A collection of digital wonders and some other stuff
I love this teaser for Seinfeld’s new CG animation Bee Movie. It’s based on the premise that the movie was originally live-action and we’re seeing how the shooting was going.
See the ifilm clip trailer on YouTube or USA Today’s article about the ad.
The city of Lethbridge, Alberta (the place where I live) was featured in a gag on the Simpsons. The Simpson family was watching a show called, “Hunch” and Lethbridge was the “filming location” for the City of New York.
From the episode: 17×22 – Marge and Homer Turn a Couple Play
This google image of a North Americian Indian is not too far from my parents place in Medicine Hat.
He’s listening to an iPod in Australia.
I occasionally get into a streak where I love playing board games and my absolute favorite game to play on a cold autumn afternoon is Parker-Brother’s classic real estate trading game, Monopoly. I played yesterday with my family and though at some points it was give or take whether I would pull through, in the end, I won it all!
Disappointed by the lack of good strategy guides in a cursory search for “monopoly strategy”, I’m convinced there is a definite need for someone to get the good information out there, so I’ll do what I can in my limited knowledge.
Some interesting facts and lesser known rules about Monopoly:
To finish off this post, I’ve got a question that doesn’t appear to be answered in the rule book. Perhaps some of the more clever readers here will enlighten us with their opinions in the comments. It’s a fact that, if the owner of a property fails to ask for his/her rent before the second player following the one who landed on the property throws the dice, the debt is uncollectible.
My question is:
What if the player who landed on the property had rolled doubles and the owner fails to ask for his/her rent? Can the same player quickly pick up the dice and roll again? or does that only work when a second player picks up the dice and rolls?
Check out the future of digital drawing in this video of an M.I.T. researcher showing off some of the features in their new digital drawing board.
Update: This looks like a prototype for the Smart Board. At the time I originally posted this the technology was mind blowing.
I’ve subscribed to a few really good podcasts from the Canadian Broadcasting Corp that I need to tell the world about:
And if you haven’t already, let me just re-recommend that you subscribe to the TED Conference talks and theThis American Life podcast. These are my two favourite sources of inspiration and entertainment on the web right now.
Though I’ve found the turbulent history of the Middle East to be fascinating, I’ve never before found a resource so eloquent as the Maps of War Imperial History which enables one to see 5000 years of empire building and state history in about 90 seconds.
Though a lot of the empires shown here are familiar, I had no idea their respective magnitudes or durations.
(via Coolhunting)
I feel like I need to offer an apology for what I’m about to link to or at least some kind of explanation but all I can say is the “I found a hooker” video had me laughing out loud (perhaps partly because of the shock value).
The other videos from William Sledd’s YouTube page are also embarrassingly captivating. It’s especially good if you are a trendy teenager with an interest in fashion—for the record, if it weren’t for my sister or female friends picking out clothes for me, I’m sure that most of the time I would be a fashion disaster. (The tie in the above photo for example, looks hideous to me, but what do I know?)
Oh, and as a prediction, I have a feeling William Sledd will be showing up on mainstream TV any day now.
About a month ago I entered the SAT Blogger Challenge, an experiment to see how regular “bloggers” like myself compare to high school students in the United States with regard to essay writing ability.
I got a 4.
The challenge:
Directions: Think carefully about the issue presented in the following excerpt and the assignment below.
‘I have learned that success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome while trying to succeed.’
– Booker T. WashingtonAssignment: What is your opinion on the idea that struggle is a more important measure of success than accomplishment? Plan and write an essay in which you develop your point of view on this issue. Support your position with reasoning and examples taken from your reading, studies, experience, or observations.
Without further ado, here is my essay spelling mistakes and all.
Success as measured by struggle rather than in accomplishment conveys the romantic notion that it doesn’t matter how well you do, so long as you try.
If success could be defined as merely the amount of effort one applied to any given problem then it would be fair to say that both the Russians and the Americans were ’successful’ in the race for the moon, but it was the United States that landed there first. Continuing with that line of thinking, if struggle is all that matters, then the current war in Iraq has been very successful for the United States – from start to present. It looks like they are headed for a lot of success in the future too.
It is important to remember that the struggle to accomplish a given goal is a very important part of success, however, I believe, that it’s disingenuous to pretend that success can be defined merely by how hard one attempts to complete their goal.
Success is synonomous with accomplishment while struggle only relates to success in that often a successful endevour was possible due to conviction, deadication, and hard work. So, while the importance of struggle should not be ignored, a success can only accurately measured in terms of accomplishment. The bright math student who correctly completes his homework with very little effort is much more successful than the struggling student who slaves over his work and yet despite his effort does a horrible job.
Success must be defined as the accomplishment. The struggle is merely what helps one complete that accomplishment.
See Dave Munger’s analysis on the challenge.
I like the combination of new media skills that were used to create this interesting Toyota commercial.
Back in New York City for post production, the most interesting challenge was to design the type. We ended up designing just one custom-made alphabet for all the cars, but made all sorts of letter-like shapes for everything else. We made fun letters looking like buildings, trees, clouds, leaves and birds. We made letters carved into a cliff, and a flock of sheep forming a sentence. None of it could have been achieved with off-the-shelf fonts.
After watching the video, take a second to go back and pan through the video to see all the creative font placements. Also check out the this second ad in the series.