“Octodad: Dadliest Catch” is a new video game coming out early this year that puts the player in the perspective of an octopus masquerading as a human.
AX Mina
AX Mina (aka An Xiao Mina) is an author, artist and futures thinker who follows her curiosity. She co-produces Five and Nine, a podcast about magic, work and economic justice.
Posted inNews
British Library Releases 1M Images into the Public Domain
Earlier this month, Open Culture pointed to a big move from the British Library: the library is putting a million images into the public domain.
Posted inOpinion
Chat Bots and Big Data
OAKLAND, Calif. — With our data-driven lives, so much of what we do can be seen through the lens of algorithms.
Posted inOpinion
Keeping It Short: A Compilation of Telegraph Code Books
One of the fascinating aspects of studying the history of communications is how often we repeat the same strategies, and telegraph code is a great example of this.
Posted inOpinion
Traffic and the Human Condition
A few years ago, China’s traffic jams of epic proportions started to make the news. Traffic on the ring roads in a city like Beijing is on par with, sometimes even worse than, that of Los Angeles’s 405 or New York’s BQE at rush hour. It seems to be an inevitable part of our lives, as this amazing compilation of traffic jams the world over reveals.
Posted inArt
An Open Source Map for Conservation
LOS ANGELES — One of the loveliest sites on the web belongs to the UNESCO World Heritage Centre, a database of all of UNESCO’s World Heritage sites, from famous locales like Australia’s Great Barrier Reef to the lesser-known underground river of Puerto-Princesa, Philippines.
Posted inOpinion
Going Private: From WeChat to SnapChat
Around this time last year, Instagram caused a flurry after attempting to change its terms of service — what the Globe and Mail’s Russell Smith called “an apparent move to appropriate and sell every user’s photos.” Smith pondered how growing awareness of the public documentation of our private lives will play out.
Posted inOpinion
Curating African Art on Dynamic Africa’s Tumblr
OAKLAND, Calif. — A few weeks ago, I looked at contemporary African photography thanks to a terrific series from Dynamic Africa, one of my new favorite blogs. A great example of Tumblr’s possibilities as a site for curation, it is the work of Funke M., a culture curator and observer based in South Africa and originally from Nigeria.
Posted inOpinion
The (New) Handgun Aesthetic
OAKLAND, Calif. — We’ve all seen the moment in movies when the hero, villain, or unwitting victim has to stare down the barrel of a gun.
Posted inOpinion
Literature and Publishing in Developing Contexts
I was recently sent an article about the potential of e-books in developing countries. It’s one year old, but with the rise of e-books and the growing popularity of Kindles (including on airplanes taking off and landing), it seemed worth revisiting.
Posted inArt
Chinese Artist Draws with Smoke
OAKLAND, Calif. — Stare up at the ceiling of any bar or night club that’s been around since before indoor smoking was banned and you’ll doubtless see traces of smoke on the ceiling. Though a symbol of the ephemeral, smoke leaves lasting marks over time, whether that be buildings or lungs or anything else it comes in contact with.
Posted inArt
Curating at the Airport: The SFO Museum
SAN FRANCISCO — If our first impressions of a city are often framed by the airport, then SFO makes up for its lack of architectural grandeur with its own unique museum and culture.
