Jill Bolte Taylor’s stroke of insight
What happens when a brain scientist experiences the very thing she has been studying? Jill talks about her experience during a massive stroke which she knows all about.

David Blaine: How I held my breath for 17 min
David goes into detail about the great lengths he took pushing his body to the limit of oxygen deprivation.

Lewis Pugh swims the North Pole
This guy is tough. To help spread awareness to global warming, Lewis swam in the icey waters of the North Pole in nothing but a speedo.

Kevin Kelly tells technology’s epic story
Kevin explains how technology evolves like a cell or a meme.

Hans Rosling: Asia’s rise — how and when
Hans has a thick Sweedish accent that you would expect from a great mind. Here he predicts the exact day when India and China will outstrip the US as the economic powerhouse of the world. I marked the date in my Google Calendar.

Willard Wigan: Hold your breath for micro-sculpture
Willard makes incredibly detailed sculptures out of single grains of sand. His patience for his work, which can be inhaled without thinking , is really mind blowing.

Inspiring TED Talks by Russell Heimlich

Painting by Scott Listfield who owns the awesome domain astronautdinosaur.com.

(via BOOOOOOOM)

Astronaut In Bathroom by Russell Heimlich

There are a lot more on his site including the option to buy prints.

(via The Last People)

A Different Take On Food Art by Russell Heimlich

Is this Pixar’s next movie? Nope, this is the 2006 demo reel of a fellow Art Institute classmate of mine. Billy Woodward and I graduated at the same time in September of 2006. During our graduation screening, Billy’s demo reel blew everyone away. And even if you ignored his 3d animation or his storytelling abilities, the fact that he got the “Voice Over King”, Don LaFontaine, to do a custom voice over for his demo reel shows just how far he would go to make his vision as compelling as possible. Watching this short trailer made you feel like you were actually in a theater waiting for the feature presentation to start. It was easily the best showing of the night leaving everyone wanting more.

I was going to write up this post at some point in the future but when I heard Don died yesterday from complications of a collapsed lung at age 68, I immediately thought of Billy’s demo reel. The fact that he would take the time out of his busy voice-over schedule to help a graduating art student spruce up his demo reel shows just what a great guy Don was. He will be truly missed and movie trailers just won’t be the same without that booming, authoritative voice we’ve grown familiar with.

Don LaFontaine Helped A Friend Of Mine by Russell Heimlich

I have no idea if these portable cardboard toilets are serious products or some sick joke but I got a kick out of the page design. Featured in Smashing Magazine’s Texture and Patterns Design Showcase, TheBrownCorporation.com lured me in with their simple, to-the-point layout and Little Jack, the quirky mascot.

At any rate, working at The Brown Corporation must be the shit!

The Amazing Shitbox by Russell Heimlich

I really like the quirkiness of Brandon’s paintings. Most of them feature celebrities in odd situations like The Anguish featuring Michael Landon in a stream holding a squid. Or one of my other favorites, No One Wants To Play SEGA with Harrison Ford, showing the popular action movie star holding a Sega Genesis looking on at two kids playing Nintendo, ignoring him.

Prints of the paintings are available in different sizes and in some cases the original is even for sale. Check out the rest of Brandon’s funny paintings.

Christopher Walken Building A Robot In His Garage by Russell Heimlich

by Rob-Sheridan. A wallpaper version is also available. His painting titled Cereal Mascot Reunion is also worth a look.

Presents Opening Children by Russell Heimlich

It is not a very complex site, only having 4 sections in total, but it more than makes up for depth with rich visuals. The drawings are detailed, animations smooth, and overall is just down right fun to explore and poke around. Flash is the perfect medium for a site of this nature as the non-linear layout is hard to translate in HTML. Plus, Mauricio avoided many of the things that depress the user experience of a Flash site like music blaring, lengthy load times, and an non-interactive intro screen.

So if you are ever thinking about doing a pure Flash website, take a good hard look at your requirements and make sure the medium supports the desired user experience.

Inspiration: The Perfect Use Of Flash by Russell Heimlich

Klooni Games is an experimental game play project where every month Petri comes up with some kind of experimental game. This is a great project to build fresh life in to the gaming world which has a habit of copycatting succesful titles instead of innovating.

Hopefully we will see more exciting things Petri comes up with in March, which just happens to be tomorrow.

Interactive Drawing Game With Real Physics by Russell Heimlich

The title is Scrapzilla, appropriately enough. He has other similar pieces like Rail Rooster and Junk Robot.

Andy has lots of other intricate illustrations in his complete portfolio. It blows my mind how someone can think up something like this.

(via DesignFlavr)

Inspiration: Scrapzilla By Andy Council by Russell Heimlich