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• Vikram Gandhi: How to Start a Cult 

  Avi Solomon Permalink
  4:07 pm on 05/15/2012 | GAME ( 371 ), NEWS ( 1,051 ), VIDS ( 1,639 )   

  Vikram Gandhi started his own cult as an experiment to test the boundaries of religious belief (and gullibility or “gurribility” to be precise).

  View Link [vimeo.com]

• Chitrakatha: Documentary on Indian Comics 

  Avi Solomon Permalink
  2:45 pm on 04/12/2012 | ARTS ( 1,607 ), VIDS ( 1,639 )   

  Alok Sharma has posted a fascinating excerpt from his forthcoming documentary: “Chitrakatha: Indian Comics Beyond Balloons and Panels”

  http://chitrakathaonline.com/

  View Link [youtube.com]

• Forlorn Jewish cemetery in Karachi, Pakistan. 

  Avi Solomon Permalink
  12:53 am on 03/20/2012 | NEWS ( 1,051 ), VIDS ( 1,639 )   

  Shoieb Yunus captured some rare footage of the Jewish cemetery in Karachi, Pakistan. Bene Israel Indian Jews used to live in Karachi before the 1947 partition.

  View Link [vimeo.com]

• Floral X-rays 

  Avi Solomon Permalink
  2:46 pm on 03/19/2012 | ARTS ( 1,607 ), CUTE ( 835 ), SCIENCE ( 654 ), TECH ( 1,148 )   

  Brendan Fitzpatrick has made a beautiful series of x-ray photographs of flowers.

  View Link [brendanfitzpatrick.com]

• Scott Peterson’s LEGO Lightsabers 

  WONDERFUL Avi Solomon Permalink
  1:42 pm on 03/13/2012 | ARTS ( 1,607 ), CUTE ( 835 ), GAME ( 371 )   

  

  Scott Peterson cooked up a bunch of nifty designs for his LEGO Lightsabers. Now you can truly build your own lightsaber!

  More about Scott Peterson’s LEGO Lightsabers here:

  http://lego.cuusoo.com/ideas/view/11147

  View Link [flickr.com]

• Ogilvy Notes Visual Summaries of SXSW Panels 

  Avi Solomon Permalink
  12:19 am on 03/12/2012 | ARTS ( 1,607 ), GAME ( 371 ), TECH ( 1,148 )   

  Ogilvy Notes provides great visual summaries of the SXSW panels. This idea-art form is coming into it’s own.

  View Link [ogilvynotes.com]

• Maria Popova on Combinatorial Creativity 

  Avi Solomon Permalink
  7:30 am on 03/09/2012 | ARTS ( 1,607 ), GAME ( 371 ), TECH ( 1,148 ), VIDS ( 1,639 )   

  Maria Popova, the @brainpicker curator with a large and hugely influential following, provides a great manifesto on “Combinatorial Creativity”.

  View Link [brainpickings.org]

• Avatar (2009) vs. Dinotopia (2002) Flying Dragons 

  Avi Solomon Permalink
  3:31 am on 03/07/2012 | ARTS ( 1,607 ), CUTE ( 835 ), VIDS ( 1,639 )   

  This clip beautifully illustrates how James Cameron morphed the flying dinosaurs from James Gurney’s classic “Dinotopia” 2002 TV miniseries into the flying banshees of his 2009 blockbuster “Avatar”.
  The clincher – in both films, the riders bond with their flying Skybax/Ikran for life!

  View Link [youtube.com]

• Inner Steppe by Alex Schulz 

  Avi Solomon Permalink
  1:17 am on 03/06/2012 | ARTS ( 1,607 ), VIDS ( 1,639 )   

  Alex Schulz’s Inner Steppe is a “stop-motion animation based on the work of Hermann Hesse and Carl Gustav Jung”.

  View Link [vimeo.com]

• Muppet LEGO Minifigure Designs 

  WONDERFUL Avi Solomon Permalink
  6:33 am on 03/05/2012 | ARTS ( 1,607 ), CUTE ( 835 ), GAME ( 371 )   

  

  AFOL Quinn has come up with great LEGO Muppets minifig designs. You can read more about them here:

  http://lego.cuusoo.com/ideas/view/11050

  View Link [flickr.com]

• Your Brain on Psilocybin 

  Avi Solomon Permalink
  4:27 am on 03/01/2012 | SCIENCE ( 654 )   

  Implications for psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy: a functional magnetic resonance imaging study with psilocybin.
  Carhart-Harris RL, Leech R, Williams TM, Erritzoe D, Abbasi N, Bargiotas T, Hobden P, Sharp DJ, Evans J, Feilding A, Wise RG, Nutt DJ.
  Neuropsychopharmacology Unit, and University of Bristol, Academic Unit of Psychiatry.
  Br J Psychiatry. 2012 Jan 26.

  Evidence that psilocybin enhances autobiographical recollection implies that it may be useful in psychotherapy either as a tool to facilitate the recall of salient memories or to reverse negative cognitive biases.

  PDF:

  View Link [bjp.rcpsych.org]

• LEGO CUUSOO Star Wars Chess Set 

  WONDERFUL Avi Solomon Permalink
  6:59 am on 02/29/2012 | ARTS ( 1,607 ), CUTE ( 835 ), GAME ( 371 )   

  LEGO CUUSOO is a kind of Kickstarter for crowdsourced LEGO projects that are considered for official production if they garner 10,000 supporters. I’ve put up the LEGO Star Wars Chess Set I made for my 6 year old son as a CUUSOO project. Please support it and add your own pet LEGO project!

  LEGO Star Wars Chess Set Rebels:

  

  LEGO Star Wars Chess Set Imperials:

  

  View Link [lego.cuusoo.com]

• Talk by Kirby Ferguson, creator of Everything Is A Remix 

  Avi Solomon Permalink
  10:46 am on 02/26/2012 | ARTS ( 1,607 ), TECH ( 1,148 ), VIDS ( 1,639 )   

  Kirby Ferguson, creator of the “Everything Is A Remix” series, outlines his vision of a creativity of the cultural commons.

  View Link [vimeo.com]

• LEGO Raygun 

  Avi Solomon Permalink
  7:30 am on 02/26/2012 | ARTS ( 1,607 ), CUTE ( 835 ), GAME ( 371 ), TECH ( 1,148 )   

  

  AFOL Shannon Sproule built this charming Raygun entirely from LEGO parts.

  View Link [flickr.com]

• Full length “studio” photographs of trees at the height of their fertility 

  WONDERFUL Avi Solomon Permalink
  11:28 pm on 02/17/2012 | ARTS ( 1,607 )   

  

  Tal Shochat made a series of “studio” photographs depicting fruit trees (peach, almond, apple, pomegranate, persimmon) in their natural habitat at the height of their ripening.Her photograph of the pomegranate tree is particularly striking.

  More about her work:

  http://blog.pjvoice.com/diary/1842/dazzling-tree-photo-exhibit

  View Link [andreameislin.wordpress.com]

• Elastomeric Origami: Programmable Paper-Elastomer Composites as Pneumatic Actuators 

  Avi Solomon Permalink
  8:03 am on 02/14/2012 | ARTS ( 1,607 ), GAME ( 371 ), SCIENCE ( 654 ), TECH ( 1,148 ), VIDS ( 1,639 )   

  Air powered Origami Robots! Reminiscent of the pneumatic robots in Ted Chiang’s short story “Exhalation” http://boingboing.net/2009/02/26/ted-chiangs-story-ex.html

  View Link [wired.com]

• “The German” by Nick Ryan 

  Avi Solomon Permalink
  2:26 pm on 02/12/2012 | ARTS ( 1,607 ), GAME ( 371 ), VIDS ( 1,639 )   

  Nick Ryan’s Spitfire vs. Me-109 short “The German” is what George Lucas should have aspired to achieving in “Red Tails” .

  View Link [vimeo.com]

• Minimalistic Gramophone 

  Avi Solomon Permalink
  1:55 pm on 02/12/2012 | ARTS ( 1,607 ), GAME ( 371 ), SCIENCE ( 654 ), TECH ( 1,148 )   

  I’ve seen a similar DIY Phonograph at the NYC Maker Faire (http://www.flickr.com/photos/47222633@N05/6220463707/) but this German design for a manual Gramophone is more elegant.

  View Link [designmadeingermany.de]

• Origami Spaceships Galore 

  Avi Solomon Permalink
  1:29 pm on 02/08/2012 | ARTS ( 1,607 ), CUTE ( 835 ), GAME ( 371 ), TECH ( 1,148 )   

  Shu Sugamata has been making origami spaceships since 1977 and has amassed quite a body of gorgeous work.

  View Link [flickr.com]

• Awesome Fan-made LEGO Ninja Chess Set 

  Avi Solomon Permalink
  12:38 am on 02/07/2012 | ARTS ( 1,607 ), GAME ( 371 )   

  Kris Kelvin from Poland made this awesome LEGO Ninja Chess Set complete with storage drawers and timer.

  View Link [brickshelf.com]

• New Ted Chiang Interview 

  Avi Solomon Permalink
  3:26 am on 02/02/2012 | ARTS ( 1,607 ), SCIENCE ( 654 ), TECH ( 1,148 )   

  Here’s a thoughtful peek into the mind of Ted Chiang, the brilliant but spare SF short story writer.

  View Link [sf-fantasy.suvudu.com]

• Teens send LEGO minifig to the edge of Space 

  Avi Solomon Permalink
  9:10 pm on 01/25/2012 | SCIENCE ( 654 ), TECH ( 1,148 ), VIDS ( 1,639 )   

  Enterprising teens with a grat story. Too bad they didn’t choose a classic LEGO astronaut minifig!

  View Link [thestar.com]

• LEGO Star Wars Chess Set 

  Avi Solomon Permalink
  5:15 pm on 01/23/2012 | ARTS ( 1,607 ), GAME ( 371 )   

  Here’s my LEGO Star Wars Chess Set project over at LEGO CUUSOO, which is LEGO’s version of Kickstarter. If the project garners 10,000 supporters it has a great chance of becoming an official LEGO set! Only 9975 more to go:)

  More images at this Flickr set:

  http://www.flickr.com/photos/47222633@N05/sets/72157629002585681/detail/

  View Link [lego.cuusoo.com]

• David Eagleman: We live in the past…literally 

  Avi Solomon Permalink
  8:28 pm on 01/21/2012 | SCIENCE ( 654 ), VIDS ( 1,639 )   

  David Eagleman succinctly explains the surprising mechanics of Time perception.

  View Link [youtube.com]

• Taleb on Antifragility 

  Avi Solomon Permalink
  10:45 am on 01/16/2012 | NEWS ( 1,051 ), SCIENCE ( 654 ), TECH ( 1,148 )   

  Nassim Taleb talks about Antifragility, or how to flourish under stress.

  View Link [econtalk.org]