Link About It: This Week’s Picks
Virgin sharks, President Obama’s playlist, Stranger Thing’s font and more in our look at the web
1. 1,007 Dancing Robots Set Guinness World Record
Sometimes one isn’t aware of Guinness World Record categories until they’ve been broken. This just might be the case surrounding the 1,007 dancing robots that took the title of “most robots dancing simultaneously” at the recently held Qingdao Beer Festival in Shandong, China. The previous record stood at 540 dancing robots and had been set in China earlier this year. But our new record holders, named QRC-2 and standing 43.8 cm tall, danced for a full (choreographed) minute to take the title. The event, organized by Ever Win Company & Ltd, had a Guinness World Record adjudicator on site, who pronounced the victory theirs.
2. Pantone Color-Matches the World from Your iPhone
With the new Pantone Studio app, it’s become very easy to grab any color your see while out and about and translate it directly to the corresponding color. Not only does the app offer up the RGB, CMYK and Hex codes for each, it tells you what pairs well with it and allows for instantaneous connection to photoshop. It’s an important push from the acclaimed organization to keep up with designers’ needs. But it does come at a cost: to use the app, there’s an $8 monthly subscription free, or you can pay annually at $60.
3. How Ryan Lochte is Changing the Sport of Swimming
In a very easy-to-understand article, the New York Times explains a seemingly simple (but fascinating) way that 11-time Olympic medalist Ryan Lochte is potentially changing competitive swimming forever. With one clever move in the pool, Lochte apparently shaves a second from his times—and it’s all about the different way he approaches tumble-turns in freestyle races. Find out his tricks at the NY Times.
4. Your Dog Really Does Understand You
Dog owners have always suspected that their pooches inherently understand them, and now several studies seem to have proved it. For those times that your pup just “got” you, it might have been because s/he was reading your expression—something that dogs have an uncanny knack for. It makes sense, since we have shared our lives with dogs for (depending on who you talk to) 16,000 to 30,000 years. Read more about your special bond with your best pal at Science of Us.
5. The Font Designer for the Credit Sequence of “Stranger Things”
For many, the credit sequence of Netflix’s new hit sci-fi series “Stranger Things” becomes obsession-worthy by the second episode. The show’s title slowly reveals itself after interwoven cuts of cast member names placed in portions of the glowing nameplate. The font, which has already been puzzled over greatly, happens to be ITC Benguiat. The show’s creators, the Duffer Brothers, tasked design firm Imaginary Forces with creating something that carried the essence and energy of 15 book cover titles they selected. Imaginary Forces committed to ITC Benguiat, one of hundreds of fonts developed by Ed Benguiat. The Telegraph delves into a full profile of Benguiat’s work—and you’ll be surprised by just how familiar it all is.
6. President Obama’s Final Summer Playlist
Whether or not he had help from Michelle and his daughters (or maybe an intern or two), President Obama’s 2016 summer playlist is wonderful. With timeless tunes like Miles Davis’ “My Funny Valentine,” ’90s classics including Janet Jackson, a duet from Nas and Damian “Junior Gong” Marley’s collaboration album, current darlings Chance the Rapper and Courtney Barnett—this list has a song for everybody. Just another way President Obama continues to show his charm as his presidency comes to an end.
7. Greenland is Home to 150-year-old Virgin Sharks
Greenland’s native shark species (Somniosus Microcephalus) lives to be incredibly old—researchers believe the oldest one they’ve found lived to be around 390 years old—and many of them remain virgins until they’re 150 as they don’t reach sexual maturity until then. Nearly the same size as a Great White shark, Greenland’s sharks live hundreds of years longer and might only be beaten in longevity by a clam that can live to be 507 years old. Find out more about this creature (and why it lives as long as a wizard) at the Washington Post.
8. Jennifer Lopez is the Reason Google Image Search Was Invented
It all started with a dress. When Jennifer Lopez donned the super-saucy, low-low-cut, Versace jungle dress, the internet went bonkers. But that was way back in 2000 and all we had on offer was text searches. Eric Schmidt (executive chairman of Alphabet, which is Google’s parent company) says, “At the time, it was the most popular search query we had ever seen. But we had no surefire way of getting users exactly what they wanted: J.Lo wearing that dress. Google Image Search was born.” Thank goodness for J.Lo.
Link About It is our filtered look at the web, shared daily in Link and on social media, and rounded up every Saturday morning.
