I’ve been cruising the internet for video of women’s volleyball and came across this wonderful synopsis of the Japan vs. USSR game during the ‘64 Olympic Games in Tokyo. The editing is quite good, and wonderfully conveys the tension of the competition. There are some amazing plays in there, but what amazes me most is how the Japanese are serving. I’ve never seen anything quite like that over the shoulder sideways hit before.
If you haven’t had the pleasure of watching Sita Sings the Blues, then I recommend it highly. It is animated as beautifully as 10,000 lotuses.
More importantly, it is being made available under a Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike license by Nina Paley, who directed, wrote, produced, designed and animated it. She’s even gone into considerable debt to cover the licensing fees so that the movie can be made available, so don’t forget to swing by the film’s Dontate page.
The story itself is a mashup of a modern drama and the Ramayana. Here’s the synopsis:
Sita is a goddess separated from her beloved Lord and husband Rama. Nina is an animator whose husband moves to India, then dumps her by email. Three hilarious shadow puppets narrate both ancient tragedy and modern comedy in this beautifully animated interpretation of the Indian epic Ramayana. Set to the 1920’s jazz vocals of Annette Hanshaw, Sita Sings the Blues earns its tagline as “the Greatest Break-Up Story Ever Told.”
Over at BLDGBLOG Geoff Manaugh writes in “Inhaling 9/11” about the broad range of toxins inhaled by NYC residents during and since 9/11, and what has rained back down on the surrounding area to enter the soil and waterways. Reflecting on the amount of dangerous material [understatement] released into the air as the buildings were pulverized, Manaugh asks,
“Were different and earlier forms of pulverized architecture somehow safer to breathe? In fact, if I can be excused a brief moment of contextually inappropriate speculation, would it be possible to impregnate buildings with good things – with good chemicals: with vitamins and medicines and even seeds – so that future 9/11s release beneficial plumes and so that the inhalation of architectural smoke is no longer catastrophic?”
A thought-provoking question to say the least, seeing as how - in the end - don’t all buildings fall down either by design or by accident?
Image courtesy of slagheap on Flickr
While reading this month’s issue of Print, or some magazine of similar content, an article about the new kids’ show Yo Gabba Gabba caught my eye. Not being a kid, or even having any can be a huge disadvantage, particularly when it comes to keeping up with cool stuff - and this show looks pretty cool, which is why I’m just now hearing about it.
With the vibrant colors, high-energy songs, regular appearances by Biz Markie and Mark Mothersbaugh, and guest appearances by the likes of Tonk Hawk, The Aquabats, and the Paul Frank Monkey I can only imagine the uber-generation of future designers, marketers, and entertainers that are being brought up on this show right now.
It looks like a beautiful show. Thankfully, there’s YouTube to fill in the gaps for us oldbies:
Yo Gabba Gabba intro
The Party in My Tummy song
An appearance by the Aquabats
Death Proof is going in my book as the most entertaining chick-flick of all time, and my new favorite movie - hands down. Mind you, that I am not a huge Quentin Tarantino fan either - well I was until Sin City. I only wish now that I had gone to see it in the theater.
I won’t divulge any details for those who haven’t seen it yet, save saying that the story is skillfully told and unencumbered by excess baggage.
Image courtesy of florestan on flickr
15 Excellent Examples of Web Typography - a collection of sites displaying informed treatment of type, collected by ilovetypography - another really great site. Yes, I know everyone is linking to this today but it is really good, so I am too.
Projekttriangle Design Studio - Work by a German graphic design studio. Beautiful.
Black Box Sculpt Studio - a Second Life in-world sculptie editor.
Particle Wizard - Create particle systems for Second Life without all the scripting. Buy in-world on Horowitz
Magento - Open source ecommerce solution for the web. Demo.
The Classic Mojo Shirt - from bearskinrug.co.uk. Because everyone needs an under enthused monkey hero.
Aside from having the coolest name, Human Brain Cloud is an insidiously addictive word association game that gratifies the information-lover in all of us by displaying results as an interactive word map. I guarantee that if you try it you won’t be able to stop…
The game, the visualization, and interesting stats.
Oskope is a visual search tool that searches Flickr, Amazon, YouTube, and Ebay (though I couldn’t get the Ebay search to return anything). While searching Flickr I fist searched for images tagged Second Life and found a few really great images. As you can see below, my results were displayed in a pile that I could interact with and move around (and zoom in and out on). Fortunately, I was able to create an oSkope account and save those great images for later use.
The different search result views are really what make this an interesting interface. Next I searched for coffee, and decided to display the results on a grid. It is much easier to see all the results this way (duh).
The most interesting search I did was on Amazon for graphics tablets. I displayed these results on a graph by price and sales rank. Of course, there is some resolution lost on the accuracy of sales rank in this view, but for an overall view it is a faster way to evaluate results.
There are two things that I initially think would make this search better. The first - it really needs to be faster. The interface seems to hang occasionally which is frustrating. I’d also like to see the licensing information returned with the Flickr photos. It would be a good way to search for Creative Commons-licensed photos.
Results of searching Flickr for the tag SecondLife, displayed in a pile. I saved a few of the images in My Folder. Too bad I can’t create more than one folder for different searches
Search results from Flickr on the tag coffee, displayed in a pile
The same search displayed as a grid
A Search of Amazon for the term “graphics tablet”, this time displayed on a graph.
For a number of months now I have been using Dark Firefox, a custom about:blank style. Used in conjunction with the Stylish plugin it replaces the basic blank about:blank page with a dark screen and blue Firefox logo. Very sharp, imho, and that’s why I like it. The problem is that when ever I encounter a web site that uses a javascript wysiwyg text editor, that about:blank page is used for the background of the editing window - and when it is, editing text is impossible.
To fix this I created a new about:blank style, Arctic Firefox, that is lighter while still maintaining the firefox logo goodness.
To install this you will first need to:
Now every time you open a new tab you’ll see your custom about:blank page (assuming you have new tabs configured to open a blank page).
SkreemR - An MP3 search engine that has returned some interesting podcasts.
BM Custom WordPress Login Plugin - Create your own unique login screen for your WordPress installation. View Examples.
Name that Color - a color selector that returns the nearest named color swatch from a swatch you select from a spectrum. If nothing else it is a mildly entertaining way to find a little color inspiration. The author gathered the color names from places like Wikipedia, Crayola, and Color-Name Dictionaries like Resene.
Fall is here (in Alaska at least), and one of the great comfort foods of fall is zucchini. The Urban Vegan has posted a list 50 ways to stuff zucchini and all of them sound yummy. If my mom reads this she will fall off her chair - as a child I hated zucchini with a passion.
This site is maintained by Christen Bouffard, who began life as Christen Booth. Much has happened since that time - Star Wars, pleated jeans, air soles, Pong, Pearl Jam, GPS navigation, mega-churches, SUVs, and ranting on the internet about things no one cares for. I've been rolling my eyes most of my life.
Content on this site not credited to others is available for reuse under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License. For more information about Creative Commons, please visit the web site.