Can you pop popcorn with a cellphone?
[Mobile Phone + Maize = Popcorn – YouTube]
Nope.
Theresa Andersson plays all the instruments and does vocal looping on the fly as she sings “Na Na Na” in her kitchen.
Theresa recently recorded her newest album in her kitchen. The record was produced by Swedish singer-songwriter/producer Tobias Froberg (Peter Moren’s upcoming solo album) and mixed by Linus Larsson (Peter Bjorn and John, Mercury Rev.) Theresa played all the instruments on the album except for a duet with legendary New Orleans producer and composer Allen Toussaint (The Meters, Dr. John, The Band, Elvis Costello) and a duet with Norwegian singer Ane Brun.
If you’ve got an hour to spend, this Google Tech Talk by David Weinberger is worth a listen. In it he explains how the breakdown of categorization designed for physical objects when applied to digital or abstract objects (such as thoughts) can be overcome through new kinds of categorization—ie. tagging.
The Onion News Network presents a story about a Warcraft sequel that lets you play a character playing World of Warcraft.
For the record, despite the fact that I’ve played a lot of video games in my time, I’ve never played World of Warcraft.
“In case you haven’t been paying attention…” here is Slate’s pleasant recap of the Democratic Primary in a mere 8 and 1/2 minutes 7 minutes.
I find it hard enough paying close attention to my own country’s politics, but this recap is nice because it succinctly summarizes the highlights of the race so far.
I’ve played around in the open source 3D modelling software Blender a little bit. It may not be as fancy as the retail software on the market today, but if you compare it with versions of Maya or MAX from just a few years ago, it blows them out of the water.
A team of creative folks used the free software to make a short animated cartoon, Big Buck Bunny. They were funded by Blender foundation support and pre-orders of the DVD by the Blender community.
It’s licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0, so it’s free to watch and distribute so long as the credits are attached. Theoretically you could even download the source files, remix the movie and then sell it for a profit. Here is the original movie via YouTube:
Watch Big Buck Bunny now on YouTube or one of the many other official viewing options.
Displacements is an immersive film installation by Michael Naimark. He first filmed three people interacting in a typical Americana living room. Then the space and objects were painted white. The camera was replaced with a projector putting the action and colour back into the room with just light. The results are surreal.
Displacements is an immersive film installation. An archetypal Americana living room was installed in an exhibition space. Then two performers were filmed in the space using a 16mm motion picture camera on a slowly rotating turntable in the room’s center. After filming, the camera was replaced with a film loop projector and the entire contents of the room were spray-painted white. The reason was to make a projection screen the right shape for projecting everything back onto itself. The result was that everything appears strikingly 3D, except for the people, who of course weren’t spray-paint white, and consequently appeared very ghostlike and unreal.
Unfortunately the video linked from Vimeo has been taken down, but you’ll find a video in the link above.
This is a video of four people driving along a Saudi Arabian road with three of them outside the car doing what what appears to be sliding on concrete wearing nothing special on their feet.
[Only in Saudi Arabia – YouTube]
Mmmmmmm, Weezer’s new memelicious music video Pork and Beans is the best meme inspired creation ever.
Shot May 7-10 in North Hollywood, CA, this video features a cast of, well, many! And what a cast! An amazing group of well known “Youtube celebs” was tracked down and flown in so they could do their thing(s) with the Weezer men. Its pretty much impossible to properly describe what went down, so just have a look!
I particularly liked it when Rivers Cuomo embraces the “Leave Britney Alone” guy. If anyone was ever overdo for a hug, it’s Chris Crocker.
Update: Wired’s interview with the director.
Perhaps this virtual girlfriend in bed installation will appease the lonely art connoisseur. Weird but interesting, from Drew Burrows: