via youtube.com
My complaints about 3D cinema notwithstanding, this is pretty neat.
Industrial-grade 360 degree hologram of Seattle, with data pulled from Google Maps and SketchUp.
Monday, January 31, 2011
Sunday, January 30, 2011
Saturday, January 29, 2011
Friday, January 28, 2011
The Digestive System: Turns out, the liver's penis is actually green.
This is not helping me cope with the prospect of going to Body Worlds this upcoming weekend.
Thursday, January 27, 2011
Mexican authorities seize drug-smuggling catapult used to lob pot across the American border.
via youtube.com
Okay, sure, I see how that's a good idea.
Although one does not simply catapult into Mordor.
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Fox vs Cat: Cutest thing you'll see today.
via youtube.com
I think shortly after the cameras stopped rolling, @Akkeresu was conceived.
Why 3D doesn't work and never will -- thank you, Walter Murch.
In a fascinating article quoting a letter he wrote to film critic Roger Ebert, film editor and sound designer Walter Murch (Apocalypse Now, The English Patient, Cold Mountain) outlines why he believes 3D cinema to be fundamentally flawed.
http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2011/01/post_4.html
Since my left eye is dysfunctional and I therefore can't perceive depth the way my binocular compatriots can I have a vested interest in halting the onslaught of 3D.
The picture is frustratingly dark (which compounds my nightblindness), the Stupid Glasses sit uncomfortably on top of my Smart, Stylish Glasses and the last experience I had with 3D cinema gave me such a headache I spent the second half of the movie squeezing my left eye shut. I plan to buy an eyepatch to help with this.
Maybe Apple sells a cutting-edge white iPatch.
I work for a company involved in television broadcasting, among other things, and there's a lot of buzz about 3D TV here. I'm not in a position to influence this, but where possible I voice my opposition. 3D tech is inconvenient, partly because of the glasses requirement, but more substantially because the 3D illusion works best when seated directly in front of the screen.
This makes the 3D experience impossible to share with larger groups of people, especially if the living room is arranged in the horseshoe formation so common here.
Murch, in this article, points out a few technical objections to 3D cinema based on his insight and experience in cinema editing, and the way images interact with the eye, the brain, and then the mind.
He points out confidently that 'strobing', the effect in which we're aware that we're watching a staccato sequence of images rather than continuous motion, occurs more quickly when viewing 3D film because the added stress and computational effort of decoding the illusion doesn't allow the brain enough time to smooth out the motion as it usually does.
But most important, he says, is the issue of convergence/focus. It's a little awkwardly explained in the article, but since I'm quite familiar with the workings of the eye, let me try to lay it down for you.
Convergence means that in order to look at a particular object, both eyes must be pointed toward it. Your eyes are never pointed straight ahead, they're always turned slightly inward -- it's especially noticeable when you look at something close to your face and go cross-eyed!
Focus is a more easily understood principle, as it works the same with eyes as it does with cameras. In order to see an object sharply, the lens in each eye must be calibrated to resolve the object's light correctly on your retina. In the picture above, the lens is calibrated for the salt shaker, and as a consequence the other objects farther (or nearer) are out of focus.
Whenever you look at anything your eyes must converge on it and focus on it, but in 3D cinema and television, says Murch, that's messed up. The screen is X meters away, so your eyes must focus on that distance. But the 3D illusion places the virtual objects closer or farther away, and in order to look at those, your eyes much change their point of convergence.
In 600 million years of evolution, says Murch, no eye-equipped animal has faced this problem. We're not built to do it, so we'll never do it easily.
Why put ourselves through this persistent mental stress? Sure, it can be a fun diversion, and probably a tremendously exciting experience, but that experience should be short enough that it ends before we start to suffer from the strain we're placing on our eyes and our brain.
A good script, good acting and good cinematography will draw you into a picture far more than a clumsy illusion.
Adorable: Tumblr uses The Oatmeal's parody artwork for as its Fail Whale.
Original strip here: http://oatmeal.tumblr.com/post/2910950328/dear-tumblr
Evidence here: http://www.tumblr.com/503.html
Oh Internet.
You sentimental harlot.
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
Monday, January 17, 2011
Huck Finn, N-Word Jim, and sweet, delicious Negerzoenen.
Last week a bit of ballyhoo erupted in the U.S. of States regarding an updated and 'improved' version of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, in which the word 'nigger' was replaced with 'slave'. NY Times reports here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/07/books/07huck.html
This isn't just stupid, it's offensive. It's an insult to history and deprives modern readers of a valuable insight not just into race relations in American history, but into the purpose of language itself.
In Holland we have a chocolate-marshmallow treat similar to a mallomar called a 'negerzoen', literally translating as 'negro-kiss', though historically the word 'neger' had a far less charged meaning than its English-language neighbors. Nonetheless some companies changed the names of these products a year ago, which I still think is just damn stupid as well.
Understand that as an Irish-Indonesian living in the Netherlands my skin is pretty pale in winter, but I turn nice and brown in summer. I'm tall, with European cheekbones, but with a light almond shape to my eyes. I'm mildly lactose intolerant, and benefit from vitamin D supplements.
Still, despite all this, it's only very occasionally that I'll remember 'Wait a minute, I'm not white'. My most common experience of race issues is a profound delight in a diversity of faces, figures, languages and cultures. I've often remarked how happy it makes me to work in a highly multicultural company.
Since Google N-Gram is such a cool tool (it plots the relative frequency of selected words in English publications over time) I thought I'd plug these words in: negro, nigger, and African American.
I find the surge immediately following the American Civil Rights Movement particularly interesting, though the point of this graph is to show how very recent poliical correctness is, and how it doesn't at all seem to have altered the frequency of the words it replaced.
To call a black person a 'nigger' is not just uncivil, it's verbal violence and has no place in modern conversation.
But Huckleberry Finn's friend and companion, nobler by far than the white-skinned degenrates they met on the Mississippi, was Nigger Jim.
Not Slave Jim or N-Word Jim or African-American Jim or American Citizen Jim of African Descent.
His name was Nigger Jim; that's what Huck called him, without a trace of malice.
Even though Jim's acceptance of the word might be interpreted as a sign of a downtrodden soul, a man so convinced of his worthlessness that he's come to accept it -- the book as a whole says otherwise, and unequivocally so. Nigger Jim is an honorable man, to be respected and admired, even through the follies he and Huck stumble through.
This is a lesson that readers of the 'improved' edition are denied:
Words are only conveyors of meaning, not containers.
Saturday, January 15, 2011
Random blog of the day: Dudes With Beards Eating Cupcakes
30 pages of this and counting.
Oh, Tumblr.
Weasel Wordsmith doesn't quite understand what book reviews are for, or how to write them. But Kyell Gold is still awesome.
1. Buy the book
2. Come back here and tell me what you think
Considering that Lovejoy Weasel has historically curb-stomped any book that wasn't written by one of his friends, including those published by Bad Dog Books, it's tough to talk about what he's doing without sounding like a whiny bitch.
So, disclaimer: I am not a whiny bitch, and I'm not going to express my opinions of Lovejoy's blog, since there's some damn good contributions there from folks like Kyell Gold, K. M. Hirosaki and Not Tube, among others.
But this one I really have to question. In a post announcing his intention to review Isolation Play, Kyell Gold's new novel, he asks his audience to follow the two-step plan outlined above.
I understand wanting to use whatever resources at your disposal to help your friends -- and for that matter, I, too, encourage you to buy the book, as I've heard nothing but good about it, and Kyell Gold has a top-shelf rep.
But isn't the point of a book review to provide your audience with information that can help them make a decision whether or not to buy a book?
That's what his previous reviews have done. Giving reasons why Sofawolf books are great, and giving reasons why other publishers' books are bad (tee hee).
What's the point of writing a review about a book when said review should only be read by people who've already bought and read it?
Literary analysis and discussion is totally valid and I look forward to the weasel's thoughts -- though I'd hope he infuses it with his own insight rather than simply waiting for commenters on his blog to raise interesting points for him.
But to place an analysis intended for owners of the book alongside reviews intende to inform people whether they should or shouldn't buy a particular title seems, to me profoundly disingenuous.
(I repeat: totally not being a whiny bitch. Just because somebody writes reviews and styles himself a journalist shouldn't make him exempt from criticism. Also, Kyell Gold's book is totally worth buying and if you're at Further Confusion, try and find him to get a signature!)
Friday, January 14, 2011
Mishka, the Singing Husky, rocks out with an iPad.
http://www.youtube.com/v/Mk4bmK-acEM&hl=en&fs=1
via youtube.com
Mishka is such a star. Pretty eyes and an angelic voice -- move over, Lady GaGa.
More of her oeuvre:
Thursday, January 13, 2011
While watching this Hanson music video I caught myself thinking "I wish Ray Charles could have lived to see this." #wow
http://www.youtube.com/v/TmG0DqhfDbY&hl=en&fs=1&hd=1
For an ostensibly mayfly kiddy band, the Hanson brothers are actually pretty rockin' musicians.
Michael Caine impersonates Michael Caine
http://www.youtube.com/v/rX0F3kY3uxU&hl=en&fs=1&hd=1
via youtube.com
And Billy Connolly's on the chair next to him? I may need to hunt down this episode.
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
Peter Walsh impersonates Michael Caine as Christopher Walken in the Watch scene in Pulp Fiction.
via youtube.com
Brilliant interpretation of a phenomenal scene.
Only 4783 views on YouTube? Seems unfair.
Christopher walken was very well-paid for his small contribution to Pulp Fiction. Perhaps Michael Caine would have been just as good :)
Marlon Brando apologizes for missing Charlie Sheen's birthday: "I'm feeling like a very large turd on a very thin stick."
MARLON BRANDO
Dear Charlie,
I'm feeling like a very large turd on a very thin stick. I'm holed up in bed and taking everything from sled dog urine to powderde East Indian vulva — maybe won't work tomorrow if I feel the same.
I really feel bad for not showing up at your birthday bash but I really feel shitty and best stay in bed. I don't have much of a selection. I'm sure it will be a kick in the ass and I hate to miss it —
Happiest of birthdays to you, Charlie
Love,
Marlon
Chrome drops H.264 codec for not being 'open' enough, but still ships with Adobe's proprietary Flash built in.
HTML Video Codec Support in Chrome
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Though H.264 plays an important role in video, as our goal is to enable open innovation, support for the codec will be removed and our resources directed towards completely open codec technologies.Posted by Mike Jazayeri, Product Manager
Apple has long been blasted for shipping mobile web devices without Flash support, despite the fact that the first mobile Flash implementation wasn't published by Adobe until three years after iPhone's first introduction.
Apple's publicly stated reason was the technological deficiency of Flash, and as a Mac user, I can attest to its historically horrid performance, battery drain and single-minded determination to slow, freeze, or most frequently crash my browser.
The unspoken reason was, of course, Apple's desire to control its products end-to-end, but that shouldn't be understood as a desire to own every aspect of them. Apple has a history of embracing open, or at least not-singularly-owned standards, often pioneering their mainstream use. USB, Firewire, and AAC (the successor to MP3) come to mind. It's no surprise that they chose the codec H.264 as the preferred means of web video distribution.
H.264 is a de facto web standard, supported by many more computers and devices even than Flash. It's protected by a strong pool of patents, licensed cheaply to software vendors and entirely free for consumers. It's proven efficient and has hardware acceleration built into numerous video cards and even mobile devices.
Google's alternative, the WebM codec they introduced some months ago, enjoys none of these benefits. No hardware support, extremely limited installed base, and a high vulnerability to submarine patents.
This means that if you use WebM to create video and at a later date a secret evil patent-holder successfully makes a case in court that WebM infringes on their intellectual property, it is legally possible (though practically unlikely) that you will share financial liability for your use of the infringint tech.
When Apple went H.264-only it was already a well-established technology and the ensuing years have seen a rapid transition to the codec in web video. This was fcilitated by the fact that Flash can actually play H.264 video, so after a video site has converted its content to H.264 it makes little difference to them whether a visitor accesses the video using the Flash plugin or a more modern, open solution like HTML5. Now, however, Google wants them to keep a second copy of those videos available, in WebM format, so that either codec can be delivered through either solution... weird.
Google's bold move to promote their 'open' codec by suppressing an established, 'nearly-open' codec like H.264 is a fair one. It suits their ideology to a T and they have every right to develop their products as they see fit.
But complaining that H.264 isn't open enough, and still shipping Chrome with the totally closed, totally proprietary, absolutely un-open Flash plug-in? Come on.
Stay classy, Google.
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Lacking access to American currency, I'll have to take this $5 B-Boy Lincoln at face value.
Unless you, noble Internet, can provide photographic proof that it can be done?
Monday, January 10, 2011
"Tvor" is an AI lamp wins Czech design award. Looks like a single-tasking, wobbly forebear of Caprica's Serge!
http://www.youtube.com/v/SPPsCEis1lk?fs=1&hl=en_US
via ziveveci.cz
Aside from the creepy sound in the video, and the lack of utility, and the wobbling, it's actually a pretty neat idea.
Says the designer:
"Tvor (the creature) is a lamp endowed with artificial intelligence. With the help of sensors, it moves towards the darkest place in the room. It seeks out darkness relentlessly and its illuminating presence transfers the darkness to another place. Tvor is thus doomed to endless travel."
Yeah, that totally makes it less creepy!
Friday, January 7, 2011
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