lots of factoids with neat gfx:

Good.is has a snappy video breaking down the $3 Trillion cost of war (as documented in Joseph E. Stiglitz and Linda J. Bilme’s exhaustively researched book, The Three Trillion Dollar War: The True Cost of the Iraq Conflict)

Mark Newman at the Department of Physics and Center for the Study of Complex Systems, University of Michigan generated this awesome collection of election maps. My favorite is above.

H/T Andrew Sullivan

UPDATE:
As Steve and Josh commented, the red/blue colors can give a biased visual perspective. Here’s the same map with the hue rotated 120 degrees.

Check out this cool Japanese water fountain:

Photographer Yann Arthus-Bertrand brings his amazing large format aerial photography to NYC next year. Here’s an amazing collection of his work on The Big Picture (one of my favorite weekly photo sites).

The images above is:

Mountainous countryside near Maelifellssandur, Myrdalsjökull Region, Iceland. Once the young lava fields of Iceland cool down, life begins anew little by little. Ice, wind and water flatten and carve out shapes to begin with, then, during the summer, bacteria, lichen and fungi prepare the soil for plants, in particular mosses which adapt to an environment which remains difficult. These plants colonise the most favourable sites and terrain little by little, forming a new ecosystem.

Each photo has a link to the Google satallite photo of the location. The link for the above image is here.

My friend Jay Schuster just pointed me to a really fun graphical description language, which can produce beautiful images with remarkably small amounts of code.

I encourage you to check out the galleries at contextfreeart.org and try it yourself if you’re inclined.

To give you a taste of what it’s like, this snippet of code:

startshape SeedOfLife
background { b -1 }

rule SeedOfLife {
DotCircle {}
6 * {rotate 60} DotCircle { y 1 }
}

rule DotCircle {
180 * {rotate 2} CIRCLE { y 1 s 0.025 hue 120 sat 1 brightness 1}
}

… produces this image:

We’ve all heard of “evidence based medicine”. Well, the field of urban design is working to develop approaches to their work that use the same concepts: design spaces using an evidence based understanding of the environment and needs (as opposed to unfounded assumptions or purely political pressures).

Space Syntax is one of the world leaders in urban planning. Space Syntax takes an evidence-based approach to the planning and design of buildings and cities, using advanced computer modeling technologies.

Our good friend, world-class genius, and US Director of Space Syntax, Noah Raford, recently spoke to RUDI (the Resource for Urban Design Information) on the “real time data collection methods, parametric modelling at the urban scale, and future possibilities of ‘remote control urbanism’”. Noah predicts both the cool and creepy possibilities that are developing as a result of emerging technologies.

Find out what “spime” is HERE (20 Min Video Lecture)

My buddy VJ Fader (Wen Cui) and I got invited to push our mobile video projection cart around during the Coachella music festival.  The cart is about 10 feet tall and made out of PVC pipe bent into five-fold symmetry with spandex covering.  Four 20 watt fluorescent bulbs hang on the inside to light it.  The power is a small gas generator or a battery system.  People loved it… a great response… lots of people came up to it and touched it or hugged it.  We’d like to go back next year with a grant… and perhaps build four of these:

More here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/74206512@N00/tags/coachella2008/

And here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_XsUfsWE4wA&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_fpaYmkzfo&feature=related

As a side note: I built a parabolic solar cooker out of a square meter of cardboard, some aluminum foil and two coat hangers… cooked a stew on it one day… got too hot to touch.

Here’s a great art exhibit that uses 1,600 3D scans of local Charlotte, NC residents as pixels in a larger 3D display that shows each of the faces in sequence. Check the link to get a better description than mine.