Procrastinaut

Seeking out the weirdest and the coolest collisions of technology with design, art, robots, science, games, music, pop culture, current events, lulz and other stuff we can’t think of right now. Every day. Because there is nothing better to do. A service of Yahoo Tech News.

[headlikeanorange]

Prairie dog (North America - Discovery Channel)

[procrastinaut]

GOTTA GO!

Procrastinaut, the Tumblr, is on an open-ended hiatus — starting now!

Please keep up with us on Yahoo Tech, and @yahootech

Thanks everyone!

[procrastinaut]

Here's a very very brand new experiment for those of you interested in tech+arts: A Flipboard magazine called, uh, Tech+Arts. 

Give it a look, Flipboarders.

[trevorknappjones]

I made a robot to do my bidding!!! first command: clean my room!! 

[procrastinaut]

Good morning. Here is a GIF to start your day.

[procrastinaut]

Every frame in this stop-motion music video is embroidered:

This sci-fi themed music video combines heavy metal, embroidery and stop-motion animation to produce something quite unusual.

In fact it is the first frame-by-frame embroidered music video and it took 45 million stitches to tell the story of the band’s journey to mars to terraform the planet. 

[procrastinaut]

It’d be a vast understatement to say the world of journalism is currently experiencing a lot of change. To us, that means it’s more important than ever to make sure journalists have the tools and resources to try new things — whether they’re professionals looking for innovative ways of funding and sharing their work, or ordinary folks with a hunger to tell the stories around them. Together, we’ve seen people launch terrific podcasts, magazines, works of photojournalism, websites, and striking tools for learning about the world. We’re sure we’ll be seeing even more amazing things to come.

And we’re especially pleased to announce that the Guardian, an institution with a global reputation for producing great and uncompromising journalism, is launching a curated page to highlight compelling projects from around the world.

More: Introducing Two New Categories: Journalism and Crafts » The Kickstarter Blog — Kickstarter

[procrastinaut]

Bjork’s Biophilia Becomes The First App To Appear At MoMA | The Creators Project

To mark the occasion, Creators Project posts this "making of" video, from a while back...

[lukeyd-blog]

Club Rainbow

Here’s my submission for loopdeloop’s rainbow theme. 

[procrastinaut]

Good morning. Here is a GIF to start your day.

[washingtonpost]

Even astronauts have World Cup fever.

[wnycradiolab]

I bet NASA could double their funding if they developed zero-gravity professional sports. I’d watch.

[unconsumption]

Memory Suitcases 

Israeli photographer Yuval Yairi uses worn, vintage suitcases as canvases for photos he’s taken: 

Several of the suitcase images are of abandoned houses once belonging to Palestinian Arabs who escaped or were evacuated during the 1948 and 1967 wars. Some of the houses have remained untouched and decaying ever since; others have been inhabited by Jews who immigrated to Israel following the Second World War; others still are being converted into exclusive modern homes.

All bear testimony to a far-from-remote history that we Israelis may try to forget, ignore or erase. Meanwhile, many Palestinians keep the keys to these houses, just as mementos, or in the hope of returning.

A suitcase is perhaps the most potent and familiar image associated with migration, and for many different peoples an icon of wandering and displacement.

(via Mail Online)

[al-grave]

Dogkour

[godotal]

Look at that droolspin!

[procrastinaut]

Good morning. Here is a GIF to start your day.

[okkultmotionpictures]

Tumblr At The White House | Details (2014)

Cinemagraphs by OKKULT Motion Pictures. Original video here.

[itsokaytobesmart]

Scenes from yesterday.

[procrastinaut]

This is very good.

[wtbw]

(via Caution Wet Floor Cones That Look Like Banana Peels | Geekologie)

[procrastinaut]

Here we have some caution cones that look like banana peels.

[laughingsquid]

Artist Creates Bad Passwords Dress and ‘Security Blanket’

Artist Lorrie Cranor has created a colorful dress and a “Security Blanket” using material that she designed while on a “staybatical” at The Studio for Creative Inquiry.

The design for the material came from the most popular bad passwords from the 2009 Rock You hack, a security breach in which passwords were stolen from the social media developer and subsequently made public.

I asked my students to extract the 1000 most popular passwords from the RockYou data set and provide a list to me with frequency counts. I then went through the list and sorted them into a number of thematic groups. I assigned a color to each group and entered the passwords with weights and colors into the Wordle online word cloud generator. I then saved the output as a PDF and edited it in Adobe Illustrator to rearrange them in a shape that I liked, with some pairs of words purposefully place in close proximity. I designed a border, and had the whole thing printed on one large sheet of fabric by Spoonflower.

[procrastinaut]

Allow us to introduce you to the Creator Handbook, our newest resource for building something great.

  More: Introducing the Creator Handbook » The Kickstarter Blog — Kickstarter.

Via

[procrastinaut]

Before Google Earth:

In 1908 Dr Julius Neubronner patented a miniature pigeon camera activated by a timing mechanism. The invention brought him international notability after he presented it at international expositions in Dresden, Frankfurt and Paris in 1909–1911.

Spectators in Dresden could watch the arrival of the camera-equipped carrier pigeons, and the photos were immediately developed and turned into postcards which could be purchased.

Reports the Public Domain Review

From The Forgotten Firsts: 10 Vintage Versions of Modern Technology | Messy Nessy Chic, via Coudal.

[procrastinaut]

We wanted to build an object that isn’t a piece of glass that lives in your jeans. The smart hoodie was born.

The first switch was put into the left sleeve and sent messages to my Facebook account – notifying my friends that I was in class. After that we tested switches with the hoodie and other sleeve. Gestures that used to require your fingers on a tiny piece of glass now are translated into everyday movement, buttons no more.

Playing with the idea of a fun cell phone device we programmed the hoodie to send preset messages to my mother, notifying her of what I’m up while at school. If I rolled up my left sleeve it tells her I am in class and can’t talk, if I put my hoodie on it tells her that I miss her and if I push the right sleeve it lets her know I am free and can chat online.

More here: Smart Hoodie – Wearable Phone | Alina Balean, and on Creators Project.

[sound]

Yuri Suzuk worked with students from ECAL studying Media & Interaction Design and Industrial Design, including Cyrille Verdon, Renaud de Francesco, Marc Dubois, Aurélien Haslebacher to create a pair of heels that defy the norm.

The resulting shoes can emit sounds as if the wearer was walking through gravel, water, and even an oversized piano.

Via psfk.com.