The Rare and Popular Art of Google Books

Since my blog post on scanned fingers in Google books to question the medium/message dichotomy I found this wonderful little tumblr: called the Art of Google Books, it archives Google's virtual library's best incidents.

p.44-45 of Sketches of Young Gentlemen: Dedicated to the Young Ladies by Charles Dickens, Hablot Knight Browne (1838).

p. 270 of A Popular History of Reptiles (1843)

p. 22 of Cunningham's textbook of Anatomy by Daniel John Cunningham and Arthur Robinson, 1918.

Things and Happiness

Boris Vian et sa La complainte du progrès (1956) (The lament against progress). Le frigidaire, l'évier en fer, le tabouret à glace, l'armoire à cuillère, un four en verre, la tourniquette pour faire la vinaigrette, le canon à patate, les draps qui chauffent, ou l'arrache poulet et le bonheur sera à vous?

What's That Made Of?

Here is a fascinating designer from Holland called Christien Meindertsma. Her work focuses on cycles of production. To do so she follows materials from their origins to their consumable form. With her project pig 05049 she went to the source - the specific 05049 pig - and collected all the products resulting from him/her. The original question behind this project was if all the parts of the animal were used. The answer is yes. 05049's remains were used up entirely: finding their way into candy, paint, shine, glue, soap, breaks, tiramisu, beer, collagen and American bullets (among others). All these were photographed in a book.

She's also explored lambs and wool, flax and string, plants and paper.

It's inspiring!

Buying Individuals, Data Collections and Online Ads

From the great article A Guide to the Digital Advertising Industry That's Watching Your Every Click, published in The Atlantic by Communications professor Joesph Turow.

Mapping Movement: The Black-throated Gray Warbler Migrates

Generated by Cornell University and public contributed observations, there are a whole lot of mesmerizing interactive maps capturing a whole lot of bird migration patterns, here: ebirds.