Monday, May 17, 2010

Monday gifts -- 05/17/2010

I spent a lot of time writing my book instead of web surfing, so my gifts are not as numerous this week. My apologies.

A rather pretty bit of propaganda art, though I dislike a good chunk of Shepard Fairey's work in the way I dislike Che Guevara posters.


The politics of revenge. North is right, the short video clip is worth watching.

More on this trend


Ten most harmful novels for new aspiring writers


Dolphins are not as highly evolved as previously supposed. :)

Worst Music Video (This can't possibly be serious)


Time lapse footage of that Icelandic volcano


The first Star Wars trilogy, told in Legos.

The CFR feels the need to do spin control on its image. Contrast and compare with Aaron Russo's inside information from Nick Rockefeller.

Malamanteau -- The most sublime example of unintentional shit-disturbing I've ever seen. (And some more on that.)

Monday, May 10, 2010

Monday gifts -- 05/10/2010

Reactionless UFO Propulsion
EBTX has proposed a method of UFO propulsion that resonates with my theory involving asymmetric EM fields of this precise configuration to produce movement without thrust. Well done! I'm glad others with more knowledge are able to go far beyond my efforts.

Gnaural - Binaural Beat Generator
Binaural beats are interesting because when you hear them with headphones, each ear hears a slightly different frequency, and your mind synthesizes the resulting throb of their interference. It is said this can be used to drive your brain's activity into desired states (alpha, theta, etc.) Give it a shot! They're a little disorienting but eventually can be quite trance inducing. This application allows one to create their own schedule of beats, pitches, volumes, and pink noise. Of course, to get the best use of this one should do some research into what does what.
Java version | Download

A related software is MetaMindMachine

A Mind in the Water
- The secret history of human/dolphin interaction

Outliers

Flag shirt fiasco
: Two great memes that taste great together: Multicultural programming AND agitprop blended into one nice Reese's Pieces combo!

The history of the Fallout Survival Shelter icon

This really stunned me, "Not mentioned by the government attorneys in their memo is that an endnote in the 1946 edition of Hornung’s book explains that the triangular shape arrangement seen in “Fig. 349” is a representation of “an ancient symbol for the Godhead.”

See Fig. 349 here

I notice, too, that the Civil Defense icon is entirely Illuminati-like.

Monday, May 3, 2010

Monday gifts -- 05/03/2010

Why life sucks so hard - Best of 'you're doing it wrong' bits on ads.

On the other hand, TV ads offer a nice home for has-been stars.
Example 1
Example 2
Example 3
Example 4
Example 5
Example 6
Example 7

Sauron now makes ads for TV! The PA Department of Revenue has a new TV spot, one that left me breathless.

But if you want to see the original copy, visit the PA Dept. of Revenue site, and click on Resources and Advertising > Advertising Materials > Watch Television Commercial, for the direct download of the video. Unbelievable.

The Weird World of Zentai (lots of interesting links included)

Zip files all the way down

What The Fuck Should I Make For Dinner?

Rock That Font Famous rock album cover fonts.

The Beauty of Hand-Drawn Maps

Riding while dead


Best 1980's dating videos ever. Oh, the pain.

A robot makes tea
(with some editing help)

Monday, April 26, 2010

Invisible Empire, a documentary by Jason Bermas

If you want to know about the New World Order, this film is a fine place to start. I found Bermas's opening especially moving, as his awakening was very much like my own. This documentary is not for the faint of heart, as it can be very depressing, and angering. And please understand I don't offer this as gospel truth, but I think it's a far more accurate depiction of the workings of the world than you can get watching the network news: that shit is 100% lies and propaganda, sold to us as mother's milk.

Invisible Empire | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14

Monday gifts -- 04/26/2010

The Mind's Eye
Since around 1999, I watched this several times with my kids as they grew up, we found it mesmerizing. Now the graphics are incredibly dated, but the whole thing gives me an overwhelming sense of nostalgia.

Hawking warns against contact with aliens


Apollo 11 Launch in slow motion
There's thrust, and then there's the Saturn V. The explanation of why the very beginning of the exhaust is dark is fascinating: they use the cooler exhaust from the turbine pumps to line the sides of the engine bell, giving a bit of insulation from the very hot main rocket exhaust. That's why you see that arterial-looking tube running the circumference of the nozzle, I've always wondered about that.

Your Old Crap Website Dredgings from the early days of the Web.

Archie Comics' first openly gay character

Architectural Megaprojection (Thanks to Andy R.)
Video 1
Video 2

Sheath that lightsaber, son! (Thanks to Chriz)

A brief history of Martian Timekeeping

FARD (Thanks to Arnold)

The Wolf At Our Heels

California Schemin' Art will eat itself.

Another article with the same title, same subject

Monday, April 19, 2010

Monday gifts -- 04/19/2010

Excerpt from Pattern Recognition by William Gibson. This man really knows how to write.

(pages 153-155)
Outside, there is no sign of Taki, though she hasn't really expected any. She looks both ways, wondering where she might more easily hail a cab back to the Hyatt.
"Do you know this bar?"
Looking up into a smooth, tanned, evidently European face that she somehow doesn't like at all. She takes in the rest of him. A Prada clone black leather and shiny nylon, shoes with those toes she hates.
Hands grab her, from behind, hard, just above the elbows, pinning her arms at her sides.
There's something that's supposed to happen now, she thinks. Something that's supposed to happen--
When she'd first move to New York her fater had insisted that she take lessons in self-defense from a small, fastidious, slightly portly Scotsman called Bunny. Cayce had argued that New York was no longer as dangerous as Win remembered it, which was true, but it had been easier to visit Bunny six times than to argue with Win.
Bunny, her father had told her, had been an SAS man, but when she'd asked Bunny about that he'd said that he had always been too fat for the SAS, and had in fact been a medic. Bunny favored cardigans and tattersall shirts, was very nearly her father's age, and told her that he would teach her how 'hard men' fought in pubs. She'd nodded gravely, thinking that if she were ever set upon by literary types in the White Horse she would at least be able to hold her own. So, while some of her friends explored Thai kickboxing, she'd been schoold in no more than half a dozen moves most often practiced in the maximum-security wings of British prisons.
Bunny's preferred term for this was "making mayhem," which he always pronounced with a certain satisfaction, raising his pale sandy eyebrows. And, in the way of things, Cayce had never, that she knew of, come even remotely close to requiring Bunny's mayhem in Manhattan.
With the Prada clone's fingers scrabbling to undo the Velcro fastening between her breasts, trying to free her bag, it comes to her that what's supposed to happen now, in the Bunny plan of things, is this: She shoves her arms suddenly forward, just far enough to grab the glove-thin leather of both his lapels. And as the second assailant inadvertently cooperates, yanking her arms back, her hands buried in Prada's labels, she pulls with all her might and smashes her forehead as hard as she can into Prada's nose.
Never having actually followed through on this move before, Bunny not having had a nose to spare, she's unprepared for both the pain it causes her and the extraordinarily intimate sound of cartilage being crushed against her forehead.
His dead weight, as he abruptly collapses, pulls his lapels from her hands, reminding her to step back, off-balancing whoever is behind her, look down between her legs (a man's shoe, black, with that same horrible squared-off toe), and stamp as hard as she can, with her heel, on the revealed instep, producing a remarkably shrill scream from very close behind her left ear.
Pull loose and run.
"And run" was invariably the footnote to any Bunny lesson. She tries to, the laptop banging painfully against her hip as she bolts for the end of the alley and the lights of a brighter Roppongi.

A lovely Battle of Britain machinima shot in Wings of Prey.

Alex Jones tortures an iPad to death.

The real story behind the Trololo song

He'd like us to write new words for the song.

Ebert defends his contention that videogames can never be art.
I found the matter unexpectedly challenging, as I would immediately say he's mistaken...but then I thought about it further. On a philosophical basis, it seems to me that arguing videogames are/aren't art is like saying Youtube is/isn't TV. Is art passive? Interactive? The work of one, or many? I found Ebert's closing statement pretty compelling, until I remembered that his beloved art form, cinema, has very similar underpinnings. Case reopened.

Similarities

Computational Storytelling

Pebble's Corollary to Clarke's Third Law:
Any *truly* sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from reality.

How to print from an iPad.

Meet Meline (Thanks to Arnold for the link.)

Magnasanti -- 6,000,000 Sim City inhabitants in one city.

This Venn diagram explains nerds, dorks, geeks, and dweebs.

Steorn has created a solid-state version of their generator.

How a fish swims.

Slinkachu

You're Breakfast

Pixar's Use of Harmonic Functions

The Most Awesomest Thing Ever

Dog Sledding

On a related note, here's Bailey.

Guerrilla Public Service (thanks to Chriz for this link)

Evil Clown For Hire (thanks to Diana for the link)

Echo Bazaar

John Murray Spear and the Mechanical Messiah

FWAF means Finish With A Flurry! Tips from a streetfighting master.

Magnetic Solids

Mystery skull still leaks icky brown goo after years.

The proper use of an iPad: amusing simple mammals. It's amaxing how far Apple has come since their famous 1984 Ridley Scott ad. No paradigm busting hammers here, just bright squishy things for entertainment.

Alice, by Jan Svankmajer

CommunityChannel
This girl seems to have an opinion on everything. She's rather charming though...from the safe remove of the Internet. If I lived near her, I'd probably have to kill her.

Her latest, Hackers in Movies, is pretty cute!

Tactile Mind -- Pornography for the blind

It's not your fault if you don't like cilantro. I was interested in this article because of my own experiences with the herb. My first encounter with cilantro occurred when I moved to Los Angeles in 1986, and tasted it in salsa. I *hated* it, and dubbed it 'soap leaf'. But I've come to love the taste of cilantro in various salsas and dishes.

Digital Pointillism


Seat Selection

Complexification


Masterpieces in 3D


Inside xRez Studio (Thanks to Chriz for the link!)

Hermione's Stalker

Behavior Placement -- Movies and TV are telling you how to behave, by design.

Of course, TV isn't the only place you can go to learn how good citizens behave. Just speak to your local clergy, who might be a part of a FEMA-trained Clergy Response Team to offer biblical guidance to help you submit in the case of martial law!

Monday, April 12, 2010

Monday gifts -- 04/12/2010

Photographer meets kakapo
http://www.poetv.com/video.php?vid=67753

Oh, isn't this interesting? Funny, how his plane went down the very next day.
http://blogs.wsj.com/new-europe/2010/04/09/polish-central-bank-pulls-trigger-to-weaken-zloty/

So you *do* have a sense of humor
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hg6QrSVJUyk

Destroyer of Worlds
http://hawtness.com/2010/04/09/wtf-girl-photos-destroyer-of-worlds/

That...would...be...fine
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2010/4/9/

Aesthetics of early computer graphics
http://translab.burundi.sk/code/vzx/index.htm

Devo Song Study -- Help pick 12 out of 18 songs for their next album
http://songstudy.clubdevo.com/

The Cat With Hands (Creepy!)
http://vimeo.com/2689070

What to do in case of first alien contact
http://cache.gawkerassets.com/assets/images/8/2010/04/first-contact-alien.png

Cracked, on how to write a Nicholas Sparks novel
http://www.cracked.com/funny-4725-nicholas-sparks/

Monster Engine brings children's drawings to life (thanks to inkgorilla for this link.)
http://thechive.com/2010/04/06/moster-engine-brings-childrens-drawings-to-life-11-photos/

More:
http://themonsterengine.com/

Kowloon Walled City
http://io9.com/5512888/the-walled-city-where-sunlight-couldnt-reach

Of course I had to find some other photographs:
http://artkhammarita.files.wordpress.com/2007/05/wolf2.jpg
http://artkhammarita.files.wordpress.com/2007/05/kowloonwalledcityalley2.jpg
http://kwout.com/cutout/n/na/mu/kni.jpg
http://images.coilhouse.net/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/factory.png

Pixels
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFpcTGJwvZ0

Prometheus backlit by Saturn
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap100405.html

Small Worlds
http://www.rathergood.com/small_worlds

A Jules Verne inspired steampunk SL sim
http://www.boingboing.net/2010/04/07/underwater-jules-ver.html

Hell
http://xkcd.com/724/

And the Flash implementation of Hell
http://www.swfme.com/view/1046212