Following Phaidon’s success with the Wallpaper* City Guide print series, their “top 10 bestselling Wallpaper* City Guides” are now available on iTunes as apps. The international cities include Amsterdam, Barcelona, Berlin, London, Los Angeles, New York, Paris, Milan, Rome and Tokyo. The retail cost for one Wallpaper* City Guide is £2.39 but the Berlin edition is currently offered as a free download.
Did you know that the Hippopotamus is related to the Sperm Whale? Or that the Ostrich and the Tyrannosaurus have common links? Explore the connections in the natural world, and learn about evolution with the Tree of Life. To coincide with the BBC Life documentary series The Open Universiy are giving away a beautiful ‘Tree Of Life’ wall poster free of charge. View the whole poster and find how to get yourself one by clicking the link below.
There are a lot of reasons to love Christmas, I love it for two reasons, giving presents to people, and German Christmas Markets. Nobody does Christmas quite like the Germans, wasn’t it Prince Albert who introduced the tradition of Christmas trees to the English? I checked, it was. Yup Christmas and building time-locked dungeons in their basements, but I don’t think there is a market for those yet… In London there are three German markets, THREE! The purveyors of Bratwurst and mulled booze all start this weekend. Christmas is the only brightspot in the bleak tunnel of winter, we may as well go crazy and partake in some merriment. The one I have my eye on is on the Southbank, and it has a carousel.
TED is a small nonprofit organization started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from three worlds: Technology, Entertainment, Design. TEDTalks began as a simple attempt to share what happens at TED with the world. Under the moniker “ideas worth spreading,” the talks were released online to share with a global audience of millions. With a database of hundreds of jaw-dropping videos the above video of is just the tip of the iceberg and the key to many hours being spent in front of your computer. In this episode Bill Stone, a maverick cave explorer who has plummeted to some of Earth’s deepest abysses discusses his efforts to mine lunar ice for space fuel and to build an autonomous robot for studying Jupiter’s moon Europa.
Before I go on about the history of Skateboarding, my childhood and nostalgic ramblings of better times, bigger decks and softer wheels. Let Johnny Rad, Powell and Peralta’s Bones Brigade and Rodney Mullen do the talking. And the doing. If you’re over the age of thirty and it’s been a while since you’ve seen “The Search For Animal Chin“, this is like watching a Muppet Babies version of your heroes. Click below to Watch, SK8, Destroy + Enjoy.
China formally kicked off its mass celebrations of 60 years of communist rule with a 60-gun salute that rung out across Beijing’s historic Tiananmen Square earlier today. Hundreds of thousands of participants marched past Tiananmen Square in costume or uniform, with floats and dancers mingling with soldiers and military hardware. Collected here are photographs of the once-in-a-decade National Day parade in Beijing, and of others commemorating the anniversary elsewhere.
Pretty nationalistic and intimidating.
Try this unique little Flash game, where your charged with ridding the world of various pandemics in this ingeniously colourful graphics filled time killer. Link.
The Bicycle Film Festival celebrates the bicycle. They’re into all styles of bikes and biking. If you can name it-Tall Bike Jousting, Track Bikes, BMX, Alleycats, Critical Mass, Bike Polo, Cycling to Recumbents- They’ve probably either ridden or screened it. What better way to celebrate these lifestyles than through art, film, music and performance? They bring together all aspects of bicycling together to advocate its ability to transport us in many ways. Ultimately the Fest is about having a good time.
In addition Zurich based Boutique and Gallery GRANDISM have been working on a new fixed gear bike in collaboration with the iconic bike shop OPIGNON and FixedGearSwitzerland. The bike will have new technology, a so called photochromic colour, which simulates a sunburn (sunlight changes the colour of the frame from white to violet).
While browsing through the pages of Wired Magazine (Issue 08.09) last night i came across a great infographical (Siggi Eggertsson) article based on “An Economic Analysis of the Somali Pirate Business Model”. Basically with the skyrocketed number of attacks on cargo vessel’s in Somalian waters Wired have put together a full rundown on how these pirates business men think. Going into great detail about what goes into the Attack, Negotiation and Resolution of this growing problem. What amazed me most was that in 2008 only 0.2% of all boats traveling through these waters where successfully attacked. These are not just Pirates, they’re Innovators!
Read: The Hot Zone / The Attack / The Negotiation / The Resolution
Moon in Google Earth was developed in collaboration with NASA Ames Research and JAXA. You now have the chance to Download Google Earth 5.0 and select from a drop down menu either; Earth, Sky, Mars and Moon. This new tool gives you the power to Take tours of landing sites, narrated by Apollo astronauts, View 3D models of landed spacecraft, Zoom into 360-degree photos to see astronauts’ footprints and Watch rare TV footage of the Apollo missions.