Friday, September 30, 2011

Mini Manhattan Carved Out of 2.5 Tons of Marble by Yutaka Sone

“Little Manhattan” by Japanese artist Yutaka Sone is an exquisitely detailed 2.5 ton marble model of Manhattan. To ensure accuracy, Sone looked at photographs, satellite images from Google Earth, and flew over the city on helicopter rides to view the buildings, streets, bridges, and topographical nuances of the Big Apple. The eight foot long model is on display at the David Zwirner gallery in New York City through October 29, 2011.










Source: dailymail

Thursday, September 29, 2011

The Superpower Google

Last week, I was reading The Huffington Post, and one of the articles I read was entitled "In Antitrust Battle Against Google, Smaller Rivals Say Web Giant Is 'Trying To Kill Them'" by Bianca Bosker.


Google has been accused of cheating by manipulating search results to steer users to Google-owned sites and making it more unlikely that users will have reason to visit "third-party sites".

Google responded by saying that it ranks search results to deliver the best answers to its users and that it does not take action to hurt specific websites for competitive reasons. Other CEOs and entrepreneurs have described Google as "big traffic generator". These CEOs and entrepreneurs also said that they've benefited from Google launching products that would compete with their own.

I don't necessarily agree with those who are accusing Google of having anticompetitive behavior and manipulating the search results; however, I am biased because I blog via Blogger, which is owned by Google. Like some of the entrepreneurs have said, Google has been a huge contributor to the traffic to NIA SPEAKS. Thanks, Google!

But still...I can see why some people question whether or not the corporation is trying to become a monopoly. Google plays a significant role in the Internet world. I mean, the word "google" has been added as an informal verb to the dictionaries! Seriously. There's a plethora of information I probably wouldn't know if it wasn't for Google. It's the "main street" of the Internet, and it would be naïve for me to say otherwise. Almost all of the "real estate" of the Internet has been taken over by the corporation. Google powers two-thirds of all searches in the United States of America and claims three-fourths of all search ad-revenues.

I've been interested in Google's size, success, and effects on competing companies such as Bing, Yahoo, or Ask for a little while now, and this article has shown me that not everyone sees the company's dominance in a positive light.

What do you think? Do you think Google is too big?

Thanks for reading!












Majority of this information taken from huffingtonpost.com
Picture citation: google.com

Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Realistic Embroidery Portraits by Cayce Zavaglia

Originally a painter, Cayce Zavaglia still thinks of her embroidered portraits as paintings. Zavaglia might use wool, but her work borrows techniques from drawing and painting. Frustrated by the limitations of the range of colors available to her, she created a system of sewing the threads in a particular sequence that give the allusion of specific colors or tones.

Zavaglia explains:
Initially, working with an established range of wool colors proved frustrating. Unlike painting, I was unable to mix the colors by hand. Progressively, I created a system of sewing the threads in a sequence that would ultimately give the allusion of a certain color or tone. The direction in which the threads were sewn had to mimic the way lines are layered in a drawing to give the allusion of depth, volume, and form. Over time the stitches have become tighter and more complex but ultimately more evocative of flesh, hair, and cloth.























15 Famous Photographs Recreated In Lego

The recreation of events have been achieved in many media formats from photographs to movies but in this post, we showcases something a little different. Each of these Lego setups recreates a famous scene, yet are just as easy to recognize as the original piece, showing that Legos are just as culturally relevant to adults as they are to kids.





























Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Famous Brand Slogans on Condom Packages

New Condoms is a Tumblr blog to watch. It's dedicated to original photoshops of well-known corporate slogans as condom wrappers, effectively classing up the "that's what she said" jokes with professionally-done photo editing. The site is maintained by Max Wright, a 19-year-old photographer in Los Angeles who also runs several other sites.

After the jump are all of the New Condoms so far along with our color commentary.



























Friday, September 23, 2011

The Ideal Palace of Postman Ferdinand Cheval

Ferdinand Cheval was a postman from France who spent 33 years building the “Ideal Palace” in Hauterives. The Palace is regarded as an extraordinary example of naïve art architecture. It all began when he was walking his post route and found a stone that he thought had an inspiring shape. Over the next 33 years Cheval collected stones during his walks, first puttting them in his pockets, then a basket. and finally a wheelbarrow. He spent the first 20 years building the outer walls, binding the stones together with lime, mortar and cement.

Cheval wanted to be buried in the palace and so when he had finished he proceeded to build himself a mausoleum. It took him eight years to complete, and a year upon completion he passed away and was buried in the mausoleum.