tech@vedella

A brief roundup of some of the pieces observing the passing of Steve Jobs, by journalists who covered Apple and Jobs, and peers who knew him. Steven Levy's piece in Wired was beautiful. Levy first interviewed Jobs in the mid-1980s. At the New York Times, John Markoff wrote the obituary. Markoff has been at it [...]

Mike Daisey wrote an opinion piece for the New York Times arguing against Jobs hagiography. Some might say "too soon," but it's a compelling piece, with much to think about. The Steve Jobs who founded Apple as an anarchic company promoting the message of freedom, whose first projects with Stephen Wozniak were pirate boxes and [...]

Noah Shachtman at Wired News: "A computer virus has infected the cockpits of America’s Predator and Reaper drones, logging pilots’ every keystroke as they remotely fly missions over Afghanistan and other warzones."

Alex Mallis directed this beautiful short film about Occupy Wall Street.

I asked Jason Torchinsky, one of my favorite makers/artists, to describe how he built his gigantic Space Invader sculptures for the IndieCade Festival (the international conference festival of independent games taking place October 7-9 in Los Angeles). Jason used the original space invaders shapes as templates and scaled them up to one pixel per square [...]

Pictoplasma is an annual conference and festival of contemporary character design and art. It will be held at Tishman Auditorium, November 4+5, 2011. Our pal, Tim Biskup, will be giving a talk there. The Pictoplasma Festival returns to NYC with a dense, extended weekend of inspiring artist presentations, conference lectures, animation screenings, character walk exhibitions, [...]

Niagara Falls, Ontario's Nightmares Fear Factory has a Flickr feed full of visitors being terrorized in its environs. I grew up with the spookhouses of Niagara Falls, and they can be incredibly scary, even the basic Lundy's Lane spookhouse, which is often just a dark maze populated by bored locals with night-vision scopes who whisper [...]

This car fell into a massive hole that suddenly opened up on a busy road between the towns of Woking and Chertsey in Surrey, England. A busted water main caused the road collapse. From an onlooker quoted in GetSurrey News: "There's a car which has been absorbed into the road, it just went in. "The [...]

"I share the values and the message of the Occupy Wall Street movement. We want to provide the opportunity for the people of Seattle to express their views. And we are." The Mayor of Seattle has given his blessing to "Occupy Seattle" by way of a permit, allowing protestors to occupy a park where demonstrations [...]

Settle in for some good ol' fashioned avant-garde theater. You can now view the entire 2+ hour Austrian TV broadcast of "Black Rider," a 1990 collaboration between Tom Waits, William S. Burroughs, and theater director Robert Wilson. (In the video linked to below, the actual performance starts at 07:30.) From UBUWEB: Wilson was largely responsible [...]

Photo: Quinn Norton At noon on Wednesday, October 5, 2011, #occupysf protestors staged a march starting at their tent city in front of the San Francisco Federal Reserve down Market Street street, to City Hall, and back towards the Financial District by way of the Tenderloin. It was a peaceful and upbeat march with a [...]

Photographer Rion Sabean created a series of "Men-ups!," males posing in stereotypically female model poses. "Men-ups!" (Flickr) Sabean interview (Jezebel)

This handsome pack allows you to stroll around with your bird on board. This hands-free, vest-style bird carrier hangs over your shoulders and is constructed of durable mesh fabric that allows good airflow and visibility for your bird. It features a zippered opening on the top and bottom for easy access and includes a removable [...]

The New York Times's T Magazine posted an excellent interactive photo gallery where you control a slider to see how models are transformed with makeup and styling for fashion runways. Seen here, Iris Egbers at Alexander McQueen. Model-Morphosis (Thanks, Joel Johnson!)

"The distinction between neurodiverse and neurotypical is too simplistic. There is certainly a great deal of structural variability between individuals, and that's compounded by structural changes that go on across the lifespan. I'm sure [the extent of brain variability is] a lot more than most people realise." — Jon Simons, senior author on a recently [...]

What's one of the things Time magazine says you should never waste your money on ever again? Alternative flu remedies—from homeopathic to herbal, there's no evidence that they actually produce results. The one exception: Homemade chicken soup. (Follow that link for a research paper that includes a recipe.)

This Tron-o-saurus is part of Dinosaurs & Robots, a gallery show by artists Scott Elyard and Raven Amos, which opens tonight in Anchorage, Alaska. For more info, check out the video trailer that Elyard made. Via Glendon Mellow, who you should follow for all your science-themed art needs.

From satellites, to probes, to capsules full of people—humans have launched more than 7000 objects into space. In a nifty infographic at Technology Review, Tommy McCall and Mike Orcutt illustrate reams of data, collected from hundreds of sources, to show how the character of launches has changed over time in different countries. One of the [...]

Redditor TheHerferd carved this brain out of the rind of a watermelon using a potato peeler and a paring knife. The project took less than an hour and looks great. We've posted about this before: here's a tutorial on making a similar brain, from 2008. (via Neatorama)