtube & posters

2010-07-23T20:50:00.000+01:00

Not a lot from me for today. Certainly nothing of major interest, just 2 "quite nice" things.

One - quite nice very short homey animation about youtube:

and Two: more quite nice minimalist film posters. There have been lots of this sort of thing about in the last few months, but I love all the well done ones, and these are most certainly well done. Here's my fave:

y; Snacks and Satellites

2010-07-22T16:08:00.000+01:00

A couple of links today - perhaps even more irrelevant than usual
First one: just funny. Snacks and Shit compiles some ridiculous lyrics from rap songs. When taken in isolation, they are very funny.

"Baby, you the whole package, plus you pay your taxes."

"Your cheese is average."

lol.

Next up: Nice animations about satellites here. mmmmm informative science plus nice animation. love it.

Finally, continuing yesterday's alternative trailer theme, watch this:

TakePart: Participant Media - Waiting For 'Superman' - Infographic from Jr.canest on Vimeo.

From what I can tell, this is much less unofficial than the Expendables trailer. It's also fantastically animated and sequenced. I know very little about the film or the issue, but I know I like this.