I can’t remember how I stumbled upon these videos, but aparently I put them online August 17th, 2007.  These videos were made in 2001? 2002? I can’t remember. There are two videos here back to back and a trailer for the first video at the end of both. They star my buddy Daniel Dee of Post Modern Side Show fame. It wasn’t for any video class, although I took some later on. I think it was just for shits / giggles. I think mostly it was an excuse to have him clean out the apartment, while I sat back and held a camera. Anyway, enjoy a look back into the pre Mayor Awesome / Post Modern Side Show days.

The first video is a music video (Song titled “Bionic Jam” by the Baldwin Brothers), the second one is a little more “artsy” to say the least. I can’t remeber where I got the audio for it. I think off a Beck album. The third is a trailer for the music video.

I just found out that the geniuses at futurepinball.com have made a pinball physics engine / pinball creation engine: “Future Pinball is a real time Pinball Development System. It allows you to design and play your very own pinball simulation in True real time 3D. It uses Advanced Physics to provide the best possible Simulation of a true to life pinball machine. Tables are built up out of Standard components (Plastics, Pegs, Bumpers, Lights etc..) which are placed onto the playfield via the Editor. Objects like Surfaces, Lights and Rubbers are shapeable within the editor and generated real-time when the table is played. Other objects (Bumpers, Flippers, Gates, Triggers, Targets etc..) use pre-made 3d Models (of which there is a nice selection of each type).”

Here’s the dark side: “The Table logic is scripted in Visual Basic Scripting (via the Microsoft Scripting Technology’s built into Microsoft Windows). Scripting is designed to be simple but flexible enough to allow a wide variety of Original Games to be created. Only a limited subset of the Visual Basic Scripting Language is used as a lot of extra functionality is provided by the game engine.” <rant type=”nerd”>I’ve never been a big fan of VB or VBS, other that it upholds the design tenet that it get’s shit done. I’ve seen some amazing office problems tackled with VB. A solution that is in place is better than a problem that is holding you up. (wait for it) Until you have to maintain the code</rant>. As a big fan of pinball, I can only hope that thousands of years from now people are using a similar piece of software that will design and then use nanobots to render the actual pinball game. Here’s a shot of the rendering engine. The software will also vary the graphics to allow people with slow systems to play the system.

Here’s a video of someone who turned two flatscreen tvs into a software pinball setup. via [boing-boing offworld]

Shepard Fairey is the fella who made the (most famous) Barack Obama poster. He’s currently in a little bit of hot water about the image he used as inspiration for his poster (one of which is hanging up in the Smithsonian, so suck on that AP news).  I, of course, totally ripped the dude off making my own poster (Fair use! Fair use!). There are web sites out there that will let you upload your own photo and make it into a fake Obama poster, but they pretty much all turn out like crap. I made mine in Illustrator with my own two hands (while walking barefoot, in the snow, over broken glass, while listening to Celine Dion). There’s been a million parodies about this iconic image.  Here’s a little video glossing over some of that and showing off some of his work. 

And, oh golly, what’s this? Is this a link to my store where you can buy Mayor Awesome themed stuff? Why yes, I believe it is. [Link]

Geez this reminds me of middle school so much. It’s almost painful to watch. 

Turn it up to 11! We’re killin Rebelz boooyyyee!

[Link, via]

[UPDATE]: The Full Ginsberg tweets: “I want to drop it like it’s Hoth.” Well played gentlemen.

I’ve just submitted my first (of hopefully many) shirts to woot.com. If you have an account, and you fine my work pleasing please go and vote for my shirt.

It’s a combination of previous comics, so that makes it self referential, which is one of the critical design elements, right?

Being an owner of both a mustache and a beard, I have a special place in my heart for women who… um, have a special place in their heart for facial hair. Here are two of my favorite songs about face fungus:

Zoe: “Optional Accessory”  

Sophie Madeleine : “The Beard Song” 

Now, I’m the sort of girl who is equally happy sitting down with her knitting to watch Masterpiece Theatre on a lazy afternoon as I am to go out with the boys to watch My Bloody Valentine 3D. Sure, sometimes I mix things up a bit - y’know, maybe I’ll work on a little embroidery while I watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer, or I’ll play with Legos while I listen to the Wuthering Heights audiobook - but rarely do I see such an incredible melding of these two worlds as this new book by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith. From the Chronicle Books website: “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies features the original text of Jane Austen’s beloved novel with all-new scenes of bone-crunching zombie action. As our story opens, a mysterious plague has fallen upon the quiet English village of Meryton—and the dead are returning to life! Feisty heroine Elizabeth Bennet is determined to wipe out the zombie menace, but she’s soon distracted by the arrival of the haughty and arrogant Mr. Darcy. What ensues is a delightful comedy of manners with plenty of civilized sparring between the two young lovers—and even more violent sparring on the blood-soaked battlefield as Elizabeth wages war against hordes of flesh-eating undead.” The only disappointment is that I have to wait until April 15 to read it.

I’m so jealous of these kids. They get to play around with a giant ass screen (actually a bunch of screens networked together). A fellow named Daniel Shiffman teaches a class and writes books about a programming language called Processing. I’m slowly learning the language in my spare time following along with this book (Which is excellent btw). Here are some videos of his giant screen:

Big Screens Class @ IAC, Session 2 from shiffman on Vimeo.

Big Screens - Caves of Wonder by Matt Parker from Gizmodo on Vimeo.

[Link]