Why can’t this be something we do at my workplace? Apparently this was a project of the employees of OGD ict services, but if spent my entire work day on YouTube videos I think I might be fired:
Amazingly, if you watch the “making-of” video, you’ll see how they did it using absolutely no computer effects. It’s all crepe paper, wires and creativity.
Amusingly, the film is all about computers.
As you may have noticed, we’ve had to revert the blog back to an old look, and that’s because some of the php in the new look was infiltrated by hackers who inserted spam links into everything.
I hope to have it cleaned out and robustly restored in a couple of days. If you ever notice anything odd about the blog, please feel free to let me know, via email at [email protected]. It was thanks to a reader that we were quickly alerted of this attack (thanks Juel!).
More than once, we here at Absurd Intellectual have discussed the fine art of sabering. In one video, Kathryn Borel Jr, author of “Corked” illustrates the proper method (originally posted here).
A couple of weeks later, Grant tried to do the same thing, but with different results (original post here).
There is a subtle difference between the two. Did you catch it?
Now, for the first time in history, these two sabering-video stars will be in the same place at the same time. I am referring to Words Alive 2010. Taking place at the Music Studio at 940 Rosser Avenue in Brandon tonight and tomorrow night, there is much more than talk of alternative bottle opening.
We have an amazing line-up of talented authors, writing workshops and good times. And it’s all free!
Check out the schedule at the Words Alive website.
It’s been a while since a Short Film Friday installment has been posted. Sorry about that. Give me a couple of weeks and, one way or another, I should have a little more time on my hands.
In any case, I do have a short film for today: Fallen.
It’s short, sweet and heart-breakingly sad. I love it. I’m sure you will, as well.
Fallen from Sascha Geddert on Vimeo.
Well, fancy gadgets and smooth moves wouldn’t pay off quite as well, at least that’s the subtext in this Stella Artois commercial.
It was co-directed by Wes Anderson and Roman Coppola. Which is kind of awesome, but also kind of depressing. I mean, it’s great that there’s this fantastic new commercial to enjoy, and the presence of some top Hollywood talent really shows off how lazy a lot of ads are, but wouldn’t you rather they be working on something artistic, not shilling for brewskis?
(via Slashfilm)
I am no fan of big box style shopping, though I know it’s going to be part of our urban landscape now for decades. Unfortunately, although I know that the retail avant garde has moved on to newer things (plaza-style faux downtowns, for example) the big box monstrosities are still was passes for cutting edge where I’m from.
(Heck, we’re still trying to save our downtown shopping mall, which is about 80 per cent office space these days.)
One of the things that really gets me about these Borg cubes of shopping is their essential sameness. They are cheaply built as quickly as possible, and that leads them to be stripped of any real personality. All they have to differentiate a Wal-Mart from a Home Depot is the colour of the paint, and the subtle differences in the fake arch over the main doors.
That sucks, because a tiny little bit of whimsy could do so much for these soulless places. Check out the picture above, for example, which cleverly inverts the monolithic permanence of these structures and reminds you that it, too, will eventually be grey field.
It’s part of an experiment in big box design by SITE architecture. They were commissioned by Best Products Company in Virginia to do nine retail buildings. They also came up with a number of unbuilt prototypes.
According to their website:
these merchandising structures have been used as a means of commentary on the shopping center strip. By engaging people’s reflex identification with commonplace buildings, the BEST showrooms also explore the social, psychological and aesthetic aspects of architecture. This approach is a way of asking questions and changing public response to the significance of commercial buildings in the suburban environment.
Depressingly, these were created in the 1970s and early ’80s, so if we were going to see them catch on, I think we would have, by now. Here’s a couple more of my favourites:
Stare directly at the centre of this double-invert spiral for 30 seconds or a minute or so. Then look away, at something else.
I found it most effective to look at doorways and other straight, parallel lines, but reddit readers have reported interesting effects from faces and such. Weird!
The author of this infographic cleverly shows just how immense the continent of Africa is. And cunningly places it in the public domain, ensuring that teachers everywhere will feel able to share it with their classes and magnify its impact.
Well played, sir or madam!
From the “this could have helped me last summer” category comes this extremely detailed character map detailed the many many connections between and among the characters of David Foster Wallace’s “Infinite Jest,” which Amy and I both dedicated our Julys and Augusts to last year.
Click for full-size!
(from here, via MeFi, where the nit-picking has begun!)
In case the fall weather has snuck up on you and caught you both unawares and unawears (of coat), here is a handy little instructional video, provided by Hyperbole and a Half:
I don’t have a kid, but I do strenuously maintain a childlike sense of wonder inside my own self, so there’s a wee bit of giddyness bubbling up inside me as I read through the recipe for Baked Pumpkin Oatmeal on the Cooking With My Kid blog.
Using a small sugar pumpkin, just hollow the insides out, plop in some steel cut oats, along with spices, butter and a little milk, then bake for 45 mins or an hour at about 375 F. They say to leave the lid off the pumpkin for the first 20 minutes or so and then to put it on loosely, to let steam escape. Also, they recommend soaking the stem in some water.
There’s a full recipe with measurements and everything here, but I’d bet this is the type of thing that rewards experimentation!
Amy, we are so doing this on Hallowe’en morning!
(via Boing Boing)
by Amy Breen
Has Sesame Street always been this in touch with pop culture? I honestly can’t remember, but they’ve been pretty awesome lately.
by Amy Breen
Dun dun dun!
Remember this awesome video from Chatroulette? A guy named Merton taped himself doing piano improv, and the internet went all a-flutter saying it was Ben Folds.
Then Ben Folds did a Chatroulette session during a concert.
But people weren’t convinced.
Well, here is definite proof that they are not the same person!
Except … something is off! There seems to be cuts in the video, and they don’t appear in the same frame (until the end, and then only kind of). I’m not one for conspiracy theories, but something seems strange. Maybe Merton is just Ben Fold’s equally talented brother.
What say you, readers?
(via)
I’m not quite sure how to feel about this sign. On the surface, it’s a clever way to get people to dispose of their gum in a specific place, rather than throwing it in the water, or leaving it underfoot on a sidewalk.
But this particular implementation seems — oh, I dunno, sexist and rude?
The website linked on the sign appears to be gone, but the similar gumtarget.co.uk shows off other signs, including at football (soccer) matches, where your gum can select “love it” or “hate it” (with the cute tag line “you chews”).
This is social control achieved with the carrot, not the stick. It is friendly, light-hearted, playful, just like the celebrity culture it exploits. The waterfront is saved from disfigurement, but not these women’s faces. It is fine to disfigure them. Nothing like a little symbolic sexual violence to keep the place looking neat. Nothing like smearing famously assertive women with ejaculation residue in order to keep Britain tidy.
He’s a founder of what they call “gonzo” journalism, and most of his works come close to the truth without actually being accurate at all. He’s famous. He’s idolized by many.
But in 1958, Hunter S. Thompson was still struggling, and hadn’t yet made a name for himself. So he applied for a job at the Vancouver Sun.
The Ottawa Citizen published his cover letter:
Vancouver Sun
TO JACK SCOTT, VANCOUVER SUN
October 1, 1958 57 Perry Street New York City
Sir,
I got a hell of a kick reading the piece Time magazine did this week on The Sun. In addition to wishing you the best of luck, I’d also like to offer my services.
Since I haven’t seen a copy of the “new” Sun yet, I’ll have to make this a tentative offer. I stepped into a dung-hole the last time I took a job with a paper I didn’t know anything about (see enclosed clippings) and I’m not quite ready to go charging up another blind alley.
By the time you get this letter, I’ll have gotten hold of some of the recent issues of The Sun. Unless it looks totally worthless, I’ll let my offer stand. And don’t think that my arrogance is unintentional: it’s just that I’d rather offend you now than after I started working for you.
I didn’t make myself clear to the last man I worked for until after I took the job. It was as if the Marquis de Sade had suddenly found himself working for Billy Graham. The man despised me, of course, and I had nothing but contempt for him and everything he stood for. If you asked him, he’d tell you that I’m “not very likable, (that I) hate people, (that I) just want to be left alone, and (that I) feel too superior to mingle with the average person.” (That’s a direct quote from a memo he sent to the publisher.)
Nothing beats having good references.
Of course if you asked some of the other people I’ve worked for, you’d get a different set of answers.
If you’re interested enough to answer this letter, I’ll be glad to furnish you with a list of references — including the lad I work for now.
The enclosed clippings should give you a rough idea of who I am. It’s a year old, however, and I’ve changed a bit since it was written. I’ve taken some writing courses from Columbia in my spare time, learned a hell of a lot about the newspaper business, and developed a healthy contempt for journalism as a profession.
As far as I’m concerned, it’s a damned shame that a field as potentially dynamic and vital as journalism should be overrun with dullards, bums, and hacks, hag-ridden with myopia, apathy, and complacence, and generally stuck in a bog of stagnant mediocrity. If this is what you’re trying to get The Sun away from, then I think I’d like to work for you.
Most of my experience has been in sports writing, but I can write everything from warmongering propaganda to learned book reviews.
I can work 25 hours a day if necessary, live on any reasonable salary, and don’t give a black damn for job security, office politics, or adverse public relations.
I would rather be on the dole than work for a paper I was ashamed of.
It’s a long way from here to British Columbia, but I think I’d enjoy the trip.
If you think you can use me, drop me a line.
If not, good luck anyway.
Sincerely, Hunter S. Thompson
According to the Citizen, HST’s boss at the Sun would have been Jack Scott (whom he addressed the letter to). Scott, says the Citizen:
… was a Sun columnist who was appointed editorial director in September 1958 …. The “tart-tongued” Scott “unleashed all of his formidable flair for spectacular stunts” in his new role, which included sending the football editor to Formosa (now Taiwan) to interview Chiang Kai-shek, the leader of the Republic of China, and the women’s page editor to Cuba to cover the aftermath of the revolution.
He was promptly demoted in March 1959, summing up his brief stint with, “It was a ball while it lasted.”
Sounds like they would have gotten along just fine.
For the record, I think HST’s criticisms of journalism still stand.
