Link About It: This Week’s Picks
Whole Foods’ rooftop greenhouse, the late Roger Ebert, the cell phone’s 40th birthday and more in our weekly look at the web
1. AIPAD Photography Show
The Park Avenue Armory in NYC is currently playing host to the AIPAD Photography Show, one of the year’s most impressive gatherings of contemporary photography talent. For those unable to make the show, Artsy has gathered a collection of AIPAD works ranging from Pieter Hugo’s haunting portraits to Andrew Moore’s American landscapes.
2. Super Local Whole Foods
Brooklyn locavores can rejoice knowing the Gowanus neighborhood will soon host the ultimate Whole Foods shopping
market, one equipped with a fully operational rooftop farm. Currently under construction, the 20,000-square-foot greenhouse will be run by the Greenpoint-based Gotham Greens and expects to sell produce not only to the Whole Foods, but to other
local grocers as well.
3. Color Wheel Timepiece
Carnegie Melon industrial design student Scott Alberstein toys with the classic clock face in a prototypal watch called Color Wheel Timepiece. By exposing a rotating color wheel through a pie-shaped window, the wearer will begin to associate color with time, for a more metaphorical take on telling time.
4. Post-It Note Arcade
In an impressive tribute to his favorite arcade games, the industrious Michael Birken created stop-motion versions of Ms. Pac Man and Donkey Kong with nothing more than the common Post-It note. The 11-month project was based on recorded game footage, which was printed out frame by frame and recreated around his office, using over 4,800 Post-Its.
5. Roger Ebert
This week the country heard the sad news that legendary film critic Roger Ebert, who influenced the success of the film industry for several decades, died this week at the age of 70. Ebert worked for the Chicago Sun-Times for 40 years, through a public battle with cancer for more than a decade at the end of his life. In their obituary The New York Times quotes President Obama, who commented on his death Thursday saying, “For a generation of Americans—especially Chicagoans—Roger was the movies.”
6. Vdio
Janus Friis—cofounder of Skype and Rdio—has finally released Vdio, a video streaming platform for renting and purchasing movies and TV shows. Currently only available to Rdio subscribers, the video service promotes social sharing as a way to discover new content.
7. Brain Mapping
In an effort to better understand diseases like Alzheimer’s and epilepsy, the White House has announced $100 million in funding for the BRAIN Initiative, a project aimed at mapping the human brain. Similar in nature to the Human Genome Project, the government hopes that the research will lead to better understanding and treatment of brain-related diseases.
8. The 91 Year Old Shoemaker
Well over a half century ago, Brooklyn’s Frank Catalfumo returned
from WWII and opened F&C
Shoes. Now nearly 91 years old, Catalfumo still runs his beloved
shoe repair shop in Bensonhurst with his middle-aged son at his side.
The encouraging story is one of true dedication and craftsmanship.
9. Printing Dreams
A new addition to Virginia Tech’s impressive array of 3D-printing resources, DreamVendor dispenses objects in the manner of a soda machine. Students are able to bring CAD models to the station on an SD card, upload the design and print it out.
10. Happy 40th Mr. Cell Phone
On 3 April 1973 Motorola engineer Marty Cooper made the first-ever
phone call from a handheld cell phone. In the 40 years since, the mobile phone has dropped well over two
pounds and several inches in size, and we couldn’t be happier about it. To
celebrate the milestone, The Verge reintroduced an archived interview with
Cooper himself.
11. Flattr
Support your favorite musician, company, charity or really whomever, with Flattr, the new donation-based online service.
Simply set up an account, set a budget and transfer money to your
account. From here Flattr whatever you like, and the program will
donate an amount of your budget directly proportional to the number of
“Flattrs” made in the month. Easy as that.
12. Stainless Steel Sharpies
However mundane the markers may seem, there’s a clandestine population among us who derive great joy from their Sharpies. The quasi-classic brand tends to churn out fun new products on a more regular basis than even devoted fans may realize, and Core77 discovered one of their latest—a stainless steel refillable model that lets your pen live on in elegant perpetuity.
