Need a costume for tonight? In a pinch, going as Google Image Search seems relatively easy, but you'll probably need body armor or a helmet to stave off the inevitable beating. ¶
How to survive a robot uprising. I want it. This book will be essential in helping us deal with the future robot rebellion. ¶
Here's a weird sys-admin story about a statistics department that couldn't send email more than 500 miles. It would definitely be one of those tech-support calls that you choke on. ¶
An introduction to visual math. For those unfamiliar with the likes of golden ratios and the Mandelbrot sets. ¶
A physicist has shown that when you get a wobbly table at a restaurant, it's pretty much a given that you can rotate the table so it's no longer unstable. Research courtesty of the great minds at CERN. ¶
Start a chain reaction, another one of those flash games that seems innocuous at first but becomes hard to let go (via cyn-c). ¶
Advertising for the sake of advertising, learning from Times Square. "It has become its own entity; an attraction in its own right. Who cares what its selling?" ¶
We have loads of new Seal Club action coming at you. First off, a quick redesign. Got rid of the old look in favour of a cleaner, whiter layout. The page is now entirely swathed in Garamondy goodness or some other serif font.
Now for the fresh meat. Two new interviews for 5Q: Naz Hamid of Absenter and Joen Asmussen of NoScope. They’re fairly short and won’t take too long to read. While we’re on the subject here’s a quick visual recap of the five interviews so far:
That is all.
Introducing my latest plugin for wordpress: myStatus. It allows you to create a simple personal status page to let the world know what you're working on. ¶
A RetroScope is kind of like a personal security camera on a time-delay. Setup a video camera, tivo it, watch yourself 10 minutes later. Sounds like a good party trick. ¶
Hey kids, if you're a fan of the erasure vintage look and want to help out an artist in need, check out Tiphanie's artworks on the cheap. She was nice enough to help me out on the first new conform series last year (image 16). I ordered one of her Luminary Bliss prints. ¶
The last month or so has been an interesting one for the site. I started the redesign about a month ago and it’s still going strong. This time around, it’s not just about looks, most of my efforts have been concerned with structure; thinking about how people visit the site and ways to keep them around. It’s not easy. If you’re really interested, read the change log. The site will never be finished but this layout should stabilize within the next few weeks, I still haven’t figured out how Michael is actually quantifying his progress.
Despite my best efforts at becoming a structural whore, eightface has managed to pop-up on the radar of a few CSS gallery sites — most notably, CSS Beauty, Design Shack and Fadtastic. So, hello to all the new visitors and thanks for the constructive comments and feedback. I’ve made a few changes a result, namely toning down the grunge on some of the headers.
A few people have mentioned their love/hate of the grunge stylings. I’m inclined to agree that a lot of the grunge and erasure sites popping up are a direct response to the austere 37 Signals school of design that we see so much of these days. And yes, it is a fad. One of those things that floats across the internet every few years. Usually in response to an outpouring of corporate work and people wanting to do different things with their personal sites. The vintage, worn look is very forgiving and has been one of my staples since the days of Photoshop 4 on the family P90.
Stanford iTunes has a number of lectures, music and videos available for download. ¶
The rash of lawsuits against Google are hurting new authors, rather than helping them. ¶
The top 10 ways to destroy the earth. One day someone very smart was very bored. There are some pretty creative methods here. ¶
The Star calls bullshit on the New York Times for their review of the recent Broken Social Scene album. The problem is that the review spends a lot of time talking about the band's Montreal roots, which is great, considering they're from Toronto. ¶
We have another short interview up at Seal Club. This one is 5 questions with Khoi Vinh of subtraction. Featuring screams of terror, penguins and grain embargoes. ¶
Time picks the 100 greatest novels since 1923. I've read 15 of them, so it looks like there are still a few to chew through. ¶
I needed something new for my desktop, was starting to get sick of the photo that was there. Of course the results are posted here for your pleasure.
The image links to the file on flickr. I also have two versions available here: 1024px and 1280px. Made use of the second brush set from the howiezine site, mostly for the arrows and dots. It took 3-7 hours depending on how you feel like counting time.
You should go download Raiding the 20th Century, an hour long mashup by DJ Food covering some of music's best. ¶
A list of presidents of the Royal Society from the 1660s to present. ¶
The NYTimes is running an article about life hackers. This quote sums it up perfectly, “Information is no longer a scarce resource - attention is”. A large portion of my HCI classes were spent discussing how to notify people without actually interrupting them (aka attentive user interfaces / more). It’ll end up being one of the larger problems facing the computer industry for at least the next 10 years.
We’ve reached a threshold in terms of information availabily and devices to interact with that information; be it iPods, cellphones, laptops, whatever. What we need are devices that work for us. A microwave is pretty convenient, but wouldn’t life be a lot easier if your frozen dinner had an embedded RFID chip that told the microwave exactly how to cook it? What about that punk kid on a skateboard listening to music? Should you hit him with your car, or have it send a message to his iPod? The ability to invade music devices probably isn’t that smart, but you get the idea.
Watch this video about the origin of CTRL-ALT-DEL. Apparently, it was supposed to be a developer's tool, akin to an easter egg. The look on Bill Gates' face is priceless. ¶
A list of the 20 best license-free official fonts. Vitaly also suggests visiting Gerrit's site for direction on more great finds. ¶
Holy shelf unit, Batman! You know you want one. ¶
A list of good wines available for under $10. Three of the seven reds are from Spain. Coincidence? No, now go buy your Spanish wines. (via) ¶
Guided by Voices may be done, but Robert Pollard doesn't seem to have slowed down. ¶
Build your own sextant without electrical tools. All you need is a CD, some label paper, a mirror and some Lego pieces. ¶
I want a Boomtune mini. It's essentially a tripod shaped set of speakers to use with your iPod Shuffle. ¶
The time has come for me to write a book. Yes, you heard me correctly and no, it’s not crazy talk. The reason: Seth sent me an email about the NaNoWriMo challenge. I was going to dump it in the trash, but the brain started ticking away. Basically, it involves writing 50,000 words over the month of November. I remember Wes trying to do it a few years ago. It’s doable if you break it up in managable chunks.
I haven’t done too much on the creative writing side of things since my tenure at Golden Words ended a year and a half ago. So, there’s no point half-assing things with a few short stories, may as well dive right in.
There’s a large community aspect to the challenge (if you’re into the workshopping sort of thing). I probably won’t do too much of that, it’ll be hard enough for me to avoid distractions long enough to pump out a few thousand words every day.
This announcement is mostly to prevent me from jumping out of the frying pan before this shindig gets started. Now, I need to finish off some work that pays the bills. Stay tuned for further details.
Here's an that Kurt Vonnegut did with Washington Post. Registration might be required but you can get around that by using Google News. Vonnegut has considered suing cigarette companies because he's still breathing after years of smoking unfiltered Pall Malls. ¶
This video shows you one way to fold a shirt. The technique isn't intuitive but it ends up producing a nice looking fold. ¶
Take a guess at who's going to be the next Bond. Got it? Were you thinking Daniel Craig? That's right, the new Bond will destroy you. ¶
The second 5Q interview for Seal Club is up, featuring Michael Heilemann of Binary Bonsai. ¶
Apparently, Nintendo is (or will be) running this commercial (4mb mov) for the Gameboy Micro here in Canada. It appears to be the work of QMG. The ad directs viewers towards Too Much Fun, but there’s only a place-holder page that redirects you to the main Nintendo page.
Some may say it’s a bit risque for Nintendo, but I’d just say it’s just something you’d usually see in another market (like parts of Europe). I was watching actual television over the Thanksgiving holiday, and found that Canadian commericals were becoming bearable for a change. There was a point not long ago, when most of them seemed like they were created by the drooling 3-year old nephew of an advertising exec.
Here's a list of muscians that blog, so you can find out who's cooler than you. ¶
The British Library has 14 books available to read online, including one of Leondardo's notebooks and the original Alice. ¶
The LA Times is running a story about a remote Chinese village that was on the fast track to become an internet hub but its patron dropped dead. If you can beyond "hyperlink" in the title, it's an interesting story from an education and IT perspective . Maybe a nice quiet place to hold your next conference? ¶
News.com has released another Top 100 blog list, helping us to cut through the crap on the internet by adding yet another portal that tells us boing boing, engadget and kottke are sleeping with the root servers. ¶
Prada has has opened a shoe store in the middle of the Texas desert, read the press release. You're probably dying to know what it looks like, here are some photos. ¶
A number of things happened on this day in history, one of which was me wanting to get out of my mother early. That's would also be the reason I know the exact date Egyptian President Anwar Sadat was assassinated. It probably helped get me started on the obsessive trivia kick. ¶
Jason Gaylor makes sets of high-resolution worn brushes for photoshop: part I, part II, part III. More useful for print design than web. ¶
I’ve been taking a few photos with a Canon Eos Rebel G, on loan from my brother Pete (who’s headed to med-school in Bristol). I haven’t used film in awhile, but the lcd on my digitial camera is broken so I’m shooting blind either way. At least you get a lot of control with the SLR. The downside is the cost of developing, although they’re trying to remain competitve with digital and offering up photo cds with you prints. Anyway, here’s a funny shot from a black and white roll that I just received back from processing.
High winds from the tail-end of a hurricane brought down some trees around here last week. Apparently the car was a rental, I can just imagine how the phone-call with the agency must have gone. Also check out this photo of a man on a bike and some graffiti.
Snakes on a Plane starring Samuel L. Jackson will be hitting theatres next summer. If that's still the title, there's no way I can avoid seeing the movie, it has to be done. Visit this weblog for the latest news. ¶
What happens when you combine Sodoku and Flickr? That's right Sudoku with hamsters (or any other pictures that you want to use). ¶
Type the answer to life, the universe and everything into Google for an easter egg. ¶
A Japanese school-girl was attacked by an assailant who lopped off 20cm of her hair. Apparently the man was thin and dressed entirely in black. Police suspect a resurgence in the ancient art of ninja hairstyling. ¶
I’ve been working on a number of web-based projects lately, some that pay, some that don’t. At this moment, I’d like to officially announce one of those projects: Seal Club, a small art and design group. It’s not an agency or anything like that, just a few people that like to make pretty pictures. Really, it’s been operating for a few weeks now but we haven’t been promoting it. There have been some hints around here, namely the Conform Project domain redirecting to Seal Club and the del.icio.us feed in my links.
The site is essentially an old-school ftp-style design site, glued together with a bunch of new tools. We all used to be members of art groups in the pre-y2k web (Swanky, Suffocate) and have some desire to relive those days. Mostly, it’s the motivation of having other people to kick you in the ass when you’re not getting anything done. Everything is done by hand via ftp with some efforts to stay standards compliant. We use del.icio.us to help us maintain our lists or links within the site and the forum is powered by flickr.
Alanah and I went to see Serenity yesterday. Overall it's a great scifi B-movie although Wheadon messed around with some of the elements that made the tv show so great (Wes elaborates), I was satisfied. There's also a comic miniseries, but I haven't had a chance to read it. ¶
For the Lost fans, here's one plausible theory for the numbers. ¶
I watched the pilot of Everybody Hates Chris (imdb) not really knowing what to expect. It doesn't matter, the show is damned funny, probably one of the funniest on television right now The episode isn't available on Google video anymore, but it shouldn't be too hard to find. ¶
October is upon us, which means Halloween is just around the corner. If you're looking to have the meanest pumpkin on the block, check out Curse of the Zombie Pumpkins! Ryan even has stencils up with characters from Corpse Bride. ¶
There's an XSLT Roundup at Particletree. It's one of those things I should probably start looking into sooner rather than later. ¶
©1998–2008 dave kellam
