A simple shift up, down, left or right, exposes a new function set—Type, Move, Surf or Play. Type is a qwerty keyboard for entering titles and URLs. An easy shift down, and you get a touchpad for navigation. A shift to the right gives you an option for casual gaming. Shift left and spin 90 degrees to get a “TV” remote with a NUI interface for a kickbacked viewing experience.

From here

Mykonos, Greece

Guest Post: Brendan Dimitri // @bdim14

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I am inspired by the world in which graffiti represents; the underground, mysterious and cultish world that often leads most to pass on by, give a look and shake their head.

I first saw the Bansky collection book, Wall and Piece, about 5 years ago and was instantly hooked. I had no appreciation of graffiti, propaganda or even art for that matter. I was raised to think that graffiti was something that roughens on the other side of town did in their spare time just to break the rules.

For whatever reason, I’ve become a graffiti geek. Now that I’m a little older and have shed most of that ignorant, boyhood mentality, I now know that these artists are more than just guys and gals who stay out late, get into trouble and run from cops.

They could be anybody; your neighbor, coworker, the person who takes your order at the local burger joint. It could be anybody that seeks the thrill of the moment, the rush of adrenaline that comes from doing something you know is right, even if it’s wrong.

What fascinates me most about graffiti is what it portrays -- that dark, ominous way of the street.

Look over your back shoulder, is anyone watching? Does anyone care? Do I care? Hurry, shake the can, spray the bottle, and fill the lines; Black hoody, dark jeans and Chuck Taylors.

Get chased by dogs and pigs -- hop roofs and duck lights, climb fences and be smooth.

It’s that feeling of guilty adolescence that most lose after . . . adolescence.

I would think that the “exclamation point” for a street artist doesn’t come when he/she finishes up, stuffs the cans in his backpack, and walks away innocent with his head down. It comes the next day, when someone looks up and thinks, “I wonder who did that?”

Recently EVOL (the German artist who turns power boxes you see on the side of the road into apartment blocks, in effect creating miniature cities) was asked to create an installation in a place that’s almost the opposite of his normal environment… an open field. Instead of building something on the land, he decided to create in the earth itself.

He ended up creating an intersecting X shape that allowed him to create his own city in the land that viewers can walk amongst. The trenches are about 4 or 5 feet deep, and in total took him about 8 days to complete.

More photos here.

The process here.

Guest Post: Smriti D. Isaac // @sdisaac

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I have a small vegetable garden in my backyard, and this is my third consecutive-- and successful-- year of vegetable gardening.  I am inspired to get my hands, knees, feet, and sometimes even my face dirty in this enterprise called gardening for a number of reasons. 

But first, I must offer full disclosure, that contrary to common belief, are NOT the reasons or the inspiration for my interest in this hobby.  I do not garden because because I am a tree-hugging environmentalist who abhors processed foods, and who has vowed to eat only organically grown produce.  Neither do I garden because I believe I might be the next poster-child for the Whole Foods movement.  My inspiration to garden stems from four distinct sources:

The foremost reason I am inspired to engage in tending a humble vegetable garden is because of the love of gardening that my mother instilled in me many moons ago.  Like the PBS motto "Watch and Learn," little did I realize that when I was much younger watching my mother gushing passionately over the sugar-snap peas, spinach, and bitter-gourd, among other things that she grew in my native homeland, India, I was "watching and learning", even though I was doing no more than merely watching her do the work and later would enjoy the cooked fruits of her labor at our kitchen table.  But even then, unbeknownst to me, there was a seed being planted within me to instill the love of growing beautiful things from the ground!  And many years later, that seed has germinated and taken root to inspire me to do what my mother did so beautifully:  plant, grow, harvest, prepare, and feed her family.  My mother has undoubtedly been an inspiration for my love of gardening, and I can only hope that my own children might follow after me, and perhaps become inspired someday to start a garden of their own.  Incidentally, my mother gardened in a small town in the northern plains of India.  Today, I garden in a small town in the upper-midwestern part of the United States.

Second, I love to garden for a very simple and selfish reason:  I relish the pleasure of enjoying the freshest, tastiest, and brightest of vegetables, and in thinking up different ways to cook, bake, broil, steam, and grill these wonderful vegetables.  My love of fresh and tasty food is a huge inspiration to put in all the hard work that goes into months of tending to a vegetable garden.  Fresh food for yourself and your loved ones-- this, in and of itself is an inspiration, hands down!  And of course, as the season approaches its peak, there's always those last few weeks, when you have just too many tomatoes and peppers, and you start to give them away to friends and neighbors-- and you'll be hard-pressed to find someone who'll decline your giveaways, by the way!

Third, beyond the physical pleasure that comes from eating great food, there is also the immense gratification one has in knowing that that one tomato, eggplant, or hot banana pepper came about from many weeks of love and care showered on each plant by way of all that watering, weeding, watching, and waiting!  Also, I suppose it isn't too much of a stretch of anyone's imagination to realize that there are other greater life skills of patience and endurance that come from such watching and watching!  Physical and spiritual gratification from one act?  You can't beat that!

Finally, I am inspired to cultivate a vegetable garden because I view it to be the most essential and primitive form of creating art.  Each seed that sprouts into a seedling, and continues to put forth flowers, and then fruit, is nothing short of playing the unique role of gardener/artist.  To have a hand in this awesome design of nature's bounty is also an inspiration to plant, grow and harvest each year.  Take a look at these images, and you'll see what I mean.  These pictures were taken yesterday-- can you only imagine what these gorgeous green peppers (that are actually the orange-colored variety), the glistening purple Ichiban eggplant, and these heirloom tomatoes that are a pale green today, but are destined to become a scarlet red in a few days--  might look like ten days from now?!  Just these pictures alone are inspiration to keep gardening!

And in all of this, I haven't even mentioned all the health benefits that come from gardening-- that could very well have been number one on my "inspiration-list", but for me, all these others outweigh that one, albeit significant.  Or even the financial benefits of saving on your grocery-bill-- and who isn't inspired to save money?

So, here's to gardening!  May this post be an inspiration to you to consider starting your own garden, be it in your backyard or in a container on your balcony.  And see for yourself the joys you will reap, and the inspiration YOU will offer to someone else!

Guest Post: Rachel Coristin // @RCoristin05

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The age of the boring yearbook photo is over!

Can you remember waking up on picture day and dreading that inevitable picture in front of yet another boring grey background?  I did, and looking back at some of those photos now, I think "is that really what I looked like?"

One Russian school took picture day to a whole new level in this "Blackboard Yearbook" series. Now these are not your average school pictures with bad hair cuts and fake smiles.

These are definitely some yearbook pictures worth reminiscing about!

Via here

Guest Post: Adam Pierno // @apierno

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Photographer Stephen Wilkes spent a minimum of ten hours taking hundreds of shots to create each one of his Day to Night. Weaving and blending thirty to fifty parts, the photo-collagist extraordinaire created seamless, surrealist scenes of New York City life. 

Really like the typography and design on this.

http://www.gradyscoldbrew.com

To those who are fortunate, a bowl of rice might mean so little, but to less fortunate kids around the world, it might make a difference between life and death. The "Rice Bowl" resource kit has this symbolic design to appeal to kids and other donors. "It generally ships to schools and organizations who want to give kids the opportunity to feed orphaned children in some of the most needy areas in the world."

"The idea is that the rice bowls are given out to children along with little cards explaining how it all works, money's collected in the little rice bowl banks, and orphaned children are fed and cared for with the proceeds. Our design had to be affordable to produce and evoke a certain grass-roots global crisis initiative... yet appeal to kids. "

http://ricebowls.org