Ximenez

"The earliest stone tools are choppers and blades found in Olduvai Gorge in East Africa, from 2.5..."

Fri, 16 Oct 2009 13:18:34 -0300

“The earliest stone tools are choppers and blades found in Olduvai Gorge in East Africa, from 2.5 million years ago. These unadorned tools remained unchanged for thousands of centuries, until around 1.4 million years ago when Homo ergaster, Homo erectus and other human ancestral groups started doing something new and remarkable. They began shaping single, thin stone blades, sometimes rounded ovals, but often in what to our eyes are arresting symmetrical pointed leaf or teardrop forms. Acheulian hand axes (after St.-Acheul in France, a site of 19th-century finds) have been unearthed in their thousands, scattered across Asia, Europe and Africa, wherever Homo erectus roamed. The sheer numbers of hand axes indicate a rate of manufacture beyond needs for butchering animals. Even more curious, unlike other prehistoric stone tools, hand axes often exhibit no evidence of wear on their delicate blade edges, and some are in any case too big for practical use. They are occasionally hewn from colorful stone materials (even with decoratively embedded fossils). Their symmetry, materials and above all meticulous workmanship makes them quite simply beautiful to our eyes. What were these ancient yet somehow familiar artifacts for? The best available explanation is that they are literally the earliest known works of art — practical tools transformed into captivating aesthetic objects, contemplated both for their elegant shape and virtuoso craftsmanship. Hand axes mark an evolutionary advance in human prehistory, tools attractively fashioned to function as what Darwinians call “fitness signals” — displays like the glorious peacock’s tail, which functions to show peahens the strength and vitality of the males who display it.”

- Op-Ed Contributor - Has Conceptual Art Jumped the Shark Tank? - NYTimes.com

Does the Brain Like E-Books? - Room for Debate Blog - NYTimes.com

Thu, 15 Oct 2009 01:38:24 -0300

Does the Brain Like E-Books? - Room for Debate Blog - NYTimes.com

Nikon Small World - Gallery - 2nd Place, 2009 - Gerd A. Guenther

Mon, 12 Oct 2009 15:08:47 -0300

Nikon Small World - Gallery - 2nd Place, 2009 - Gerd A. Guenther

A Library to Last Forever - NYTimes.com

Fri, 09 Oct 2009 06:15:58 -0300

A Library to Last Forever - NYTimes.com:

Artículo de Sergey Brin sobre el proyecto de Google de digitalizar libros, las críticas, los problemas de copyright, la accesibilidad de la información.

PhotoSketch is an internet-based program that can take the...

Tue, 06 Oct 2009 16:49:22 -0300

PhotoSketch is an internet-based program that can take the rough, labeled sketch on the left and automagically turn it into the naff montage on the right. Seems unbelievable but—as the video shows—it works (via This Is a Photoshop and It Blew My Mind - Photosketch - Gizmodo)

addictive Flash games (kottke.org)

Fri, 02 Oct 2009 12:41:38 -0300

addictive Flash games (kottke.org)

NASA Images

Fri, 18 Sep 2009 18:34:44 -0300

NASA Images:

Repositorio de muchos miles de imágenes, organizadas por tema, hecho por el Internet Archive.

Good Night and Tough Luck - Abstract City Blog - NYTimes.com

Tue, 15 Sep 2009 18:24:06 -0300

Good Night and Tough Luck - Abstract City Blog - NYTimes.com:

Getting a good night’s sleep is actually a lot more complicated than one would think.

(Serie de imágenes y textos, muy muy divertido.)

accidental mysteries: Face Sculptures (hechas con el cartón de...

Mon, 27 Jul 2009 14:42:58 -0300

accidental mysteries: Face Sculptures (hechas con el cartón de adentro de los rollos de papel higiénico)

The Genre Artist - NYTimes.com

Sat, 25 Jul 2009 23:05:56 -0300

The Genre Artist - NYTimes.com:

Un buen artículo en homenaje a Jack Vance, gran escritor.

FREE (full book) by Chris Anderson

Wed, 08 Jul 2009 13:38:00 -0300

FREE (full book) by Chris Anderson:

There, I Fixed It.

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 15:55:27 -0300

There, I Fixed It.

The blue and the green | Bad Astronomy | Discover Magazine

Thu, 25 Jun 2009 16:46:41 -0300

The blue and the green | Bad Astronomy | Discover Magazine:

“one of the best color optical illusions I have ever seen”

World of Change : Feature Articles

Fri, 05 Jun 2009 17:44:34 -0300

World of Change : Feature Articles:

Inspired by our 10th anniversary, the Earth Observatory has pulled together a special series of NASA satellite images documenting how our world—forests, oceans, human landscapes, even the Sun—has changed during the previous decade.

Google Squared

Thu, 04 Jun 2009 20:08:05 -0300

Google Squared

"[George Zipf] noticed that if you tabulate the biggest cities in a given country and rank them..."

Wed, 20 May 2009 14:37:45 -0300

“[George Zipf] noticed that if you tabulate the biggest cities in a given country and rank them according to their populations, the largest city is always about twice as big as the second largest, and three times as big as the third largest, and so on. In other words, the population of a city is, to a good approximation, inversely proportional to its rank.”

- Guest Column: Math and the City, by Steven Strogatz, N.Y.Times

"I have seen the future, and it won’t work."

Fri, 15 May 2009 13:17:00 -0300

“I have seen the future, and it won’t work.”

- Paul Krugman - NYTimes.com

A Modest Proposal: Three-Strikes for Print | Freedom to Tinker

Wed, 13 May 2009 21:59:35 -0300

A Modest Proposal: Three-Strikes for Print | Freedom to Tinker:

Yesterday the French parliament adopted a proposal to create a “three-strikes” system that would kick people off the Internet if they are accused of copyright infringement three times.

This is such a good idea that it should be applied to other media as well. Here is my modest proposal to extend three-strikes to the medium of print, that is, to words on paper.

My proposed system is simplicity itself. The government sets up a registry of accused infringers. Anybody can send a complaint to the registry, asserting that someone is infringing their copyright in the print medium. If the government registry receives three complaints about a person, that person is banned for a year from using print.

Tute sueña para afuera. Vía www.lanacion.com.ar

Mon, 11 May 2009 13:28:37 -0300

Tute sueña para afuera. Vía www.lanacion.com.ar

Greg Rutter's Definitive List of The 99 Things You Should Have Already Experienced On The Internet Unless You're a Loser or Old or Something

Thu, 07 May 2009 20:50:41 -0300

Greg Rutter's Definitive List of The 99 Things You Should Have Already Experienced On The Internet Unless You're a Loser or Old or Something:

Via Pogue’s Posts.