Pixar created a whole new “hair simulator” for curly hair in Brave

In the ’80s, when you wanted big hair you whipped out the Aqua Net. But it wasn’t so easy for animators. The Little Mermaid‘s Princess Ariel was meant to sport curls, but the technology just wasn’t there in 1989—rendering that kind of bounce and frizz, cel after hand-drawn cel, was all but impossible. Now, though, animated big hair is finally on the big screen in Disney/Pixar’s Brave.

The movie centers on Merida, a feisty Scottish princess on a quest to save her kingdom from a curse. To illustrate her fiery spirit, filmmakers wanted Merida’s locks to spring off the screen—”Curly hair almost defies gravity,” simulation supervisor Claudia Chung says—but Pixar’s old CG hair simulator (used in 2001′s Monsters, Inc.) wasn’t up to the task.

So in 2009 Chung’s team designed a new simulator named Taz, after the wild Looney Tunes character. It forms individual coils around computer-generated cylinders of varying lengths and diameters. The resulting locks stretch out when Merida runs but snap back into place as soon as she stops. Each strand is also strung through with a flexible “core curve,” like the string of a beaded necklace, that lets the coils bounce and brush against one another without unwinding.

 

The full story – Pixar Reinvents Big Hair for Brave

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Egypt’s president to choose woman, Christian VPs

Egypt’s first democratically elected president, Mohamed Morsi, will appoint a woman as one of his vice presidents and a Christian as another, his policy adviser told CNN.

“For the first time in Egyptian history — not just modern but in all Egyptian history — a woman will take that position,” Ahmed Deif told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour on Monday. “And it’s not just a vice president who will represent a certain agenda and sect, but a vice president who is powerful and empowered and will be taking care of critical advising within the presidential Cabinet.”

“The role of women in Egyptian society is clear,” Morsi told CNN weeks before the runoff election. “Women’s rights are equal to men. Women have complete rights, just like men. There shouldn’t be any kind of distinction between Egyptians except that … based on the constitution and the law.”

 

More on this story – Egypt’s new president to pick woman, Christian VPs

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Goodbye, Nora Ephron – Thank you for everything

What a shock to learn of Nora Ephron’s death, at 71 years old. What a loss to laughter–among the many other gifts Nora gave us.

I met Nora when I was a secretary at Esquire magazine, not even a year out of college. My then boss, Binky Urban, (now my agent) became one of her closest friends. The two of them, careering around with such enormous élan, knowing they had as much right to be there as any of the guys surrounding them. (More in many cases.) Wow, I thought daily, this is what liberated New Women are like: brilliant, fearless, funny, tough, free with Kleenex for their sobbing younger sisters (and there was a great deal to sob about at the magazine in those days, but that’s another story)

Every time I looked at Nora I couldn’t help it: I imagined the adolescent Nora in a dressing room,  bending down hopefully over a bra, waiting for her breasts to tumble out of her chest to fill in the cups…Her life was just ahead of mine, of my generation, and she was there proving that it was just fine to be outraged and noisy and hysterical so long as you carried it off with well-written finesse.

Nora was a devoted reader of House & Garden, incredibly enough to those who didn’t know her, but to her friends, she was a true hausfrau: she took great pleasure in making a beautiful home, she loved cooking and dinner parties and everything about kitchens. (Come to think of it, she was one of Frances Palmer’s earliest and most devoted customers, she loved her pottery and bought many pieces for her table over the years.) Another way in which she led the way: there is nothing diminishing about a love for home-making. When I think of having it all, I think: kids. jobs. china. Those daily banal pleasures do strengthen and heal–you see it in so many of her movies. True to form, Nora’s favorite pieces were the ones we ran about cooking equipment and utensils. I remember an email right after we ran a piece about pre-mixed cake recipes (all of which we had tested over the weeks)–“Those cake mixes! Running right out to the store. In my bathrobe. Thanks!”

 

Via – Goodbye, Nora Ephron, thank you for everything you gave us

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Apple finally releases a Podcast app – with subscriptions, top charts, skip forward/back

Earlier this month, it was reported that Apple would be launching a standalone podcast app in iOS 6. Instead of waiting for the next version of iOS, Apple posted the Podcast app on the App Store today.

Podcasts app is the easiest way to discover, subscribe to and play your favorite podcasts on your iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. Explore hundreds of thousands of free audio and video podcasts from the Podcasts Catalog, and play the most popular podcasts, organized for you by topic, with the all-new Top Stations feature.

Features:

    • Enjoy all of your audio and video podcasts in a single app
    • Explore hundreds of thousands of podcasts including shows in over 40 languages
    • Try the innovative new Top Stations feature to find new podcast series in a variety of topics, including arts, business, comedy, music, news, sports, and more.
    • Browse by Audio or Video podcasts, or see what’s most popular in Top Charts
    • Tap subscribe for your favorites and automatically receive new episodes for free as they become available
    • Stream episodes or download to listen while offline
    • Skip forward and back using simple playback controls
    • Turn on Sleep Timer to automatically stop playing a podcast while listening in bed
    • Share your favorite episodes with friends using Twitter, Messages and Mail
    • Optionally sync your favorite episodes from iTunes on your Mac or PC
    • Sync your episode playback for seamless transition between devices

     

    Via – Apple Offers New Dedicated Podcast App for iOS

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    Watch Wimbledon live online – until July 8

    For tennis fans, there’s little that could beat the excitement of Wimbledon. It’s the world’s oldest tennis tournament, a chance to see the world’s best players compete. This year’s Wimbledon tournament started Monday and continues until July 8.

    Of course, since it’s taking place in the U.K., chances are that you’re either at the breakfast table or in the office when players like Roger Federer, Maria Sharapova and Petra Kvitova compete. But no worries: There are multiple options to watch the tournament online and on your mobile device.

    Wimbledon.com is streaming up to five hours of live programming a day on its website and on Livestream.com/wimbledon starting every day at 7 a.m. ET. The stream will include “key matches, player interviews, press conferences, score updates, “off-court” reports and behind-the-scenes access,” according to a press release sent out this week.

     

    Via – Where to watch Wimbledon live online

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    Netflix meets its heaviest user – 252 movies in one month

    Mark Malkoff just can’t help himself. The new York-based comedian is one of those people who find challenges in everything. So when a company like Netflix offers unlimited streaming for $8 a month, someone like Malkoff starts to wonder about his own limits. Earlier this year, Malkoff embarked on his Netflix challenge in an attempt to figure out how much value he could get out of his $8 subscription within a single month. 30 days later, Malkoff had watched 252 movies, beginning to end, including the credits.

    **that’s 8.4 movies/day**

    Excessive use like this might have triggered automatic service suspension at other companies, but quickly Netflix realized the promotional potential of his challenge, and started tweeting about it. This week, the company even invited him to their headquarters where dozens of employees celebrated him as the most obsessive user the company ever had.

    This isn’t the first time Malkoff has taken on an endurance challenge like this. A few years back, he successfully visited each and every of Starbucks’ 171 stores in Manhattan within 24 hours, consuming something at every store. Malkoff has also lived in an Ikea store for a week, and spent 30 days flying on an AirTran jet.

    Read the full story – The day Netflix met its heaviest user

     

    Mark’s Netflix Challenge:

    REI pursuing sustainability – getting rid of the polybags

    When thinking about the sustainability of REI’s operations, the complexity of the task quickly becomes apparent. Where does a person start?

    Our annual stewardship report details one such area: our efforts to reduce REI’s waste-to-landfill.

    We conducted a retail waste audit to better understand the details. To paint a picture, imagine this: Our teams literally went “dumpster diving” to get a real behind-the-scenes look at our trash.

    We confirmed what our retail employees had long assumed—plastic garment bags (also called polybags) were a major issue.

    A long-time retail industry standard—or, “the way it was always done”—has been to protect clothing in plastic bags during transport to stores. For example, a seemingly inexpensive bag that held a $100 sweater was removed and discarded when it reached our shelves for customers.

    That’s where we parted ways with our standard practice.

    While we started to reduce the number of bags for REI-brand products, that was only a small part of the challenge. Considering other brand products make up about 80% of what the co-op sells, we needed partners to make a big difference.

    One great brand we work with is prAna, the California-based climbing and yoga apparel company. It turns out that people at prAna had been asking themselves the same question.

     

     

    Read the full story – Pursuing Sustainability at REI: Eliminating What Shoppers Don’t See Delivers a Big Win

    Liberia joins the ISA and becomes the next great place to surf

    Liberia is working toward a future removed from its troubled past – and doing so, partly, through surfing.

    Eight years removed from its last civil war, the country has a growing tourism industry, part of which circulates around its 350 miles of pristine, white-sand coastline in Western Africa. It was for that reason and the hope of continuing to increase surfing’s presence in the country that it applied and was accepted to become the International Surfing Association’s (ISA) 71st Member Nation.

    The ISA has recently undertaken the goal of growing surfing throughout the continent of Africa.

    In March, the ISA sent a representative to Mali to address an audience of national Olympic delegates at the Africa International Sports Convention (CISA). In his presentation, Marcos “Bukao” Esmanhoto, the ISA’s Contest Director and an Executive Committee member, outlined the ISA’s efforts to develop surfing throughout the continent, touching on the potential social and economic implications of having a blossoming surf scene. Following the presentation, he received a resounding applause from the roomful of representatives from each of the continent’s 53 countries.

     

    Keep reading – ISA Welcomes its 71st Member Nation, Liberia

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    All 786 known planets, to scale

    All 786 known planets, to scale.

    “This” (tiny gray box) is our solar system. The rest of these orbit other stars and were only discovered recently. Most of them are huge because these are the kind we learned to detect first, but now we’re finding that small ones are actually more common.

    We know nothing about what’s on any of them. With better telescopes that would change.

    This is an exciting time.

     

     

    Find the original graphic on XKCD.