Today’s Awesome Thing Is: This cool ad for Farber Castell pens.
Faber Castell from eric yeo on Vimeo.
I actually thought, “Whoa, awesome!” after watching this.
I know it’s an advertisement… but I don’t feel bad about posting it, because, well, I like Faber-Castell’s art supplies. 
Whee… ART!
I have come to the conclusion that I may never catch up on the posts I have missed. Nonetheless, I soldier on.
Today’s Awesome Thing is: The History of the World, through Facebook posts.
Oh Facebook… you’re an engine for drama, and for the destruction of the English language (not to mention people’s privacy). And yet, there’s something to be said for the way you simplify the world. College Humor used this to great effect when condensing the history of the world into something easily read in a few minutes. I confess: I laughed a lot.
Today’s Awesome Thing is: A YouTube video about color perception.
I’ve wondered for years whether or not people see color the same way. I know that for people who are color-blind, the answer is definitely no! But what about “normally-sighted” individuals? Is it possible that what I see as green is what you would call orange? How would you assess that?
The full answer to those questions may never be known. However, the above YouTube video shows a clip from a BBC documentary that shows that language apparently shapes our perceptions of color. As a result, different people perceive color in different ways. After I got done watching it, I couldn’t help but say, “WOW, AWESOME!”
Today’s Awesome Thing is: The Date! 11/11/11
Why I think it’s awesome: I have a thing with numbers. As a child, I used to get really psyched about 12:34, or later, 3:14. Dates that run on like 9/10/11 are cool, as are dates where the number repeats. And why not? Dates like this come around only once a century. I know that dates are an arbitrary construct of the Western mind, but there’s something very balanced about a date where the numbers repeat. Plus, for one day at least, Americans and Europeans can stop grousing at each other about the correct way to write the date. It doesn’t matter!
The early part of a century is full of them, but next year will be the last when we can have an X/X/X party where X is the same number–at least for another hundred years. (Mind you, once a decade we can have X/X/XX days, but it’s not quite the same.) So, cheers to 11/11/11! No parties for me this year, but maybe next year. Right now, I’m off to bed.
Today’s Awesome Thing is: Designing with Web Standards, 3rd Edition
Okay, okay, I’m sure you’re thinking, “Kat, seriously? What are you talking about? The dude on the cover is pixelated and looks like a stalker! Plus this is a textbook. How can this possibly be awesome?” I’ll tell you: it’s hilarious. Despite what the creepy cover may suggest, this is actually a well-written, entertaining textbook. I had to read a chapter of it last week for a web-design class I’m taking, and I liked it better than my regular textbook. This one contains excellent asides like, “The United States, for example, follows a unilateral specification called Section 508 instead of WCAG 1.0, possibly to avoid doing anything the French do.” It came out of the blue and made me laugh aloud–which confused my boyfriend, as I was studying.
This is the first time I’ve actually considered buying a textbook that wasn’t assigned for a class, just because it seems funny. Fortunately, it’s only $35, which is about the price of a hardcover these days. If you’re curious, you can check it out here.
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