In the past couple of decades, video game graphics have come a long way, a very long way. But who says realistic is always the best? There was something strangely majestic about old-school adventure game graphics, and maybe it’s just a nostalgia thing, but they can be way more beautiful than the modern day stuff. Take, for instance, these 8-bit color-cycled landscapes by Mark Ferrari, a LucasArts veteran. They’re absolutely stunning, and hardly state-of-the-art. They are running on HTML 5 though. Time to get excited for the potential of browser-based adventure games I think.

If you’re on this site, you already know that Pi is an irrational number that goes on and on forever without repetition. This fascinating property has led many to present the numbers of Pi in different ways, blurring the lines between mathematics and art. The New York design firm TWO-N has presented their own twist on the irrational number, presenting 4,000,000 digits of the number as a single image. What you see above is just a tiny piece of this impressive project.

Animator Sean Soong has noticed the ambivalence of many riders on public transit to the needs of those around them. Though riders are reminded that they should give up their seats to the elderly, that doesn’t mean that will actually listen. Perhaps they should consider it a warning, as Soong has in his animated short SubWars. It’s a bit gory, but it’s also a lot of wild, spastic fun. See it, after the break.

From the outset of the console video game industry, one of the main goals has always been to produce a video game that feels like we’re “playing a movie.” The industry had never quite found a balance of playing and watching — as Final Fantasy and Metal Gear Solid games often prove — until Naughty Dog released their Uncharted series. Love ‘em or hate ‘em, the Uncharted series is easily the closest the video game industry has come to creating a “playable movie.” This wasn’t lost on a certain redditor, morphinapg, who edited all three console Uncharted games into movies. Check them out after the break, and make sure you applaud morphinapg.

Yesterday, Bethesda posted a single screenshot of a grizzled man to their Facebook account, with the simple caption of “tomorrow.” Well, yesterday’s tomorrow is now, for it is today, and Bethesda released a trailer to go along with that screenshot, which is for the steampunk-em-up, Dishonored. The trailer is over four minutes long and contains no gameplay, but it is certainly worth a watch.

Tomorrow, NASA’s Space Shuttle Discovery will make its final flight on the back of a specially modified Boeing 747. Eventually, the orbiter will be made a part of the Smithsonian collection and put on display near Washington, D.C.. However, just getting Discovery atop its carrier aircraft is no small task. These pictures go through the process, step by step, showing off some of the rarely seen equipment and processes that have supported the Shuttle program since its beginning. See the photos, after the break.

Because you can never become mesmerized enough by Rube Goldberg machines, the Purdue Society of Professional Engineers set out to top their own record for world’s largest functional Rube Goldberg machine. They succeeded, spending over 5,000 hours constructing a machine that is compact rather than the traditionally long contraptions, yet acts more like a transformer with all of its moving tracks. The machine consists of 300 steps, with the goal of blowing up and popping a balloon, but that’s not all, as the the machine amazingly completes every single task assigned in the Rube Goldberg competition’s quarter of a century history. Basically, this Rube Goldberg machine is ridiculous.

For those unaware, Instagram is a hit iOS app that allows users to manipulate pictures on their phone with a variety of filters and effects and then share those pictures with the world. Until today it’s been a successful app exclusive to Apple devices, but Android users can lament no more: The app is available, for free, in the Google Play store night now. In fact, about 1,700 people have already have downloaded it. Looks like Instagram has another hit on their hands.

We’ve always loved OK Go — yes, before the treadmill video — and they have always delivered both musically and visually. Their new video, for the song “Skyscrapers,” isn’t as visually impressive as one of their Rube Goldberg machines, or driving a car into stuff and having the noise of the collisions compose a song, but it is mellow and very pretty. Watch and chill out, as this couple dances through color.

To celebrate the launch of the Galaxy Y Duos, a 2 SIM card phone, Samsung put together a nifty little bisected light show that is projected on a stoic actor’s face. There’s a lot of bilateral symmetry going on here to bring the theme back to the whole “2 SIM card” thing, but the real focus should just be how cool it looks. The projection uses facial mapping to center its visuals right on the guy’s face, making for some really surreal masking effects. And the song’s not bad either. By far the most interesting phone commercial I’ve seen in a while.