This evening at midnight Motherboard.TV is hosting a party in conjunction with the BLIP festival in Williamsburg. It’s at Babycastles, this crazy arcade full of one-of-a-kind video games-cum-art projects.
OBSOLETE (aka me aka Anna Jane) will be hosting two typing games at the event: a two player game (“The Typewriter Skillz Speed Challenge”) and something I’m calling “Twitter on a Typewriter.”
Hope you can make it! I’m actually looking for an extra electric typewriter that someone can lend and transport to the event (at 285 Kent Ave near the Bedford L). Must be in good working order. I will guard it with my life. And give you a free copy of Obsolete for your trouble.
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The Unabomber’s possessions are getting auctioned off. Among the storied objects on the block: his typewriter. I think I felt safer when this was a loonytoon’s weapon of choice, instead of email. At least you can see a typewriter. Or throw it across a room in self defense.
From Motherboard.tv:
Today, the U.S. Marshals office is selling some of his possessions through an online auction. “We will use the technology that Kaczynski railed against in his various manifestos to sell artifacts of his life,” said U.S. Marshal Albert Nájera of the Eastern District of California in a press release. “The proceeds will go to his victims and, in a very small way, offset some of the hardships they have suffered.”
This isn’t just weird in and of itself, the selling of the trappings of a serial killer at auction, iconic possessions that immediately present a kind of caricature of the lone madman (knife, check; hatchets, check; grey hoodie, check). The selling of these artifacts is an attempt to compensate the victims, but it’s also the sort of pseudo event the Unabomber would appreciate and ridicule. The effects being auctioned and trotted out for the media present a bizarre kind of restitution. They’re artifacts in an ongoing online Unabomber exhibit, one that will perpetuate the myth long after the man himself, now in a supermax prison in Colorado, passes away.
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Obsolete, the hardcover book, is now available as an e-book. Ironic? Yes. Awesome? Also yes. Thanks to Andy Mesa (@acetracer) for the photo!
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This is a neat way to pay homage to print media without actually having to read anything.
kayliafisher:
Cut squares of newsprint larger than nails. apply a base coat of polish. when nails are completely dry, soak them in alcohol, then press newsprint on nail and slowly pull off. top coat to seal.
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“Its the ultimate in convenience.”
(Source: retrospace)
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Yet another amazing product from Photojojo: A thumb drive made from a used film cartridge. It holds way more than 24 photos, and there’s no charge for developing them. I love living in the future!
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From Motherboard.TV:
Everything is only the sum of its parts—but what are those parts? Most of the objects we live with are invisible to us. Hell, most of our own bodies aren’t even visible to us… I don’t plan on getting a good look at my own insides anytime soon. But I sure am thrilled to get intimate with the inner workings of some beautiful objects that were indispensable in the days before digital technology made everything (supposedly) better. Artist Todd McClellan took apart quotidian objects of yore and photographed them as part of his series, Disassembly. The prints are available as part of a limited edition from 20X200. In his artist’s statement, McClellan explains:
I photographed old items that are no longer used by the masses and often found on the street curbs heading for disposal. All of the pieces I photographed were in working order. I found it very interesting that they were all so well built and put together with screws, not glue. These pieces were all most likely put together by hand. I envisioned all the enjoyment these pieces had given many people for many years, all to be replaced by new technology that will itself be rapidly replaced with half the use.
If I take a hammer to this computer, will the result be this pretty? I will report back.
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Photojojo is selling a three-pack of ye olde 35mm film. This includes “One high-speed color film, one crazy sepia-toned monochrome, and one full of dreamy rainbow lens flares.” You’ll get about 100 pictures for your $50 investment. Nostalgia sure ain’t cheap!
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I always wanted a Flip camera. Apparently, the assumption that everyone’s phone has video capability has led to the little video camera’s early demise. As Gizmodo’s Sam Biddle writes, “Like putting down an old blind mule with no hooves, in 2011, killing the Flip is killing something useless.”
My iPhone 3G doesn’t have video! I feel so…obsolete. I will just have to resort to making stop motion films with still images. All you have to upload them, print them out, go to KMart and get them printed, then staple them together. Back in my day, we called these a flip book. It’s one solution now that the “flip” has gone the way of the “book.”
(via The Flip Camera Is Finally Dead—Your Smartphone’s Got Blood on Its Hands)
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Another nail in the coffin of snail mail!
thedailywhat:
Whoopsie Daisy of the Day: The United States Postal Service accidentally used the Statue of Liberty replica in Las Vegas as the face of its latest commemorative stamp instead of, you know, the actual Statue of Liberty.
The embarrassing oversight was discovered by an eagle-eyed stamp collector who noticed a patch on the statue’s center spike — a feature that is unique to the replica.
“We still love the stamp design and would have selected this photograph anyway,” USPS spokesman Roy Betts told The New York Times, adding that the error was indeed regrettable, and the post office is “re-examining our processes to prevent this situation from happening in the future.”
There is something to be said about the government being okay with replacing an iconic symbol of the American Dream with a cheap knockoff, but I won’t be the one to say it.
[nyt.]
(Source: thedailywhat)
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