The Pixel Painter

"The Pixel Painter" is a microdocumentary about 97-year-old Hal Lasko (aka "Grandpa"), a former graphic artist who started creating in Microsoft Paint when he lost his eyesight. Today, he spends up to ten hours a day shaping 8-bit masterpieces one pixel at a time.

"We got Grandpa a computer probably fifteen years ago," says Lasko's grandson, Ryan. "I knew I had to show him Microsoft Paint. And once I did, he took off with it. It wasn't until years later that we realized how important this thing was to him."

SEXPAND

Lasko leverages Paint's zoom feature to great effect, using it to explore subject matter ranging from autumn foliage to space highways ("a small statement about a big subject," he says of the latter). But the themes of his creations almost don't matter. Directed by Josh Bogdan, "The Pixel Painter" is as much an exploration of technological empowerment as it is a tribute to artistry in general; at its core, it's a poignant ode to passion, life, and the will to create.

How Chinese Ingenuity Destroyed Salad Bars at Pizza Hut

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You had one trip to the salad bar. So dammit, you had to make it count.

In China, Pizza Huts are either take-out only or somewhat upscale sit-down restaurants that even serve steak. A while back, it became a fad of sorts to build enormous fruit and vegetable structures at Pizza Hut salad bars. The reason was that customers only got one plate and one trip to the salad bar, so they wanted their visit to be worth it. And was it ever.

The result was truly amazing and wonderfully creative plates of food. Yesterday, Japanese site LabaQ uploaded some classic "salad tower" pics:

There's an art and a craft to good salad stacking that, like with real structural engineering, needs good foundations to build higher and higher. Here, that strength comes from carrots, cucumbers, and croutons.

Here's a how-to:

As The Beijinger first reported in 2009, Pizza Hut actually announced it was removing salad bars from its restaurants as part of a menu revamp. It was believed that salad stacking was to blame. Ya think?

However, according to the Baidu wiki, when Pizza Hut announced it was removing the salad bars, that apparently encouraged people to make salad towers before the salad bars were gone for good! Others in China agreed with Pizza Hut's decision because they felt these food structures were wasteful if people didn't finish eating them.

It's unclear whether Pizza Hut was actually able to remove salad bars from all its restaurants in China. Kotaku's Beijing based writer Eric Jou says there are still salad bars in a Pizza Hut near him. Sadly though, there are no salad towers.