Art

What if the scoring sheets for a squash match used this technology? You could record the progress of the game along with all of the interaction between referee and players. This could be cool!.

The Pulse smartpen captures handwriting and simultaneously records audio and synchronizes it to the writing, so users never miss a word. Pulse is available in two models. Priced at $149, the 1GB model provides storage for over 100 hours of recorded audio. At $199, the 2GB model doubles the storage capacity and provides more flexibility for downloading future applications. In addition to the Pulse smartpen, consumers may also buy Livescribe dot paper and the latest accessories, such as the Premium Leather Case $24.95, 2-Pack of Journals $24.95, 4-Pack of College-Ruled Notebooks $19.95 or 5-Pack of Ink Cartridges $5.95. The Pulse smartpen, dot paper and accessories are also available for purchase at www.livescribe.com. Livescribe :: Press Center.

vonnegutSTYLE Newspaper reporters and technical writers are trained to reveal almost nothing about themselves in their writings. This makes them freaks in the world of writers, since almost all of the other ink-stained wretches in that world reveal a lot about themselves to readers. We call these revelations, accidental and intentional, elements of style.

The End of Theory: The Data Deluge Makes the Scientific Method Obsolete

“All models are wrong, but some are useful.” So proclaimed statistician George Box 30 years ago, and he was right. But what choice did we have? Only models, from cosmological equations to theories of human behavior, seemed to be able to consistently, if imperfectly, explain the world around us. Until now. Today companies like Google, which have grown up in an era of massively abundant data, don’t have to settle for wrong models. Indeed, they don’t have to settle for models at all.

277 - The Biggest Drawing In the World:

Read the rest of this entry »

Jazz Excursion Radio Listen Now: Windows Media: 96 / 64    MP3: 128 / 64

Found this while I was reading about Bill Evans. Sometimes the radio works best

The MP3 128K stream is tastier than the 64K.

There are a number of “stations” - Smooth, Dinner, Vocal. If you sign up to be a member of All About Jazz you get to download the tune of the day as well.

Bagatellen: Signifying Junkie:

So, to the listening library I was dispatched. It felt like a punishment even before I clamped on those thumbscrews-for-the-ears they called “headphones” and popped in a tape of Sunday at The Village Vanguard. (Isn’t there a part in all of us that rebels at unsolicited recommendations? Don’t you hate it when somebody gushes, “This is the awesomest, ever. You’ll love it.”) Village Vanguard, I thought, what’s that, some medieval theatre-in-the-round? The way my teacher described it, the experience I was about to receive would be pianistic heaven on earth, Mount Olympus on the 88’s, and god himself would vibe me from those solid grooves. Bill Evans was at that time the summation of everything that was ever worthwhile doing with a piano or a piano trio. Forget Monk – not really a piano player; didn’t he write some quirky tunes? – forget Hines and Tatum – hopelessly old-fashioned, heavy-handed stuff – who? Cecil Taylor? Get out of my sight, infidel.

Bill Evans - The Vanguard Sessions - 1961 - quoted on the last page of this month’s Jazziz Magazine.

I have a “fair bit” of Bill Evans in the collection. Turns out that I have 2 copies (not identical) of the Vanguard sessions - “Bill Evans Trio: Sunday At The Village Vanguard” and “Complete Riverside Recordings (Disc 7)”. They are not identical, but appear to be the same sessions. The former is engineered a bit differently.

I wonder what’s different in the latest “Bill Evans: The Complete Village Vanguard Recordings 1961″ collection? The reviews and description at Amazon illumimnate.

Goo-ology : Fantasies I like Newton’s Egg and a few others. The mousetraps are too Jones.

“We are from, not there!”

X

Kevin Kelly — The Technium

The long tail is famously good news for two classes of people; a few lucky aggregators, such as Amazon and Netflix, and 6 billion consumers. Of those two, I think consumers earn the greater reward from the wealth hidden in infinite niches.

Ask E.T.: Interface design and the iPhone

The iPhone platform elegantly solves the design problem of small screens by greatly intensifying the information resolution of each displayed page. Small screens, as on traditional cell phones, show very little information per screen, which in turn leads to deep hierarchies of stacked-up thin information–too often leaving users with “Where am I?” puzzles. Better to have users looking over material adjacent in space rather than stacked in time.

The review is a video. 56MB download, so be patient. Go ahead and read the excerpts from the book while the video is loading.

“Spatial Imperialism”!

Smithsonian Magazine | Arts & Culture | Being Funny

Steve Martin - watch the video

In general, however, a comedian in shackles for indecent language, or a singer’s arrest for obscene gestures, thrilled the growing underground audience. Silliness was just not appropriate for hip culture. It was this circumstance that set the stage for my success eight years later.

TV Critics Admit To Never Having Watched The Wire | The Onion - America’s Finest News Source:

NEW YORK—Despite heaping lavish praise on the HBO crime drama The Wire, television critics across the country admitted Monday that not one of them has ever sat down to watch an entire episode of the show.

A List Apart: Articles: Reviving Anorexic Web Writing

In those dark days, the people writing the web copy weren’t actually writers: They were secretaries, product engineers, and—horrors!—designers; more often than not, the content was thrown together as an afterthought by someone who didn’t know a semicolon from a hole in the ground. Web writing was simply painful to read. Not only were the pages not designed for reading, the content itself wasn’t worth reading. As a result, writers and designers cultivated impatient, lazy readers, and this in turn bred the advice to skip the art of writing altogether and merely summarize.

Hey! Chris! Go read this!

learn morse code:

LEARN MORSE CODE in one minute ! This is a code listening tool. Print it on your printer. Place your pencil where it says START and listen to morse code.

I wish I had this back when I first learned Morse Code. I guess this makes the side-to-side key more sensible?

(Via X’s Prismatic Ponderings.)

A List Apart: Articles: Reading Design:

My stomach dropped the first time I opened a copy of Warren Chappell’s A Short History of the Printed Word.

The book was a facsimile reprint of the first 1970 edition, on cheap paper and not holding together very well, but each page was utterly alive with its elements: the body type—handset in Monotype Janson—was unapologetically large and forceful, the typesetting done by the time–honed and wondrously imprecise method of pressing ink into paper with raised metal, giving it an organic, breathing presence on the page.

An Entirely Incomplete List of Things a Non–Illiterate Designer Should Know Before Being a Designer:

• That text will inevitably be read before it is looked at
• That words themselves make remarkably effective clip art
• That the self–conscious layering of messages usually subtracts more value than it adds
• That the practical value of white space towers over its value as a design element
• That the deep symbolism of a design decision, referring perhaps to a treasured memory of the designer, is irrelevant to the person attempting to glean something from the work
• That print designers who gauge their work on the screen, and web designers who gauge their work exclusively on their own machines, are arrogant in their disregard
• That the physiobiology of reading is one that demands easy points of exit and entry
• That simply paying attention to the design of type, or distinguishing it as “fine” or “invisible” or “classical” is like making a big deal about putting salt on a boiled egg
• That letters are not pictures of things, but things
• That words are not things, but pictures of things
• That arbitrarily altering (or allowing software to alter) the shapes of letters, and the spacing between letters and words, is done at one’s own risk
• That emphasis comes at a cost
• That overstating the obvious can be effective, but not all the time
• The precise point at which a quantity of information no longer requires assistance to be differentiated from another
• The knowledge to back up design decisions clearly without falling into a fog of hidden meaning, or so–called “creativity”

(Via A List Apart.)

1 Click:

1 Click:

My, that’s a big mouse pointer you have there.

(Via OK/Cancel.)

(Via Sam’s random musings.)

For those who want immediate satisfaction - click here

Yes, it’s all in Japanese.

Thanks Sam

10004

Trying for the sidebar. It is almost working.

Actually the sidebar is working just fine. There’s a cosmetic problem with management of the sidebar links, but that’s OK.

Lulu.com - Self Publishing - Free

Publish and Sell Worldwide Lulu is fast, easy and free Publish and sell easily within minutes. No set-up fees. No minimum order. Keep control of the rights. Set your own price. Each product is printed as it is ordered. No excess inventory.

So how about some music. Time to find the copyright holders.

Gimell Records turned 25 last year. They re-issued their first recording, with an additional Mass. I have the collection of Tallis Scholars recordings, starting from CDGIM001 through CDGIM040. CDGIM041 was released this month.

In order to keep my collection up to date I need to acquire 041, and decide what to do about the special release for the anniversary album. Read the rest of this entry »

Painted Hole Promotes Cell Service:

One of those anamorphic illusions painted on the sidewalk to promote Canada’s cellphone service.
– doweirdo

(Via BILLBOARDOM: Gallery of Billboards, Signage and Outdoor Advertising.)

I really enjoy creative advertising. This counts.

What’s Special About This Number? 0 is the additive identity.

Thanks for the pointer Sam

Public Domain paintings by Don Davis PUBLIC DOMAIN WORKS DONE FOR NASA.

  These are some of my works commissioned by various NASA facilities. They are offered here to provide something like definitive digital versions of such images for anyone who wants to have them. You paid for them and they’re yours.

Thanks, Sam.

Fenêtres Volantes 1.0:

Fenêtres Volantes 1.0:

Screensaver for Mac OS X that takes your open windows and sends them spinning and flying about your screen, like weightless objects in outer space; they snap back into place when you dismiss the saver. Freeware. (Thanks to Ian Roberts.)

This is lovely to look at, though sometimes there is way way way too many windows with source code flying around, make me wonder, ooo when was the last time I saved… checked in my source…. backed up…

(Via Daring Fireball.)

(Via Sam’s random musings.)

50 Greatest Cartoons - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The 50 Greatest Cartoons was a 1994 book by animation historian Jerry Beck that compiled a list of the 50 greatest animated cartoons of all-time as voted upon by those in the animation industry.

Animusic Previews - Harmonic Voltage - Google Video

CG Music animation written from the ground up. Property of Animusic LLC. www.animusic.com

Visual synthesis to go along with the sound.

Check out the full-length videos (there are multiple clips)

{ oniomania }

Disturbing art.

Strange statues around the world | haha.nu - interesting findings over the net Strange statues around the world

YouTube - BumpTop 3D Desktop Prototype

Watch the video - interesting ways to manipulate things.

Then watch a real implementation Real World BumpTop

Cannes Lions Live 2006 Outdoor Advertising Winners

Brilliant.

Stuff On My Cat

Do you like to put stuff on your cat? So do we, show us some love and head over to our submissions page to find out how to send us a picture. If your submission meets our “rigorous” standards in the fields of quality and awesomeness we will put it up for all to see. Any other questions or comments feel free to email me, take care and thanks for visiting - Mario

Mighty Optical Illusions

Thanks to scienceduck, we got our first user-submitted Illusion! I encourrage you to submit all of your optical illusion material that you think we should publish here. As the title say, this one is taken in Toronto. I wasn’t sure at first if it is just a painting on the builiding wall, or is it something like billboard attached to it’s side.

15 Best Skylines in the World

All my years in studying Urban Planning helped me grow a greater appreciation for the dense downtown skyline of the big city. The downtown core of big cities across the Americas, Europe and Asia are the cultural pulse and economic engines of urban regions where millions of people live. All urban “life” begins and ends, each day and night under the watch of the city’s tallest skyscrapers and most grand architectural structures. So kick back and appreciate the view that they have to offer…

Have you looked at iTunes?

Some of us “abuse” our tools.

I just recently created a single frame movie (using iMovie) that has an image in it.

I have copied this movie into iTunes any number of times.

What I do is add metadata that helps me track and find my home-brewed DVD recordings. Each copy of the movie gets the metadata for the movie(s) contained on my DVD.

I have Smart Playlists (in a playlist folder) that allow me to track and catalog my movies.

Yes, my simple list that might be 2K bytes of information has grown (4KB per movie) but what the heck, that’s only 1MB for tracking 250 movies. A small price to pay for the convenience.

If I was really insistent about it I could track down an image for the film (IMDb?) and use that as the single frame.

Import image into iPhoto, create a “slideshow” movie, put the movie into iTunes. That takes about 400K, so it isn’t really an option.

Now if iMovie had some Automator controls…or was AppleScriptable

Motorola Advertisements

These early 1960s paintings were done for Motorola as part of their consumer products ads series, %u201CFresh from Motorola… new leader in the lively art of electronics%u201D (scanned from Taschen%u2019s %u201CThe Golden Age of Advertising %u2013 The 60s%u201D).

These are so cool.

I like the next to last one. Actually, I like them all.

Macworld: Feature: Emergency fixes for bad photos

Despite your best efforts, some photos just turn out bad. But what if the bad photo in question is that one shot in a million%u2014your grandmother blowing out candles on her 100th birthday, or that first kiss at a wedding? You may not be able to turn a bad photo into a well-shot photo; however, with a little creative problem solving, you might just be able to turn it into something worth keeping.

Chris - for your photography files.

overexposed backlighting color focus crop

Merry Morning:

While I so often put up sunrise pictures lately, I thought it would be a better idea to show a piece of art that often inspires my sunrise and sunset photography. Above is a one of two round companion stained glass pieces given to me by my sister Jan — gifts that truly do keep on giving.

Christine - go check out the pictures here when you get the chance. The holiday note is worth a read as well.

(Via Doc Searls.)

Foto’s Nederlands Kampioenschap Latte Art 2005 - Etching voorbeelden

Internationale Etching inspiratie

Latte Art

Cool pictures via Chris.

karen kuehn | p h o t o g r a p h y

See also The Monroe Gallery of Photography

Rhino-Award:

Im Rahmen einer spektakulären Preisverleihung auf dem Hockenheimring wurden am Freitag den 14. Oktober 2005 die Sieger bekannt gegeben:

The New York Times > Theater > Al Hirschfeld Archive

From the front of Playbill (where I first saw them). The hunt for Nina didn’t start until 1945.

His first drawing in the Times appeared before my Dad was born.

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Making Light: Folksongs Are Your Friends

Don%u2019t ignore warnings. If someone tells you to beware of Long Lankin, friggin%u2019 beware of him. If someone tells you not to go by Carterhaugh, stay away. Same goes for your mother asking you not to go out hunting on a particular day. Portents about weather, particularly when delivered by an old sailor who is not currently chatting up a country maid, are always worth heeding.

1st Ave Machine

Launch and Quicktime away

NPR : Podcast Directory

NPR Podcasts include selections from Morning Edition, All Things Considered and other award-winning programs from NPR and partner organizations.

The Sweetest of Nights
    and the
   Finest of Days

    by Judith Viorst

Read the rest of this entry »

Arizona Opera: Operas

Carmen The Threepenny Opera Semele The Italian Girl in Algiers The Flying Dutchman

smart.com - roadster

Conceived with the classic 50s roadster in mind, the smart roadster gets plenty of pep from its 80bhp3-cylinder suprex turbo petrol engine. With a low centre of gravity and good weight distribution outstanding cornering performance is guaranteed. Standard features include electric folding soft top, black tridion, softouch, electric power steering, “spinline” alloy wheels and radio/CD player.

New York Headshot Photographer - Wedding, Fashion Photography

Uncovered: Celebrating Women in New York City: The women I have photographed all mention the liberation they feel while posing topfree in public. Having covered themselves up for a lifetime, it is exhilarating to shatter the walls that society has placed around them. I hope that when people view this work, they get a sense of that exhilaration. Because it can be intoxicating, and inspiring. This project was recently featured several times in the NY Daily News and WOR Radio, and will be part of an exhibition titled “When We Were Young” at the Foley Gallery (www.foleygallery.com) from July 6-August 20.