Videographer: Commissioned artist and friend of Eyebeam, Jason Jones of Not An Alternative
Videographer: Commissioned artist and friend of Eyebeam, Jason Jones of Not An Alternative
Videographer: Commissioned artist and friend of Eyebeam, Jason Jones of Not An Alternative
Videographer: Commissioned artist and friend of Eyebeam, Jason Jones of Not An Alternative
Videographer: Commissioned artist and friend of Eyebeam, Jason Jones of Not An Alternative
Videographer: Commissioned artist and friend of Eyebeam, Jason Jones of Not An Alternative
Videographer: Commissioned artist and friend of Eyebeam, Jason Jones of Not An Alternative
Videographer: Commissioned artist and friend of Eyebeam, Jason Jones of Not An Alternative
CNN has a photo gallery from an annual competition held every year in Tokyo in which sumo wrestlers hold babies and face off in an attempt to make them bawl.
For some reason, I doubt these guys will catch as much flak as the amazing photographer Jill Greenberg did for giving and then taking away candy from little kids to make them cry. Link (Thanks, John!)
crying babies, anio. sumo wrastlin babies, haiii! --ES
Why just have signs over the highway? Joe at Arizona State University thinks that horizontal wind turbines might zip around from the turbulence created from cars and trucks. Those cyclists who have tried drafting behind transport trucks know that there is quite a bit of suction there, more than enough to spin these turbines. Joe says "Average vehicle speeds on the valley highways are approximately 70 mph. Using average annual wind speeds of 10 mph as a baseline, each single wind turbine will produce 9,600KwH of energy, annually (enough to fully power my 700 s.f. apartment). This power production estimate will increase exponentially with an increase in wind...
reclaiming a very american source of energy expenditure. how un-american! anyway, good idea... --ES
Yesterday I attended a talk on authorship including a presentation by net artist and theorist Alok Nandi, who was one of the developers of the web version of the French-language graphic novel Les Cites Obsures, developed in the 1990s, which looks like a very beautiful and compelling hypertext narrative/art project. A community developed around the project, with many readers contributing original artwork, drawings and animations.
direct link here. --ES
Update: James sez "I really enjoyed the C64 theme. Here's another done Unix style."
makes me want to start a zork blog. --ES
The movie industry, which nowadays depends as much on DVD sales as on box-office receipts, still seems to think that making life difficult for its customers is a recipe for success.The editorial goes on to promote AudibleMagic's "audio fingerprinting" scheme as an answer, citing YouTube's proposal to use software to catch infringe ing user-generated content. This idea isn't totally bankrupt (though swallowing the self-interested claims of firms like AudibleMagic is pretty credulous of the Economist), but only if the technology is used to figure out how to pay artists -- not to stop music from flowing on the Internet.After likewise shooting itself in the foot for ages, the record industry is now falling over itself to abandon DRM (digital rights management) on CDs. A number of online music stores such as eMusic, Audio Lunchbox and Anthology have given up using DRM altogether. In a recent survey by Jupiter Research, two out of three music industry executives in Europe reckoned that dropping DRM would improve sales.
A blanket licensing scheme -- you pay a collecting society, they pay artists, you get the right to file-share using any protocol, file-format and software -- needs a bunch of ways to figure out who gets paid what. There are a lot of ways to measure the popularity of music online, including audio fingerprinting, Neilsen-style sample families, and anonymous monitoring of P2P networks. Some weighting scheme agreed upon by all the stakeholders could ensure that artists get paid when their music gets shared.
But systems like AudibleMagic are no good when it comes to enforcing a ban on file-sharing. These systems can't detect all infringement, can't tell the difference between infringement and fair use, and sometimes block non-infringing works.
In other words, audio fingerprinting is useful as part of a system to allow file-sharing, but useless as part of a system to stop file-sharing. Link (Thanks, John!)
For a relatively inexpensive trip down memory lane (or the memory lane belonging to and underappreciated by your parents), Fredflare offers several models of retro 35mm and medium format cameras with fun features that might unlock reserves of cheesy creativity you didn't even know you had. They're made of lightweight plastic and aim to charm you with their old tricks, as well as all the modern features they lack.
The LOMO Oktomat 8 lens camera, which sells for $40, lets you shoot 8 photos in rapid succession so that you can make a tiny photo vignette like the one above. There's no built-in flash, but these would be a fun alternative to those disposable cameras provided at some parties (proms, weddings, Bat Mitzvahs) for guests to snap photos of one another.
The LOMO fish eye camera sells for $50, and creates those distorted, dizzying fish eye images that you've been missing all these years. This one has a flash, and runs on one AA battery.
One more after the jump.
Lastly, there's the Holga medium format camera which sells as part of a starter kit for $70. The built-in flash operates on two AA batteries, and the kit contains a 120 film roll, opaque tape, batteries, and instruction manual. This one is modelled after the classic medium format cameras of old, and includes a color flash, a long exposure option, and a feature that allows you to shoot multiple exposures in a single frame.
I personally want the retro Oktomat camera for my next trip to the beach, and I'll carry it around in a 1970s retro plastic tote bag with big fat daisies on them (know where I can get one of those?)
evan's goal: to get kevin costner to send him a photo of kevin costner reading evan's blog. using any and all tools at his disposal. --ES
Evil hamsters are almost as "terrizing" as the LOLGAY gebrils: Link.
elegant, spare, emotive. i give it two gold stars. --ES
WillPate : 0.2% could make or break your community
jimray : Helpful distortion - Design is knowing what not to include as much as what to include. In the case of subway maps, is it more important to know how the tracks actually bend - or to know how to get from one place to another.
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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!
"Experts are 'lost for words' to have found that a medieval prayer book has yielded yet another key ancient text buried within its parchment." ...get it? 'lost for words'? --ES
There are tons of DIY wallet projects, so it's time for a project contest from Instructables. Eric writes -
You've told us over and over, and we finally got the message: DIY Wallets are hot.
Wallet made from a computer keyboard
Paper Wallet
quality duct tape wallet
the Ultimate Duct Tape Wallet
Tyvek FedEx Wallet with Change Pocket
and a whole bunch more...
So, we're holding a 5-day Wallet Challenge. Make a wallet, share it on Instructables, and you could win a beta Eye-fi Eye-Film. These SD cards are 802.11g wifi enabled and will upload your pictures directly to some of the major photo sharing and storage services (check out the forum post about them here).
Since this is a short challenge, we're going to judge the Instructables based on their rating and pageviews.
Delicious is looking for a skilled C++ developer of exceptional ability to help shape the next version of our website. If you are fluent in C++, enjoy solving difficult puzzles and welcome the chance to work on a large distributed system that millions of users use everyday, I want to hear from you.
Abe Taha, Engineering Manager
Delicious Backend Team
wow, del.icio.us is totally a bunch of dudes. go figure. --ES
McCloud is the author of the incredible Understanding Comics and the inspiring Making Comics, and I'm always up for whatever he's made.
The Flash UI for this is genuinely novel, cool, and improves the art. I generally hate Flash on websites, but this is an exception.
Link (Thanks, ginohn!)
The Right Number was originally presented in June 2003 using a micropayments system offered by a company called Bitpass, sold for 25 cents each. Since Bitpass ceased operations in January 2007, I'm offering Parts One and Two for free now.Part Three was delayed due to severe hand strain problems on my part a few years ago and delayed again when I began work on my recent book, Making Comics. I do still hope to finish the third and final chapter and make it available at some point in the future. Part Three will also be offered free through this page. (Sorry for the delay!)"
Even without musical sense, Raphael's program is opening new musical possibilities. Jan Beran, a composer and statistician at the University of Constance in Germany, wrote several oboe solos with piano accompaniment especially for Raphael's system.Link to Science News, Link to Christopher Raphael's site with audio examples
Raphael has performed the pieces with his system. He says that he doesn't think that those pieces could be played with a live accompanist.
The rhythmic interplays are so complex that performers can't handle them, he says. For example, one piece contains many sections where one musician plays 7 notes while the other plays 11. "Human players say, 'I'll play my 7, you play your 11, and let's shoot for where we come out together,'" Raphael says. "But the program can tell at any place in the middle of this complicated polyrhythm exactly where it needs to be."
With music this complicated, Raphael says, the software takes on a peculiar leadership role even though it does nothing but follow. "From the very first rehearsal, it understands the way the parts fit together and sort of teaches you this," he explains.
thus ushering in a whole new age of computer-written music reviews. i can't wait --ES
[Image: A picture of the wall being built around the Sunni neighborhood of Adhamiyah in Baghdad. Photo via France 24.]
a great read, despite such hyperintellectual phrases as "emanating from severe fractures and tensions in the tectonic integrity of neoliberalist expansion".
how much have we heard about people building walls lately? much too much. --ES
Mexico City | April 24
CBC - Elected politicians in Mexico City voted Tuesday to allow women in the first three months of pregnancy to have abortions in the city.
The proposed legislation, approved by a vote of 46-19 with one abstention, would only apply within the capital, but it would mean women can travel to Mexico City to get legal abortions. It is expected to take effect with the signing by the federal district's leftist mayor. Abortion opponents, however, have already vowed to appeal the law to the Supreme Court.
The law would require city hospitals to provide the procedure, but would also open the way for private abortion clinics. Legislators who framed the bill said that girls under 18 would have to get the consent of their parents. Abortion after 12 weeks would be punished by three to six months in jail.
A familiar image, no? Let’s take a closer look:
Those cans comprise a total of 106,000, the number of cans used in the U.S. every thirty seconds.
Photographer artist Chris Jordan takes an artistic look at “the accumulated detritus of our consumption”. I remember visiting his site last year for his exhibit Intolerable Beauty: Portraits of American Mass Consumption, but since then he’s added a new exhibit Running the Numbers: An American Self Portrait which is just as fascinating and uncomfortable to look at. Jordan’s critical lens captures a rather frightening look at how we live our lives in such a seemingly disposable world, and I can only imagine how they must impact the viewer who sees them in person as large-format prints.
chris jordan's latest press release is really making the rounds. for the new yorkers out there: "Chris's work is now represented by the Von Lintel Gallery in New York (www.vonlintel.com). Von Lintel will exhibit the "Running the Numbers" series this year from June 14 through the end of July." see you there. --ES
AP - An early-morning bank customer had a bit of a shock when he found a horse at the automatic teller machine.
the lynchian photo alone makes this reblog-worthy. if only it was a white horse. --ES
This title of this blurb from Popular Mechanics 1954 is "Elaborate mechanism works and works to do nothing well" - but goes on to say it's a flying saucer detector. I wonder where it is now - Link.
at first i thought the post was about reblog. ha! i kill me. thanks for having me here folks, no, seriously. --ES
Eric knew from the age of 8 that he was destined to become an architect, and after an architectural education and 3 years of professional practice, he realized that eight-year-olds aren't always as smart as they think they are. Since that time, he has earned a Master's degree from ITP @ NYU, been an Eyebeam Prodution Fellow, produced new media art and installations, taught at NYU, Pratt, and elsewhere, worked for web shops and startups, and is now making games at New York-based Gamelab.
As the Financial Times explained:
Elsewhere, sudden transformations of the earth's surface, as a result of mudslides, floods, volcanic eruptions, and other topographical catastrophes, can make existing maps obsolete within seconds. 
[Image: Alpine geothermics; illustration by Rödl & Partner].
[Image: The hexagonal wooden islands of Vicente Guallart]. 
[Image: Olympia Crater, Mars; courtesy of NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell]. 
[Images: Concrete barriers (with no connection to Baghdad)]. If you spend any time at all observing net culture, then you'll have been unable to miss the recent explosion in popularity of lolcats. This relatively recent phenomenon is the convention of taking pictures of cute animals, most frequently cats, and overlaying absurdist captions on the images.
The core behavior has existed for some time; "Image macro" is a generic term for this kind of folk art, and cats have always featured heavily in these types of Internet in-jokes. But a few distinct categories have sprung up that have helped amplify and popularize the phenomenon.
The rise of these new subspecies of lolcats are particularly interesting to me because "I can has cheezeburger?" has a fairly consistent grammar. I wasn't sure this was true until I realized that it's possible to get cat-speak wrong.
Incorrect kitty pidgin jumped to my attention the first time I saw a reference to Dune being used with a lolcat image. The caption on the linked version of the image, "The spice must flow." is fine, if not particularly cat-like. But the caption on the version I saw first was much more verbose: "I are dunecat. I controls the spice, I controls the universe." Besides being an awkward attempt at overexplaining the punchline (I've never read Dune or seen the film, but the joke is obvious) this was just all wrong. The fact that we can tell no cat would talk like this shows that kitty pidgin is actually quite consistent
.
I was having a conversation with Ben and Ben a few weeks ago where I suggested this consistent grammar for lolcats could be a "cweeole". Knowing a bit more about such things now, I realize this isn't a creole but more likely a pidgin language, used to help cats talk to humans. And since "pidgin" is already a cutesy spelling of a mispronunciation, there doesn't seem to be any really cute way to rename it to reflect its uniqueness. "Kitty pidgin" might be the closest thing we have to a name for this new language.
There's a consistent visual vocabulary to the construct, as well. If it ain't Impact or Arial Black or some other nondescript sans serif font, it ain't lolcat. White letters with a black outline are a must. But codifying a design guide for lolcats is well beyond my abilities.
Unfortunately, the evolution of these grammars online can be very difficult to track down; This kind of nascent web culture is generally frowned upon by Wikipedia (witness the deletion of the I'm in ur base article since the Ask MetaFilter thread just a few months ago) and there are no other sites designed to collect definitive collaborative reference material. It's going to take time to document kitty pidgin with any degree of accuracy.
I've just started bouncing the idea of kitty pidgin off of Erin and Grant, two of my favorite word experts, but I'm confident that someday we'll have kitty pidgin dictionaries. Perhaps we'll even get all the niceties that Klingon and Elmer Fudd-speak enjoy, like a Google translation, a Microsoft Word dictionary, or a cat-native version of the Bible or Shakespeare.
Okay, go out and look at some of the finest kitty-related content:
Why have I just discovered this? So many hours of the day to be wasted now!--DB
The peer reviewed, open access, independent medical journal, Open Medicine, has just launched and is now available for free online. The mission of the journal "is to facilitate the equitable global dissemination of high-quality health research; to promote international dialogue and collaboration on health issues; to improve clinical practice; and to expand and deepen the understanding of health and health care."
Gavin Yamey, who recently joined us for a Berkman Center and Harvard Free Culture event on open access journals (see MediaBerkman), has published an article on "The joys and challenges of being an open access medical journal." Launched by a group of doctors who left the Canadian Medical Association Journal last year, and published under a Creative Commons license, Open Medicine has been called "Canada's First Peer to Peer Medical Journal."
In his inaugural editorial for the issue, editor James Maskalyk declares that "Medical knowledge should be public and free from undeclared influence" because "there is clear evidence of publication bias in medical journals predicated on financial conflicts, geography and poverty."
One article, "A systematic review of studies comparing health outcomes in Canada and the United States," used data from over 38 studies comparing populations of patients in the US and Canada and found "that health outcomes may be superior in patients cared for in Canada versus the United States, but differences are not consistent."
There are so many things that are ridiculous about this - that the "iconic mural by 'guerrilla artist' Banksy [is] estimated to be worth more than £300,000", and that transport officials have deemed that the mural had to be taken down "because it created an atmosphere of social decay". Maybe we should just stop talking about graffiti for a while, since no one seems to know how to think about it. --DB
Many years ago, when the web was a simpler place, one of the scariest monsters conjured up to describe the privacy threats that lurked on the Internet was the DoubleClick cookie, used for tying your ad-viewing behavior on the web to your real-world identity. USA Today said it was Orwellian, and set off a half-decade of worries for web surfers, many of whom didn't even have the foggiest notion what they were worried about.
Today, Google's released Google Web History. It's a brilliant, powerful, even insightful tool that will undoubtedly worry those who were concerned about privacy in the early days of the web's popularity. It doesn't help that Google now owns DoubleClick, and all those worries about cookies are amplified that Google actually stores all of this data on its computers, not yours, tied to an identity that might well also be linked to your email, office documents, your instant messages, and of course your browser history itself, courtesy of the browser toolbar.
From a technical standpoint, Google Web History is one of those tools that's so well-executed it seems simple, or even obvious, the first time you see it. There's a basic timeline of your search history, with the ability to drill into specific search result histories for Google properties like web search, image search, news, Froogle (now renamed Google Product Search, though the UI for Web History shows the old name), Video, and Maps. There's even, astoundingly, a history of which AdSense Ads you've clicked on.
Some Google properties are missing -- Google Apps documents don't show up in your history, and the more loosely-connected services like Blogger, Reader, and Picasa are nowhere to be found. Plus, there's a peculiar disconnect with the Google Desktop Search tool's services -- the Timeline feature shared between both applications appears completely different, and your desktop history isn't integrated into the new service.
As you'd expect, there's a prominent and simple way to remove those scurrilous bits from your web history. And the improved presentation of an item as mundane as one's browser history reveals a recent strength of Google's: revealing data you already have access to. The Google Desktop Search tool on Windows made smart use of a disk indexing system that Microsoft had already built into Windows. In a similar way, the Web History service makes use of the Google Toolbar history to take old data and turn it into useful information through smart presentation.
There's a promising, but (for me, at least) still blank area titled "Interesting Items", and the reappearance of a feature that first showed up in the excellent Google Reader: Trends.
Now, Google's data for my own history is slightly skewed; I tend to use Blingo for a lot of basic searches on my computers, and Google's toolbar doesn't track that. But the fundamental underpinnings for a remarkably deep look into behavior on the web are already present.
Outside of the world of users who gawk at every shiny new thing on the web, though, this is going to give people the heebie-jeebies in a way that we're probably only used to getting from Microsoft. In fact, it's probably safe to say that no other major web company could release this product today; The backlash from the user community of players like Microsoft, Yahoo, or AOL would simply be too strong.
Google is still in a period where most users on the web feel they are a relatively benevolent company. And it helps that the new product is excellent, useful, and unique. But with the release of Web History, especially in the context of its recent acquisitions and announcements, Google may have crossed the line where regular users start to react with skepticism and caution instead of unabashed enthusiasm.
This product is all about web history. We've already learned some lessons from the history of the web about what happens to companies once users start to question their trust in the intentions or implications of new products. It may serve Google well to revisit those lessons.
Here are a few useful links to add to your own web history:
Is it paranoid that this frightens me? (Then again, it took MUCH LONGER than should have been necessary for me to realize that Google Paper was an April Fool's joke!) --DB
After we saw the campy-gross USB hub by Solid Alliance at Core77, we had to take a closer look. In addition to Shu Mai, mystery dumplings and the pictured rice-and-fried shrimp combo, they also make a plate of noodles with a USB port hidden on the tip of the fork (left). Also, check out this bizarre meat card holder that looks like raw Shabu-Shabu.
Hello, my birthday is only a few months away! --DB
Miranda July made a promotion site for her book, No One Belongs Here More Than You, by writing on her stove top with a dry-erase marker and taking a bunch of snapshots. It's brilliant! Link
The New Sincerity sells books! Sometimes a bit too cute, but it's humorous approach is seductive, and it definitely has its moments. --DB
Link
StealthSwitch is a microprocessor based computer privacy device. StealthSwitch™ uses patent pending technology to instantly and completely hide applications with a press of the footswitch. The applications are not just minimized…they are made completely invisible. No more minimizing applications, turning off the monitor, or re-booting when someone enters your office or cubicle. With a simple click of the foot switch, you can instantly hide the current window, hide all open windows, or hide all open windows except certain windows. And the best part – because the StealthSwitch™ is under your desk, no one will notice. When they leave your office, simply click the foot switch again and your programs are back just the way they were. StealthSwitch™ can also mute the sound, hide the taskbar, hide all desktop icons, and password protect the restore function all at the same time.
Oh, I seriously need this, especially for those moments when I'm sneaking America's Next Top Model recaps! (Come on, Tyra is a wreck, and we all love to laugh at/with her!) --DB
Link (via Kottke)1. Danger dogs.
The Tijuana delicacy -- a hot dog wrapped in bacon, fried, and topped with mayo -- has made its way to San Diego and Los Angeles, sold from carts outside stadiums, clubs, and wherever hungry drunks congregate. See also:2. Jersey breakfast dogs.
An East Coast derivative with scrambled eggs and melted cheese.3. Surfing Teahupoo, Tahiti.
Unbelievable swells that roll over a shallow coral reef. Catch a wave and you're flying; bail and you're bleeding.4. Giving a buddy a kidney.
You only need one. Hopefully.5. Black Cat espresso from Intelligentsia Coffee & Tea.
A triple. Note the exceedingly heavy body, with chocolate, caramel, and dried-fruit notes. Also note that you're vibrating. That means it's working. intelligentsiacoffee.com.
A picture of the final performance from the MSC at Transmediale 2004 (Berlin, Germany). This was the “Yes/No” Shaking Helmet.
We are having a performance of finished instruments from our MIDI Scrapyard Challenge workshop tomorrow night (Thursday, April 19th) at 5:15:pm at SPARK art space located at 161 w.22nd. st. (bet. 6-7 ave), NYC. Map link is here. Please stop by to see and hear final presentations/performance of what people have built! The space is behind the cafe on the street level.
Check out this project of Eyebeam Fellow Jonah Brucker-Cohen tomorrow! --DB
