Tag Archives: periodic table

Friday Links: Are graphic designers ruining the web?

• REMINDER (oh yeah, all caps reminder): Monday (February 27th) is the deadline for nonprofits and web pros to get in on this year’s Overnight Website Challenge.
• You can’t just fill a blender with nerds and nonprofits, hit puree and expect a delicious smoothie, every time.
• Illustrated guide to Mad Men bedhopping. Everyone’s favorite ad agency show returns March 25th.
• Super Mario coin lamp. Seriously, go take a look.
• Are graphic designers ruining the web?
• Lines from the “Princess Bride” that double as comments on freshman composition papers. The first one is the best and can probably used on Twitter & Facebook too: “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”
• Back to the Future in LEGO. There are no words. . .
• Photo Album: 1980 Los Angeles SciFi convention.
• How Scam Aps make money.
• Oh yes, the Periodic Table table.
• Facebook profile better than IQ tests at predicting what kind of employee you’ll be.
• Should engineering students pay more for their degree?

Friday Links: A celebration of The Simspons’ 500th episode

• In honor of The Simpsons’ 500th episode, all of Bart’s chalkboard sentences.
• Super Mario villan recruitment posters.
• The periodic table of cupcakes. That’s right.
• This is pretty fabulous: Animal sculptures made of CD fragments.
• Looking to hire great innovators? Focus on the 3 Rs.
• Designer myopia: how to stop designing for ourselves.
• 6 pop culture mysteries solved by fans.
• John Gruber of Daring Fireball reviews Walter Isaacson’s Steve Jobs biography.
• Can a font help a city make a comeback? Chattanooga hopes so.

Friday Links: The future of online advertising & new elements get their names

• Do you make websites? Have you taken ALA’s 2011 survey for people who make websites? You should!
• The future of online advertising.
• How a geek cracked the Jeopardy! code
• Spock tree topper.
• Clever commercials are often bad for business.
• 11 sounds kids have probably never heard, unless of course they read that article or watched any old-timey tv, or, well, it’s still amusing.
• DesigNerd trivia game.
• Wipe t-shirt perfect for glasses-wearing nerds.
• Malcolm Gladwell reviews the Steve Jobs biography, calls him the consummate tweaker.
• On Amazon’s Ominvoracious blog they talk to Settlers of Catan creator on how the game is becoming an novel.
• Three elements in the Periodic Table get their names.

Friday Links: Happy International Beer Day

• Today is International Beer Day. Related The Nerdery’s Brewmaster on how to pour the perfect beer.
• How empathy breeds viral phenomena.
• From Minneapolis Egoist: “Sartalics are left-leaning italics, indicating sarcasm. A small group of huge nerds is setting out to make it an official font.”
• The Nerd Brain. I think it’s missing the ‘useless song lyrics’ portion.
• The trivialities and transcendence of Kickstarter.
• The Periodic Table of Heavy Metals. Also, The Periodic Table of Irrational Nonsense.
• Coke vs Pepsi. StarWars vs. Star Trek. Nirvana vs. Pearl Jam. Gmail vs. Hotmail?
• Fire-breathing LEGO dragon.
• The Evolution of Geek.
• TidBit’s favorite hidden features of OSX Lion.

Friday Links: Video game cakes, the moon & Matt Groening

• The definitive collection of video game cakes.
• Go look at Dear Photograph, it’s a very cool photoblog.
• One year of the moon in 2.5 minutes, a mesmerizing animation.
• Matt Groening’s 1989 Apple Brochure.
• 10 myths about introverts.
• Welcome to the Periodic Table of Elements, 114 and 116 (unofficially called ununquadium and ununhexium).
• If historical figures endorsed modern products.
• Facebook loses 6 million users.

Friday Links: Happy SysAdmin Day!

• Today is SysAdmin Appreciation Day be extra nice to the nerd who waits to make fun of you for forgetting your password until you’re out of earshot.
• The Periodic Table of Mad Men.
• The Gamer’s Alphabet.
• Dancing typography is awesome.
• 10 words for things you didn’t know had names. I knew two of them, which makes me feel extra smart.
• The Best Magazine Articles is really worth your time, if only for the David Foster Wallace stuff alone.
• Thoughts on designing for the iPad.
• The product marketing manager of Campbell’s Soup wrote a letter of appreciation to Andy Warhol. So much awesome.

Great Moments in Nerdery: Blogging the Periodic Table of Elements

As you know, at The Nerdery we really dig the periodic table, just take a peek at our About Us page. So you can understand why we’re really pumped about Sam Kean’s Slate project Blogging the Periodic Table of Elements. He’s just started the project so you need only catch up on Antimony, Hydrogen, Selenium, Vanadium, Copernicium, Nitrogen & Phosphorus, and Lithium. And you should! It’s really fascinating trivia.

“Despite its obscurity, probably no element on the periodic table has as colorful a history as antimony. Money, madness, poison, linguistics, charlatanism, sex—pretty much every theme that runs through the periodic table can be found in Element 51.”

Friday Links: The Friday before a long weekend edition

• Ad spending up for the first time since 2008.
• Envisioning your future in 2020. Kinda awesome and kinda creepy all at the same time.
• Truth on brands.
• 138 Years Of Quirky Inventions From The Pages Of PopSci.
• The periodic table of imaginary elements.
• Great logo redesigns of 2009 & 2010.
• Adorable homemade robots.
• 10 clever Commodore 64 t-shirts.

Friday Links: Chess, Legos, action figures, what more could you want?

• Survey says: Business picking up for big agencies.
• How good are you at finding the center, noticing if things aren’t quite in balance? Test your skills with the eyeballing game.
• Clock calculates wassted time at meetings.
• 11 biggest nerd heroes who’ve appeared on The Simpsons.
• Give your Macbook a Lego keyboard.
• Lost tops social media interaction charts.
• The lost etymology of ‘fanboy.’
• The worlds tiniest open-source violin, xkcd on the Facebook panic.
• The Periodic Table of Superpowers.
• Action figures of modern artists.
• Hot nerds reading comics.
• Sort of awesome, a typographic chessboard.

Also, as a follow-up to Conan Cubed, I present Conan 2.0 weighing at 169 Rubix cubes.

Friday Links: A brief history of the computer

• Photo essay: A Brief History of the Computer.
• Periodic Table of World Internet Facts.
• Also, The Periodic Table of Smellements.
• Logos are dead: “They are a hangover from old-school thinking about branding. There is no desire by the public for a new logo.”
• Google Android Toys. My heart exploded when I saw that little green robot in shirt and tie.
• Read the first interview with Calvin & Hobbes creator Bill Watterson in 20 years.
• Fallon: Promotions emphasize ‘people-centered’ digital approach.
• How the iPad will change the advertising business.
• Why Animals Speak in Super Bowl Ads: How Rating Systems Have Ruined the Creative