Japanese artist Isao Hashimoto has created a beautiful, undeniably scary time-lapse map of the 2053 nuclear explosions which have taken place between 1945 and 1998, beginning with the Manhattan Project’s “Trinity” test near Los Alamos and concluding with Pakistan’s nuclear tests in May of 1998. This leaves out North Korea’s two alleged nuclear tests in this past decade (the legitimacy of both of which is not 100% clear).

Each nation gets a blip and a flashing dot on the map whenever they detonate a nuclear weapon, with a running tally kept on the top and bottom bars of the screen. Hashimoto, who began the project in 2003, says that he created it with the goal of showing”the fear and folly of nuclear weapons.” It starts really slow — if you want to see real action, skip ahead to 1962 or so — but the buildup becomes overwhelming.

http://www.ctbto.org/specials/1945-1998-by-isao-hashimoto/

A very interesting timelapse that takes a lot of tenacity and patience to complete.

This was an article used when I was teaching new media:

Businesses both big and small are flocking to social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Foursquare. The fact is that a presence on these platforms not only allows companies to engage in conversations with consumers, but also serves as an outlet to drive sales through deals and coupons.

Read the article.

Remember The Blair Witch Project?

Social media has been gaining a lot of importance in recent times and everyone has been trying to have their piece of the cake. However, here are a list of social media campaigns that have made the cut. These are some of the campaigns that have stood out since the advent of social media.

http://www.techprone.com/10-best-social-media-campaigns/

Wonderful short film by Sun Koh. Funny but poignant at the same time.

Winner of -
1. Silver Hugo (Short Narrative 15 minutes and over), 38th Chicago International Film Festival, 2002
2. Best Director 2002 (Short Film Competition), 15th Singapore International Film Festival, 2002
3. Prix Du Public Du Meilluer Court Metrage 2002 (Audience Grand Prix for Best Short Film 2002), 8e Festival Etoiles & Toiles d’Asie (8th Festival of Asian Films), Lyon, France 2002
4. People’s Choice Award for Best Short Film, 5th Women’s Film Festival in Seoul, 2003
5. Audience Award, 1st Short Shorts Film Festival Asia 2004, Tokyo, Japan

Watch it by getting the Singapore Short Films Collection DVD by Objectif Films

This is probably the flash mob that started it all. The first flash mob ever was actually created in Manhattan in May 2003, by Bill Wasik, senior editor of Harper’s Magazine. However, I believe flash mob gained much momentum only after this attempt by T-Mobile.

Over 25 million views! That goes to say how special this flash mob is:

More than 200 dancers were performing their version of “Do Re Mi”, in the Central Station of Antwerp. with just 2 rehearsals they created this amazing stunt! Those 4 fantastic minutes started the 23 of march 2009, 08:00 AM. It is a promotion stunt for a Belgian television program, where they are looking for someone to play the leading role, in the musical of “The Sound of Music”.

This is a brilliant parody by Joe Nussbaum on George Lucas and Star Wars. I often show it as the first short film to my students to illustrate how ideas usually come from our everyday life.

1967 film student George Lucas has writer’s block trying to finish his “Space Wheat” script, until a beautiful fellow student with a familiar hairstyle teaches him that the best stories are in plain sight.

This is one of the best short films that hail from Singapore. It won a Special Achievement Award for Short Film during the 15th Singapore International Film Festival. In my opinion, Roystan Tan is definitely one of the most talented young filmmakers from Singapore.

Unfortunately, the video at YouTube is of the wrong aspect ratio. It should be widescreen 16:9.

Nice Greek short film that inspires hope.