In a study of 98 languages from a variety of linguistic families, they found the following “rules” seem to apply:

1. All languages contain terms for white and black.

2. If a language contains three terms, then it contains a term for red.

3. If a language contains four terms, then it contains a term for either green or yellow (but not both).

4. If a language contains five terms, then it contains terms for both green and yellow.

5. If a language contains six terms, then it contains a term for blue.

6. If a language contains seven terms, then it contains a term for brown.

7. If a language contains eight or more terms, then it contains a term for purple, pink, orange, grey, or some combination of these.

{ The Straight Dope | Continue reading }

artwork { Mark Rothko, Red and Black, 1959 }

Exquisite corpse is a method by which a collection of words or images is collectively assembled. The technique was invented by Surrealists and is similar to an old parlour game called Consequences in which players write in turn on a sheet of paper, fold it to conceal part of the writing, and then pass it to the next player for a further contribution. André Breton writes that the game developed at the residence of friends in an old house at 54, rue du Chateau in Paris. In the beginning were Yves Tanguy, Marcel Duchamp, Jacques Prévert, Benjamin Peret, Pierre Reverdy, and André Breton. Other participants probably included Joan Miró, Man Ray, René Char, Paul Éluard… The name is derived from a phrase that resulted when Surrealists first played the game, “Le cadavre exquis boira le vin nouveau.” (”The exquisite corpse will drink the new wine.”)

{ Wikipedia | Continue reading }

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{ martinMARTIN Flower-Draped Tank photographed by China Moss }

{ 1. issuu | 2. Jaimie Warren }

{ The Identity of “Banksy” | eBay }

{ Assistants at work in Takashi Murakami’s New York Studio. | Five art superstars in their studios | The Guardian | full story }

{ Banksy Directs Opening For The Simpsons }

{ 1 | 2 }

Loud bangs, bright flashes, and intense shocks capture attention, but other changes – even those of similar magnitude – can go unnoticed. Demonstrations of change blindness have shown that observers fail to detect substantial alterations to a scene when distracted by an irrelevant flash, or when the alteration happen gradually.

Here, we show that objects changing in hue, luminance, size, or shape appear to stop changing when they move. This motion induced failure to detect change, silencing, persists even though the observer attends to the objects, knows that they are changing, and can make veridical judgments about their current state. Silencing demonstrates the tight coupling of motion and object appearance.

During silencing, rapidly changing objects appear nearly static, which raises an immediate question: What is the perceived state at any given moment? To illustrate, consider an observer who fails to notice an object change gradually from yellow to red. One possibility is that the observer always sees yellow, never updating his percept to incorporate the new hue – this is freezing, erroneously keeping hold of an outdated state. Another possibility is that he always sees the current hue (e.g. yellow, orange, then red) but is unaware of the transition from one to the next – this is implicit updating.

{ Motion Silences Awareness of Visual Change via Thoughts on thoughts | Continue reading }

photo { Christopher Williams }

{ Thobias Faldt }

{ Tony Stamolis }

{ John de Lima }

{ Me Company }

{ Our brief was to create an Annual Review that could also work as a promotional brochure }

{ Kalon | Hut-Hut, a playful reinterpretation of the rocking horse. $1,595 }

Tracey Emin’s Everyone I Have Ever Slept With 1963–1995 was a tent appliquéd with 102 names of the people she had slept with up to the time of its creation in 1995. The title is often misinterpreted, it is to be taken as a literal statement: “Some I’d had a shag with in bed or against a wall some I had just slept with, like my grandma.” The names include family, friends, drinking partners, lovers and even two numbered foetuses.

In 2004, the tent was destroyed in a fire at the East London Momart warehouse, along with two of Emin’s other works and some 100 more from Saatchi’s collection, including works by Damien Hirst, Jake and Dinos Chapman and Martin Maloney.

{ Wikipedia | Continue reading }

{ 1. Günter Fruhtrunk, 3 Grün, 1969 | 2. Gene Davis, Junkie’s Curtain, 1967 }

Harder-to-read fonts boost student learning. Connor Diemand-Yauman and his colleagues think the effect occurs because fonts that are more awkward to read encourage deeper processing of the to-be-learned material.

{ BPS | Continue reading }

My most useful mental trick involves imagining myself to be far more capable than I am. I do this to reduce the risk that I turn down an opportunity just because I am clearly unqualified.

{ Scott Adams | Continue reading }

photo { Belt by Wayne Lee | Scanned from the DDD }

{ DigiBarn | more }

Gamers, as video-game players are known, thrill to “the pull,” that mysterious ability that good games have of making you want to play them, and keep playing them.

Miyamoto’s games are widely considered to be among the greatest. He has been called the father of modern video games. The best known, and most influential, is Super Mario Bros., which débuted a quarter of a century ago and, depending on your point of view, created an industry or resuscitated a comatose one. It spawned dozens of sequels and spinoffs. Miyamoto has designed or overseen the development of many other blockbusters, among them the Legend of Zelda series, Star Fox, and Pikmin. Their success, in both commercial and cultural terms, suggests that he has a peerless feel for the pull, that he is a master of play—of its components and poetics—in the way that Walt Disney, to whom he is often compared, was of sentiment and wonder. (…)

What he hasn’t created is a company in his own name, or a vast fortune to go along with it. He is a salaryman. Miyamoto’s business card says that he is the senior managing director and the general manager of the entertainment-analysis and -development division at Nintendo Company Ltd., the video-game giant. What it does not say is that he is Nintendo’s guiding spirit, its meal ticket, and its playful public face. Miyamoto has said that his main job at Nintendo is ningen kougaku—human engineering. He has been at the company since 1977 and has worked for no other.

{ The New Yorker | Continue reading }

{ art from behind }

{ 1. Wai Lin Tse | 2. Jennilee Marigomen }

If the universe can be eternal into the future, is it possible that it is also eternal into the past? Here I will describe a recent theorem which shows, under plausible assumptions, that the answer to this question is no.

{ Alan H. Guth, Eternal inflation and its implications, 6. Does Inflation Need a Beginning?, 2007 | Continue reading }

related { eternity, quarterly report R02, terminology | download PDF }