Angles, Visions and Illusions

Art hearts, saving cyclists, 16 feet of genius, whiteboard wonders, surfing with your posse, mouthing off online, what sex triangles have to do with printing, and why the paranormal is a matter of shutter speed.

THE ART OF THRIFT

Back in the day, we introduced you to Tiny Showcase, the brilliant enterprise that lets artists and art enthusiasts pursue their passions through affordable prices, even donating a portion of profits to a charity of each artist’s choice.

Today, we bring you another art visionary: we*heart*prints, a compilation of great sticker- shockless prints from contemporary artists.

For anywhere between $20 and $150, you can get your art-lovin’ hands on original, anything-but-bland work from folks who do it for anything but the money — while still helping them make rent.

But wait too long and it’s gone — stuff sells out fast. Great for artists, bad for slacker art lovers.

SPIRIT OF GIVING

This year, we’re spreading the holiday guilt-trip-giving spirit early.

Relax, it’s all cool stuff — literally. Like those LED Christmas lights you can get instead of the traditional incandescent variety to save energy, maintenance efforts and “fuck, that was hot!”exclamations upon touch. That’s right, these nifty suckers consume 90% less energy than the standard fare, have a lifetime 10 times that of incandescent ones (so they’re like the CFL’s of mini-lights), and don’t heat up at all (which is why they can afford to be covered by thick plastic rather than “shit, what did I just step on?” glass). And, just like CFL’s, they may cost a bit more, but you’ll be sparing that billboard-powering cycling volunteer some major pedal time. (Remember that from Brain Pickings 1.0 a year ago?)

DAMAGED / GENIUS

The human brain. We’re a little bit obsessed with it here. Its touch is everywhere, from the art inspired by its inner storms, to the complex software modeled after it, to the humor that tickles it. In fact, we’ll argue it’s the greatest product in existence.

But like all products, the human brain is susceptible to glitches in the assembly line. Glitches that result in what society deems “damaged goods.” Glitches like Alzheimer’s disease, Autism, Tourette’s Syndrome and other neurodevelopmental or neurodegenerative diseases.

And based on this social yardstick, Stephen Wiltshire is damaged goods. The 33-year-old British man was diagnosed with Autism when his was a kid and spent his childhood as a mute because he couldn’t relate to other humans. He was sent to a “special school”, where he spent most of his solitary time drawing. Soon, the hobby became his only way of communicating with the world and it became apparent that Stephen had an extraordinary talent.

But the school decided to use the gift to “normalize” him — they took away his drawing supplies so he would have to ask for them, forcing him to speak. And speak he did — his first word was “paper.” By age nine, he was fully verbal. Far more impressively, he was also fully able to draw areal images from imagination (like the imagined effects of an earthquake) and recall to astounding detail.

Stephen is an artistic autistic savant. In 1987, ex-president of the Royal Academy Sir Hugh Casson called him “the most talented child artist in Britain.”

Today, Stephen’s talent has reached new heights. He flies in a helicopter over major cities (Tokyo, Rome, Frankfurt, Hong Kong) and draws panoramic views of the city on a 16-foot-long canvas, down to the most amazing details like the exact number, proportion and position of windows on each building.

Read Stephen’s full life story, check out the gallery of his mind-blowing work and/or buy some prints of this testament to the capacity of the human brain. Meanwhile, see how he crafts a panorama of Rome after he hovers over the great city.

Damaged goods? You be the judge — if you can wrap your own brain around the magic of this one.

THE FLIPSIDE

While seeing a depiction of the world so perfectly linear, static and accurate is impressive, it’s also fascinating to look at the kind of art that interprets the world much like our brains operate: in a non-linear, dynamic, constantly shifting fashion.

Which is why we dig this stop-motion by artist Kristofer Strom, done entirely on a whiteboard — just like the blank slate of our perception uses static shapes and time to interpret complex motion.

See more of the same great art/design vision at Ljudbilden & Piloten.

THE SOCIAL SURFER

Ah, the social web. It stopped being a catchphrase ages ago and now it’s just a fact of life. As is multitasking. So to address the seemingly omnipresent web multitasker, a bunch of web masterminds have just released Flock.

And we dig it because these guys seem to share our passion for a genuine understanding of consumer behavior — the online reflection of which has changed tremendously in recent years, but the fundamental application that propels it — the web browser — hasn’t necessarily kept up. So how about a browser’s that’s the intersection of media, people, and discovery?

Dubbed The Social Web Browser, this smart newbie aims to give users the most fulfilling experience across all information platforms, from gathering to exchange to self-expression to interaction, as well as across all media. As soon as you login to all your favorite social networking and sharing services, Flock pulls your friends from them into the browser so you can access them whenever. You choose how much you want to see and how often so you can keep track of when your friends have updated their profiles, access their shared media, share web stuff with them, and stay generally connected via whatever services you’re craziest about. See how the magic happens.

A bunch of new themes and extensions are coming soon, but the Flock crew promises a best-of-Firefox fiesta.

Although it’s compatible with Mac, Linux and PC operating systems, its interface and functionality decidedly have our beloved Mac feel — sharing with friends is a drag-and-drop heaven. At the top of your browser window, you get a scrollable filmstrip view of photo and video streams from Facebook, Flickr, PhotoBucket, Piczo, Truveo, YouTube and others. And, of course, the whole ordeal is appropriately open-source so you can code-write your heart out.

Our only caution: not ideal for those 12″ screens. But, hey, now you have yet another excuse to get that spiffy 15″ MacBook Pro.

UNTRIVIA

And speaking of social, we keep drumming on and on about the power of word of mouth, about how online reviews can make or break a consumer product, and guess what: it’s been confirmed.
Turns out, there’s a particularly WOM-hungry group of net dwellers out there now called “social researchers.” In the yet-to-be-released “Social Shopping Survey 2007,” PowerReviews probed 1,200 people who regularly shop online and spend more than $500 annually. They found that a good 65% of these folks are “social researchers” — a set who actively hunts down consumer reviews before buying stuff and bases final purchase decision on them. More on those WOM-ravenous shoppers:

• 78% spend over 10 minutes reading the reviews for a single product they’re interested in
• 64% research products online at least half the time, regardless of where they end up actually buying
• 82% prefer sifting though consumer reviews to finding out about the product from a knowledgeable store staffer

Ok, we’re off to finally buy that PowerShot we’ve been lusting after with the stellar Amazon reviews.

RAG DEPARTMENT

Okay, the last thing we wanna be is an industry tabloid: enough people talking about Wal-Mart sex triangles and Dentsu upskirt shots of Kournikova already. But we just heard something too gotta-spill to keep to ourselves.

Fresh from our Rumors Allegations, and Gossip department: seems like Hewlett-Packard is cooking up a new web-based service to address the marketing, design, production and printing needs of small business. There’s also some sort of personalized marketing consultancy involved. The mystery creative solutions service will offer pretty much everything an old-school ad agency would: logo design, direct mail, website hosting and design, collateral, online banner advertising, search optimization, print design and production, copywriting and more. And, of course, a promise of affordability.

We’re not exactly sure how HP will attempt to pull this off. (Craigslist wanteds for unemployed creative folk come to mind. And more stock photography than should be legal.) But we’re not surprised: HP has been pushing the “creativity” message big time lately, mostly thanks to some fresh work from Goodby and the recent Gwen Stefani endorsement with its various extensions.

We’re just not exactly convinced their end products won’t end up a tad too close to a certain NASA page.

GHOST OF ART

Yes, it’s real.

It’s William Hundley‘s completely in-camera, completely haunting, completely brilliant photography. The Entoptic Phenomena project isn’t a product of Photoshop, the wind, or paranormal forces. It’s the work of Hundley’s creative mind…and his social circle.

The secret: Hundley has his friends jump completely covered in fabric and snaps shots of them mid-air. We love the eerie vibe of the result. Also not too shabby: the photographer’s boldness with colors, patterns and textures.

See his the full project and its interesting extensions. (Our favorite: Friends, in which the Entoptic Phenomena awkwardly share space with static everyday characters.)

Hits, Punches and Other Impact

Three-minute verdicts, humanitarian aid for your vocabulary, Brazilian models, hyper-social networking, what Harry Potter and the Yankees have in common, and where you can get a side order of sweaty hunk with lunch. Welcome to the Hits, Punches and Other Impact issue.

IMAGE VS. LIKENESS

Amnesty International, always the shocker, is on a latest spree to remind us that toy recalls are the least of China’s reputation problems. In a new campaign busting the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, the human advocacy crew is out to expose the contrast between China’s marketing efforts and their internal practices, a discrepancy that reeks of blatant hypocrisy.

Turns out, when China promised to kick up human rights for the 2008 Olympics, they went ahead and made a bunch of minor touch-ups to the death penalty system (a.k.a. itsy-blitzy change) and vouched to give foreign reporters more freedoms.

But “freedom” is the last thing one such investigative reporter, Zhao Yan of the New York Times, got when he tried to appeal his three-year prison sentence for an alleged political vendetta. The appeal was dismissed in under 3 minutes. He was recently released after completing the sentence.

Which is an unsurprising event, given a long-standing law has been allowing police to shove crime suspects in jail for up to 4 years without trial. Since 1957. That’s half a century of legalized anti-freedom, granting suspects not even a shot with the whatever loose justice system does exist. Meanwhile, China’s busy opening the world’s largest, blingest luxury airport.

The irony, of course, is that the entire marketing campaign to boost China’s international image for the Olympics is funded by the tax yuan of these very same people facing human rightlessness on a daily basis.

Read up on what’s wrong with that picture and check out the full Amnesty International creative.

VERBAL STEAL & DEAL

The wonderful people of the Red Cross bring all kinds of aid to those in need. Including the linguistic kind. Overheard in a shared restroom, we bring you this uncovered vocab gem of the week, courtesy of the lovely women of the American Red Cross:

Squidget |’skwijit|

noun: Too short to be a midget.

[Definition spoken in a matter-of-factly, isn't-it-obvious tone by utterer upon inquiry.]

WON’T SEE THIS ON A BILLBOARD

We’re starting to understand why Brazil is on a mission to ban outdoor advertising: because they have so much higher standards for what constitutes compelling, culturally relevant visuals. (As opposed to, you know, babes-boobs-and-beer billboards.)

Case in point: 27-year-old artist Bruno 9li. Inspired by alchemy (even saying “alchemy” is pretty damn badass in and of itlsef), his ink-on-paper and mural art may just be Brazil’s hottest contribution to culture since Gisele Bundchen. (What, we do have to acknowledge the mainstream’s tastes. Chill out.)

In the sea of sameness (hello, pseudo-anime and anything with distorted doll heads), Bruno 9li’s work stands out as something we’ve never seen before. Do check out his full exhibit to feel a little more enriched, or at least a little closer to Gisele.

UNTRIVIA

The college set. A small (18 million) and often annoying (ah, the swollen sense of entitlement) demo. But one with enormous market influence: a combined power of their own disposable income and what they puppy-eye their parents into buying, a solid, opinionated word-of-mouth network, a tendency to be early adopters of, well, pretty much anything, and a lifetime of consumption ahead of them. Their relationship with the marketing world, to say the least, matters.

So here’s a snapshot of how this dynamic has changed over the past couple of years. Anderson Analytics, a youth-oriented market research getup, sets out every year to probe what brands the kids are digging via their annual GenX2Z College Brand Survey. A top-line:

2005: Nike, Coca-Cola, Polo, American Eagle, Sony

2006: Nike, American Eagle, Sony, The Gap, Old Navy

2007: Google, Apple, Target, Facebook

What else the kids care about:

On the web:

2005: CollegeHumor, Facebook, Google, MySpace, eBay

2006: MySpace, Facebook, CollegeHumor, YouTube, Google

2007: …here’s where it gets tricky. This year, more than ever, the differences across genders are really starting to show:

Women:

1. Facebook, 2. MySpace, 3. Google, 4. YouTube, 5. PerezHilton, 6. PostSecret, 7. Craigslist, 8. AddictingGames, 9. eBay, 10. SlickDeals

Men:

1. Facebook, 2. ESPN, 3. Google, 4. YouTube, 5. Digg, 6. CollegeHumor, 7. Yahoo, 8. MySpace, 9. Amazon, 10. Engadget / Fark (tie)

The gender breakdown gets even more interesting. Even though Facebook tops both charts, twice as many women rank it #1 than men, and MySpace is nowhere to be seen in men’s top 5. So the survey seems to assert that social networking skews much more female in the 18-24 set.

But here’s our thought: Take Digg. It allows people to see what content others in this whole big Internet universe are digging, exchanging information and opinions with the world at large rather than with a small social circle of actual friends and acquaintances, as is the case with traditional social networking sites. None of the Digg-type sites pop up on women’s web favorites list, but they do on men’s. (Fark and CollegeHumor are just other bystander ways of connecting to what tickles others.) Could such sites be a form of “hyper-social networking,” allowing users to connect with others beyond their immediate “society” in broader, less intimate ways?

So it may be, then, that social networking holds equal appeal to young men and young women. It just manifests itself in different ways as these two groups choose to relate to the world differently.

Something to think about.

CAN’T BELIEVE IT’S NOT FICTION

Lately, we’ve been on an unintentional busting-the-print-is-dead-myth spree. On the whole death vs. evolution note, it’s not just the medium that’s evolving: its consumption also is. So what happens when you cross two dinosaur media — books and snail-mail — with a new-age phenomenon like peer-to-peer and social networking? You get Paperback Swap, a Netflix of sorts for books that’s completely free and a true testament to an old-fashioned code of honor.

Here’s how it works: you sign up (with a valid email and USPS address), sift through your old books to decide which ones you’re willing to swap, and post them on the website, adding to the over 1.6 million books already available. Just for doing that, you get 2 free book credits, so you can go ahead and request 2 books after browsing through the e-library. (Credits are the exchange unit on PBS — every time one of your books is received, you get a credit you can use to request someone else’s book.)

Then you just sit and watch your mailbox: the books, after they arrive, are yours to keep. Free.

The only thing you ever pay for is postage when other members request any of your books (about $2.13 a book using Media Mail). But, then again, they pay postage when you get theirs, so it’s all fair and simple. And, speaking of postage, PBS has neat shipping labels you can print out at home to make it all even easier. Or, you can go hardcore and join the Box-O-Books program where you can ship multiple books in one big box and swap with other boxers, saving on both postage costs and wait time.

And, for the musically inclined, there’s also sister-site SwapaCD, the self-explanatory similar program for CD’s.

Here’s the thing: if we remember our copyright classes from way back correctly, there’s something called the “first book doctrine,” a loophole in copyright law that allows you to transfer (for payment or not) a lawful copy of copyrighted work (like a book or CD) once you’ve obtained it. Basically, whenever you buy, find, receive as a gift or get your hands on a book in other ways, it’s yours to do whatever you like with. Including swapping.

Whoever thought the big break in peer-to-peer media exchange, always the hot-button issue in digital media, would come from the very media written off as dead?

FOOD & FIGHT

This week’s as-seen-in-Philly: spotted in the midst of Philly gem Reading Terminal Market (and in the midst of lunch rush hour) is a full-blown boxing match, complete with a loudspeaker-armed announcer, a DJ, various sponsors, and ABC Action News coverage.

We couldn’t quite figure out the purpose of the whole shebang, but it seemed like some sort of boxing match ticket sales stunt. More than anything, though, we couldn’t figure out why such a stunt would be pulled in the middle of the indiest of fooderies.

But, hey, perhaps there’s some truth after all to legendary Bulgarian wrestler Lyutvi Ahmedov’s even more legendary adage: “The grub makes the fight.”

We’ve got a free weekly newsletter and people say it’s cool. It comes out on Sundays and offers the week’s best articles. Here’s an example. Like? Sign up.

The Bookworm Issue

The world’s first $430 million book, college admissions on steroids, the little bookshop that took the click-and-mortar universe by storm, agency all-stars, how print may solve the global warming crisis, and why Philly’s 30th Street Station needs the best a man can get. Welcome to The Bookworm Issue.

GUTENBERG’S GHOST

Yeah, yeah. Print is dead. We’ve heard more iterations of this eulogy than there are pages in War and Peace. But, the thing is, print ain’t dead. It’s just different.

We’ve been highly skeptical about audiobooks since they first came around. Visions of meditation-tape voices and a tone that stresses all the wrong words plagued the imagined experience. But seeking a fair verdict, we finally decided to suck it up and try it, getting a book we’d read before for comparison purposes.

The pick: Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point from Simply Audiobooks. And, in all honesty, it was a pleasant surprise.

The CDs arrive fast. (We wanted all judgement points available, so we went with the hard-copy mail-based rental club, but they also have a neat download club and a purchase option for those who don’t care for the restrictions of monthly or annual memberships.) And there are no Netflixy restrictions on what you can do with the content — ours got sucked right into our iTunes library, so the “rental” ended up as ownership. Best of all, our book was actually read by Gladwell himself — granted, in a rather meditative voice, but nothing beats hearing an author’s interpretation of his own work.

An added bonus: subtle print on the neat blue cardboard boxes CDs come in tells you they are made from 100% post-consumer materials and are fully recyclable and biodegradable. There’s no mention of it on the site, there’s not boastfulness about it — seems like an authentic effort by these folks to make a small, tangible difference. You don’t get that a lot in the fanfare-driven eco movement.

Then there’s print that’s actually printed and just as 2.0. Initiated by the World Bank and funded through the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, On Demand Books created the world’s first print-on-demand (POD) device last spring: the Espresso Book Machine. It takes this media shaker 3 minutes to print and bind a 300-page paperback from a digital file. Which, come to think of it, would work great with Google’s Library Project, an effort to digitize the world’s libraries and make them fully searchable, once it leaps over the self-serving, pointlessly bitter naysayers and takes off full steam.

On Demand Books and Google seem to share more than functional compatibility: just like Google’s do-no-evil, empower-people-though- information vision, the Espresso is out to solve a larger problem. From a sustainability perspective, the gizmo will eliminate the enormous global shipping and warehousing costs for books and reduce paper consumption (in which the U.S. is a world leader, at 715 pounds per capita a year and growing at about 10% each decade). Thanks to Uncle Gore, we all know what this has to do with them glaciers. And from a socioeconomic perspective, it will give that smart, hard-working but incredibly poor student in Mozambique access to the educational tools that will empower her to pursue her dreams and passions. It’s hard, after all, to ignore the powerful role education and information access play in socioeconomic status, driving the dynamic between education, employment and poverty.

The miracle printer is expected to retail for about $100,000 — much less than what the majority of national libraries, including ones in the developing world, spend on stocking every year. Plus, given the machine’s workhorse capacity, it seems like a sound investment. See it all in action and marvel.

BETA VERSION OF YOU

We remember the days when CollegeBoard.com was as high-tech as college application got. But it seemed intended to ease the process on the administrative end, not the student end. Not exactly a hook these days when kids are all about being in control. That’s where 2.0 startup Zinch comes in.

They cater to one of the most powerful, universal human aspirations — to be recognized as unique individuals. Because, really, who likes being reduced to a standardized test score, a bunch of acronyms (hello, GPA, AP, SAT, TOEFL, and others), and a bullet-point list of extracurriculars? Certainly not budding twenty-something hipsters.

Still in startup-classic Beta, Zinch was inspired by the simple observation that the current admissions process seems to favor those in already favorable positions. (Hey there, private school all-stars, alum kids, extracurricular whores and grade-grubbers.)

Combined with various research findings that test scores and high school GPA are poor predictors of how kids do in college (known to some of ous as the keg effect), a vision was born: to level the playing field, giving students an outlet for showcasing their individuality without the traditional expensive resources like essay-writing courses, test preparation services, tutors, and other get-in-bed-with-the-Ivies plots.

Here’s how it works: students sign up and create detailed profiles, or “portfolios,” where they showcase what they’re all about. Anything goes — blogs, obscure art, a garage band gig, you name it. Portfolios are then assembled into a sophisticated database, which colleges and universities across the nation can search based on whatever criteria they think matter.

Sure, it may take some time until the admission process recognizes the human factor involved in sifting through applicants to select those who’ll make the greatest brains of tomorrow. (Because, really, it’s the successful ones that shell out the biggest alum donations.) But we dig that someone out there is starting to nudge things in the right direction.

Plus, there’s the “i am more than a test score” tagline. Simple. Honest. And sadly revolutionary.

UNTRIVIA

A recent partnership between STORES Magazine and BIGresearch produced the Favorite 50, a survey in which consumers ranked their favorite e-tailers. If anything, it’s a useful snapshot of how the contrast between the brick-and-mortar and online retail landscapes — offline many of the rank-toppers are either B-grade or nonexistent altogether. Here’s a top-line of the findings:

1. Amazon.com — The interesting thing is that if you were to walk into a traditional retail store that carries all the products available on Amazon, you’d be so overwhelmed with the paradox of choice you’d either pass out or walk out. But the success of this search-based system enhanced by personalized recommendations suggests the future of shopping may just be in online stores that operate as sophisticated, algorithm-driven retail databases.

2. eBay — The Barry Bonds of vintage stores seems to be hitting a home run with shoppers.

3. Wal-Mart — Despite various questionably effective attempts to be, like, totally hip and catch the young set (including the latest merciless milking of the green cow), this retail giant is doing well as ever.

4. Best Buy — Eh, not really “Best,” but “4th Best Buy” doesn’t really have the same ring to it.

5. JC Penny — We’re talking massive dollars here, not pennies. And it’s quite a jump for this lovemarked (see appropriate snark below) retailer. Can they really be better liked than…

6. …Target? — All the multiplying pretty people, the swirly stuff and the poppy tunes seem to be paying off.

7. Kohl’s — We’re guessing quietly kicking up their posh quotient with the Vera Bradley line didn’t hurt.

Also of note: Google (#9) and Yahoo (#16) are sending clear signals that search engines play a big role in e-commerce beyond your grandmother’s basic search optimization.

But most importantly, unlike “objective” spending-based rankings, the Favorite 50 assessed how people feel, subjectively, about the retailers they shop with. And while the dollar can’t be neglected as a business driver, it’s brand equity and love that keep it coming year after year. Refreshing to see some commercial entity out there actually cares about how consumers feel, not how much and what they bought today.

GLOSSY VS. GRITTY

While we’re on the subject of brand love and the number-five ranker above, it seems like for lovemarker K-Rob there’s no shame in being one justifiably smug, smart SOB. (You may recall JC Penny’s unexpected, pitchless shift of business to Saatchi & Saatchi, allegedly after top execs were blown away by Saatchi CEO Kevin Roberts’ Lovemarks. If this is the case, it makes it the world’s most expensive book, with a price sticker of the $430-million business.) Especially if he’s willing to put his money where his pen is.

Which he did, kinda. The lovemarketing campaign is a-rollin‘, replete with bouncy imagery, life-is-good cliches, and — our biggest gripe — commodification of formerly-indie acts in soundtracks. (To be fair, as much as we love Regina Spektor, we first thought she was showing symptoms of sellout after being prominently featured on the first season finale of addictive primetime soap Grey’s Anatomy, but this is a whole new level of commercialization.)

In any case, our biggest concern with K-Rob’s literary foray is that while it includes some superficially innovative gimmicks, it simply offers a glossy iteration of social and psychological research findings that have been around for quite some time. And while we have tremendous respect for the complex psychological principles behind it all, we’d have to go with the grittier, down-and-dirty reads on the subject.

And on that note, here’s a Brain Pickings rarity: a shameless endorsement and recommendation for those who care to dig deeper. Yep, we’re shamelessly endorsing and recommending Daniel Goleman’s Emotional Intelligence (and sequel Social Intelligence), an incredibly smart (yet very credible) foray into sociology, neuroscience, psychology and behavioral science that sheds light on why we ever care about anything. Bonus: Goleman is not an ad agency CEO and the book is not intended to be a new business hook.

ONLY IN PHILLY

Ever feel like you’re constantly climbing the (social, corporate, whatever) ladder to no avail? Philly, always the literalist, has taken that metaphorical concept to a verbatim level. Spotted on the concourse of 30th Street Station by a certain young lad is this architectural head-scratcher.

Of course, if we had a Gillette Mach 3 Turbo, that wall would be a piece of cake.