*__*

What could be the most important scientific experiment of our lifetime is about to begin. The so-called Holometer Experiment at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory aims to determine whether our perception of a three-dimensional universe is just an illusion. Do we actually live on a 2D plane, as a holographic projection? There is a well-established theory that states we are indeed living in a hologram, with a pixel size of about 10 trillion trillion times smaller than an atom. This has certain implications, some of which are quite sinister, even unspeakably horrific.

The argument about the nature of the universe hinges on something that 99.99% of people are not able to comprehend even on the most superficial level — namely, a comparison between the energy contained in a theoretical flat universe with no gravity and the internal energy of a black hole, and whether these two energy levels match or not.
—Tero Kuittinen, BGR.com
Huh?

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Science

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Beastie Bak

Awesome Kickstarter project, Beastie Bak:

I am looking to finally print some rare and unpublished photos that I took of the Beastie Boys in the 80’s. I have been looking through the pictures that I took from 1983-87 around the time I did a shoot for their album, “Licensed to Ill” and all the tour photos that I shot at that time and before. I would now like to share these images with all the Beastie Boys and 70’s fans out there but need to scan and print them.

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Art

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Technology Identity

When a new technology emerges, it behaves like the technology that came before it. Moving pictures acted like photography. Television acted like radio. Cars were designed like the carriages before them (yes, that’s where the word “car” comes from).
And so it is for the first generation of smartwatches (aka “wearables”) with their skeuomorphic analogue watch hands.
I thought we had evolved from skeuomorphism?
We can do better than this shit.

image taken from BGR.com

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Technology

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Psychological Jobs

Apparel is the word describing every garment, shoe and accessory product sold and amounts to about $1.2 trillion/yr. This amount of money is not spent only to protect the wearer from the elements-any more than the money spent on telecommunications is spent to convey vital information. Most of the value in apparel, perhaps 80%, is spent on solving psychological needs.

And therein lies the opportunity. As the value is beyond functional, substitution of psychological jobs by new products is a matter of engineering better solutions. Consider the behavior of US teens: anecdotally, theirspending on apparel is fading as the solution to feeling good about themselves increasingly relies on a device and service. Already, in this context, apparel retail is in crisis while buying shifts to devices.
—Horace Dediu, Apparel is next

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Clothing

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Copycat Samsung

BGR: Samsung continues to explain how hard it is to make an iPhone 6 ‘killer’:

After explaining a few days ago how hard it is to make an iPhone 6 “killer” – the partially metallic Galaxy Alpha is considered Samsung’s response to the incoming 4.7-inch iPhone 6 – Samsung is back with more marketing nonsense in a second post on the company’s blog that further explains the way Samsung designed this new phone.
Just stop, Samsung. You’re just making yourself look more pathetic.
Also, the bezeled edge on the new Galaxy Alpha couldn’t look like more of an iPhone 5 ripoff.

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Product

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Flaky as Shit

Remember when you would talk to your friend—face-to-face or maybe over the landline telephone—and make plans for the weekend? Then a few days would pass and that weekend you would actually meet your friend where you had agreed to meet? This experience is foreign to a lot of people, particularly Millenials, the first generation to have grown up with cellphones and the Internet since birth.

Generally speaking, Millenials started popping out of their mothers’ uteruses around the time Nirvana’s Nevermind came out in 1991.

To be clear, though, Gen Xers, Gen Yers and Baby Boomers are all just as susceptible to being flaky shits.

Cellphones Make People Flaky as [Shit] via Alex Cornell

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Pyschology

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Always Missign My Tpyos

At Wired, Nick Stockton on why it’s so hard to catch our own typos:

You have finally finished writing your article. You’ve sweat over your choice of words and agonized about the best way to arrange them to effectively get your point across. You comb for errors, and by the time you publish you are absolutely certain that not a single typo survived. But, the first thing your readers notice isn’t your carefully crafted message, it’s the misspelled word in the fourth sentence.
Why?
The reason typos get through isn’t because we’re stupid or careless, it’s because what we’re doing is actually very smart, explains psychologist Tom Stafford, who studies typos of the University of Sheffield in the UK. “When you’re writing, you’re trying to convey meaning. It’s a very high level task,” he said.
If you’ve been following Daily Exhaust for a while, you’ve likely seen many of my typos. I always miss them. Luckily my friend and DE contributor Bryan always spots them like a sharp shooter.
Ironically, I notice I’m usually able to spot my typos after I hit the Publish button and I’m reading my post live on the site. I attribute this to my brain leaving the “conveying meaning” mode (see above quote) and switching into “reading” mode. I’m no longer close to my words.

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Pyschology

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UI in Movies

My first thought when I saw the above UI Reel for Guardians of The Galaxy was, Those are incredible visual effects.
My second thought was, these graphics look familiar.
In particular, It reminded me of GMUNK‘s work (aka Bradley G Munkowitz). GMUNK has been working in the VFX world for around 15 years, most recently being the guy behind the UI in Tron: Legacy:

He’s also worked on Oblivion.
The Guardians UI also reminded me of Mark Coleron’s work that goes back 10-12 years on films like Deja Vu, Children of Men, Mission Impossible 3, The Bourne Identity, Alien vs Predator, Blade II, The Island & Mr. & Mrs. Smith:

It’s interesting how the vision of future computer interfaces has been remarkably consistent over the last 12 years.
I wonder if this will change.

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Film

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Surface Purpose. Say that ten times fast.

PREMISE #1: Windows 8 was designed to make Windows relevant on tablets as well as desktops.

PREMISE #2: The Surface 2-in-1 was designed to assist the transition of Windows 8 from notebooks to tablets.

FACT: The current ad campaign targets the Surface at notebooks, not tablets.

QUESTION: So what purpose does the Surface serve?

CONCLUSION: None.
—John Kirk, Microsoft’s Surface Ads: The Good, The Bad, The Ugly

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Technology

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