swelledtech

"I’m less and less interested in being impressive and more and more interested in things that are real."

Kenneth Goldsmith writes:

The idea for this class arose from my frustration with reading endless indictments of the Web for making us dumber. I’ve been feeling just the opposite. We’re reading and writing more than we have in a generation, but we are reading and writing differently—skimming, parsing, grazing, bookmarking, forwarding, retweeting, reblogging, and spamming language—in ways that aren’t yet recognized as literary.

This Macro Lens Band is a macro lens that works with any phone!

Android, iPhone 4, iPhone 5. If your dad’s 20 lb. cellular telephone from the 90s had a lens, it’d work with that, too.

Just put it around your phone, line it up with your lens, and you’re ready to shoot photos of the insanely minute details. Your Instagram buddies will be so jealz.

Throwable mic to liven up event participation

The Catchbox wireless throwable microphone aims to liven up seminars by easily enabling audience participation.

Sandy on Tumblr: Beating the Hurricane Blues

The disaster wrought by Hurricane Sandy on the East Coast dwarfs anything most of us have ever experienced. But the response to that disaster from the community has humbled and gratified those of us who work at Tumblr. We want to recognize a few of the people and organizations doing amazing work related to Sandy, and we want to make it clear the credit for that work rests entirely with them. Obviously this is just a tiny fraction of the massively diverse and positive response; for more, be sure to check out the Hurricane Sandy tag.

Cool Tumblrs Doing Cool Things

• Dr. Dave Ores - A doctor on Manhattan’s Lower East Side providing free medical services to his stormstruck neighbors, among other humanitarian acts. • The Moosehead - Photographer Nathan Hoang has some amazing pre-/during/post-Sandy shots. • Is Twitter Wrong? - A mini-Snopes that’s done a lot of yeoman work disproving various fake “news” photos of menacing weather, storm damage, etc. • Momofuku - The NYC restaurant powerhouse is hosting three events today in various locations to benefit the Red Cross. • Pith - The prolific Jesse Chan-Norris has produced some of the most immediate and amazing storm photos to come out of New York, bar none. If you’ve been on Tumblr this week, it’s almost guaranteed you’ve seen his work. • Change.org - Publicizing services and circulating a number of petitions and initiatives to benefit those affected by Hurricane Sandy. • Humans of New York - Our pal Brandon Stanton is of course out on the streets photographing his fellow New Yorkers with the usual aplomb and care. • Jen Bekman Projects - Donating proceeds from particular artworks to hurricane relief. • Shapeways - The 3D printing company blogged their efforts of getting back together post-Sandy. • Casey Neistat - Photog and avid biker, combining both passions for some unique photos & video of Sandy in New York. • Scott’s Pizza Journal - Very Important: Where can you still get a slice in NYC?

Hurricane Sandy Tumblrs

• Working from Home During Sandy - The staff of Bonobos doing business outside the office. • Hurricane Sandy Blog - A dedicated Tumblr from the Virginia Department of Emergency Management. • Sandy Hates Books - Cleanup and fundraising for the Sandy-damaged powerHouse Arena bookstore and event space. • Surviving Hurricane Sandy in Zone A - Two guys, their cameras, and a typical neverending quest for battery charging, food, and/or beer. • Governor - Rebuilding a restaurant in New York’s DUMBO neighborhood savaged by Sandy. • Lydia Callis’ Face for NYC Mayor - Devoted to the adoration of Mayor Mike Bloomberg’s on-camera American Sign Language interpreter (see also).

Media Tumblrs

• WNYC’s Transmitter - Like the radio station, WNYC’s Tumblr has stayed up thanks to listener/reader support. They’ve turned in excellent coverage and service alerts before, during, and after the storm. • The Atlantic - Tying in hurricane stories from the Atlantic’s main site, plus the Atlantic Wire and the Tumblr community generally. • The Daily - News Corp’s iPad mag putting some of their best storm content on their Tumblr as well. • Gawker - The flagship of Gawker Media (and its various siblings) moved backup sites to Tumblr after their datacenter was flooded, and their storm coverage and editorial style are a natural fit. • BuzzFeed - Also temporarily housing their newsgathering on Tumblr post-flood, BF farmed out a wide range of coverage and collection via their subject-oriented Tumblrs as well as their staffers’ blogs — notably Scott Lamb, Ryan Broderick, and Andrew Kaczynski. • Mother Jones - Mixing in activism and local storm response with national news and politics