The Earth is Shining Under the Soot

by | posted in: Ape Con Myth, Library, The Cultural Devision, Video | 0

They Might Be Giants (band) got their name from They Might Be Giants (film), the title of which was a reference to Don Quixote‘s belief that windmills were giants. As explained in the film,…

“Of course, he carried it a bit too far. He thought that every windmill was a giant. That’s insane. But, thinking that they might be… Well, all the best minds used to think the world was flat. But, what if it isn’t? It might be round. And bread mold might be medicine. If we never looked at things and thought of what they might be, why, we’d all still be out there in the tall grass with the apes.”

Ape Con Myth is all about the might of might.  TMBG (film) summed it up in less than two minutes some 42 years ago…

… and 23 years ago TMBG (band) knocked it out in 47 seconds.

Finally, in 2007, Ape Con Myth summed it up in three words.

…  Eventually, we won’t have to say anything at all.

The Who’s When & Where of People with a Page on Wikipedia

by | posted in: Maps, The Cultural Devision | 0

Founded in 2001 to study the societal implications of the internet, the Oxford Internet Institute has a growing collection of data visualizations that sketch out the state of information proliferation worldwide.

Below we have a Time-series of the Distribution of Biographies on Wikipedia over the Last Five Centuries, which provides a startling reminder of how many people are still not part of the conversation.

To see how far our globalization has yet to go, check out the OII’s charts on Academic Knowledge and Language, User-generated Content in Google and A Geography of Twitter.

An Equilateral Triangularity Employer

by | posted in: External Screenshot, The Cultural Devision | 0

When it comes to art based research, it helps to have a conceptual focus to guide your exploration.  For Ape Con Myth, it’s the words Ape Con Myth themselves that encapsulate everything you need to know about Ape Con Myth.

Over at Triangulation Blog, however, the world revolves around our pointy friend, the triangle.  And while you should head on over to their site for the latest in new media art, we recommend stopping by Interactive Triangulation first to really get your head around through the triangle, so to speak…

[Interactive Triangulation]

Indian Land Cessions (or Going, Going, …)

by | posted in: Maps, The Cultural Devision | 0

It plays out the same way every time…

To take a closer look, try the set of 67 maps collected in part two of the Eighteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1896-97.

[Animated gif by Somersaultr via Chart Porn]

Stop Outsourcing Local News (or I Can See You Fine From Here)

by | posted in: Action, External Other, The Cultural Devision | 0

The short of it?

For more on the subject, here is This American Life’s segment about local news getting reported by people literally on the other side of the world.

If you want to help put a stop to this practice before it becomes an industry standard, head over to FreePress.net’s petition to Sam Zell, The Tribune Company’s chairman, and tell him to stop outsourcing local news!

More Pizza, More Guns, More Strip Clubs

by | posted in: Maps, The Cultural Devision | 0

There’s probably a perfectly reasonable explanation behind every one of these data points, aside from paying customers, but until someone figures them out, enjoy generating your own theories about this collection of maps from Floating Sheep.  Each shows the prevalence of various public venues in the landscape of American culture based on results from the Google Maps directory.

Click the map for a larger version, click the match-up for the original Floating Sheep post:

[Bars vs Grocery Stores] [Adult Ent vs. Bars vs. Books vs. Bowling]
[Pizza vs. Guns vs. Strip Clubs] [Church vs. Bowling vs. Guns vs. Strip Clubs]

Find more maps and fun at Floatingsheep.org.

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