The World Digital Library provides a significant number “primary materials” free of charge to the general public. This includes maps, manuscripts and other ephemera to promote intercultural understanding.
Category: links
Tetris on the brain
The girls who practiced showed greater brain efficiency, consistent with earlier studies. Compared to controls, the girls that practiced also had a thicker cortex, but not in the same brain areas where efficiency occurred.
I think it’s time to dust-off my old Game Boy and increase the girth of my cortex.
The perfect shave
How to get that perfect shave. It comes down to using the timeless shaving brush and double edged safety razor. My preferred method for avoiding cuts, razor burn, etc., is called a beard.
Edward Rondthaler dies
Edward Rondthaler has passed away at the age of 104. He was a founder of ITC and one of the early developers of phototypesetting. There’s a more type-centric obituary up at FontFeed.
Mountains and molehills
Information is Beautiful has a number of cool information visualizations posted on their site. I particularly like the timeline of global media scare stories.
Hype cycles
A Hype Cycle is a graphic representation of the maturity, adoption and business application of specific technologies. The cycle consists of five phases, including the trigger, inflated expectations, disillusionment, enlightenment and the plateau.
Typeface encyclopedia
Typedia is a community website that aims to classify typefaces and educate people about them. It’s also worth checking out the story behind the development of their logo. Jason Santa Maria and Tim Brown have posted articles outlining the impetus for the project, and why we need it.
8-bit trip
An awesome stop-motion Lego homage to 8-bit video games. It took more than fifteen hundred hours of moving bricks around and photographing them.
Creative advice
The seven vices of highly creative people. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.
The 1930s-1940s in colour
The Library of Congress has posted a set of colour photos from World War II era America in their photostream.