Digital Digest: 17/01/2011

The Best Of The Web

Humour

www.damnyouautocorrect.com

Ever sent a text message that has autocorrected a word into something you didn't mean to say? Then you may well sympathise with the contributors of 'Damn you, Autocorrect', which describes itself as a website dedicated to "Awesomely Embarrassing Text Messages You Didn't Mean To Send." Very funny.

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Grammar

www.slate.com

In this rant for Slate, Farhad Manjoo makes an impassioned plea for people to no longer put two spaces after a full stop.

Many who use two spaces, as opposed to one, are convinced they are correct in doing so, but Manjoo asserts why using two spaces is "totally, completely, utterly, and inarguably wrong."

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Music

www.youtube.com

So is Taylor Swift's new song about her ex-boyfriend, Taylor Lautner, teen idol and star of the Twilight franchise? Or is it about her more recent squeeze, actor Jake Gyllenhaal? The internet pundits are locked in ferocious debate, though you can makeup your own mind by simply checking out the video, here:

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Cinenatography

www.laughingsquid.com

Time-lapse photography has been used to create all kinds of spectacular effects in film, and this offering by DIY director Josh Owens is no exception. To the soundtrack of "Down to the Cellar" by Dredg, Owens has created a work that is beautiful, eerie, and strangely moving.

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Enivronment

www.time.com

Technology can be used in all kinds of environmently friendly ways, though – as Time magazine's Bryan Walsh notes, 2010 could be seen "a disaster for the clean technology industry". Still, for all its setbacks, Walsh insists that it wasn't all bad. He offers 20 examples of top-tier green-tech around today.

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Animation

www.good.is

Animator PES is known for its innovative short animations. Using everyday found objects and stop-frame technology, it makes fun short films. In this minute and a half clip, its team used old metal tools to create an underwater sea-scape. Seldom has a pair of pliers been put to such creative use.

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Photography

www.howtoberetronaut.com

When we think of the Soviet Union we think of bread lines, gulags, endless winters and unendurable misery. This gallery of photographs, however, shows a quite different side of life behind the Iron Curtain. Taken in Lithuania during the 1960s and 1970s, they document the small pleasures of family life.

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