Now, for a special treat: The first three videos in my new series: An Important Lesson
Videos made courtesy of xtranormal.com
Popularity: 7% [?]
Archive for December, 2008
Xtranormal
2008
12.19
12.19
Ok wow. I just came across this amazing site called Xtranormal, which allows you to write and produce animated movies instantly! Yes, you heard me. Control the characters, put the words into their mouths and then shoot the movie. It’s a writer’s dream. Take a look at animated Jean Claude Van Damme quotes:
I said in the last post that stereoscopic imaging is the future. Well, this is my very immediate future. Expect lots of videos involving foul-mouthed cartoon characters. Stinky Willy for example:
Popularity: 7% [?]
The Future
2008
12.19
12.19
It’s good to know, when you’re slaving away at the office under a pile of paperwork, that somewhere, someplace some Google engineer is riding his scooter to the play room for some “reflection time” after lunch and maybe play a few video games while he’s there. It’s no secret that the Google work environment is awesome. Come to think of it, that’s not good to know at all. Why don’t I have a job like that?
Ok, so working at Google is like heaven compared to your shitty job, but some good does come out of it. For when they’re not holding an inter-office volleyball competition or sitting in beanbags listening to the back catalogue of Led Zeppelin, they are doing some pretty cool stuff.
Take the picture above, for example. That is not a photo. It’s a screenshot from Google Earth Pro and it’s the future. Thousands of photos have been combined to render a realistic view of the skyline. While browsing GE in the past has been fun and has allowed me to fly around the world, seeing the tops of houses from Finland to the Falklands, it has only been in 2-D. More recently, and thanks to the Google Earth truck, 360 degree street views have been added to the mix. However these didn’t blend with the fly-by view, they were merely extra images taken from that position.
Now, Google Earth Pro allows a more detailed 3-D depiction of the world, using photos blended into the Google Earth globe landscape. Instead of a series of lines with labels seen from above, we can adjust the tilt and look over the details of the landscape, replete with buildings, trees and mountains.
THIS IS AWESOME! Can you imagine where this is taking us? Let’s suppose for a moment that storage continues to increase it’s capacity and we never have trouble storing the data. Now, if you took millions of photos from multiple angles throughout the globe so that we had a POV from multiple angles on the horizontal plane (like we have with Google Street View) and also on the vertical plane. The whole world is too large an undertaking, but densely populated areas should be able to amass something close to complete coverage. We are moving closer and closer to having the whole world stored as an image.Once GPS technology makes the leap into consumer cameras, all photos will have the corresponding GPS location it was taken in recorded along with the photo. Across the globe, millions and millions of people taking photos and those photos going on to provide a detailed account of our world. Just imagine, a software which hoards and catalogues millions upon millions of images daily, updating its own picture of the world. It would be a massive, eternally refreshing virtual Earth!
Then all we have to do is make a Grand Theft Auto game out of it! No seriously, wouldn’t that be awesome?
Other applications spring to mind. You could fly through the world like Superman, in a similar way to what Google Earth does now, but more realistic, especially with some VR goggles. Google Goggles could revolutionize the way we watch things. Instead of viewing TV or video on a flat screen, why not have a pair of goggles that change the image depending on your head tilt? Imagine the freeze-frame of the Matrix where the camera angle changes as time slows down, but imagine the camera angle is in your control and when you move, so does your camera.
Before you stop me for delving so far into the distant science future, remember that all of the technology that I’m suggesting exists now in basic form. We have cameras and we have means of recording video data. There exist games where characters can move and you can interact with them three dimensionally. A camera with a 360 view angle is only a matter of time. A new format for 360 degree images and video is only a matter of time. A method of easily storing the massive amounts of data that a 360 degree movie camera would generate, only a matter of time. A means of representing that data intelligently using motion-sensors and GPS, only a matter of time.
Consumer cameras with built-in GPS, compass and motion-detectors could save data from the location, direction, and tilt. This data would be read by computers and organized on a new scale, SPS (Spatial Positioning System) which adds a new vertical position to the current GPS system. Software analyzing the images could remove people and objects from the images, blending multiple images from similar SPS positions together to form a complete image free from other objects.
May I say this again: all of this technology already exists!It’s just a matter of time before someone puts it together.
It’s the virtual revolution. The future is not about developing ways to travel through the real world easily. The future is about bringing the world to us virtually. We are in the process of putting life as we know it into a digital format, packaging it up and sending it through the tubes into each and every home. We are in the process of making these tubes wireless, making these computers portable and ubiquitous, rendering keyboards and monitors obsolete. We are in the process of making everything and everyone instantly accessible at anytime. We are in the process of making science fiction science fact.
Don’t believe me? Let’s take the example of the flying car:
Yeah flying cars, we’ll never have those! That’s just science fiction. No! Flying car: fact!
Sci Fi 1 - Doubters 0
Popularity: 4% [?]
Viva La Prospekt!
2008
12.18
12.18
[audio:vivalavida.mp3]
Viva la Vida
Following their previous album X&Ycomes Coldplay’s latest and greatest album Viva La Vida, or Death and All His Friends. I am so taken with this and their recent EP release of extra songs Prospekt’s March, more so than any of their past albums. There is so much great music on these two releases that I had to make a combined CD with a mix that does justice to the whole set.
In fact, my mix is so good that I wonder why Coldplay didn’t release it this way in the first place, on one album. Thematically they work very well together, with the exception of one song, which doesn’t belong anywhere near a Coldplay album. But we’ll get to that song later.
In making their 4th album, Coldplay traveled to South America, seeking to be influenced by different musical tones along the way. And while there is a little flamenco hand-clapping, there is something else about Coldplay this time around. Viva la Vida has a richness of sound and a grandness to it that was missing from previous albums. Where in the past their music could come across as a little contrived, there is a sincerity there now, an emotional core which is so much more powerful to listen to. I literally can’t stop listening to it from start to finish and I neverusually listen to albums that way.
Let’s get to my list:
'Viva la Prospekt'(text)
There is a theme running through the album which I believe begins with The Escapist, a soft opener which builds the first musical theme of the album. In the brief lyrics, Chris seems to muse over death. Such pondering also seems to offer an explanation as to why we might be saying Viva la Vida, or Long live life! Which is why the song Viva la Vida follows, documenting the last days of a king about to be overthrown by revolutionaries and considering his impending demise. In addition, it’s also the most popular song of the album and I don’t see why we should have to wait too long to hear it.
I felt like Death And All His Friendsshould naturally follow, as this is directly from the title. But not only that, it really answers the question for the album. Life or Death? By the end of the song, it’s clear which side this album chooses. And while it returns again and again to the idea of death, it is filled with the love of life and love itself which permeates the album. It’s an incredibly uplifting message with an energy that is then contrasted by the acoustic version of Lost, called Lost?. There are three versions,Lost!, Lost? and Lost+. This acoustic version is the best, with Chris’ bittersweet lyrics tearing away at your heart over a soft piano acompaniment. It’s one of my favorite tracks from the album, although it technically didn’t make it to the album, only to the Lost!EP anda few special releases. The version that did make it to the album, Lost!seems to be a collaboration between Coldplay and Timbaland. It’s on my album at number 15 because it works in a different way to the acoustic version. That leaves one version left, Lost+featuring Jay-Z. You will notice it is missing from my album. If I wasn’t the kind to keep full albums for the sake of it, it would be missing from my computer and iPod as well. I say this as a fan of Jay-Z, but there should never be any Jay-Z on any Coldplay album. More than that, no rapping. I know that Jay probably wanted to prove that he can rap off anything and mark it on the wall as another thing that he’s been in, but it’s just wrong, wrong, wrong. Yeah, Jay-Z you can tryto rap off anything, but in doing so you spoil an awesome song with your god-awful tone. I mean, really? In a song by Coldplay you have to bring up Biggie, Pac and niggaz suing you? Really? As a rap, the idea of success coming back to bite could be poignant in that context. But in this song Jay, your ugly words suck. Hard.
Phew! I had been holding that in for quite some time. Let’s move on.
Prospekts March
An important theme that I had going through the album was what I think is the trilogy: The Escapist and Life in Technicolor I & II. It’s actually like two pieces of music in three songs. LIT Iis the bridge from one to the other. As a result, I’ve spaced them at the start, middle and end of the album as the themes flow from one to the next. LIT IIfinishes the album with an uplifting reprise to the theme at the end of LIT I,this time with lyrics. I couldn’t have the album end any other way.
One other thing I did was to split up Lovers In Japanand Reign of Love, which were originally put together as one track on the album (for what reason I have no idea). I find it incredibly annoying to have to fast-forward to find a song I like and don’t see any benefit to joining titularly when they aren’t joined musically or chronically. Also on the album was another song after Yes. I wasn’t keen on this, so it got dropped. No apologies.
As for the rest of the album, you can discover it for yourself and figure out my motives behind their ordering. One final thing that I will say though is that the piece of piano at the end of Violet Hillis perhaps the most beautiful thing that Chris Martin has ever written. I have listened to that piece of music over and over and over and over. I have blogged about it before. Chris, if you ever read this, whatever inspired you to write that, just let it out and make a whole album of it.
For the rest of you, enjoy hours of audio ecxtasy!
Popularity: 7% [?]
Bus Dilemma
2008
12.09
12.09
I recently discovered a personality flaw I have and I’m wondering if anyone else has it. I wouldn’t consider it a huge problem, only that it may well manifest itself in other ways as it did last Thursday on the bus.
The queue for the bus outside the Namdaemun market
I was heading home from school. I’d taken the bus at Gwanghwamun and there had been no people on it at the time, so I secured a good seat. The bus traveled past Seoul Station and Namdaemun Market before heading up the hill towards my place. At the market, the bus always fills up with old people. Namdaemun seems to be a market aimed at old people exclusively, as there is nothing there that anyone under 50 would be caught dead wearing. The curious thing is, most of the old people who board the bus there aren’t carrying anything. Perhaps it’s just a place to go to hook up with other old people. Who knows, but for the sake of the story let’s just take it that there were a good deal of old people on the bus this day.
Normally, in polite social circles, a young man should get up and let an older person sit down. This much is common knowledge. But there is a certain amount of leeway here. For age is such a relative thing. Someone may look sixty or seventy, but could actually be much younger, or a much younger person may have difficulty standing for some reason of health or circumstance. You have to make a quick decision as to their relative age and need. So here I was, enjoying my seat, but weighing up the woman who had shuffled into my vicinity, who seemed about 50, give or take a decade. I must have pondered this for a minute or so because I noticed we had already ascended the hill and were about three stops from mine.
Now here is where I feel my defect in personality shows itself. I call it a defect, maybe it’s too strong. Perhaps it’s an advantage, a knack for slicing through the bullshit. However it may seem, I’ll admit to feeling a little guilty when I caught myself thinking it. For up to this point, I had purely honorable intentions. I assumed that my desire was to help this old lady sit down and take a load off. Wasn’t that my desire?
I started to get up when another thought hit me. If I was to get up now, I would naturally move toward the door. The woman who took my place would assume that I had vacated my seat due to the fact that I was getting off. She would not notice until later, maybe never at all, that I had in fact got up early on her behalf. I would be giving up my seat and not getting any recognition for this fact.
Ok let me stop you right there. I know, I’m a monster. Giving up your seat to a person older than you is not something you should seek praise for. But think about it. When you do give it up you do it in an obvious way don’t you? A little bow, a gesture, maybe you add “please, sit down” and smile. Why did you do that? It’s not necessary. Except that it makes you look good. If you were truly selfless you would get up, pretending that you had somewhere else to be and let the seat speak for itself.
The typical everyday scene inside the 402 bus
That was my dilemma. On the one hand she was old, on the other hand not really that old. She had just got on, I was soon to get off. I’d give my seat, but would not get credit even if I did the song and dance because too much time had passed already. I was in the no-man’s land of etiquette. Life isn’t always clear cut. Sometimes you have to make a choice you’re not proud of later. In the choice between getting up with no credit and enjoying my seat, I chose the latter.
Feel free to tell me what a bad person I am. I can’t help but agree. But next time you’re giving up your seat for someone older, giving your little bow, smiling your sympathetic smile, ask yourself how much of that was really necessary and how much was just for that little rush of self-indulgent pride you got when they thanked you. Just how selfless are you really?
Popularity: 6% [?]