Everyday Counter Terrorism Heros

According to UK's National Counter Terrorism Security Office, there are everyday objects on the street in front of buildings, like bus stops, lampposts, and bins etc. These could have not just an apparent function, but could have a hidden purpose – To prevent terrorist vehicle attacks. A project by Toby Ng, a designer in London, is entitled "Hidden Superhero" and so he designed a set of unassuming CT Heroes.

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How Adobe uses Adobe: Developing new ways to collaborate

In this video interview, Gerri Martin-Flickinger, CIO of Adobe, describes an emerging world of collaboration that graphic recorders and facilitators need to understand and adapt their services to...quickly!

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New Service: Remote Graphic Capture

RGC works like a videoconference or screencast.

Ever wanted really dynamic visual experience to your meeting or workshop or conference call? Have you considered hiring a graphic recorder but the budget, space allocation, or logistical constraints just do work?

RGC provides quality graphic capture simultaneously in multiple venues,but without the expense, carbon footprint or requirement of bringing in scribe talent and a finished product that can be distributed in near real-time. Want to learn more? 

Contact us to schedule a demo. Learn more>>

Art, Art I Want You

For all of your artists or artistic types wondering if what you make, makes a difference. You are not alone.

Music video for Tanya Davis' song Art by Andrea Dorfman.

Art is a kind of innate drive that seizes a human being and makes him its instrument. To perform this difficult office it is sometimes necessary for him to sacrifice happiness and everything that makes life worth living for the ordinary human being. --Carl G. Jung

(PS. Thanks to Nellie Durand for the link. Nellie makes LOTS of art. Check it out: http://nelliedurand.blogspot.com/)

Primates on Facebook

IMAGE: http://carrollina.wordpress.com/category/uncategorized/

What is the cost of emotion, time and energy do you spend in your social networks “grooming”?

From Feb 26th 2009 | SAN FRANCISCO | The Economist print edition

Even online, the neocortex is the limit That Facebook, Twitter and other online social networks will increase the size of human social groups is an obvious hypothesis, given that they reduce a lot of the friction and cost involved in keeping in touch with other people. Once you join and gather your “friends” online, you can share in their lives as recorded by photographs, “status updates” and other titbits, and, with your permission, they can share in yours. Additional friends are free, so why not say the more the merrier?

In the wild, grooming is time-consuming and here computerisation certainly helps. But keeping track of who to groom—and why—demands quite a bit of mental computation.

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Primates on Facebook

In Blindness, a Bold New Artistic Vision

Brandon Thibodeaux for The New York Times

STILL PAINTING John Bramblitt, an artist, became completely blind in 2001. “It wasn’t until I lost my sight that I became brave enough to fail,” he said.

From NYTimes.com - Determined to get his vision back in some way, Mr. Bramblitt picked up a bottle of white glue and began to draw outlines that he could feel with his fingers once the glue dried. He soon switched to a paint product that dried more quickly, and he learned to distinguish between different shades of oil paint based on their texture and viscosity.

Calma: To Illustrate a Village

A young Brazilian street artist, Stephan Doitschinoff, composes spectacular murals and applies his extraordinary talent to emblazon houses, churches and walls in rural cities in his South American homeland. You can see his process, involving stencils, religious iconography, and styles referencing folk art, wood cuts, computer-generated gradients and comics.

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Alphachimp @ Pop!Tech

Peter Durand from Alphachimp @ Pop!Tech from Poptech on Vimeo. Peter Durand from Alphachimp illustrates Stephen Badylak's lecture on regenerative medicine. From Pop!Tech Blogger Michelle Riggen-Ransom:

If you’re with us in Maine, you’ve probably noticed the colorful illustrations hanging on the walls of the third floor break room. If you’re not, you can take a look at them here.

These illustrations are the work of artist Peter Durand of Alphachimp Studio. Peter has set up an easel on the balcony of the Opera House, where he busily creates illustrations that capture the key elements of each presentation.

Peter let me peek over his shoulder while he illustrated a session. It happened to be Stephen Badylak’s talk on The Edge of Medicine. While images of exploded horse faces and dismembered fingers flashed on the screen, Peter managed to turn Badylak’s fascinating lecture on regenerative medicine into the illustration above. Watch a short video of his process here and see how language becomes visual art.

Storytelling and the Collective Mind

Storytelling is a human universal, and common themes appear in tales throughout history and all over the the world. These characteristics of stories, and our natural affinity toward them, reveal clues about our evolutionary history and the roots of emotion and empathy in the mind. By studying narrative’s power to influence beliefs, researchers are discovering how we analyze information and accept new ideas. More at SciAm.com

Rappin' about CERN's Large Hadron Collider!

I bet you were wondering when physicists would be able to discover the secret of forces behind the dark matter that holds our universe together. That is exactly the plan guiding the massive particle acceleraotor built beneath the countries of France and Switzerland. Forunately, its purpose has now been revealed to us in the lingua franca of our times: a hip-hop video!

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