August 24, 2013
Syd Mead (b. 1933), is a ‘visual futurist’ and concept artist. He is best known for his designs for science-fiction films such as ‘Blade Runner,’ ‘Aliens,’ and ‘Tron.’ Of his work, Mead was once moved to comment: ‘I’ve called science fiction ‘reality ahead of schedule.” Sydney Jay Mead was born in Saint Paul Minnesota, but spent only a few years there before moving to what would be the second of many homes throughout the western United States prior to graduating from high school in Colorado Springs, Colorado in 1951.
After serving a three-year enlistment in the U.S. Army, Syd Mead continued on to the Art Center School in Los Angeles, (now the Art Center College of Design, Pasadena) where he graduated in 1959. He was recruited by the Ford Motor Company’s Advanced Styling Studio under the management of Elwood Engel. Mead left the studio after two years to accept a variety of assignments to illustrate books and catalogues for large corporate entities such as United States Steel, Celanese, Allis Chalmers and Atlas Cement.
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August 18, 2013
Yellow Arrow is a public art project that was active from 2004-2006 and was created by Christopher Allen, Brian House, and Jesse Shapins, collectively known as Counts Media. The project was an important example of locative media and mobile phone art and draws concepts from psychogeography (emphasizing playfulness and ‘drifting’ around urban environments).
Yellow Arrow stickers were obtained from the project website and placed anywhere in the public realm. When encountering a sticker on the street, individuals could send the unique code printed on it as a text message to the project phone number. Moments later a message would be received that was left by the person who placed the sticker.
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August 17, 2013
The Flowbee is an electrically powered vacuum cleaner attachment made for cutting hair. It was invented in 1988 by Rick Hunt, a San Diego carpenter. Hunt initially sold the Flowbees out of his garage before finding success with live demonstrations at a county fair. The product was advertised as being capable of performing ‘hundreds of precision layered haircuts’ in frequently aired late-night television infomercials. By 2000, two million Flowbees had been sold.
The Flowbee can also be used to groom dogs with long hair such as Maltese or Bichon Frisé with a special pet grooming attachment which is sold separately. The Flowbee is still being manufactured and sold via their factory (in Corpus Christi, Texas) direct website and various outlets across the Internet.
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August 13, 2013
Jeans are trousers made from denim (a robust textile originating from Nimes in the south of France) or dungaree cloth (a similar cloth used in England since the 17th century, possibly derived from Dongri, a dockside village near Mumbai).
Often the term ‘jeans’ refers to a particular style of trousers, called ‘blue jeans,’ which were invented by Jacob Davis and Levi Strauss in 1873. Starting in the 1950s, jeans, originally designed for cowboys, became popular among teenagers, especially members of the greaser subculture. Historic brands include Levi’s, Lee, and Wrangler.
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August 6, 2013
Super Soaker is a brand of recreational water gun, first sold in 1990 by Larami and now produced by Hasbro under the Nerf brand. Invented by engineer Lonnie Johnson in 1982, the first Super Soaker went on sale in 1989. The Super Soaker 50, was originally called the Power Drencher. Rebranding the name to Super Soaker occurred in 1991 together with a series of TV advertisements. The first Super Soaker blasters utilized manually pressurized air to shoot water with greater power, range, and accuracy than conventional squirt pistols.
Super Soakers were popular for many years – so popular, in fact, that the term super soaker is sometimes used generically, to refer to any type of toy pressurized water gun. The brand was further popularized in the 1990s by Michael Jackson, who cited it as one of his favorite toys.
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August 4, 2013
Televangelism [tel-i-van-juh-liz-uhm] is the use of television to communicate Christianity. The word is a portmanteau of television and evangelism and was coined by ‘Time’ magazine. Televangelists are Christian ministers who devote a large portion of their ministry to television broadcasting. The term is also used derisively by critics as an insinuation of aggrandizement by such ministers.
Televangelism began as a peculiarly American phenomenon, resulting from a largely deregulated media where access to television networks and cable TV is open to virtually anyone who can afford it, combined with a large Christian population that is able to provide the necessary funding. However, the increasing globalization of broadcasting has enabled some American televangelists to reach a wider audience through international broadcast networks, including some that are specifically Christian in nature, such as Trinity Broadcasting Network and The God Channel.
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August 3, 2013
Darren Foreman (b. 1982), better known as Beardyman, is a musician from London renowned for his beatboxing skills and use of live looping technology. He was given the nickname ‘Beardyman’ because a name was quickly needed for a flyer for an early show, and he had a beard at the time.
As well as accomplished solo beatboxer, Beardyman was inspired by MC Xander to use music technology such as the Korg Kaoss Pad 3 in order to loop and sample his vocals. Through his use of looping tools he effectively produces whole DJ sets where the records are constructed live from his vocalisations, as well as live production of original material.
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July 29, 2013
Pagani is an Italian manufacturer of sports cars and carbon fiber components. The company was founded in 1992 by Horacio Pagani and is based in San Cesario sul Panaro, near Modena, Italy.
Horacio Pagani, who formerly managed Lamborghini’s composites department, founded Pagani Composite Research in 1988. This new company worked with Lamborghini on numerous projects, including the restyling of the 25th Anniversary Countach, the Lamborghini LM002, the Lamborghini P140 design concept, and the Diablo. In the late 1980s, Pagani began designing his own car, then referred to as the ‘C8 Project.’
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July 25, 2013
A missed connection is a type of personal advertisement which arises after two people meet but are too shy or otherwise unable to exchange contact details. The ‘Missed Connections’ section of Craigslist gets thousands of ads of this type every month for cities such as New York and San Francisco.
The feature was started by Jim Buckmaster, Craigslist’s CEO, after he noticed a common type of posting in their personal ads, which he characterised as ‘you-smiled-at-me-on-the-subway-platform.’ He sees the format as addressing a common human need and being ideal for romantic comedy, ‘Missed Connections give people that second chance … They represent persistence in the face of long odds, which definitely adds to their artistic appeal.’
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July 24, 2013
‘How to Survive a Robot Uprising: Tips on Defending Yourself Against the Coming Rebellion’ is a 2005 semi-satirical book by contributing editor to ‘Popular Mechanics’ Daniel Wilson. The book gives tongue-in-cheek advice on how one can survive in the event that robots become too intelligent and rebel against the human race. The book blends scientific facts with deadpan humor. Wilson received a Ph.D. in Robotics from Carnegie Mellon University’s Robotics Institute in Pittsburgh.
In the summer of 2005, Paramount Pictures optioned film rights to the book and hired Thomas Lennon and Robert Ben Garant (both members of the State comedy troupe and co-creators of the Reno 911! television series) to write a script based on the book. In 2006 comedian Mike Myers signed with Paramount to star in the movie adaptation.
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July 24, 2013
The Butlerian Jihad is an event in the back-story of Frank Herbert’s fictional ‘Dune’ universe. Occurring over 11,000 years in the future (10,000 years before the events chronicled in ‘Dune’), this jihad leads to the outlawing of certain technologies, primarily ‘thinking machines,’ a collective term for computers and artificial intelligence of any kind.
This prohibition is a key influence on the nature of Herbert’s fictional setting. Herbert may have coined the name from 19th-century author Samuel Butler, who has the citizens of ‘Erewhon’ enact a prohibition on machines newer than 270 years fearing that, ‘it was the race of the intelligent machines and not the race of men which would be the next step in evolution.’
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July 24, 2013
Kevin Kelly (b. 1952) is the founding executive editor of ‘Wired’ magazine, and a former editor/publisher of the ‘Whole Earth Catalog.’ He has also been a writer, photographer, conservationist, and student of Asian and digital culture. Kelly was born in Pennsylvania and graduated from Westfield High School in New Jersey in 1970. He dropped out of University of Rhode Island after only one year. He currently lives in Pacifica, California, a small coastal town just south of San Francisco. He is a devout Christian. He is married and has three children; Tywen, Ting, and Kaileen.
Among Kelly’s personal involvements is a campaign to make a full inventory of all living species on earth, an effort also known as the Linnaean enterprise. The goal is to make an attempt at an ‘all species’ web-based catalog in one generation (25 years). He is also sequencing his genome and co-organizes the Bay Area Quantified Self Meetup Group (a lifelogging organization).
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