Ant Lab is back with another stunning video, this one of Beetles, in flight and at swim, filmed at 6000 frames per second.
If you're unfamiliar with the Ant Lab channel, check out their vid on moths from a few years ago:
There
Posts that focus on and link to the doings of others.
234 PostsKathleen Reilly has redesigned the butterknife so that it doesn't slide off plates and jars. Genius.
She calls this knife Oku. It was inspired by Japanese design and the Oku are made there. Back her on Kickstarter or get more information on her site.
The Geographics YouTube channel has a documentary on Kowloon Walled City, the once extraordinary and ungoverned enclave in Hong Kong.
Click the image below and then use the magnifying glass to zoom in on a cross-section of the city. Simply incredible.
More details on the image on Spoon + Tomago's site.
Via Metafilter.
Some nice street photography and portraiture by Brit, Charlie Kwai.
More in the Projects section of Charlie Kwai's site.
Charlie Kwai
Charlie Kwai is a British photographer known for his direct approach to street photography across the UK and around the Globe.
Stunning two minute video of a Starling Murmuration. Such a glorious phenomena.
From filmmaker Jan van Ijken.
Some wild genius has used Genius — the site generally used to explain Hip Hop lyrics — to completely break down Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby.
Below are two 60-minute documentaries, made twenty years apart, about Clive Wearing, a Brit with the worst-ever recorded case of amnesia. Clive's memories only last between seven and thirty seconds.
I first read about Wearing in the 90s in Oliver Sacks' The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat. Sacks later spoke about him on an episode of Radio Lab, and wrote about him again in The New Yorker in 2007.
Prisoner of Consciousness, 1985:
The Man With the Seven Second Memory, 2005
Oliver Sacks: Music and Amnesia
From 2007: Oliver Sacks on Clive Wearing, an English musician struck by a devastating brain infection that left him with retrograde amnesia and a memory span of only seconds.
Wearing is still alive as I write this. He's 86 and has been living with "the illness" for almost 40 years.
Clive Wearing - Wikipedia
Contributors to Wikimedia projects
I listened to this episode of 99% Invisible a while back and have been thinking about it ever since. It explores tradition, religion, class, and the holy work of Parsis who labor in the roofless Towers of Silence, sacred structures where bodies of the dead are left for vultures.
Regardless of what you think about religion, India, or vultures, I promise you, it's a fascinating listen that goes places you won't anticipate.
Towers of Silence - 99% Invisible
Situated right near downtown Mumbai, India is an area of about 55 acres of dense, overgrown forest. In one of the most populous cities in the world, this is a place where peacocks roam freely — a space out of time. This forest is protected by a religious community. It has survived in a relatively
Lasha Madan
It's reported by Producer Lasha Madan.
The Pudding does a deep dive on climate in 70 international cities over the next 45 years. Mouse your way to misery with data!
Climate Zones
Explore how will your city feel in the future.
Last year they mapped record-high heat in the US:
Mapping Record-High Heat in U.S. Cities
We’re tracking how the hottest year on Earth is affecting heat records.
I love beautifully-crafted things.
Jon-Paul Wheatley hand-makes soccer balls (aka footballs). Though usually they're just for show, he has made balls for Adidas, FIFA, and Burberry.
He recently made a limited edition of 1000 balls which he called The Original 92. They were USD300 each. I didn't hear about them until they were sold out, but probably would have purchased one even though I do not play football (aka soccer), because I love beautifully-crafted things.
Here are some of the balls from his Lab:
Wonderful stuff.
Check out his site, 12 Pentagons, to see the full gallery of other Lab designs.
He's also got a YouTube channel with some how-to vids and other stuff:
jonpaulsballs
I’m Jon-Paul and I make balls. This is my public ball R&D lab. I spend my time exploring new constructions, testing materials, designing balls around themes and reverse engineering popular balls throughout history.
