procrastinating.

I have two papers I need to finish in the next seven hours, and I am, for whatever reason, utterly incapable of getting them done (I've written maybe a combined 600 words for both of them. Ack.). So, instead, here's an entry of awesome things:

+ National Geographic Photo of the Day. Once a day photos tend to be a little hit or miss for me, but sometimes I'll come across something so breathtaking that my entire day is changed. A few months back, I came across this image of Chicago, taken in 1978, and for a week after, I felt this sharp pang of almost homesickness. To possibly understate a bit, National Geographic does good work.


+ The Big Picture.

The Big Picture is a photo blog for the Boston Globe/boston.com, entries are posted every Monday, Wednesday and Friday by Alan Taylor. Inspired by publications like Life Magazine (of old), National Geographic, and online experiences like MSNBC.com's Picture Stories galleries and Brian Storm's MediaStorm, The Big Picture is intended to highlight high-quality, amazing imagery - with a focus on current events, lesser-known stories and, well, just about anything that comes across the wire that looks really interesting.

I've never really followed the Big Picture, but enough people over the years have linked me to it that I maintain this low level awareness that somewhere out there, gorgeous photography is being showcased. To ground this entry in the herenow, here is a recent Big Picture about the Inaugural preparations (there's also one, naturally, about the Inauguration itself, but I think the preparation is a little bit more interesting. Glimpses of things that we just wouldn't notice otherwise.) And, just because it caught my eye as I browsed again, The Year 2008 In Photographs (Part 1 of 3). That first photo always makes me pause, just to look at it again and remind myself that it's real.



+ The Most Alien-Looking Place on Earth. Speaking of real...

Imagine waking up on the Socotra Island and taking a good look around you (let's say your buddies pulled a prank on you and delivered you there, and lets also assume that you don't have any hangover from abuse of any substances). After a yelp of disbelief, you'd be inclined to think you were transported to another planet - or traveled to another era of Earth's history.

The second would be closer to the truth for this island, which is part of a group of 4 islands, has been geographically isolated from mainland Africa for the last 6 or 7 million years. Like the Galapagos Islands, this island is teeming with 700 extremely rare species of flora and fauna, a full 1/3 of which are endemic, i.e. found nowhere else on Earth.

Nnnnnrg.


+ ImageQuest Marine.

From the dark abyss to the sunlit surface waters, Image Quest 3-D's picture library, PELAGICA, proactively documents and illustrates the inhabitants of the marine realm, with particular emphasis upon the intriguing planktonic communities of the open oceans and the bizarre inhabitants of the great ocean depths.

Images are captured in both 2-D and 3-D, stills and movie format, from Imax to mini DV, with marine biologists and notable photographers contributing worldwide material and story-telling expertise. The product of over fifty marine expeditions is available. Spectacular aquatic and fluid effects are also part of our speciality.

Okay, I'm not going to lie, I was originally just planning to link to what is possibly my favorite pair of pictures ever, the adult and larval form of the angler fish (!!!), but then I realized that there was an entire database of deep sea creatures that I haven't been able to browse and had to link that instead. But! Let's talk about the angler fish for a bit. Look at how cheerful that baby angler fish looks! It looks like its wearing a monocle! It's made up of eety beety nebulae! And then one day it undergoes metamorphosis and becomes a soul sucking creature of the dark. Fantastic. Oh, and if you ever want to be the life of a party, read up on their reproductive cycle. It's good times. (And I apologize to anyone who has heard me give this speech before. I can't help it! They are so cool.)


And finally, a link that probably should have been included in my last entry:

+ Veer. Veer "provides visual elements for use in professional creative work, such as graphic design, motion design, advertising and filmmaking." Or so the the website says. All I know is that every time I visit the site, no matter my intentions, I am drawn inexorably towards the merch. I know that it'll have that Helvetica scarf and the wristcuff that makes me wish I were the type of person to wear wristcuffs. It has t-shirts whose description includes the phrase "lovingly displayed on Adobe Jenson." I just can't stop clicking through them. Oh man. Things with letters!

when you're feeling uncreative....

+ Daily Monster by Stefan Bucher. Amazing time lapse videos of Stefan Bucher's 100 Monster project, where he draws monsters from an initial start of a random inkspray. It's fun to watch these delightful little creatures come into being. Relatedly, his main website is at 344 Design, and I definitely encourage you to go check it out. In addition to having more of his fantastic work (and being a nifty little site), it demonstrates his philosophy towards life and art. Really inspirational. From his FAQ for students:

My advice is two-fold. As a designer, as a human being, no matter what age you are, you have to do two things:

1. BE USEFUL

2. DON'T BE BORING

That's all there is to it.

I know this answer is shorter than the others, but if you remember anything I talked about , this is the one to tattoo where you can easily see it. If you follow these two directions, you'll never be hungry or alone.

:)

+ Olly Moss. Lovelovelove his illustrations. He also has this fantastic movie poster series that I thoroughly recommend. For me, personally, there's an extra push whenever I look at his stuff, because he was born the year before me. So it's incentive to be better, to improve.

+ Books I Read And Books I Make. This blog hits all of my little language-nerd buttons. The lady, being a book maker herself, links to a variety of book and drawing related cool things. For example, check out this incredible entry on papercutting. Without exaggeration, I was genuinely breathless looking through those links. Even just glancing at them now, I am filled with the fluttery urge to try my hand at book making, at papercutting, at this incredible artform. I'm having some difficulty typing this, from the sheer desire to just put my arms up and flail them about in glee.

+ Dude A Day. The style! The sheer amount of character in each drawing! Aggh! Love it.

And finally:

+ Robot a Day. Charming variations on a little robot. I'm particularly fond of Sensitive Sweater Guy Bot for its labeling under "myths," Spaghetti Monster Bot for its description, and pretty much all of the mood bots (I definitely laughed aloud at Existentialist Bot). They just make me smile and, really, that's all a person could wish for.

Letter of Last Resort

The Letter of Last Resort [Slate]

At this very moment, miles beneath the surface of the ocean, there is a British nuclear submarine carrying powerful ICBMs (nuclear-armed intercontinental ballistic missiles). In the control room of the sub, the Daily Mail reports, "there is a safe attached to a control room floor. Inside that, there is an inner safe. And inside that sits a letter. It is addressed to the submarine commander and it is from the Prime Minister. In that letter, Gordon Brown conveys the most awesome decision of his political career ... and none of us is ever likely to know what he decided."

...

You didn't know about the Letter of Last Resort? Neither did I. I've never encountered anything like it when looking into the mechanics and morals of nuclear retaliation in this and other nuclear nations. As far as I know, no other nation has configured the nuclear retaliation decision in a manner so intimate, so personal. (Perhaps it shouldn't be surprising: England was, after all, the birthplace of the epistolary novel; should not its last expiring act be sealed in a handwritten letter?)

There is nothing about this article that I don't find incredibly interesting, up to and including the fact that it's apparently the Daily Mail that first wrote the story.

It's oddly romantic, this manifestation of last words. I wish I'd heard about it earlier.

From Visionary English Physicist, Self-Adjusting Lenses for the Poor

From a Visionary English Physicist, Self-Adjusting Lenses for the Poor.

In the United States, Britain and other wealthy nations, 60 to 70 percent of people wear corrective glasses, Silver said. But in many developing countries, only about 5 percent have glasses because so many people, especially those in rural areas, have little or no access to eye-care professionals.

...

He said the current business model for the industry that involves optometrists, opticians and labs making custom lenses and frames is to make "very high-quality, high-cost products for the developed world." He said his "lunatic's dream" is to say, "Hold on, half the world can't afford that."

There is something very immediate and wonderful about the idea of this man trying to get affordable glasses to people who could otherwise not be able to get them. Corrected vision is something that, I think, people tend to underappreciate. Even from my privileged perspective, I remember putting on my glasses for the first time in fifth grade and just marveling at the details of my own house. When I went outside at night, I could see stars.