Realizing that the human face is a much more expressive than a few well-placed characters , Right Brain Terrain has come up with a project called Real_Emoticon. It allows you to use your own visage instead of Mr. Yellow Happy Face. All you have to do is send in three successive photographs against a simple background and they’ll transform you into a visual cue. We’re practicing getting the dollar signs in our eyes just right.

The 2008 Olympics are like the war in Iraq. You may not approve of the politics, but you still want to support the people. Take Pride is a T-shirt company that designs tees that illustrate the stories of young soldiers and donates a portion of the proceeds to veterans. Their latest is the “Stronger” shirt and duffel bag that celebrate the life of Melissa Stockwell, a 28-year-old who has become the first U.S. female amputee (or more importantly, the first Iraq War veteran) to qualify for the Beijing Paralympics. You’ll be helping out some athletes who really deserve your money.

Bespectled San Francisco eyes will be on open source social effort the Workbook Project this weekend as they bring their audience-selected film festival and conference to the city. First, on Friday, August 15, filmgoers are invited to use their mobile phones to select which of 22 films will be screened in the evening at Mint Plaza (a video description is available here).

During the day on Sunday, the DIY Days summit at bar/gallery 111 Minna will tackle the ever-increasing difficulty of independent film finance and distribution. Webby Awards creator and local filmmaker extraordinaire Tiffany Shlain will be presenting and a variety of program directors, content acquisitions gurus, and producers will be in attendance (although only one self-described Mega Professional Amateur Comic Artist has signed up so far). The August 17 program will be gratis thanks to distribution festival From Here to Awesome and Current TV. Of particular interest to Bay Area content creators are daytime panels on audience building and the blanket "craft of cross-media."

In every major urban center in North America, it's not hard to find some form of outdoor public art. Its usually a large abstract sculpture with a bunch of people sitting around it eating lunch. Going beyond the static and structural into the animated and mobile, Lumen Eclipse is an ongoing public art project looking to add some kick to the idea of accessible public art by creating free, outdoor, contemporary motion art.

For over two years Lumen Eclipse has been creating outdoor video art installations, drawing crowds as well as big name collaborators like Yoko Ono, Michel Gondry, Encyclopedia Pictura, Miranda July and more. This year they're casting the net for talent even farther with their first annual LE:60 1-Minute Film Fest. Building on their mission of bringing genre-bending new film work to the masses, each 60-second short will be screened outdoors at Harvard Square in Cambridge, MA.

LE:60 is still open for submissions, but the deadline for entries is close (September 2). With the entry fee a mere $10 and some sweet prizes from Adobe and Red Giant up for grabs, you can't afford not to. After all, it'll only take a minute.

Ever since Beijing was picked to be the site of the Olympics (which, as we all know, starts on Friday) controversy has ensued. From concerns about pollution to censored web access, issues leading up to the Games are only going to get crispier on this political hotplate. I just got an e-mail from my Brazilian friend Pedro Inoue (a graphic designer who did the splendid work for artist Stephen Doitschinoff’s book), alerting me to an online project he’s co-partner of called Remember Tibet. He’s putting out a request to all creative types to send in any copyright-free work related to the quest for Tibetan freedom — animation, music, T-shirt designs, etc. It’s a sensitive subject that sadly fluctuates from being a hot topic to a cold one and back again, but with China on the international stage this week the issue has never been hotter.

We realize that there are so many amazing things out there and only so much time to get to it all. To help speed the process along a group of artists, writers and thinkers have started The School of Life as an opportunity to catch up on some of the more fulfilling aspects.

What makes this school different than other alma matters? For starters artist Charlotte Mann designed the classroom. In fact, everyone involved with the School of Life is a notable figure in their respective fields, including a few former curators of the Tate Modern. The School is located in the arty district Bloomsbury in London and houses a bookstore with the “right” books and artwork for sale. Instead of your Earth sciences and dead poets, courses cover five major areas of life: Love, Politics, Work, Family and Play. And to complete the higher eduction experience, they serve up meals, take you on group vacations and even inspire with a few sermons. The courses run £195. If the tuition is too steep, check out their blog for some nice freebies.

Attention webmasters! Does clicking on your site’s thumbnails to load a larger image often slow surfing to a snail’s pace? Perhaps you should get a hold of FancyZoom 1.1, a new Javascript code developed by Panic.com’s Cabel Maxfield Sasser. It allows visitors to magnify the photos on your site without the pain of a separate page load. The new program brings the smoothest zooming animation possible with only two additional lines of HTML code. See it for yourself by downloading the .zip file at Cabel’s site.

Alldaybuffet, Aww Sweet, and Good Wood are throwing a charity auction for the Stoked Mentoring Program. The 50 items up for grabs (which are currently on display at 3rd Ward in Williamsburg, Brooklyn until August 10th) feature deck designs from respected artists in the skate community like Mike Perry and Nathan Fox. Proceeds from the final sale price of each go towards the non-profit organization that coaches at-risk kids in action sports like surfing, skateboarding and snowboarding. We’re on board with that. (Groan.)

South Africa takes the reality show one step further. It’s called Can You Twist: six of the country’s best female short story authors compete online to be crowned “Short Story Diva.” For almost six weeks they’ve come up with zany plot twists in an effort to win viewer votes (and a nice chunk of prize money). We’re not sure what started the storytelling craze down there, but they’ve decided every Friday to bring elements of each story to life.

So far there’s been a huge art installation, the mass distribution of flowers, and a publicized break-up letter. The season is almost over, and who knows what weird machinations their literate minds will manifest.

One of the main components in getting any company off the ground is staffing. While sites like Monster.com and CareerBuilder.com have a way of muddling the process, forcing the new businesses and experienced job seekers to wade through a sea of options to find each other, Startuply is a niche job site that focuses solely on the startup. In an effort to improve the user experience and get your idea off the ground, the site features an easy interface (view listings by passing over them, rather than clicking through) and desktop apps that (hopefully) make the process a little less painful.

If you haven’t scored an Obama poster because of money issues or don’t have any graphic design skills to flex for the Obama Car Art competition, there are no excuses left to deny yourself (unless, of course, you’re planning to vote for the opposing candidate) a non-ugly Obama button that MoveOn.org is giving away for FREE. No self-addressed stamped envelope, no name of your future firstborn child needed. They must be bombarded; I signed up for my button yesterday and a message said my pin will arrive in four to six weeks. Get in on this as quickly as possible because Nov. 8 is coming up soon and you’ll want to stretch as much use out of your pin as possible.

As if the Apple store didn't already have enough people in and around it, on Thursday the Apple Store on Regent Street in London is hosting the Future Shorts film festival — an innovative and eclectic mix of YouTube-esq videos with a dash of film school art flicks. Have a little tease of what to come on their YouTube site and get ready to face the Apple store crowds again. Just like a good Internet meme, the festival is short. Films show from 7 p.m. to 8 p.m. GMT on Thursday, July 24.

It isn't exactly clock day at JoshSpear.com (see the review of San Francisco's Clock Bar from earlier), but we need to update you about The World Clock Project. Launched earlier this year by the guys at Iridesco, this fun project of collecting pictures of clocks from around the world for every minute of the day has amassed plenty of big hands. Check out the site and submit a picture, or have a look at the flickr group. While you’re at it don’t forget to check out Hear, Hear — an online magazine Iridesco publishes about innovative small businesses in New York City. Now if we could only get the Clock Bar to submit a photo to the World Clock Project then we could have blog harmony.

Adidas once again mixes pop culture, art, and product at their brand new No. 74 space in Berlin. The shop is more than a place to get your hands on sneakers — it’s a project curated by the brand in association with No. 6 in London, and offers up an array of product tailored to local pop interests. Adidas and 032c Magazine celebrated the store’s opening with an eye-catching three dimensional display and photography exhibit from architect and designer Juergen Mayer H. entitled “Metropol Paraol” that’s currently on display. They also released a special limited edition Stan Smith shoe tagged with No. 74 and No. 6, only available in London and Berlin.

We’re not yet millionaires, so buying a spot on any beach near us is impossible. But Studiomama gives us hope. This environmentally-friendly, London-based designer recently revealed her newest project — the Beach Chalet. This 388 sq. ft. structure is small enough to fit on almost any beachfront but comes complete with a kitchen, bedroom, and porch — which is more than you can say about your New York apartment. It’s built from cedar and softwood, which gives it the look of high-end plywood. And although it’s yet not available for purchase, you’ll be sure to see us hammering away on a lone beachfront once it is.

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