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#arg
What is the Jejune Institute and Why Are They Recording Your Thoughts?
I've been seeing a lot of fliers around San Francisco advertising something called the "Aquatic Thought Foundation," which promises to give you dolphin therapy by hooking your brain up to a dolphin. Really, the fliers weren't all that much kookier than the usual Marin County yoga levitation psionics stuff you see. But finally I decided to check out the dolphin therapy website because, well, it was just SO weird. And it turned out to be one of the coolest and most mysterious ARGs I've come across in quite some time. More » -
#worldbuilding
The Rules of Quick and Dirty Worldbuilding
Worldbuilding is the art of creating an alternate universe where the rules of present-day Earth life don't apply, and you have been appreciating that art for as long as you've been reading or watching science fiction. Some worldbuilding is epic in scale, and requires thousands of people: the Star Wars universe is like that, if you think of all the people who have helped create the movies, books, art, TV and games from that world. But other worldbuilders work alone. Ursula Le Guin wrote several novels set in her "shared worlds" universe without any help and without spawning any spinoff tales by other people. But worldbuilding doesn't have to be something that just the pros do. You can get in on the cool create-your-own universe action any time you want, and fast. Just follow our five simple rules for whipping up a universe in your spare time. More » -
#art
Eight Tons of Cardboard Molded Into an Imaginary Landscape
Though this looks like some kind of insane mushroom growth, it's actually special, die-cut cardboard strips put together by the Ball-Nogues Studio for an installation at Rice University. The artists created a digital mockup of the shapes they wanted, ordered 20,000 strips of cardboard cut to the perfect prefab sizes, and put the whole thing together in four days. It's strong enough for people to stand on. Want to see more of it? More »
