Things I come across that make me wonder, laugh, enjoy, think and experience life in general
Catching Elephant is a theme by Andy Taylor
Here’s a look at John Frame’s work and his own description of the dream-like state where he found this story that inspired his work. I really like the way he describes that “aesthetic exchange” between a viewer and a piece of art:
To me, the moment of art, when it really behaves in the way that it should behave in the human world, The Moment is when the individual is face to face with it, whether it’s a painting or a piece of poetry, and something happens and it’s outside of language. It’s just kind of, “Hmm. This is something.”
I feel him on this one. When I saw his work, I couldn’t articulate why it captivated me. It just felt like, wow, this is something.
Really interesting to hear this artist’s vision!
TNW: Can you tell our readers what you see Knowledge Graph accomplishing in a simple way?
Emily Moxley: We’re trying to do three things: one is to allow users to unambiguously express what they’re looking for. If you’re an avid sports fan from Philadelphia, and you search for “eagles” you probably mean the team. If not, you might be looking for information about the band and their latest tour. We really want users to be able to fully express what they want before we show results. Another thing is allowing users to dive deep into a summary of an interest that they have. The other day I did the query of Shakespeare and saw a selection of information about him. One of the interesting things that I noticed was he had one child named Hamlet. Also, we want people to be able to explore broadly around a topic. (via How an MP3 Player Inspired Google’s Knowledge Graph Launch)
Knowledge Graph has not been rolled out for me yet (as far as I’m aware) but I’m curious to experience it!
A baby koala, called a Joey, moves inside (and occasionally peeks from!) its mother’s pouch at the Taipei Zoo. From National Geographic:
…a female koala carries her baby in her pouch for about six months. When the infant emerges, it rides on its mother’s back or clings to her belly, accompanying her everywhere until it is about a year old.
The kid should see this!
via Science Dump.
Wow! It’s amazing how that camera zooms in! Definitely something the kids should see indeed… :-)
Layar - Ford Fiesta Promoted in India with Layar (by layarmobile)
To me this looks nicer then when using a QR code, but the way “augmented reality” is used here is not very creative / innovative.
Google+ As California City
An interesting analogy by Alexis Madrigal:
But by most accounts and third-party research, the service is growing its number of users but not their engagement. People are “on” Google Plus, but they are not really ON Google Plus. The infrastructure is there. The street signs are there. People own plots of land. But there’s nobody actually visiting town. To make it obvious: Google Plus is the California City to Facebook’s Los Angeles.
This is an elaborate way to argue what I have before: Google+, while a pretty good product, isn’t taking off because it’s unnatural. It was set up to succeed except for one problem: it was set up.
Madrigal also has a compelling way to get Google’s social efforts back on track: scrap Google+ and focus on how people are actually using Google products. As he writes:
I think Google needs to stop looking across town at Facebook and look within itself. Google is riddled with invisible social networks surrounding a wide range of products. Even better, Google’s homegrown social networks tend to be built around Google’s core strength: organized (and organizing) information.
In other words, stop trying to build a weird Facebook/Twitter hybrid on top of Google products and instead focus on the individual (and natural) social elements of the already-in-use products.
Obviously, that’s much more easily said than done. And it doesn’t really get at what this is all really about: unified, cross-pollinated data. But it would be much more natural.
I can see this… Some people got incredible numbers of people circling them, but - taking these numbers into account - with very little engagement
That’s some mighty big duck!
(Source: artjonak)
Jet-injected drugs may mean the end of needles
Whether you’re at the doctor’s office or taking medicine at home, future injections could be a lot less painful with this new gadget developed at MIT. Instead of a sterile metal point penetrating your skin, it fires a jet of medicine through your skin at the speed of sound. […]
Wow! Who even thinks of that kind of technology!? Seems to me like a lot of people will be waiting for this…
Computer game helps rehabilitate stroke victims
Scientists at Newcastle University have developed a computer game designed to help stroke victims recuperate.
The Circus Challenge game, created with a computer game studio, aims to help patients recover motor functions.
Players use wireless controllers to perform virtual circus acts such as lion taming and plate spinning.
Full Story: BBC
I love these kind of applications of modern technology! Fun and function combined.
A railway station; where dog eared journals slip between battered pillows.
Looks like a great place to visit
