Richard's Notes

Frugan Living
Excellent collection of ideas for living cheaply off the waste of others. It helps that the author, Fairfax is an attractive woman.
[via Boing Boing]

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Overcoming Creative Block
This is a brilliant collection of all types of ideas from thinking directly about it to cooking to sketching to going on vacation, sitting in cafes, listening to music, taking long showers. Great post, great ideas.
[via Kottke.com]

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Between the Folds
The science and culture of origami.
[via Kottke.org]

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Wonderful ad for Toshiba. Beautifully executed.
Behind the scenes, the making of Space Chair Project:

Finally, an NPR piece on the making of Space Chair Project: In New Ad, Chair Floats To Space.
All great stuff and a wonderful demonstration of what goes into the making of an analog advertisement (as opposed to something simulated on a computer).
[via [...]

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Absolutely incredible behind the scenes glimpse of a genius’s process. Zoom it out, full screen, you will not regret it.
[via Ken O'Connell]

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An Easy Way to Increase Creativity
This research has important practical implications. It suggests that there are several simple steps we can all take to increase creativity, such as traveling to faraway places (or even just thinking about such places), thinking about the distant future, communicating with people who are dissimilar to us, and considering unlikely [...]

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Lens Culture has a collection of Audio Interviews with leading photographers.
Highly recommended. Listen to a few at time, return for more.

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Artistic tendencies linked to ’schizophrenia gene’
…the mutation dampens a brain region that reins in mood and behaviour, called the prefrontal cortex. This change could unleash creative potential in some people and psychotic delusions in others.
This is fascinating and an early piece of a larger understanding of both mental illness and creative thought and I predict [...]

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Last year I was splitting wood with my hydraulic wood splitter and listening to NPR on my FM hearing protector earmuffs. The Faith Middleton show came on which I’m not a great fan of but this particular show was on The Art & History of Keeping Scrapbooks which sounded interesting to me. Part way through [...]

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Scott McCoud talks about comics and ways of presenting them at TED.
[via Ken O'Connell]

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Students tie £56 camera to balloon; send it to edge of space
Wow, a point and shoot camera in space. Fantastic.
[via Digg]

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For Twitter C.E.O., Well-Orchestrated Accidents
My life has been a series of well-orchestrated accidents; I’ve always suffered from hallucinogenic optimism. I was broke for more than 10 years.
Evan Williams built Blogger, then sold it to Google and then started Twitter with Jack Dorsey and it’s really got traction now. Congratulations Evan.

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Amazing. Complete virtual humans coming soon to a theater near you.

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Make Magazine’s videos
Great collection of videos on how things work, how to make various things, experiments, and more. Educational and fun with humor.
[via Boing Boing]

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Cartoon Network rebrand video montage
Click on “Click here for rebrand montage.” Then click “play.”
Wow, talk about having fun with computers. Dang.
[via Coudal Partners Blended Feed]

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Max Fleischer’s 1933 classic from The Moving Image Archive.
Fleischer had the most amazing imagination and this and other Betty Boop classics hold up amazingly well in this world of Pixar and Dreamworks.
[via Gary Sharp]

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From a Visionary English Physicist, Self-Adjusting Lenses for the Poor
The glasses work on the principle that the more liquid pumped into a thin sac in the plastic lenses, the stronger the correction.
Silver has attached plastic syringes filled with silicone oil on each bow of the glasses; the wearer adds or subtracts the clear liquid with [...]

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Dang, this thing is great although the “warning” at Cool Tools says it’s rather difficult to do this stuff without some practice.
[via Cool Tools]

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Alex Lee at Gel 2008 from Gel Conference on Vimeo.
Alex Lee is the head of Oxo, makers of well-designed tools for home use. No doubt you have some Oxo stuff in your house and you may be a fan. Alex talks about universal design and shares anecdotes about how some of their inventors outside the [...]

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Low-Tech Fixes for High-Tech Problems
Great list of low tech solutions including using your head as an antenna to open your car door remotely. Just read, you’ll enjoy this list.
[via Gary Sharp]

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