Tag: smithsonian
Above: Tony Hawk’s first skateboard. (đź“·: National Museum of American History) In the newish Tony Hawk documentary, the often-spotted but identity-mistaken skater casually mentions how he donated his first skateboard to the Smithsonian. It was a “Bahne skateboard with red Stoker urethane wheels on metal trucks” according to its listing in the government’s colossal collection […]
The late rapper J Dilla’s custom-made Minamoog Voyager synthesizer has been recently donated to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture. The synth — along with 11 other objects used by the contributors to American music history, from Chuck Berry to Chuck D — will be shown at the “Musical Crossroads” exhibition, to inaugurate the opening of […]
Gone are the days of Lincoln and Washington’s plaster casts. President Obama’s portrait 3D-printed. Recently produced by the Smithsonian Institution and a team of experts form the University of Southern California, the bust only required five minutes of the president sitting to get his face scanned by handheld 3-D cameras. Then, after an additional 40-hour-long process of digitally programmed plastic-melting, ta-da: […]
The Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History recently received over twenty of Jim Henson’s puppets and props on the anniversary of what would have been the Muppets creator’s seventy-seventh birthday. Acquisitions include characters from The Muppet Show, Sesame Street and Fraggle Rock. According to the museum’s blog, the collection will not be on display until many of them undergo several small repairs […]
The unique iPad app Planetary has just been added to the Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum’s collection. The institution has gone one step further by acquiring the app’s source code as well. This is the first time the Smithsonian has attained a piece of code. The institution has also made this code available to everyone, in an attempt to preserve software as […]
Ah, historic Jamestowne. The very first settlement of our great colonial ancestors. The glorious Chesapeake Bay, the mighty James Fort, the abundance of lush wildlife! It must have been a wonderful place to live, save for a couple teensy kinks — like rampant disease, constant rape and pillaging, decimation of Native Americans and, apparently, CANNIBALISM. Whether the early […]
