For all web design professionals, here is an awesome site, which helps you look up HTML5, CSS3, etc features. This indicates when and how to use them and if there will be any fallbacks. A great reference guide during web production to avoid those debugging headaches across browsers.

Frank Buckley, an Irish artist, has built his house from 1.3 billion Euros worth of shredded notes. Noted these notes are worthless, you may ask why he would do such a thing.

Frank says he was driven to build this project after watching his friend commit suicide after losing so much in the recession, and after seeing the bank terrorize his wife and kids over a measly $6000 Euro loan that he they were unable to repay due to financial strain caused by that same bank and many others during the recession. He says it absolutely disgusted him that a bank would take the roof off of his wife and kid’s head and steal all of their furniture and vehicles all in the name of greed and a little bit of money – gross injustice and abuse, committed in the name of worthless colored paper.

That is so sad. This adheres to the concept that anything you own must not own you. Otherwise, being tied too much to material things will never give you satisfaction and induce you to work harder to gain more than necessary.

I cannot entirely blame the government for what happened to Frank’s friend for I don’t know the entire story. Who knows, Frank’s friend may had unconsciously placed himself to too much debt, or went into loans without proper planning. Bottom line, economy has dictated monetary value to control our lives. We dictate ourselves to believe money will bring happiness. Most of us get frustrated from lack of material things when we can gradually attain contentment from lack thereof.

Note to ourselves, being tied to much to money will is never healthy.

If you remember the Lantern song from Tangled, that’s exactly the idea. To relieve the moment, here is the said clip from Tangled.

Doesn’t that video make you want to fall in love all over again from the perspective of teen or first love? For those who has not experience it, you dream for it. For those who loved but failed, you wish for the right one. For those already attached, you feel nostalgic. No matter what emotions that video has conjured, it brings back memories of magic, innocence and finding love.

Many establishments already sell sky or wish lanterns. If you’d rather make one on your own, which in itself is a labor of love, I found a couple of references.

* How to make a Tangled lantern tutorial–the easy way
This is a tutorial on how to make an easy paper lantern based on the movie Tangled.

* Chinese Lanterns – Find your perfect Sky lanterns
This site already sells ready-made lanterns. You could check their site for inspiration on patterns and designs to apply on your own lantern.

* Outdoor Lanterns
To create a sky lantern you wil only need a few things, and soon you’ll have your very own, home made sky lantern.

* Make a Sky Lantern
Follow these simple steps and you’ll be releasing your request of choice to the universe in a flash.

To be more inspired and excited to make your own lanterns, check out this gallery of beautiful lanterns photographed from all over the world.

Sky Lanterns Festival

Pingsi Sky Lanterns

Sky Lantern Test Releasing

Click here for more sky lantern photographs!

Please remember there are safety hazards when lighting a sky lantern.

* It is never a good idea to release a lantern in a wooded area (nor in a mine zone as was the case in Taiwan), or when it is particularly windy (as their flight path becomes un predicatable).

* Do not let intoxicated, irresponsible individuals, or youngsters handle the lanterns, lest they break them, or burn themselves.

* Lantern litter- like any litter- should always be disposed of safely at the earliest opportunity, but the small wire which will disintegrate at some stage, is far less of a culprit than cans, cigarrette buts, and small bits of plastic from foodstuffs that litter the land.

Check out other wish lantern safety tips to ensure yours and the community’s safety.

An example
Let’s say Nick searched for [bacon] and URLs from your site appeared in positions 3, 6, and 12. Jane also searched for [bacon] and URLs from your site appeared in positions 5 and 9. Previously, we would have averaged all these positions together and shown an Average Position of 7. Going forward, we’ll only average the highest position your site appeared in for each search (3 for Nick’s search and 5 for Jane’s search), for an Average Position of 4.

More information about updated SERP results can be found here.

I’m sure many web designers will understand when I say too much visual input can be so stimulating or at times too common, that we end up with nothing. It is hard to describe this kind of dilemma as our resources abound to millions of websites out there.

With this predicament, I’ve recently deleted some design feeds to not be overwhelmed. Below are the galleries I often go to for project inspiration.

There are two (2) things I look for in a design gallery:

1) Not too much background graphics. Minimalist design is preferred. We surely don’t need background graphics compete with thumbnails.

2) Appropriate web thumbnails size. We use the web to find things fast so being able to view a number of websites by few scroll-downs is a plus.

I hope these help you on your creative endeavours.

Chinese calligraphy has been a mystifying concept to me. First noticing its “ethereal” and “meditative” value for life in Zhang Ziyi’s movie, Hero.

Calligraphy has also led to the development of many forms of art in East Asia, including seal carving, ornate paperweights, and inkstones.

For a few years, after taking on a few Kanji lessons moreso did I learn how important each brush stroke is to each character, each stroke following a strict sequence. Not following the order will result to lack of education and dedication to learn the craft of communication.

According to Stanley-Baker,

“Calligraphy is sheer life experienced through energy in motion that is registered as traces on silk or paper, with time and rhythm in shifting space its main ingredients.”

This artform has taken its place in modern art and I give great regards to those who dedicate themselves to it. The craft looks so simple yet exquisite. Each delicate brushstroke sets of a variable of “reflective” atmosphere. No wonder, I found the videos from RaggedyBird’s Youtube channel so enchanting and relaxing. The music used are very meditative, sometimes yoga-like accompanying the smooth brushstrokes.

RaggedyBird also provides Chinese Art Materials and Supplies if you are interested to start a journey into the Chinese Arts. Ink stones, ink sticks, brushes, xuan paper, seal stones and seal ink, brush rests, water bowls, brush hangers and alot more besides. Amazing Chinese art products are also available from the online store.

At work today, I was tasked to install WordPress on Client’s server. Instead, I found the WordPress site (both .com and .org) in black mode and there was no way I could access the usual download page for the framework’s installation guide. Good I found an old installation zip file from my local drive.

It was when we found out many of popular websites joined in the protest against the U.S. Congress’ SOPA / PIPA bills. These are still in progress but its implications are huge. Explanation can be read from this email I got from my host, Site5.com.

From Site5 Management

Greetings Site5 Customers!

Thanks,
The Site5 Management Team

I do not live in US but I symphatize to what is happening. Imagine if this pushes through… the information, culture, communication, commerce and social interaction, which has given the Internet its edge to converge every knowledge and humanity will be put on a halt. I cannot imagine loosing my freedom on the Internet. The meaning of “democracy” will be lost.

What are your thoughts of this?

I am no painting afficionado. I tried. I guess my skill lies more on the digital rather than on traditional artworks.

From just a few hours, Riusuke Fukahori has garnered a lot of links from Google from his newest creation of amazing 3D fishes. This creation is astounding as each 3D painting consists of multiple transparent layers. Liquid resin is poured into wooden container and then painted when it becomes solid. By repeating this process, the artist is able to create realistic fish with lifelike vitality.

Here is a video of how the artist did this beautiful piece of art. A note, due to copyright issues, the video poster required to take down this video clip. The video will be kept running for 72 hours before permanently disabling video at midnight 14/01/2012.

I bow down to his majestic skills. *bows*