Worst Volume control
In 2017, there was a contest to design the worst possible volume control. It goes to show you that just because you make something look cool – it could be the worst design ever.
Even more can be found here.
Architectural installations in Burning Man 2024
Dezeen did a good report on 10 different architectural installations at Burning man 2024
They also did one for Burning Man 2025
Imphobia demoscene magazine
The 90’s were an amazing time to learn to code. Especially in Europe, hundreds and even thousands of people would gather for weekend-long, round-the-clock caffeine fueled coding sessions to flex their latest graphics programming tricks on Amigas, Commodores, PC’s, and other hardware.
Imphobia was the leading PC demoscene diskmag of the first half of the 1990s. Founded in 1992, it issued until 1996. In that period, 12 issues were released.
Early issues of Imphobia run in DOSBox except issues 6 and beyond where the graphics are not displayed correctly, probably because of the use of an obscure video mode. Nevertheless it’s possible to read the articles. All Imphobia issues are available at scene.org and can be seen at Demozoo.
Demozoo Demoscene Library
Demozoo.org is a website that is a library of not only old school ’90’s era demo competition submission – but even all the recent ones as well. They have lists of current competitions and news too. An extra feature is many demos have youtube videos of the runs so you don’t have to download the binaries and run them locally.
Tesseract sculpture
Created for Exploring the Unknown exhibition at the CERN Science Gateway by Julius von Bismarck & Benjamin Maus, Round About Four Dimensions sculpture is a 4D tesseract rotating in 3D.
Articles:
Transfer Murals with ease
Artists used to mark off walls into squares to transfer drawings to walls. It still required a lot of manual eyeballing and skill. Things got a lot easier when people realized they could use digital projectors to simply project the image to the wall and trace it. It still had problems in very bright locations or in narrow areas (like hallways) where you can’t get a single projection. You have to move the projector around and do lots of calibrating of scale to avoid introducing distortions.
Now, people are using VR headsets in AR mode so they can apply images to walls without the projectors. @katdieuxart demonstrates the technique.
Go to the Video Game History library for free
The Video Game History Foundation (VHGF)’s digital archive of video game research has launched its first round of online early access to it’s library. It’s free to access anywhere in the world and intended for “anyone who wants to study video game history.”
What do they have?
- Never-before-seen game development materials.
- Artwork, press kits, and promotional materials from iconic video games.
- Over 1500 full-text searchable out-of-print video game magazines—including game industry trade magazines rarely available to the public.
- The first 100 CDs from the art and press release archives of GamePro magazine.
- Guidebooks and ephemera from video game events, including searchable directories and maps from the first 12 years of the Electronic Entertainment Expo.
- Over 100 hours of footage from the production of the Myst series
- the Mark Flitman papers
There are some caveats: There are no playable games in the archive due to copyright restrictions and VGHF said it “cannot give express permission” for users to reproduce materials in the library unless explicitly stated otherwise though researchers may be exempt under fair use cases.
The Art world is in free-fall
“I don’t believe for one second that it’s cyclical. It’s structural. The infrastructure is too big. There are too many advisors, too many galleries, too many artists, too many fairs. Everything will need to downsize. In my blunt opinion, blood will flow in the streets before the art market finds a new balance.”
-Belgian collector and art market commentator Alain Servais
It’s not been widely covered, but the art world is facing it’s day of reckoning after the insatiable rise of high end art prices during the pandemic.
After seeing a years of astronomically rising interest and sales of high-end art, in which many wealthy people mistakenly looked at art as an asset class, it appears the bottom is falling out. High-end investors have taken a beating. How much of a beating? After reaching a peak in 2022, fine-art auction sales during the first half of 2025 totaled $4.72 billion – down 40.9 percent from 2022’s first half.
Adding to this is the fact is that politicians have caught on to the dirty secret that high-end art was being used extensively for money laundering the last 10 years. Heavy regulation is now starting to close the loopholes.
Buying the work of fast-rising artists and quickly reselling them for higher prices became rampant during the pandemic. Faced with a surge of investors from around the globe, galleries raised primary prices, aiming to capitalize on red-hot demand and dissuade speculators from reselling quickly.
But the strategy backfired. Art sold for $500,000 at primary is now only getting $250,000 at auction.
The largest major art shows in the world are seeing dramatic declines – and in an unheard of development – are now even cancelling shows. Many investment-focused art buyers got burned and have been limping out. While the official line has always been that aren’t isn’t an asset class – many dealers have suggested exactly that all during the pandemic.
“That’s not how you should be collecting. And if you have been, sorry, you’ve done something that’s not productive. Read the fine print. The reality is, no one ever said you are going to make money if you buy my artists.”
Allan Schwartzman
Now those same studios and dealers that were feeding the frenzy are announcing bankruptcy and closures on a near weekly basis. Many can’t even make their rent. Pace moved into a new 75,000ft property in New York and is paying a staggering $700,000/mo in rent – for a total of $220 million over the life of the entire lease. Some such as Clearing already owes $420,000 in back rent and fees. Many world class galleries are closing up shop after believing the party would never end.
Survivors are turning out to be leaner and trying new models with small galleries, seasonal business in California winters, and very low-rent locations in tiny outlying cities that look promising for budding art community growth.
It’s a fascinating read and worth checking out.
Links:
Free Vatican Concert – Grace for the World
On Saturday, September 13 at 12pm, St. Peter’s Square in the Vatican is hosting a free public concert — and the whole world’s invited.
Pharrell Williams, Andrea Bocelli, John Legend, Jennifer Hudson, Karol G, BamBam and more are set to headline ‘Grace for the World.’ It’s a one-of-a-kind show featuring live music performed by artists from around the globe. Pharrell and Bocelli have brought together a lineup of artists from around the world that include gospel choir Voices of Fire, John Legend, Teddy Swims, Clipse, Angélique Kidjo, Jelly Roll, an international choir of 250 singers including the Choir of the Diocese of Rome. And a drone show.
It’s totally free for the public and will be streamed live on Disney+, Hulu and ABC News Live at 12pm, or register at the livestream:
Experience the concert live from anywhere — register now for free access to the livestream.
links:
- https://feverup.com/m/455663/en?cp_smn_source=secretlosangeles&cp_smn_content=grace-for-the-world-free-concert-vatican-september-13&cp_smn_term=text_cta_4&thm=6272&suid=bcaff65d-741e-4dd8-ac11-0f1381adc446
- Experience the concert live from anywhere — register now for free access to the livestream
- https://secretlosangeles.com/grace-for-the-world-free-concert-vatican-september-13/
Empire Strikes Back light saber sells for $3.65m
The Prop Store just sold Darth Vader’s hero light saber from The Empire Strikes Back for a whopping $3,654,000.
They had a lot of other great sales, including my personal favorite, a hero M41A Pulse Rifle from Aliens and Aliens^3 – for only $189,000