Archive for January 5th, 2006
Llamasoft is the software & games company started by Jeff Minter (AKA YAK) way back in the 80s. This guy has more llamas per pixel on his site than anyone! Not to mention all of the many llama references in his games! I have almost hallucinogenic memories of playing some crazy psychedlic, fiendishly impossible llama related game on either my Commdore 64 or Atari ST. I think I was so disturbed by the lack of mental cohesion caused by the explosion of llamas that I am unable to identify even which game it was! In any case, Llamasoft did write some normal games which were very good - and at the same time was instrumental in breaking the concept of shareware to the UK. Many of his games are available for download here.
January 5th, 2006
Check out this Google Map that shows former Naval Air Station Alameda where the Matrix freeway scenes were shot on a gigantic fake road set. It is also where the Mythbusters often go to conduct their unorthodox experiments - they should use it to see if someone really could dodge cars like that on a motorbike.
January 5th, 2006
“Oh my starry eyed surprise, sundown to sunrise,
I dance all night, we’re gonna dance all night, dance all night to this DJ.”
I’m typically disgusted by advertising, but this Diet Coke ad still continues to catch my eye and ear - and for good reason. The tune is the uber-catchy “Starry Eyed Surprise” written by DJ Paul Oakenfold and sung by Shifty from Crazy Town. The bubbling feelgood goodness of the video was dreamed up by one of my favorite video directors Michel Gondry. He works on cool music vids for Bjork and directs crazy movies like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. The blonde girl is possibly Nicole Vicius
January 5th, 2006
These weird women from Houston have a pseudo-graffiti problem. Mainly, they are the problem, and their knitting is the pseudo-graffiti. They take their knitted pieces and attach them to poles, railings and other public things so that it looks like it was knitted onto the object. I think they must pre-knit the pieces and then just sew up the tube with yarn or something. What will people think of next? Quilting Bee Terror Cells?
January 5th, 2006
Esperanto is a language constructed by L. L. Zamenhof in 1887. Meaning, he made up a whole language, and now it is spoken by anywhere between 100,000 and 2 million people worldwide. However, it is not country or ethnicity specific - it is a language for everyone. It has a funky alphabet : a b c ĉ d e f g ĝ h ĥ i j ĵ k l m n o p r s ŝ t u ŭ v z. Here are some samples:
* Hello: Saluton [sa.ˈlu.ton]
* What is your name?:
Kiel vi nomiĝas? [ˈki.el vi no.ˈmi.ʤas]
Kio estas via nomo? [ˈki.o ˈes.tas ˈvi.a ˈno.mo]
* Thank you: Dankon [ˈdaŋ.kon]
* You’re welcome: Ne dankinde [ˈne daŋ.ˈkin.de]
* Please: Bonvolu [bon.ˈvo.lu]
January 5th, 2006
Terra Skye - Is this Love (Fords Breakbeat Mix) - OMG, it is love! High cheese factor but I can’t help myself. Ford’s remixes are usually good stuff
hi-fi bugs - The Knife Drawer (Ryeland Allison Edit) - At girst I couldn’t tell this was a guitar riff all super cut-up like. And then when I drop into a totally different genre and bpm - my brain did a little 180°.
ELT - Deatta Koro No You Ni (Hybrid Remix) My better half is usually the one downloading, ripping, and blasting j-pop around the house, so when I independently found this japanese track remixed by Hybrid I was pretty surprised. Excellent, clean sounding Hybrid remix fare with Japanese vocals that pull you in.
January 5th, 2006
The Personal SafetyPac from Humanscale should be a required item in places prone to disaster such as SF. It only make sense to have a safety kit anyway! I’m guilty of not having any kind of emergency stuff - time for me to get all Boy Scoutish and be prepared.
The Personal SafetyPac is a self-contained, thermo-formed plastic, handheld pac with easy-to-access compartments that hold emergency evacuation tools.
Each Personal SafetyPac contains an Evac-U8 smoke hood, flashlight, light stick, personal alarm and preserved water. These tools were chosen to give users the four critical life-saving abilities during an emergency: the ability to breathe, the ability to see, the ability to be seen and the ability to be heard.
January 5th, 2006
The 2006 Bloggies call for nominations site has to be one of the most irksome examples of a web form I’ve seen in quite some time. I can just imagine how many potential voters are going to be totally overwhelmed by the huge page and nav away. It would have been much more elegant to have each category in some sort of expand/collapse CSS box.
January 5th, 2006
Llamasoft is the software & games company started by Jeff Minter (AKA YAK) way back in the 80s. This guy has more llamas per pixel on his site than anyone! Not to mention all of the many llama references in his games! I have almost hallucinogenic memories of playing some crazy psychedlic, fiendishly impossible llama related game on either my Commdore 64 or Atari ST. I think I was so disturbed by the lack of mental cohesion caused by the explosion of llamas that I am unable to identify even which game it was! In any case, Llamasoft did write some normal games which were very good - and at the same time was instrumental in breaking the concept of shareware to the UK. Many of his games are available for download here.