Math

Synth Coke

Unleash The Motherfucking Moonwalk

Data Visualization

IBM today announced Many Eyes, a site for sharing and commenting on visualizations. Martin Wattenberg, who developed the original version of treemap as well as the awesome baby name voyager, and Fernanda Viegas, who worked with him on the equally awesome history flow visualizations of Wikipedia, are the geniuses behind this project.

As with Swivel, users can upload any data set, but the tools for visualizing and graphing the data are much richer. The visualization options include US and World maps, line graphs, stack graphs, bar charts, block histograms, bubble diagrams, scatter plots, network diagrams, pie charts, and treemaps. You can get a good sense of the types of graphs available by checking out the visualization gallery.

Personally, I’d love to see Swivel and Many Eyes working together, as Swivel already has some great data sets, but has only a limited number of graphing tools. But that’s an exercise for the future. For now, data wonks can just rejoice that both sites exist, and should start exploring and conversing about what they find. I love both of these sites.

Geometry Using Costco Shopping Carts

This takes place in California, a circle is made following the natural curve using shopping carts in a Costco parking lot. Must have taken some time and there are definately a lot of carts there. You haven’t seen geometry like this!

(click image to view full size)

Drinking: A Love Story By Caroline Knapp

Drinking memoirs typically concern the escapades of a lovable roue and his triumph over alcohol. For the most part, they are written by men who have stopped drinking with or without the help of Alcoholics Anonymous.

In contrast, Drinking: A Love Story is written by Caroline Knapp, a woman, and as psychotherapists have observed, women’s alcoholism often follows a different trajectory from that of men.

Knapp’s childhood predicted potential problems. She was born a twin, into a prosperous family. Knapp’s father, a prominent psychoanalyst, is described as cold, remote, and inaccessible, an alcoholic involved in extramarital affairs. Her mother, an artist, preoccupied with breast cancer through much of Knapp’s childhood, is seemingly unaware of the inner life of her children. Her twin sister responds to the family dynamics by becoming a physician, while Knapp develops a repertoire of addictive behaviors.

Knapp’s symptoms begin before she has her first drink. As a young child, she describes compulsive rocking behavior, probably used as a means of self-soothing. She starts seriously drinking at the age of 16, having been sneaking wine at home since 14. In her 20s, exhibiting all the symptoms of an anxious, overachiever with no sense of self, Knapp develops an eating disorder. She reaches her 30s with a stable career as a respected journalist, while adding to her addictions a series of unhealthy relationships with men.

In 1984, at the age of 25, she enters psychotherapy for help with the anorexia. Several years later, she joins a support group for women with eating disorders. During this time, Knapp moves from anorexia to alcoholism, staying in therapy, trying to figure out why she is so unhappy.

It is hard to select one incident in the book as “the one” that moves Knapp to stop drinking. Her parents’ painful deaths-both died of cancer one year apart, several analytic comments made by her father before his death, and nearly dropping a friend’s child while Knapp was drunk, all seem to have propelled her into an Alcoholics Anonymous rehabilitation program.

Knapp compares her obsession with alcohol to a longstanding love affair with a remote, unresponsive man. Her denial of the destructiveness of alcoholism in her life is similar to that of women who delude themselves about an unfaithful lover. She calls her recovery, “a divorce from white wine.”

This is a deeply moving book. Knapp tells her story in a way that can be interpreted widely.

Uniqlo Mixplay

Doin’ the robot has never looked so good in this video for Uniqlo.

Procrastination

Banksy Serves Up A “Free Lunch,” Debunks Cliche

With word that Banksy’s last show in LA basically sold out and celebrities bought works priced $100k and up, we think it’s pretty awesome that he’s uploaded all sorts of comp art, some images from the actual show, on his newly designed website. Head over to his shop and you can download all the images you want for free. He also recommends printing tips:

Prints look best when done on gloss paper using the company printer ink when everyone else is at lunch.

But he also does have some reservations and offers up this one request:

Please do not use this service to launch your own poster company or t-shirt line.

Otherwise do some Photoshop magic, print on canvas paper and voilà you too can dupe unsuspecting celebrities.

Rodrigo y Gabriela

If you are one of those music fans that look at instrumental albums as dinner party fodder, you are in for a shock on Rodrigo & Gabriela’s self-titled debut album. It is the kind of holy shit listening experience that would kill all conversation as your guests sit with mouths agape, plotting to steal the album when you are in the other room. It is a breathtaking album full of captivating sound created with just two acoustic guitars; so rich you wonder whether Rodrigo and Gabriela are actually octopi.

The incredible sounds created would take a room full of mariachis to match the fury the two manufactures. The invigorating album is a shot of adrenaline you would never expect from the description ‘instrumental acoustic guitar duo’. The Mexican duo create dense compositions that will boggle your mind, crafting killer rock and folk sounds fuelled by the Latin heart pumping at the center of each track, adding southwestern flair to each exciting cut.

Rodrigo Y Gabriela is a staggeringly great example of just how far two artists can stretch themselves to create an incredibly beautiful sound that will blow your ears and mind away. Oh, and just when you have wrapped your mind around the killer sound these two dished out on their debut, one more nugget; this was recorded live. Chew on that for a while.

Video: Late Show with David Letterman

Video: Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven”

Audio: Metallica’s “Onion”