Animator vs. Animation is clever. A character that is being created in Flash starts fighting back against the program interface. It's like a modern day version of that cartoon where Bugs Bunny is drawing and tormenting Daffy Duck.
Bendito Machine is a cool little flash animation, but I have no idea what it's supposed to be about. The site that's hosting it says it's about our capacity for hate and war. I don't get that out of it, but I guess it's as good an explanation as any.
You know there was a time when I thought I was pretty up on all the various web memes. It appears that's no longer the case. I never even saw Numa Numa. I mean it was on Good Morning America for cripes sake. When Good Morning America is scooping me (by, I'm guessing months), it's clearly time to turn in my Web hipster club jacket. (more info)
I never really got into fighting games like Mortal Kombat or Street Fighter, but even I can see that Mortal Kombat vs Street Fighter 2 totally rocks. I just wish they had a lot less dialog. That stuff gets old quick and it take forever to get to the good part.
The Birds of America is a remarkably beautiful site. there's so much to click on and experience here that it's almost too much.
It seems like I've read The Guy I Almost Was before. I may have even linked it before, but I couldn't remember for sure, and I didn't feel like searching. So, here it is (again?).
The original Subservient Chicken was better (if only because of its novelty), but I still got quite a kick out of the Family Guy's Subservient Stewie.
I'm not sure what Manege Frei means. I assume it means something like sad bear in the circus or something like that. It's a nice flash movie though.
OK, the movie, The Wedding Crashers, doesn't look all that interesting to me, but I gotta say that the Crash the Trailer viral ad that they whipped up is Awesome! You upload pictures of yourself or whomever, and they superimpose the pictures onto the faces of the stars of the movie. Very clever, or at least kind of fun for a second.
After seeing Ze give a lesson in communication skills, I'm afraid I may need to go back and reread a few of my e-mails. It may well be that people weren't saying what I thought they were saying with all those emoticons.
Is it possible to make a hammock out of toilet paper? Near as I can tell, that seems to be the question that this site is attempting to answer. I wish I spoke German (or whatever crazy language the site is written in). The pictures are kind of funny, but I'm betting the text is even better.
I'm pretty much done with anything Star Wars, but I have to admit that after watching ops and getting the back-story on one of those storm troopers, I now see things in an entirely different light. I could have done without the Pulp Fiction reference though since I'm pretty much done with that one too. It takes a while to load, so be patient.
The Daughters of Freya is a mystery story told entirely through e-mail. I've thought of doing an interactive story spread across various web sites/blogs/e-mails, but the complexity of it seemed really overwhelming to me when I sat down to think it through.
Confining the story to just e-mail is certainly easier. I imagine you end up with a modern day version of one of the old epistolary novels like Dracula.
They'll send you the first 3 e-mails for free, but you have to pay $7 something if you want the rest. It only takes 3 weeks for the story to unfold. I'm intrigued, but it seems overpriced to me. I guess it would depend on how many e-mails you actually get over the course of those 3 weeks. I suspect not enough.
Wow, clickable hotspots in QuickTime! I had no idea that was possible. It's an interesting technology, but Van Sowerwine: Play With Me is a creepy, creepy, seriously CREEPY!!! implementation.
When she took off her clothes, I was like I don't even want to know what comes after this. This is not at all where I was expecting this thing to go. Of course, after I ran through all the other iterations, I had to go back and see anyway. Man that thing is completely F'd up.
I've only watched 2 of Ninjai: The Little Ninja shorts. They're cute, but I need to get back to a few things and wanted to bookmark it before I lost it.
The Smart-Ass Guide to Art has lots of interesting facts about some artists I've never heard of. I should have taken art history when I was in school.
Degas, the first in the list and one of the three I had heard of, didn't feature much in the way of smart-ass comments, but keep clicking. It's there.
Email the Cartoon is wicked funny in a stupid kind of way. It's also my second link to Milk and Cookies this morning. What can I say? They're hitting on all cylinders today.
Hey regular penis, guess what? Shun!!!11
I'm still not really here (as per my article below). I just had to pop in to say that while I use Mozilla rather than Firefox (mostly just because I prefer the way they handle URL completion in the address bar), this article about how Greasemonkey will blow up business models makes me think that I may have to switch. It sounds too great and powerful to be without. Now, I wonder if there's a hack to "fix" the address bar.
SleepyGeek has a fun tool that creates montages from Google image search results. Here's My First Attempt. Sort of a fun diversion for a second or two. via
I'm just a bit. Oh yes, I'm only a bit. And, I'm sitting here on capitol hill, or something like that. Great school house rock inspired flash animation about Hitachi's new perpendicular storage technology.
See, a hard night of drinking might be a lot more fun if the drinking devolved into this kind of a hypothetical: How many 5 year-olds could you take on at once? I'm thinking at least 50, probably even 100 or more. The people on that thread saying it's in single digits are crazy. via
I don't know what the hell is going on in Watermelon Love (quicktime possibly NSFW). I tried reading the subtitles, but that didn't really help AT ALL. Via
Tannhauser Analyzes the Poetry and Majesty of Bon Jovi
Trying hard to captureAnd, it just gets stranger and more beautiful from there folks. This person (Tannhauser not Bon Jovi) is clearly a genius. Via Mefi
the moment this morning I don't know
'Cause a bottle of vodka
is still lodged in my headThe casual reader might think that this means that somebody - possibly that treacherous swine Richie Sambora - has hit John in the head with a vodka bottle with such force that it is now embedded in his skull. This is, of course, one "available reading" of the "text". However, it can also be taken to mean that he drank a bottle of vodka last night, and is still a little hung over. Thus, the bottle of vodka is metaphorically lodged in his head, although actually it is on the draining board, empty. Either of these readings can be given primacy without harming the sense of the poem - it's the doubt in the mind of the reader that creates the frisson.
The Graphing Calculator Story is an amazing tale about an amazing piece of software that I never could figure out how to work. I should have paid more attention in Math class. Go read it. Seriously. It's interesting.
OK, so Dog Judo. I think that about says it all doesn't it? What, you want more? OK, the first episode -- sort of funny. The second episode -- sort of lame. The third episode -- coming soon.
The Devils Trampingground is a fun little bit of creepiness. Or at least, it's as creepy as you can get with cartoony looking flash movies.
I might need to get a subscription to The New Yorker. I've never read it before, but they publish some great stories. I only recently discovered the writings of Malcolm Gladwell who is a regular contributor. Those are amazingly good.
And now, I've just read with fascination
Annals of Medicine -- The Bell Curve, which is a story about different quality of care for different hospitals. It's more varried than I ever would have imagined.
The hardest question for anyone who takes responsibility for what he or she does is, What if I turn out to be average? If we took all the surgeons at my level of experience, compared our results, and found that I am one of the worst, the answer would be easy: I'd turn in my scalpel. But what if I were a C? Working as I do in a city that's mobbed with surgeons, how could I justify putting patients under the knife? I could tell myself, Someone's got to be average. If the bell curve is a fact, then so is the reality that most doctors are going to be average. There is no shame in being one of them, right?Link grabbed from here.
Flying Sharks, Flaming Swords, Pirates, Robots, Time Travel -- I don't remember any of that stuff being in To Kill a Mockingbird. Then again, it has been a really long time since I read it. In fact, to tell you the truth, I don't remember anything at all about the book. Based on this most awesome book report ever, I definitely HAVE to read it again. Hardcore!
I don't buy most of what they're talking about in EPIC 2014. I mean, I don't even buy most of their analysis of the history much less their projections into the future. I guess time will tell. It was semi-interesting though which is more than I can say for most of what I've seen on the Internet in the past few weeks.
Do all Asians look alike to you? Take the Test and find out. Here's an interesting fact about me. I was almost perfect with the women, and almost completely screwed up the men. I guess it's all what you pay attention to. Anyway, I split the ticket for 9 out of 18 which puts me just slightly above normal.
The Ketchup Conundrum is a great read. I had no idea that flavor balance was such a precarious thing, or that so much thought and research went into creating mass market foods. Now, I want to go have a burger with a great big dollop of ketchup, but as with wines, I'm afraid that my palate won't be sophisticated enough to recognize why I like it.
Well, I like Edgar. Unfortunately, it seems like I'm the only one who does: Nobody Likes Edgar
Boy, I could have used a site like Convince Your Mom.com about two weeks ago.
Welcome to Convinceyourmom.com,Here, I've been spending my mornings running around doing the research to find the facts to show my mom what a truly bad job the Bush administration has done in the past four years, and here somebody had already done all of the leg work for me.
a website to help you convince those
you care about not to vote for
George W. Bush in this year's election.
Oh sure, it's been pretty easy to find reasons to send her not to vote for Bush, but now it will be even easier yet. Thank you internet.
I feel like there's something I'm not getting about del.icio.us. Everywhere i go on the web, people are talking about it (and flickr) as the new hotness. Maybe it's that these things are fundamentally community tools, and I'm not as jacked in to any particular communities.
I can see where having a site of bookmarks that you can search could be useful, but I'm not sure how it's all that different from blogs. Now, if people didn't have web pages where they can hang their links, then something like this could be super useful, but the people I see embracing and celebrating it all have their own web pages anyway, so I'm not sure what the point is.
Help me out here people. What am I missing about these things?
The world has a new prophet. God speaks to her through Scrabble. She's the Craziest. I don't get the sense that she's all that earnest. Well, maybe a little earnest. I'm not sure. It does kind of make we want to get out my Scrabble board though. Maybe I'll get the tripple-tripple.
Otto is his name, and he's pretty important. He's also pretty funny, so if you're looking for something funny, you could do worse than cruising by and giving him a read.
I would not like the Krab, or the hair suit. I might like to tour the underwear factory, I'm not sure, but I'm sure I'll keep reading Otto for a while. At least until I get bored or forget about him like all the other funny blogs out there.
I don't cook. Ever! But, if I did, Cooking For Engineers would be my kind of recipe site. The way those recipes are layed out is a work of genius.
MetaFilter has an interesting discussion of how the left and right of American politics delivers its message. The thread starts a bit slow with the typical position defending, and I don't know how it will end, but there are some interesting thoughts there.
According to some guy named Converse who did studies about 50 years ago, and the New Yorker story The Unpolitical Animal, only about 10% of people in the US have a clear understanding of what the various parties and candidates stand for.
Even when people think that they are thinking in political terms, even when they believe that they are analyzing candidates on the basis of their positions on issues, they are usually operating behind a veil of political ignorance. They simply don’t understand, as a practical matter, what it means to be “fiscally conservative,” or to have “faith in the private sector,” or to pursue an “interventionist foreign policy.” They can’t hook up positions with policies. From the point of view of democratic theory, American political history is just a random walk through a series of electoral options. Some years, things turn up red; some years, they turn up blue.It's interesting. My knee-jerk reaction is to reject this as a bunch of condescension. I imagine the thought process behind writing this going something like "Why, if they were thinking then obviously they'd think like me."
It would explain some things though. How anybody could be undecided at this point, in this election cycle is completely beyond me. Of course I'm even more amazed that if polls are to be believed, half of the those that are going to vote are going to vote for a president who is so clearly wrong for this country that it's roughly equivalent to putting your hand on a burning stove after watching 10 other people do the same thing and have to be rushed to the hospital. I just can't imagine how the choice could be any more obvious, and yet...
Abnormal Behavior Child looks a like a mildly interesting flash movie at first, but stay with it. It gets much more interesting. via
I imagine you've all already seen it by now, but in case you haven't, Subservient President is funny.
Mmmmm... Not My Type is like animated emoticons on steroids. It's so cool. I love it.
Heh! Now that's funny!:
"About a year ago I hired a developer in India to do my job. I pay him $12,000 to do the job I get paid $67,000 for. He's happy to have the work. I'm happy that I only have to work 90 minutes a day, talking code. My employer thinks I'm telecommuting. Now I'm considering getting a second job and doing the same thing."I don't know though. I'm sure the world's going to keep getting smaller and smaller. Who does what, where and for whom is going to keep bluring. And with the anticipated shrinking of the US labor pool in a few years, that's probably a good thing in a lot of ways.
Still, I can't help thinking that a lot of the outsourcing talk and fears is just hype. It's like the SARS virus. It's real, but in a way it seems like it's not.
Ha! Ha! Ha!
See, now stuff like this is why we invented the Internet to begin with. More of that OK? Thanks.
Normally, I'm not a huge fan of phones. They're loud, and they interrupt you, and e-mail is just ever so much nicer. I do like this phone though. It's like a magical portal to worlds wonderful and amazing.
Color in Motion is a great summary of the various colors and some of their traditional associations in design. Why didn't I have something like this back when I was in school?
The unholy marriage of Monty Python and Tolkien. Monty Python: Fellowship of the Ring is quite possibly the ultimate in geek comedy.
I'm not sure I really get max Weber's Pit. I thought it was a game or something, but it just seems to be an interesting way to present some silly little animations. Some of the animations are interesting. Many are not. Still, if you haven't seen it, I guess maybe you should.
Robots in disguise? Sure, but also break dancers.
Transformers, break dancing, it's got everything. To quote NortonDC from MeFi (from which I got the link), "My generation has the coolest dorks ever."
Word.
OK, now I can buy a monkey that is a martial arts expert, but there ain't no way, that monkey keeps a jet pack in his tighty whities. No, that's not a euphemism.
This made me laugh -- HARD!
It's almost enough to make me want to replace my roof. I wonder what that would cost.
I simply can't stop playing with Subservient Chicken. I get tired of it, but then I think, I wonder if they thought of..., and I have to try it out. Of course, they haven't thought of everthing, but this chicken will do a surprising number of things you tell it to.
I've seen the The Adventures of Seinfeld & Superman, American Express viral, linked everywhere, but I only got around to checking it out today.
I guess it's funny. It's certainly nice to see advertisers experimenting with longer-form, more entertaining pieces delivered over the web. I'm not sure why they made Superman seem so stereotypically gay. It seems like an odd choice -- "not that there's anything wrong with that."
I can't believe I watched this whole thing twice just so I could see what happens if I made the other choice. via
Citizen Kubrick is a fascinating look into Stanley Kubrick's home. He was quite the hoarder, and Jon Ronson spends some time describing the meticulously archived and cataloged documents he found when invited to visit Kubrick's home. More interesting than that description might sound. Via
When I saw The Latest Episode of Madness Combat, I thought it was a continuation of this series.
Boy is my face red to realize there were two series where simple animations kicked some major league booty. Also, what's with the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy reference in the middle of that thing? Improbability Drive indeed! Maybe I should go get a towel. You know -- just in case.
James D Macdonald has an interesting series of posts on the art and business of writing commercial fiction. No time to read it now, so I'm just bookmarking it for later. via
Y? seems like such an interesting project. You invite people from different races/classes/backgrounds to come together and ask and answer questions. That seems like something that could really remove barriers and bring people together. From what I can tell (and to be honest I didn't spend a lot of time looking around), despite its promise, it's mostly just an excuse for people to vent bias and hatred couched in the barest semblance of a question. Too bad, it could be a cool and valuable resource.
You know, it never even occurred to me to think of February 29th as a totally free day. Once you think of it that way, the conclusion is inescapable. Leap Year should be celebrated -- with gusto (and pizza!). Thank god we have people like Matthew Baldwin to do the heavy thinking and introduce us to the so great it should have been obvious: Pizza Party U.S.A.
I'm so down for that. Sign me up. No shrooms for me guys! I can't stand the things.
It seems like you should be able to do something with the critters on display on the Digiquaria site. Maybe evolve them or tweak them, or make them fight. Near as I can tell, they're just for looking though. You can move some of them around, but that's about it.
They are super pretty, so that's something. They call it an aquarium of digital lifeforms inspired by waterlife.
#87. If the thought of something makes me giggle for longer than 15 seconds, I am to assume that I am not allowed to do it
That plus 212 other very funny things Skippy is No Longer Allowed to Do in the U.S. Army.
I could have sworn that I'd already blogged the Arcata Eye Police Log. It wasn't in the category I expected though, and it was easier to go back to the original source than try to find it on my site. Figured I'd put it here since I'm not sure if I'll remember where to find it again next time.
Here's an example of the kinds of things you'll find there:
Thursday, November 20 12:54 a.m. He pounded on the apartment door while she screamed, but it wasn’t the standard courtship ritual it seemed. They were shooting a scene from a movie. Police asked that the production notify them in advance next time they visit cinematic verisimilitude on affordable housing this time of night.--snip--
10:53 a.m. A man in black (but with white shoes) reclined in the street on Spear Avenue, then got up and moved around some.
12:43 p.m. Increasingly desperate for dope, food, a motel room or whatever ya got, the 14th Streetcorner hippie sapiens adopted a more robust approach to mining the indulgence of passing motorists. Not only did they mount a determined effort to waggle their ratty cardboard sign, the streetcorner sitabouts forfeited hard-won cannabis lethargy to verbally aggress passersby.
2:36 p.m. A father showed up at school to pick up children, but was shown a court order disallowing him doing so. With that, he ripped up the papers and made a fuss in the office.
3:13 p.m. A dumpster roamed into the intersection of Myrtle Court and Shirley Boulevard. It was persuaded to retreat to the sidewalk.
--snip--
7:44 p.m.
A woman in trench coat of pink,
Made more than a bit of a stink
By yelling at diners
With no taste for whiners
Who’d get more results from a shrink.11:14 p.m. A man who took a whiz off his 12th Street balcony didn’t give sufficient thought to the destination of his pee, which turned out to be a neighbor’s car. The urine-coated car’s owner called police, and the rainman apologized.
I am very confused by The Santa Crows' Gift.. Is it a cultural thing? If I was Russian would it make sense to me? Maybe, but I doubt it. That's just F'd up.
More (though not as interesting) Russian animations here.
I like the use of common storytelling devices in Los dias sin dias. Since I don't spend a lot of time studying film, I tend to forget that there is this entire language of symbols and accepted editing devices that can quickly convey mood or intent. It's nice when something simple like this comes along to remind me of that. The ultimate point seems a bit clunky. It's clearly heartfelt though which ameliorates any potential rough spots.
Why do some people get all the luck while others never get the breaks they deserve? A psychologist says he has discovered the answer.
I wish I could appreciate Johnny Cash. So many people cite him as being this monumentally influential and talented guy. I guess he is an original, but I just don't get it.
However Johnny Cash, doing a cover of Desperado with animated monkeys riding horses, well now you'd have to be a cold hearted fool not to see the magic of that equation. Very funny. Via
Todd Levin has a hilarious "Am I Gay" section of his web site. So far, I've only read most of the Cat version. I bet the original is as funny, and can't wait to dive into it. Do yourself a favor and go check it out now.
Wow, I talk about copyright a bunch over on MetaFilter. Of course, I always knew this, but it's strange to see it thrown back at me in a summary that is even more incoherent and nonsensical than my normal writing.
Oh, and loading the entire MeFi user list into a drop down list == bad idea. I'm amazed my browser didn't crash when I stumbled back to the home page to find myself. Thanks.
Update: Looks like the summary they serve up changes each time you refresh the link, so you might not get any copyright/DRM ravings if you follow the link (but you probably will...).
I often struggle with whether I should use the word farther or further. I even looked them up in the dictionary a few times, but couldn't work out much of a difference. Now, I'll always remember.
I'm not one to post links to The Onion. I mean it's funny and all, but most of the time I don't even go there to read it. It loads slow as a dog and it's just not worth it. But, Wired of all places linked to this, and well -- it's just too funny not to post:
"God, my links alone contain unlimited fodder for Mom's neuroses," Widmar said. "She'll have access to not only my life, but the lives of all my friends who have web sites. She'll have the names of all the places in Minneapolis where we hang out, which she can—and will—look up. With the raw materials in my blog, she could actually construct an accurate picture of who I am. This is fucking serious."
Ana Casas seems to be trying to discover herself (and also her grandmother and family) through her Album Project.
Assembling documents, photographs (with a fair amount of nudity so careful at work), journal entries and other sources, she weaves together bits of a life. There is a deep yearning for understanding or maybe just remembering. I find it completely compelling.
Thanks Leann.
Making Fiends is sick and beautiful. Mmmm... Twisted Media. Thank you internet.
And thank you Incoming Signals.
