If you liked the noun project – but would like your nouns with a little more narrative – then the Human Project might be worth watching, it’s one designer’s quest to explain globally recognised pictograms.
Author: Nathan Campbell
Nathan runs St Eutychus. He loves Jesus. His wife. His daughter. His son. His other daughter. His dog. Coffee. And the Internet. He is the pastor of City South Presbyterian Church, a church in Brisbane, a graduate of Queensland Theological College (M. Div) and the Queensland University of Technology (B. Journ). He spent a significant portion of his pre-ministry-as-a-full-time-job life working in Public Relations, and now loves promoting Jesus in Brisbane and online. He can't believe how great it is that people pay him to talk and think about Jesus. If you'd like to support his writing financially you can do that by giving to his church.
My mind blown: Don’t Panic
The iPad is pretty much the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, and I only just noticed.
Here’s a passage from So Long and Thanks for All the Fish – one of the five books in the trilogy.
“Fenchurch leaned across him and drew over her canvas bag.
“Is it anything to do with this?” she said. The thing she took out of her bag was battered and travelworn as it had been hurled into prehistoric rivers, baked under the sun that shines so redly on the deserts of Kakrafoon, half-buried in the marbled sands that fringe the heady vapoured oceans of Santraginus V, frozen on the glaciers of the moon of Jaglan Beta, sat on, kicked around spaceships, scuffed and generally abused, and since its makers had thought that these were exactly the sorts of things that might happen to it, they had thoughtfully encased it in a sturdy plastic cover and written on it, in large friendly letters, the words “Don’t Panic”.“Where did you get this?” said Arthur, startled, taking it from her.
“Ah,” she said, “I thought it was yours. In Russell’s car that night. You dropped it. Have you been to many of these places?”
Arthur drew the Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy from its cover. It was like a small, thin, flexible lap computer. He tapped some buttons till the screen flared with text. “
iPad + wikipedia = Hitchhiker’s Guide.
Actually, if you read the Wikipedia entry for the guide. Which is kind of meta. It says:
“The Guide’s numerous entries are quoted throughout the various incarnations of the Hitchhiker’s Guide series. As well as offering background information, the Guide’s entries often employ irony, sarcasm and subtle commentary on the action and on life in general.”
Which means it’s probably more likely that an iPad plus reddit is the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Maybe it’s some combination of reddit, metafilter, Lifehacker, wikipedia, and wolfram alpha.
So it seems fitting that you can buy this cover:
The lengths kids will go to to avoid boring church
Don’t be boring and your parishioner’s kids won’t steal their parent’s cars. This is what Eutychus would have done if cars were around.
Tumblrweed: Minimalist Movie Posters #54
I’ve posted heaps of Minimalist Movie posters in these parts in the past. Here’s a Tumblr devoted to providing more every day.
Some samples.
There are heaps. Check ’em out.
The Gladwellerator
Everybody wants to be the next Malcolm Gladwell. The man has a freakish ability to draw seemingly disparate factoids together into a cohesive, best-selling, argument.
Want some ideas for a book that will sell? Check out the Malcolm Gladwell Book Generator.
Gourmet “fast food”
It’s not exactly “Fancy Fast Food” – because it’s not taking the food and repurposing it into something a little bit fancy. But this DIY McRib looks pretty tasty.
“After a quick trip to McD’s, I broke the sandwich down. A very standard-issue six-inch white-flour roll with a dusting of cornmeal on top, lightly toasted. A scattering of raw white onion slivers, which add flavor and crunch. Exactly two dill pickle slices — not three, not five, just two. A slathering of sweet, tangy, tomato-based barbecue sauce with hints of smoke, almost St. Louis style. And the heart of the sandwich, a boneless, flavorless pork patty preformed to look sort of rib-ish, with ridges implying a rack of baby backs. (I have to admit that, to its credit, the meat was terrifically moist, which is probably due to the amount of fat in there.)
Starting with that fatty cut of pork, I decided to reinterpret the McRib using pork belly, which, over the course of a three-hour braise, turns from a three-pound cut into something like the preformed pork patty’s blindingly spectacular cousin. While it cooked, I made a quick pickle and a simple barbecue sauce from scratch, and sliced some red onions — sweeter than the white — to add even more crunch. I stuck with store-bought rolls, but you could easily up the homemade factor and make your own basic white sandwich roll or go really indulgent with a brioche. Sure, it might take a little more time than simply popping down to your local McDonald’s for a McRib, but you’ll never have to worry about whether it’s been taken off the menu.”
There’s a step-by-step guide, and recipe, here.
David Brent appears in American Office, tears hole in space-time continuum
Ricky Gervais made a guest appearance, as David Brent, on the American version of the Office recently. Which created a weird question that now needs resolving:
“The pilot episode of the American Office was an ever-so-slightly altered version of the same script of Ricky Gervais’ first episode of the UK Office. As separate entities, this makes sense. After the pilot, the American version deviated almost entirely from the plot of its UK counterpart. But now that it’s confirmed that these two do exist in the same world, how could two human beings could live such eerily similar days — repeating pretty much the exact same lines of dialogue? ”
Some possible explanations, and further considerations, here at Movieline.
So you’re going to write a novel
This made me laugh a little bit. But not a lot. These days that’s enough…
Pondering the self identity of bogans
In 2016 a commenter, Treena, pointed out that this post is pretty judgmental and unloving. She’s right. I don’t, as a general rule, delete or edit my mistakes. I want to own them. But having read this post again, I regret the way that I spoke about other people. Strangers. My neighbours. This post is unloving, ungracious, a bit superior, and, to be frank, it is poorly written. And I trust that you’ll forgive me for all of that. I hope would certainly not write a post like this now, one of the interesting things about blogging over such a period is that there’s not much in my archives that represents where I am now in terms of my thinking, writing, or maturity, but it is interesting, and perhaps encouraging, for me to look back on old posts and be able to see where I’ve come from, for good or for ill. So thanks again to Treena for being so bold as to call me out, and I apologise for this post. I recommend not reading it, and certainly wouldn’t recommend thinking it speaks for me, or should speak for you.
Last Sunday, as we were driving home from church in our conservatively silver and thoroughly ubiquitous Holden Vectra, I caught a flurry of pink movement out of the corner of my eye. It was birdlike. Feathery. But fluorescent. It happened again. I looked in the rearview mirror – and bearing down on my tail, like a bird of prey, was what can only be decribed as the Boganmobile.
If Bruce Wayne had been traumatised, as a child, by a swarm of bogans rather than bats, (just what is the collective noun for bogans? A Track suite?) this is the vehicle he would drive (and quite possibly, assuming the guy was wearing a wifebeater under his Jim Beam shirt, the outfit he’d wear).
This, friends, is my recreation of that car. We did try to take a surreptitious photo out our window – but it came out blurry on account of my saying “no, Robyn, don’t stick the camera up so obviously – that platted man and his ladyfriend minions will attack us if we make eye contact”…
The question racing through my mind as this car first tailgated, then overtook, then drove next to us was “how cool does this guy think he is with that cigarette smoke billowing into the back seat where his two passengers sit gawking at his every move?” Or, to frame the question in a more sociologically correct manner “what is the self conception of the bogan when it comes to the question of his/her identity?”
Do bogans know they are bogans? Or do they believe they are normal and the rest of society weird? Do they think “why do people waste money on new cars and clothes when a 1980s Holden (or in this case Toyota) will suffice? Why spend money on new clothes when you can wear freebie promotional gear from your beverage company of choice and a pair of threadbare trackpants? Why drink anything you have to spell that is not made in your state’s finest brewery – or if you’re feeling a little adventurous – some VB? Why is it taking so long for this trend of adorning one’s motor vehicle/home with religious relics and costume jewelery to catch on?
Are bogans born bogans by a genetic quirk – are they an evolutionary throwback, a quirk, a mutation – or, is it likely that through the propensity to cast one’s oats widely and early – the bogans will in fact inherit the earth as the next stage of human development. Homoboganus? Or is it a matter of nurture – are bogans brought up bogans by bogan dads, with bogan grandads – do they suckle on tins of VB, raised by the pseudo-surrogacy of weekly V8 Supercar Events, drag races and trips to the dog tracks. Do Bogans raise their children draped in Australian Flags with the warcry “kiss the flag” shouted each and every Australia day?
At what point can you no longer tell the difference between nature and nurture?
Is there a conversion rate? Do non-bogans ever become bogans for love, does anybody catch a wiff of sweaty mullet and think “that’s the hair style for me. Goodbye lattes. Hello Blend 43 in styrofoam cups, reheated in the microwave with yesterday’s Dominos. You’d think not. Unless there’s some appeal I just can’t fathom to a life lived reliving the classic moments in culture from the late 80s and early 90s sucking on a Winnie Blue and enjoying the music of INXS, AC/DC and any other bands whose names involve a four letter acronym.
Friends – can you answer any of these questions? Are there any ex-bogans in the house?
Supergran
This is just so many degrees of awesome. I love it when the scooter tips over while trying to make a getaway.
Grizzly Bear play Graceland
I was just listening to Vampire Weekend’s Contra album. And thought “gee, that sounds like Paul Simon”… so I did a little googling to see what they had to say about the similarity. Which led me to this – completely unrelated – Grizzly Bear singing Graceland.
Here’s the Vampire Weekend song that I think sounds particularly Simonesque (set to an amusing Japanese dance clip).
Here’s Paul Simon’s Crazy Love…
Here’s a mashup…
Hitler’s Style Guide
Wow. The Nazis were apparently big on branding. Check out this style guide…
The policing of all things Swastika was the responsibility of Dr. Robert Ley, the head of the German Labor Front (Deutsche Arbeitsfront, DAF) and the Strength Through Joy (Kraft durch Freude, KdF). Known as much as anything for his heavy drinking, this former editor of the anti-Semitic newspaper, Westdeutsche Beobachter, was not a designer or art director, but garnered considerable power owing to his intense loyalty to Hitler. One of his most ambitious design initiatives was taking over the development of the Volkswagen (people’s car) from Porsche.
Perhaps a lesser, though significant, responsibility was developing a NSDAP handbook that detailed the organizing principles and mechanics of building the Nazi movement. It is this 550 page, red cloth-bound book titled Organizationsbuch der NSDAP, with the symbol of “Greater Germany” embossed in silver on the front, which turns out to be the elusive standards manual. The DAF was also responsible for typesetting guides and other graphic arts handbooks, but this is the graphic masterpiece of the Master Race.
There’s a copy for sale at this rare books auction site too. If you’re a collector.
iPhone Users: an infographic
I think I might be a fanboy. Though I suspect there is a bit of overlap between some of the categories.
From here.