Interesting article about the winner of the annual Cartography and Geographic Information Society competition. The US map designed by Imus Geographics was all hand-made by one guy, David Imus. Maps are usually made with a computer algorithm which determines where things like city names are placed. This can cause problems when space is tight. Imus spent 2 years manually laying out his map, tweaking label positions, fonts, level of detail, and deciding which cities and towns to include. Very handsome use of colors too.
11:09 AM
10:46 AM
I saw The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and thought it was really good. Rooney Mara was fantastic as Lisbeth Salander (although the bleached eyebrows aren’t really my thing). The pacing is better than the Swedish version as there aren’t any wasted scenes or boring moments; it was a 3 hour movie but it went by really fast. They actually made watching people type and examine old photos look dramatic. Great soundtrack by Trent Reznor too, of which you can download a 6 track sampler.
6:10 PM
Calif. prison psychologist accused of faking rape
Police detectives and crime scene investigators spent hundreds of hours on the case, until one of Martinez’s prison co-workers came forward to say Martinez had been talking at work about faking a crime at her home to persuade her husband to move, Sacramento police Sgt. Andrew Pettit said Friday.
…
Missing from her home were two laptop computers, Martinez’s purse, an Xbox video game console, a camera and numerous credit cards that Martinez said the stranger had stolen.In reality, the items were all at the home of her friend, Nicole April Snyder, authorities allege. Investigators say Martinez had Snyder punch her in the face with boxing gloves they bought for that purpose.
Sounds like Lucy and Ethel’s scheme to get Ricky to move to a nicer neighborhood backfired on them.
11:24 AM
Artist Guy Laramee has a project called The Great Wall, very impressive landscapes carved out of books. I wonder if he got any papercuts.
10:53 AM
Land in Tokyo is some of the most expensive on the planet, so what do you do if you only have an 8 x 4 meter plot of land and you want to build a house? You build up. Architect Ryue Nishizawa designed a 5 story house with the living room/kitchen on the ground floor, a bedroom on the 2nd floor, bathroom on the 3rd, another bedroom on the 4th, and a roof-top terrace with a tiny room. Each floor is connected by stairs threaded through holes cut in the concrete floors. It has floor-to-ceiling windows throughout and plenty of plants screening it from the street, so it feels very open and airy. I love this kind of efficient use of small space.
2:43 PM
These carbon fiber stormtrooper outfits are so badass. Some guys at San Diego composites made these costumes with the help of their company. With carbon fiber’s high strength-to-weight ratio it looks like they actually made functional stormtrooper armor, as opposed to the plastic or fiberglass that costumes are usually made of.
10:15 AM
Ichiban toys offers awesome custom-made Lego models. They have lots of cool models Lego won’t, or can’t, get licenses for like the Back to the Future DeLorean, the Batpod, Star Trek ships, and various cars. Each kit includes all the pieces and instructions. The V3.0 DeLorean is especially cool, the gullwing doors open and it includes extra pieces to convert it to the versions from all 3 movies.
1:57 PM
Cleaning woman damages sculpture
A modern art installation valued at (EURO)800,000 ($1.1 million) was damaged after an overzealous cleaning woman scrubbed away a patina intended to look like a dried rain puddle, a Dortmund official said Friday.
I bet the cleaning woman’s going to be ultra cautious now. Empty coffee cup on a table? It’s probably art. Someone shit diarrhea and missed the toilet? Probably a new acquisition.
9:55 PM
Some neat Fallout animated GIFs.
9:52 PM
Yelping with Cormac: reviews of San Francisco businesses if Cormac McCarthy were a yelper. Im gonna start writing without any punctuation.
6:46 PM
I finally got my first iPhone after years of using regular old “dumbphones.” The retina display is amazing, everything looks crisp and smooth and type is so sharp. I used my iPhone for a bit and then used my old iPod touch and it’s a huge difference. The iPod now seems all hazy. How the hell did I use it for so long? I like the design of the case too, it’s a really solid, dense-feeling hunk of metal and glass. I’m glad they didn’t redesign the case for the 4S. It’s also way faster than my iPod touch. I’d say it’s almost as fast as my iPad.
8:41 PM
I went out to Zine Fest on Sunday in Golden Gate Park. It was really cool, lots of people selling their zines and comics and artwork. I thought the scene might’ve died down a little with the demise of Factsheet 5 and the rise of blogs, but it looked healthy to me. I met V. Vale, founder of the legendary RE/Search Publications. Really cool guy. I bought some zines and artwork and attended a panel. It was fun, I’ll have to remember to go again next year.
4:02 PM
There’s a good post over on Randomwire about Hong Kong as the inspiration for the futuristic cityscape in the Ghost in the Shell movie. I’m kind of wondering why they went all the way to Hong Kong, though, as Tokyo looks just as futuristic. Anyway, there’s comparison pictures and a cool video. I love watching cityscapes like that. Just replace the GITS soundtrack with something by Front Line Assembly and it’d be total cyberpunk.
3:46 PM
More pictures of that fancy Norwegian prison. The jail cells are nicer than my college dorm room, and I had to pay to live there.
12:11 PM
Note to self: If I want to commit some crimes, do it in Norway. Jesus, I’m a law-abiding citizen and I don’t even have a personal trainer.
