Sign language translation systemNOV 05

A video from Microsoft Research showcases a system that uses the Kinect motion sensing input device to translate between American Sign Language and other sign and spoken languages.

You can read more about the system at Microsoft Research.

The end of the Waffle HouseNOV 05

From the Indiana Daily Student, the last days in the life of a Waffle House in Bloomington, Indiana.

Most of the students had stopped visiting years ago. The smoking ban forced out the puffers. Many of the regulars grew so old that they died or went to nursing homes.

Once Bud decided to close, it all slipped away even faster. Some of his staff had taken other jobs. The gumballs emptied out of the shiny red machine. No one bothered to mark the white board with the daily special.

They would close at precisely 3 p.m. Bud checked his watch, ignoring the broken wall clock, its hands frozen for more years than he could remember, stuck in time.

It suited the place.

Care of Google Maps, here's the Waffle House before it got torn down. (via unlikely words)

What if all the ice melted?NOV 05

Ice Melt Map

If all the glaciers and snow and ice in the world melted, the sea level would rise 216 feet and, as this National Geographic map of the world shows, things would look a little different.

There are more than five million cubic miles of ice on Earth, and some scientists say it would take more than 5,000 years to melt it all. If we continue adding carbon to the atmosphere, we'll very likely create an ice-free planet, with an average temperature of perhaps 80 degrees Fahrenheit instead of the current 58.

See also Flood Maps.

MindfulnessNOV 04

There's little doubt that meditation and mindfulness are extremely valuable. But these days, the labels are being attached to an increasing number of products and activities. And it's no coincidence that many ancient practices are now getting a ton of buzz as our devices make it less and less likely that we'll take the time to chill out, even for a few minutes a day. One of the ironies of the era is that you can now download apps that promise to help you meditate and be more mindful. It's a familiar trend. Technology strips away something important. Then technology is created to fill the void. From the NYT: Mindfulness -- getting its share of attention.

And here's a Wired piece Noah Schactman wrote last summer: Meditation and mindfulness are the new rage in Silicon Valley. And it's not just about inner peace -- it's about getting ahead. Om, Om, Ugh.

Syndicated from NextDraft. Subscribe today or grab the iOS app.

Exploded songsNOV 04

This is fun: a selection of pop songs separated into their component tracks (vocals, bass, drums, etc.). You can turn parts on and off as the songs play. Featured artists include The Beatles, Spice Girls, Radiohead, and Amy Winehouse.

The text/interface is in French...just click the dark grey link labelled "> Chanson" for the song listing. (via @ajsheets)

Front-end loader acrobatics and tractor driftingNOV 04

For the sufficiently skilled front-end loader driver, doing a front wheelie with a 20-ton machine is a piece of cake.

Got this from Modern Farmer's selection of "Jaw-Dropping Russian Tractor Videos"; the other one I liked from the list is this guy who souped up his tractor with a car engine and then does donuts in his field.

What if baseball moved to a 16-game season?NOV 04

Joe Posnanski thinks about how baseball would change if MLB moved to a 16-game schedule like the the NFL. I love stuff like this.

4. Baseball would become dramatically more violent.

I'm not 100% certain of this, of course. But I am probably 75% certain. Right now, we don't tend to think of baseball as a contact sport. There IS contact -- plays at the plate, double-play meetings at second base, the occasional hit-by pitch and ensuing bench-clear -- but it's mostly tangential to the game. Football, meanwhile, is violent at its core. Or anyway, that's what we think now.

Except -- baseball was extremely violent in its early days. And I think that if the game was played just once a week, if you faced each team only once or twice a season, if every game was critical, there would be a lot more violence in baseball. Collisions at the plate would be intensified. Nobody would concede the double play without really taking out the fielder. Pitchers would be much more likely to send message pitches. And I think you would probably find violence where there is none right now.

(via mr)

How Lorde became LordeNOV 04

New Zealand journalist Duncan Greive caught onto Lorde early and has written the self-styled "definitive inside account of Ella Yelich-O'Conner's rise to the top".

For advertising, Maclachlan calls in Alistair Cain, Universal New Zealand's head of marketing, and plays an early cut of the television commercial on his computer. Ella wants to keep the date rendered in Roman numerals. It looks crazy (XXVII.IX.MMXIII). She won't be moved. After an hour, they're done.

Afterwards, Cain says that in 20 years in the industry he's never come across an artist so engaged with the minutiae of their presentation. He points up at a giant poster of Lana Del Rey. "With her, we could do whatever we liked," he says.

Ella is frequently compared to Del Rey, though it infuriates her. Both are white women making pop music soaked in the rhythm and attitude of hip-hop. But Del Rey has a much more conventional narrative -- she had an image makeover prior to her breakout Born To Die album, and co-writes her songs with some of the biggest producers and writers in the industry.

Ella's songs, meanwhile, are very much her vision, and hers alone.

The man who invented the calendarNOV 01

For the New Yorker, B.J. Novak writes about the guy who invented the calendar.

February 1st-Another small fuckup: I put an extra "r" in all the copies of the calendar I handed out, even though I already told everyone the next month coming was called Febuary. But Alice came up with the best solution! She said, "Just tell everyone it's spelled 'February' but pronounced 'Feb-u-ary.' That way, they'll feel stupid!" Alice is the best.

February 14th-Alice stuff weird. Tonight we were having a nice dinner at the same place we always go, but she was unusually quiet. Finally, I asked if anything was wrong, and she said, "Do you know what day it is today?" I said, "Yes, of course I do, I invented the calendar. It's February 14th. Why?" She smiled a really tight smile, said, "Yes. Yes, it is," and then walked out. What's that about?

February 15th-So cold.

February 28th-I hate this month. I can't take one more day of it. This month will just have to be shorter than the rest, and if people don't like it they can go fuck themselves.

Meet the most determined mouse in the worldNOV 01

A mouse finds a cracker about his own size and thinks, "this is great, I'll be able to eat for a week!" But he can't quite get the cracker up and over the short ledge that leads back to his hole. But he doesn't give up that easily:

(via ★interesting)

Amazing new robot dances to dubstepNOV 01

It's not up on their web site or YouTube yet, but I'm pretty sure this is a prototype of a new dancing robot built by Boston Dynamics, makers of the Big Dog, Cheetah, and Petman robots.

Looks similar to Atlas or Petman, but way more advanced...how did they pack all of the circuitry and power supplies into such a small yet realistic-looking housing? (via devour)

The trailer for The Lego MovieNOV 01

Some Hollywood people are making a Lego movie called The Lego Movie. Batman's in it and the plot is from The Matrix. I can't decide if it looks horrible or amazing.

An ordinary guy named Emmet (Chris Pratt) is mistaken as being the Master Builder, the one who can save the Lego universe. With the aid of an old mystic named Vitruvius (Morgan Freeman), a tough young lady named Wyldstyle (Elizabeth Banks), and Batman (Will Arnett), Emmet will fight to defeat the evil tyrant Lord Business (Will Ferrell) who is bent on destroying the Lego universe by gluing it together.

The Wikipedia page notes The Lego Movie Video Game will be released in conjunction with the movie. Which, if you're following along, is a video game based on a movie based on stacking toys & figures containing characters based on other movies that are based on comic books. I can't wait for The Lego Movie Videogame Comic Book Movie that comes out in 2019.

Thomas Kinkade + Star Wars = YES!NOV 01

Roland Deschane took a few paintings by cheeseball artist Thomas Kinkade and incorporated Star Wars characters into them.

Kinkade Star Wars

(via @Coudal)

How to say goodbye to everyone at a party: don'tNOV 01

From Seth Stevenson, an appreciation of leaving social occasions without saying goodbye.

These sorts of goodbyes inevitably devolve into awkward small talk that lasts too long and then peters out. We vow vaguely to meet again, then linger for a moment, thinking of something else we might say before the whole exchange fizzles and we shuffle apart. Repeat this several times, at a social outing delightfully filled with your acquaintances, and it starts to sap a not inconsiderable portion of that delight.

Why hot water freezes faster than cold waterOCT 31

Not to get all Malcolm Gladwell here, but it's counterintuitive that hot water freezes faster than cold water. The phenomenon is called the Mpemba effect and until recently, no one could explain how it works. A group of researchers in Singapore think they've cracked the puzzle.

Now Xi and co say hydrogen bonds also explain the Mpemba effect. Their key idea is that hydrogen bonds bring water molecules into close contact and when this happens the natural repulsion between the molecules causes the covalent O-H bonds to stretch and store energy.

But as the liquid warms up, it forces the hydrogen bonds to stretch and the water molecules sit further apart. This allows the covalent molecules to shrink again and give up their energy. The important point is that this process in which the covalent bonds give up energy is equivalent to cooling.

In fact, the effect is additional to the conventional process of cooling. So warm water ought to cool faster than cold water, they say. And that's exactly what is observed in the Mpemba effect.

(via ★djacobs)

Take-out place goes as Alinea for HalloweenOCT 31

Real Kitchen, a small Chicago eatery that mostly does take-out food, dressed up as Michelin 3-star Alinea for Halloween. Some genuine LOLs here, especially the table-side dessert to-go.

Facebook of the DeadOCT 31

For his latest What If? column, Randall Munroe tackles the question "When, if ever, will Facebook contain more profiles of dead people than of living ones?"

Based on the site's growth rate, and the age breakdown of their users over time, there are probably 10 to 20 million people who created Facebook profiles who have since died.

That's an incredible number; most tech startups would kill (well, not really but maybe...) for that many alive users.

101 objects that made AmericaOCT 31

This month, Smithsonian magazine tells the story of America using 101 objects drawn from the 19 musuems and research centers of the Smithsonian Institution. Among the objects are the original Star Spangled Banner flag, the passenger pigeon, the polio vaccine, the pill, and Benjamin Franklin's Experiments and Observations on Electricity.

Franklins Experiments

A companion book, The Smithsonian's History of America in 101 Objects, is available.

MLB player quits baseball for creative writingOCT 31

Adrian Cárdenas, formerly a player for the Chicago Cubs, quit baseball to pursue an education in creative writing and philosophy.

I wish I had looked up more often, even at the cost some of my success. The American dream didn't tell me that an experience only matters if I acknowledge it, that losing yourself in the game is a good way to lose what makes life meaningful. When you're standing at the plate and you hit a sharp foul ball to the backstop, the spot on the bat that made contact gets hot; the American dream forgot to tell me to step back and enjoy the smell of burnt wood.

Winners of the Small World micro-photography contestOCT 30

In Focus has a selection of winning photos from Nikon's Small World Photomicrography Competition. The award for most terrifying goes to Dimitri Seeboruth for his shot of a worker ant:

Small World Ant

I, for one, welcome our new insect overlords.

Older entries »

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