A New Book Every Weekday On Wink Books

One of my passions is books. I love books. So does my wife and we have quite a collection in our home, which almost borders on a library.

One of my favorite websites is Kevin Kelly's Cool Tools, which I have contributed to on occasion. Well, Kevin has cooked up a new website for new books called Wink and it promises "remarkable books that belong on paper" at the rate of one every weekday.

From the site: "Wink scours bookstores, libraries, flea markets, and online retailers looking for books that you must experience; books that are sensual, three dimensional, robust. We seek out artifacts that you must hold in your hands or unfold in your lap. Wink collects books that optimize what books do best on paper: open up new worlds."

I'm all about opening up new worlds. How about you?

MIT Engineers Design ‘Living Materials’

Here's one that everyone should be interested in. The good folks at MIT have devised a way to bridge technology and biology using bacteria.

“Our idea is to put the living and the nonliving worlds together to make hybrid materials that have living cells in them and are functional,” says Timothy Lu, who is an assistant professor of electrical engineering and biological engineering.

The authors of the paper see this technology as being useful in solar cells, self-healing materials, or diagnostic sensors. They don't mention it, but I see possibilities in the field of prosthetics.

Here's a link to the article.

Fun Time! Supercut Of The Most Influential Visual Effects In Movies Since 1980!

3-D Printed Skull Successfully Implanted In Woman

From NBC News online....

"Doctors in the Netherlands report that they have for the first time successfully replaced most of a human’s skull with a 3-D printed plastic one — and likely saved a woman's life in the process."

Read more HERE.

OMG! Who Stole My Ads?

What would the world be like if invasive street advertisements were replaced with classical paintings?  Artist Etienne Lavie has created a series of photographs that answers that question.

Travel Photo of the Week

Hong Kong skyline

How To Make A "Thing"

Ayah Bdeir is the founder and CEO of littleBits, a company that makes and sells tiny modular circuits "bits" that can be used to create complete, functioning electronic devices good for educational purposes or just plain fun.

Ms. Bdeir has written a wonderful piece on creativity called "How To Make A Thing" that explains why she created littleBits and goes on to encourage people to get their hands dirty making something.

"Every technology that changes the world usually starts in the hands of experts or large industry, but the real opportunity to affect change in society is when it becomes democratic, and accessible to everyday people."

I couldn't have said it better. Now, go out and make something.

Ten Things That Could Wipe Out Life On Earth

Just the thing for Monday morning, right?

Japan’s Beautiful Manhole Covers

Japanese photographer S. Morita photographs manhole covers. Not just any manhole covers, mind you, but beautiful manhole covers.

Fun Time! Insane Random Game Concept Generator!

Over at a site called Orteil's Stuff, there a is a fun page where you input any information into a "search"
window and a game concept will be generated.

So if you put in the words "Giant Gorilla" the game concept you get back is "An FPS where you color evil wizards and the bad guy is constantly stalking you wherever you go."

I put in my name and got "An adventure game where you feed spirits of nature to slow global warming."

There's also a sanity function which will give you either a sane or an insane version of a game. I picked the insane verion. The games are funnier. Careful though, any spelling or capitalization change will give you a different game concept. If I take out the capitalization of Giant Gorilla, the game changes to "An artsy game where you link soldiers in binary."

I know which game I'd rather play.