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Did you think about how to make a smoke brushes? I do searching for tutorials to make a smoke brushes, I wonder that it’s hard to make it in photoshop, so I found a tutorial that make the smoke brushes from real photos, so i have collect 180+ Awesome Smoke Brushes.
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Being a graduate student at MIT's Media Lab is generally a solid prerequisite for assuming someone has brains and John Kestner is no exception. His two new projects explore relationships with digital media, attempting to anchor online interactions in the physical world.
Kestner's project Tableau harkens back to when communication and social connections took place in person with a conversation, or high-five. Tableau, which looks like your standard handsome nightstand, connects the high tech with the classic feeling of receiving a letter from a friend at camp. Essentially the device is an Internet-enabled printer and scanner that connects to a Twitter feed. When a photo appears in your feed, the Tableau prints it out and drops it into the drawer to be collected at the user's leisure. If you want to send a message, you simply put it in the drawer and the Tableau scans it and publishes in to your feed. Constructed from reclaimed materials, it only uses Zink paper, a printing medium that requires no printer cartridges. The Tableau can currently be seen on exhibit at the Saint Etienne International Design Biennale.
Kestner's other project, which involved some fellow Media Lab cohorts, he calls the Proverbial Wallet. Based around the disconnect between the user and the intangible numbers of a bank account, the Proverbial Wallet interprets numerical data into a physical stimulus using Bluetooth technology. Each of the three prototypes serve to alert the user of different scenarios they might encounter financially.
The Bumblebee contains a vibrating motor. Every time your bank processes a transaction, the wallet will buzz. If your wallet buzzes and you aren't handing your credit card to a cashier or its not time to auto-pay your bills then it is probably a good idea to check for fraudulent activity.
Designed to protect the user from themselves, the Mother Bear wallet becomes easier to open when you're flush, locking itself up like a clam when your balance gets low. You can also program it to abide by a monthly budget to discourage unnecessary spending.
The Peacock is ideal for anyone who wants to showboat how many zeros were on their last check. The wallet will swell or shrink depending on your account balance. If you deposit that fat check on Friday before going out for the night the Peacock will reflect your good fortune and potentially attract some lovely companions.
Both of Kestner's projects take an interesting look at how we relate to our media and our money. Most modern users take for granted the giant virtual gap between information and the physical self. Kestner's work remind us how communication used to take place, the value of physically interacting with the virtual world and why all of that might be really important.
Congratulations, Dallas. You have the worst commute in the country.
So say the guys at TheStreet and Bundle, which crunched the numbers to identify the worst commutes in terms of cost and lost productivity.
These kinds of surveys pop up regularly and at one time just about every major megalopolis has topped a “worst commute” list of some kind. In this particular study, TheStreet and Bundle set out to determine how much people spend each year for transportation and what cities are the worst in terms of expenses. It also considered the average commute length, miles traveled and annual hours delayed.
It did not consider how many time you give, or receive, a one-finger salute in traffic.
Yes, we know. It's tiny. Click the image to see it full-size.
According to Bundle’s data, the average American spends more than $6,000 annually in transportation costs: gasoline, wear and tear on your car and so forth.
The overall cost of fuel and productivity lost to commuting reached $87.2 billion in 2007, according to a study by the Texas Transportation Institute that tracked traffic patterns in 439 U.S. urban areas. That comes to more than $750 for every commuter in the country, folks. We wasted 2.8 billion gallons of fuel and lost 4.2 billion hours slogging through traffic.
Some places are worse than others, and according to Bundle’s list, Dallas has the worst commute. People there spend an average of 28 minutes commuting each way and $400 annually on auto expenses. They also lose about 53 hours annually.
Rounding out the top 10 worst commutes are San Jose, California; Houston, Miami, Phoenix, Los Angeles, Bridgeport, Connecticut; Riverside, California; Austin, Texas; and Orlando, Florida.
At the other end, Eugene, Oregon had the best commute. Folks there spend an average of 17 minutes commuting each way and $229 on auto expenses. They lose 11 hours annually.
Rounding out the 10 rosiest commutes are Brownsville, Texas; Toledo, Ohio; Laredo, Texas; Anchorage, Alaska; Spokane, Washington; Beaumont, Texas; Boulder, Colorado; Akron, Ohio; and Buffalo, New York.
There’s a lot more interesting info over at Bundle.
Photo the Dallas skyline: Rdoke / Flickr
See Also:
Another small graphic. Click it for the full-size image.
Mmmmm, you know i adore a good unexpected juxtaposition… like these fun paintings by Kelly Reemsten! Headless/footless women in lovely party frocks holding simple tools… like bolt cutters, axes, gardening shears, chainsaws, crowbars… and wearing dish gloves and oven mits… simple every day things! They also have great names like ‘The load I Carry’, ‘Heavy Handed’, ‘Axe’, ‘B & E’, ‘Prowler’, ‘Leverage’, ‘Character Assassination’, etc. Awesome, right? And these are all large oil paintings ranging from 20’x20’ to 44’x44’. How fun would it be to have the perfect one hanging conspicuously in that perfect entry way… Is it any surprise that she started in Fashion Design and Painting? See more on Kelly Reemsten, and see some of my absolute favorites on the next page!
Book tower in the Prague Municipal Library. Photo by tom young. Via plajzka & ania gaj
These conceptual cooling units by London designers PostlerFerguson would be made from 3D-printed sand.
Called Microclimates, the pods would be printed layer by layer on a large rapid-prototyping machine using locally sourced sand and a magnesium binging agent.
Water evaporating from the porous material would lower the temperature of the sand, in turn cooling the air as it flows through each pod.
A complex internal structure would create a large surface area for this heat exchange to take place efficiently.
The project was designed for Dubai gallery and studio Traffic.
More about PostlerFerguson on Dezeen »
The information below is from the designers:
Microclimates/Postlerferguson 2010
What strikes us about Dubai is the energy and technological sophistication of the city that has arisen in the last few decades in one of the most ancient areas of human civilization. Dubai’s architecture is striking not only for its design, but also for the leaps in construction technology employed to realize it.
Our proposal draws on both the hypermodern, global city of today and the traditional building techniques that are ancient Dubai’s heritage. Microclimates is not just an installation, but a building language that can be reused again and again to create new public spaces. Traditional Islamic architecture dealt sustainably with the harsh desert climate by careful control of light and airflow through elements such as the masharabiya, wind towers, and earthen walls.
Microclimates are built up layer by layer out of locally sourced sand combined with a magnesium based binder. Using custom software, Microclimates is based on a three-dimensional interpretation of the masharabiya built from local sand by using a large scale rapid prototyping machine (developed by D-Shape), with a complex internal structure whose large internal surface area efficiently conditions air passing through it by evaporative cooling.
Combining the principals behind these ancient building elements with the most advanced computer-aided manufacturing techniques, we are able to create new methods of construction that draw on the aesthetic and sustainable benefits of traditional buildings to realize a modern vision of what 21st century architecture in Dubai could achieve.
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| Wooden Giants by PostlerFerguson | Buoy Lamps by PostlerFerguson | Selfridges window by PostlerFerguson |
