Showing posts with label video. Show all posts
Showing posts with label video. Show all posts
Monday, January 27, 2025
Monday, July 04, 2011
MUNI Simulation
AWESOME! From Germany: a computer game where you can drive MUNI buses, streetcars, and cable cars. Sadly, it's PC only. (hat tip: the N-Judah Chronicles)
Willkommen in SAN FRANCISCO, einer Metropolregion in Kalifornien an der Westküste der Vereinigten Staaten. Bewirb dich bei den öffentlichen Nahverkehr und nimm Platz hinter dem Steuer eines Omnibusses, Gelenkbusses, Trolleybusses, Cable Car oder ganz und gar der Straßenbahnen. Insgesamt stehen dir 16 hochdetaillierte und animierte Fahrzeuge zur Verfügung. Steuere diese durch die riesige, frei erkundbare Spielwelt. Entdecke dabei hunderte von typischen Straßenzügen mit ihren originalen Steigungen und Gefällen. Stelle dich den Aufgaben des Alltages eines Mitarbeiters des öffentlichen Nahverkehrs und nutze dabei die vielen Funktionen im Cockpit, um den Fahrplan pünktlich zu erfüllen. Achte dabei immer auf Tankanzeige und Zustand deines Busses. Übernimm Sonderaufgaben, um dein Taschengeld aufzufüllen und erwirtschafte dir die eine oder andere Belohnung.
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Pixels, by Patrick Jean
Short film imagining what it would be like if the video games of 30 years ago attacked New York City.
Monday, March 22, 2010
Ben Folds Serenades Random Strangers via ChatRoulette
(hat tip to Fratelli Bologna)
ChatRoulette is a web site that randomly pairs people with webcams to each other. Want to chat to a complete stranger? OK!
Ben Folds, at a concert Saturday night in Charlotte, North Carolina, had his laptop and webcam open on his piano (and the screen projected so the audience could see it, so that he could serenade random strangers via ChatRoulette for 30 minutes. This clip is a 5 minute highlight reel.
Note: contains profanity.
Entitled "Ode to Merton," the piece is a tribute to "Merton," a ChatRoulette user who gained fame/notoriety a week ago for doing improv piano on ChatRoulette. (Merton's YouTube Channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/PianoChatImprov)
ChatRoulette is a web site that randomly pairs people with webcams to each other. Want to chat to a complete stranger? OK!
Ben Folds, at a concert Saturday night in Charlotte, North Carolina, had his laptop and webcam open on his piano (and the screen projected so the audience could see it, so that he could serenade random strangers via ChatRoulette for 30 minutes. This clip is a 5 minute highlight reel.
Note: contains profanity.
Entitled "Ode to Merton," the piece is a tribute to "Merton," a ChatRoulette user who gained fame/notoriety a week ago for doing improv piano on ChatRoulette. (Merton's YouTube Channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/PianoChatImprov)
Wednesday, March 03, 2010
70 Million by Hold Your Horses!
Art History fun: How many paintings can you recognize in this music video from the band Hold Your Horses?
Sunday, February 21, 2010
Late to the Plants Vs. Zombies Party
Videogame composer and sound effects artist Laura Shigihara was wrapping up work on a cartoony tower defense title named Plants Vs. Zombies, in which a garden of plants defend a suburban house from a zombie invasion. She was struck with the idea for a J-Pop-style theme song to go along with the game.
The developer loved the song (because WHO WOULD NOT), and quickly put together a music video, which has garnered 1.7 million views on YouTube since it was posted last spring:
YouTube link
The song (available in both English and Japanese) has been on heavy rotation on my iPod since I discovered it a few weeks ago.
This week Plants Vs. Zombies (originally for Windows and Mac) came to the iPhone, and I decided to download and try it. It could very well be the title that turns me into one of these so-called “casual gamers”.
It. is. awesome.
The developer loved the song (because WHO WOULD NOT), and quickly put together a music video, which has garnered 1.7 million views on YouTube since it was posted last spring:
YouTube link
The song (available in both English and Japanese) has been on heavy rotation on my iPod since I discovered it a few weeks ago.
This week Plants Vs. Zombies (originally for Windows and Mac) came to the iPhone, and I decided to download and try it. It could very well be the title that turns me into one of these so-called “casual gamers”.
It. is. awesome.
Sunday, September 20, 2009
Stunning San Francisco time-lapse
Photographer Ben Wiggins likes to shoot time-lapse videos of cloud formations with his digital SLR camera. He also likes to photograph the transition from day to night. After dark he likes to shoot the flow of traffic, the glint of moonlight off the fog, and the dance of airplanes landing on and leaving the runway--like tiny fireflies in rhythmic formation.
Here Wiggins stitches together several sequences he shot in and around San Francisco this summer. It's awesome.
Click the four-arrow icon in the lower right corner to watch this fullscreen.
Wiggins has other videos from the Fourth of July, the San Mateo County Fair midway at night, and underwater.
[via Laughing Squid]
Here Wiggins stitches together several sequences he shot in and around San Francisco this summer. It's awesome.
Click the four-arrow icon in the lower right corner to watch this fullscreen.
Another Cloud Reel... from Delrious on Vimeo.
Wiggins has other videos from the Fourth of July, the San Mateo County Fair midway at night, and underwater.
[via Laughing Squid]
Sunday, September 06, 2009
Catching Up With Auto-Tune
I was about to post the link to the latest edition of Auto-Tune the News (#8) to the new Twitter feed when I stopped to consider that many of the current readers of Blognabbit/Twignabbit may be a bit old/white/tired/busy to have much pop-cultural context.
When I confirmed that neither Christa nor Tim were familiar with the seven previous editions I knew I needed to write more than six words about it.
"Auto-Tune" is the brand name of a digital audio processing technology used to correct pitch (on vocals or instruments). Since its creation in the 1990s it's been used to subtly (and unsubtly) modify musical performances both in the studio and live on stage, by pushing tones forcibly into perfectly tuned pitch.
Cher's single "Believe" (1998) was the first American pop hit to use Auto-Tune as a conscious aesthetic effect, with the settings cranked into overdrive. Previous uses of the technology had worked to hide its presence. At its most extreme, Auto-Tune eliminates the voice's natural ability to glide between pitches, creating a synthetic stair-step effect. Cher and her producers took what had been considered a quirk and placed it into the foreground.
While I primarily associate Auto-Tune with the singing of The Backyardigans, anyone listening to Top 40 radio or music videos since 2007 (anyone? anyone?) would have heard and seen the rise of singer-producer T-Pain as the new king* of Auto-Tune, who has been popping up with hyper-processed backing vocals and refrains on hit after hit** on the R&B and hip-hop charts. While the technology was more than a decade old (and available to anyone with a Mac and Garageband), T-Pain brought a particular gift for Auto-Tuned lyrical hooks and melodies that have continued to keep him in high demand. His surge in popularity led to a revival of Auto-Tune among a variety of artists across multiple pop musical genres.
In June 2008 Sasha-Frere Jones was clueing in readers of The New Yorker to the reign of T-Pain. But by the beginning of 2009 T-Pain's ubiquity had started to become a punch line--one the singer was happy to play along with, kicking off Saturday Night Live's (i.e. The Lonely Island's) "I'm On a Boat" (clean or uncensored YouTube links) with his trademark call "Shawt-ay-ay!"***
This past spring saw the debut of "Auto-Tune the News", a loopy series of music videos applying Auto-Tune to political speeches and television talking heads. Ridiculous wigs, a gorilla costume, and low-tech greenscreen effects belie the creators' lyrical and musical dexterity, as they spin the words of Joe Biden, Newt Gingrich, Katie Couric (their favorite muse), and a variety of members of Congress into Auto-Tuned musical gold. (Interspersed with several "Shawt-ay-ays".)
Here's the 6th edition, featuring Anoka's own queen of darkness Michelle Bachman, plus Nancy Pelosi, minority leader John Boehner, Sarah Palin, and Jackson Family attorney Brian Oxman:
In June Jay-Z declared the "Death of Auto-Tune" with the lead single off his new album, criticizing other artists for "T-Painin' too much." But despite his seniority in the rap world (or perhaps because of it), his exhortation won't likely dim the use of the technology any time soon, if a quick listen across the top 40 charts in Pop, R&B, Country, and Hip-Hop offers any indication.
Which brings us to this week, and the release of Auto-Tune the News #8. The latest edition features none other than: T-Pain, who turns his appearance into a commercial for his other new release of the week: the "I Am T-Pain" iPhone app.
The app is a collaboration between T-Pain, Antares (the originators of the technology), and Smule--a top-notch iPhone developer that grew out of Stanford's electronic music performance department, making it no mere novelty. For $2.99 you can download a mobile version of Auto-Tune with which you use your iPhone/iPod for on-demand vocal processing.
And by branding it as a T-Pain experience (with the app's name and icon), the "king" keeps his name synonymous with the technology, even if its only use is to goof off with your buddies while you're waiting in line for a movie (the app also makes it easy to share via MySpace and Facebook).
Within a couple of days the application reached the #1 spot among paid apps in iTunes. Meaning that Jay-Z's proclamation notwithstanding, it remains T-Pain's world. We just sing "Shawt-ay-ay" in it.
Here's a playlist of all of the Auto-Tune the News videos, in sequential order. It'll take a good half hour if you want to watch them straight through. (YouTube link):
And I'm assuming you've seen "I'm On a Boat", right? Because that thing gets funnier every time you watch it. (clean or uncensored)
Here's T-Pain's website, YouTube channel, and Twitter feed.
And if you're not sick of it by now, here's another funny internet video positing the use of Auto-Tune in the workplace.
===========================
*Given the outfits and antics he often displays in music videos, T-Pain could as easily be described by overeducated postgrads as the clown prince--or even mascot--of Auto-Tune.
**"Good Life" with Kanye West (winner of the 2008 Grammy for Best Rap Song), "Kiss Kiss" with Chris Brown (prior to Brown's domestic violence conviction), "Low" with Flo Rida (a favorite on the Ellen show), plus tons more. You can check out iTunes' "Essentials" list of the top T-Pain tracks for sale.
***An Auto-Tuned pronunciation of "Shawty", itself a variant of "Shorty", the 00s alternate for "Girl".
When I confirmed that neither Christa nor Tim were familiar with the seven previous editions I knew I needed to write more than six words about it.
"Auto-Tune" is the brand name of a digital audio processing technology used to correct pitch (on vocals or instruments). Since its creation in the 1990s it's been used to subtly (and unsubtly) modify musical performances both in the studio and live on stage, by pushing tones forcibly into perfectly tuned pitch.
Cher's single "Believe" (1998) was the first American pop hit to use Auto-Tune as a conscious aesthetic effect, with the settings cranked into overdrive. Previous uses of the technology had worked to hide its presence. At its most extreme, Auto-Tune eliminates the voice's natural ability to glide between pitches, creating a synthetic stair-step effect. Cher and her producers took what had been considered a quirk and placed it into the foreground.
While I primarily associate Auto-Tune with the singing of The Backyardigans, anyone listening to Top 40 radio or music videos since 2007 (anyone? anyone?) would have heard and seen the rise of singer-producer T-Pain as the new king* of Auto-Tune, who has been popping up with hyper-processed backing vocals and refrains on hit after hit** on the R&B and hip-hop charts. While the technology was more than a decade old (and available to anyone with a Mac and Garageband), T-Pain brought a particular gift for Auto-Tuned lyrical hooks and melodies that have continued to keep him in high demand. His surge in popularity led to a revival of Auto-Tune among a variety of artists across multiple pop musical genres.
In June 2008 Sasha-Frere Jones was clueing in readers of The New Yorker to the reign of T-Pain. But by the beginning of 2009 T-Pain's ubiquity had started to become a punch line--one the singer was happy to play along with, kicking off Saturday Night Live's (i.e. The Lonely Island's) "I'm On a Boat" (clean or uncensored YouTube links) with his trademark call "Shawt-ay-ay!"***
This past spring saw the debut of "Auto-Tune the News", a loopy series of music videos applying Auto-Tune to political speeches and television talking heads. Ridiculous wigs, a gorilla costume, and low-tech greenscreen effects belie the creators' lyrical and musical dexterity, as they spin the words of Joe Biden, Newt Gingrich, Katie Couric (their favorite muse), and a variety of members of Congress into Auto-Tuned musical gold. (Interspersed with several "Shawt-ay-ays".)
Here's the 6th edition, featuring Anoka's own queen of darkness Michelle Bachman, plus Nancy Pelosi, minority leader John Boehner, Sarah Palin, and Jackson Family attorney Brian Oxman:
In June Jay-Z declared the "Death of Auto-Tune" with the lead single off his new album, criticizing other artists for "T-Painin' too much." But despite his seniority in the rap world (or perhaps because of it), his exhortation won't likely dim the use of the technology any time soon, if a quick listen across the top 40 charts in Pop, R&B, Country, and Hip-Hop offers any indication.
Which brings us to this week, and the release of Auto-Tune the News #8. The latest edition features none other than: T-Pain, who turns his appearance into a commercial for his other new release of the week: the "I Am T-Pain" iPhone app.
The app is a collaboration between T-Pain, Antares (the originators of the technology), and Smule--a top-notch iPhone developer that grew out of Stanford's electronic music performance department, making it no mere novelty. For $2.99 you can download a mobile version of Auto-Tune with which you use your iPhone/iPod for on-demand vocal processing.
And by branding it as a T-Pain experience (with the app's name and icon), the "king" keeps his name synonymous with the technology, even if its only use is to goof off with your buddies while you're waiting in line for a movie (the app also makes it easy to share via MySpace and Facebook).
Within a couple of days the application reached the #1 spot among paid apps in iTunes. Meaning that Jay-Z's proclamation notwithstanding, it remains T-Pain's world. We just sing "Shawt-ay-ay" in it.
Here's a playlist of all of the Auto-Tune the News videos, in sequential order. It'll take a good half hour if you want to watch them straight through. (YouTube link):
And I'm assuming you've seen "I'm On a Boat", right? Because that thing gets funnier every time you watch it. (clean or uncensored)
Here's T-Pain's website, YouTube channel, and Twitter feed.
And if you're not sick of it by now, here's another funny internet video positing the use of Auto-Tune in the workplace.
===========================
*Given the outfits and antics he often displays in music videos, T-Pain could as easily be described by overeducated postgrads as the clown prince--or even mascot--of Auto-Tune.
**"Good Life" with Kanye West (winner of the 2008 Grammy for Best Rap Song), "Kiss Kiss" with Chris Brown (prior to Brown's domestic violence conviction), "Low" with Flo Rida (a favorite on the Ellen show), plus tons more. You can check out iTunes' "Essentials" list of the top T-Pain tracks for sale.
***An Auto-Tuned pronunciation of "Shawty", itself a variant of "Shorty", the 00s alternate for "Girl".
Friday, July 24, 2009
The Barry Gibb Talk Show
I haven't watched an episode of Saturday Night Live in over a decade, so forgive me that I missed this semi-recurring sketch featuring Jimmy Fallon and Justin Timberlake as brothers Barry and Robin Gibb (of The Bee Gees), hosting an American political talk show.
Timberlake and the writers must enjoy the sketch quite a lot--bringing back Fallon multiple times after his 2004 departure from the SNL cast.
This fourth edition aired in May of this year. Like many inhabitants of the SNL canon, it is structurally indistinguishable from the previous versions (although it is perhaps the most polished).
I was howling. Your mileage may vary.
Hulu link
Timberlake and the writers must enjoy the sketch quite a lot--bringing back Fallon multiple times after his 2004 departure from the SNL cast.
This fourth edition aired in May of this year. Like many inhabitants of the SNL canon, it is structurally indistinguishable from the previous versions (although it is perhaps the most polished).
I was howling. Your mileage may vary.
Hulu link
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Wowee: Giant Aquarium Tank Video
You need to click the link to view this video in HD.
Move your mouse over the video thumbnail to reveal the controls, then click the "full screen" button (four small arrows pointing diagonally outward). Give it time to load before playing.
This is a single, unedited shot taken at the second largest aquarium tank in the world, at the Okinawa Churaumi Aquarium in Japan.
If you don't like the song the videographer chose, you can mute it. But seriously. This one's awesome. Great for sharing with the kids.
Link
[via Kottke]
Move your mouse over the video thumbnail to reveal the controls, then click the "full screen" button (four small arrows pointing diagonally outward). Give it time to load before playing.
This is a single, unedited shot taken at the second largest aquarium tank in the world, at the Okinawa Churaumi Aquarium in Japan.
The main tank called the "Kuroshio Sea" holds 7,500-cubic meters (1,981,290 gallons) of water and features the world's second largest acrylic glass panel, measuring 8.2 meters by 22.5 meters with a thickness of 60 centimeters. Whale sharks and manta rays are kept amongst many other fish species in the main tank.Think about those measurements for a moment if you're feeling unconvinced.
If you don't like the song the videographer chose, you can mute it. But seriously. This one's awesome. Great for sharing with the kids.
Link
[via Kottke]
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Saturday, July 11, 2009
Saturday, June 20, 2009
John Hodgman addresses the POTUS
Inarguably the nerdiest speech a sitting president of the United States has ever been asked to perform the lead-in to.
John Hodgman headlines the Radio & TV Correspondents' Dinner*, where he contrasts the current "nerd" White House with the previous administration of "jocks", and also outs President Obama as a Star Trek fan.
His performance is a brilliantly deadpan nerdcore triumph, complete with references to typeface nerds, Conan comics, and the David Lynch movie adaptation of Dune.
YouTube link
*A room filled with nerds, all old enough to remember when that wasn't cool to be AT ALL. Meaning: too old to find Hodgman especially funny.
John Hodgman headlines the Radio & TV Correspondents' Dinner*, where he contrasts the current "nerd" White House with the previous administration of "jocks", and also outs President Obama as a Star Trek fan.
His performance is a brilliantly deadpan nerdcore triumph, complete with references to typeface nerds, Conan comics, and the David Lynch movie adaptation of Dune.
YouTube link
*A room filled with nerds, all old enough to remember when that wasn't cool to be AT ALL. Meaning: too old to find Hodgman especially funny.
Friday, May 15, 2009
Holding Obama's Feet to the Daily Show Flame
The question for the Daily Show was never really "Is there enough that's funny about Obama?" but "What will Obama do that's just as f-ed up as any other politician?"
This week had a couple of doozies.
This week had a couple of doozies.
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | M - Th 11p / 10c | |||
| Moral Kombat | ||||
| ||||
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
The unlikeliness of Susan Boyle
My mom sent me this seven minute YouTube clip (embedding disabled) from last Saturday's "Britain's Got Talent" broadcast. If you haven't seen it I'd encourage you to give it a look rather than read my half-formed yammers about it.
I hate these shows. And while I am not a fan of the reality show in general*, by "these shows" I mean specifically the reality (and celebrity-reality) talent show. I hate the cruelty, the commerciality, the artifice, and the garish expressions of the lowest common denomination of taste. Oh and how I hate the padding.
But I cannot deny these shows' appeal. Which finds somewhat of an apotheosis in these seven minutes.
There is still much to be cynical about here: the bassoon underscore playing up the awkwardness of the contestant, the maudlin praise, the underlying condescension of the format. But as much as I wanted to dismiss this, or deconstruct it, there is something undeniably genuine and awesome in this moment.
Because despite all of the forgettable hours of ridiculous costumes, hairstyles, and product placements what everyone involved--the producers, the judges, the audience--most wants, deep down, is to witness is a nobody stepping out on the stage and coming back a star.
See it for yourself.
*Excepting Top Chef, The Amazing Race, and for a while I was able to enjoy Survivor.
I hate these shows. And while I am not a fan of the reality show in general*, by "these shows" I mean specifically the reality (and celebrity-reality) talent show. I hate the cruelty, the commerciality, the artifice, and the garish expressions of the lowest common denomination of taste. Oh and how I hate the padding.
But I cannot deny these shows' appeal. Which finds somewhat of an apotheosis in these seven minutes.
There is still much to be cynical about here: the bassoon underscore playing up the awkwardness of the contestant, the maudlin praise, the underlying condescension of the format. But as much as I wanted to dismiss this, or deconstruct it, there is something undeniably genuine and awesome in this moment.
Because despite all of the forgettable hours of ridiculous costumes, hairstyles, and product placements what everyone involved--the producers, the judges, the audience--most wants, deep down, is to witness is a nobody stepping out on the stage and coming back a star.
See it for yourself.
*Excepting Top Chef, The Amazing Race, and for a while I was able to enjoy Survivor.
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Jaw-dropping YouTube remix "album"
A great deal of hip-hop and electronica artistry begins by digging in used record bins, searching for bits and pieces that can be digitized, chopped up, and reassembled into something new. A snare fill here, a bass line there. Snippets of guitar riffs, piano arpeggios, vocal backing tracks, etc.
For his latest seven-song "album", ThruYou, Israeli musician Kutiman dug into a different wellspring for sampled sound: YouTube.
There he found a treasure trove of audio: drummers, pianists, flautists, church organists, string quartets, guitar soloists, harmonica and bouzouki players, a capella singers and rap freestylists. Plus video after video of synthesizers, vocoders, and audio effects box tests, oscilloscopes and wave form generators, even the sounds of pressing buttons on mixing equipment he was able to put to use. He calls "ThruYou" the "1st movement", an apt choice given that this particular wellspring is so vast (and ever expanding).
I wasn't able to wrap my head (or heart) around the nerd remix smash hit of 2008, Girl Talk's "Feed the Animals". That madcap stirfry of the past few decades of rock, pop, and hip-hop (finely diced and shredded) seemed best enjoyed whilst reading the Wikipedia article that catalogued all of the samples to the second.
Here you quickly realize that Kutiman used video editing software to assemble his mashups, meaning that you can SEE his source material unfolding in front of you. (In his words, "What you see is what you hear.") For me, watching these dozens of random faces and hands, posted initially to YouTube by disparate strangers hoping to instruct, to perform, to show off, to practice, or to simply connect, now juxtaposed in rhythmic counterpoint in ways they could not have foreseen was surprisingly emotional.
It felt like one of the those moments where a technology-fueled future felt more (rather than less) human, and the possibilities for art and music and creativity opened wide.
Plus I liked the tunes. (My favorite is embedded above.)
See and hear them for yourself. Alternate link here, if the site is down.
(Via Andrew Sullivan.)
Thursday, March 05, 2009
The Crisis of Credit Visualized
(via boingboing)
For visual learners, artist/designed Jonathan Jarvis explains the credit crisis.
The Crisis of Credit Visualized from Jonathan Jarvis on Vimeo.
For visual learners, artist/designed Jonathan Jarvis explains the credit crisis.
The Crisis of Credit Visualized from Jonathan Jarvis on Vimeo.
Wednesday, March 04, 2009
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Hide it under a bushel, no
The fact that your particular talent might not be traditionally performed within the context of a pageant is perhaps all the more reason to bring it.
Even if it isn't clear to the audience for the first two and a half minutes what your talent actually is.
From the 2009 Hawaiian Narcissus Festival.
via SeoulBrother, via @robot_operator
Even if it isn't clear to the audience for the first two and a half minutes what your talent actually is.
From the 2009 Hawaiian Narcissus Festival.
via SeoulBrother, via @robot_operator
Wednesday, December 03, 2008
Berkeley J-School: Multimedia Boot Camp --> Local News Sites
First week of graduate school in Journalism at Cal: a crash course in audio and video editing, and Flash animation. Why? Because the school (and the Ford Foundation, which is funding this project) recognizes the role of multimedia, multi-platform storytelling in the future of journalism.
Next, the students targeted local communities, asked what locals would want in local news, and then set about building web sites. They went live at the end of October.
There's one San Francisco site:
And six East Bay sites:
You access them all at: localreport.org
Award winning photojournalist and now J-School faculty member Richard Koci-Hernandez even created a video piece on the project (Vimeo link), but it's not as interesting as clicking around the student's local news sites.
Next, the students targeted local communities, asked what locals would want in local news, and then set about building web sites. They went live at the end of October.
There's one San Francisco site:
And six East Bay sites:
You access them all at: localreport.org
Award winning photojournalist and now J-School faculty member Richard Koci-Hernandez even created a video piece on the project (Vimeo link), but it's not as interesting as clicking around the student's local news sites.
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