majordojo

Swarming Nano Quadrotors

These quadrotors are amazing. It begins with the simple statement, "we developed a nano quadrotor capable of agile flight." And agile is right. I love the fact that you can just huck this up into the air, turn it on,...

The 37signals Holiday Gift

Did you get a bonus from your company this holiday season? Maybe you did, but you probably didn't. And if you did, was it just a check and a cheesy holiday card signed by the CEO? Probably. Employees of 37signals...

Designing for a Small Space

This video fills me with a sense of wonder the way an Apple demo typically does. My amazement is a mix of child-like delight in seeing an object completely transform into another, and my complete awe in seeing just how...

Volkswagen's Transparent Factory

In Dresden, Volkswagen built a car factory right in the middle of downtown. Amazing features: Devices and computers are powered without wires - instead they receive their power via induction straight through the floor. Robots move about the entire building...

Be inspired. Wonder again. Watch the Carl Sagan Series.

Carl Sagan believed that humanity is driven by the unknown, that we are compelled to seek answers to questions we don't even completely understand. He believed that humanity is driven not just to peer into the far reaches of space,...

How a quartz-crystal watch works

A great video from the Make folks about how a watch keeps time by way of a quartz crystal. File this in "I-always-was-curious-about-that." [via finestructure]...

Undercity - a documentary from a Guerilla Historian

A truly fascinating look at the literal underpinnings of New York City, created by Andrew Wonder, a self proclaimed, and indeed a "guerilla and urban historian." I would like to think I would have the balls to do half the...

Word Lens - or how my head just exploded.

I know I have readers out there that are sensitive to me using profanity. If you are one of those people, I apologize in advance, because try as I might, I can't think of another way to adequately express how...

Ascent - an Ode to the Space Shuttle

Two Nasa engineers narrate this amazing 45 minute slow motion video about the launch of the Space Shuttle. There is so much geekery to delight in here, from the launch pad cameras that have to withstand the inferno of the...

Physics ABCs

If it weren't for my son's own complete obsession with letters and numbers, I might otherwise have passed this up. Now I can't help but be drawn in. No pun intended....

Limits? There are no limits.

You have to appreciate anyone or anything that challenges you not only to reevaluate what you think your own personal limits are, but also the limits of what is possible at all. What Danny MacAskill is one such person....

Take Me With You

"Take me with you:" a fascinating art project organized by a friend of mine in Chicago. From the project's website: 100 disposable cameras are hidden throughout Wicker Park Bucktown this summer. Follow us on Twitter to get clues. Find one,...

Family portrait for the ages

Elisabeth Daynes is known in the Paleo-archeological community for her award winning reconstructions and sculptures of our hominid relatives. Seeing this "family portrait" as it were is a beautiful look at humanity's ancestors. It also is a wonderful illustration...

Cardboard Warfare

Props to the folks to made this (no pun intended). My only wish is that they took the cardboard one step farther and made cardboard explosions, as opposed to realish-CG ones. But still, you gotta hand to it anyone who...

Toy Wire

Sheeeeeeeeeeeeeeee-it. (via Janice - thank you!)...

The Swagger Wagon

Brilliant advertising campaign for the Toyota Sienna Minivan. The humor and character of this campaign is almost enough to take away the stigma I would feel if we caved and got a minivan. Which I suppose is precisely the...

Epic Chalk Art

Kurt Wenner is a specialist in 3D Anamorphic Chalk Art. "Anamorphism is usually considered a form of Illusion or Trompe loeil, but is really the logical mathematical continuation of Perspective." My son, also a renown chalk artist (at least in...

Not your average talent show

Via sippey who notes, "I love the girls in the background realizing just what he's singing." Yes, behold shear boredom slowly succumb to rapt attention, especially for the blond in the upper right hand corner for whom love is...

Star Wars Trilogy in LEGO in under 3 minutes

And they all lived happily ever after......

What happens when live-action role players take themselves too seriously

When I was in high school my family moved a block from Pease Park in Austin, Texas. From time to time when passing by Pease Park on a Saturday I would catch a glimpse of the Society for Creative Anachronism...

The iPad: the modern day Pop-Up-Book

Earlier this week I wrote about how the iPad has the unique opportunity to change how publishers make money. This opportunity exists by shifting their focus away from trying to create as much content as possible, and focus rather on...

Why I love Barak Obama

I admit it, I have a geek man-crush on our President. How awesome is this? And what is even more amazing is the fact that he probably knows more about Thundercats than anyone else in that room....

Awesome Baby Room

Mach Kobayashi is an effects artist at a little computer animation house called Pixar. His newborn son, Dyson, just might end up in the games industry one day, thanks to the work of a family friend. Mach wrote in...

Vintage Star Wars Travel Posters

From the desk of Justin van Genderen, a collection of beautiful, vintage-esque travel posters for the Star Wars universe: Yes, two tickets to Bespin please. See the entire series in Justin's Flickr photostream. (via Drawn to i09 to me)...

Amazing Star Wars Miniatures

Two things caught my eye this week. Is it a coincidence they were both Star Wars related? I think not. First up, a simply staggering recreation of Echo Base in LEGO. The complex required well over 20,000 lego tiles and...

Samsung's Kaleidoscope of TVs

I never really wanted to go to CES. That is until I saw Samsung's trippy kaleidoscope of TV's. What a marvel. (via notcot)...

Fifty Years of Exploration

National Geographic has an fascinating and beautiful interactive map of our Solar System (and beyond) chronicalling our last fifty years of space exploration. via @orenjacob...

.tiff: one of my favorite bloggers

One of my favorite bloggers of late is an old friend and colleague from Six Apart, Tiffany Chow. Each month she composes a collage/calendar of self-portraits capturing as succinctly as one can her state of mind for each day. I...

Feral Houses

There are over 10,000 abandoned houses in Detroit, and some have been abandoned for so long that they are being reclaimed by nature. I have heard people here use the word "feral" because so many of Detroit's strays learn to...

MOONSHOT

On a recent trip to Chicago I stopped by a non-local mega-bookstore to look for a last minute gift for Harper as is required on any business trip that takes me away from Harper for more than 48 hours. And...

Welcome to Harperland

Today I stumbled upon a great little map creator for kids which is surprisingly addictive. A simple wizard guides you through the process of creating your very own Tolkein-esque map of an imaginary land. Prompting me for names of relatives...

Erik Mongrain's Air Tap

Amazing....

Hope: it's infectious

When was the last time a president was cool? So cool he permeated the very fabric of pop culture? I certainly can not remember a time, but perhaps I am just not old enough. To give you an idea of...

RIP Jacques Littlefield

I recently read that Jacques Littlefield, a person whose collection I irrationally envy, and whose obsession I strangely understand, lost a battle to cancer at the age of 59. What did he collect? What else: tanks. To which he devoted...

Will someone please pass me the hydrospanner?

Thanks to my friend and brother in-law Erik who always manages to send me the best Star Wars links in the world. This time he sent me to a site featuring a do-it-yourself, cut-out of the Millennium Falcon created and...

Treasure trove of World War II film footage

An amazing collection of artifacts from World War II was discovered by the grandsons of a veteran from that War. Their grandfather was a photographer for the war effort documenting the preparation for and aftermath of D-Day. The film canisters...

Another awesome theme for Movable Type

A couple of weeks I gave a preview of some of the amazing hacks we had been working on at Six Apart, and tonight we got to release one of them: Jim Ramsey's Mid-Century Template Set. Mid-Century sets a new...

"Paper or Plastic?" and other bizarre contests

Congrats to my friend Justine on what looks to be another awesome documentary film. Paper or Plastic follows several contestants on their journey to Las Vegas for none other than the National Best Bagger Championship. Is a new documentary film...

Movable Type is whatever you want it to be

What has always drawn me to Movable Type is its flexibility. Most of the time we, that is Six Apart: my employer and creator of Movable Type, talk and think about MT's flexibility in terms of the web sites it...

For Guitar Hero IV

Stumbled upon from a post on Read/Write Web (powered by Movable Type) I thought this would make an excellent, excellent track for the next version of Guitar Hero. Amazing....

Super Bowl Ad Wrap Up

I, like so many other people I know, only watch the Super Bowl for the ads. And then last year it finally dawned on me that I actually don't have to watch the Super Bowl at all! Did you know...

Audubon Zoo Desktop Wallpaper

Over the holidays Arin, Harper and I visited my family in New Orleans. While we were there we visited one of my favorite Zoos: the Audubon Zoo. The Swamp exhibit is especially impressive as it allows visitors to get exceptionally...

A Better Galactica Podcast

Last year I was on the hunt for a good Battlestar Galactica podcast. The selection was not the best in the world - not in grand scheme of podcasts, but there was one that stood out from the rest. Galactica...

Cool Paper Engineering

This year for my birthday, Harper hit a home run when he purchased one of the coolest pop-up books I have ever laid my eyes on. The thickness of the book as a ratio to the number of pages I...

*drool*

To be honest I am not much of a Benz fan myself, but god I would love to drive one of these puppies: Thanks Debi!...

Daft Hands

Google Maps no longer "suck"

Over two years ago when Google Maps released their satellite maps feature and the rest of the world was ooooh'ing and aaaaaah'ing, I wrote a post saying Google Maps sucked because when I typed in my address, they couldn't...

Mint really will "blow your MIND"

Budgeting with Mint

I think one of the reasons I love using Mint so much is because it was born out of an almost identical sense of frustration with existing tools like Quicken. From The History of Mint:One day in November 2005, while...

Prefab Chicken Coops

My wife and I have been talking for several years about getting some chickens. I never really took the idea seriously until now, when I saw the Eglu. I love it, you can order these prefabricated chicken coops of various...

A Brief History of the Northern California Missile Silos Batteries

Recently some good friends of mine came into town and because it was their first time in San Francisco I was curious what plans they had and what they were planning to see and visit while they were here. Another...