It could probably have used a more distinctive title, though. Find out more here.

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This promotional video for the upcoming movie “Chronicle” is neat. The marketing team built three remote controlled airplanes that were human-like enough in shape to fool the eye from a distance and flew them over the East River in New York City. The effect is surprisingly effective. Watch the video here.

While entertaining, the video is probably more interesting as an illustration of how to capture “super-human” feats believably on film. The motions in this video are seen from the ground, from the vantage point of a ‘normal’ person.

It’s always surprised me that I’ve never seen this perspective in any of the countless super-hero movies that Hollywood can’t stop making. The norm seems to be to shoot super-human leaps and flights from impossible and therefore intrinsically unbelievable angles, traversing vast distances at mechanically unfeasible speeds, and capitalizing on the limitless and often superfluous agility of the CG ‘camera.” As this video proves, shooting from the perspective of a regular person would be much more convincing.

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Writer Connie Bruck wrote this piece that ran a few weeks ago in The New Yorker about the men behind a plan to build a new NFL stadium in downtown Los Angeles. One of them, Phillip Anschutz, is a politically conservative billionaire seven times over, who made his fortune in oil and gas, real estate, railroads, telecommunications, and sports and entertainment. It’s a fascinating article, even though I’m not particularly sympathetic to his agenda or that of his compatriots. But I did really like this quote from him:

“It helps to have your back against the wall. Adversity is a huge advantage — as long as you think of it as an advantage — because it helps you do things you never thought you were capable of doing.”

Words to remember. You can read the full article here — but unfortunately, only if you’re a subscriber.

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This Madrid-based designer has a stunning portfolio that uses a contemporary, intricate take on modernism. He’s also apparently a collage artist, as suggested in this poster he designed for what looks like a show of his collage works.

He seems like someone I would like to meet. Visit his site here.

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Architect and designer Jerome Daksiewicz of Nomo Design has produced these beautifully matter-of-fact poster designs that capture the runway designs of various American airports.

You can see them in more detail at this link, or buy prints at their shop.

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Riffing on a post I wrote a year ago called “The Sad Story of Illustration on the Web,” the always-incisive Paul Carr writes in the recently launched Pando Daily that, just as illustration has suffered because of the Web, so too has the rich tradition of punning at news publications been in decline since the advent of blogging.

“Here in the blogosphere [there’s] little-to-no place for editorial cleverness in headlines. Search engine optimization of headlines and a relentless drive for clickthroughs means that headlines must either be absolutely directЁ…or infuriatingly opaque.”

While Subtraction.com is not a serious news source or a significant publication, Carr’s lament has been my experience here too. I used to really enjoy writing mildly clever headlines for my posts, making frequent and at least passable use of puns. I gave up on that a while back, though, realizing that it wasn’t doing me any good in terms of maximizing the reach of what I write. I changed over to the more direct approach with great reluctance; it felt a lot like giving up something meaningfully human in order to more efficiently appeal to the machines. But hey, they’re going to rule us one day soon anyway, so may as well make nice sooner rather than later. Read Paul’s full post here.

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It won’t be long before podcasting is a whole decade old, which I find amazing because I remember sampling my first podcasts when the medium was still brand new, even before they’d been rolled into iTunes. For almost the entirety of that almost-decade, I’ve been listening to podcasting impresario extraordinaire Leo Laporte, whose This Week in Tech (TWiT) empire has been one of the form’s biggest successes.

That’s why I was so flattered when I was invited to appear on one of Leo’s new shows, TWiT Photo, which he co-hosts with the amazing photographer Catherine Hall. The episode was recorded live on Tuesday and you can download it here.

Truth be told, I was a little nervous about appearing on TWiT Photo because, if you peruse the show’s already deep archives, they typically feature lots of really talented professional photographers. By contrast, I regard myself as nothing more than a lucky amateur, but Catherine and Leo structured a great discussion about the intersection of design and photography, where the two disciplines overlap and how they can each complement the other. And, of course, we got a chance to talk about Mixel, too. It was loads of fun. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast here.

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