Watch Skyscrapers having a tug of war, and other shininess

Just doing a bit of housekeeping here, posting a few links I sent to myself ages ago but felt too sh1t to sit down and post (been going through a bit of a rough patch lately).

First up is a video from National Geographic, about designing small homes that feel big. Interesting. Inevitably, it's about a house in Tokyo; there are some nice ideas about out perception of space in there, though.

 

Next up: watch skyscrapers duke it out in a tug of war! Virtually, obviously. One of a series of really cool-looking procedural animations by the obviously nom-de-plume'd Brandom Morse.

Infomatics Hysteria + Royksopp = just amazingly cool

via core77, via Bruce Sterling.

Ooo pretty: Explorius Hydrofoil Yacht

Now, I flatter myself that I know a thing or two about yacht design, what with being a designer and having done a lot of sailing and being involved in commissioning two new yachts, so I'm fairly confident that as a real-life yacht this concept is not going to fly (you'll notice how flat the water is in all his renderings)... so I'm clicking through the presentation going 'Nope... nah, don't buy that... not a chance...'... and then I come to pictures like this and I go all gooey.



I just wish I could draw like that, to be honest.

Sodaplay!!!!

http://www.sodaplay.com/
Years ago, when I was a student, we had hours of fun with this, and Andrew's amazing watch post reminded me of it. Basically, you build things out of... oh, no, forget it, just go find out for yourself. If you're into that sort of thing, it's a lot of fun, trust me.

One for you stargazers: Celestia

http://www.shatters.net/celestia/
In the course of my NaNoWriMo research, I came across this free package, and I've been having a lot of fun with it. There are several similar things, I believe, but basically it allows you to take a guided tour of the universe, zooming in and out, watching eclipses and daybreaks on any planet or body you care to mention. It's open source, so there's stuff being added to it all the time - I downloaded an add-on to give me more of the moons of Saturn, for obvious reasons.

WorldChanging:Greenwich Emotion Map

http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/005261.html
This is intriguing: an emotional map of Greenwich (that's London Greenwich). A bunch of volunteers were issued with Biomapping devices, which I guess are like GPSs which measure galvanic skin response. The result could be a really useful planning tool, if you had enough people, but with a small number individual events dominate. Interesting to see a map of where people get agitated, but I can't tell whether they're excited-good or excited-bad.
Cool idea though.

Transient but interesting

There's treasure everywhere today:

Clearing through my backlog of articles, I come across the fact that in the UK we throw away more food than packaging (courtesy of the deliciously named Soggy Lettuce Report). Really not sure whether to be cheered or alarmed by that. I guess, if the figures weren't so high, it'd be a good thing - less plastic going into the environment, more of our waste is biodegrabale, etc.

Then, via a roundabout route including Charles Stross' blog (which has some real gems on it, by the way), I find the rather wonderful news that IBM have a secret island hideaway - inside a computer game. In true Bond-villain style, Big Blue have staked a claim to an island inside Second Life, and are using it for business meetings. I'm surprised they didn't phone Pixar and offer to buy the island in The Incredibles.