“What if just knowing what a word meant could help feed hungry people around the world? Well, at FreeRice it does…the totals have grown exponentially.” THE WASHINGTON POST
What a concept: improving your vocabulary while you feed the hungry world. This is one of Popular Kinetics’ favorite sites. Every English word you get right in a multiple-choice format triggers a donation of 20 grains of rice to the UN World Food Program. Doesn’t sound like much, does it? But the rice adds up quickly, and every grain is essential when fighting world hunger. A brilliant combination of education and activism! Visit the web site and apply your mind to helping in this great cause.
In still animation, each frame advances the story just a little bit. The frames move so quickly before your eyes that you barely notice they are individual images spliced together to create a “moving picture.” Here, the technique is sometimes visible, but all the more amazing because the images that move are painted, then scrubbed out as part of the narrative itself. This short film titled “Muto” is by the artist Blu, shot on walls in Buenos Aires and Baden, with a soundtrack by Andrea Martignoni. It is a totally captivating adventure.
Many people know of the Library of Congress and take time to visit it’s beautiful Jefferson Building while here in Washington, D.C. But they may not realize that the core of the library was Thomas Jefferson’s own collection of books. Jefferson was an avid reader and acquired books throughout his lifetime. He eventually amassed the largest personal collection in the United States at the time. Then came the War of 1812, when the British burned Congress’s first library of 1000 titles. Jefferson offered to sell his library of 6,487 volumes to Congress. They purchased it for $23,950 in 1815. Sadly, a second fire in the library in 1851 destroyed approximately 4000 of those books.
Over the past ten years, the Library of Congress has been attempting to re-create the original Jefferson collection. Working with book dealers in the U.S. and Europe, they have managed to locate copies of most of the books. (There are still about 300 very rare books that are missing and may never be found.) The books are on display at the library, in the same configuration that they were at Jefferson’s Monticello home: in a spiral, organized into the categories of memory, reason, and imagination. The exhibit is behind glass, but visitors can look through the books digitally on computers using touch-screen technology to turn the pages.
What is art? Critics have debated this question forever. Here is a funny yet thoughtful discussion of the subject, presented in claymation by a host of gregarious animal characters. Though they don’t answer the question definitively, they make some pertinent points.
These landscapes by British photographer Carl Warner are composed of the stuff of grocery stores and farmers’ markets. Fruits, vegetables, and grains all serve to suggest landscape elements. The artist photographs individual components while his subjects are fresh, then digitally constructs the layers into finished scenes. To see more of Warner’s work, visit the haha.nu blogzine or Warner’s fancy website (requiring Flash 6 or above).
Ruth Marcus teaches an art class with students who are mostly Sudanese refugees. Recently she did a project where they learned how to make some basic pop-ups. “With only two pieces of paper, some cutting and some glue, the kids can make moving cards of their very own, and color all over them as well.” Visit the kids at Ruth’s blog to see more photos.
The long-awaited Volume 2 of Carol Barton’s The Pocket Paper Engineer is on it’s way, and will be available in late June. This volume will cover the steps in constructing four glued pop-ups: platforms, props, spirals, and straddles. The book includes ten new projects to be constructed right out of the book, plus lots of photos, ideas, and step-by-step instructions for creating your own pop-ups.
We’ve just returned from China where The Pocket Paper Engineer, Volume 2, is being printed, and one of the things we’re always fascinated by there are the joss papers. Also known as dzi-dzat, these are paper reproductions of commerical objects that are burned as offerings for the dead. Traditional joss papers are silver and gold paper squares. Others take the form of stacks of faux paper money (known as “hell notes”). But these days, all manner of objects are appearing in temple stores: paper cell phones, TV sets, laptops, and even small cars, to be burned in large ovens on site. Pictured above is one of our favorites, a dental kit featuring a paper toothbrush, toothpaste tube, mouthwash bottle and cup.
The tradition of joss papers goes back to feudal China, when printed paper charms and offerings were displayed and burned at auspicious times of the year. For more information on joss papers, visit these sites:
Want some fun furniture for your kids to play on? Try making these folded paper pieces: a stool, a chair, and a rocker. Designed by Swiss architect Nicola Enrico Staubli, these simple yet sturdy items can be constructed from corrugated cardboard (preferably recycled) and decorated with paints, crayons, or collage elements. You can download the patterns for free from Staubli’s Foldschool web site: http://foldschool.com/_objects/objects_stool/objects_stool.html
Here at Popular Kinetics, radio is our constant studio companion. One of our favorite shows is Radio Lab, produced by New York Public Radio station WNYC. With themes such as Sleep, Morality, and Time, each hour-long segment approaches its subject from a scientific, artistic, and philosophical viewpoint. The station only produces about five shows a year because they are so research- and labor-intensive. Each program is funny, insightful, and full of great storytelling.
Here’s a sample podcast. Sleep Every creature does it - from giant hump back whales all the way down to fruit flies - and yet science still can’t answer the basic questions: Why do we sleep? What is it for? We’ll eavesdrop on the uneasy dreams of rats in search of answers. http://www.wnyc.org/shows/radiolab/episodes/2007/05/25
