Video - When Jacob met Tyler Gregory's guitar

Jacob is eight years old, seeing-impaired, autistic, and seems to dig the midnight special.
I don't want to over-think it, I just want to enjoy the goodness of the moment...

The musician's name is Tyler Gregory, you can visit his website here.
(found on reddit)

Video - Ads of awesomeness

One or two people have asked me where I come up with the stuff I post, which was why I was going to post a list of some of the places where I hang out online (ie check daily). But going through my daily ritual of combing through my list of sites, I found two neat ads that I figured I would share with y'all immediately. So I reckon the link post will occur some time in the future.

In a regular sleepy town somewhere in Belgium, Turner decided to do the following:

via geeks are sexy


Check out Casey Neistat's(the creator) youtube channel, he has some other neat vids!

Video - Hip to Potter

Trends have always piqued my curiosity. Why does one story that has all the elements of another become a mainstream hit whilst the another, potentially superior (at least in my mind), does not?
Yes, marketing, circumstance, timing, etc.
There is a different cocktail of reasons in each case.
I have always been interested to observe how major trends come and go, perhaps because I exist on the fringe it's easier for me to do so... It's certainly easier to observe them as an outsider than to try and chase them and conform to them as an insider.
Here's a look at the lighter side of that phenomenon.



Link to the youtube channel of its makers: The Get Go UCB

Science - NSF vizualization challenge

I was originally going to make this a picture post, but then I found a neat video that encapsulates what this is about. So lets start with that. For best effect, full screen the video (click on the little icon that looks like a frame on the bottom right of the vid). 



So what is this about? Straight for their website:
"Some of science's most powerful statements are not made in words. From the diagrams of DaVinci to Rosalind Franklin's X-rays, visualization of research has a long and literally illustrious history. To illustrate is to enlighten.

How many people would have heard of fractal geometry or the double helix or solar flares if they had been described solely in words? In a world where science literacy is dismayingly rare, illustrations provide the most immediate and influential connection between scientists and other citizens, and the best hope for nurturing popular interest. Indeed, they are now a necessity for public understanding of research developments.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) and the journal Science created the International Science & Engineering Visualization Challenge to celebrate that grand tradition--and to encourage its continued growth. The spirit of the competition is to communicate science, engineering and technology for education and journalistic purposes."

Their homepage is here.
Archive of winning entries dating back to 2003 is here.
Well worth having a look if you don't feel like watching the video or if you want more.

Of course, the concept itself is awesome, but one of the many things I really like about these, is the way they demonstrate that aesthetic beauty can be found beyond the scope of what is commonly accepted as such. Science is undoubtedly one of the many ways an observer can achieve a different appreciation of the world around us.
Oh, and I also dig how alien some of these shots seem.

Here are some of my favorites in no particular order (clicking on the captions brings up a popup telling you more about what the picture is):

Autofluorescence of Tick Nymph on a Mammalian Host
Credit: Marna E. Ericson, University of Minnesota

The Synapse Revealed
Credit: Graham Johnson, Graham Johnson Medical Media

Back to the Future
Credit: Mario De Stefano, Antonia Auletta and Carla Langella; Second University of Naples

Zoom into the Human Bloodstream
Credit: Linda Nye and the Exploratorium Visualization Laboratory, The Exploratorium

Video - Apocalypse later, surf now

I love the idea and the feeling in this video.
The idea that things of global magnitude can occur and be almost irrelevant on a personal scale.



There is something grandly self absorbed in saying "Screw you" to the end of the world.
"I was surfing yesterday, I'll surf today, and tomorrow I die with a smile".

Keef70's youtube channel.

Video - Math humor

So I was watching this I said to myself "Hold on! That's Manny from Black books!"
I checked, and indeed it was Bill Bailey playing a caveman. ; j

From Ape Lad's photostream

Video - Yakfilms youtube channel (Dance videos)

Boing boinger Dean Putney posted a yakfilm video a few days ago, and that got me started...
Yakfilms is a youtube channel featuring urban dancing.

In their own words:
"YAK FILMS is an international production team whose work with urban dance began with the legendary TURF FEINZ crew from Oakland, CA, innovators of the TURF dancing style. Today the name YAK is synonymous with a unique style of street-based documentation of the global dance movement."

I had a lot of fun watching these videos... I hope you will too!
PS Their top5 dance vids for 2011 (just click on the next button on the bottom to skip the commentary vid and get to the dancing) is very much worth checking out, really tempted to gush about each one! : j




Stripey shirt's alternations from slow to fast are are thing of beauty!

Video - The adventures of Todd Bieber

I was reading through Boing Boing this morning when I happened upon a heartening video posted by Mark Frauenfelder (a boingboing regular)... It was about a seditious NYC criminal named Todd Bieber who defied the law and created beauty where naught but waste and refuse had lain.

Ok, perhaps that's over-dramatising a bit, he is a filmmaker and humanity adventurer who planted flowers and vegetables...

Here's the skinny on that tale (which happens to tangentially tie-into my next post):
Part 1


Part 2



This story made me smile and set out to do my research (aka poke around the net) before posting about it... And discovered that it wasn't Todd's first adventure of this sort!

If you're like me and you missed the tale of the lost film that came to an end in March, watch the saga unfold through these 3 videos:

Part 1


Part 2


Part 3


Good stuff! Right up there with shipping bobcats instead of chairs on ebay. : j
To find out more about Todd bieber here are the the usual links:

Todd's Tumblr
Todd's Twitter
Youtube channel
Bieber's blog (defunct)

Music video - Axis of Awesome performing on red nose day

This made me smirk quietly to myself at six in the morning after waking up from weird dreams about bloggers who have exited the stage. 



Their website.
Their myspace with their tour dates and some of their music.

Music - Free beats (NYC)

I've been to New York city twice... I can't claim to know it to any extent at all, and yet, through media and through stories, I have come to develop an idea of what I think NYC should be like.

My fantasy NYC is neither goon squadded and heavily policed, nor is it the post apocalyptic madhouse of drugs, sex, and punk of the seventies...
It's mixture of details from stories taking place in New York combined with details about their past that the New Yorkers I've met have shared with me.

As a result I'm only likely to ever see my fantasy NYC in fiction, but every now and then I hear things that make me wonder if it isn't actually out there, somewhere, under the grime and hustle-bustle of the Big Apple.

At any rate, this made me grin...

Music - Guitar strings gone mad (people playing with their iPhones) and Andy Nicolai

As the first youtube vid states, for those interested in what makes this effect possible, a conversation on reddit is ongoing.

In case you were thinking that the second video sounded nice (I certainly did), here's a full version of that song and another from the person.



And here's the other song of his I found scraping the net:

Video - "Splitscreen: a love story" JW Griffiths

This video has been buzzing in the web, and I can see why: it's sweet and its execution is flawless.

It won the 2011 Nokia Shorts competition, and get this: it was shot entirely on a Nokia N8 mobile phone!

Splitscreen: A Love Story from JW Griffiths on Vimeo.

Video - Useless machine with a 'tude!

Aloha friends, I'm taking off for some R&R in Ireland.
I leave you with this video straight from Japan that may amuse no one but myself.
As a piece of tangential trivia: the face on the side is a japanese smiley!
Take care y'all, see you in a week or so.

Video - "Google Exodus"

This video has been making the rounds... I think it's pretty sharply done! : j
Happy passover to those who celebrate it.

(It's best in full screen mode)

Video - "Xylophone of the Forest" ad for Docomo's new "Touch wood" phone

I love the idea and I'll bet it was a lot of fun to engineer!



Here's a link to the product page of the phone they're advertising... But it's pretty much irrelevant to us. : j

Music - Eric the flutemaker

In minor unrelated news about myself, I have recently acquired a bamboo saxophone... And have been having great fun with it.

What is a bamboo saxophone you ask?
Well, bamboo saxophones can be saxophones that are entirely built out of bamboo (excepting the reed and the mouth piece of course)... Like so:

But that's not what I'm playing. I'm playing an instrument built by a man who specialises in making bamboo flutes. He essentially stuck a sax head on a the body of a bamboo flute.

His website.
The man himself and his spiel (fun to watch, he's an entertaining guy):


Or you could watch a video recounting in fairy tale fashion the flutemaker's first steps into the world of flute making. It's a interesting story that is pretty well told.




He is also using his business to collect funds for orphans who were living on a garbage heap in Nicaragua. Laudable work!

Video - "Eye of the storm" by Lovett

Ben Lovett is a man of many skills... I first encountered him in through the music he composed for a nifty psycho-horror film called the signal. Well, here he is again with a steam-punky animation music video:



His website.
His online radio, check out some of his work!

Video - Could-have-been love story

I stumbled onto this on youtube... And I find it kinda sad - sad but smartly done.

I know I've done the delete dance until I find the right thing to say and the right way to say it (I do it everyday for me job ;)), but I know I also measure what I say in person the same way.

Perhaps the old adage of "turning your tongue six times in your mouth before speaking" integrated (ctrlA+del)x6 in the latest update patch. : þ

Not sure I agree with the proposed moral of the story.
I guess it's a matter of degree and point of view.

Music - Worldismarble (Lan Angela Li)

Video blogging and text blogging don't intersect much, and while perfectly understandable, it's s too bad.
Social commentary set aside, I follow a couple video blogs... And I'd like to share some with you!

Meet Lan Angela Li.
Lan is a blossoming filmmaker and has already won a handful of awards including an audience award in a contest hosted by National Geographic and a grand prize in a contest hosted by the US state department that earned her a 3 week stay in Prague studying cinema this past summer.

She now has her own website, and while there isn't much there yet, I'm sure it will grow, and if you're looking to hire a filmmaker, you can reach her there. Her not so secret online headquarters is her youtube channel, called Worldismarble (clickety click here). She has all manner of interesting videos there, but as you can tell by the title of this post, that's not why I'm posting about her.

Lan is a lady of many talents, amongst those, she is also a talented amateur singer/songwriter/composer (Lan's music playlist). Here are three of my favorites songs, I hope you enjoy her voice as much as I do:

Dancers - Anastasia and Denys Matviyenko (ballet)

Here's a husband and wife couple from the ballet world...
All I can say is that they astound me. I hope they'll astound you too:
Their website home page in english.
A direct link to their galleries.
A direct link to their video galleries.
A link to Gene Shivone's ballet photography, specifically of the Mativiyenko couple.

Pictures!

Video!