Morning News

Theme of this mornings news seems to be the thin line between the virtual and the real. An interesting article in Slate on 3D printing (The DIY Copyright Revolution - through the CAA newsletter) claims that that technology will radically change intellectual property as we are dealing with useful objects. Left aside the fact that the writer fails to show how these 3D printed objects might be useful, there is nothing new here (as a comment from First Banana confirms). Yes, the objects themselves may not fall under copyright protection but the designs will. Try printing Mickey Mouse figurines!

The other article that caught my attention was "Ship's anchor cuts Internet access to six East African countries" - the real getting in the way of the virual. For real. The way the internet is set up it did not result in a total blackout, but still.

Not a bad way to turn ninety!

(Left to right) Tony Dalton, John Landis, Ray, Tim Nicholson (associate event producer), Randy Cook and Terry Gilliam. Photo: Mark Mawston.

Through a post on linkedIn I came across this image. At least three of the people in this photograph I admired or even consider myself a fan of. Terry Gilliam is my favorite director. As a teenager I was very much into John Landis' movies. When "An American Werewolf in London" came out, I clipped many an article. Especially on the work of Rick Baker, who is not in this picture but was present at the event.

I did see the new nonagenarian (I actually had to look that word up) a couple of years ago when this master of animation was in his early eighties. He showed some of his original art work and I was much impressed by the quality of his drawing, which are works of art in and of themselves. I also admired the sharpness of his mind and foound his talk to be very inspirational. This was in Amsterdam, and we went there with a bunch of Visual Effects students from the Netherlands Film and Television Academy, where I taught at the time.

I am not even half way there, but turning ninety this was does not seems a very daunting prospect!

Harmony

No idea how it works, seems to have been written entirely in Javascript. But the effect is amazing: Harmony - procedural drawing tool. I drew the image posted here on the left in a few minutes. Using the touchpad on my laptop. (via Drawn!)

Update: could not help myself and played with it again the next day (image on the right, just using shaded mode). And then found out that if you press Contol you can select a color to draw with. So I guess I need to play with it a bit more...

But can one bake an egg on it?

To keep up with the Joneses I thought I would have to throw my two cents in about the Apple Tablet and it's awkward name. But I think I just limit myself to posting the Mad TV sketch from 2005 (via NPR-All Tech Considered)

Tar Sand Animations

H2oil animated sequences by La Moustache from Dale Hayward on Vimeo.

These animated segments for the upcoming documentary H2Oil do a pretty good job explaining why the whole concept of extracting oil from the tar sands in Canada is utterly stupid.

Via Drawn!

DaliDisney Update

The Dali / Disney cooperation I blogged about earlier is back on YouTube, again including the full FBI warning. Let's see how long this one stays up!

Those Canadiens

This post is not about the Canadians whom I met at this years SIGGRAPH Conference, though I should have been blogging from New Orleans but was too busy enjoying the experience. Did post a few photos on Flickr

Just came across this post on Drawn!. "Jue" was created by Georges Schizgebel in 2006. Amazing animation, especially since its hand painted and not computer generated. Wonder if an "ordinateur" was used somewhere in the process...

Dali Disney

I wanted to re-blog a post on boing-boing about a Disney / Dali cooperation. I saw the Amazing animation on YouTube, and immediately wondered how long that would be up. It contained the full FBI warning and a text overlay that it was a copy not for distribution. And indeed, it has been taken down

Amazing piece, truly surreal, as is the collaboration itself. From the credits I gathered that it was a collaboration with Roy though, not Walt. The animation is kind of crude with a lot of cross fades but the imagery is wonderful. And the story... who needs a story?

Some images can be seen here

Amiga Warhol

The second computer I ever bought (and the third) was an Amiga. This video shows Andy Warhol doing a portrait of Deborah Harry at the 1985 product launch. When I moved over to the states (again) in 2005 I managed to sell my over ten years old Amiga 4000 with Macro Systems video editing system (including the huge 2GB internal harddrive) so they aged well!

via Drawn!

We are not alone...

And now for something completely different: here are dolphins with bubbles up their nose:

[via BoingBoing] - Now back to our regular programming: mashing a banana.

Tiny Things

Reading the Physics Today the other day in our tiny room, or should I say browsing it in the bathroom, I came across an amazing image of a nanotechnology circuit board (or at least some switches made with carbon tubes) against the backdrop of a human hair at the same scale. This is definitely the stuff that used to be science fiction when I was a kid!

Which seems to be a sentiment shared by Dan Pirarro

Maybe the iPod invisible, as once previewed on SNL, is not too far off (aaarrgh, cannot find video!)

Unfortunately the on-line version of Physics Today has the image behind a password. The image posted comes from the BBC, and they only had this tiny version... and that post is three years old, so image how small the circuits must be now!

Say it aint so...

I really hope this is not as bad as it sounds: Bush Insider Who Planned To Tell All Killed In Plane Crash (via Boing Boing)

Creative Commons

Now that everything on change.gov is licensed under a Creative Commons license, I have finally added a similar one to this blog (again: thank you Boing Boing)

Canada blames itself.

Living in the U.S., it appears we have reasons (or a reasOn) to be hopeful. But I should maybe pity my sister who lives in Canada who has a slight internet addiction, while here country might become a digital getto according to their own public broadcaster's site! (found this on boing boing)

Jello Wobbling

Couldn't resist re-blogging this. In the category "all things wobbly". Too bad it has nothing to do with Mr. Biafra. (via Boing Boing)

Wobblyland Music

Too busy with our new home to do any animation. Here's an animation I found on Drawn! As a kid I used to draw maps of "Wobbelonia", a country not half as weird as this Wobblyland. Apparently it is completely logical for kids that when you squeeze a tree, it makes a noise that reminds me of air being let out of a balloon while you pull and stretch the opening wide. Kind of like this silliness.

Ghost People

Boing Boing today has a post on Long-exposure shots in St Petersburg, Russia turn people into ghosts, about these great photographs by Alexey Titarenko, who moved to New York the same year I moved to the area (random trivia). These images are reminiscent of one of a somewhat dormant project of mine: CityFlow. Here's the (HC) version:

A Box

Not the one I'm living in (just kidding), but build to be an antagonist to EyeBrain. How is that going to work? I'm not saying! At least not yet.

Has something to do with an art work I read about a while a go, need to find that reference. Here's a YouTube video of something that is just as annoying: an "Ultimate Machine" that turns itself off as soon as you turn it on (via Boing Boing, via Make)

Tugging

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Originally uploaded by ebmorse

Not really in the habit of re-blogging (yet 8^}) but here's a very interesting review on Generator.X of the work by my friend Brandon Morse. We went to grad school together.