Categories
Arty Video Clips

Birth of a Book

The advancements in technology has resulted in more sophisticated and automated ways of printing books. There are large computerized devices that now handle much of the processes of putting a book together, but this little short film from The Telegraph explores how book is created using traditional printing methods.

Filmmaker Glen Milner took his cameras to Smith-Settle Printers in Leeds, England, where he captured the copies of Suzanne St Albans’ “Mango and Mimosa” book being carefully created by a set of skilled pressmen. Have a look at Birth of a Book below.

[via @brainpicker]

Categories
Flash Games

Can You Beat a Computer at Rock-Paper-Scissors?

The game Rock-Paper-Scissors (or RPS) is thought to have been created at the time of the Chinese Han dynasty. It was called shoushiling, roughly translated to “hand-command”. Its popularity has spread all over the world so much so there is even a world society dedicated to the sport and several officially sanctioned events.

Computers want in on the action too, and in this handy flash game from The New York Times, you can test how you would fare against a computer that is programmed to uses databanks of statistical info to mimic human thinking and to exploit the fact that people tend to stick to patterns.

Play RPS against the computer at The New York Times website and let us know how you did.

[via Neatorama]