Tiny Gigantic

Oh wow. This might just have a chance at defining the direction of new media narrative in a way that doesn’t offend the sticklers for tradition nor those on the frontlines of emerging media.

More good discussion of it here.

Kevin “Spanky” Long: Emerica Stay Gold B-Side from Emerica on Vimeo.

Seriously. This is Kevin “Spanky” Long, a sponsored rider for Emerica. Notice how hard he falls in service of a trick. Then notice how ridiculously impossible the tricks he does are.

For your Sunday viewing pleasure, check out this stop-motion vid of classic video game moments, made entirely with gummi bears.

This is Samar Hassan, now 12 years old. She was the screaming 5-year old girl in the striking photo taken by the late Chris Hondros, a photo that has become emblematic of the Iraq war. She had never seen the famous photo of her, blood-spattered, the night her parents were killed by American soldiers in Tal Afar in 2005. She now lives in Mosul, with her older sister and her sister’s husband.

Just for a moment, actually try to imagine what this might feel like. It’s impossible. More on this in the New York Times.

COMUNE // SPRING BREAK from COMU?E on Vimeo.

Spring Break snow boards is making rideable art objects. The ride doesn’t look very fast, or smooth, or even balanced, but the fun looks huge. What I mean is that rather than pushing technology like, say, Burton, these guys making the everyman’s–er, the caveman’s–snowboard and simply going out to frolic in the snow.

INCEPTION_FOLDER from chris baker on Vimeo.

I like this much much more than I liked the actual movie. We can discuss if you’d like.

If you were born in the late 70′s or early 80′s you’re gonna recognize all these games and feel a strong pang of nostalgia. Could be something to do with the surprisingly beautiful cover of Tears for Fears’s Mad World laid over the whole thing.

Happy Saturday, peoples.

Via Boing Boing, of course.

Remember the plastic army men you used to play with as a kid? On year at the flea market, I bought a 5 gallon ice-cream tub, wrapped in camo, and filled with plastic infantry men.

So it’s damn awesome to see that an arts & design collective called Dorothy (btw, I love this name) has created a fantastic piece called Casualties of War. They’ve made those same army men, but frozen in positions that imply post-traumatic stress syndrome rather than the glory of battle.

The hell of war comes home. In July 2009 Colorado Springs Gazettea published a two-part series entitled “Casualties of War”. The articles focused on a single battalion based at Fort Carson in Colorado Springs, who since returning from duty in Iraq had been involved in brawls, beatings, rapes, drunk driving, drug deals, domestic violence, shootings, stabbings, kidnapping and suicides. Returning soldiers were committing murder at a rate 20 times greater than other young American males. A seperate investiagtion into the high suicide rate among veterans published in the New York Times in October 2010 revealed that three times as many California veterans and active service members were dying soon after returning home than those being killed in Iraq and Afghanistan combined. We hear little about the personal hell soldiers live through after returning home.

Really striking, beautiful stuff.

Found this in the Whitehouse’s Flickr stream. Obama’s in the Situation Room, May 1, 2011, getting briefed on the mission to kill Bin Laden. I like that he looks so extremely serious about the information being presented to him.

Denmark-based Lene Rønsholt Wille has built a circular wall, called Metaphorical Horizons, entirely out of white LEGO bricks.

I mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but i will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy. Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.

-Martin Luther King, Jr.-

UPDATE: apparently this quote can only be partially attributed to MLK. But still, I am behind the sentiment %100.

To celebrate its 100th anniversary The San Francisco City Clinic has an exhibition of thousands of posters that aimed–during their time–to create awareness around safe sex. Interesting to see here how our cultural values changed and how they’ve stayed the same too.

As I’ve said before, when you’re branding a company or product or service and you’re thinking about its presence on the internet, the domain name doesn’t actually matter too much. Fred Wilson, who’s got way more readers and followers and cred than little old me takes it further. Nice post about it here.

A good domain name … doesn’t need to mean anything. Etsy is a good example of this. The word etsy doesn’t have any meaning in the english language. But it is short, memorable, and fits well for a handmade marketplace. As a marketing person once told me “find a name that means nothing and inject your meaning and brand into it.”

Amen, brother.

Really good, and also sorta awkward video, of Ira Glass talking about the gap between having good taste and actually making god stuff. A must listen for creatives just getting into the game. And actually pretty useful for the rest of us too.

Via Kottke.org

Photographer Jonathan Hobin has a new series of photographs called In The Playroom. He’s staged some of the more horrific events of our time, using children as models. I think it’s super powerful stuff. I also think there’s about to be some serious controversy. You?

Ueli Steck clocked 2 hours and 47 seconds in a solo speed climb up the Eiger’s North Face in 2008. And he doesn’t seem to be roped in at all. Like, if he falls he dies. Period.

This makes me think two things:

1. People are absolutely amazing.
2. People are fucking crazy.

Could be that those are the same thing.

The awesome folks at Bite have mashed up two monster cultural phenomenons with Angry Rebels.

A long time ago, on an app far, far away… The Imperial Pigs have stolen the Rebellion’s eggs, so the Rebellion struck back by stealing the plans for the Death Pig (many Bothans died in the process).

And you can get ‘em on t-shirts!

Actually, it’s a never-ending pac-man game that takes you from maze to maze to maze to maze. Happy wasted Friday, everyone!

Mike Koehler has an interesting little movement going here. He wants to build a fully-functional (and hopefully full size) AT-AT walker. He’s even written a letter to President Obama to ask for help. Here’s a taste:

If you want the country to be more united than divided, if you want the country to look toward a bright future instead of a divided past, if you want America to make something awesome again, then join us.

One Nation. One Dream. One AT-AT.

I’m in.

Really beautiful and inspiring and sad video of skaters pulling tricks off the rubble of their city. You’ll have to watch it on You Tube because they disabled the embed function. It’s unclear why.