According to Geekosystem (which I found via MentalFloss), the artists teamed up to create this fake Smithsonian ads as part of a portfolio project.  But, it seems that the ads were a bit to… um, hardcore for the Smithsonian which asked to be disassociated from them.  Sad, because I wish museums would take more of this type of approach to history.  (It might cause more people to want to visit.  Or at least stop my siblings from groaning when I suggest we go to a museum.  “Why do we have to learn about history?  We’re on vacation.”)  But I guess bragging about how many people Ghengis Khan slept with is probably not kosher for a government funded museum.  (Your tax dollars at work and all that.)  (Also, does anyone know if that is actually true.  I found it on Wikipedia, but their source link for the fact was broken.

I never knew this fact about Andrew Jackson and his parrot, but it doesn’t surprise me.  (I like to think of Andre Jackson as a presidential Jack Sparrow type figure.   A bit of a rapscallion, if you will.  Please don’t disabuse me of this.)  This is just another reason to add to the list of why he is my favorite president.  (Yes, I understand that he did terrible things and that this is not a very PC choice.)  Seriously, wheel of cheese, the kitchen cabinet, slaying the bank…  (Look them up, you’ll be glad that you did.)  Obviously he had some issues with overreaching of executive power, but he was also awesome.

On other history nerd topics, I bring you these recommendations: Bangable Dudes of History and Stuff You Missed in History Class.  The first is more funny than defensible, but I’ve actually learned quite a bit from the second.  Although it comes from How Stuff Works (which doesn’t always seem like the best source), I’ve found that the history seems to be pretty accurate.  Also, they introduced me to the awesomeness that it Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, one of the most fascinating historically figures that I’ve had the pleasure to encounter.

Almost immediately, my stomach started to burble. The greasiness of my guilty pleasure was overwhelming. I refreshed myself with a few sips of Sprite, and continued on with my feast. I doused the leftover fries and tortilla bits in sweet and sour sauce, washing it all down with more soda. My stomach gurgled at me again, threatening to send it all right back up.

After work, I came home to find Skyla and Brooke stumbling the interwebs. We started talking about how vegetarianism is an enormous source of energy conservation (and you save 100 animals a year). Brooke began telling us about her class where they discussed the obscure pollutants that infiltrate our society — like McDonalds. Skyla chimed in with a claim that the manager at her mom’s work left a Happy Meal in the fridge years ago, and yet it appears basically unchanged if you look inside the bag.

Apparently, McDonalds is loaded with preservatives; I was full of preservatives. I had to confirm this theory. I hopped right on to Google and sadly, it appears to be true. Some of the preservatives contained in McDonalds’ food: benzoic acid, sorbic acid and calcium lactate – to name a few. I came across dozens of testimonials by people who kept hamburgers and french fries for years, photographing them as they ‘aged’. The image results are disturbing. One of the more credible instances was when Sally Davies documented her McDonalds meal every day for 137 days, starting April 2010. The website Geekosystem created a side-by-side image that showcases the difference – or lack thereof. Check it out:

I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one who is fairly committed to living a McDonalds-free life at this point. Every few months, I get this itchy hankering for a snack wrap loaded with golden fries, but I think I’ll have to stick with a bagel next time.

–adjective
1. inspiring reverence or admiration; of supreme dignity or grandeur; majestic: an august performance of a religious drama.
2. venerable; eminent: an august personage.

How’s this for august, my little baby birds: I was recently accepted to present a tweaked version of my video essay on The Wire at the Re: Humanities digital media symposium—the first undergraduate conference of its kind—this coming fall at Haverford College! Many thanks to my professor Jason Mittell, who introduced me to the event and encouraged me to apply.

I had to bang out a brief 100-word description of my project, and this is what I came up with. Forgive me for writing what sounds more like a class description than a 15-minute presentation, but really, how could I honestly do this subject justice anyway, in 15 minutes:

Watching The Wire: Storytelling in the Digital Age
With David Simon’s critically acclaimed HBO serial drama as a launching point, we will consider how storytelling media has developed in the digital age. In The Wire, complex individuals of a fictional Baltimore struggle to voice their own stories, though a dominant discourse of bureaucracy and capitalistic gain—in schools, courts, police stations, newsrooms, and even the streets—threatens to override all else. Also touching upon ABC’s Lost, Twitter, Facebook, blogs, and other pop culture media, we will trace how the emphasis on drawing audiences—or site hits—has increasingly become a corruptive force, and how the modern story has at times surrendered, or evolved, in the face of such demands.

In other news: My time at Geekosystem and Gothamist has been sweet and educational; I’ve learned a lot about writing fast and furious, but I’ve also discovered that beyond posting time-sensitive stories with snark, I have to cultivate an imagination for original projects. As the final year of college (and its accompanying creative thesis) sneaks up on me, it becomes more imperative that this should happen.

In the meantime, ogle at this:

Um, why am I not at Comic Con? It hurts to go online right now and read the collective fangasm shuddering on the other side of this continent. Currently carving reminder in brain: Purchase 2011 tickets the moment they are available.

Medical imaging firm EIZO wanted to come up with a catchy giveaway that highlighted their expertise in “high-precision displays for the examination and diagnosis of radiographs.” The result, dreamt up by German ad firm BUTTER: A pin-up calendar in which women, truly, truly bear all.

Thank you http://www.geekosystem.com for the info and the images.

This from Geekosystem:

Mindflex is a Mattel gadget that you hook up to your head to read your brainwaves: Among other uses, you can play with Mindflex by levitating and manipulating a foam ball.  Naturally, an $80 out-of-the-box brainwave reader is going to be like catnip to electrical engineering types, many of whom have hacked the Mindflex to suit their own ends.

The folks at Harcos Laboratories just may have come with the most devious use of Mindflex yet: they’ve hooked it up to an electroshock unit such that if you think too hard, you get zapped. Yes, that includes thinking about not thinking too hard.

Here’s how it works: the sensors recognize five different levels of brainwave activity. So long as you stay in the lower, alpha level of activity, you’re fine, but if you think your way into the orange zone, you get a mild jolt. If you intensely concentrate, you get a full-on shock.

KID WARNING: Some beeped cursing

GET THE REST OF THE STORY AT: Evil Mindflex Hack: Think Too Much, Get Shocked | Geekosystem

When I interviewed Dan Abrams last year about his new media news and analysis blog, Mediaite, he indicated that he has ambitions of building a Mediaite mini-empire by expanding to other verticals. Abrams announced late last year that he has a definitive plan for this, with sister Mediaite sites covering style and fashion, sports and technology. Today, Abrams’ venture into tech news and analysis, Geekosystem, has launched.

Geekosystem aims to cover what Abrams calls “geek culture,” which includes tech news, movies, science fiction, video games, superheroes in comics, and more. The audience is all those “nerd” who don’t necessarily work in technology or have a deep understand of the industry, but want to catch up on the latest trends and news.

Original content includes everything from reviews of gadgets to details on the latest sci-fi movie. And the site will also add a dash of traditional tech news coverage, so expect to see mentions of Twitter and Facebook. But by and large, the site will have a mix of coverage and won’t be primarily focused on covering the startups and tech giants that we report on here at TechCrunch and other tech news blogs, says the site’s editor Robert Quigley. Content will be supplied by the site’s two editors, an intern, and a range of contributors. Additionally, the site will aggregate top tech and geek stories from around the web.

Geekosystem will off course feature a technologized version of Mediaite’s trademark Power Grid, which ranks and indexes media players based on news, analysis and events on a weekly basis. Geekosystem’s grid includes the obvious; Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, Sergey Brin and Larry Page. And Michael Arrington also makes an appearance.

The site’s design is basic, which isn’t surprising considering that Mediaite’s UI is fairly simple. Will Geekosystem succeed? Abrams has had considerable success with Mediaite the past year, with the site making Technorati’s top 40 blogs list. And the startup expects to turn profitable this year. But the “geek news” space is considerably more crowded than the media news arena, and Abrams might find himself fighting with both tech and gadget blogs for traffic. But that being said, I like Abrams’ “pop culture meets geek culture” ambitions for the site and it could gain a following based on the quality of its coverage. The site is already getting a vote of confidence from one of the biggest players in the tech space, Microsoft. The tech giant is going to be the exclusive advertiser (for Bing) on Geekosystem for a full two weeks.