Looking forward to playing this thing when it finally gets released, and just started following the devs on Twitter. It sounds like there will be multiple platforms available, but my hunch is that it’ll be stellar on an iPad. Can’t wait.
The details about how the FBI work to turn informants is a tricky bit of legal wrangling. Seeing this also reminds me of an excellent talk by Professor James Duane on why you should never talk to cops.
Just happened to see that Cabin in the Woods is now available on Netflix Streaming. I’m really not a fan of horror movies in general, but I can’t recommend this one enough. Great writing, a quirky premise, and a really entertaining film.
Oxyana is a documentary about Oceana, West Virginia. What once was a mining town has since turned into a city so inundated by the prescription drug Oxycontin that it’s now referred to as Oxyana.
The Wheelharp is a keyboard instrument that lets you actually play up to 61 strings (that’s 5 octaves to you and me). Using a wheel to bow the strings, the device sounds a lot like a stringed instrument – letting you control the sound through things like the bowing speed, altering the pitch, and adjusting the volume through a dampening pedal.
“I remember the feeling, the sense that we just really weren’t connected to anyone else’s reality. We were flying across the country, at a rate faster than anyone else was going for a constant time. So in a way, my view looking back now on it: I still can get back to that same feeling. I felt almost like we were hovering over the Earth, while we were driving. Whether it was a couple feet or a couple inches, it… there was a complete disconnect. “
“I don’t race on weekends for trophies, I race because there is thrill in driving and satisfaction in winning. Going across country was no different to me.”
In my research, I ended up finding a Google Talk that Alex gave back in 2008. I think it’s really worth watching, particularly if you’ve seen the documentary. As was the case in the documentary, I found Alex to be a highly charismatic, engaging person… and also a great public speaker. In his talk, he adds a lot of details that weren’t included in the film.
Students at the University of Maryland are working on a human-powered helicopter, called Gamera II. Their goal is the AHS Igor I. Sikorsky prize – a $250,000 award, given under the conditions that a human-powered helicopter: hovers for one minute, achieves an altitude of 3 meters, and stays within a constrained box of 10 feet.
Oh man, I saw this documentary about Headbagers Ball mentioned on Ektopia’s site, and lost a lot of time Saturday morning. After a few minutes, I got sucked in and ended up watching this show in its entirety. In middle school and high school, I was very much into heavy metal. And I watched a fair amount of the show…
Artist Sarah DiNardo has a very unusual and very specific approach to her pieces: she constructs small, circular patterns by meticulously and obsessively rolling bits of tape. I love when people find a particular thing they’re into, and just go nuts with it. I’m reminded of this fantastic quotation from Teller: Sometimes magic is just someone spending more time on…
Though I’ve had a chance to work within several different sites, the majority of the work that I do most days involves Kmart. And it so happens that today, I got wind of a pretty funny commercial that Kmart just launched.
Though there’s a lot of great moments, the Golden Gate Bridge really steals the show. It wasn’t until my second viewing that I spotted the shadows of cars along the lights (3:06). Pretty breathtaking.
Cargo is a short film about a father and his infant daughter, in the midst of a zombie apocalypse. It’s a pretty quick watch (7 minutes), and contains no dialog.
Ron Finley, longtime reside of South Central LA, talks at length about why he likes planting vegetable gardens wherever he can – abandoned lots, traffic medians, along the curbs outside houses. He’s an incredibly effective and charismatic speaker, and his talk is a great balance between insight, information, and humor.