Infrastructure from Doyle Partners.

I’m including this one because it made me smile (and I am feeling very sleepy right now). The OCD one made me anxious.

The clock, made by Maria Bergstrom, accepts magnets, which are gently swept by the hand when you inevitably fail to complete the tasks they represent.

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UPDATE: @MayorEmanuel revealed by Alexis Madrigal! Madrigal drew out the mind behind the Twitter stream, and gives lots of great backstory detail.

More at Kate Beaton’s LiveJournal.

Roses are red, violets are blue. Sugar is sweet, and I think I left the iron on.

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I’m crazy for you! Get it?

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I’d touch you without gloves. If I could, I mean.

More at McSweeney’s.

More at Defective Yeti

Full size, and more, at Richard Thompson’s site.

It’s not all that easy to play! Also, I really want a cup of tea now.

The High Society exhibition also offers a quiz, an image gallery, information about drug use in Victorian England, a companion book, and related reading.

Follow the link to see that, yes, those are punctuation marks and other symbols. She makes these intricate illustrations using a typewriter.

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And just today a coworker told me about a wonderful fabric website!

Electronic Castaways

Coincidence? Or conspiracy!

Update: Oh, and happy new year!

Pretty wonderful design project challenging the notion that a prosthetic should simply mimic natural function. I think this is a natural direction of design in the spirit of the Cheetah Flex-Foot, which is a highly specialized shock absorber. It’s an approach that says, “OK, let’s start with the function, and see where the form goes.”

This is a fairly specialized option, but it’s only one step before a base arm unit with a variety of attachments. I don’t know if I’m ready to give my left arm for it yet, but I’ll be interested to see where this kind of work goes.

So gorgeous illustrations for free cookbook, available in IKEA stores in Sweden. More

Got a question for the Old Spice man? Want to comment on his amazing abs? Do it. Reach out on Twitter, facebook, or your personal blog. He will find it and respond. You can follow the action on Twitter or on the Old Spice brand channel.

They have made a ton of these already, and Mustafa continues to be utterly charming. The man is a complete professional. Which of course is why I am so interested. Because after 15 years in the advertising industry, I deeply appreciate this kind of dedication and excellent creative. Yep.

UPDATE: Making the Old Spice response videos. They have made over 150 so far (June 14)!

Oh and he sent real flowers in real life to Alyssa Milano! I love this campaign.

I am in love with it.

I want to marry it.

UPDATE, June 15: Throwing in the towel. Don’t get excited, though – towel not actually thrown.

Reporting in the journal Animal Behaviour, the Steele team showed that when squirrels are certain that they are being watched, they will actively seek to deceive the would-be thieves. They’ll dig a hole, pretend to push an acorn in, and then cover it over, all the while keeping the prized seed hidden in their mouth. “Deceptive caching involves some pretty serious decision making,” Dr. Steele said. “It meets the criteria of tactical deception, which previously was thought to only occur in primates.”

And many other squirrel facts of interest in Nut? What Nut? The Squirrel Outwits to Survive.

Pelicans receive fish at the London Zoo

Pelicans have been perfect since the early Oligocene, according to a newly published analysis of a fossilized bill, and partial skull and neck. The study’s lead author, Antoine Louchart, doesn’t actually want to commit to that interpretation, but the 30-million-year old fossil he reports on is so similar to today’s pelican species that it would be classified in the Pelecanus genus.

Study at J Ornithol

…Richard Feynman argued that, in reality, the bouncing beads would not be capable of doing meaningful work. Feynman showed that, since the entire system operates at the same temperature, a pawl would occasionally slip off the wheel. As a result, the system would generate zero net movement.

Now, physicist Devaraj van der Meer from the University of Twente and his colleagues have demonstrated that such a machine can in fact spin the paddles forward only, generating a positive net movement … The key challenge was getting the vanes to move in the forward direction only, which the scientists achieved with – somewhat surprisingly – duct tape….

Is there anything duct tape can’t do? Besides break the second law of thermodynamics, I mean.

Newly created machine on Vimeo. Write-up at PhysOrg.com: Experiment finally proves 100-year-old thought experiment is possible .

I know some wonderfully creative people who really know how to get stuff done. Over the weekend, I volunteered some time to help them produce 48 Hour Magazine, and it’s already available at MagCloud. It was a crazy idea and a wonderful thing to be involved with – and I can’t wait til the next one!

Update: CBS has issued a cease-and-desist letter claiming infringement on “48 Hours.” Mat Honan is collecting information about the process and the coverage.

Update June 15: State of the case, with links to other recent coverage

This video was prepared by the UK branch of Dorling Kindersley Books. Originally meant solely for a DK sales conference, the video was such a hit internally that it is now being shared externally.

Of course, everything really clever has already been done:

The second-place in AARP “U@50″ contest, in 2007, itself explicitly inspired by an award-winning ad made in Argentina for candidate Lopez Murphy.

Wonderful embroidery portraits from Naomi Cayne. She also touches on koalas, robots, and bicycles.

This is a fun reel, showing how heavily chroma keying is used in productions. It also has a very soothing score, a song called “Lionheart,” from Emancipator’s album “Soon it will be cold enough.”

One of the things I like about this video is that the creator, Stargate Studios (who has made effects sequences for dozens of television shows, films, and other commercial video projects), makes it so easy to find the music. Also that Emancipator makes it so easy to buy their albums and individual songs from their own website. You know, and that the effects house is called Stargate.