Really enlightening this. I’d encourage you to take this test and see if you come out how you think you should! You choose 4 topics that you’re most concerned about and vote on policies not parties, people, or preconceptions.

I surprised myself! Check out Vote For Policies. ( Be sure to open the trays and see all policies for a more accurate result ).

Also been pointed towards Vote Match which i might take as a comparison.

For the Junior Players there’s the inevitable anatomy lessons. For the Pro Players? They play to win :) Cheers to Dan N-S for tweeting the vid. Image above by Stéphane Massa-Bidal.

And for those of you still intrigued, but still wanting to keep your dinner down - a great mini study here by Casey Neistat who takes a humourous look at who’s doing what on Chatroulette…. or How To Be Sucessful On Chatroulette.

A little while before Christmas i came across the beautiful jewelry made by Cecile - aka La Bôite a Monstres. We struck a deal to swap a moustachioed monster for a bracelet and we set to work on our creations. My pirate bracelet arrived the other day. Very exciting! It features as it’s hero a full working compass, along side a functioning locket pendant, and pirate portrait also. I absolutely love it, and salute you Cecile on you marvelous handiwork. Thank you so much :)

Brilliantly made mini Where The Wild Things Are characters here. Made in the japanese character crochet style, Amigurumi. Very technical stuff! And impressive likenesses. Big thanks to the Beddard who sent me this. You can see more details and buy the patterns on CraftyisCool’s Etsy here. Can’t wait to see this Monster movie!

I really want to have a play with this! Perhaps we could borrow it for a week ?  ;) Would love to hook this up so the final designs could be printed out and framed. Or flipped up to a site somewhere for everyone to see. Lots of detail on the software and hardware here….. What would you draw ?

Spotted on McCandless’s tweets again ( @mccandelish ). Interesting finds from him. The 3D Etch-A-Sketch itself is made by Andrew Sliwinski. Check out his - This And Again. Ps- Can someone make me one! ? !

This weekend i’ve been mostly getting sticky fingers, in the jam making process. These are my first ever pots of jam! Pink Grapefruit, Ginger, Lemon and Lime Marmalade. And if i don’t mind saying so myself, it’s flippin’ awesome.

Cookie helped me make it ( he’s a jam pro ). Then Sunday my sister came round and we made some pretty wicked Plum Jam too. It’s pretty satisfying. Both to make and consume. MMmmmmmm.

There wasn’t a special recipe as such, we just went freestyle. So if i get a chance i’ll write out the details : ) Right - off to eat toast!

All your Beefy needs are catered for here. For all the meat lovers out there, i found this lovely info graphic detailing out what goes where in a cow-jigsaw. ( Although i’m still not sure where the Filet Mignon lives - are they the petite tender medallions ? Help me out ). To see the close up detail click here.

German digital artist and tinkerer Quasimondo has been noodling with the idea of encoding images within a single tweet. The results above show how the image is geometrically reconstructed. It looks abstracted but you can see that the idea could be pretty interesting!

“Preliminary result of a little competition with the goal to write an image encoder/decoder that allows to send an image in a tweet. The image on the left is what I currently manage to send in 140 characters via twitter.”

I’ve not tested it but, apparently this is the tweet for the image:
圑嘌婂搒孵怤實恄幖戰怴搝愩娻屗奊唀唭嚟帧啜徠山峔巰喜圂嗊埯廇嗕患嚵幇墥彫壛嶂壋悟声喿墰廚埽崙嫖嘵奰恛嬂啷婕媸姴嚥娐嗪嫤圣峈嬻尤囮愰啴屽嶍屽嶰寂喿 嶐唥帑尸庠啞彐啯廂喪帄嗆怠嗙开唅恰唦慼啥憛幮悐喆悠喚忐嗳惐唔戠啹媊婼捐啸抃岖嗅怲幀嗈拀唹坭嵄彠喺悠單囏庰抂唋岰媮岬夣宐彋媀恦啼彐壔姩宔嬀

( Update: Didn’t work for me but let me know if it does for you. I may be missing something )

You can read a full rundown of his ideas and coding methodology on his flickr. You can see more of his Algorithmically Generated imagery here.

Been meaning to blog about this awesome Augmented Reality game but i’ve been a little under the weather for a few days. So in case you’ve not found it yet … may i introduce RubberDuckZilla in … Massive Aqua Rampage!

With a simple printer and webcam, and through the wonder of AR, you can become a crazed water hating giant duck and rampage through the city blowing up buildings with you laser beam eyes …. so what’s not to like there then! ?? ( PS. there’s a tutorial video in there with the two japanese girls from the tv ad - shows you how to print out the code and stick it on your head in order to transform into the duck ). Print the AR Code from here then —>   Play it here!

And here’s our glamorous assistant Chris with a demonstration video.

I ( of course ) have a love monsters, and they don’t get much better than Gozilla. So i bloody love this! A big shout out the the very talented Poke boys who’ve been working hard on this one - especially Jason and Rex - in collaboration with the cheeky fellas over at LingoBee. There’ll be 4 games in total as the AR codes are released in the press. So keep your eyes peeled.

When people pass you in the street, or sit opposite you on the tube are they thinking you’re a dodgy geezer? Hold this chart up and have a friend assess your face …

“Princeton psychologists recently showed that certain faces, even when expressionless, strike people as trustworthy or untrustworthy. Features like the shape of the eyebrow are part of an unconscious language of trust that powerfully affects human interaction.”

Via Boston.com

This is pretty impressive!

“No effects or sampling was used. What you see is what you hear (does that even make sense?) Atari 800XL was used for the lead piano/organ sound, Texas Instruments TI-99/4a as lead guitar, 8 Inch Floppy Disk as Bass, 3.5 inch Harddrive as the gong, HP ScanJet 3C was used for all vocals. Please note I had to record the HP scanner 4 separate times for each voice.” Piece by bd594. Source code, demo, and info on how to create something similar here :)

This book’s on the shopping list. Partly because it comes with a DVD of pre-made pattern textures and elements ready to roll, but also abstract patterns are always great for kicking of ideas for page layouts, logo forms, unusual colour combos, and inspiration for graphic elements all round. And it’s simply nice to look at, so why not eh ;) You can get it at the Kapitza Shop where there’s also a wealth of vector downloads of decorative elements and sillouettes. Always handy to have around the house.

Costing only £3000 to build, this low impact eco home looks straight out of The Shire. Built using mainly a chainsaw, hammer and 1 inch chisel it’s pretty amazing. Read Simon Dale’s thoughts on sustainable society, and why he built the home - here.  Also - how it was done, step by step photos. More images of this gorgeous home here. I want to live there!

SpoonFlower lets you do that. You’ve seen custom business cards and flyers with Moo cards, but now you can take your crafty personalisation to a new level by creating your own textile designs. Make bags, clothing, uniforms or upholsterer furniture in your own custom design. Maybe a duvet cover with a big picture of your face on it ;) (Actually that would be awful! ) Anything you like, for what ever you need it for. I might make some Monster-Munch and Poke cushions ;) How fantastic is that! Your own products completely hand made and designed by you. There’s no minimum order either. I’m sure there’s some christmas ideas you could pull off with this. Pretty cool if you’re an illustrator or artist. Find out more here. Cheers for the link Pete!

Now, apparently this one is super old. But i’ve never seen it, and i bloody love it. For a time i used to create little circle charts to plan out my days ( i’m a bit weird like that ) as a bit of an experiment. It’s perfect for dividing out your time, and making sure you’ve got a nice balanced life, and you’re not working too much ;) Working is bad for you. Thinking is good for you. Anyway, i don’t need to go into why this is so clever and so simple. You can see that for yourself. I just want to order a giant batch of them. Any one seen them for sale ?

Good writeups here and here with some comparisons with regular list-based planning.