Tag: function-load

That Foamy Stuff You See World Cup Refs Spraying was Invented by a Fed-Up Journalist

There is a graphic design element to tennis courts, (American) football fields and basketball courts, with highly visible lines indicating boundaries and distances. These are fixed in place, as service lines, end zones and free throw lines aren’t meant to move. Soccer, though, has a unique problem that can’t be solved by fixed lines: When a player is fouled, he’s awarded a free kick from whatever spot on the field the foul occurred. The opposing team is allowed to assemble a defensive wall of players at a distance of ten yards from the kicker. The problem is that people cheat. The ref sets both the spot of the free kick and the site of the wall, and as soon as he’s not looking, the two may surreptitiously creep towards each other to improve their chances. Which is why for this year’s World Cup, you’ll see the referees carrying an aerosol can filled with a white foamy substance, and they’ll spray this on the pitch to clearly mark visual boundaries for the both the kicker and the wall. Seconds later the line mysteriously disappers. (Hardcore footie fans have already seen this spray as it’s been in action for years, but this is the first World Cup where it’s been used.) So what is this stuff, shaving cream? Nope. This “vanishing spray” is called 9.15 Fair Play , patented by an Argentinean journalist named Pablo C. Silva. Silva was playing footie in a local league and had a crucial free kick of his blocked by a defensive wall–one that had rushed him to close the distance to a mere three meters. “The referee didn’t book anyone and didn’t do anything, ” Silva fumed to The Independent. “We lost the game, and driving home later with a mixture of anger and bitterness, I thought that we must invent something to stop this.” (more…)

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That Foamy Stuff You See World Cup Refs Spraying was Invented by a Fed-Up Journalist

Throwback Thursday: Before Pantone, Color Aficianados Got Their Fix From This Centuries-Old Hue Mixing Manual

Long before the days of annually featured colors with quirky names, there was this monster of a book by a mysterious artists that goes by A. Boogert. It comes in around 800 pages and features every color you can imagine—much like a grandaddy of the beloved Pantone color guide. Medieval book historian Erik Kwakkel (talk about a job title) found this encyclopedia and quickly it lit up the Internet after he featured his find on his blog . Kwakkel goes into more detail on where he found the book and what Boogert shared in the book on his blog : I encountered this Dutch book from 1692 in a French database today and it turns out to be quite special. For one thing, no Dutch scholar appears to have published on it, or even to know about it. Moreover, the object is special because it provides an unusual peek into the workshop of 17th-century painters and illustrators. In over 700 pages of handwritten Dutch, the author, who identifies himself as A. Boogert describes how to make watercolor paints. To illustrate his point he fills each facing page with various shades of the color in question. To top it he made an index of all the colors he described, which in itself is a feast to look at. (more…)

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Throwback Thursday: Before Pantone, Color Aficianados Got Their Fix From This Centuries-Old Hue Mixing Manual

China on the Forefront of 3D-Printed Housing

While China had their Industrial Revolution rather late in the global game, their production might and speed means they’ll likely advance new digital fabrication techniques before the rest of the world does. For example, it’s been ten years since the American outfit Contour Crafting first proposed 3D printing houses, but aside from a brief surge of TED-Talk-inspired press in 2012, they’ve been mostly quiet. In that time, meanwhile, China has begun developing their 3D-printed-house-erecting capabilities in earnest. The Shanghai-based WinSun Decoration Design Engineering company recently printed ten sample structures of 200 square meters each. What’s amazing is that they produced the entire lot in less than 24 hours, and that the cost of each house is less than US $5, 000. The concrete-like building material comes “entirely out of recycled materials [and is] a mixture of construction and industrial waste” which the company claims is environmentally friendly (although they don’t provide specifics on the material). (more…)

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China on the Forefront of 3D-Printed Housing