Craig Venter the human genome pioneer, oceanographic microorganism voyager, and now engineering new life forms through his new company Synthetic Genomics!

Watch his incredibly scary, questionable, perhaps world-changing glimpse into his new adventure in creating synthetic microorganisms or bio robots that eat up waste(perhaps carbon) and in return spawn out useful chemicals such as bio fuels! Seriously dangerous yet mind blowing!

Watch the video above or directly here.

I gave Hulu.com a quick test run this weekend and I must admit, it’s pretty awesome and addictive! (the hilarious SNL Natalie Portman rapping video above) Sure there’s Joost, Veoh, Miro, Youtube, DailyMotion, and direct online streams from ABC, NBC, FOX, and several other networks, but hey, besides appearing like a lowercase web2.0 Hulk logo at first, it’s pretty clean, simple, and fun. They even have HD streams! One nice Hulu feature is embedding videos or even sections in a video, though you can’t embed a playlist of videos yet.

Hulu does have a few short commercials throughout their streams, but thus far it hasn’t distracted me much. I’ve only had one brief pause in a video unlike my horrible Joost experience, but maybe that’ll change once Hulu gets out of Beta in late March.

Anywy, I’ve embedded a few videos from Chef Gordon Ramsey’s feisty reality show “Kitchen Nightmares” which I’ve found very entertaining and a nice kick in the butt to fix your business and get rid of the lazy ones. He really shouts the crap outta you to be successful and make change!

Also, I’ll add a few movies! (Sideways, October Sky, Weekend at Bernie’s)

Videos after the jump (meaning, after you click “read the rest of the story”)

Hulu.com(I’ll have a more in depth review down the road)

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Neatorama’s got a great historical collection of tech company logos transforming, evolving, and even name changing over the years. It’s amazing to think about how some giant companies started, and how they adapted to nice design! Makes me wonder when it’s time to make a name change over a logo transformation…(there are many brands that I think suffer based on their crappy names)

A bunch of pics after the jump. (more…)

Hahaha, this made me smile in an odd happy nodding my head sideways kinda way. Derrick Wang brings to us a delicate white piggy bank that has a hidden little agenda… when ya bust it open to collect your sweet savings, it spills out the pigs red guts with it! yikes! Yeah, I know kinda disgusting but kinda cool!

It does make me question how did the piggy bank start and why a pig…ahhh, here it is!

This comes to show that if you treat certain ritualistic objects with a bit more reality(humor) it makes ya smile and buy stuff!(though I’m not a huge advocate of Consumerism)

via YankoDesign

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I love it when designers recreate an experience in a product. In Takeshi Ishiguro case, he turns the experience of turning a lamp “on and off” to “opening and closing”.
Buy it here ($92)

I love it when artist question definitions.

Artist Michel de Broin guts out a 4 person car and adds pedals to it rendering it a 4 person bike to some extent with a skin like a car. Is it a bike or a car? Car’s need a license plate, bikes do not.

The trekkers ride it onto the streets and get stopped by cops eventually. The best part is that during their stop a fleet of police bikes pass by.

Rules and definitions are meant to be broken, questioned, redefined. I love it when these instances are documented!
via Glumbert

Living in the east coast brings those icky winter storms leaving a slurry of wet, slushy, gray snow soaking and ruining most shoes. I was about to go buy a pair of stylish Swims, but then I realized they cost almost $200!! yikes!

So I did some research and found some alternatives to the Swims (mostly boot styles). I’ve not decided which to get, but thought I’d share my finds with ya’ll.

So, what are overboots? Their oversized shoes to wear over your existing shoes to trek outdoors, hence you just pop them right off when your in the office or at a friends and your set without ruining your favorite shoes. They come in “boot styles” and dress shoe “slip on” styles.
A bunch of Overboot pics and links after the jump! (more…)

I’m not one to dive into the political world too often but this years round of familiar candidates has really captured my attention in that it is one of the most diverse round ups buzzing in all media formats traditional and modern on and off-line.

One particular politician that has captured my attention since 2004 is Barack Obama. His poetic speeches are powerful, his personality embraces leadership, his background is diverse, and his beliefs and actions are well supported by reason while embracing listeners to inspire, seek change, believe, and take action.

Besides the fact that this is probably the first time I’ve been excited about a presidential election, Obama is pretty geeky cool in the way that he’s all over the net, on MySpace, Facebook, has his own YouTube Channel, a blog, and even a Twitter feed. An extra highlight being a designer are some sweet icons www.008TheMovement.org has created which I received over the holidays!(thanks Bim)

No matter what the results are for Obama I praise him for being an incredible inspiration, a motivator for change, and a disruptor for the better! Obama just won the Iowa Caucuses and follows up with an amazing speech. Rock on Obama!

Barack Obama’s website

Just before the holiday break RISD announced that in June of 2008 John Maeda would be RISD’s 16th president taking over RISD’s longest-serving president (15 yrs) Roger Mandle. This is HUGE news. Watch the introduction of Maeda here.

Being a RISD alum (2002) and having some experience at the MIT MediaLab I’ve mixed feeling about this decision. Maeda is a really well known person coming from the prestigious MIT MediaLab. He’s very smart and inspirational, has an incredible history, probably has some great insights for RISD’s future, BUT I’m just not sure if he is the right fit..only time will tell. It’s a bit tough to follow Mandle.

A few thoughts:
- RISD is a very traditional hands on school and this is their strong point. Hands on is one of those things you can’t just read about or type…you just have to experience it. How does one manage an education system without experiencing it themselves and all the other disciplines? i.e drawing nude people all day all year, knowing materials, understanding students of a different nature, inhaling charcoal, the freshmen experience, doing 3 all nighters a week for 4 yrs, cross pollinating disciplines, sustainability, etc.

- John comes from a very modern digital world. His thoughts on creativity are very statistical which is not bad, but just very different than how most RISD kids think. I’m still not sure why Maeda is that famous besides his mathematical art pieces and his “simplicity” route, but it’ll be interesting to see how Maeda adopts to the physical design world. RISD does lack digitally, but keep in mind RISD is a school of tradition and physicality.

- Maeda comes from a very corporate background, getting projects, funding, lots of media attention, etc. Does RISD want this? RISD is good at leaving students alone in such a way that they have to discover themselves and be unique to the rest of the world. Many schools prep students for what the world wants but RISD’s culture almost forces you to discover yourself over manipulating you into what’s already out there. This can be good or bad. Think of it like an indie band signing onto a label or a street fashion that makes the shelves of wal-mart or corporate life compared to a small firms culture.

- Who adopts to who…does Maeda Adopt to the RISD culture, or will RISD have to adopt to Maeda’s culture?

Watch the two videos of Maeda vs Mandle. It’s pretty obvious who understands the RISD culture more, but Maeda definitely sounds like he’s ready to dive in and learn a ton and become a RISDoid; Ball, Nad, Sack (the RISD sports teams). I do wish the best for Maeda+RISD but as an alum I naturally question changes for the future. Hopefully Maeda launches his own RISD blog as he has for his simplicity forum here. He’s also created a few pretty cool open discussion groups in Facebook asking the RISD community to feed him info on whats good, bad, and ugly.

Any thoughts, please comment! All the best to RISD+Maeda’s future!

Ben Underwood had his eyes removed at the age of 3 due to cancer. Overtime, he’s taught himself to see objects in space by using “echo location” to navigate the world around him.

Simply amazing and inspirational! It makes me wonder about what us as humans are actually capable of. How acute can our senses be, what is our potential, how can these elements be unlocked? (this phenomenon also reminds me of Phantom Limbs;feeling and controlling limbs that no longer exists! TEDtalk Video lecture by Vilayanur Ramachandran)

Seeing instances likes Ben makes me want to dive back into my fascination with synesthesia; the ability to use one sense though a secondary sense… or as I called it back in college, Cross Sensing.

All 5 videos of Ben after the jump, including the phantom Limb lecture.
(thanks v)
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