Category: Science & Technology

March 13, 2019

Authors Oprah Winfrey, Jane Goodall Included in Activist Art Installation

Equal rights activists, artists, and married couple Gillie and Marc Schattner are bringing gender-balanced public art to global cities with their new initiative, “Statues for Equality,” which aims to introduce statues of living women to cities that favor statues of male figures (so, most cities). New York will be the first city to display 10 of the artist-couple’s statues, all of which will pay tribute to living women. Authors among these women will include renowned public figures Oprah Winfrey (author of What I Know for Sure) and Jane Goodall (author of In the Shadow of Man).

According to the couple’s website, fewer than 3% of public statues in New York depict women, and even fewer depict historical women who made or are making significant contributions to society—as opposed to children’s book characters. Writers, world leaders, researchers, and more will debut at 1285 Avenue of the Americas on August 26th, 2019.

A statue of Eleanor Roosevelt sits at West 72nd Street and Riverside Park. Image Via Wikipedia Commons.

Gillie and Marc are perhaps best known for their widely popular sculpture The Last Three, a massive work featuring three life-sized northern white rhinos stacked precariously on top of one another that was installed at Astor Place and which was intended to immortalize the three remaining northern white rhinos in the world. (Since the statue’s debut, the last male northern white rhino has died while two females are still alive; all three are depicted in the sculpture.) The statue is now located at the San Antonio Zoo in Texas. According to their website, Gillie and Marc have nicknamed themselves “the world’s most loving artists” due to their tendency to focus on humanitarian causes in their work.

Gillie and Marc’s Astor Place installation ‘The Last Three.’ Image courtesy of Gillie and Marc Schattner.

In addition to Goodall and Winfrey, the summer installation will also feature Cate Blanchett, Nicole Kidman, P!nk, Tererai Trent, Janet Mock, Tracy Dyson, Cheryl Strayed, and Gabby Douglas. You may recognize Harriet Tubman (St. Nicholas Avenue and West 122nd Street) and Joan of Arc (West 93rd Street in Riverside Park) as two of the existing five statues of historical women figures in the city—sculptures depicting fictional figures include Alice from Alice in Wonderland and Fearless Girl.

There are no plans for the statues to remain permanently at 1285 Avenue of the Americas after the exhibition closes, but the team’s website emphasizes that Statues for Equality is a global initiative, and the sculptures will likely travel. Gillie and Marc will expand their initiative to other cities after the New York launch and are still accepting nominations from the public for future statues.

Featured image via Wikimedia Commons.

March 6, 2019

7 Products Every Book-Loving Night Owl Needs

The nighttime can be the best time for reading. It’s calm, quiet, and you can leave the stress of the day behind as you flip through the pages of your favorite book. But reading at night can also be a pain! You want to lay in bed and get ready for sleep, but the room is too cold, the lighting isn’t right, and all in all you just cannot relax!

These products will help you with any of your late night reading needs. Just don’t count on them helping you get any sleep.

HD Horizontal Glasses

Image via Hobrr.

With these glasses, you can finally read while laying down without the strain on your neck or eyes! Just put them on, lay back, and the reflective mirrors will do the rest.

Sold by Anri via Amazon

Cost: 13.95 US Dollars

2. A Heated Throw Blanket

Image via Target.

For those extremely cold nights, or for anyone who likes a warm comfort while they read. Set the temperature to the right heat level for you, and then relax the night away!

Sold by Biddford via Target

Cost: 59.99 USD (currently on sale for 44.99 US Dollars)

3. MagniPros 3x Reading Magnifier

Image via Hobbr.

Sometimes you want to set the mood with your favorite read and turn the lights down. This light up magnifying glass will help you to see in the dimmest of settings.

Sold by MagniPros via Amazon

Cost: 39.99 US Dollars (currently on sale for 26.95 US Dollars)

4. Walter Drake Book Pillow Holder

Image via Hobrr.

With this cushion, your book will be held up for reading. No hands required, except for page flipping of course. It also comes with a long tasseled rope sewn to the cushion to be used as a bookmark. When you need to answer the door for some midnight pizza, this will definitely come in handy!

Sold by Fox Valley Traders via Amazon

Cost: 14.95 US Dollars

5. Ember 10oz Temperature Controlled Ceramic Mug

Image via Google Express.

We’ve all been there. We have a fantastic book in our hand that’s so entertaining we forget about everything else around us, including our late night drink. By the time we come to, it’s already room temperature and not to our taste. Blech! At last a solution has been found!

This mug has Bluetooth and syncs up to an app on your phone. From there you can set the temperature of your drink and enjoy that relaxing lavender tea, sweet delightful cocoa, or energizing latte for however long you want. Or for at least as long as the battery lasts.

Sold by Ember via Best Buy

Cost: 79.99 US Dollars

6. The Night Book

Image via Design Boom.

For anyone who wants to shed a little light in their library. This little book shaped light reveals its light when you pull it out of the casing it comes in.

It can also lie on its side to provide a little light wherever you are at home (or even away from home), or you can have it tucked away in your bookcase so you can see any other books you might want to read.

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. 【NIGHT BOOK】を書籍スペースに。 . 本の隙間からの光が周辺を柔らかく照らし、本棚スペースが、すこし詩的な空間に生まれ変わります。すこし贅沢な光で秋の夜長を楽しみませんか？ . 30%OFFを数量限定で実施中です！！詳しくは私たちのプロフィールページのURLからご覧ください！ – #light #design #interior #interiordesign #office #book #officedesign #design #industrialdesign #productdesign #インテリア #照明 #インテリア照明 #間接照明 #本棚 #オフィス #書斎 #受付 #店舗デザイン #店舗内装 #店舗照明 #メガネ #本 #休憩 #カフェ #デスク #趣味 #読書

A post shared by akii (@akii_design) on Sep 29, 2017 at 6:52pm PDT

Sold By Y.S.M Products

Cost: 24,000 Japanese yen (roughly 220 US Dollars)

7. SUCK UK Book Rest Lamp

Image via SUCK UK.

Doubling as a dim light and the perfect place to have your book rest. This is the ideal book nerd nightlight!

This is awesome if you’re the type who cannot sleep unless there’s some light in the room. It’s also great for seeing at night, so you don’t knock your shin into the corner of the bed for the hundredth time in a row.

The cute house shape is also good for holding your place in your book.

Sold By SUCK UK via Amazon

Cost: 72.53 US Dollars

Featured Image via Etsy.

November 1, 2018

The Best Apps for Every Step of NaNoWriMo

So it’s the beginning of National Novel Writing Month, and you only have time to do things like go to school for eight hours, sleep for an inconvenient five or so, and occasionally eat. Writing does take time, but you have more time than you probably think (unless you thought you had twenty-four hours in a day, which is technically accurate but unlikely for a functioning person). While there are some circumstances where you can’t whip out your laptop, there are far fewer cases where it’s unusual to take out your phone. So instead of lamenting your wasted time, use the moments you do have to chip away at that 50k on iPhone or Android… with some (all free!) apps to help you with every step of the process.

1. The research process

_{Image Via Imgur.com}

Evernote, free for iPhone and Android, is perfect for keeping track of all your research and inspirational quotations. Its Web Clipper feature allows you to incorporate your source material directly into your notes, so you don’t crash your computer (again) with your 22 dubiously-useful open tabs.

2. The outline

Gif Via Tumblr.com

Go Writer Lite for iPhone incorporates note-taking into the writing process with the draft board feature, a temporary storage space for text fragments (like that one sentence you just can’t figure out). As a bonus, the app will read your text aloud to you, so you can hear for yourself what sounds the way you imagined it.

Workflowy for Android is perfect for complicated outlines, allowing users to see any heading and its subheadings in isolation to prevent distraction (to the extent that it can). The app also includes searchable hashtags, so you can mark problem areas you want to remember for later—and then actually remember them.

3. The first draft

_{Gif Via Github.com}

Writer for iPhone is more powerful than your typical word processor, saving all drafts of your product so that you never lose any material. In addition to your usual built-in spell check, this app also comes with a built in thesaurus to help you find the right (write?) word. On top of that, the app has simple yet varied table of contents formatting to help you and (and your eventual readers!) stay organized.

4. The editing process

_{Gif Via Gfycat.com}

Unlike your typical sticky note phone app, Jotterpad for Android keeps track of your word count, paragraph count, character count, AND reading time. With a built in dictionary and thesaurus, this app is already better than many word processing computer programs. Jotterpad is especially good for your second and third drafts, as its snapshot feature allows you to revert to earlier versions of your story.

With any luck, these apps will help you put your (relatively few) moments of down time to work writing the novel of your dreams (or occasionally your nightmares).

_{Featured Image Via WeScreeplay}

September 7, 2018

Microfiction Mondays: Read Short Stories via Serial Box’s Notifications

Every morning, we open our still-sleepy eyes, turn aside, and reach out to our phone-as-alarm. Stop. Stop. Stop. After closing all the shouting alarms sets, we always check out the notifications piled up all night.

This is a routine for every modern person. Notifications full of messages, news, and emails.

Now, there can be a small variation happening in the repetition. According to SERIAL BOX , you can turn your phone into a snapread of short stories as long as you have their app Serial Box Publishing. Beginning July 9th, the app with its newly launched program－Microfiction Mondays－will send a 150-character-or less story to your phones via notification function.

The left story is by Brian Francis Slattery; the right Brenda Clough | ^{Image via SERIAL BOX}

The short stories comes from a group of talented authors/writers embroidered with Hugo, World Science Fiction, and Nebula Award-winning and -nominated sparkles.

The official blog said:

The perfect bite-sized story for a busy afternoon filled with meetings, we hope these will provide a moment of fictional solace for our Serial Boxers. This is one more step in the world of pushing the boundaries and limitations of technology and social to expand on the written word and storytelling, and we are excited to bring you something fresh.

It sounds really interesting and I’m downloading the app lol. Oh, one thing you, bookstrs, need to know is that, if you swipe the story-in-the-notification out, it will never come back again.

Check out the clip below and explore more functions in the app:

^{Image via Serial Box}

Featured Image via SERIAL BOX

May 8, 2018

‘Johns Hopkins University’ Raising Out-Of-Print Books from the Dead

In 2016, John’s Hopkins University Press received a $938,000 grant courtesy of The Andrew Mellon Foundation, which allowed them the funds to continue building an Open Access (OA) platform for monographs in humanities and social sciences.

This was all part of MUSE Open, a non-profit organization aimed at making scholarly texts, journals, articles, and more readily accessible. The organization was founded in 1995 and, in the past twenty-three years, has teamed up with nearly 300 publishers to make works from all categories available online.

via Project MUSE

This is vital because people who otherwise would not have had the opportunity to read and learn from these texts have been given a platform to do exactly that.

In April, Johns Hopkins received another grant for $200,000 from both The Andrew Mellon Foundation and The National Endowment for the Humanities which will allow them to take over 200 out-of-print works and release them back into the world via MUSE.

Expanding their database to include texts that were previously out-of-print will give these books new life and allow them to be seen again for the first time in years.

Johns Hopkins has taken the lead on this, but maybe in the future we’ll see more out-of-print works raised from the dead, along with other Open Access platforms making texts accessible for all!

via GIPHY

Featured Image via Pixa Bay.