Vice Magazine is an odd home for this photo set documenting the decay in certain corners of the Detroit Public School System, but it’s grim, essential stuff no matter who was behind the camera:

BTW: Jen notes that these photos were taken originally by a husband-and-wife team in Detroit who go by the name Sweet Juniper. They document Detroit’s decay wherever they find it, within the public school system and without. Nice find, Jen.

Some visual material my classes and I have enjoyed recently:

Video

• The opposite of sucking on helium.
• High speed skateboarding down Claremont Canyon in Berkeley, CA.
• A shockingly elegant skateboard reel, the first thirty seconds of which are required viewing for my graduate course in vodcasting. The silhouette photography makes the rest of it eminently watchable alsoSorry, but I have to make sure you understand how valuable it is that my RSS reader has pushed me a skateboarding reel which my students – some of which students will insist they have seen every skateboarding reel released to DVD or YouTube – have never seen. Or how much classroom management capital it buys me that I can point to a specific shot – sincerely – as my favorite, that I can ask them – sincerely – for their favorite. Wish my ed classes had included some coursework in “Pedagogically Profitable Ways To Kill Time.”.
• Mushrooms and mold growing very quickly.
• A UK schoolgirl breaks a Guinness World Record for balancing the most snails on her face at one time, remains unkissed for decades, inspires several of my students to take up snail hunting.

Photo

• We’ve been on something of an Iceland kick lately.
• Plus Dubai, and the Burj, the tallest skyscraper in the world.
• Brittny Badger rips appliances apart and puts ’em under glass. Probably tore the wings off flies as a kid too. (I mean, maybe she did, maybe she didn’t. Is it so wrong to suggest she did? Just tossing it out there. Maybe the voting public picks it up. Maybe I clean up the next news cycle. Can’t hurt to try.)

Oh, man, awesome. You would’ve found these installations at [redacted] last week.

If I taught science, I’d toss this photo on the wall during one particular unit and let ’em fight over the method. Any readers know how this thing happened? I’ll toss the answer into the comments if y’all founder too long.

[Hint: the answer does not involve a really really tiny lawnmower.]

BTW: a month into summer and I’m totally off my game. Lemme just say that these lawns sculptures involve photosynthesis in kind of a crucial way.

a/k/a Show and Tell: Week 34

Video

1. Clustarack
   

   A paper wad sets off a Rube Goldberg machine which, according to the behind-the-scenes featurette, required 98 takes. Something I Didn’t Know Yesterday But Which Makes Perfect Sense Today: in a Rube Goldberg machine, you want to schedule your most reliable elements at the end of the sequence so that failure comes swiftly and inexpensively.

2. Creme That Egg!
   

   Another Rube Goldberg machine, half as expensive, twice as impressive. We’re almost to the point in my classes, here at the end of the year, where no one snipes, “Huh dude has no life huh” at the end of these videos. I have cajoled, encouraged, and begged them at various times throughout the year to recognize that this is practice. Rather than dumping his cognitive surplus into something passive, Joseph Herscher performed a feat which is – yeah – merely diverting, but which is practice, which will keep his intellectual/creative muscles limber and toned for the rest of his life. Most of my students know nothing of this. How many adults know anything of this?cf. Never once “in the real world” will you have to push 200 lbs. off your chest so why do (non-competitive) weightlifters bother?

Photo

1. Sightseeing In Liberty City
   

   Grand Theft Auto IV‘s Liberty City adapts itself strictly from New York City. A photographer has compared sights and landmarks between the original and the clone. The results are mostly astonishing.

2. Malaysian Sky Bridge
   

   I learned a new word today: gephyrophobiac. Which I am now, thank you, internets.

I show two excellent photo sets and two excellent videos in my class every week. I have no idea why I haven’t made this a regular fixture around here.

Photo

1. Refacing Government Tender
   

   Don’t deny you ever did this. Pictured here is “Emo Lincoln,” which is spot on.

2. Youngme/Nowme
   

   Look, I don’t consider myself an emotional dude. I only the learned the spelling of “emotion” a month ago and internal reconnaissance has yet to discover any beyond “road rage.” Yet I tell you truly that “Youngme/Nowme” obliterated me. I’d like to believe I appreciate Ze Frank’s Internet icebreakers more than the average Web 2.0 fanboy/girl but I probably kid myself.

Video

1. Nike Soccer
   

   Nike spot directed by Guy Ritchie, putting you first-person into the world of professional soccer . All sorts of name-brand soccer stars show up, though, as with emotions, I’m only reporting second-hand here.

2. Syncing Metronomes
   

   via Jason Kottke, who writes “If you only watch one metronome video in your life, make it this one.” Someone please explain how this happened. ¶ I pinned the video to this study for good measure.