Link Round-Up: August 23, 2017

"Suicide Mission" by Wisnutan

16 Ways To Tell If A Shy Guy Might Be Interested In You

700 Years Of Art Inspired By Eclipses

Accidental Wes Anderson Sets in Real Life

Artist Lee Hurley has created Grootpool, an awesome 3D printed sculptural mashup of the tree-like comic book superhero Baby Groot and loud mouth antihero Deadpool. Lee posted more photos of his cute mashup on Instagram and Facebook.

British tech company Nanosystems created VantaBlack, the world's darkest color.  Anish Kapoor has been granted exclusive rights to use Vantablack, which is so dark it makes everything look two-dimensional, useful for military and space technolgies, as well as making urinal cakes.  Vantablack isn't pigment, it's a bunch of carbon nanotubes grown in a lab and placed on a surface while using a gas mask and a special chamber, and it takes 400 hours over 4 months to cover a can of body spray.  But don't worry, other artists, there is further research being done to make Nanoblack, which absorbs 99.9% of light (compared to Vantablack's 99.965%). This didn't sit well with painter Stuart Semple and his contemporaries.  Semple retaliated by creating a powerfully flourescent shade of pink, which he dubbed PINK, and made available for sale on his website to everyone... excluding Anish Kapoor. In fact, purchasers must sign an affidavit on purchase promising they will not give or re-sell the pigment to Kapoor. "Whilst Anish's absorbs nearly all light, mine reflects it, kind of the antithesis of what his is doing."  A few months later Kapoor got his finger in PINK anyway, and then sent a terse reply. In response, Semple created #sharetheblack and continued to tweak the elder artist by creating and selling "the glitteriest glitter" under the same restrictions.  The pigment arms race continues. The creators of Vantablack have created a new version that absorbs more light, but can be applied as a coating to existing objects. Semple has used liquid crystal, "more expensive than gold", to create two new color-changing shades which are also sold under the "no-Kapoors-allowed" rule. And just this week, Massachusetts-based manufacturer NanoLab has released Singularity Black. This new process has slightly more reflectivity than VantaBlack, but NanoLab promises to share the process, and will make their debut next week in a Boston gallery showing.  [Via Metafilter]

Creating an Image of Mars with Sheets of Rusted Metal

Game Of Thrones Cast Reveals How ‘Hellish’ It Was To Film ‘Frozen Lake’ Battle

London animation studio Animade has created “Robot & The Robots,” a delightful animated short about a band of talented robots who perform their hit song, “Robot_Song_03.mp3.” Animade shared a behind-the-scenes look at how they created this fun animation on their website.

Metallica's Ride The Lightning (abridged), with actual lightning.

This Is How Your Fear and Outrage Are Being Sold for Profit

XKCD on the Eclipse.  On point as usual.