pulp
timelapse : does it ever get boring?
I can watch timelapse after timelapse and never ever get tired of them.
A fella made this one on a flight from Amsterdam and it’s a good one:
The Wilhelm Scream
Heard of it?
I hadn’t until my pal, Lars, turned me onto it and next thing I knew I was combing the Web, looking for as many stories about it as I could.
Turns out, this scream sound effect has been used as a bit of a tribute in more films than you can shake a stick at.
Once you’re familiar with the Wilhelm Scream, you’ll be hearing it all over the place:
=
c
Feel-Good Commercials Don’t Suck as Hard
Commercials have a way of kicking the authenticity out of our ability to be spontaneous.
People do things “spontaneously” now, more than ever, for Facebook or whatever social-networking site they subscribe to, which can be a drag but if it gets us off our butts and back into a playful, whimsical state-of-mind, it sure can’t hurt.
Case in point, T-Mobile’s new commercial shot in Penn Station. There may be hope yet for the art of the commercial – if it makes us smile or laugh – where there’s laughter there’s hope indeed:
=
c
Necessity and Invention = Peas and Carrots
Yet another great example and sniff at the trail of a very elusive thing: discovery and innovation.
After all, it only took us how many thousands of years to think of all sorts of simple things that R U L E ?
We make these tremendous breakthroughs and stand there and wonder, “How come it took me so long to realize this has been staring me in the face for how long?”
One definition of industrial design is: a methodical way of solving problems with well-conceived products. Sometimes this process happens outside of the design world limelight, by people who have never taken a single Production Methods class or set foot in an ID studio.
Canadian pig farmer Mary Haugh had a problem; multiple heart attacks put her husband out of commission, and she alone had to somehow control and herd their 3,000 hogs through the barn. Traditional methods of getting pigs to move are to use a stick, an electric prod or a “chase board,” a length of wood the farmer wields horizontally to angle the pigs in a particular direction.
=
c
Stolen Stollen
Literally:
Two couriers at a package distribution center stole a Christmas cake destined for a German newspaper and mailed in its place a package of credit card data, prosecutors said Friday. The mix-up triggered an alarm over lost bank customer details. A batch of microfilmed data including names, addresses and card transactions ended up at the Frankfurter Rundschau daily last week  instead of the cake. Police advised credit card customers with Landesbank Berlin to check their accounts for inconsistencies.
But the incident turned out to be less sinister than feared.
Frankfurt prosecutors said that two couriers stole a Stollen, a German-style Christmas cake, at a distribution center in Mainz.
In an attempt to cover up the theft, the men instead sent one of several packages of credit card billing details destined for Landesbank Berlin to the newspaper, the cake’s intended recipient.
Doris Moeller-Scheu, a spokesman for Frankfurt prosecutors, said the suspected thieves didn’t open the package and “could not know what was in it,” so no harm came to customers.
She said the two men had admitted to the theft. Prosecutors did not name the courier service involved or identify the two suspects.
The cake was good enough that the two suspects have no regrets.
=
c
Beeker
This was one of the very first songs I ever learned to play on the piano.
Beeker does it so much better!
=
c
history : bicycle : internal hub : epicyclic gearing : sun
from wikipedia :
The first patent for a compact epicyclic hub gear was granted in 1895. This was a 2-speed but was not commercially successful. In 1896 William Reilly of Salford, England patented a broadly similar 2-speed hub which went into production in 1898 as ‘The Hub’. It was a great success, remaining in production for a decade. It rapidly established the practicality of compact epicylic hub gears.
By 1902 Reilly had designed a 3-speed hub gear. He parted company with the manufacturer of ‘The Hub’ but had signed away to them the intellectual rights to his future gear designs. To circumvent this problem, the patents for Reilly’s 3-speed were obtained in the name of his colleague, James Archer. Meanwhile, well-known English journalist and inventor Henry Sturmey had also invented a 3-speed hub. In 1903 Frank Bowden, head of the Raleigh Cycle Company, formed The Three-Speed Gear Syndicate, having obtained the rights to both the Reilly/Archer and Sturmey 3-speeds. Reilly’s hub went into production as the first Sturmey Archer 3-speed.[5]
In 1902 Mikael Pedersen (who also produced the Dursley Pedersen bicycle) patented a 3-speed hub gear and this was produced in 1903. This was said to be based on the “counter shaft” principle but was arguably an unusual epicylic gear, in which a second sun was used in place of an annulus.
By 1909 there were 14 different 3-speed hub gears on the British market.
=
c
YADVV [Yet Another Dumb Viral Video]
No, of course it’s not real but was convincing there for awhile, especially with all the waves around cell phones and health risks :
=
c
Zach Falcon writes amazing stories. For kids, too.
Zach Falcon is a great storyteller because his whimsical muscles are completely intact and functioning optimally.
Most of us stop using these muscles somewhere between the ages of 8 and 10. We start conforming to our risk-averse culture, playing it safe as we say, leaving the inspirations of youth behind and stop listening to voices of mischief that often enough lead us down mysterious paths to discovery.
Falcon has managed to protect his sense of curiosity with an amazing non-stick coating, which keeps it safe from such ridiculous notions. This, combined with a rigorous training regimen for said curiosity and other, related muscles, keeps him fit and dextrous as he delivers these tales with clarity he owns.
This is the stuff that powers great storytellers who’s lives haven’t been spent only in the telling.
Perhaps, that explains how the Alaska native was able to leave his post as Assistant Attorney General in that fine state to pursue his natural gift for writing at the Iowa Writer’s Workshop in Iowa City, Iowa.
His work, like “Cloud Fishing” published in Spider Magazine, is moving in a way that will help keep us all continuing to exercise this most-important-of-all muscles : our imagination.
Without it, we’re all just player pianos that might be able to reproduce a tune – but haven’t even a thimble full of the spirit of the real thing.
Don’t count him as just another sweet and jovial kid’s fiction writer, though. When he’s not writing or starring in subversive films, he’s a stone-cold Hollywood pimp.
=
c
Screenshots!
i think it’s cool when geeks post and trade screenshots of workspaces to show off *rad* customizations made to desktop configs, themes, et al.
i took this on a mac today and thought i’d post it for posterity :
=
c
And So It Goes…
Oh, puhleeeeeze. Our economic SYSTEM is nothing if not a continuing tribute to the low self-esteem of ostentatious wealth, trying to pass itself off as a quiet, behind-the-scenes-type who only has attention drawn to them because, uh, their house or car or clothes SCREAM “I’m cool and you should know it” [which translates to many of us as : "I've succeeded in everything except finding out who I am and how to be REAL to other people except through memes created by the marketing industry that are passed off as lifestyles and even entire world views"].
Sure, it’s just “another brick in the wall” but think also about how many insatiable and rather un-remarkable people have built monuments to themselves over time. They do it everyday in the cities, in the suburbs, all over. Isn’t that why so many of us advertise these memes on chests, asses, wrists and everything? Well, I suppose if having lots of money makes you remarkable, then, uh — ok
Regardless of how big or elaborate your watch, car or structure is : it doesn’t change anything. And you know it.
So, meanwhile, bless their hearts! Raise the roof for the next DeathStar!
As our dear, late and fearless leader would have said, “And so it goes…”
=
c
Maddox : you are not a cuban dictator
“Fidel Castro hats were made to be worn by Fidel Castro. Not hipster losers trying to look ironic. Unless you have a beard and you led a coup in 1959 to establish a Marxist socialist state in Cuba, take it the fuck off. It wouldn’t even be so bad if you were Cuban, but you’re not. You live in a midwestern suburb and you shop at Hollister.”
–
Once again, Maddox shows us the light.
=
c
