Nerd, Dork, Geek

Nerd, Dork, Geek

A wonderful meditation on life

Ken Burns: On Story

Ken Burns: On Story:

What makes a great story? For legendary filmmaker Ken Burns, the answer is both complicated and personal. In this short documentary about the craft of storytelling, he explains his lifelong mission to wake the dead! Very interesting talk if you havent seen it already

Thomas Allen’s Pulp Fiction Pop-Up Photographs

Thomas Allen’s Pulp Fiction Pop-Up Photographs:


Always Fascinated by pop-up books, Thomas Allen displays an infallible talent for the creation of the illusion of three dimensions, using old pulp fiction books as the subjects for his sets.These books tattered covers and yellowed pages are not mere objects to display on a shelf, for the artist but a prodigious inventory of actors and scenes, just waiting to be directed.
Allen patiently cuts out the figures, freeing them from their two-dimensional state: the actors are then raised from the covers and come alive thanks to skillful use of lighting and the camera’s lens. Bent and positioned, the scripted drama is staged, bringing to life the stories written and not written in the books that act now as the stories stage.

This made me cry today: Woman controls robot arm with her mind

Woman controls robot arm with her mind:



In this video, a woman known as Cathy, who is unable to speak or move any of her limbs or torso, controls a robot arm with her mind to take a sip of coffee. This fantastic breakthrough is reported in the current issue of the science journal Nature. Cathy has been implanted with a BrainGate neural interface (below left), the same technology that previously enabled two individuals to control computer cursors with thought alone. One of the lead researchers is Brown University neuroengineer Leigh Hochberg. I visited Leigh more than 13 years ago when he was a grad student at Emory University. He introduced me to monkeys who had received neuroimplants in his lab. At the time, Leigh was just trying to record the signals from the monkeys' brains while also dealing with the implants' proclivity to move around, reducing the quality of the signal over time. Leigh was humble, cautiously optimistic, and deeply dedicated. Amazing how far this research has come. From Nature:

The (latest) study participants — known as Cathy and Bob — had had strokes that damaged their brain stems and left them with tetraplegia and unable to speak. Neurosurgeons implanted tiny recording devices containing almost 100 hair-thin electrodes in the motor cortex of their brains, to record the neuronal signals associated with intention to move.

In a trial filmed in April last year and presented with the paper, Cathy, who had her stroke 15 years ago and received the implants in 2005, used her thoughts to steer a robot arm to grasp a bottle of coffee and lift it to her lips. She drank and smiled.

‘We’ll never forget that smile,” says Hochberg...

In the longer term, the scientists want to dispense with the wires that must be attached to a patient’s skull; wireless systems are in development… Even further in the future, researchers hope to dispense with the robot arms and direct the decoded brain signals straight to the patient’s own muscles.

"Mind-controlled robot arms show promise"

• Researchers expand clinical study of brain implant - Boing Boing

A Dream Home: Tusculum Residence by Smart Design Studio

Tusculum Residence by Smart Design Studio:
Smart Design Studio designed a contemporary renovation and extension for an early 20th-century terrace house in Sydney, Australia.

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This exciting renovation and extension of a turn-of-the-century terrace house in Sydney’s Potts Point focuses on a grand and gracefully spiralling stair that forms the pivotal junction of the old and new parts of the house. The staircase, spanning the width of the building, features delicate fan-like steel treads cantilevered from the central steel post and winding their way past six split levels, offset between the old and new sides of the house. The stair was conceived as the element that grafts the contemporary and new minimal structure to the refined, trimmed and formal older portion of the dwelling.

Spacious living areas and private zones open out from each side of the stair with one area per level alternating between the old and new building. Formal living, dining, kitchen and informal living; master suite, guest suite, study and laundry: each zone maintains a natural sense of privacy from the other through the offset in level yet maintains a sense of interconnection in the openness and movement created by the stair.
Internally, finishes in the old portion of the house are contemporary and elegant in a stripped-classical style with deep flush skirting boards, mannered panelled doors and wide timber floorboards, all in gloss white paint and offset by richly coloured set plaster walls. In contrast, the mainly white extension with the same gloss white floorboards, features a black stained timber-boarded joinery element across three levels. Bronze window frames, ironmongery and trims unite both portions of the three-storey home.
Externally, the connection to the outdoors is accentuated through a 13 metre clear span wall of sliding doors that overlooks a pocket garden. An addition to this, the bi-folding doors are concealed by joinery to provide a seamless connection to the tiered rear garden with mature pepper tree. This house offers extraordinary spaces complemented by confident forms, understated design and exquisite detail.

Visit the Smart Design Studio website – here.

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iPod Body Mod: magnetic wrist piercings become mount for Apple iPod Nano

iPod Body Mod: magnetic wrist piercings become mount for Apple iPod Nano:

REUTERS/Keith Bedford







Tattoo artist Dave Hurban displays an iPod Nano which he has attached to his wrists through magnetic piercings in his wrist in New York, May 14, 2012. Reuters has an interview with him here.

"I just invented the strapless watch," he said on Monday of his Apple Inc device, set to display a clock.

Hurban cheerfully recounted how he mapped out the four corners of the iPod on his arm and then inserted four titanium studs into his skin. Once the incisions healed, he popped on his iPod, which is held in place magnetically.

"It's way simpler than you think it is," said Hurban.

Below, Durban's HOWTO video for the project he calls "iDermal," explaining how he pulled it off. Not that he can just, you know, pull them off now.