Category Archives: Tech

Don’t Judge This Book By Its Covers

Posted on October 22, 2021 by Brian D. Butler

I’ve been looking forward to Dave Eggers’ follow-up to his best-selling tech novel The Circle and now its been released with an added surprise. His new book , The Every , is a sequel to his previous novel which skewered … Continue reading →

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I would prefer not to

Posted on October 14, 2021 by Brian D. Butler

Writer Clive Thompson has created and shared a new online tool allows you to visualize any piece of writing by stripping away everything but its punctuation. His free web tool—”just the punctuation”—allows you can paste in any piece of text … Continue reading →

Posted in Books, Tech, Writing | Tagged , | 1 Comment

Primary Source

Posted on July 16, 2021 by Brian D. Butler

It’s now possible to read one of the oldest books of English literature in the world  online.The Exeter Book is a 1oth century anthology of poetry in Old English and one of  only four manuscript books containing virtually all the English … Continue reading →

Posted in Books, ebooks, Europe, History, Libraries, Tech, Writing | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

Strolling Cities

Posted on June 14, 2021 by Brian D. Butler

Strolling Cities is a trippy project by Italian artist, designer and researcher, Mauro Martino,  that uses AI to generate visual poetry. The AI model trained with millions of photos of nine Italian cities (Milan, Como, Bergamo, Venice, Genoa, Rome, Catania, … Continue reading →

Posted in Europe, Public Transport, Tech, Tourism | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

Waterman Butterfly, Hobo-Dyer, or Goode Homolosine

Posted on May 16, 2021 by Brian D. Butler

I nearly did a Master’s degree in Geography, but the constant battles over map projections put me off. This clever video by Randall Munroe helps to explain some of the most popular options. You don’t have to be a map … Continue reading →

Posted in Africa, Animation, Asia, Europe, Maps, Middle East, South America, Tech | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Ghost Words

Posted on April 20, 2021 by Brian D. Butler

What does palimpsest mean? 1 : writing material (such as a parchment or tablet) used one or more times after earlier writing has been erased. 2 : something having usually diverse layers or aspects apparent beneath the surface.   One … Continue reading →

Posted in Art, Asia, Books, Europe, History, Libraries, Middle East, Museums, Tech, Writing | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Saving Traditional Techniques

Posted on April 19, 2021 by Brian D. Butler

I first became enamored with traditional Japanese printmaking many years ago when I saw a show at Amsterdam’s Rijksmusem on Van Gogh’s personal collection of prints. The collection is now housed at the Van Gogh Museum. There are many steps … Continue reading →

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Climate Crisis

Posted on April 17, 2021 by Brian D. Butler

Finland’s Helsingin Sanomat newspaper has created a free and downloadable variable font that aims to make the urgency of climate change tangible by mirroring the declining amount of Arctic sea ice in its disappearing letterforms. While a regular typeface has … Continue reading →

Posted in Europe, Tech | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Guess Where

Posted on February 18, 2021 by Brian D. Butler

City Guesser is a geography based browser game that strives to provide an exceptional travel and guessing experience by allowing participants to guess where in the world they are from short video clips. I spent way to much time at … Continue reading →

Posted in Africa, Asia, Europe, Maps, Middle East, South America, Tech, Tourism, USA | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

Under the Social Influence

Posted on January 28, 2021 by Brian D. Butler

By now you have probably noticed that I’m a sucker for a clever travel/tourism campaign. So it will be no surprise that I fell hard to this clever video from New Zealand urging travelers to stop repeating stereotypical photos they … Continue reading →

Posted in Air Travel, Film, Photography, Tech, Tourism | Tagged , , | 3 Comments