A Celebration of Opening Title Sequences

From Patrick Willems, a history and celebration/defense of movie opening title sequences. They have fallen out of favor over the past decade or two, but Willems argues they serve a needed purpose. For instance, opening title sequences can set the tone or theme of the film before it even gets started — that’s what Saul Bass set out to do:

Bass called this “creating a climate for the story”. Here’s one of Willems’ favorite opening sequences by Bass, from 1966’s Grand Prix, which I’d somehow never seen before and is fantastic:

Me? I love opening title sequences. (Except when they are bad and too long.) But I also love when the movie starts right away. And when the movie starts right away and then you get a title card like 8 minutes into it. I’m a fan of anything when it’s done well. *shrugs*

P.S. You can check out hundreds of great examples of opening title sequences at Art of the Title.

Tags: film school   movies   Patrick Willems   Saul Bass   video

from kottke.org https://ift.tt/30TKtLb
via IFTTT

Three Quick Links for Monday Noonish

Sloths just want to have fun. [twitter.com]

The original 1851 reviews of Moby-Dick. "This is an ill-compounded mixture of romance and matter-of-fact. The idea of a connected and collected story has obviously visited and abandoned its writer again and again in the course of composition." [lithub.com]

Here's how to spot the methods of moral panic journalism. "Thousands upon thousands of words dedicated to the same arguments, the same low-stakes anecdotes, the same tortured historical analogies." [michaelhobbes.substack.com]

---

Note: Quick Links are pushed to this RSS feed twice a day. For more immediate service, check out the front page of kottke.org, the Quick Links archive, or the @kottke Twitter feed.

from kottke.org https://ift.tt/3ac8g8Y
via IFTTT

Documenting Death

After Kathy Brandt was diagnosed with late-stage ovarian cancer, she and her wife Kim Acquaviva, both of whom worked in end-of-life care, started documenting the end of her life on social media. The result was a frank portrait of death, which offered non-medical folks a view of something they rarely get to witness.

Many of the posts deal matter-of-factly with Brandt’s experience of inhabiting a dying body. Did she still crave sex? (“It’s like, for me, at least, there’s nothing there,” she tells Acquaviva, on camera.) Did she remember that she had a diaper on, and that it was time to relieve herself? What were her symptoms today, and how were they different from yesterday’s? The couple’s radical openness extended to a post, the day before Brandt’s death, in which Acquaviva says, “I’m sharing this for nonmedical people who’ve never heard the beginnings of a death rattle. The death rattle is Kathy Brandt’s. … The video is dark and jumpy, but the sound is decent.” The next day, Acquaviva posted a picture of her wife’s face, taken shortly after her death.

Note: this video can be difficult at times (because you’re watching someone dying), but as Acquaviva says, “In a culture were we don’t share almost anything around illness and death, the only way to counter that is for some people to share a little bit more than is probably appropriate.”

Tags: death   Kathy Brandt   Kim Acquaviva   video

from kottke.org https://ift.tt/3jCgIFs
via IFTTT

Wind Turbine Wall

Designer Joe Doucet’s Wind Turbine Wall is both a kinetic sculpture and a way to harness wind power to create electricity.

Wind energy has played a key role in helping national grids around the world reduce dependence on fossil fuels to generate energy, but wind turbines for the home have encountered very slow uptake due, in part, to their intrusive physicality.

Designed to be as aesthetically pleasing as it is functional, this “kinetic wall” is made up of an array of rotary blades that spin individually, driving a mini generator that creates electricity. The electricity is utilized in the home or business, can be stored in a wall-mounted battery, or can even be fed back into the national grid to provide revenue for the owner.

Here’s the wall in action:

From a writeup of the project in Fast Company:

Doucet has built a prototype for a single spinning rod and run simulations based on that. The average annual electricity consumption for an American home uses a little over 10,000 kilowatt-hours per year. One of these walls would be enough. But where Doucet sees true potential is in larger-scale commercial buildings and even cities. “Instead of the typical retaining walls along roads and freeways, you’d have an array of these,” says Doucet, who says he’s in conversation with several manufacturers to help him bring the product to market. “With the added wind boost from trucks, our highways could take care of all our energy needs.”

(thx, michael)

Tags: art   energy   Joe Doucet   video

from kottke.org https://ift.tt/2XFYL0K
via IFTTT

Three Quick Links for Monday Afternoon

It's the 50th anniversary of the debut of The Electric Company on PBS. Here's a look back on the show's genesis and impact. I *loved* The Electric Company when I was a kid. [npr.org]

The best bike is the one that's ridden. [vimeo.com]

Let's get rid of loud & wasteful leaf blowers. "Hydrocarbon emissions from a half-hour of yard work with the two-stroke leaf blower are about the same as a 3,900-mile drive from Texas to Alaska in a [Ford F-150] Raptor." [nytimes.com]

---

Note: Quick Links are pushed to this RSS feed twice a day. For more immediate service, check out the front page of kottke.org, the Quick Links archive, or the @kottke Twitter feed.

from kottke.org https://ift.tt/3ac8g8Y
via IFTTT

Winners of the 2021 Close-Up Photographer of the Year Competition

Contestants from 55 countries entered over 9000 photos in the Close-Up Photographer of the Year competition for 2021 and now the winners have been announced. I’ve included a few of my favorites above (from top to bottom): Pål Hermansen, Johan De Ridder, Håkan Kvarnstrom, and Bruno Militelli. (via in focus)

Tags: best of   best of 2021   photography

from kottke.org https://ift.tt/3nyCWcG
via IFTTT

A Celebration of Opening Title Sequences

From Patrick Willems, a history and celebration/defense of movie opening title sequences. They have fallen out of favor over the past decade or two, but Willems argues they serve a needed purpose. For instance, opening title sequences can set the tone or theme of the film before it even gets started — that’s what Saul Bass set out to do:

Bass called this “creating a climate for the story”. Here’s one of Willems’ favorite opening sequences by Bass, from 1966’s Grand Prix, which I’d somehow never seen before and is fantastic:

Me? I love opening title sequences. (Except when they are bad and too long.) But I also love when the movie starts right away. And when the movie starts right away and then you get a title card like 8 minutes into it. I’m a fan of anything when it’s done well. *shrugs*

P.S. You can check out hundreds of great examples of opening title sequences at Art of the Title.

Tags: film school   movies   Patrick Willems   Saul Bass   video

from kottke.org https://ift.tt/30TKtLb
via IFTTT

Three Quick Links for Monday Noonish

Sloths just want to have fun. [twitter.com]

The original 1851 reviews of Moby-Dick. "This is an ill-compounded mixture of romance and matter-of-fact. The idea of a connected and collected story has obviously visited and abandoned its writer again and again in the course of composition." [lithub.com]

Here's how to spot the methods of moral panic journalism. "Thousands upon thousands of words dedicated to the same arguments, the same low-stakes anecdotes, the same tortured historical analogies." [michaelhobbes.substack.com]

---

Note: Quick Links are pushed to this RSS feed twice a day. For more immediate service, check out the front page of kottke.org, the Quick Links archive, or the @kottke Twitter feed.

from kottke.org https://ift.tt/3ac8g8Y
via IFTTT

Documenting Death

After Kathy Brandt was diagnosed with late-stage ovarian cancer, she and her wife Kim Acquaviva, both of whom worked in end-of-life care, started documenting the end of her life on social media. The result was a frank portrait of death, which offered non-medical folks a view of something they rarely get to witness.

Many of the posts deal matter-of-factly with Brandt’s experience of inhabiting a dying body. Did she still crave sex? (“It’s like, for me, at least, there’s nothing there,” she tells Acquaviva, on camera.) Did she remember that she had a diaper on, and that it was time to relieve herself? What were her symptoms today, and how were they different from yesterday’s? The couple’s radical openness extended to a post, the day before Brandt’s death, in which Acquaviva says, “I’m sharing this for nonmedical people who’ve never heard the beginnings of a death rattle. The death rattle is Kathy Brandt’s. … The video is dark and jumpy, but the sound is decent.” The next day, Acquaviva posted a picture of her wife’s face, taken shortly after her death.

Note: this video can be difficult at times (because you’re watching someone dying), but as Acquaviva says, “In a culture were we don’t share almost anything around illness and death, the only way to counter that is for some people to share a little bit more than is probably appropriate.”

Tags: death   Kathy Brandt   Kim Acquaviva   video

from kottke.org https://ift.tt/3jCgIFs
via IFTTT

Wind Turbine Wall

Designer Joe Doucet’s Wind Turbine Wall is both a kinetic sculpture and a way to harness wind power to create electricity.

Wind energy has played a key role in helping national grids around the world reduce dependence on fossil fuels to generate energy, but wind turbines for the home have encountered very slow uptake due, in part, to their intrusive physicality.

Designed to be as aesthetically pleasing as it is functional, this “kinetic wall” is made up of an array of rotary blades that spin individually, driving a mini generator that creates electricity. The electricity is utilized in the home or business, can be stored in a wall-mounted battery, or can even be fed back into the national grid to provide revenue for the owner.

Here’s the wall in action:

From a writeup of the project in Fast Company:

Doucet has built a prototype for a single spinning rod and run simulations based on that. The average annual electricity consumption for an American home uses a little over 10,000 kilowatt-hours per year. One of these walls would be enough. But where Doucet sees true potential is in larger-scale commercial buildings and even cities. “Instead of the typical retaining walls along roads and freeways, you’d have an array of these,” says Doucet, who says he’s in conversation with several manufacturers to help him bring the product to market. “With the added wind boost from trucks, our highways could take care of all our energy needs.”

(thx, michael)

Tags: art   energy   Joe Doucet   video

from kottke.org https://ift.tt/2XFYL0K
via IFTTT

Winners of the 2021 Close-Up Photographer of the Year Competition

Contestants from 55 countries entered over 9000 photos in the Close-Up Photographer of the Year competition for 2021 and now the winners have been announced. I’ve included a few of my favorites above (from top to bottom): Pål Hermansen, Johan De Ridder, Håkan Kvarnstrom, and Bruno Militelli. (via in focus)

Tags: best of   best of 2021   photography

from kottke.org https://ift.tt/3nyCWcG
via IFTTT

A Celebration of Opening Title Sequences

From Patrick Willems, a history and celebration/defense of movie opening title sequences. They have fallen out of favor over the past decade or two, but Willems argues they serve a needed purpose. For instance, opening title sequences can set the tone or theme of the film before it even gets started — that’s what Saul Bass set out to do:

Bass called this “creating a climate for the story”. Here’s one of Willems’ favorite opening sequences by Bass, from 1966’s Grand Prix, which I’d somehow never seen before and is fantastic:

Me? I love opening title sequences. (Except when they are bad and too long.) But I also love when the movie starts right away. And when the movie starts right away and then you get a title card like 8 minutes into it. I’m a fan of anything when it’s done well. *shrugs*

P.S. You can check out hundreds of great examples of opening title sequences at Art of the Title.

Tags: film school   movies   Patrick Willems   Saul Bass   video

from kottke.org https://ift.tt/30TKtLb
via IFTTT

Three Quick Links for Monday Noonish

Sloths just want to have fun. [twitter.com]

The original 1851 reviews of Moby-Dick. "This is an ill-compounded mixture of romance and matter-of-fact. The idea of a connected and collected story has obviously visited and abandoned its writer again and again in the course of composition." [lithub.com]

Here's how to spot the methods of moral panic journalism. "Thousands upon thousands of words dedicated to the same arguments, the same low-stakes anecdotes, the same tortured historical analogies." [michaelhobbes.substack.com]

---

Note: Quick Links are pushed to this RSS feed twice a day. For more immediate service, check out the front page of kottke.org, the Quick Links archive, or the @kottke Twitter feed.

from kottke.org https://ift.tt/3ac8g8Y
via IFTTT

Documenting Death

After Kathy Brandt was diagnosed with late-stage ovarian cancer, she and her wife Kim Acquaviva, both of whom worked in end-of-life care, started documenting the end of her life on social media. The result was a frank portrait of death, which offered non-medical folks a view of something they rarely get to witness.

Many of the posts deal matter-of-factly with Brandt’s experience of inhabiting a dying body. Did she still crave sex? (“It’s like, for me, at least, there’s nothing there,” she tells Acquaviva, on camera.) Did she remember that she had a diaper on, and that it was time to relieve herself? What were her symptoms today, and how were they different from yesterday’s? The couple’s radical openness extended to a post, the day before Brandt’s death, in which Acquaviva says, “I’m sharing this for nonmedical people who’ve never heard the beginnings of a death rattle. The death rattle is Kathy Brandt’s. … The video is dark and jumpy, but the sound is decent.” The next day, Acquaviva posted a picture of her wife’s face, taken shortly after her death.

Note: this video can be difficult at times (because you’re watching someone dying), but as Acquaviva says, “In a culture were we don’t share almost anything around illness and death, the only way to counter that is for some people to share a little bit more than is probably appropriate.”

Tags: death   Kathy Brandt   Kim Acquaviva   video

from kottke.org https://ift.tt/3jCgIFs
via IFTTT

Wind Turbine Wall

Designer Joe Doucet’s Wind Turbine Wall is both a kinetic sculpture and a way to harness wind power to create electricity.

Wind energy has played a key role in helping national grids around the world reduce dependence on fossil fuels to generate energy, but wind turbines for the home have encountered very slow uptake due, in part, to their intrusive physicality.

Designed to be as aesthetically pleasing as it is functional, this “kinetic wall” is made up of an array of rotary blades that spin individually, driving a mini generator that creates electricity. The electricity is utilized in the home or business, can be stored in a wall-mounted battery, or can even be fed back into the national grid to provide revenue for the owner.

Here’s the wall in action:

From a writeup of the project in Fast Company:

Doucet has built a prototype for a single spinning rod and run simulations based on that. The average annual electricity consumption for an American home uses a little over 10,000 kilowatt-hours per year. One of these walls would be enough. But where Doucet sees true potential is in larger-scale commercial buildings and even cities. “Instead of the typical retaining walls along roads and freeways, you’d have an array of these,” says Doucet, who says he’s in conversation with several manufacturers to help him bring the product to market. “With the added wind boost from trucks, our highways could take care of all our energy needs.”

(thx, michael)

Tags: art   energy   Joe Doucet   video

from kottke.org https://ift.tt/2XFYL0K
via IFTTT

Winners of the 2021 Close-Up Photographer of the Year Competition

Contestants from 55 countries entered over 9000 photos in the Close-Up Photographer of the Year competition for 2021 and now the winners have been announced. I’ve included a few of my favorites above (from top to bottom): Pål Hermansen, Johan De Ridder, Håkan Kvarnstrom, and Bruno Militelli. (via in focus)

Tags: best of   best of 2021   photography

from kottke.org https://ift.tt/3nyCWcG
via IFTTT

A Celebration of Opening Title Sequences

From Patrick Willems, a history and celebration/defense of movie opening title sequences. They have fallen out of favor over the past decade or two, but Willems argues they serve a needed purpose. For instance, opening title sequences can set the tone or theme of the film before it even gets started — that’s what Saul Bass set out to do:

Bass called this “creating a climate for the story”. Here’s one of Willems’ favorite opening sequences by Bass, from 1966’s Grand Prix, which I’d somehow never seen before and is fantastic:

Me? I love opening title sequences. (Except when they are bad and too long.) But I also love when the movie starts right away. And when the movie starts right away and then you get a title card like 8 minutes into it. I’m a fan of anything when it’s done well. *shrugs*

P.S. You can check out hundreds of great examples of opening title sequences at Art of the Title.

Tags: film school   movies   Patrick Willems   Saul Bass   video

from kottke.org https://ift.tt/30TKtLb
via IFTTT

Three Quick Links for Monday Noonish

Sloths just want to have fun. [twitter.com]

The original 1851 reviews of Moby-Dick. "This is an ill-compounded mixture of romance and matter-of-fact. The idea of a connected and collected story has obviously visited and abandoned its writer again and again in the course of composition." [lithub.com]

Here's how to spot the methods of moral panic journalism. "Thousands upon thousands of words dedicated to the same arguments, the same low-stakes anecdotes, the same tortured historical analogies." [michaelhobbes.substack.com]

---

Note: Quick Links are pushed to this RSS feed twice a day. For more immediate service, check out the front page of kottke.org, the Quick Links archive, or the @kottke Twitter feed.

from kottke.org https://ift.tt/3ac8g8Y
via IFTTT

Documenting Death

After Kathy Brandt was diagnosed with late-stage ovarian cancer, she and her wife Kim Acquaviva, both of whom worked in end-of-life care, started documenting the end of her life on social media. The result was a frank portrait of death, which offered non-medical folks a view of something they rarely get to witness.

Many of the posts deal matter-of-factly with Brandt’s experience of inhabiting a dying body. Did she still crave sex? (“It’s like, for me, at least, there’s nothing there,” she tells Acquaviva, on camera.) Did she remember that she had a diaper on, and that it was time to relieve herself? What were her symptoms today, and how were they different from yesterday’s? The couple’s radical openness extended to a post, the day before Brandt’s death, in which Acquaviva says, “I’m sharing this for nonmedical people who’ve never heard the beginnings of a death rattle. The death rattle is Kathy Brandt’s. … The video is dark and jumpy, but the sound is decent.” The next day, Acquaviva posted a picture of her wife’s face, taken shortly after her death.

Note: this video can be difficult at times (because you’re watching someone dying), but as Acquaviva says, “In a culture were we don’t share almost anything around illness and death, the only way to counter that is for some people to share a little bit more than is probably appropriate.”

Tags: death   Kathy Brandt   Kim Acquaviva   video

from kottke.org https://ift.tt/3jCgIFs
via IFTTT

Wind Turbine Wall

Designer Joe Doucet’s Wind Turbine Wall is both a kinetic sculpture and a way to harness wind power to create electricity.

Wind energy has played a key role in helping national grids around the world reduce dependence on fossil fuels to generate energy, but wind turbines for the home have encountered very slow uptake due, in part, to their intrusive physicality.

Designed to be as aesthetically pleasing as it is functional, this “kinetic wall” is made up of an array of rotary blades that spin individually, driving a mini generator that creates electricity. The electricity is utilized in the home or business, can be stored in a wall-mounted battery, or can even be fed back into the national grid to provide revenue for the owner.

Here’s the wall in action:

From a writeup of the project in Fast Company:

Doucet has built a prototype for a single spinning rod and run simulations based on that. The average annual electricity consumption for an American home uses a little over 10,000 kilowatt-hours per year. One of these walls would be enough. But where Doucet sees true potential is in larger-scale commercial buildings and even cities. “Instead of the typical retaining walls along roads and freeways, you’d have an array of these,” says Doucet, who says he’s in conversation with several manufacturers to help him bring the product to market. “With the added wind boost from trucks, our highways could take care of all our energy needs.”

(thx, michael)

Tags: art   energy   Joe Doucet   video

from kottke.org https://ift.tt/2XFYL0K
via IFTTT

A Celebration of Opening Title Sequences

From Patrick Willems, a history and celebration/defense of movie opening title sequences. They have fallen out of favor over the past decade or two, but Willems argues they serve a needed purpose. For instance, opening title sequences can set the tone or theme of the film before it even gets started — that’s what Saul Bass set out to do:

Bass called this “creating a climate for the story”. Here’s one of Willems’ favorite opening sequences by Bass, from 1966’s Grand Prix, which I’d somehow never seen before and is fantastic:

Me? I love opening title sequences. (Except when they are bad and too long.) But I also love when the movie starts right away. And when the movie starts right away and then you get a title card like 8 minutes into it. I’m a fan of anything when it’s done well. *shrugs*

P.S. You can check out hundreds of great examples of opening title sequences at Art of the Title.

Tags: film school   movies   Patrick Willems   Saul Bass   video

from kottke.org https://ift.tt/30TKtLb
via IFTTT

Three Quick Links for Monday Noonish

Sloths just want to have fun. [twitter.com]

The original 1851 reviews of Moby-Dick. "This is an ill-compounded mixture of romance and matter-of-fact. The idea of a connected and collected story has obviously visited and abandoned its writer again and again in the course of composition." [lithub.com]

Here's how to spot the methods of moral panic journalism. "Thousands upon thousands of words dedicated to the same arguments, the same low-stakes anecdotes, the same tortured historical analogies." [michaelhobbes.substack.com]

---

Note: Quick Links are pushed to this RSS feed twice a day. For more immediate service, check out the front page of kottke.org, the Quick Links archive, or the @kottke Twitter feed.

from kottke.org https://ift.tt/3ac8g8Y
via IFTTT

Documenting Death

After Kathy Brandt was diagnosed with late-stage ovarian cancer, she and her wife Kim Acquaviva, both of whom worked in end-of-life care, started documenting the end of her life on social media. The result was a frank portrait of death, which offered non-medical folks a view of something they rarely get to witness.

Many of the posts deal matter-of-factly with Brandt’s experience of inhabiting a dying body. Did she still crave sex? (“It’s like, for me, at least, there’s nothing there,” she tells Acquaviva, on camera.) Did she remember that she had a diaper on, and that it was time to relieve herself? What were her symptoms today, and how were they different from yesterday’s? The couple’s radical openness extended to a post, the day before Brandt’s death, in which Acquaviva says, “I’m sharing this for nonmedical people who’ve never heard the beginnings of a death rattle. The death rattle is Kathy Brandt’s. … The video is dark and jumpy, but the sound is decent.” The next day, Acquaviva posted a picture of her wife’s face, taken shortly after her death.

Note: this video can be difficult at times (because you’re watching someone dying), but as Acquaviva says, “In a culture were we don’t share almost anything around illness and death, the only way to counter that is for some people to share a little bit more than is probably appropriate.”

Tags: death   Kathy Brandt   Kim Acquaviva   video

from kottke.org https://ift.tt/3jCgIFs
via IFTTT

Wind Turbine Wall

Designer Joe Doucet’s Wind Turbine Wall is both a kinetic sculpture and a way to harness wind power to create electricity.

Wind energy has played a key role in helping national grids around the world reduce dependence on fossil fuels to generate energy, but wind turbines for the home have encountered very slow uptake due, in part, to their intrusive physicality.

Designed to be as aesthetically pleasing as it is functional, this “kinetic wall” is made up of an array of rotary blades that spin individually, driving a mini generator that creates electricity. The electricity is utilized in the home or business, can be stored in a wall-mounted battery, or can even be fed back into the national grid to provide revenue for the owner.

Here’s the wall in action:

From a writeup of the project in Fast Company:

Doucet has built a prototype for a single spinning rod and run simulations based on that. The average annual electricity consumption for an American home uses a little over 10,000 kilowatt-hours per year. One of these walls would be enough. But where Doucet sees true potential is in larger-scale commercial buildings and even cities. “Instead of the typical retaining walls along roads and freeways, you’d have an array of these,” says Doucet, who says he’s in conversation with several manufacturers to help him bring the product to market. “With the added wind boost from trucks, our highways could take care of all our energy needs.”

(thx, michael)

Tags: art   energy   Joe Doucet   video

from kottke.org https://ift.tt/2XFYL0K
via IFTTT

Three Quick Links for Monday Afternoon

It's the 50th anniversary of the debut of The Electric Company on PBS. Here's a look back on the show's genesis and impact. I *loved* The Electric Company when I was a kid. [npr.org]

The best bike is the one that's ridden. [vimeo.com]

Let's get rid of loud & wasteful leaf blowers. "Hydrocarbon emissions from a half-hour of yard work with the two-stroke leaf blower are about the same as a 3,900-mile drive from Texas to Alaska in a [Ford F-150] Raptor." [nytimes.com]

---

Note: Quick Links are pushed to this RSS feed twice a day. For more immediate service, check out the front page of kottke.org, the Quick Links archive, or the @kottke Twitter feed.

from kottke.org https://ift.tt/3ac8g8Y
via IFTTT

Winners of the 2021 Close-Up Photographer of the Year Competition

Contestants from 55 countries entered over 9000 photos in the Close-Up Photographer of the Year competition for 2021 and now the winners have been announced. I’ve included a few of my favorites above (from top to bottom): Pål Hermansen, Johan De Ridder, Håkan Kvarnstrom, and Bruno Militelli. (via in focus)

Tags: best of   best of 2021   photography

from kottke.org https://ift.tt/3nyCWcG
via IFTTT

A Celebration of Opening Title Sequences

From Patrick Willems, a history and celebration/defense of movie opening title sequences. They have fallen out of favor over the past decade or two, but Willems argues they serve a needed purpose. For instance, opening title sequences can set the tone or theme of the film before it even gets started — that’s what Saul Bass set out to do:

Bass called this “creating a climate for the story”. Here’s one of Willems’ favorite opening sequences by Bass, from 1966’s Grand Prix, which I’d somehow never seen before and is fantastic:

Me? I love opening title sequences. (Except when they are bad and too long.) But I also love when the movie starts right away. And when the movie starts right away and then you get a title card like 8 minutes into it. I’m a fan of anything when it’s done well. *shrugs*

P.S. You can check out hundreds of great examples of opening title sequences at Art of the Title.

Tags: film school   movies   Patrick Willems   Saul Bass   video

from kottke.org https://ift.tt/30TKtLb
via IFTTT

Three Quick Links for Monday Noonish

Sloths just want to have fun. [twitter.com]

The original 1851 reviews of Moby-Dick. "This is an ill-compounded mixture of romance and matter-of-fact. The idea of a connected and collected story has obviously visited and abandoned its writer again and again in the course of composition." [lithub.com]

Here's how to spot the methods of moral panic journalism. "Thousands upon thousands of words dedicated to the same arguments, the same low-stakes anecdotes, the same tortured historical analogies." [michaelhobbes.substack.com]

---

Note: Quick Links are pushed to this RSS feed twice a day. For more immediate service, check out the front page of kottke.org, the Quick Links archive, or the @kottke Twitter feed.

from kottke.org https://ift.tt/3ac8g8Y
via IFTTT

Documenting Death

After Kathy Brandt was diagnosed with late-stage ovarian cancer, she and her wife Kim Acquaviva, both of whom worked in end-of-life care, started documenting the end of her life on social media. The result was a frank portrait of death, which offered non-medical folks a view of something they rarely get to witness.

Many of the posts deal matter-of-factly with Brandt’s experience of inhabiting a dying body. Did she still crave sex? (“It’s like, for me, at least, there’s nothing there,” she tells Acquaviva, on camera.) Did she remember that she had a diaper on, and that it was time to relieve herself? What were her symptoms today, and how were they different from yesterday’s? The couple’s radical openness extended to a post, the day before Brandt’s death, in which Acquaviva says, “I’m sharing this for nonmedical people who’ve never heard the beginnings of a death rattle. The death rattle is Kathy Brandt’s. … The video is dark and jumpy, but the sound is decent.” The next day, Acquaviva posted a picture of her wife’s face, taken shortly after her death.

Note: this video can be difficult at times (because you’re watching someone dying), but as Acquaviva says, “In a culture were we don’t share almost anything around illness and death, the only way to counter that is for some people to share a little bit more than is probably appropriate.”

Tags: death   Kathy Brandt   Kim Acquaviva   video

from kottke.org https://ift.tt/3jCgIFs
via IFTTT

Wind Turbine Wall

Designer Joe Doucet’s Wind Turbine Wall is both a kinetic sculpture and a way to harness wind power to create electricity.

Wind energy has played a key role in helping national grids around the world reduce dependence on fossil fuels to generate energy, but wind turbines for the home have encountered very slow uptake due, in part, to their intrusive physicality.

Designed to be as aesthetically pleasing as it is functional, this “kinetic wall” is made up of an array of rotary blades that spin individually, driving a mini generator that creates electricity. The electricity is utilized in the home or business, can be stored in a wall-mounted battery, or can even be fed back into the national grid to provide revenue for the owner.

Here’s the wall in action:

From a writeup of the project in Fast Company:

Doucet has built a prototype for a single spinning rod and run simulations based on that. The average annual electricity consumption for an American home uses a little over 10,000 kilowatt-hours per year. One of these walls would be enough. But where Doucet sees true potential is in larger-scale commercial buildings and even cities. “Instead of the typical retaining walls along roads and freeways, you’d have an array of these,” says Doucet, who says he’s in conversation with several manufacturers to help him bring the product to market. “With the added wind boost from trucks, our highways could take care of all our energy needs.”

(thx, michael)

Tags: art   energy   Joe Doucet   video

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via IFTTT

Winners of the 2021 Close-Up Photographer of the Year Competition

Contestants from 55 countries entered over 9000 photos in the Close-Up Photographer of the Year competition for 2021 and now the winners have been announced. I’ve included a few of my favorites above (from top to bottom): Pål Hermansen, Johan De Ridder, Håkan Kvarnstrom, and Bruno Militelli. (via in focus)

Tags: best of   best of 2021   photography

from kottke.org https://ift.tt/3nyCWcG
via IFTTT

A Celebration of Opening Title Sequences

From Patrick Willems, a history and celebration/defense of movie opening title sequences. They have fallen out of favor over the past decade or two, but Willems argues they serve a needed purpose. For instance, opening title sequences can set the tone or theme of the film before it even gets started — that’s what Saul Bass set out to do:

Bass called this “creating a climate for the story”. Here’s one of Willems’ favorite opening sequences by Bass, from 1966’s Grand Prix, which I’d somehow never seen before and is fantastic:

Me? I love opening title sequences. (Except when they are bad and too long.) But I also love when the movie starts right away. And when the movie starts right away and then you get a title card like 8 minutes into it. I’m a fan of anything when it’s done well. *shrugs*

P.S. You can check out hundreds of great examples of opening title sequences at Art of the Title.

Tags: film school   movies   Patrick Willems   Saul Bass   video

from kottke.org https://ift.tt/30TKtLb
via IFTTT

Three Quick Links for Monday Noonish

Sloths just want to have fun. [twitter.com]

The original 1851 reviews of Moby-Dick. "This is an ill-compounded mixture of romance and matter-of-fact. The idea of a connected and collected story has obviously visited and abandoned its writer again and again in the course of composition." [lithub.com]

Here's how to spot the methods of moral panic journalism. "Thousands upon thousands of words dedicated to the same arguments, the same low-stakes anecdotes, the same tortured historical analogies." [michaelhobbes.substack.com]

---

Note: Quick Links are pushed to this RSS feed twice a day. For more immediate service, check out the front page of kottke.org, the Quick Links archive, or the @kottke Twitter feed.

from kottke.org https://ift.tt/3ac8g8Y
via IFTTT

Documenting Death

After Kathy Brandt was diagnosed with late-stage ovarian cancer, she and her wife Kim Acquaviva, both of whom worked in end-of-life care, started documenting the end of her life on social media. The result was a frank portrait of death, which offered non-medical folks a view of something they rarely get to witness.

Many of the posts deal matter-of-factly with Brandt’s experience of inhabiting a dying body. Did she still crave sex? (“It’s like, for me, at least, there’s nothing there,” she tells Acquaviva, on camera.) Did she remember that she had a diaper on, and that it was time to relieve herself? What were her symptoms today, and how were they different from yesterday’s? The couple’s radical openness extended to a post, the day before Brandt’s death, in which Acquaviva says, “I’m sharing this for nonmedical people who’ve never heard the beginnings of a death rattle. The death rattle is Kathy Brandt’s. … The video is dark and jumpy, but the sound is decent.” The next day, Acquaviva posted a picture of her wife’s face, taken shortly after her death.

Note: this video can be difficult at times (because you’re watching someone dying), but as Acquaviva says, “In a culture were we don’t share almost anything around illness and death, the only way to counter that is for some people to share a little bit more than is probably appropriate.”

Tags: death   Kathy Brandt   Kim Acquaviva   video

from kottke.org https://ift.tt/3jCgIFs
via IFTTT

Wind Turbine Wall

Designer Joe Doucet’s Wind Turbine Wall is both a kinetic sculpture and a way to harness wind power to create electricity.

Wind energy has played a key role in helping national grids around the world reduce dependence on fossil fuels to generate energy, but wind turbines for the home have encountered very slow uptake due, in part, to their intrusive physicality.

Designed to be as aesthetically pleasing as it is functional, this “kinetic wall” is made up of an array of rotary blades that spin individually, driving a mini generator that creates electricity. The electricity is utilized in the home or business, can be stored in a wall-mounted battery, or can even be fed back into the national grid to provide revenue for the owner.

Here’s the wall in action:

From a writeup of the project in Fast Company:

Doucet has built a prototype for a single spinning rod and run simulations based on that. The average annual electricity consumption for an American home uses a little over 10,000 kilowatt-hours per year. One of these walls would be enough. But where Doucet sees true potential is in larger-scale commercial buildings and even cities. “Instead of the typical retaining walls along roads and freeways, you’d have an array of these,” says Doucet, who says he’s in conversation with several manufacturers to help him bring the product to market. “With the added wind boost from trucks, our highways could take care of all our energy needs.”

(thx, michael)

Tags: art   energy   Joe Doucet   video

from kottke.org https://ift.tt/2XFYL0K
via IFTTT

Winners of the 2021 Close-Up Photographer of the Year Competition

Contestants from 55 countries entered over 9000 photos in the Close-Up Photographer of the Year competition for 2021 and now the winners have been announced. I’ve included a few of my favorites above (from top to bottom): Pål Hermansen, Johan De Ridder, Håkan Kvarnstrom, and Bruno Militelli. (via in focus)

Tags: best of   best of 2021   photography

from kottke.org https://ift.tt/3nyCWcG
via IFTTT

A Celebration of Opening Title Sequences

From Patrick Willems, a history and celebration/defense of movie opening title sequences. They have fallen out of favor over the past decade or two, but Willems argues they serve a needed purpose. For instance, opening title sequences can set the tone or theme of the film before it even gets started — that’s what Saul Bass set out to do:

Bass called this “creating a climate for the story”. Here’s one of Willems’ favorite opening sequences by Bass, from 1966’s Grand Prix, which I’d somehow never seen before and is fantastic:

Me? I love opening title sequences. (Except when they are bad and too long.) But I also love when the movie starts right away. And when the movie starts right away and then you get a title card like 8 minutes into it. I’m a fan of anything when it’s done well. *shrugs*

P.S. You can check out hundreds of great examples of opening title sequences at Art of the Title.

Tags: film school   movies   Patrick Willems   Saul Bass   video

from kottke.org https://ift.tt/30TKtLb
via IFTTT

Three Quick Links for Monday Noonish

Sloths just want to have fun. [twitter.com]

The original 1851 reviews of Moby-Dick. "This is an ill-compounded mixture of romance and matter-of-fact. The idea of a connected and collected story has obviously visited and abandoned its writer again and again in the course of composition." [lithub.com]

Here's how to spot the methods of moral panic journalism. "Thousands upon thousands of words dedicated to the same arguments, the same low-stakes anecdotes, the same tortured historical analogies." [michaelhobbes.substack.com]

---

Note: Quick Links are pushed to this RSS feed twice a day. For more immediate service, check out the front page of kottke.org, the Quick Links archive, or the @kottke Twitter feed.

from kottke.org https://ift.tt/3ac8g8Y
via IFTTT

Documenting Death

After Kathy Brandt was diagnosed with late-stage ovarian cancer, she and her wife Kim Acquaviva, both of whom worked in end-of-life care, started documenting the end of her life on social media. The result was a frank portrait of death, which offered non-medical folks a view of something they rarely get to witness.

Many of the posts deal matter-of-factly with Brandt’s experience of inhabiting a dying body. Did she still crave sex? (“It’s like, for me, at least, there’s nothing there,” she tells Acquaviva, on camera.) Did she remember that she had a diaper on, and that it was time to relieve herself? What were her symptoms today, and how were they different from yesterday’s? The couple’s radical openness extended to a post, the day before Brandt’s death, in which Acquaviva says, “I’m sharing this for nonmedical people who’ve never heard the beginnings of a death rattle. The death rattle is Kathy Brandt’s. … The video is dark and jumpy, but the sound is decent.” The next day, Acquaviva posted a picture of her wife’s face, taken shortly after her death.

Note: this video can be difficult at times (because you’re watching someone dying), but as Acquaviva says, “In a culture were we don’t share almost anything around illness and death, the only way to counter that is for some people to share a little bit more than is probably appropriate.”

Tags: death   Kathy Brandt   Kim Acquaviva   video

from kottke.org https://ift.tt/3jCgIFs
via IFTTT

Wind Turbine Wall

Designer Joe Doucet’s Wind Turbine Wall is both a kinetic sculpture and a way to harness wind power to create electricity.

Wind energy has played a key role in helping national grids around the world reduce dependence on fossil fuels to generate energy, but wind turbines for the home have encountered very slow uptake due, in part, to their intrusive physicality.

Designed to be as aesthetically pleasing as it is functional, this “kinetic wall” is made up of an array of rotary blades that spin individually, driving a mini generator that creates electricity. The electricity is utilized in the home or business, can be stored in a wall-mounted battery, or can even be fed back into the national grid to provide revenue for the owner.

Here’s the wall in action:

From a writeup of the project in Fast Company:

Doucet has built a prototype for a single spinning rod and run simulations based on that. The average annual electricity consumption for an American home uses a little over 10,000 kilowatt-hours per year. One of these walls would be enough. But where Doucet sees true potential is in larger-scale commercial buildings and even cities. “Instead of the typical retaining walls along roads and freeways, you’d have an array of these,” says Doucet, who says he’s in conversation with several manufacturers to help him bring the product to market. “With the added wind boost from trucks, our highways could take care of all our energy needs.”

(thx, michael)

Tags: art   energy   Joe Doucet   video

from kottke.org https://ift.tt/2XFYL0K
via IFTTT

A Celebration of Opening Title Sequences

From Patrick Willems, a history and celebration/defense of movie opening title sequences. They have fallen out of favor over the past decade or two, but Willems argues they serve a needed purpose. For instance, opening title sequences can set the tone or theme of the film before it even gets started — that’s what Saul Bass set out to do:

Bass called this “creating a climate for the story”. Here’s one of Willems’ favorite opening sequences by Bass, from 1966’s Grand Prix, which I’d somehow never seen before and is fantastic:

Me? I love opening title sequences. (Except when they are bad and too long.) But I also love when the movie starts right away. And when the movie starts right away and then you get a title card like 8 minutes into it. I’m a fan of anything when it’s done well. *shrugs*

P.S. You can check out hundreds of great examples of opening title sequences at Art of the Title.

Tags: film school   movies   Patrick Willems   Saul Bass   video

from kottke.org https://ift.tt/30TKtLb
via IFTTT

Three Quick Links for Monday Noonish

Sloths just want to have fun. [twitter.com]

The original 1851 reviews of Moby-Dick. "This is an ill-compounded mixture of romance and matter-of-fact. The idea of a connected and collected story has obviously visited and abandoned its writer again and again in the course of composition." [lithub.com]

Here's how to spot the methods of moral panic journalism. "Thousands upon thousands of words dedicated to the same arguments, the same low-stakes anecdotes, the same tortured historical analogies." [michaelhobbes.substack.com]

---

Note: Quick Links are pushed to this RSS feed twice a day. For more immediate service, check out the front page of kottke.org, the Quick Links archive, or the @kottke Twitter feed.

from kottke.org https://ift.tt/3ac8g8Y
via IFTTT

Documenting Death

After Kathy Brandt was diagnosed with late-stage ovarian cancer, she and her wife Kim Acquaviva, both of whom worked in end-of-life care, started documenting the end of her life on social media. The result was a frank portrait of death, which offered non-medical folks a view of something they rarely get to witness.

Many of the posts deal matter-of-factly with Brandt’s experience of inhabiting a dying body. Did she still crave sex? (“It’s like, for me, at least, there’s nothing there,” she tells Acquaviva, on camera.) Did she remember that she had a diaper on, and that it was time to relieve herself? What were her symptoms today, and how were they different from yesterday’s? The couple’s radical openness extended to a post, the day before Brandt’s death, in which Acquaviva says, “I’m sharing this for nonmedical people who’ve never heard the beginnings of a death rattle. The death rattle is Kathy Brandt’s. … The video is dark and jumpy, but the sound is decent.” The next day, Acquaviva posted a picture of her wife’s face, taken shortly after her death.

Note: this video can be difficult at times (because you’re watching someone dying), but as Acquaviva says, “In a culture were we don’t share almost anything around illness and death, the only way to counter that is for some people to share a little bit more than is probably appropriate.”

Tags: death   Kathy Brandt   Kim Acquaviva   video

from kottke.org https://ift.tt/3jCgIFs
via IFTTT

Wind Turbine Wall

Designer Joe Doucet’s Wind Turbine Wall is both a kinetic sculpture and a way to harness wind power to create electricity.

Wind energy has played a key role in helping national grids around the world reduce dependence on fossil fuels to generate energy, but wind turbines for the home have encountered very slow uptake due, in part, to their intrusive physicality.

Designed to be as aesthetically pleasing as it is functional, this “kinetic wall” is made up of an array of rotary blades that spin individually, driving a mini generator that creates electricity. The electricity is utilized in the home or business, can be stored in a wall-mounted battery, or can even be fed back into the national grid to provide revenue for the owner.

Here’s the wall in action:

From a writeup of the project in Fast Company:

Doucet has built a prototype for a single spinning rod and run simulations based on that. The average annual electricity consumption for an American home uses a little over 10,000 kilowatt-hours per year. One of these walls would be enough. But where Doucet sees true potential is in larger-scale commercial buildings and even cities. “Instead of the typical retaining walls along roads and freeways, you’d have an array of these,” says Doucet, who says he’s in conversation with several manufacturers to help him bring the product to market. “With the added wind boost from trucks, our highways could take care of all our energy needs.”

(thx, michael)

Tags: art   energy   Joe Doucet   video

from kottke.org https://ift.tt/2XFYL0K
via IFTTT

Winners of the 2021 Close-Up Photographer of the Year Competition

Contestants from 55 countries entered over 9000 photos in the Close-Up Photographer of the Year competition for 2021 and now the winners have been announced. I’ve included a few of my favorites above (from top to bottom): Pål Hermansen, Johan De Ridder, Håkan Kvarnstrom, and Bruno Militelli. (via in focus)

Tags: best of   best of 2021   photography

from kottke.org https://ift.tt/3nyCWcG
via IFTTT

A Celebration of Opening Title Sequences

From Patrick Willems, a history and celebration/defense of movie opening title sequences. They have fallen out of favor over the past decade or two, but Willems argues they serve a needed purpose. For instance, opening title sequences can set the tone or theme of the film before it even gets started — that’s what Saul Bass set out to do:

Bass called this “creating a climate for the story”. Here’s one of Willems’ favorite opening sequences by Bass, from 1966’s Grand Prix, which I’d somehow never seen before and is fantastic:

Me? I love opening title sequences. (Except when they are bad and too long.) But I also love when the movie starts right away. And when the movie starts right away and then you get a title card like 8 minutes into it. I’m a fan of anything when it’s done well. *shrugs*

P.S. You can check out hundreds of great examples of opening title sequences at Art of the Title.

Tags: film school   movies   Patrick Willems   Saul Bass   video

from kottke.org https://ift.tt/30TKtLb
via IFTTT

Three Quick Links for Monday Noonish

Sloths just want to have fun. [twitter.com]

The original 1851 reviews of Moby-Dick. "This is an ill-compounded mixture of romance and matter-of-fact. The idea of a connected and collected story has obviously visited and abandoned its writer again and again in the course of composition." [lithub.com]

Here's how to spot the methods of moral panic journalism. "Thousands upon thousands of words dedicated to the same arguments, the same low-stakes anecdotes, the same tortured historical analogies." [michaelhobbes.substack.com]

---

Note: Quick Links are pushed to this RSS feed twice a day. For more immediate service, check out the front page of kottke.org, the Quick Links archive, or the @kottke Twitter feed.

from kottke.org https://ift.tt/3ac8g8Y
via IFTTT

Documenting Death

After Kathy Brandt was diagnosed with late-stage ovarian cancer, she and her wife Kim Acquaviva, both of whom worked in end-of-life care, started documenting the end of her life on social media. The result was a frank portrait of death, which offered non-medical folks a view of something they rarely get to witness.

Many of the posts deal matter-of-factly with Brandt’s experience of inhabiting a dying body. Did she still crave sex? (“It’s like, for me, at least, there’s nothing there,” she tells Acquaviva, on camera.) Did she remember that she had a diaper on, and that it was time to relieve herself? What were her symptoms today, and how were they different from yesterday’s? The couple’s radical openness extended to a post, the day before Brandt’s death, in which Acquaviva says, “I’m sharing this for nonmedical people who’ve never heard the beginnings of a death rattle. The death rattle is Kathy Brandt’s. … The video is dark and jumpy, but the sound is decent.” The next day, Acquaviva posted a picture of her wife’s face, taken shortly after her death.

Note: this video can be difficult at times (because you’re watching someone dying), but as Acquaviva says, “In a culture were we don’t share almost anything around illness and death, the only way to counter that is for some people to share a little bit more than is probably appropriate.”

Tags: death   Kathy Brandt   Kim Acquaviva   video

from kottke.org https://ift.tt/3jCgIFs
via IFTTT

Wind Turbine Wall

Designer Joe Doucet’s Wind Turbine Wall is both a kinetic sculpture and a way to harness wind power to create electricity.

Wind energy has played a key role in helping national grids around the world reduce dependence on fossil fuels to generate energy, but wind turbines for the home have encountered very slow uptake due, in part, to their intrusive physicality.

Designed to be as aesthetically pleasing as it is functional, this “kinetic wall” is made up of an array of rotary blades that spin individually, driving a mini generator that creates electricity. The electricity is utilized in the home or business, can be stored in a wall-mounted battery, or can even be fed back into the national grid to provide revenue for the owner.

Here’s the wall in action:

From a writeup of the project in Fast Company:

Doucet has built a prototype for a single spinning rod and run simulations based on that. The average annual electricity consumption for an American home uses a little over 10,000 kilowatt-hours per year. One of these walls would be enough. But where Doucet sees true potential is in larger-scale commercial buildings and even cities. “Instead of the typical retaining walls along roads and freeways, you’d have an array of these,” says Doucet, who says he’s in conversation with several manufacturers to help him bring the product to market. “With the added wind boost from trucks, our highways could take care of all our energy needs.”

(thx, michael)

Tags: art   energy   Joe Doucet   video

from kottke.org https://ift.tt/2XFYL0K
via IFTTT

Three Quick Links for Monday Afternoon

It's the 50th anniversary of the debut of The Electric Company on PBS. Here's a look back on the show's genesis and impact. I *loved* The Electric Company when I was a kid. [npr.org]

The best bike is the one that's ridden. [vimeo.com]

Let's get rid of loud & wasteful leaf blowers. "Hydrocarbon emissions from a half-hour of yard work with the two-stroke leaf blower are about the same as a 3,900-mile drive from Texas to Alaska in a [Ford F-150] Raptor." [nytimes.com]

---

Note: Quick Links are pushed to this RSS feed twice a day. For more immediate service, check out the front page of kottke.org, the Quick Links archive, or the @kottke Twitter feed.

from kottke.org https://ift.tt/3ac8g8Y
via IFTTT

Winners of the 2021 Close-Up Photographer of the Year Competition

Contestants from 55 countries entered over 9000 photos in the Close-Up Photographer of the Year competition for 2021 and now the winners have been announced. I’ve included a few of my favorites above (from top to bottom): Pål Hermansen, Johan De Ridder, Håkan Kvarnstrom, and Bruno Militelli. (via in focus)

Tags: best of   best of 2021   photography

from kottke.org https://ift.tt/3nyCWcG
via IFTTT