Kottke shared this fascinating slideshow that puts faces to the anonymous model-perfect hands which grace countless “glossy magazine ads, in television commercials, and blown-up on billboards,” and in some cases as a stand-in hand for a particular beautiful actress’ toe-esque thumb. Although lotion and gloves are mentioned as part of the regiment of these models, there’s no mention of wearing oven mitts like Seinfeld’s George Costanza, when his “exquisite” hands make him an unlikely hand model for one episode.

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Werner Herzog is a lover of conflict. Whether it’s man vs. man, man vs. nature or man vs. himself, his films have a habit of pitting a man against the extremes. In RESCUE DAWN (2006) the man is Deiter Dengler (Christian Bale), a US Navy pilot who was shot down in Laos only 40 minutes into his very first mission in 1965 during the Vietnam War. Between surviving the crash, his Pathet Lao captors and his subsequent escape, Dengler confronted and triumphed over man, nature and himself.

Of course, deep in the jungle with a set of bearded, bedraggled, starving captives for characters is where Herzog is at his best. The actors, as you might expect, had to endure much of what their real-life counterparts did, namely starvation, delirium and the impossible physical demands of survival in the jungle. For example, when Dengler eats live worms and grubs and other mysterious creepy crawlies, Christian Bale actually ate them. When he’s dragged behind a water buffalo or hung upside down with an ant’s nest tied to his face, those aren’t special effects either. The result of this painstaking attention to detail is the realism we’ve come to expect from Herzog. There are no computer graphics, just real mean in a real environment reliving the real-life story of Dengler, the only US POW to successfully escape in the Vietnam War.

On Sundance Channel’s Tastemakers Series this month. Every week, watch a different award winning film from festivals around the globe. A series of contemporary hits and timeless masterpieces that define cool and defy limits. Sundays at 10PM E/P.

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• HOTEL RWANDA on Tastemakers

• Dell’s new Optiplex — most efficient desktop ever? According to Jaymi Heimbach at Treehugger, the new 980 model is, as it features a 90% efficient power supply, meets ENERGY STAR 5.0 standards, and has earned an EPEAT Gold rating.
  
  
• No more downcycling for plastic? That’s what researchers at IBM and Stanford claim their new development in plastic production does: the material can be continuously recycled. See the video above… (via Green Inc.)
  
  
• Wired for speed: Homebuilder KB Homes is rolling out optional pre-wiring for electric vehicle charging in its “Built to Order” new home package.
• The $5 shower monitor: The Waterpebble measures water going down the drain during your shower… and, after setting a benchmark, helps you cut back on on shower time (and water used). (via CNET Crave)
  
  
• One method of climate change adaptation: The island nation of the Maldives, which is threatened by rising sea levels, has contracted with Dutch Docklands to build it an artificial island. (via Cleantechnica)
  
  
• A swimming pool as a thermal storage system: That’s what one builder has done with a renovation of a 17th-century home in Great Britain. (via Home Design Find)
  
  
• Keeping up with the women of green business: Earth & Industry, in honor of International Womens’ Day, compiled a list of 16 women you’ll want to follow on Twitter for green business news.
  
  
• Kite-powered floating power plants: Korean researchers are experimenting with boat-based hydroelectric turbines which they believe could generate up to a gigawatt of electricity. The boats would be propelled by large kites. (via HuffPo Green)
  
  

Feel free to share your own recent green tech finds… let us know about them in the comments.

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I was surprised to learn that ECOWEEK isn’t just a one week event, it’s the actual name of the NGO that hosts the weeklong conference as well as “eco awareness” all year long. To be honest, their mission statement is a bit naive: ECOWEEK was established because temperatures are rising; the glaciers are receding; permafrost is thawing…because our children and grandchildren face an uncertain future. That’s nice, but it’s not very specific. It’s also not very current and sounds as if it was written ten or fifteen years ago – by a third grade teacher.

And that’s a real shame when you take a look at their big event, the Eco Week itself, an Athens-based conference that focuses primarily on sustainable architecture and boasts speakers from some of the biggest firms around the world. Keynote speakers include Diebedo Francis Kere, the 2009 winner of the Global Award for Sustainability and Daniel Wicke from Rural Studio, the visionary architecture program at Auburn University. In fact, the more I peruse the week’s program, the more exciting the conference seems. There’s big picture stuff, but there are also talks about structural engineering and sustainable landscape design. Unfortunately, the ECOWEEK website is one of the most confounding I’ve ever visited, and it’s nearly impossible to retrieve all this information without taking the time to dig deep into their site. A case of good intentions and poor planning? It’d be worth the trip, but good luck figuring out how to get there (they don’t exactly make it clear).

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The Armory Show has come and gone, but one image is still very much alive in my mind. Last week I wrote about the transgendered porn star Buck Angel, showing his transexual PSA here on SUNfiltered. The above image is a stunning, solid gold, life size statue of Buck created by the British artist Marc Quinn. A series of gold statues, all of pop icons, will debut in London on May 6th. The Buck statue had a sneak peak this past week.

And while I love the cigar chomping performance artist, I am equally excited about another one of Quinn’s statues set to be unveiled. The actress Pamela Anderson too was given the gold treatment. Less realistic than the Buck’s bust, Pam’s statue has her become a Siamese twin attached to her own hip. Freaky.

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Memoirs of a Scanner (Pillows Edition) from Damon Stea on Vimeo.

USC film student Damon Stea made this funny short film MEMOIRS OF A SCANNER which depicts the antics of a typical company’s office through the lens of their scanner. This short, which picks up around the 0:25 mark, was fittingly shot entirely on a scanner.

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We were too young to realize it at the time, but Corey Haim’s LUCAS (1986) showed us exactly why the band geek makes a better boyfriend than the captain of the football team. Rest in peace, Corey Haim — you may not have been the most eloquent cast member of the reality show The Two Coreys, but the wisdom of your characters continues to ring true. Here are our top ten favorite on-screen Corey moments — heavily favored toward LUCAS, of course. What can we say? That kid was a hero:

1. From LUCAS (1986)

Maggie: You know how wonderful you are?
Lucas: Yeah, but it doesn’t turn you on, does it?

2. From DREAM A LITTLE DREAM (1989)

Bobby [Corey Feldman]: Dinger! Dinger, wake up for a minute. I gotta talk to you, Buddy.
Dinger [Corey Haim]: Bobby, I’m asleep. I’m fast asleep, Bobby. I’m dreaming. Apache women. Mai-tais. Vanna White and a whip.
Bobby: I’m in love.
Dinger: That could be a problem.
Bobby: I don’t think you understand.
Dinger: No, no, I do understand. I really do. Which hand is it this week, pal?

3. From LUCAS (1986)

Lucas: If you’re so depressed, how come you’re eating pizza?

4. From Lost Boys (1987)

Sam Emerson [Corey Haim]: So where’re we going?
Michael Emerson [Jason Patric]: Nowhere.
Sam Emerson: So what’s the rush? You’re chasing that girl aren’t you? Come on, admit it. I’m at the mercy of your sex glands, bud.

5. From LUCAS (1986)

Lucas: They say that aggression is an expression of sexual feeling.

6. From Me, Myself and I (documentary, 1989)

Corey Haim: “What does kissing really mean to me? To me, if you feel, when you kiss a girl, that certain feeling of all those dolphins, like, swimming through your bloodstream, and you get those good tingles inside your stomach, I don’t think there’s any better feeling. It basically comes down to that word: Love. I guess that’s what it’s all about.”

7. From LUCAS (1986)

Lucas: Are you referring to the size of my penis?
Bruno: Yeah, I am.
Lucas: With a flaccid penis, it’s the number of folds that count. Besides, I’m not semi-erect like some of you guys here.
Bruno: What did you say?
Lucas: A University of Chicago study. You can tell the fags in a warm shower by who’s got the longest dong. Hey, yours seems to be growing even now.
Bruno: The hell it is!
Lucas: It IS, look!

8. From DREAM A LITTLE DREAM (1989)

Bobby Keller: [Corey Feldman] Heh… that’s how I laugh… Heh!
Dinger [Corey Haim]: What the hell is heh? Why can’t you laugh like a man?

9. From LUCAS (1986)

Lucas: I guess everybody has their own idea of fun. Some people go to football games. Other people do less superficial things.
Maggie: Look, just because you don’t approve of something, doesn’t mean other people don’t have a right to enjoy it. You’re in the band aren’t you?
Lucas: Yeah?
Maggie: So?
Lucas: So?
Maggie: So the band goes to football games!
Lucas: We’re totally different!
Maggie: Why?
Lucas: Because the band does not have fun there!

10. From LUCAS (1986)

Lucas: You can’t ever make me quit, EVER!

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On Monday, ITVS (the Independent Television Service) launched a new online series titled FUTURESTATES, eleven short films imagining a contemporary American issue thrust in to the future. Full disclosure: I’ve got a piece in the series. But it’s worth a plug here: it’s the first time to my knowledge that a major funder (ITVS, supported by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting) has invested this heartily in a web series, and almost most importantly, put significant marketing muscle behind it. In the press release, Executive Producer Sally Jo Fifer (haven’t you seen that name dozens of times on television docs?) says: “FUTURESTATES is an opportunity to reach new audiences that are younger and more diverse by combining online viewing with a shorter-format and edgy content with a sci-fi twist that inspire, entertain, and inform. Our end goal is to make FUTURESTATES available for public television broadcast down the road bringing along the new online audiences we gain.”

David Kaplan and renowned gamer Eric Zimmerman created PLAY, which imagines a not-too-distant future where video games have become indistinguishable from reality. Beautifully shot by Michael Simmonds (BIG FAN), this is a tightly stitched world.

Tze Chun’s SILVER SLING compellingly imagines a world wherein corporations offer financial incentives to their high-ranking female employees to pay for chemically- accelerated surrogate births – three months, ba da bing (sounds great; sign me up). Chun’s feature debut was CHILDREN OF INVENTION.

Amyn Karali’s THE OTHER SIDE is a border story (like mine is, titled TIA AND MARCO) with a major twist. And Ramin Bahrani’s piece PLASTIC BAG imagines the world of said trashy protagonist (voiced by Werner Herzog) who longs for its maker. It’s starkly original. Bahrani made MAN PUSH CART and GOODBYE, SOLO, amongst others.

The series is firmly science fiction, but also rooted in a TWILIGHT ZONE foundation, cautionary and conceptual. The big unknown question – speaking of the future – is how will the web develop further in this arena? ITVS spent over $500,000 to develop and produce the series, as the New York Times reports – will this level of funding be sustained for the web? (Even though on my own set we were pinching every penny, and it was tough.) I hope so.

–AH

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The Brit Insurance Designs of the Year is the Design Museum’s assessment of a year’s worth of good design in 7 separate categories: architecture, fashion, furniture, graphics, interactive, product and transport. One winner is selected in each group out of roughly 100 nominations, all of which are currently on exhibition at the museum. Among the winners is Alexander McQueen’s Spring 2010 collection. The futuristic fantasy printed dresses are some his most brilliant work yet, though sadly his last. The Interactive award goes to another futuristic design, The Eyewriter, essentially a pair of sunglasses that allow people who suffer from paralysis as a result of Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis to draw using only their eyes.

The other winning designs are simpler, or at least more simple-looking, like the flat-pack, self-assembly bamboo furniture by Jair Straschnow and Min-Kyu Choi’s light-weight folding plug. Its simple, practical and unobtrusive design echoes Dieter Rams’ minimal mastery. If there was a Most Innovative category it would surely go to Yuneec International’s E-430 Electric Aircraft, a “twin seat, single engine, light sport aircraft that’s simple to use, easy to fly and produces zero emissions.” The ride is virtually silent, bump-free and can be charged for as little as $7.50.

More information on the winners, including a wonderfully modern housing project in Monterrey, Mexico and one of the most interesting ideas for stimulating the print industry can be seen on the announcement page.

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Ok Go is an indie band that has mastered viral marketing with clever, innovative one-shot vids for their songs. First there was “A Million Ways,” in which they did an awesome little dance routine in someone’s backyard. Then they upped the ante with a choreographed number on a set of treadmills for “Here I Go Again.” Then came “WTF?” — its psychedonkulous colors and patterns made you go WTF when you watch it (here’s how they did that one). Now, for the song “This Too Shall Pass” from their new album “Of the Blue Colour of the Sky,” they’ve done it again — even better! It’s a giant Rube Goldberg machine in a two-story warehouse that moves along in perfect freakin’ synch with the song, all captured in one glorious take (after more than 60s tries over two days). You can read all about how they did it in this Wired article. Or, after the jump, check out the four video installments of “The Making of TTSP“:

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