Watch an Award-Winning Student Animation of Robots Mining on a Desolate Planet


Jack Anderson spent about a year just rendering his tale of a chance encounter between two robots mining on a desolate planet. It was worth the wait.

He told Reddit about the Student Academy Award nominated sci-fi short, noting that it was produced with a $0 budget, but thousands of hours of work while an undergraduate at Chapman University. In fact, each of the highly detailed frames took something like 30 minutes to render (or 12 hours a second and a month for a minute). That’s what happens when you only have a few school computers to use…

Via - Visualnews

The Back-to-School Experience in 5 Charts


Even if you’re not heading back to school, your social feeds are full of everyone who is: your niece, your best friend, or your old roommate. Although classrooms, technology, and learning styles may change, some things never do. Here are 5 charts that sum up the back-to-school experience.

Via - Visualnews

Interactive: Why Men Outnumber Women by 60 Million


Men now outnumber women on the planet—surprising, we know. What accounts for this imbalance? This piece by David Bauer analyzes 5 decades’ worth of data, revealing the cultural, geographical, and political issues that have contributed to this. Not only is this a fascinating story that is well worth the read, it is an example of stellar storytelling.


Via - visualnews

3D Printed Zoetropes Illustrate Nature-Like Growth Algorithms


Observing natural growth is mostly a slow affair, but these kinetic sculptures illustrate the process in a brief moment repeated over and over. Jessica Rosenkrantz and Jesse Louis-Rosenberg, who head up generative design studio Nervous System, created the tiny sculptures in the form of 19th century zoetropes made using modern 3D printing tech. Composed of multiple evolving sculptures, when spun and illuminated with a strobe light the complex forms jump to life.

Via - Visualnews

Mapped: Solar energy and savings if you got panels


If you own a home or have gone to a home improvement store recently (in California at least), you've probably heard the solar panel pitch by now. They always start by asking about your electric bill and then provide rough estimates for what you might save if you got solar panels. For a more accurate estimate, you schedule a consultation. Project Sunroof from Google aims to provide a more objective summary.

Via - Flowingdata

Predictable Android lock patterns


Passwords are annoying, which is why so many people use passwords that are less than secure. Maybe the keys are a bit shorter than they should be, match a word in the dictionary, or are repeats across services. In these cluster of passwords, patterns become obvious.

Via - Flowingdata