In love again...

found this link on a stickie. Completely forgot what it was for. Turns out it's from 2007, a HappySlip ode to a apple-mac. If she's still single I'm all over it. (I know she's not...just indulge me...)

The Little Lima Bean

Hey, look who did a children's book before you did.

You Have to Burn the Rope

Play You Have to Burn the Rope. Via Play this Thing, one of the more interesting sources of game criticism I've encountered.

Art question

Mr. Tanaka, my elementary school art teacher who has taught K-9 art since 1977, says computers are changing the way students experience art.

I think art programs have changed drastically because of the computer ... which makes kids think that they can produce something, because they can make it on the computer. But it's not the same as really making something. They tend to have poor motor skills as a result.

I haven't talked to him personally about this personally - the quote was in an alumni newsletter my school sends out. I think it's fascinating though. What does this mean for the art 20 to 30 years from now? Do you think it matters? Or will talented artists emerge regardless of whether they develop good motor skills when they're young?

Apologies if this is something people in the art world talk about all the time... This was the first I'd heard of it.

Domonation

Classic Domokun interstitials now available at Domonation.com

Frogspawn

Hi, the Tom Stallione here. I saw this sign next to a pond in Richmond Park in London where me and Ruby Tenneco were bothering the ducks and their duckling younglings.

The 'Foot is on twitter!

If you are not already familiar with Bigfoot's haunting series of autobiographical writings/drawings (ghosted by Graham Roumieu) then you are pretty much fucked.
But you're in luck! It turns out that for those web savvy savants who never leave the screen, you can catch the enigmatic sasquatch in a hundred fiddy words or less, so that's a nice consolation prize.
Yes it's true, you can't spell "twitter" without "twit", but it's not all ass.

Star War Episode 3: The Backstroke of the West

I very enjoyed these screenshots of a badly translated Chinese DVD.

Homemade Green Lantern Trailer

Sorry, doesn't quite go with the flow here but just wanted to share. As a fan of both Nathan Fillion and GL...

Tattoos to remember

Unicorn tattoos.

How to Blog

Here's a really interesting podcast on the subject of blogging by Merlin Mann (of 43 Folders and John Gruber (of Daring Fireball). (Drawing by Dave Gray.)

While I don't necessarily swallow their definitions of "success", they do offer some interesting takes on the nature of the medium, and ask some pretty great questions. They also make me glad that I write for a team blog, with a team as diverse, and as freakish, and good as this one. *HUGZ*

Corvon Guntsdottir Strikes Again

Do yourself a favor and find Corvon Guntsdottir's suggestions for a better battery on this page. Could this be Corvon Gundtsdottir, who seems to have been one of the heroes of the Battle of Wikipedia? Via Lungclops, whom I just ate a pile of shellfish with.

Porkgasm

They say that bacon has jumped the shark. While this post may be evidence of this, it is also ample proof that it was a mighty big shark. God rest your soul, Bacon Meme.

Courtesy Mike's sister Molly.

Astounding Lego Theatrics.

2:40 is where it gets fun for me, but the whole thing is great.

Exclamation points!

Exclamation points are profilerating everywhere!

Are they annoying, or friendly?

Internet age "communication experts" say they're a good way to to add energy to otherwise unexciting e-mail. And women apparently use them to be nice.

(I totally believe it. I will often insert an exclamation point into an e-mail to be friendly, especially if I'm writing another woman. I've also seen accomplished women sprinkle exclamation points all over their professional e-mail mesasges. Of course, people can get carried away and go way overboard!!!)

Shipley and Schwalbe argue that in the internet age, a dash of sensation is just what is needed. "Email is without affect," they write. "It has a dulling quality that almost necessitates kicking everything up a notch just to bring it to where it would normally be."

A woman on a bulletin board site featuring female writers says:

Women are socialized to communicate in non-threatening, maybe even self-deprecating ways; I've always thought the exclamation points and smilies and so forth are shorthand for rolling over and showing your soft pink underbelly.

On a side note -- Blogger wouldn't let me include an exclamation point in the post label below. I guess Google is not a fan.

Carol Brown, Fashion is Danger

So I’m not a big fan of there show, but there are a few musical numbers from Flight of the Conchords that I think are reals good. Here are two:

Carol Brown:


Fashion is Danger:



See also Too Many Dicks on the Dance Floor.

Yub Nub Cover by jsullivan

Found Here.

Google talks about newspapers

Google's CEO, Eric Schmidt, is speaking quite sensibly about newspapers. I suspect many in print media know he's right but don't want to admit it:

FT: Some people, in their concern about the sorry financial state of a lot of American newspapers, they’ve talked about the idea that some papers should become not for profit. Do you think that’s a good idea? Is that going to be the model for the future?

ES: There’s an old joke about newspapers – that some of them have been not-for-profits for many years. So I think the reality is that news gathering and the profitability model was always an uncomfortable relationship because it’s very difficult to make money from a story about a tragedy or murder or so forth - and yet it’s enormously valuable. So the structure of newspapers that evolved, where the majority of the revenue came from classifieds and these big, untargeted print ads, the content was fascinating but they were not connected to... it was ultimately destined to be challenged by technology and that’s indeed what happened.

...

FT: In their quest for revenues newspapers have started talking about trying to persuade you, Google, and specifically Google News, to share a little bit more of the revenue, specifically from their stories that appear on Google News. Wouldn’t that be a good idea?

ES: We’ve decided that the value we provide to the partners is the traffic. So we want to provide incredible numbers of users going to their sites, their content, which is why we urge them to make it deeper, stronger and use better tools and so forth. From our perspective, that’s where the real source would be. In our model, and what we’re doing today, the vast majority of the revenue that comes directly from reading newspapers, in fact, goes to them through all these mechanisms. The real issue here is that when people are reading the news online, we’re not monetising it in aggregate, so if we were to transfer money we would be taking money from something unrelated to newspapers and just paying them, which doesn’t seem like a good sustainable model for anybody.

MacAttack

So, I broke down and decided to try Mac again - plus I needed to spend my academic account money or lose it in June - so I got me a 17" MacBook Pro. Tricked it out as best I could to eat up the dough.

So.

Which apps should I get to have the best Mac experience? I may even need to get the Ages of Empire for the Mac now so I can practice for my next trip home.

Ideas?

How do I set it up as a windows box too?

Party Shirt #1

"Party Shirts" by zsumoz. See the whole set here.

P.S. zsumoz is secretly Dick Vomit, contributor to Pieces of Things and Acme Shorts. Both Dick Vomit and zsumoz are one hell of a photographer. He recently quit his day job to motor west and complete his labor of non-sexual, completely platonic love, a documentary about the ex-band Walt Mink. I don't know why I felt compelled to write a bio, but there it is. Happy trails to you, brother!

Speaking of great news telling...

Disappointing news for Mr. 'Panic.

It seems that a Lego based RTS game is in the works and will be released in June. What's disappointing is that it looks pretty crap. This is a personal thing for me. I take this seriously folks. I'm feeling a little doo-doo right now. Not literally feeling it, (though I probably do that daily with the boys...) but really folks...This isn't what I wanted to hear from Lego, or Real Time Strategy games. I'm disappointed in both.

...

Paul Pope Draws Some Star Trek

Hey, look! It's a Star Trek comic drawn by Paul Pope, tied in to the new movie. Possible minor spoilers.

Acanalonia bivittata

Ladies and gents, this is the nymph of Acanalonia bivittata, or the Planthopper.

Which grows up to be...

Also known as Ted.

Evidently the younger nymphs shit a sweet, waxy substance, not even remotely like cotton candy!

(Huh... note at the bottom of the wiki that Warner Bros. might turn Bone into a film!)

Speaking of great TV...

This is some fun stuff. Always nice to see "The Body" in action.

Silliness

For some silliness, please watch Papaya Suzuki and the Oyaji Dancers.



This clip is from a mainstream Japanese TV music program. Oyaji means "middle-aged man."

Write to Oprah and Jenny McCarthy!

Hello, guys and gals!

If ya didn't know, Oprah has signed Jenny McCarthy for her own talk show! Fearing that there won't be much for Jenny to talk about, Oprah has opened it up to the world to write in with our own ideas. Here, not surprisingly, is mine:

Hello, Oprah!

Great idea! I've got a story I think would be perfect for her show.

I think it was about ten years ago that a group of scientists in England wrote a journal article that shook the developed world. In it, they presented research describing an unexpected intestinal lesion in 12 children. Here's the interesting bit! At a press conference one of the researchers mentioned that many of these children, who also had the MMR vaccine, also developed autism. He suggested that while their data didn't prove it, there may be a link.

Now the paper clearly states, "We did not prove an association between measles, mumps and rubella vaccine and the syndrome described." But! The media ignored this and gladly fueled a public hysteria against vaccinations in general, based off of research that didn't focus on this idea in the first place. Also, it is important to note that it is grossly unscientific to make an assumption about vaccinations for all the children in the world, based on research on only 12 children with other medical conditions! Needless to say, there was a huge drop in vaccinated children, and ten years later there is still a emotionally driven debate on this issue that almost rivals gay marriage and abortion.

And here's the other fascinating part: By 2004, 10 of the 13 original scientists retracted any presumed link between vaccination and autism, stating that "now is the appropriate time that we should together formally retract the interpretation placed upon these findings in the paper." And since then, more than 14 separate studies have clearly shown that there is no link whatsoever between vaccines and a risk for autism! Amongst scientists and medical professionals there hasn't been a real issue here for years, so where is the information coming from that Jenny is still relying on?

I think it would be great, if not completely necessary for Jenny's credibility, to bring all 13 of the original authors on the show for an _intelligent_ debate on what happened, and how we can educate the misinformed about this drawn out, irrational, public hysteria. Let me know what you think!

I know I'm not exactly original with this suggestion, so why don't you guys send in some of your own ideas!

Take care of your teeth, folks.

I'm not saying you don't already, but take it from me. You don't want to get to the point where you have to go get a root canal. it's not worth the "cool" badge you think you might get, because what you get is the "oh my god, I'm old enough to have a root canal, oh my god, I'm a dad, and there are more hairs growing on my body than there used to be. What the F, man?" badge instead. Then you have the "stand in line at the pharmacy waiting on your drugs for an hour" badge. So watch those really tough to chew foods, folks. You really don't need to be eating rawhide anyway. What the fuck are you doing eating rawhide? You evolved to the tool building point so that you wouldn't have to eat rawhide, use your fuckin' head!
Anyways, here's something funny I read about America's favorite show Lost Enjoy.

Dense Valley

Friend and colleague Mika Oshima is writing and drawing a comic about growing up in Manoa, of all places. I'm really liking her compressed-space depictions of the architecture and flora and fauna of the valley. Check out Dense Valley, and watch for updates!

Nooooooooo!

Hey Mr. Pony, did you sell your giant octopi theory to Hollywood?! I thought this trailer had to be a parody, but I found a reference to the movie on imdb.

A newspaper experiments

The New York Times is brainstorming ways to make more money online and stop the bleeding. Who knows if any of the ideas will work. But at least it's trying to come up with a solution, instead of allowing itself to slowly waste away.

One includes a "meter system," in which the reader can roam freely on the Web site until hitting a predetermined limit of word-count or pageviews, after which a meter will start running and the reader is charged for movement on the site thereafter. ...
Mr. Keller described the second proposal as a "membership" system. In this model, readers pledge money to the site and are invited into a "New York Times community." You write a check, you get a baseball cap or a T-shirt (if it's like Channel Thirteen, a tote bag!), an invite to a Times event, or perhaps, like The Economist, access to specialized content on the Web.

NASA watches Trek in space

From the NYT:

Right about now in outer space, three men are crouched in a node of the International Space Station, watching J.J. Abrams’ reboot of “Star Trek” on a laptop. They chose the node, said NASA spokeswoman Nicole Cloutier, because it was “dark and quiet” and would be “a good spot” for three “Star Trek” fans to hunker down for the ultimate viewing experience.

Watching Star Trek, whilst in outer space...

Sure.

BTW: Pics of the Hubble repair!

Gecko vs. Centipede

The centipede is now eating the gecko. This round, then, goes to the centipede.

Fog of War Is Hard

Fog of war was much more difficult to program than I had ever imagined. But seriously, it was worth it. Fog of war!

Happy Birthday Ruby Tenneco!!!

Earth is growing! Do not believe the lies!

This was described by my friend Grodon as the "happiest conspiracy theory I've ever seen."

WARNING: It totally blows the whole continental drift theory out of the water!



At 7:25:

As we now go forward in time from 185 million years ago, please notice there is no subduction. No raising and lowering of land masses, there can't be! IT'S HELL IN THE FORM OF MAGMA DOWN THERE!

Follow us on Twitter, You

Our Twitter feeds are up and running!

Posts: http://twitter.com/piecesofthings
Comments: http://twitter.com/piecescomments

My new exercise routine

Via Laughing squid.

Star Trek

* EDIT: HIGHLIGHT POST TO SEE SPOILERS *

GOOD!
*Swollen Kirk hands
*Excellent, realistic Shatner-esque writhing on ground grimacing thing by Kirk guy after being hit or falling over
*Young Bones

BAD!
*Alternate reality get-out
*Not enough Young Bones
*Pudgy Enterprise

Edit: (Warning contains fake spoiler):
*I was glad to see the Spock-Kirk romantic relationship finally fully explored outside of fan-fiction.

I liked it! Did you liked it?!

DoInk: Sweet Online Animation Tool

The Empress of Denmark's Sister Escapes by mrpony, made at DoInk.com

I've only started to mess around with DoInk, but it's pretty amazing. A co-worker of a friend showed me this robust online animation tool, with all sorts of sharing and community built in. The drawing tool is one of the best I've seen online (it kind of mimics Flash's drawing tool, which I use almost exclusively), and the animation compositer is fairly simple, but it incorporates layering and basic loopable clips. The animation I made is admittedly boring, but I didn't have a lot of time to mess around with it, and just wanted to play with the basics.

I ran into a little trouble getting tweened clips to revert to their pre- or post-tweened state, but this could just as easily be my problem, having learned on an entirely different system. Clips made there can be exported to youTube or exported as swfs (!)

The most wonderful thing about Doink is that once you share an object you draw, it's available to everyone on the site. If you need a picture of a duck, say, you can search for one and incorporate it into your animation (This system might sound a little familiar to Ruby). This sharing concept meshes with a lot of ideas we've been kicking around at work about the educational value of remixing content, and lowering the skill bar for formerly difficult types of content creation, including animation.

Near as I can tell, the community is fairly small, but the tool is nice enough that I hope to see them attracting a critical mass soon.

Creation SCIENCE!

After seeing religion being pwned by children, I think we often don't give equal time to different points of view on this blog. Thusly... here!

Now, having given them a minute: How completely self-centered and egotistical do you have to be to be so close to getting perspective right, but still think that you're the center of the universe?

Calisthenics

I found the NHK television calisthenics more quickly than I thought possible. The English class clip Mr. Pony posted reminded me a little of this:

Any regrets, Mr. Cheney?

Former Vice-President Dick Cheney defends his administration's torture record on Face the Nation.

Why?

Language Lessons?

We've seen these before via the Curated Internet, but I'm still completely baffled as to the intent.

EDIT: Even Know Your Meme is a little vague on this point.

Coming Soon to Ala Moana...

LEGO Store! (also UNDERPANTS store!)

Why didn't Jesus shapeshift?

Good question!

Satan used Perez Hilton to ask Miss California about gay marriage!

I was going to leave poor Miss California alone. Until this:

Prejean: . . . I felt as though Satan was trying to tempt me in asking me this question. And then God was in my head and in my heart saying, "Do not compromise this. You need to stand up for me and you need to share with all these people . . . you need to witness to them and you need to show that you're not willing to compromise that for this title of Miss USA."

Happy Mother's Day!

On this Mother's day, from the not-at-all sensationalist special, In the Womb: Extreme Animals!

Parasitic wasps infected with a nudivirus over 100 million years ago lead to this:

I hope you watched to the end for the full effect. Geez, thanks, Mom!

Via: Observations of a Nerd

Latest aquisition.

My latest aquistion. I need help.

I hope the movie does not suck. I have high hopes for Spike Jonze.

Panic's Weekly; A dumb one.

O.k., so an extremely naughty group of extraterrestrials manage to teleport all animals off of Earth save those we have caught or domesticated to be household pets. That leaves us Dogs, Cats, mice, rats, aquarium sized fish, snails and crustaceans, several species of small birds, parrots (no fowl though), chinchillas, guinea pigs, turtles, ferrets, iguanas, some species of snakes and the cuter species of frogs. No potbellied pigs though. No pigmy animals either.
Intergalactic police are on the case, but they say it's going to be a few generations of our lifespan before they catch the evildoers.
the question is, How do you think we'll fare? The earth still retains all of its arachnids, insects, and invertebrates. Any wild or feral animals/fish that match the species kept in cages/aquariums still remain in the wild/seas. the earth has roughly three hundred years until all the other animals are returned.

Dead Boy Coach

I know I said I'd stop, and this is an afterthought compared to Ruby's, but I thought I noticed a disturbing trend emerging.

Large Magical Pants Coach

Ok, not to be a boaster but I think I may have trumped all of those all with this:

I have to admit I'd never heard of this till a co-worker mentioned it to me today. The animation is actually much more skillfull than Mr. T et al but I think the clunky hip-hop plot description still pulls through for a higher overall crappiness.

Psychotic Break Coach

Theme song by Menudo, apparently!

Intolerance Coach

I hate you Pone for making me remember this.

Rainbow Magicalness Coach

Is this up one or down one?

Gymnastics Coach

This one's for you, Helpwillcome. I can't believe I watched so much of this crappy, crappy show. Can anyone one-up me?

Enterprise-D Schematic Easter Eggs

Found on the interwebs.

Book Review: Star Fleet Technical Manual!

I found the Star Trek Technical Manual at a used bookstore the other day, I can't believe I've never heard of it before! It's got amazing diagrams of all kinds of things, from a pattern for a ladies' star-uniform (including space-panty) to a plan showing you where the toilets are on the bridge. It is my new favorite book.

**************** 16 stars!!!

Anybody watching Tim & Eric's Awesome Show, Great Job?

Lego Torture and Political Blog

I came across this article in the NY Times today and thought that of all people this group would have known about it.

The blogger Legofesto uses legos to reconstruct real life horrors like torture and political intimidation and to express her disgust with the way the "war on terror" was waged. Only a few postings, but interesting.

Pulp Covers Continued: The Paradise Gun

Vanishing Car

This is the game I am making.

I am coding a game. I am making it from scratch.

Watch it in HD. Click the HD button.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0aac6-tfT4

Here is a video I made of my video game so far. I do not know how to embedd.

Post #666

Have we really made it this far? At this, our 666th post, let's take a moment to thank the fellow who made it all possible--all the free will, all the thinking, all the ideas, all the creativity, all the deviance and defiance and independence--the First Fallen, the Star of the Morning, ladies and gentlemen, the Devil himself; the Angel Lucifer! In any other book, he'd have been the good guy!