Friday Videos - July 30th, 2010

The weeks where there are so many videos in the playlist I worry that I'm forcing it.. but, honestly, I find all of these incredibly amusing for their own reasons.

• Wal-Mart Moonwalk - short, simple, sweet. I would go to Wal-Mart if I could be promised I'd see this.
• Pop Gear Dance - taken from a 1965 TV Special featuring a ton of British Invasion bands these little instrumental interstitials are just the perfect thing to improve any Friday afternoon.
• Inception Music Comparison - no spoilers, just a nice observation about the Zimmer score and the Edith Piaf song heard throughout the film.
• Dramatic Inception Cat - watch the whole thing, it gets funnier the longer you stick with it. Trust me. Via Zach.
• Iron Chef America Montage - I don't watch this show but the enthusiastic calls all cut together is pretty amusing. I wish it was a little faster paced... okay, this one is stupid but I couldn't resist.
• Banana Sax - pair this with Sexophone and you've got yourself an entire day of entertainment.
• Intruder Alert - listen, rape isn't funny. However, Antoine Dodson's commentary on it is. "Hide your husbands!"
• Hedonism II - I have so many questions about this but I know it's better to not have any of them answered.
• The Future of Music - youtube meme's edited together into one big mashup.. I suggest making it to the end portion with the Panda and David After Dentist. I suspect we're going to see a whole lot more of this sort of thing over the next few years and it'll never stop.

Have a great weekend.. you deserve it.

I Usually Call Them 'Nerd Links' But You Can Call Them Whatever

• HTML5 Video with CSS3 and JQuery - really nice tutorial about using the HTML5 video markup and integrating that with some jQuery / CSS goodness to get the look you want. via Keegan.
• Google Me in the works - If Kevin Rose rumors are to be trusted there will be Google Social Network aimed at competing with Facebook. Haven't they already got a social network? I realize they are a powerhouse but I'd absolutely love it if they'd focus on Web Applications like Google Docs and Google Voice instead of trying their hand at absolutely every aspect of the web. Focus on what you do best, Google, and that's not the social side.
• Open Market App Store - great writeup about the potential of the new endeavor Open App Mkt - a web / HTML based app store that allows developers to function outside the official App store but still create compelling apps. Worth checking out for sure.

Megan Kathleen McIsaac

There are so many photographs from Megan Kathleen McIsaac that I'm enjoying it's hard to know where to even start. So, I'll suggest you start at the beginning and make your way through all the offerings. Afterwards, head over to her Tumblr and/or Flickr and start keeping up with her there. Images like this are too incredible to be missed.

Via Kate.

Impossible Color

The Impossible Project is at it again; they've just announced their first round of Color Polaroid Film available for sale. I'm still blown away that these guys were able to tackle the task of manufacturing any Polaroid film, much less a variety of it. Read more about the Color Shade film right here and, if you're interested, order quickly as I am sure it will sell out before you know it.

HT Casey.

Urbanized

If you loved Helvetica and Objectified - the two documentary films on design by Gary Hustwit - then you are bound to love the third in the trilogy, Urbanized. The film will look at the design of cities and how they come together through such a massive, disparate, team of people. There's nothing to see on the site yet but the film will supposedly premiere in 2011 so it shouldn't be too long before we start seeing details and footage emerge.

Summer Mix Series 2010: Round 5

A funny thing happened the other day - respectable music blog I Guess I'm Floating submitted a mix to the Summer Mix Series - putting the site into a realm of visibility that it has not experienced before. Furthermore, Hype Machine tweeted about it and brought even more traffic. I am quite grateful for the exposure to say the least but there's a downside to such visibility - I like to call it Death By Popularity. Let me explain.

Aside from the fact that my Dreamhost shared server likes to crap out if too much RAM is being requested of it (a common problem with too much incoming traffic) the quality of submissions seems to drop exponentially with such visibility. I can fully affirm the notion that people don't really read on the Internet - I have received loads of submissions from people that ignore every guideline put forth for submissions; mixes that are too long, mixes without album art or tracklisting, mixes with no theme and loads of mixes comprised of Best Of Summer tracks - a concept that I specifically point out in the Guidelines as being unwanted.

So, I'm not complaining - I'm proud of the site, the concept and the execution. I'm just a little bummed that once it reaches a wider audience the imagination and creativity levels drop so harshly. I'll be ending the 2010 Series pretty soon so if you've been slacking on finishing that conceptual mix of yours, please get it in there. In the meantime, be sure to check these out:

• A Day in the Life - one song for every hour of the day comprised of a nice mixture of familiar favorites and a few unexpected surprised.
• Tender Times - the latest compilation from yvynyl - one of the most rabid consumers of music I've ever encountered. It's not themed per se but it's music that should be heard.
• Whales - a mix of ambient music inspired by Eno's liner notes on Music for Airports.. an excellent arsenal to have at hand when you need to really get some work done.

As an addendum I'll say that there are still lots of quality mixes being submitted as well as the frustrating ones and I'm certainly not trying to be a complainer - it's just an interesting phenomena.

Between Two Ferns: Steve Carell

The latest Between Two Ferns goes straight into the antagonistic banter between Zach Galifianakis and Steve Carell; no faux build up into discomfort - it just dives right in. I don't know what it is about two people that are obviously friends tearing into each other that is so entertaining but it is.

Steve Fitch Photography

Bryan Schutmaat recently launched the photography portfolio site for Steve Fitch; a man who has been documenting the American West for many many years but, until now, has had very little online presence. I love the Diesels and Dinosaurs and Llano Estacado sets. I wish could see enormous versions of all the pieces involved in the Vernacular Assemblages but I'll take what I can get.

Long story short, lots of goodness to see - so get to it.

Wallblank

The folks over at Wallblank have taken on a pretty admirable task - saving and restoring multiple pieces of old printing equipment. You can read the story behind their endeavor here but here's the gist of it - 90-year old retired printer is forced to sell home and print shop in order to join his wife in retirement home across the country and Wallblank swoops in to save his equipment from being tossed out.

Like I said, it's an admirable endeavor. They've been posting pics from the equipment cleanup that is yielding plenty of great images of vintage type - go take a look.

Maki: Web Design Mockup

The Maki App is designed to allow you to take your Photoshop design of a site layout and overlay it on to your actual web build so that you can match the two with pixel perfect precision. I've not tried it out myself but can attest to the fact that I've been asked to nudge items in development a pixel or two in one direction and it seems like Maki could help prevent that. It might be overkill but it's at least worth taking a look at.

Via Renaud.

Everything. Part 9.

Once again, Danny Jelinek and Jason Whetzell bring the goods of my favorite Internet series - Everything. Be sure to keep an eye out in the Scott Garrison piece for a fun little birthday banner but, honestly, I enjoyed every vignette thoroughly and can't imagine why you wouldn't as well.

Claire Morgan: Frozen Sculpture

I'm loving these Animal Sculptures from contemporary artist Claire Morgan. Each piece in the series features a taxidermy beast of some sort integrated with a surreal enclosing environment. The pieces with the Fox and the Owl are certainly my favorite but it's hard not to love all of them.

I highly suggest browsing her entire portfolio - there isn't a page in it that doesn't have some worth seeing.

Misc Speaking

• Japanese Cat Cafe - for $9/hr you can have your own cat to play with. This is ridiculous and awesome; though the interview with the lady that feels so connected to her favorite cat is a tiny bit sad.
• Audiko - a website service that allows you to upload an mp3, snip out your favorite part and save it as a Ringtone. Quite handy for someone that may not be that familiar with GarageBand editing.
• Liberal URL Regex - John Gruber improves upon his liberal URL matching.. a handy bit of code to have laying around.

(Bh)xII

On the surface BHX2 is a Tumblog documenting Bharath Bhushan's thoughts on music, film, books and web app endeavors but the presentation of such information is unlike any I have seen on Tumblr before. Keyboard navigation, color scheme switching, fixed column browsing and infinite scrolling are all deployed perfectly here. I am stunned at how much I love this - the content, the design and the execution; all incredible.

Via James Holland.

Elmo Tide

Looking through the vaguely NSFW photostream of Elmo Tide I was convinced that I was seeing a collection of vintage images - but occasionally there are signs to that not being the case at all. That being said, the images really seem to come from an entirely different time. They are a fascinating slice of some world that I can't even imagine existing today. There are only three pages of photos at this time but there's an incredible amount of greatness to behold. I want to know more but I think the not knowing adds to their appeal.

Unearthed by Jeremy Okai Davis.

Stamps on Stamps

This Vintage Stamp Collection is certainly something to behold! There's a ridiculous amount of variety in the designs and the fact that they've been previously postmarked adds a nice bit of texture you'd miss out on otherwise. There's a supplemental Tumblr to go along with the set that should be investigated as well.

Via Mr. Chimero.

Synaptic Stimuli

There isn't a single image (or proper series of images) that could properly encapsulate the content of Synaptic Stimuli - an art blog covering an enormously wide range of projects and styles. Pictured above is an installation from Ernesto Neto but the site dives into content like Biological Art, Söderberg Patterns and some things I can't categorize but appreciate beyond expression.

Via Joey.

A Real Web Design Application

Jason Santa Maria makes a great argument for A Real Web Design Application to go into development. Maybe Adobe can take on the task. Maybe some other third unknown party. Whoever it is, his stance is that of all the applications available to web designers today there isn't really one that really captures the process of proper web design. Type engines are currently off, grid structures need to be more flexible and insight into different rendering schemes are completely neglected.

Could an application built on Webkit help solve this problem? Possibly. Whatever the solution is, I fully support such an endeavor and would love a proper Web Design Application - along the lines of what he describes - to exist. Someone get a Kickstarter going.

Google Goggles (for Android)

Google just announced a new application for their Android system called Google Goggles that enables you to take a photo of a great number of items and have Google recognize and report back more information about said item. The introduction video does a good job of explaining how it works and I must admit, you can color me impressed on this one. That is some seriously Futuristic Tech. How well does it work? I've no idea. Probably not as well as one would think but the potential to be able to take a photo of a business card and have it be inserted into your Contact List is pretty great. I'm sure this has a long way to go in terms of being super practical in its usage but the concept is solid.

I'm quite curious to see if this makes its way over to an iPhone style app or if Google is going to start launching things that are exclusively available for their Android operating system. Maybe there's already a ton of examples of that happening but it seems like the more people that use your system, the more data you have on how to optimize it...

Long story short, check out Google Goggles.

� Billion Users. � Billion Kilograms Of Solid Gold.

Did you know that Cuban Council designed the Facebook logo? Did you know Facebook is up to � billion users? Surely there is a correlation there, right? I'd like to think so. To celebrate, Cuban Council is giving away free gold - it's right there for you to grab, right now! My favorite part of this offering is the Read Me text that comes along with it:

You may ask yourself "what can I use it for?" - the truth is, we haven't a clue. Put it on your blog. Show you care. Put it in the bank. Battle inflation.

Regardless, I suggest you go check it out and maybe you can figure out a proper usage for it.

Destinations for The Nerd Set

• Steve Jobs and Jeff Bezos meet "Ginger" - an excerpt from Code Name Ginger that describes a meeting of minds around the much touted, but mostly failed, Segway from Dean Kamen. The quotes from Steve Jobs are as outrageous as you'd hope and, frankly, the whole thing reads like Apple fan fiction; in a highly amusing manner. Via Jamie.
• jQuery Konami Code Plugin - now you can easily integrate some Easter Eggs into all your upcoming projects.
• Firefox Tab Candy - a forthcoming Firefox technology that lets you organize your tabs. I was going to devote more blog space to sharing this thing but after watching this video I'm not convinced it's anything I want to spend any time with. Tab overkill is a problem but I'm not convinced this is the solution.

Jesse Lenz

Not too long ago I posted about the portfolio of Jesse Lenz and it seems that since that time he's been one busy individual. The myriad of different styles and projects have been dropped from the portfolio and now he's focusing primarily on his collage work. There's a nice bizarre quality to a great deal of it that keeps me clicking. Some of the pieces remind me of Mark Weaver but that's fair game when you're dealing with similar source material and certainly not a slight on the work.. my eyeballs have greatly enjoyed the browse.

Ib�n Ram�n

Thanks to Kate I've been spending time combing through pages and pages of goodness from Ib�n Ram�n. Given that I'm such a sucker for fog I knew I was hooked going in but there is so much more to enjoy. Take a look at the +50 Faves set to get a good overview of all the different styles and themes running throughout.

It's also worth noting that beyond being a skilled photographer he's also a quality designer with a hefty portfolio well worth your time.

Go For Launch!

NASA put together a great stop motion animation of the process of prepping the shuttle for launch. It's incredible to see the machinery involved in hoisting the shuttle up on to the solid rocket boosters and, as always, insane to see the power created when the shuttle actually lifts off from the launch pad. It's sad that this sort of space exploration is dead in the water for the time being but it's great to see how it all went down.

Kyle Ferino

The entirety of photos from Kyle Ferino are worthy of your browsing time but I'd suggest starting with the Parkview Lanes set. There's a vibe to bowling alleys you just don't seem to get anywhere else.. captured quite well here by Ferino.

Via Jeremy via Public School.

The Books Insight

First and foremost, if you have not heard The Way Out from The Books, please go obtain a copy at your earliest convenience. I suggest the vinyl edition as the first run is on a beautiful white & clear spatter wax with custom etching on the D side. Yes, I am fetishizing the package but I think it's worth the praise.

Once you're familiar with the record, start keeping your eye on the band's blog as they are going through each track on the record and describing the process of creation. Granted, sometimes you don't want the mystery of the song explained but hearing a bit of the technical insight into just how they achieved certain sounds is fascinating.

Comic-con 2010 via Lantern Waste

Despite never having been to Comic-Con myself I can vicariously experience the convention thanks to Mr. Gilmore. His annual Comic-Con set has been posted on Flickr and I browsed through each and every of the 212 photos in the series. I never cease to be amazed by the costumes and general nerd insanity of said convention and it's nice to see that it hasn't subsided one bit this year. Lee and I did have a conversation about the lack of Darth Vaders and Watchmen characters this year but that's a topic too nerdy to openly share. Enjoy the set.

Ron Livingston: Keyboard Cat

I have absolutely zero insight into this video of Ron Livingston as Keyboard Cat and I'd prefer to keep it that way. It doesn't matter why this exists.. only that it does exist and that it is a real treat.

Via Daniel.

Old School Color Cycling With Html5

Daniel pointed me towards this great proof of concept of HTML5 Color Cycling using the canvas element and some old school 8-bit thinking (specifically; Mark J Ferrari and LucasArts). I'd say it's a faithful tribute but it's more than that as the cycles are pulled directly from the original Amiga files and converted to Javascript. You can get right to the goods by going straight to the demo but I suggest reading the background info first to get a full appreciation of what all is happening. It's nuts!