Deadly Truck Accident Spills Millions Of Nickels On Florida's I95 [Offbeat N...

 

 

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Deadly Truck Accident Spills Millions Of Nickels On Florida's I95 [Offbeat News]

via Jalopnik by Ben Wojdyla on 9/17/08

Last night on Florida's I95 freeway a US Treasury truck carrying four million nickels was southbound on its way from Philadelphia to Miami when it collided with another southbound truck, spilling $187,000 worth of coins all over the scene. The passenger in the Treasury truck died as a result of the accident and Florida police are currently investigating the scene. Also on hand are Treasury officials attempting to clean up the mess and eager citizens trying to grab some coins and not get slapped with a Federal robbery charge. [Local6]

 

 

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Searching Google and Yahoo! Concurrently

 

 

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Searching Google and Yahoo! Concurrently

via WebWorkerDaily by Samuel Dean on 9/3/08

I've written about alternative search engines here before, and because I spend so much time searching, I always keep my eye out for good new search ideas to try. Recently, I've been using SearchBoth, which has an interesting spin on the concept of searching multiple sites at once.

SearchBoth lets you search a few different types of sites concurrently, but the one web workers may find most useful is searching Google and Yahoo at the same time. At the site's home page, you can enter your search term once, hit Search, and get back a dual-paned view of the results from both sites. For some kinds of searches, your results won't differ all that much between the two views, but for others they will.

In particular, I have found SearchBoth to be good for searching for images. For example, if I enter Linus Torvalds as my search term and toggle SearchBoth to find images, I'll get back two completely different views of Torvalds images–both scrollable as they would be when using the sites on a standalone basis–and I get a mixed bag of photos that I might want to use.

SearchBoth can also be useful for comparing prices for technology products you may be in the market for. I entered Asus Eee PC as my search term in SearchBoth, and found the lowest prices on the Google pane on the left of my screen, but for other products, Yahoo! pulled up the lowest prices.

You can also use SearchBoth to pull up news stories and blog posts that both Google and Yahoo! find. This is useful when a particular piece of news  is breaking and I want to see who may have picked it up.

If you like the idea of seeing your search results in ways that you're not used to, and you haven't tried it yet, you may also like Redzee. Redzee returns thumbnail graphical images of your results, and lets you drag to cycle through them. They cycle by very much like the Cover Flow feature works on an iPod, and this can be useful if what you're looking for is an image or graphic rather than text.

Do you use any alternative search engines?

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200,000 Core Supercomputer to be Built, Still Not As Clever as HAL [Supercom...

 

 

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200,000 Core Supercomputer to be Built, Still Not As Clever as HAL [Supercomputers]

via Gizmodo by Kit Eaton on 9/4/08

Recently green-lit to be built at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, IBM's future Blue Waters supercomputer is peta'd all over. It'll have up to 2-petaflops processing speed, more than a petabyte of memory and a 10 petabyte disk storage system. It'll also have more than 200,000 processor cores, and cost around $208 million, which is even more 000s. All this power is going to be used for proper hard science like simulating the Sun's coronal mass ejections, studying black holes, and molecular biology. Probably developing on IBM's previous Roadrunner supercomputer power, it should be accessible nationally, at campus-level. And you can bet someone'll program it to sing "Daisy, daisy" pretty soon after it goes online in 2011. [NetworkWorld via Slashdot]

 

 

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Yuko Adachi

 

 

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Yuko Adachi

via Changethethought™ by Christopher on 9/4/08

Interesting art in varying styles and executions by someone who no doubt must be an equally interesting person and that person is 'super fine' artist Yuko Adachi.

Artist statement:
"My work is about a celebration of human creativity and being alive in the present moment. I do not do any preliminary sketches for any of my works. I dive into the unknown and just follow where my energy and curiosity takes me in the given moment. Through the creation of my work, I want to become one with the universal energy and tap into unlimited well of my imagination and express it.

Art is love and it is my life.
-YUKO ADACHI"

 

 

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Arn Kim Ran MacRumors While a Full-time Doctor [Apple]

 

 

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Arn Kim Ran MacRumors While a Full-time Doctor [Apple]

via Gizmodo by Brian Lam on 7/21/08

On top of running a bitchin' keynote liveblog, MacRumors owner Arn Kim was up until recently a full-time medical doctor. He's a friend who I've come to rely on as a sounding board for Apple rumors at 3am or any other obscene time of day, so I'm glad to see him being recognized with a profile in the NYT. [Photo by Jay Paul]

 

 

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Blog of a Bookslut

The Guardian has an excerpt from travel writer Daniel Kalder's new book Strange Telescopes. In 1997, not long after I had first arrived in Moscow, my friend Sergei told me about the Diggers. They were a group of sensitive, educated people who had turned their backs on modern life and retreated to the network of tunnels and secret bunkers beneath the city. There they had formed a new society that was fairer and more just than the surface one. It was dark, beautiful, surreal - precisely the kind of world I wanted to live in. Permalink

Slashdot News for nerds, stuff that matters

Cognition Enhancer Research By ScuttleMonkey on what-happened-to-ginkgo-biloba oschobero writes to tell us the Economist has a look at pharmaceutical research as it applies to cognition enhancers. While the research is obviously focused on things like Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, and schizophrenia the resulting drugs may also have a benefit to healthy minds. "Provigil and Ritalin really do enhance cognition in healthy people. Provigil, for example, adds the ability to remember an extra digit or so to an individual's working memory (most people can hold seven random digits in their memory, but have difficulty with eight). It also improves people's performance in tests of their ability to plan. Because of such positive effects on normal people, says the report, there is growing use of these drugs to stave off fatigue, help shift-workers, boost exam performance and aid recovery from the effects of long-distance flights." Read more of this story at Slashdot. Link

Bloglines - Teen Discovers Plastic-Decomposing Bacteria

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Slashdot News for nerds, stuff that matters

Teen Discovers Plastic-Decomposing Bacteria By ScuttleMonkey on here-comes-the-study-claiming-it-causes-cancer ganelo writes to tell us that 16-year-old Waterloo Collegiate Institute student Danel Burd has made quite a stir with his plastic-eating bacteria discovery. For his efforts Burd won top prize at a Canada-wide science fair claiming a $10,000 prize and a $20,000 scholarship. "Tests to identify the strains found strain two was Sphingomonas bacteria and the helper was Pseudomonas. A researcher in Ireland has found Pseudomonas is capable of degrading polystyrene, but as far as Burd and his teacher Mark Menhennet know -- and they've looked -- Burd's research on polyethelene plastic bags is a first." Read more of this story at Slashdot. Link

Bloglines - Blender 2.46 Released

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Slashdot News for nerds, stuff that matters

Blender 2.46 Released By ScuttleMonkey on lots-of-new-toys The Penguin Man writes to mention the latest release of Blender, the popular open-source 3D graphics suite was officially launched today. You can download it from Blender.org. The culmination of half a year's work has resulted in many new features including a new particle system, approximate AO, the new cloth simulation system, and much more! Read more of this story at Slashdot. Link

Bloglines - Google Assists In Arrest Of Indian Man

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Slashdot News for nerds, stuff that matters

Google Assists In Arrest Of Indian Man By CmdrTaco on many-shades-of-evil An anonymous reader writes "After a Google user posted a profane picture of the Hindu saint Shivaji, Indian authorities contacted Google to ask for his IP address. Google complied. He was arrested and is reported to have been beaten by a lathi and asked to use the same bowl to eat and to use in the toilet. Not surprisingly, Google is a keen to play this down as Yahoo is being hauled over the coals by US Congress for handing over an IP addresses and emails to the Chinese Government which resulted in a Chinese democracy activist being jailed." Readers are noting that these are 2 unrelated cases — the latter is several months old. Read more of this story at Slashdot. Link

Bloglines - Face to Face

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i love typography, the typography blog

Face to Face By johno (iLT) on typography An Interview With Stefan Hattenbach Stefan Hattenbach started designing typefaces in 1996. In 2003, he established his own independent foundry and design studio, MAC Rhino Fonts (MRF). Proud A.S. Roma supporter and father of two, Stefan works his magic from a studio in the beautiful city of Stockholm. What do you love about designing type? Oh many things. One is the challenge of getting the details to work, but at the same time contribute to the overall style of the typeface. Another pleasure is to see if your initial ideas will be suited for a final product. Sometimes the end result turns out just fine but not as you planned from the beginning. A third thing would be the fact that the same "basic pieces" are used over and over again, like notes in music, and yet the outcome can be so different. Why do you design type? Because I have to! It's both a drug and a passion combined into a weird "relationship". My passion for typography and the shapes of letters had been lurking for long time. Then in 1996 I couldn't hold it back any longer. Ever since, it's grown stronger. The more I do it, the more involved I get. I have high expectations and am quite strict with myself, but overall it's fun, fun and fun. How do you feel when you see your typefaces in use? Of course I feel very proud to see graphic designers or others make good use of my own typefaces. It's like a personal reward and also a proof that they are worth buying. Sometimes they are used in a disagreeable way, but that's part of the game when you make your typefaces available to the public. Actually I'm often surprised at how others can come up with so many nice solutions—solutions that I wouldn't have envisaged myself. Do you see yourself more as an artist or an "engineer"? I would say more as an artist. The technical aspects of type design interest me far less than the "arty" ones. I know both are important for the end result, but I often let other colleagues help me with kerning, format generating, etc. At this stage of the process my brain is often set on the next typeface in line. Do you have any more plans for Anziano? A sans serif counterpart, perhaps? I'm not sure about Anziano sans serif. For now I can't see it on the horizon. What I do know for sure, is that it will be upgraded in the near future. My friend Peter Bruhn at Fountain Type Foundry has urged me to complete a full range of small caps. This is a part of the transformation which will eventually turn Anziano into an OTF Pro. Anziano includes some beautiful ornaments. Where did you get your inspiration for those? Thanks. I've always been fascinated by icons, ornaments, and patterns. So for me it feels quite natural to include a set like this for most of my typefaces. I gather information and inspiration from various places. I usually take a lot of pictures when I travel. I know for sure that some details found on buildings and elsewhere inspired some of the Anziano ornaments. Others were found in old books. Do you have a favourite period in type history? I love the Jugend era in general and some of the ideas for my icons and ornaments have been found within that period. However, the typefaces of that period are very distinctive and therefore "marked by their time" and not wholly suitable for modern layouts. Having done more text oriented typefaces over the past years, I've become influenced by the masters from the 17th and 18th centuries. I'm full of respect for the letter forms shaped back then, and how they still hold such a strong position even today! Do you have favourite typefaces and type designers? I assume every artist is influenced by others, for better or for worse. I see it as a part of one's "artistic evolution". Barry Deck, Neville Brody and Emigre were my early sources of inspiration. Also the Swedish designer Karl-Erik Forsberg (1914-1995) has inspired me. Two of my earlier designs are interpretations of his work and sketches (Lunda Modern and Remontoire). As for favourite typefaces, some "all-time picks" would be: Bello (Underware), Home Run Script (Doyald Young), Eidetic (Rodrigo Cavazos), Morgan (Mario Feliciano) and Proforma (Petr van Blokland). Can you tell us something about how you design type? Basically I do a lot of research to make sure it hasn't already been done. If It's an interpretation of some historical typeface, I study the existing versions in detail. All this is to be certain that I end up with a unique and personal typeface, while paying the utmost respect to designers of the past and the present. Another important thing to figure out from the beginning is how the typeface is intended to be used. Different usage requires different approaches and needs—these factors will influence the design. I always begin with the "regular" weight. After that I usually let the typeface rest for a while. Usually some weeks but sometimes even months. That gives me a good perspective on the design. 9 out of 10 times, this will lead me in a new direction—one that I wouldn't have envisaged at the beginning. I've found this process very "healthy" and it always moves the design forward in a positive direction. When the regular master weight is done (after a few rounds), I move on with the italic, bold, small caps, etc. I finish up with alternates and ornaments/dingbats if needed. What are your plans for the future? For the past two years I've managed to work almost full time with type design. My long-held desire is to be able to continue this way. I really enjoy designing logotype, identities and graphic design in smaller portions. This is an excellent way of testing my own typefaces in real projects, and also stay in touch with the "end user side". Regarding upcoming projects, I have a few custom type projects lining up. More designs are planned and in progress for Veer Inc. Also, some major upgrades for my designs at Fountain are just around the corner. Oh yes, the web site needs a major face lift as well, but that's another story…. You can buy Stefan's fonts from Psy/Ops, Fountain, Veer, and FontShop. Image credits: Luminance, Sophisto, and Lunda Modern specimens courtesy of Stephen Coles. Thank you for subscribing to iLT! Buy and try Type from Veer Face to Face Comments