The AV Club Blog The AV Club Blog The AV Club Blog is filled with all of the things we, the total dorks that we are, find interesting. We also post a lot of behind the scenes info on our current and upcoming videos, so there is a whole lot to see in here. Articles
Will Novels Die?
2008-03-24 18:12:00 In paper form, yes. Before I expand, read this article by novelist David Louis Edelman. For the short attention spanned, here are the most important parts: We haven?t always had novels. No, in fact, while recorded human history has been going on for five thousand years now (depending on how you define it), the novel has been around for less than five hundred (depending on how you define it)… The fact of the matter is that the novel itself is an art form that evolved to take advantage of a certain new technology, namely the printing press. Why do books tend to be no larger than around 8? x 12?? Because that?s about as large as you can make a book and still be able to hold it comfortably in your hands and transport it from place to place. Why does the print tend to be around a point size of 12? Because that?s about as small as you can make text and still have it be readable at arm?s length. Take those limitations and you?ll find that you can?t easily pack more than 200,000 wor... More About: Design , Novels
Will Novels Die?
2008-03-24 18:12:00 In paper form, yes. Before I expand, read this article by novelist David Louis Edelman. For the short attention spanned, here are the most important parts: We haven?t always had novels. No, in fact, while recorded human history has been going on for five thousand years now (depending on how you define it), the ...SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "Will Novels Die?", url: "http://blog.theavclub.tv/post/will-novel s-die" }); More About: Technology
Things Other People Did When They Were Your Age:
2008-03-21 18:17:00 Feeling adequate today? Click this link and that situation will be cured right away. Enter your age and it will spit back a list of famous people and what they accomplished when they were your age. This is what I have not accomplished yet: Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. dropped out from his job at General Electric to become a full-time writer. Henry David Thoreau went off for two years to live alone in a cabin at Walden Pond. Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first person in space. Memphis millionaire Frederic W. Smith, whose father built the Greyhound bus system, founded Federal Express. Scottish botanist David Douglas discovered the Douglas fir. Ernest Hemingway published his first novel, The Sun Also Rises. Boston dentist William Morton pioneered modern anaesthesiology after learning that inhalation of ether will cause a loss of consciousness. Jimi Hendrix choked to death on his own vomit after ingesting wine and sleeping pills. Janis Joplin died of an overdose of whiskey and hero... More About: People , Things
Things Other People Did When They Were Your Age:
2008-03-21 18:17:00 Feeling adequate today? Click this link and that situation will be cured right away. Enter your age and it will spit back a list of famous people and what they accomplished when they were your age. This is what I have not accomplished yet: Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. dropped out from his job at ...SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "Things Other People Did When They Were Your Age:", url: "http://blog.theavclub.tv/post/things-oth er-people-did-when-they-were-your-age" }); More About: Internet
Magic Eye 2.0
2008-03-20 18:51:00 Click the above image to see it full rez, then relax your eyes until the message becomes clear to you. This is the first time that I have seen an autostereogram using just text, but I am sure it is not a new technique. It is, however, cool. Via MILITANTPLATYPUS. SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "Magic Eye 2.0", url: "http://mint.theavclub.tv/feeder/?FeederA ction=clicked&feed=Articles+%28rss2%2 9&seed=http%3A%2F%2Fblog.theavclub.tv %2Fpost%2Fmagic-eye-20&seed_title=Mag ic+Eye+2.0" });
Magic Eye 2.0
2008-03-20 18:51:00 Click the above image to see it full rez, then relax your eyes until the message becomes clear to you. This is the first time that I have seen an autostereogram using just text, but I am sure it is not a new technique. It is, however, cool. Via MILITANTPLATYPUS. SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "Magic Eye 2.0", url: "http://blog.theavclub.tv/post/magic-eye- 20" }); More About: Interesting
Hack Youtube Videos To Play In Highrez!
2008-03-19 18:39:00 Watch this video at YouTubeWatch the above video for a few seconds, then watch this version. Notice a big difference? You should. The picture and sound are both better, by a wide margin, right? What you are seeing is my favorite new thing about Youtube - they encode all new uploads as 640×480 mpeg 4 Quicktimes, and there is a really simple way to get them to play that highrez version of any video. Add the following to the end of the URL, and if that video is available in highrez, it will play: &fmt=18 Anyone with an iPhone has been watching these versions when you use the Youtube app, but it wasn’t until recently that I learned that they were accessible on the web. Only newer videos are encoded like this, so it won’t work on a lot of their content, but it is worth trying. Pretty great, huh? Got any other interesting ‘hacks’ you’ve found on your journeys through the interwebs? SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "Hack Youtube Videos To Play In Hi... More About: Internet
A Different Kind Of Red Camera
2008-03-18 21:30:00 This is not the Red One. This is MiniDigi AF 5.0, and it is beautiful. If you can’t guess, it is a digital remake of a classic. I have a few “olde timey” cameras I have been contemplating ways to convert into digital versions, if I ever get the time to do so. Call it an extreme back burner fascination. For now I’m content to shoot my Digitalomo shots to get my fix of flawed photography. This camera, however, would be kind of fun to use, no? Click the image to read more details. Via NOTCOT. SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "A Different Kind Of Red Camera ", url: "http://mint.theavclub.tv/feeder/?FeederA ction=clicked&feed=Articles+%28rss2%2 9&seed=http%3A%2F%2Fblog.theavclub.tv %2Fpost%2Fa-different-kind-of-red-camera& #38;seed_title=A+Different+Kind+Of+Red+Ca mera" }); More About: Design , Photography
Want To See Why I Went Overseas Last Year?
2008-03-13 20:22:00 Those of you who were reading this blog this time last year will remember that I went to Japan, Germany, and Italy for 5 weeks on a Discovery video shoot. After what has been, and certainly feels like, an eternity, they have finally started running the videos that we shot. Go see “Twist The Throttle“, directed by Dylan Weiss, shot by Andy Waruszewski and myself, in glorious HD, for free, on the web, right now, do it. What is the show about, you ask? I’ll let Dylan’s words take you through it: Shot entirely in High-Definition because of the multi-platform nature of the project, ?Twist The Throttle? is an inside and behind-the-scenes look at eight of the major and/or most storied motorcycle manufacturers in the world, including; Honda, Yamaha, Kawasaki, Suzuki, BMW, Ducati, MV Agusta and Bimota. Segments showcase the remarkable histories of these brands, their manufacturing process, their R&D and of course their latest, greatest sportbikes. There?s also... More About: Television , Internet , Year , Overseas
2 Reasons Why I Don?t Care About The iPhone SDK:
2008-03-07 05:13:00 Those of you ‘in the know’ heard Apple’s big announcement today, which included the release of the iPhone SDK (software development kit) for anyone who wants to create applications for the device. The SDK will make it easy for developers to create applications, which will be made available to download right on the phone or in the iTunes store. This is a huge announcement, and it means that all of those jailbroken phones out there will someday be brought back into the fold and their awesome powers brought to all of the rest of us who are too lazy or too afraid (I am in both camps) to risk breaking our iPhones. “But this is great news”, you say; so why the title of this post? It is pretty simple really: I am not a software developer. All of our phones won’t be updated to accept new third party applications until the software update to 2.0 in June. That is three months from now. So basically, I don’t care what it can do- it doesn’t... More About: Iphone , Care , Reasons , Communications
?Single Serving? Sites
2008-03-04 18:31:00 A little while back, Kottke posted a great list of sites that only do one thing (and do it well). I spent a few minutes going down the list and was not disappointed once. Here are some good ones, but they are all good, so it’s better to go see the whole list. Barack Obama Is Your New Bicycle showcases all the lovely things that the presidential candidate has done for you. Is It Christmas? You can do anything at ZOMBO.com. Beth Cherry keeps a single page blog with no archives. Sweet ideas, all of them. SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "“Single Serving” Sites ", url: "http://mint.theavclub.tv/feeder/?FeederA ction=clicked&feed=Articles+%28rss2%2 9&seed=http%3A%2F%2Fblog.theavclub.tv %2Fpost%2Fsingle-serving-sites&seed_t itle=%26%238220%3BSingle+Serving%26%23822 1%3B+Sites" });
I F##king Hate Mondays
2008-03-03 18:52:00 Not me, I love Mondays . But these guys effing hate them. Pretty funny stuff, compliments of Joe. SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "I F##king Hate Mondays", url: "http://mint.theavclub.tv/feeder/?FeederA ction=clicked&feed=Articles+%28rss2%2 9&seed=http%3A%2F%2Fblog.theavclub.tv %2Fpost%2Fi-fking-hate-mondays&seed_t itle=I+F%23%23king+Hate+Mondays" }); More About: King
Songs As Charts
2008-02-29 18:13:00 Dan sent me the link to this really funny Flickr gallery that breaks down songs into various types of charts, calendars, and graphs. There are way too many good ones to choose a few favorites, so here are a few random ones, you can see the rest for yourself. To see these ones better, click on them, the 400px wide resize did not do wonders for them. SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "Songs As Charts ", url: "http://mint.theavclub.tv/feeder/?FeederA ction=clicked&feed=Articles+%28rss2%2 9&seed=http%3A%2F%2Fblog.theavclub.tv %2Fpost%2Fsongs-as-charts&seed_title= Songs+As+Charts" }); More About: Design
Climate Change Needs To Be Dealt With
2008-02-29 18:05:00 Watch this video at YouTubeI am posting this in case you have not seen it. It is very important that you at least acquaint yourself with the ideas discussed in this video; The basic gist, for the lazy, is: It doesn’t matter if Global Warming/Climate Change is happening, or what is causing it if it is; all that we do know is that the cost of doing nothing is too high, so our only option is to do something about it. The end. There is more info on this, and more videos on the topic, here. Greg Craven, the guy in the video, is on a one-man internet video crusade to prove not that Global Warming is real, but that fighting it is the only thing we can really afford to do. But, knowing governments, this is falling on deaf ears. Why shore up a levee when you can repair it after it breaks- that’s cheaper in the long run.. right? Isn’t it??? SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "Climate Change Needs To Be Dealt With", url: "http://mint.theavclub.tv/feeder/?FeederA ction=clicked&#... More About: Science , News
Drobo Any Good?
2008-02-28 18:28:00 I have been deciding what to do about creating a better RAID situation for storing and working on AV Club videos. Currently, I back up manually to multiple drives and keep the tapes handy to recapture in case there are any problems. But this creates slow transfer times and I now have something like 8 drives that I need to mentally track the projects across. I have very recently started to look into a Drobo to solve my problems while keeping as much of the hardware that I already own as possible. My other option is manually building a RAID using my old PC (UGH!!). Here, as I see it, are the issues in play in this decision: A Drobo costs $500 and does not come with any drives, but I can use four of my existing drives easily (They vary in size from 80-300GB). If I go the homebrew RAID route, I need to buy new drives- a RAID 5 (what I would most likely build) is limited by its smallest drive, so to maximize storage I’d need matched drives and that means dropping some $$ on s... More About: Good
Starry Night
2008-02-28 08:08:00 The other night Jess and I got her camera out and took some long exposure night time photos. This was the very first one I took, just to test the exposure, and it ended up being my favorite. Click on the image to see a larger but still nowhere near full rez of the photo (her camera is a 10MP DSLR, this blog doesn’t have the real estate to post the original rez). The weird dotted line of light in the top left corner is an airplane taking off from LAX, in case that wasn’t totally obvious to you already. I have wanted to mess around with long exposures for a while now- I don’t have much still photography experience overall but I definitely have wanted to get into it more, and this is the type of picture taking that has interested me the most. I want to do a lot more night time shooting, as well as try out some HDRI and macro photos, so I guess this is the first of hopefully a bunch of adventures in photography for us. Oh and I also want to do some time lapse vid... More About: Night , Starry Night
See ?Bad Taste? For Free
2008-02-27 18:18:00 Peter Jackson’s first feature film, “Bad Taste ” (1987) is available for free, in its entirety on the interwebs. Woo. Quickie description for those not in the know: A team from the intergalactic fast food chain Crumb’s Crunchy Delights descends on Earth, planning to make human flesh the newest taste sensation. After they wipe out the New Zealand town Kaihoro, the country’s Astro-Investigation and Defense Service is called in to deal with the problem. Things are complicated due to Giles, an aid worker who comes to Kaihoro the same day to collect change from the residents. He is captured by the aliens, and AIaDS stages a rescue mission that quickly becomes an all-out assault on the aliens’ headquarters Also, there are a bunch of other very “B” movies on the site, so if you enjoy such things, you’re welcome. Tip of the blog hat to Ajit for spotting this gem, bigger tip of the hat to the internet for making media more accessible ev... More About: Free , Bad Taste
Wake Up With Math!
2008-02-27 18:17:00 Watch this video at YouTubeI suck at waking up. Lately, I have been better, but I often need multiple alarms, at least one of which must be on the other side of the room- this is the rule. I also have other tricks I play on myself to get up every day- I set the alarm clock to the wrong time, I change my alarm sound often, etc. For Christmas I got this sadistic clock from my mother- it goes off until you find and re-dock the helicopter it launches. All of these techniques pale, pale I say, to the Turing Alarm Clock. This sick little machine goes off, and refuses to stop until you solve a math problem. Watch the video and shudder in the face of something that makes you think before you are even a little bit awake. I wonder what the snooze is like (psychologically that is). Via Gizmodo. SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "Wake Up With Math !", url: "http://mint.theavclub.tv/feeder/?FeederA ction=clicked&feed=Articles+%28rss2%2 9&seed=http%3A%2F%2Fblog.theavclub.tv %2Fpost%2Fwake-u... More About: Design , Wake up
Science Fair Projects? Of Hilarity!
2008-02-26 22:02:00 Dylan just passed this along: A glorious, hilarious, deeply rewarding series of photographs of science fair projects and their proud creators. I laughed at almost every single one of them (there are 41; it will take you a while to peruse), I think you folks will too. Also related- BoingBoing just ran a post on creationist science fair projects. Go pick your favorite one and share it with the world! SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "Science Fair Projects … Of Hilarity!", url: "http://mint.theavclub.tv/feeder/?FeederA ction=clicked&feed=Articles+%28rss2%2 9&seed=http%3A%2F%2Fblog.theavclub.tv %2Fpost%2Fscience-fair-projects-of-hilari ty&seed_title=Science+Fair+Projects%2 6%238230%3B+Of+Hilarity%21" }); More About: Photography
Festo Air-Ray
2008-02-26 18:47:00 To see why this is cool, you need to see the Air-Ray in action, which can be accomplished by clicking this link. Festo, a company that creates manufacturing automation solutions, created this remote-controlled flying robotic manta ray for, as best I can tell, no other reason than they could. The Air-Ray flaps its wings like a real manta ray in order to fly through the air, the effect of which is really quite pretty. Festo has also created a water-based version of this system, the Aqua-Ray, which I think is equally fascinating to see in action. Via Militantplatypus, but The Future Of Things has a more in depth look at the system, so go there if you want to know the nitty-gritty details on how it works. The Air-Ray reminds me of Warhol’s “Silver Clouds” installation, which is probably my favorite of all of his works. I would love to see a room filled with a school of the rays flying around, but I would certainly settle for the opportunity to see just one of the... More About: Design
The War On Drugs: Street Level
2008-02-26 18:42:00 Watch this video at YouTube So how is the War on Drugs going these days? Is it going as awesomely well as the War on Terror? Probably. This video is a good look at what is really keeping the kids off the drugs these days; stay till the end, the punch line’s pretty good. SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "The War On Drugs: Street Level", url: "http://mint.theavclub.tv/feeder/?FeederA ction=clicked&feed=Articles+%28rss2%2 9&seed=http%3A%2F%2Fblog.theavclub.tv %2Fpost%2Fthe-war-on-drugs-street-level&# 38;seed_title=The+War+On+Drugs%3A+Street+ Level" }); More About: War on Drugs , The War on Drugs
The AVC In Italy- And Beyond!
2008-02-26 01:43:00 Friend of the AV Club, and often commenter here on the blog AAA Copywriter has decided to add us as a “Media Partner” to one of the sites he is in charge of- Informatica Friuli. What this basically means for us is exposure to a much wider, non-English speaking audience, what it means for them is more content in their network. This is referred to in many languages as a “win-win” situation. And thanks to the wonders of Creative Commons, it is an extremely easy and fair thing to set up- you should try it! You can go see the sidebar widget that we use here in the blog (it’s right there to the right of this post, click on it, it’s keen) already in use on their site, and if you can read Italian there is a very kind and detailed description of us and what we do. We are humbled by the request to add our videos to their site, and hope that they do well over on the other side of the pond. Go check it out and test your mad Google Translate skillz at th... More About: Blogroll , Italy
More Reasons To
2008-02-25 18:20:00 Two videos that should convince you, if nothing else, that Laurence Lessig is an extremely well spoken and educated man with his finger on the pulse of what is going on right now all around us. SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "More Reasons To ", url: "http://mint.theavclub.tv/feeder/?FeederA ction=clicked&feed=Articles+%28rss2%2 9&seed=http%3A%2F%2Fblog.theavclub.tv %2Fpost%2Fmore-reasons-to&seed_title= More+Reasons+To+" }); More About: Politics
I Do [Love Space]
2008-02-22 18:36:00 As a follow up/addendum to the post earlier this week about a couple planning on traveling to Mars comes this slightly more realistic news item (as in, likely to actually succeed). Cindy Cashman and Mitch Walling plan on riding a yet-to-be-ready rocket from Rocketplane Inc., a Virgin Galactic-esque space tourism startup that offers quick jaunts into the upper atmosphere (and I guess slightly beyond) for a fee. To cover the costs of their trip, they plan on selling the rights to their wedding to a reality TV show, so expect to see a lot more about this one. They have set up a terrible website for the venture, but details are really scant right now, so I guess you’ll have to just do what I plan on doing- wait and see where this one ends up. Spulch spotted this one, so thank them not me. SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "I Do [Love Space ]", url: "http://mint.theavclub.tv/feeder/?FeederA ction=clicked&feed=Articles+%28rss2%2 9&seed=http%3A%2F%2Fblog.theavclub.tv %2Fpost%2Fi-do...
Good Copy, Bad Copy
2008-02-22 18:19:00 If you are at all interested in copyright issues (who isn’t right? Ladies??), this is the documentary for you. And if you are like me, and you think about this stuff all the damn time, go join the Facebook group dedicated to trying to convince Laurence Lessig to run for Congress. The world is changing in really big and so far mostly positive ways right now, it is an exciting time to be alive. Oh yeah, and this documentary is pretty good and brings up some good points on how broken and in need of improvement our copyright system has become. SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "Good Copy , Bad Copy", url: "http://mint.theavclub.tv/feeder/?FeederA ction=clicked&feed=Articles+%28rss2%2 9&seed=http%3A%2F%2Fblog.theavclub.tv %2Fpost%2Fgood-copy-bad-copy&seed_tit le=Good+Copy%2C+Bad+Copy" }); More About: Entertainment
Last Night, Space Was Cool Again
2008-02-21 20:36:00 The Moon was eclipsed, we blew up one of our own satellites (…yay?). SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "Last Night , Space Was Cool Again", url: "http://mint.theavclub.tv/feeder/?FeederA ction=clicked&feed=Articles+%28rss2%2 9&seed=http%3A%2F%2Fblog.theavclub.tv %2Fpost%2Flast-night-space-was-cool-again &seed_title=Last+Night%2C+Space+Was+C ool+Again" });
To The Moon Alice, To The Moon!
2008-02-21 18:57:00 Sick and tired of waiting around for NASA or someone else to finally land a Man on Mars? Yeah, so are Tom and Tina Sjogren. What are you going to do about it? Oh, wait some more? Well the Sjogren’s are going to launch their own mission to Mars. That’s right, they are planning (details TBA) on sending themselves to Mars by 2014, whether or not they can return seems to be one of those “TBA” details. They feel that the feat would require ~$100M to fund, which they think they can mostly acquire through sponsorships. The couple is no stranger to extreme expeditions, having scaled Everest and both Poles without assistance in the past. But seriously, this is some hardcore sh!t- they are basically approaching interplanetary travel as they would face scaling a mountain or visiting the South Pole. I seriously, seriously hope they succeed where the bureaucratic NASA is unlikely to even begin to venture for decades to come. If you know me or read this blog ofte... More About: Space , Moon , The Moon , Alice
Shadow Monsters
2008-02-21 18:05:00 Watch this video at YouTube This video is not as good as the one here or here, but you’ll get the gist enough from this version to decide if you want to see any more (I could not for the life of me find any good embeddable clips). Shadow Monster s is a program that takes shadows cast by its users and superimposes monster mouths and eyes and teeth and spines and other ghastly appendages onto them in real time. Basically it makes making shadows awesome, so much so that I would really love to see this developed into a home application. Using a webcam and tv or computer monitor, it is not inconceivable that something like this could be developed for the PS3 or or PC. To see more, go visit the website of the creator of Shadow Monster, Philip Worthington. It is really interesting and well made, and I just realized that Worthington has created several art projects in the past that I liked, such as Art Bar and Wearable Warnings, and one that I was aware of but did not really car... More About: Design , Technology , Monsters
Cumulative Advantage
2008-02-20 18:54:00 This is a great read about how and why things become popular, using a theory called cumulative advantage. The gist: anything that is really popular got so via a combination of luck and timing. Of course there are many more aspects to any hit, be it fashion, technology, or entertainment, but the underlying assertion: …when people tend to like what other people like, differences in popularity are subject to what is called ?cumulative advantage,? or the ?rich get richer? effect. This means that if one object happens to be slightly more popular than another at just the right point, it will tend to become more popular still. As a result, even tiny, random fluctuations can blow up, generating potentially enormous long-run differences among even indistinguishable competitors ? a phenomenon that is similar in some ways to the famous ?butterfly effect? from chaos theory. Thus, if history were to be somehow rerun many times, seemingly identical universes with the same set of competito... More About: Entertainment
Fire Table
More articles from this author:2008-02-20 18:02:00 How cool is this design! The Hunting and De Hoop Fire Table table has a place in the center to hold a candle, and the sides are semi-transparent to allow the candle’s light to glow all around. The center of the table is also cut out so it will heat anything that you put on top (tea, fondue, etc.), which makes it even cooler. I’d like to see this one in person, but my spidey sense tells me it’s a winner. Via Cool Hunting. SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "Fire Table", url: "http://mint.theavclub.tv/feeder/?FeederA ction=clicked&feed=Articles+%28rss2%2 9&seed=http%3A%2F%2Fblog.theavclub.tv %2Fpost%2Ffire-table&seed_title=Fire+ Table" }); 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 |
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