Rappin' about CERN's Large Hadron Collider!

I bet you were wondering when physicists would be able to discover the secret of forces behind the dark matter that holds our universe together. That is exactly the plan guiding the massive particle acceleraotor built beneath the countries of France and Switzerland. Forunately, its purpose has now been revealed to us in the lingua franca of our times: a hip-hop video!

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Zen Habits: The Many Paths to Simplicity

Camden, Maine

“As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler; solitude will not be solitude, poverty will not be poverty, nor weakness weakness.” - Henry David Thoreau

ZenHabits.net is a very personal blog by Leo Babauta. Somehow, married with six kids, this writer, runner and vegetarian models of honesty and serenity, as well as provides a trove of simplicity hacks.

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Air Pirate: Arrr! The Oxymoron That Is Radio Cartooning

Mo Willems has wanted to be a radio cartoonist since he can remember. Lots of cartoonists, he said, want to make it to print publications. But inspired by New York City Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia, who read comics on the radio in the '40s, Willems wants to take his art to the airwaves.

From All Things Considered, September 4, 2008 ·

peterdurand

Peter Durand is an artist, educator & visual facilitator based in Houston, Texas.

He is the founder of Alphachimp LLC, a visual facilitation company that helps clients understand and communicate complex systems visually. He is a leader in graphic facilitation and a professor at Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law.

While a Magician Works, the Mind Does the Tricks

We often refer to graphic recording as a magic trick: We watch a human pull images from thin air, grabbing pictures and ideas from the vapor of conversation and giving them physical form. This NY Times article gives insight on why the physical performance of illusion is so captivating and how the brain uses neural tricks to do this: approximating, cutting corners, instantaneously and subconsciously choosing what to “see” and what to let pass.
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TechShop

Remember your friend's dad with the way over-the-top organized garage with every tool imaginable? (If that was your dad, I'm sorry.) Well, I bet he didn't have plasma cutter or 3-D printer, and if he did, you didn't have the security clearance to touch it!

TechShop is that cyber-cool chop shop. Plus, if you are a member, you can touch all the tools, and, for example, make your own BattleBot. They have wicked classes like "How To Cut Shapes Out of Metal with the Plasma Cutter" and "How To Use a Laser to Cut and Etch Food".

TechShop was founded in 2006 by Jim Newton, a lifetime maker, veteran BattleBots builder and former MythBuster. The original TechShop is located in Menlo Park, California, on the San Francisco peninsula 25 miles south of San Francisco, with nine other locations across the US.

[ Thanks to M. Frisse. ]

clipped from techshop.ws

TechShop is a fully-equipped open-access workshop and creative environment that lets you drop in any time and work on your own projects at your own pace. It is like a health club with tools and equipment instead of exercise equipment...or a Kinko's for geeks.
Anyone can come in and build and make all kinds of things themselves using the TechShop tools, machines and equipment, and draw on the TechShop instructors and experts to help them with their projects.

TechShop is designed for everyone, regardless of their skill level. TechShop is perfect for inventors, "makers", hackers, tinkerers, artists, roboteers, families, entrepreneurs, youth groups, FIRST robotic teams, arts and crafts enthusiasts, and anyone else who wants to be able to make things that they dream up but don't have the tools, space or skills.

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peterdurand

Peter Durand is an artist, educator & visual facilitator based in Houston, Texas.

He is the founder of Alphachimp LLC, a visual facilitation company that helps clients understand and communicate complex systems visually. He is a leader in graphic facilitation and a professor at Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law.