Utterly amazing visualization and animation of live wind flows across the US generated from the National Digital Forecast Database.
Oh and it’s interactive too. Impressive piece of work from Martin Wattenberg and Fernanda Viegas .
(via FlowingData )
From NASA. An astounding visualization of all the currents of the world’s oceans. Amazing. And this isn’t even considering large scale phenomenon like the Great Thermohaline Conveyor .
Just look at it. Wow. Make sure to HD and full screen it for full effect.
In the vein of Dancing Matt , 5000 miles of hitchhiking the US and 930 people in 162 seconds. Dedicated to the people everywhere who will help out a “stranger.” Lurv.
Mythbusters’ Adam Savage talks about how simple ideas yield amazing revelations and how we’re all capable of them. Most discoverers “just thought a little bit harder and were a bit more curious.” Some great examples. From TEDEd.
(via FlowingData )
You may not know it, but the last decade (or so) has seen this quiet revolution of innovation in origami going on while you’ve been doing other things. All these impressive paper folders doing incredible things with humble sheets of papyrus and turning a classic art on its head and pushing the envelope (pun intended ;-p). So, you gotta love this short, stop action animation of an origami rhino being unfolded. Lovely and very zen.
Really impressive post-apocalyptic animated short from Oddball Animation that the authors want to make into something feature length.
Not sure what might be holding them back, but if they’d Kickstarter this I’d absolutely fund it based on the strength of this short. Quite amazed at the quality of some of the shorts I’ve seen earlier, just hope it’s not isolated from a larger story they need to tell.
“The Universe is in us.” - Dr. Neil DeGrasse Tyson
We are the stuff of stars. Probably the most profound thing I’ve heard in, well… too long. Beautiful and inspiring.
And perhaps something we should remind ourselves of a little more often.
via Blame It On The Voices .
Apparently, the original pilot for the iconic Muppet Show was much, much different than what the series eventually ended up being. The pilot was originally aimed squarely at adults and pitched to parody the proliferation of ex and violence on TV. Kermit wasn’t even hosting!
So, check out this segment of the pilot as well as the pilot in its entirety over at Laughing Squid . Cool, but strangely unsettling in a familiar, non-threatening, muppet-esque kind of way.
And the end of economic growth.
Thought his point about our inaction keeping on going until it hits our economies was interesting, as well as how the crises will occur. And how crisis is necessary for us to react. Great TED talk. A bit terrifying but also surprisingly hopeful.
Kirby Ferguson has just posted the last of his brilliant four-part series on remix culture that we talked about here a few months back .
Insightful, interesting and food for thought. Enjoy the finale and make sure to see all four if you haven’t already checked them out.).