Artist Erik Nordenankar has created the “Biggest Drawing in the World” according to his webpage.

In short, he had a grand vision to draw a huge self-portrait. He sent away a briefcase containing a GPS device around the world through DHL which plotted it’s journey in 55 days. The end result, a pretty sweet self-portrait. The GPS container became his pen and the world became his canvas.

However true or fictional this may be, it’s a pretty cool idea. He has a good documentation of it online, and a youtube videos here.

via hackaday

Johan Lorbeer pulls off this incredible illusion in levitation… It took me a few minutes to figure out (the drinking one gave it away), but damn, this is awesome. Mystery at it’s best!
Tons more pics via ahboon, and the answer to the trick towards the bottom if you want to spoil the mystery! Also, a Youtube video of him in action.
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It’s been an incredibly busy week of travel and work and I apologize for not posting as much.

First came the wonderful GEL (Good Experience Live) conference in nyc, which made me ask “why” every time I experienced something bad in this world, rather than just letting it happen. Why do voice mail avatars talk for sooo long before I can leave a message, why do the same avatars talk for so long when I want to hear my voice mails, Why does technology direct 2 people calling each other at the same time to each others voice mail rather than connecting them, why is the nyc train system so confusing for a newbie… this world is full of bad experiences, and as a designer, discovering, revealing, and disrupting the norm is needed…especially when it comes to sustainability and health care experiences. I’ll post about GEL later on, but here is a great recap collection.

Anyhow, this week I venture off to the “Art Center: Serious Play” Conference in LA. It’ll touch base on user experience, design, and bits of everything. I’ll bring my laptop, but no promises on live blogging.

After that, I’ll be experiencing the incredible Pangea Day on May 10th at the Sony Pictures Studio in LA. If you didn’t catch my last post, this is MUST do…invite a bunch of friends, family, or even strangers over…gather around, watch this global event for 4+ hours, get inspired, and make change! There will be 24 films, live music, and several fantastic speakers very much like TED.

I’ll be twittering most of my journey on the sidebar..feel free to follow me on twitter, or just on this blog… I’ll post when I can, but for now, a few late weekend links below:

Use Whatever Clock: Pretty cool, sell the function, let customer create looks.
Wearable Chair: I had this idea sometime ago, but executed a bit differently.
Twistori: Following Twitter by emotions.
Scrapile: Using wasted wood to make cool wood composites! Very sustainable!
Sunlight Poem Projector: Public Poem based on sun location. Pretty neat!
Soba Machine: Make you own soba at home. I’m in soba mode after going to Soba Koh nyc.
A billion Pennies: What does 1 billion pennies stack up to be.
Momofuku Ko restaurant: reservations only online! Brings the experience beyond the restaurant.

Filmmaker and 2006 TED prize winner Jehane Noujaim made a wish to “Create a day in which the world came together through film.”

That exciting day is this May 10th, gathering a global audience to watch a series of films made by the world for the world, which will broadcast around the globe live at the same time.

Gather a community of your family and friends and watch this amazing inspirational film together. Host an event in your home, backyard, office, or any other location to share this extremely rare experience with all.

Watch Jehane’s wish during TED here, host an event, check out the Pangea Day webpage, or watch a few more videos on their Youtube site.

I’ll be in LA during this event… this is a must do, watch, spread event.

- an awesome Wii Guitar Hero shirt above.
- DIY sawed off USB stick..seriously nerdy awesome!
- A great intellectual interview(mp3) to Bruce Schneier on Security and Beyond Fear.
- Paparazzi for the rest of us: the service in getting photographed secretly!
- Visualization of our current space debris!
- Hilarious iphone review! (video).

In a period where bikes are just as congesting as cars comes the invention field in storage. Watch the above video for an automated bicycle parking facility in Japan which is pretty cool! It reminds me of the VW car storage system.

Either way, very cool, though for the biking system, I’d prefer it to be a tower like the VW rather than a big tunnel underground. I’m also not sure what would prevent someone from sitting on their bike while the robo machine jolted ya down to the lower levels…love the camera work in the video!

via gizmodo

This is an amazing illusion that plain makes ya go woa, what, wow!
Print out this dragon, cut it out, fold it a few times, and you’ll get this freaky illusion that the dragons head becomes 3 dimensional and it’ll follow your every move sideways, up, and down… ooo, and you need to close one eye to get the illusion though I had a few people get the illusion with both of their eyes open…seriously, this is awesome! I’m making a bunch of them!

Watch the video above
Download the Dragon image here.
via paperkraft

Woa! This is amazing! John Kanzius was diagnosed with leukemia, hence went though several(24) painful chemotherapy operations. He asked if there was any other treatments, and doctors said no. He has no college degree nor any medical engineering history, but he did have some knowledge tinkering with radios.

He took his wife’s pie pans and built a machine that heated up sections in a hot dog without any side effects at all. The basic idea, inject the cancer cell with some metal substance, and the radio waves heat up the metallic areas hence zap the cancer away with no radiation ever needed! Doctors and medical researchers are amazzzzed!

I’m no science geek or anything, but if this idea tricks out, hot damn awesome! This just reminds me that innovations are usually outside of your normal job! So designers, stop going to design conferences, reading the same design magazines, etc….expand your horizon…learn from other fields, and apply them to your design discipline. We are a hybrid economy!

video via cbs
Another more updated Youtube video

“Sony Foam City Ad”. Makes ya smile and want to go on an adventure!
One other making of clip at Gizmodo.

Twitter in Plain English from leelefever on Vimeo.

I’ve been using Twitter for over a year now and must admit it rocks! This micro-blogging craze feeds and broadcast mini moments in your fun life via IM, web, or txt messaging …and best yet it updates lots of other things, like your facebook status, and my now twitter feed I’ve added to the side of Designverb. Basically, you send a shout-out to Twitter and it broadcasts out to all of your friends in digestible messages 140 letters or less. Sometimes you just want to share something, that doesn’t need to be discussed but makes for a good conversation later on.

Some may think it’s just another social network, which it is to some extent, but what it actually does is enhance your already existing communications. I signed up for Twitter, and almost never go back to the Twitter site since I use IM and txt messaging to do the rest.

Anyhow, instead of rambling on and on for hours about Twitter, I just found this awesome video above to explain it all in animation format!!! So, sign up for Twitter, and follow me if you want to hear my random daily shoutouts, trips, complaints, adventures, etc.. or here, for a feed of this blog (it’ll message you whenever I post something new and some random messages/links)

Also, lots of great Twitter 3rd party application like TwitterVision! ( a live mp of random messages being yelled out across the world) Also for you iphone lovers, Twinkle.

We all know Leonardo Da Vinci’s life and work — but until now, we have not known what he looked like as a man. Illustrator and activist Siegfried Woldhek used some thoughtful image-analysis techniques to find what he believes is the true face of Leonardo. Announcing his discovery for the first time at last month’s TED conference, he walks us through exactly how he did it.

It’s been an awfully busy month with projects, some ping-pong action, lots of lectures, and a few great conferences coming up (GEL, Art Center). Sorry for the lack in posting, but please keep sending in goods.

Thought of the week: You never know what your good at unless you try doing it.
- What the world eats by culture.
- Is Wholefoods becoming the Hybrid SUV, and victims in their own success?
- Very eerie…virtual face follows your cursor.
- A hilarious Blog on photoshop disasters!
- Pop-up alphabet book!
- Solar Film reaches 19.9% efficiency/transfer! Awesome!
- www.ffffound.com , a visual dig of creative images.
- Ping Pong flopping skill madness!
- A pretty nifty label made to remember what wine you liked!