December 31, 2012
With any luck, design like this is on the way out
Jonathan Ive is taking over Apple's Human Interface Group.
Jonathan Ive is reportedly not a fan of skeuomorphism, but as his domain was previously limited primarily to the physical design of Apple's products, there was little he could do about it.
Via Core77's year in review: Designing Nostalgia.
Bold, brave and timeless
"Nicolas Jaar floored just about everyone (prior fan or not) with his first ever Essential Mix earlier this year, so it’s no surprise that Pete Tong and co have crowned his 120-minute masterpiece 2012’s Essential Mix of the Year."
Big Games of 2013
Related thought: The best iPhone and iPad games of 2012. I like the look of Pizza vs Skeletons.
Zooey Deschanel and Joseph Gordon-Levitt - What are you doing New Years Eve?
December 30, 2012
Christopher Hitchens - The three new commandments (2009)
Christopher Hitchens delivers a lecture at the Royal Ontario Museum entitled "The Three New Commandments" in conjunction with the exhibit of the Dead Sea Scrolls.
Winston Churchill’s Life Pod, 1945
“To protect the precious bulk of Winston Churchill in wartime a special one-man pressure chamber was built for the personal plane which carried him many times across the Atlantic and to Casablanca, Moscow and Yalta. Churchill was warned by his doctors that it was dangerous for a man of his age and physical condition to fly above 8,000 feet. The solution was a pressure chamber complete with ash trays, telephone and an air-circulation system good enough to prevent smoke from the ubiquitous cigar from fogging the atmosphere.”
- LIFE Magazine, 1947
Images at the link.
The Frozen Deep
"By the gloomy light of our caving headlamps, it looks like a geological rubbish dump: a brown, muddy chaos of shadowy crevices and boulders – some the size of buses – that fell from the roof. Welcome to The Frozen Deep, the biggest cave chamber in Britain, which has recently been discovered below Cheddar Gorge in Somerset."
Nicholas Packwood - On Candystripe Legs (Lullaby revisited)
I don't usually inflict my musical stylings on Flea readers but I figure I will indulge myself as it is the end of the year. It's a Cure cover, obviously. The video is edited together from Yevgeni Sherstobitov's Andromeda Nebula (1967).
December 29, 2012
RC Superman
"I was cycling with my buddy down PCH (Pacific Coast Highway) and during our casual conversation ... Superman flew by."
Justine Beaupré - Ingénieur du ciel
"Voici un petit film étudiant. C'est avec ce projet que je fini fièrement le programme d'animation 3D et synthèse d'image du Cégep du Vieux Montréal. J'ai tout fais sur ce film excepté la musique."
December 28, 2012
Half in the Bag - The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
The Red Letter Media guys consider Peter Jackson's latest foray into Middle Earth. The first half of their review focusses on The Hobbit as a "prequel" to The Lord of the Rings; the two of them have never read the books and it shows. They are right to point out Jackson's main problem: How to make a film which is both faithful to what is, after all, a children's book and makes sense in light of the later - epic - material he has already filmed? Where Half in the Bag thinks Jackson falls short, I believe Tolkien fans will find the film is more faithful to the story than the novel could be. Tolkien had to retcon - and gloss over - the details as Middle Earth grew in the telling; both Jackson and his audience have the benefit of hindsight.
The second half of the review concerns the technological innovations used in filming the latest instalment. Having seen The Hobbit once in traditional 2D, I now need to see it again in 3D at 48 fps. In video game production, we produce at 60 fps where processing power allows so it is not as though I am stuck on 24 fps. Having said that, the only appreciable difference I have noticed so far is jitter where in the past there would have been blur. We are used to latter, the former needs a technical fix rather than getting used to.
Foundation and satire
As a young man, Paul Krugman was inspired by Isaac Asimov's Foundation, later taking up economics as a means of saving humanity (from itself).
December 27, 2012
The Great Filter
"Many people would agree that it's more likely than not that we'll eventually do ourselves in. And in fact, some astrobiologists theorize that all advanced civilizations hit the same insurmountable developmental wall we have. They call it the Great Filter. It's a notion that's often invoked to explain why we've never been visited by extraterrestrials.
"But there is another possible reason for the celestial silence. Yes, the Great Filter exists, but we've already passed it."
Vocabulary builder: Bracewell probes.
Buckminster Fuller
The Playboy interview (pdf).
December 26, 2012
In Lieu of Red Tape
A petition to create by 2014 an independent Bureau of Sabotage as described by the author Frank Herbert. Amend Constitution if need be.
Related: More Whitehouse petition thingies.
Olympus BioScapes 2012
This year's winning scientific images captured with microscopes.
December 25, 2012
Flashmob Flash Mob Ode to Joy - Beethoven, Symphony No.9
Can you sense the Creator, world?
Seek him above the starry canopy.
Above the stars He must dwell.
Be embraced, Millions!
This kiss for all the world!
Brothers!, above the starry canopy
A loving father must dwell.
Can you sense the Creator, world?
Seek him above the starry canopy.
Above the stars He must dwell.
December 24, 2012
Naughty or nice
"Packwood" derives from the Saxon "Pacca's Wood", i.e. what the Cymri called "Pwca's Wood". Shakespeare called him Puck.
The Old English "puca" is a kind of half-tamed woodland sprite, leading folk astray with echoes and lights in nighttime woodlands (like the German and Dutch "Weisse Frauen" and "Witte Wieven" and the French "Dames Blanches," all "White Ladies"), or coming into the farmstead and souring milk in the churn.
In Finland, he is called Pukki; as Joulupukki, he is the Yule Goat (and enjoys goat for dinner).
There is a clear family resemblance to Krampus, a fae relation from the Alps responsible for dealing with the naughty part of the naughty or nice equation.
Judging by these festive illustrations, we have Pukki in Canada too; perhaps drawn to the Taiga and comfortable making their home in boreal forest. But here we call them Wendigo. August Derleth called the same creature Ithaqua.
Psalms 72:11
Whatever happened to frankincense and myrrh?
Accounting: "The Gospel of Matthew, the only one of the four Canonical gospels to mention the Magi, states that they came "from the east" to worship the Christ, "born King of the Jews." Although the account does not tell how many they were, the three gifts led to a widespread assumption that they were three as well. In the East, the magi traditionally number twelve."
Methuselah
"The oldest carbon-14-dated seed that has grown into a viable plant was a Judean date palm seed about 2,000 years old, recovered from excavations at Herod the Great's palace on Masada in Israel. It was germinated in 2005."
Noggin and the Ice Dragon (1982)
"SmallFilms' bleak and brilliant Norse tales focused on Noggin, King of the Nogs, of the Northlands and his endeavours to keep his wicked Uncle, Nogbad the Bad, from getting his hands on the throne of the Nogs. Instead of 'stories' we had 'sagas' to watch, in keeping with the Viking/Icelandic concept."
Packwood - Game Of Thrones Theme
Sydney folk act Packwood interpret the Game of Thrones theme. It's in the blood, apparently.
Also, Bats: Love this.
December 23, 2012
Lost Treasures of Tibet (2003)
"Mustang (moo-stahn), one of the last outposts of Tibetan culture, is so isolated and protected that no Westerner set foot inside its borders for centuries. But in the early 1990s, this untouched society set high in the Himalayas opened its borders for the first time, exposing an ancient world's dazzling sacred relics long damaged by the elements and neglect."
Secret Armenians
"The secret Armenians do not mingle with the other, 'open Armenians, of the active but dwindling community in Istanbul. Most don’t talk to strangers. Breaking taboos in Turkey can be deadly. After all, they remember what happened to Hrant Dink. Dink, an Armenian-Turkish journalist, was shot dead in Istanbul in 2007 by a young man, enraged by his unforgiving pen on controversial issues ranging from the Armenian Genocide to modern Turkey’s founding father, Kemal Atatürk."
Sea of Faith - Schopenhauer (1984)
The original pessimistic Western intellectual.
December 22, 2012
Chichen Itza Spring Equinox March 20, 2011
As opposed to the winter solstice.
The Shadow of the Equinox: What do.
Biblical relationships, so to speak
An interactive infographic mapping Zeus' relationships - "many with sisters, daughters, and aunts!" - as chronicled by Homer, Ovid, and a variety of other ancient pervs.
Knowledge, Networks and Nations
China is on course to overtake the United States in scientific output, possibly as soon as 2013.
Related observation: China is listening in on Skype, Microsoft assumes you approve.
Moe Charif - Human Revolution
This trailer for a fan-made Deus Ex short film shows what is no possible with home brew special effects.
Radiolaria
Radiolaria by Nervous System from Nervous System on Vimeo.
A bio-inspired design app (open in Chrome for best results).
Your digital designs can be turned into real-world jewelry, housewares, or decorations made from steel, bamboo, or felt.
December 21, 2012
Jacques Derrida elaborates on his use of the term "American"
I am not a fan of Derrida, even less so of Derridians, but like this observation. And I am pleased to learn Derrida would have thought I am being American when I bark "elaborate" at my students by way of suggestion.
Not sure I can handle this
Matt Stempeck of the MIT Media Lab created LazyTruth, a "Gmail gadget that surfaces verified debunks when you receive a chain email."
Is a man not entitled to the sweat of his brow?
"I am Ken Levine, Creative Director of BioShock and BioShock Infinite. AMA."
IGken Yes, but the backstory won't be about a collapse, because when you get there, the city is very much alive and kicking. I don't want to spoil anything, but I will say the past matters in a very serious way in this game. Shawn Elliott said that where the last game was about Archeology, this game is also about Anthropology, in other words, you get stories from both the living and the dead in Infinite.
Backgrounder: BioShock's critique of Ayn Rand and Objectivism.
Whereas I teach it as a primer.
December 20, 2012
Pong Reborn
"Here is the schematic diagram for the original arcade version of Pong, the first digital video game."
Kon-Tiki Making of
A VFX breakdown of ILP's computer generated scenes for Kon-Tiki, a film about Thor Heyerdal's 1947 Pacific expedition.
Octopus tool use
"A species of octopus has been found to use coconut shells as tools to hide from potential threats."
December 19, 2012
Stephan Zlotescu - True Skin (2012)
"Sexbots, a deadpan antihero, a creepy futuristic black market for implants and a psycho-cyborg cliffhanger all get crammed into True Skin, a dazzling sci-fi short that reportedly has Hollywood going nuts."
Apple's rectangle patent is the real joke
Amazon boss Jeff Bezos has recently patented a radical airbag system for mobile phones.
Just right
A planet has been discovered in a Goldilocks orbit around Tau Ceti.
December 18, 2012
Hobbit-worthy homes
In a hole in the ground there lived a Hobbit.
Related-worthy: The Middle Earth illustrators Tolkien approved of and the ones he did not.
Beer of thrones
"HBO is set to announce that it will team up with Brewery Ommegang, a Belgian-style brewery in Cooperstown N.Y., to create beers based on themes and characters in the fantasy series adapted from the novels by George R. R. Martin."
December 17, 2012
Animirus - About the Gods
"The Churning Of The Ocean is a Hindu myth. This is our own interpretation. You've been warned".
More boring lives at risk
"Samsung's Smart TV could used by hackers to watch everything that happens in your living room by gaining access to the device's built-in camera and microphones."
Welcome to PaleoPlanet
"I hope that together, we can turn this site into the best primitive technology site on earth."
In Conversation with Josephine Foster
"Josephine Foster is a powerful singer songwriter with an unearthly voice capable of transcending the listener into other realms. American in origin she has spent the last few years in southern Spain soaking up flamenco music and almost forgotten Spanish folk songs. Planning to reunite herself with her American roots this video captures her at the tail end of her Spanish excursion."
December 16, 2012
Christopher Hitchens - God Is Not Great
Chapter 9 - The Koran is borrowed from both Jewish and Christian myths.
December 15, 2012
Vice - Aokigahara: Suicide Forest (2009)
"The Aokigahara Forest is the most popular site for suicides in Japan. After the novel Kuroi Jukai was published, in which a young lover commits suicide in the forest, people started taking their own lives there at a rate of 50 to 100 deaths a year. The site holds so many bodies that the Yakuza pays homeless people to sneak into the forest and rob the corpses. The authorities sweep for bodies only on an annual basis, as the forest sits at the base of Mt. Fuji and is too dense to patrol more frequently."
December 14, 2012
Death Star 2016
"A petition calling on the United States to begin construction of a moon-sized superweapon has achieved 25,000 signatures, which according to the rules of the Obama administration's feel-good bullshit platform We the People, requires a response from the White House. None has yet been made."
December 13, 2012
Quatermass II - Episode 1 - The Bolts (1955)
"Quatermass II is a British science-fiction serial, originally broadcast by BBC Television in the autumn of 1955. It is the second in the Quatermass series by writer Nigel Kneale, and the first of those serials to survive in its entirety in the BBC archives. It is also the earliest surviving complete British science-fiction television production."
Quatermass 2 (1957)
Based on the television serial Quatermass II by Nigel Kneale.
December 12, 2012
Star Maidens - Episode 1, Escape to Paradise (1975)
A 1975 British-German co-production, based on an idea by Jost Graf von Hardenberg (sic).
Exploring Tomorrow (1957-1958)
Exploring Tomorrow was a radio series of the Mutual Broadcasting System from December 4, 1957 until June 13, 1958 hosted by the legendary John W. Campbell Jr.
Episode summaries at the second link; episodes at the first.
December 11, 2012
The Changes - Episode 1 "The Noise" (1975)
"The Changes is a British children's science fiction television serial filmed in 1973 and first broadcast in 1975 by the BBC. It was directed by John Prowse. It is based on the trilogy written by Peter Dickinson: The Weathermonger (1968), Heartsease (1969) and The Devil's Children (1970)."
Zeitgesit related: Rick McGinnis.
I can't speak to to what the producers were thinking, if anything, by way of making a point but it is worth noting the Establishment Marxism of the mid-1970s was - shockingly - a good deal less polemical than today's BBC. It's also important to understand that the The Changes is part of the same tradition as Quatermass; creepy, creepy stuff. Such is children's entertainment in England. But then, even the must unsettling strains of British weird fiction don't compare to some of today's fantasy-as-public policy.
Marx was a technological determinist. Industrialization, and the social forms that arose with it, presented serious problems, yes, but they were also what dragged us up out of feudalism. To Marx, this was a good thing. What most self-styled Marxists failed to notice is that socialism happened more or less on time and as predicted; it's just that it happened under FDR in the United States and not, first, in London as anticipated. And communism, by Marx's definition, looks a lot like what you find at an Apple store (pace the famous 1984 ad). So, thanks internet, mass customization, and a more and more broadly distributed ownership of the means of production made possible by technological progress and authentic revolutionaries like Steve Jobs. About the only thing Marx would have approved of at an Occupy demo would be the iPhones.
To a British Marxist of the 1970s, even one made stupid by the so called cultural Marxism of the Frankfurt School (via Raymond Williams and the rest of British Cultural Studies), smashing machinery in a fit of moronic Luddite mass hysteria would be a sign of madness; a story for scaring children. To today's aristocratic, decadent and nihilist "left", the product of our elite schools allied with a rape cult from the Dark Ages and preaching Chicken Little as science, it is a program of action.
Heimlich, all too heimlich
"In a hauntological literature, the future isn’t the problem. It’s that the past never stops coming to get us."
December 10, 2012
Born and bred in Brooklyn, the U.S.A.
When I think of real New Yorkers, I think of Irish and Italians born and raised in Brooklyn (via Five Feet of Fury).
George R.R. Martin
“Trying to please everyone is a horrible mistake.”
December 07, 2012
The Testament of Dr. Mabuse (1933)
"The Testament of Dr. Mabuse (German: Das Testament des Dr. Mabuse) is a 1933 German crime film directed by Fritz Lang. The movie is a sequel to Lang's silent film Dr. Mabuse the Gambler (1922) and features many cast and crew members from Lang's previous films. The film features Rudolf Klein-Rogge as Dr. Mabuse who is in an insane asylum where he is found frantically writing his crime plans."
Law enforcement and the police
What have you learned as a police officer about life and society that most people don't know or underestimate?
Via AoSHQ.
Langniðiar
Two professors in Norway assert that English is a Scandinavian language, a North Germanic rather than a West Germanic one (via Quotulatiousness).
December 06, 2012
Falco Ossifracus
“As he spoke he pleasantly indicated a ladder dripping with ichor, whatever that is, and bordered by encrustations of nitre. I most wish now I’d made this a poem.”
December 05, 2012
Bartzabel Working
Last night in Venice Beach, the spirit of Mars was evoked through the vessel of James Franco. Ray Bradbury was meant to be propitiated, somehow.
For his reinterpretation of this historical performance, Butler will conjure Bartzabel, the spirit of Mars, evoking the site that was once home to the late sci-fi author Ray Bradbury and currently comprises L&M Arts. The ritual will have Butler as Chief Magus, leading a cast drawn from his upcoming feature film King Death and featuring Henry Hopper as Assistant Magus, Noot Seear as Magus Adjuvant, and James Franco as Material Basis, the vessel though which the spirit of Mars manifests.
Russian prison tattoos
"Far from a motley collection of meaningless drawings and letters, each tattoo has its own meaning and, to those who know, can be read like a curriculum vitae of the bearer's gangland past."
December 04, 2012
Ronnie the Bren Gun Girl
"Veronica Foster, popularly known as 'Ronnie, the Bren Gun Girl', was a Canadian icon representing nearly one million Canadian women who worked in the manufacturing plants that produced munitions and materiel during World War II. Foster worked for John Inglis Co. Ltd producing Bren light machine guns on a production line on Strachan Avenue in Toronto, Ontario."
And, more than fifty years later, still the hottest thing you are going to see today. She's dancing at the link.
Prisoner of gravity
There are mornings when Kylie looks in the mirror and sees gravity has taken hold. I know the feeling.
Glabella
And twenty-two other words we should use more frequently (hat tip to Alexei).
December 03, 2012
Turritopsis dohrnii
"After more than 4,000 years — almost since the dawn of recorded time, when Utnapishtim told Gilgamesh that the secret to immortality lay in a coral found on the ocean floor — man finally discovered eternal life in 1988."
December 01, 2012
Orchestrion
"An iPod’s the same thing as a giant two-ton orchestrion 100 years ago, except you can put it in your pocket and enjoy whatever you want to hear."
Like all pure creatures, cats are practical
Portraits of writers with pets.