A Scanner Darkly
We first blogged about the Keanu-tastic movie of the Philip K Dick novel, A Scanner Darkly well over a year ago and we had a short trailer which even back then looked mightily impressive but just check out the latest trailer for the full Rotoscoping effect. Good heritage of people who seem to be on the edges, it’s a Richard Linklater film and stars, not only Keanu, but also Robert Downey Jr, Woody Harrelson and Winona Ryder.
Democracy – Internet TV Platform
Yes, there have been many attempts at this before but I have high hopes for Democracy, the new open source (and thus free) all-in-one internet tv station. Simply install and create an account, tell it what programs you want to watch and it will download them via the bitTorrent client and let you watch what you want, when you want and share your tastes with your friends. Very neat.
Amen to that
My Djing career spanned the same timeframe as the popularity of the Amen Break through tracks like NWA’s Straight outta Compton to Ray Keith’s – Terrorist. This 20 minute homegrown documentary details the history of this break from its origins as an obscure six second breakdown to it’s rise as one of the most influential samples in electronic music.
The power of pussy
I love music and I love cats, but I don’t think I’d buy a cat piano
Laptop Stash Card
Very cool and simple idea here – the laptop Stash Card is a mini drawer that fits into unused slots on your laptop as a hiding place. I wouldn’t recommend hiding your credit card in it though, imagine the world of pain you’d be in if your card got nicked with your laptop!
Warbears
Warbears is a great looking and playing game but I’m really stuck far too early on. If anyone wants to help me, I’ve got the aerial working but can’t do much more beyond that – help in the comments below if you’d be so kind, I just wish there was a save progress feature to this otherwise awesome game.
4001 posts and counting!
Typically, I just missed our 4000th post just now and this is the 4001st! w00t!
I’d also like to take this opportunity to introduce old friend, long time reader and all-round dude, Carl as a resident of pri.me towers. Solomon and myself are both stupidily busy with work at the moment and since Carlos has the same sick taste in things as us, he’s kindly agreed to help out with the occasional post.
I’d also like to say a sorry goodbye to Fawn Jotters a good blogger from Scotland who was always a good source of links and always had the decency to credit us despite us never reciprocating (sorry about that!).
Strange but beautiful
Just found these oddly beautiful photos of the first few microseconds of an Atomic Blast.
World of Warcraft/Google Maps mashup
Although I’m not a player of World of Warcraft, I think this WoW/Google Maps mash-up is a stroke of genius.
Gervais podcast going paid-for
Disappointing news from the Guardian today – the highly successful series of podcasts by Ricky Gervais are going to become chargeable in the future. I’m very disappointed indeed with this news as I’m sure Ricky doesn’t need the money, and it goes against the ethos of diy podcasting despite Ricky having the most popular podcast around accroding to the guinness book of records.
Design Your Own Converse Shoes
I don’t understand in this day and age how on earth a company can come up with a brilliant new twist on such a classic piece of design such as the Converse Chuck Taylor Design Your Own Shoe promotion but not manage the ability to post them to anywhere except the USA. I love the idea and the shoes but it sucks that they won’t ship them abroad. How hard could that be?
Blueprint Game
It’a been a while since we had a good a decent addictive game to waste an afternoon so here’s the Blueprint Game. Simple, addictive and almost maddening.
Japanese language learning tools
One day I swear I will attempt to start trying to learn Japanese. When I do, this list of Japanese language learning tools will probably really help me or maybe I should just stick with funny videos like this how to eat sushi guide.
Sicko’s ‘Contract of Wifely Expectations’
I’m rarely surprised by other people’s behaviour, I guess I’m somewhat cynical but even so, every so often something comes along that astounds me. Travis Frey, a 33-year-old Iowa man up on kidnap charges is one such sick individual. As part of his case, his wife (who has my sympathies for ever meeting this gene pool poisoner) was asked to sign a “Contract of Wifely Expectations” which makes for some abhorrent reading. This ain’t a pleasant document to read and I’d have to say it’s NSFW due to the content (not images). Luckily she never signed it, not that it would stand up in court, but it gives a scary insight into this loser’s brain.
Sonic the Hedgehog Piano
Well, this certainly brought back s lot of memories, Sonic the Hedgehog played on a piano. There’s a feeling of old silent movie scores to it but it was surprising how good and intricate the music is (and it was alarming how embeded into my brain it was even a decade after I last played it).
What does your phone number spell?
Ever wondered what your phone number spells?
The Android Philip K. Dick is missing
Philip K. Dick has gone missing! Obviously this isn’t the real Philip K Dick who died in 1982 but instead an android named in honour of the author. For those of you who are aware of his works, this is somewhat ironic given his championing of android independence – see the replicants in Bladerunner, which gives raise to a further question, what on earth would an android Philip K Dick dream of?
for those not familiar with his work, the classic film Bladerunner was based on his novel, ‘Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?’
OOTTINLTO – BMW
Here’s an odd one – this OOTTINLTO link only works if you have Moderate Safe Search on, not the usual unfiltered results but other than that niggle, it’s a good one – Here’s the GIS for BMW – just don’t forget to change your preferences back to unfiltered afterwards.
cheers Paul
LED Throwies – an Urban Hack
A beautiful urban hack here courtesy of the ever-improving instructables site. LED Throwies are simplely LEDs taped to a button cell battery and a magnet. You chuck them at walls or wherever you can place them and they’ll brighten up the night for a couple of weeks. You must check out the stunning video for the full effect and see the scale of manufacture these guys went to. Superb.
Don’t mess with the Hulk
“You don’t want to make me angry…”
See Dick. Run!
I’m sure most of you will have heard a snippet on the news recently about D1ck Cheney, the American vice-president ‘accidentally’ shooting someone recently whilst out on a quail shoot. As usual, the Smoking gun has the official police report and several things strike me about this but most of all is, how on earth can you mistake a 78 year old lawyer for a quail? The fark comments thread says it better than I ever could.
*Edit* It turns out that Dick will have to face legal reprecussions for the incident but get this, not for attempted murder, nope, he’ll have to pay a $7 fine for not having the correct hunting license. I hadn’t realised that you’d need a special license to shoot a lawyer.
Portishead
Inspired by a recent post on my friend Si’s travel blog, I went to try to find out what the superb band Portishead were up to these days and I noticed that the are amongst the many, many bands who have a myspace page. It seems they are still writing their 3rd album (lazy blighters!) but you can hear new tracks on the myspace site every so often so it’s worth checking in occasionally.
Audiobubble
We don’t usually give free advertising to companies that we don’t know well or have used extensively ourselves here at pri.me towers but I’m going to make an exception for Shaun and Tom , the guys behind Audiobubble as I like the cut of their jib. Audiobubble is a new online music store but it has a few distinct features that raise it above other stores such as iTunes. The major one for me is that it is DRM-free. Yep, that’s right, a music shop that doesn’t treat its customers as criminals. You get high-quality previews of tracks (and not limited to a measly 30 secs either), the tracks are all mp3s so you can play in any decent player or pc without being tied into a specific player. Bands and musicians benefit from retaining maximum control over their music and can even set the price for the tracks.
Catches? The only one I can find is the current lack of artists available (it is a new site after all) but give it enough time and support and I hope they thrive.
3D Painted Illusion Rooms
I’m grateful to our regular reader Jim for pointing me to this link – I’d seen the first couple of pictures last week but he’s managed to find a whole page of these amazing 3D Painted Rooms.
Unfortunate Valentines Cards
I’m feeling unusually topical today so have a free Valentine Days set of links. Firstly, here are a bunch of Unfortunate Valentines Cards. If that’s not enough to satiate you then how about set of Star Wars Valentines for the geek in your life (courtesy of the Something Awful goons) but for that person who you want to send a ‘special’ message to, why not pop over to your local Asda supermarket and pick up a card for 8pence – as they say, “Romance is not dead – it is being done on a shoestring”. Bet you don’t get a shag out of giving someone that card!
*Edit* Even more unsuitable valentines cards here.
The Tattooed Banana
Unbeknown to me, a whole new subculture has arisen dedicated to the art of the Tattooed Banana.
The Uncyclopedia
The Uncyclopedia is a satire on wikipedia and has some of the oddest pages I’ve seen in a while. Also of note are the pretty self-explanatory Sdrawkcab entry and the section dedicated to the letter A, titled AAAAAAAAA! I also never knew that Euthanasia was a country.
Language Geeks
Many of my friends probably don’t know it but I’d class them as language geeks (I am too but I won’t admit it either) – fascistic is probably just as valid a description too. Imagine my delight when I came across the Oxford English Frequently Asked Questions section. Finally, a site with all the answers to those pub-bore questions like ‘does anything rhyme with orange or silver’, and my pet hate, ‘Does ‘bimonthly’ mean ‘twice a month’ or ‘every two months’?’ ( I have personally sworn an oath to bludgeon the cranium of the next Manager who insists that it’s perfectly obvious what they meant by ‘bimonthly’).
Real Transformer
I know this robot but do much except transform but it does it so well – I’d buy a Real Transformer just for the geek factor based on this video.
Archaeologists accidently find tomb in Egypt
A Pharaoh’s tomb, completely intact and dating from approx. 1450BC, has been discovered by accident. Miraculously, it seems to have been undisturbed by tomb-raiders.
Rumours of a curse will start in 5..4..3..2..
