Random bits

May 07, 2008 — Wednesday

Sci-Fi Wednesday: Iron Sky

The trailer for Iron Sky has just been release. Iron Sky? A film made by the folks who brought you “Star Wreck” (imagine Star Trek, Babylon 5, and the parody of Space Balls). Iron Sky imagines the Nazi’s fleeing to the moon in 1945... only to come back in 2018:

via BoingBoing

— michael | 02:06 PM | Comments (0)

May 06, 2008 — Tuesday

50 Games in 1 Semester

Gamasutra reports on the Experimental Gameplay Project at Carnegie Mellon’s Entertainment Technology Center in the article, “How to Prototype a Game in Under 7 Days: Tips and Tricks from 4 Grad Students Who Made Over 50 Games in 1 Semester.”

There were three rules:

1. Each game must be made in less than seven days,
2. Each game must be made by exactly one person,
3. Each game must be based around a common theme i.e. “gravity,” “vegetation,” “swarms,” etc.

If you’re interested in game design, you might want to go read the whole thing: “How to Prototype a Game in Under 7 Days: Tips and Tricks from 4 Grad Students Who Made Over 50 Games in 1 Semester.”

If you are a fan of games can also check out Mudd to EA: life after graduation, a presentation by Michael Coupland, a 2006 graduate of Harvey Mudd College, who gave a talk about his work as a software engineer for Electronic Arts at the Libraries on April 28, 2007 which is available in the CCDL.

via Slashdot

— michael | 01:26 PM | Comments (0)

May 02, 2008 — Friday

City of Shadows

Photographer Alexey Titarenko took a series of timelapse photos in St. Petersburg between 1992 and 1994, following the collapse of the Soviet Union which he’s titled: City of Shadows. The images are haunting. Titarenko also has other series (some of which are also timelapse photos) including: Venice Series (2001–2008), Havana Series (2003, 2006), Time Standing Still (1998–2000), Black & White Magic of St. Petersburg (1995–1997), and Nomenklatura of Signs (1986–1991).

via kottke

— michael | 01:12 PM | Comments (0)

Newspaper Blackout Poems

Although a little late for National Poetry Month, which was April, and so ended a couple days ago, this still looks interesting. Newspaper Blackout Poems are the work of Austin Kleon who takes newspaper articles and a sharpie to create poems. The results are interesting. An example:

Agoraphobia

To go read more, visit Kleon’s Newspaper Blackout Poems blog.

— michael | 10:51 AM | Comments (0)

May 01, 2008 — Thursday

Interview with New British Coin Designer

Matthew Dent, who redesigned the coins for the Royal Mint, is interviewed by Creative Review about the process of designing the new coins. The first question and answer:

Although you haven’t designed coins before, is currency something that’s interested you before, as a non-designer and designer?
As a child I was interested in all things shiny, and as I grew up I became interested in all things ‘designy’. There are moments in my life where currency, and especially coinage, made an impression on me in different ways, though I’d never actually considered designing coinage until I became aware of the competition.

Read the rest: Designs on Your Money.

For more: previous liblog post and news from the Royal Mint.

— michael | 11:21 AM | Comments (0)

April 30, 2008 — Wednesday

Ampersand again

Hoefler & Frere-Jones take a look at their “middle name” (the ampersand). H&FJ explains:

Though it feels like a modern appendix to our ancient alphabet, the ampersand is considerably older than many of the letters that we use today. By the time the letter W entered the Latin alphabet in the seventh century, ampersands had enjoyed six hundred years of continuous use; one appears in Pompeiian graffiti, establishing the symbol at least as far back as A.D. 79.

To read the rest, and also see some examples, go read the rest: “Our Middle Name.”

Previously on liblog: & the ampersand that points out Adobe’s ampersand page.

— michael | 08:06 PM | Comments (0)

Sci-Fi Wednesday: Artemis Eternal

Artemis Eternal is a community based sci-fi/fantasy film that is in preproduction. Jess Stover, the person behind all this explains:

I’m a filmmaker in Los Angeles at the helm of project ARTEMIS (‘Artemis Eternal’) a short, scifi-fantasy film currently in preproduction that is professionally-led, community-funded, cross-platform and supported by an audience of Wingmen who accept the challenge to create a better professional model for film production, distribution and exhibition. Here’s a 2-minute clip.

For more, you can watch that video or check out the projects flash site.

via via BoingBoing

— michael | 01:50 PM | Comments (0)

April 29, 2008 — Tuesday

Cities at Night

Ever wonder what does the world like at night from space? Then the new feature from NASA’s earth observatory provides you with the answer you’ve been looking for. The article, “Cities at Night: THe View from Space,” provides exactly what you’d expect, images of some of the world’s cities at night, and the views are pretty amazing. You can check out Chicago, the Vegas strip, Denver, and Tokyo Bay among other cities.

For more, go read the whole thing: “Cities at Night: THe View from Space.”

— michael | 02:22 PM | Comments (0)

April 23, 2008 — Wednesday

Sci-Fi Wednesday: Robot Conductor?

Robots having been growing in complexity for years, but now Honda’s ASIMO will be conducting Yo-Yo Ma and the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, according to Business Wire: “ Honda’s ASIMO Robot to Conduct the Detroit Symphony Orchestra.”

As the lead graph explains:

Honda’s ASIMO (http://asimo.honda.com) humanoid robot will focus attention on the Detroit Symphony Orchestra’s (ASIMO’s appearance will draw attention to the DSO’s nationally acclaimed youth music programs, and particularly DSO’s effort to encourage and support involvement of children in Detroit.

For more, go read the whole thing: “ Honda’s ASIMO Robot to Conduct the Detroit Symphony Orchestra.”

— michael | 09:18 AM | Comments (0)

April 16, 2008 — Wednesday

NASA vs Schoolboy

Ouch! Despite the, one would imagine, significant resources of NASA, it appears that a 13-year-old German, Nico Marquardt, managed to run the numbers and come up with better numbers than NASA, and even NASA agrees.

Better numbers on what?

The short of it: Marquardt figured out that rather than a 1 in 45,000 chance of the Apophis asteroid running into the Earth, it is actually a 1 in 450 chance.

For more: “German schoolboy, 13, corrects NASA’s asteroid figures: paper.”

— michael | 09:07 AM

April 11, 2008 — Friday

Building Stonehenge by Hand

Although exactly how Stonehenge was built is still a bit of a mystery, one man thinks he knows the answer. Wally Wallington of Flint, Michigan can move one-ton concrete blocks by himself, and provides interesting evidence that his method is at least one possible way Stonehenge might have been built. You can watch the video from YouTube:

Or you can visit his site, The Forgotten Technology, for more.

via BoingBoing

— michael | 10:20 AM

April 09, 2008 — Wednesday

Sci-Fi Wednesday: Justice for Chewie

I’ve long felt that this was a case of justice denied: Diesel Sweeties looks at Star Wars:

(see more hipster robot webcomics and pixel t-shirts)

I have to agree with the sentiment expressed in the last panel, justice for Chewie!

— michael | 10:06 AM

April 08, 2008 — Tuesday

Improv Everywhere: Best Game Everywhere

Improv Everywhere strikes again with Best Game Ever. The group teamed up with NBC Sports to cover... a little league baseball game in Hermosa Beach, California. You can go read more as well as check out the photos and video or watch the YouTube here:

The best part? Definitely the blimp, although the jumbtron is also pretty cool.

— michael | 09:34 AM

April 05, 2008 — Saturday

Grammar Issues: Ten Typographical Mistakes Everyone Makes

Starting with the obvious smart vs. dumb quote issue, what are some of the other common typographical errors that we are all regularly making? Receding Hairline has posted a list of Ten typographic mistakes everyone makes that starts with the smart/dumb quote issue, but moves on to primes, degrees, hyphens, em dashes, and even the interpunct.

Ok, I’ll admit it. I didn’t know what an interpunct was either, but maybe it’s ok since it’s Latin and British... Maybe?

Anyway, Receding Hairline explains:

Grammar nazis are so last century. Welcome, friends, to the brave new world of the typography nazi. Below are ten mistakes that everyone makes, an explanation of why each is wrong, and details on how to fix them. At least, you’ll see how to fix them on the Mac; under Windows, you’ll need to dig through tables of Alt characters. Have fun.

To have that more fun, go read the whole thing: Ten typographic mistakes everyone makes.

— michael | 09:58 AM

April 04, 2008 — Friday

Library Humor: Sick sense of humor, On having a

Library humor from A Librarian’s Guide to Etiquette:

Sick sense of humor, On having a
Respond to every reference question with the following phrase “Well, let me check Wikipedia...” This will amuse you while alarming the library patron. Repeat as needed.

— michael | 12:50 PM

Firefox Fan? Shortcuts to Save Time

If you’re a Firefox user, you might want to check out: 20 Amazing Firefox Shortcuts to Save You Time and Money. Tips include: “1. Search Sites With Keywords,” “2. Assign Keywords to Bookmarks,” “3. Navigate Tabs,” “7. Delete Addresses,” and “14. Speed Up Firefox” among others.

— michael | 10:38 AM

April 03, 2008 — Thursday

Random Humor

This Cat Found poster made me laugh this morning...

I can imagine that it’s “Not very friendly”

(I also cannot imagine that this isn’t part of some April Fools joke...)

— michael | 08:05 AM

April 02, 2008 — Wednesday

Sci-Fi Wednesday: Are You a Trekkie?

If you’re wondering whether you’re a Trekkie or not, Savage Chickens has the three question test to see: Are You a Trekkie?

— michael | 07:01 PM

New Coins from the Royal Mint

The United Kingdom is updating their coinage, in what is billed as “The Biggest Coin Event in British History Since Decimalisation.”

The Royal Mint explains:

The new designs have been chosen via an open competition which was widely publicised in the national media in August 2005 and attracted 4,000 entries. The winning designer is 26-year-old Matthew Dent, originally from Bangor who now lives and works in London as a graphic designer.
After exploring a number of different options, Matthew Dent finally developed the heraldic theme, taking the greatest heraldic device ever used on coinage—the Royal Arms.

The coins look pretty great when laid out showing the parts of the heraldic shield (as seen on the right), and still look good by themselves, although it’s clear they are part of something bigger. Maybe that’s a good thing? What do you think?

Of course, I do think they look better than our new US $5 bill. That giant purple Helvetica 5 in the lower right just... well, it’s not my favorite.