The Banco Sabadell "Flashmob"

This is Incredible

The Story of My Life

Sorting Algorithms with Sound (Because Who Doesn't Love a Good Sorting Algorithm?)

This video shows sped up versions of sorting algorithms with associated sounds from a GNU licensed program called The Sound of Sorting (link to description which contains the program download info).  It was created by Timo Bingmann, a  Ph.D student in the "Institute of Theoretical Informatics, Algorithmics" in Karlsruhe, Germany, to provide much better background (see, e.g.) and more variants than a prior YouTube version created YouTube user andrut.

Andrut is good enough in the about section of his video to describe prior art, and there's even more including an old QBasic sorting program (SLT), as Bingmann points out.  (BTW, on the video above and on Bingmann's program, as well as on the video below, you'll want the sound turned on, way on, since it is integral to the video -- it's called "The Sound of Sorting" for Christssake. On the video of the QBasic program, on the other hand, you'll want the sound off, very, very off, because it will rapidly drive you insane.)

Should you happen to find yourself with a surfeit of time you may also be interested in videos of the "bubble sort" or the "quick sort" treated as a Hungarian folk dances, the "merge sort" as a Transylvanian German folk dance, or the "select sort" as a Gypsy folk dance.

But your time is valuable so here is just andrut's short, very nice video from three years ago:

Today's Menu, Ravioli in a Blanket

From the MIT Media Lab: "inFORM," a Display that Renders Dynamically in 3D

This is a beautiful and simple idea from the MIT media lab: on the input side dimensions and movement are measured, then sent through a network (presumptively the internet), and then output through actuators as the three dimensional shape that was input.

Here's a cool-action video from the MIT Media lab showing it in action:

inFORM - Interacting With a Dynamic Shape Display from Tangible Media Group on Vimeo via Colossal.

With this simple model the empty (negative) space between the top of the object and the floor of the projector is lost -- the top surface/edge is a true image and then the space is filled in below.  To remedy this defect the obvious solution is to use a balloon or other flexible sheet: on the output side the actuators or "pins" run inside the balloon and spread out spherically; on the input side the actuators (which can simply be a means for the computer/input apparatus to measure location in space) are on the outside.  So, for example, let's suppose on the input side one puts on a tight latex glove with markers on it that are read by the machine and translated into spatial coordinates. On the output side, then, the balloon is deformed by the varying pressure of hundreds or thousands of pins and actuators to render a hand.  Here's a very crude sketch I've whipped up in MS Word (yes, really, but I am in a hurry) to give a sense of the output side:

The "Lego Insect Collection" by Seircon and Coral

Over on Flickr there's a really great set of Lego insects made by Sean and Steph May (who go by Seircon and Coral).  A few samples: