There is an unwritten rule among magicians never to reveal how a trick is done. So when a 2004 exhibition explained Harry Houdini's illusions, magicians around the world were apoplectic. David Copperfield called it a breach of magic protocol, and performers declared that they would boycott the exhibition. Many claimed to still use Houdini's tricks themselves.
In a way, artists are the most important men and women in the aerospace industry when it came to visualizing the visions of the near (or far) future from engineers, scientists and experts. The first piece of our new series showcasing the work of some of the most noted aerospace artists, is about to pay tribute to the exceptional talent of official NASA artist Attila Héjja (1955-2007).
Yesterday we looked at an artist who immortalized the US space program
It's been almost 250 years since Beethoven was born in 1770, and as his big two-five-oh birthday rolls around, his birthplace of Bonn is planning a big, big party—including a $90 million concert hall in which to throw it.
Humans have been writing for a long, long time—we were making lettermarks for thousands of years. Of course, that doesn't mean we've ever reached a consensus about the perfect way to write or print. And over the past few years, we've seen designers take on real, tangible problems using type design.
Yesterday, we asked your to bare your souls
They grow up so fast, don't they? It just seems like yesterday that the internet was cruising at 56k speeds and loading horribly designed websites. Now, the web is all grown up, but there's been some negative side effects for the sake of progress in the form of ads, dubious data gathering, and hostile trolls.
Building a house is stressful. Building a skyscraper is a nuclear bomb of stress, problems, and carefully-coordinated chaos—chaos that is closely tied to the economy, and that is easily derailed by war, politics, and financial downturns.
When most of us think of "rare blood," we think of AB-positive or O-negative. But it turns out there are far, far rarer types than that. In Filton, England, there's a lab that handles blood donations from across the UK—and identifies this super-rare blood.
Most hackathons are where brilliant minds come together to try and invent something amazing that can maybe change the world. This is not one of those hackathons. This is the Stupid Shit No One Needs and Terrible Ideas Hackathon.
About a year ago, a couple of good friends invited me to help them run a vape shop and eventual e-juice manufacturer in my hometown (Louisville, Colorado). We in this industry believe vaping to be potentially enormously beneficial to public health, and we've been dismayed to see it take a pretty stern beating in the public arena. This, along with the FDA's recent ruling in favor of strict regulation and all of the various local ordinances popping up, have prompted me to action.
Black Friday (Thursday?) is quickly approaching, and whether you see it as a daylong spend-a-thon or a blight on American consumer culture, the fact remains—it can be crazy out there.
"The nearest thing to an artist-in-residence from outer space." That's how Isaac Asimov once described Robert T. McCall, the renowned illustrator, conceptual artist, space-scene painter, official NASA artist, and creator of legendary movie posters including 2001: A Space Odyssey.
In a proud and noble tradition stretching back a whole two years, NASA yesterday did Black Hole Friday, rather than just flogging a few Apollo mini-figs for 25 percent off. We got science, we got knowledge, and of course, a bunch of jaw-dropping images of black holes. Here are the best.
Perhaps the greatest tragedy in tech are the heaps of gadgets tossed on the metaphorical funeral pyre too early. Maybe it was poor marketing, an unfounded lack of support, or simply bad timing that did them in, but whatever the case, they died much too soon.
A few days ago every space enthusiast got sentimental when, after 45 years of operation, the iconic countdown clock at NASA's Kennedy Space Center's Press Site was disassembled for removal. Perhaps more than any other piece of equipment near the launch site, the countdown clock was a piece of history.
Buildings are expensive but they're nowhere near as expensive as incompetence, as we learned this week thanks to new revelations about the $4 billion price tag
Ever since I first played Goldeneye 64, I've been fascinated by exploring 3D cyber-versions of my favorite fictional places. The Oculus Rift makes that pursuit cooler than it's ever been. It's one thing to see static shots of Jerry Seinfeld's apartment from the same never-changing angles. It's another to be in there, as if it were actual real.
In these decades of freely accessible online maps, it's totally normal to be addicted to what Wikipedia describes as a "symbolic depiction highlighting relationships between elements of some space, such as objects, regions, and themes"(best Wikipedia definition ever?). And when you are in love with maps, you want them on your wall, don't you?
Our lives are chronicled from space these days. These satellite images from Digital Globe, operator of the world's most powerful commercial imaging satellites, tell the story of some of the year's most indelible moments—from the protests in Ukraine to wildfires in San Diego.
