I have stumbled across a couple of things I thought I would share here just for the sake of sharing great things. Both are software and both are free to you so you have no reason not to check them out.


FIrst up we have my new favorite screen saver. Unbelievably simplistic, helpful, and gorgeous all at once. Its a clock that simply shows the time. I know that sometimes flashy oooooohhhhh and aaaahhhhhh type screen savers can be fun but I find them distracting recently. There will always be a place on my screen for the ever wonderful and unpredictable hotel gadget but for now this handy little saver has taken the top place on my screens downtime. Its called simply A 3M1T and you can find it here. (mac or PC) I just cant resist the font used for the numbers. What can I say, I'm a sucker for simplicity. The site also holds some wonderful fonts that you should check out as well.


And to offset all of that simplistic thinking I present something quite the opposite. A lush colorful and undeniably addictive visualizer for iTunes called Magnetosphere. Its pretty fun to put on during casual music listening or for a break from the usual email and work you usually might see on your screen. There is not much I can say about the visualizer other than that it is amazing and you should head over to the developers site and download it or at least watch the video which you can find here.

Thats all for now. I've go a new lens arriving soon, more on that later. Also, I've heard this new Devendra Banhart album and its amazing... ah music. love. Anyways, enjoy your day!

As many of you know I recently took up a new project site simply titled light.twistedsun.net which is a photoblog for images that may not fit in as desktops or other such uses. Images that I may have never done anything with had I not made a little site to share them with the world. Well I would like to introduce another photoblog which is poking its head out into the web called 'point of view point'. The web address is simple and could be memorized easily should you be so inclined and reads as follows: www.pointofviewpoint.net.

Here you will find new photos posted by my next of kin, James. Surely you could find out more simply by heading over and checking out what he has going on, the about page is a good place to start as far as information about his artists statement behind the new site and should you be interested in learning more about any particular image you can follow the comments link which will take you to a description of the shown photograph.

So if you don't get enough of a photo fix staring at twistedsun desktops all day then by all means click on over to pointofviewpoint.net

How cool it this? a group of photographers got together and used an aircraft hangar as a GIANT pinhole camera to create the worlds largest black and white photograph. I would love to see this in person, so cool!

heres a link

I have launched a new mini-site and I was going to wait a few more days to announce it officially but I have decided that I want to go ahead and get it out there and make it known to everyone here. The site is a photoblog that I will hopefully be updating once each day. The time of day that I actually get around to posting will change depending on my day so don't try and set your clock to the update cycle or anything but I do hope to get a new photo up each day.

I had an older site that I had set up for friends and family where I posted photos that I may not have normally shared publicly. Mostly snapshots from my every day life, at work, traveling, sitting around, anything really. I liked to post a little comment or story or thought with each set of new photos and I really enjoyed doing it. The system I used to update it was very flawed however and so I stopped using it not to long after I had started it. Ever since I have wanted to get a simple photo blog going. Something for those shots I mentioned a moment ago, the everyday ones that I may not want to devote a whole post to here or may not want to post as a desktop for whatever reason.

in the new site you will hopefully see mostly recent photos but I will throw in the occasional older photo if I don't have something new to share. I am using a great bit of web software called pixel post to organize and do all the thinking for me so all I have to do to post is press a couple of buttons and type out a description. Simple is a good thing for a project like this and I am more than excited to announce it to all of you.

On the page you can leave comments on photos which I welcome you do, in fact, i encourage it! If you read something in a comment I have made about the image feel free to start a discussion with your thoughts on the subject. I would love to see it get some feedback and spark some ideas or something of the sort. For instance, if you see an image that you are just dying to see made into a desktop then please speak up and leave a comment and I will see what I can do.

The navigation is very simple I think, there is the home page with the newest photo and on each photo page you can click either the comments link above the image of the "photo info & comments link below the image to call forth the image description and comment field. There is a link there below the image notes to close that area should you not want to post anything but would like to read what I have written about a photo. You can navigate forwards and backwards through photos by either clicking the current image to go back or simply use the previous/next links in the white area below the image. There is also a browse page link at the top where you can see thumbnails of all photos posted and an about page which im sure you can figure out.

So that's that, my newest project is online and ready to go. I have two more in the pipeline that I can not wait to announce and get moving on but you will just have to wait for that time to come. So till next time, enjoy the photoblog and I will see you again here soon!

The new sites address is light.twistedsun.net

Here is something I have been wanting to post about for quite some time now and I am finally just now getting around to making a couple of minutes to get it out of my head and onto the blog here. I wanted to post about a new(ish) project by Yongfook, an english guy living in Japan working on web development. Its called Open Source Food and it is his personal side project outside of his paying work because he loves food and cooking. Well, I like to think that I like to cook as well and I have found plenty of good recipes and ideas while digging through the site.

It takes the whole web 2.0 idea of an online application and asks users to post recipes to share with the world. It all works in a wonderfully organized way and the site is really easy to navigate. Its worth a look even if you don't fancy yourself a cook. Here are a couple of recipes that I have come across today that looked good to me...

Tags: food, web2.0, cooking, nothing, else, to, post, at, the, moment

At this point the term podcast and the idea behind it has safely settled into most internet users vocabulary but I am wondering how many people put them to use or even know how many great shows there are out there. I set off to do a little research for this write up and find some good music podcasts for you guys to check out that I listen to but ended up finding a lot more worth mentioning as well. These days you can find music, news, cartoons, language lessons, travel help, personal confessions, and all sorts of other types of shows. The podcasting world is easily as diverse as the world of blogging and shows no signs of slowing down.

So here are a few recommended channels to look through and give a shot... (please note that some links point to itunes. also, the links at the ti)

KEXP 90.3FM
This is a seattle based radio station that has a wonderful set of podcasts available featuring great new music and in studio performances from a great list of musicians. Their Song of the Day (iTunes link) podcast is a great way to discover new artists in a totally legal way and the in studio performance podcast (itunes link) has a really impressive list of performers!

KRCW
This is another college radio station that has made many of their radio shows available as downloadable podcasts. They feature many different news shows as well as one of my recent favorites, Morning Becomes Eclectic which is a great music show.

NPR
The National Public Radio network has a huge amount of shows available as podcasts these days and hosts a show I like to listen to from time to time This American Life (iTunes link)

Slate Magazine
Tons of great news shows.

A few other random podcasts that I listen to... ( all iTunes links)
Of Rice and Zen - Soaking wet with witty british humor. Created by an english teacher in Japan.
XLR8R - Weekly podcast from the mostly electronic music magazine of the same name that features great new music.
Tokyo Calling - A good example of the more personal side of podcasting. Always something interesting to be found.
Misadventures in Taiwan - Always manages to make me laugh in some way or another, I can't remember how I found it...
Trans Pacific Radio (not itunes link)- News and discussions about modern Japan. A really well done show!

There are many others around and maybe from time to time I will post something about other shows ive been listening to, I think I mostly just wanted to post about these few recent favorite places to go for news and music so hopefully some of you found some interesting shows to check out!

One of my favorite screen savers ever has been updated to a new version after years of sitting there. Who knows, maybe this is old news but it sure has got me excited. This endlessly beautiful, thought provoking, haunting (insert whatever other adjective you might find appropriate here) screen saver is not to be missed. The only reason I found that there was a new version was out was because someone on digg pointed to a page by the same artist where he had a bunch of random quartz composer screen savers for download which are nice and all but nothing can beat the wonder of Hotel Gadget.

The only catch is that is is mac only as far as I know so sorry to the PC users out there.

Here is a link to the site where you can get yourself a copy.

Well... what are you waiting for, get over there and download, then lost in the hotel...

A while back I wrote about the apparent demise of my favorite podcast, Herro Flom Japan. He remained inactive for a long long time but recently has slowly started to pick up the mic again and start doing some new shows. I just wanted to mention this here because it is my favorite podcast after all. The host, Rich Pav, always seem to ramble on about something that is somehow accidentally really interesting to me, its just an honest look into the life of one foreigner living in Japan. Simple and very stripped of any fancy production but this is why I enjoy it so much.

At any rate, I know some of the readers here used to listen to the show and I thought I would mention its return into the podcasting world, lets see if it sticks shall we?

P.S - Kyoto Podcast has a new video episode as well and his video work has come a long way, great job Tim!

Korg recently released a handfull of new products including...


... a mini Kaos Pad! How cool is this!? I simply must have one of these little things...


...and check out this crazy looking digital mixer/audio interface, could be just what I was looking for in an audio interface...

..that is all, just had to share my excitement, even if this means nothing to many of you...

A lot of great shareware is out there and this holiday developers are all pooling together and giving 20 percent discounts to lots and lots of software, its a great idea and its amazing how many developers have jumped in on the holiday savings game, so if there was ever an app you had your eye on check here and you just might find it at a discounted price. There is a lot of software here that I didnt even know existed and ive had fun discovering new apps out there. Anyways, check it out!

Heres a link

You simply must take a couple of minutes and watch these amazing music videos from Cornelius. I have seen videos of his in the past with his dvd/cd release containing music videos for most all of the songs from his album point and they were all amazing in their own right but he has some new videos that are really just incredible and have to be seen. I wont try to describe them, just watch, you wont be disappointed. I can't wait to get my hands on his new album which has been out in Japan but has yet to make its way anywhere else...

I am usually not all that impressed by iLounge and find their reviews to be ill balanced and their reporting style really forced. It always feels like they are struggling so hard to be 'impartial' and that bothers me, even well respected magazines and publications approach their writing with more of a personal, approachable touch than iLounge. iLounge is just do dry for me I guess. OK, OK sorry, no more wining here... so all that aside, they wrote up an article documenting the Zune's rise to lacklusterness (yes i know thats not really a word) that I thought was well written and debunks nearly everything Microsoft has woven into the marketing and development of their player. Great read for a nice overall look into the short history of the player over the past few months. Heres a link.

UPDATE: You simply must check out this video of a bit of a newscast from CNN talking about the new Zune on its launch day. Classic. Link

UPDATE 2: More on the news coverage on iLounge. (Im not sure why but this whole zune thing is just so funny to me)

Engadget got zuned.

I have not seen such silly banter from the mac vs. pc world in a long time but turns out someone has taken the idea behind the my dream app for the mac platform and recreated it for the windows platform. Only the windows one was created out of spite of the mac community and their supposed silly useless ideas. This guy is a bit over the top in my opinion. The contest was to give people a chance to vote on the application they wanted to see made and thats what happened. Anyways, check out the form thread here on my dream apps website. It's a pretty feisty debate that I think is making both sides of the game look pretty bad. It's so frustrating to me how this debate is so hateful at times. These are just computers guys, to each his own right? right?

I have happened upon a really interesting hour long BBC documentary about the history behind the video game Tetris. It is one of my all time favorites because of its incredible simplicity and its unwavering capability to suck you in and keep you playing and playing and playing. Anyways, I'm sure some of you are interested so I thought I would toss a link your way. The documentary is tough to follow here and there if you don't speak russian because some of the subtitles are kind of hard to read. Anyway heres a link.

Being a designer for how ever many years now I have made my fair share of typos on various projects. Thankfully 99 percent of them are caught in the proofing stage of the whole process and never get seen in the final product. I just had to point out this slip up from the back of a video game box, something I came across over on Joystiq.

The game is called Killer 7 and on the back of the box (of the gamecube version specifically) you will find a URL to the official website, simple enough. Let's just type this on in here and get the low down on the game, maybe some tips or something but wait a minute, this isn't the games website at all! My God! Kids, close your eyes.. what's that damn shortcut to close a window... ah hell...

Yes, the website on the back of the box leads you straight over to none other than a porn site. The games website is not killer7.com its killer-7.com! oops.Seems like the porn industry owns 50 percent of all domain names in existence. If that were me id be laughing all the way to the classified section of the paper... its to bad spell checkers don't check links for porn.

I have been trying to get my soundscape podcast up and running for some time now and have run across a few set backs but it's been fun experimenting with it up to now and I look forward to continue the series and eventually split it off into its own feed separate the music and other shows that pop up when I get a chance. Until then though I came across a similar podcast to my soundscape shows and it is produced by National Geographic. Although I like the idea of simply a high quality audio recording to close your eyes and let your imagination take flight as you listen National Geographic has taken a moving image approach and made a video podcast that simply sits in one stationary position for 10 minutes or so and lets you sit in on that moment in time wherever they are filming. Seems a natural progression for them coming from such a strong photography background. Anyways, they are interesting to say the least and worth checking out. A link can be found below...

National Geographic Atmosphere Podcast (itunes link)

This is a great documentary and it is available online it's entierty. I'm not sure if it is up there with permission from anyone but it's there all the same and i'm sure some of you could spare an hour and a half to check it out. Aside from the ocasional activist jargon tossed in there(not much dont worry) it's full of really interesting looks at the electric car and its history and future.

LINK

There is an advertising firm that accidentally made an ad closely resembling the video game Katamari Damacy and you simply must check it out. Links are below...

link to interview
link to movie

Here is an interesting article / blog post about 6 commonly believed things that are in fact wrong. Everything from myths about the sky being blue to people thinking the world is flat.

LINK

I hate to use such obvious internet slang around here but it felt appropriate. Something I came across digg today was a link to this video:

Easily one of the most bizarre things I have ever seen. How could I not post this? It is Just to WEIRD!

Im sure some readers may know that I am a fan of Weird Al. Ive been listening to him since I was a little kid running around listening to his cassettes. I know his parody versions of songs better than the originals even to this day. Well this video has been making the rounds online and I just had to post it.

I was really impressed that apple actually bought the rights to the great app Coverflow that I mentioned a while back rather than just lifting the idea and calling it their own. I know apple has a history of making shareware makers software obsolete by putting out their own brand of whatever app. If only apple had done this in the past with the multiple other "ideas" they "borrowed" from other inventive developers. Good job apple!

via ipodlounge

The new iPod Nano ad is really cool!

link

A while back I posted about a new Boards of Canada video and I am posting it again just because Warp added it to YouTube and so I can embed it into the blog here which is nice. Its just such a cool video. The footage in the beginning is from the highest skydive jump in history or something like that, very cool.



... and just for good measure, here is a Jamie Lidell Video as well. In fact, this video is what got me so hooked on his music.



... ok one more, promise. More Jamie, this is another version of the song above but performed live by looking his own voice and singing over it. Amazing!

Me neither...

Not sure if this video will be around to long seeing as it was posted without permission and all so enjoy it while it lasts. Probably most relevant for those who follow US television...

If you are at all into photography then you may or may not have heard about canons new 400d/ digital rebel xti. It is their new entry level SLR and it's looking like one of the best options on the digital SLR market especially at it's fairly low price tag. Those of you who have been reading the site for a while probably know that I am a Canon addict. In my opinion they make the best digital cameras out there. Their speedy Digic II processors and amazing CMOS sensors are top notch. Now with this camera they have introduced what I am sure will end up being a standard in this series which is their new dust removal system. The system includes a filter in front of the main sensor which has ultra-sonic vibration to remove dust as well as an anti-static coating on the sensors surface and some tricky software based dust mapping / removal. All in all a really solid release from Canon and I would highly recommend anyone looking to get a little more serious about their photography to pick up one of these little wonders and a copy of Apples Aperture software.

You can read about more specifics on this dpreview.com page on the camera.

I can't believe this is real!

read the news article for more here.

Sorry I haven't posted in a day or two, no time to! I have dekstops and more coming soon but in the mean time check out this great sketch from my favorite online sketch comedy groups Olde English. They went to film a sketch in a park but found a Pokemon festival going on so they made the best of it.

I've added an embeded youtube version below to make it easy on you.



Heres a link directly to the sketch.

This amazing project involves water with a florescent powder, black light and led's used as strobe lights to make for a truly amazing and almost unbelievable fountain that causes droplets of water to appear to be frozen and manipulated in time. Absolutely worth your time to check out.

(Via Make Blog) Direct Link

Along with the launch of the newest version of the IconFactory Website as I mentioned earlier in the week one of their resident designers David Lanham released a new series of icons and an accompanying theme that, from what I know, are over a year in the making. Seeing how much work must have gone into this got me thinking about the fact that he gives out this work at no cost to anyone interested, similar to the way most of the icon and desktop designers of the world do. Part of me wonders if the average web surfer on the look out for a new desktop or a new icon set understands the amount of work that goes into the artwork they are downloading. Bringing this back to the topic at hand, I find it amazing that David worked so long on this set only to unleash it out into the world for free. It's an amazing body of work if you consider that each icon is in essence it's own little work of art. It's one thing for me to post my photography for everyone here but I have to hand it to David for his love of his art and his willingness to share it with the world in the way he does. Especially after spending who knows how many countles hours on the work so my hats of to you David.

For those of you not familiar with his work then take some time to browse through his site and check out some of his illustrations.

Link

link

Apple's new(ish) 'Pro' site features some really amazing artist's. I was pretty impressed seeing as apple is a big faceless (well, aside from mr. jobs that is) corporation. Recently I have been pointed to a couple of the featured artists, one of which is Jamie Lidell which is a favorite of mine for some time now. Another artist that was pointed out to me was Japanese video artist Takagi Masakatsu which was described to me as a having a similar view of the world to mine.

You can find these and other artists over on their pro site here.

It looks like one of my old favorites, The IconFactory is getting a new site design. If you head over to the site you will see the beginning of a series of animations marking the creation of a new site design. The animations are worth the couple of minutes to check out because of there humorous approach to hyping the new site.

Heres a link

I think I will just buy a tiny bit of land in the woods and one of these little myst-like pods to live in. They are called 'Free Spirit Spheres' and I cant help but be reminded of structures in the myst game series. I have seen these in books before but I had no idea that you could buy them! Looks like it would make for a great summer/vacation home. Here is a link to see more.

Im sure you can spare 10 minutes to see how big of a fish cats can sneak off into the woods!

A new version of one of my favorite widgets, Go Red Ball Go, has been released so if your a mac os x user then follow the link below, download, and bounce away.

Link

I came across a cool freeware app for itunes called MyTunes. I have seen applications that allow you to share your itunes library in the past and I really liked some of them but its not everyday you come across one that is free that works as well as this app. I just set it up today and I have not really tested it to much but so far I am really liking it. I wish that I could simply browse my music without searching it which the program forces you to do. I also found that I can not search for something that finds more than 200 items as a result. I searched for Elliott Smith and it told me to search again which was kind of disappointing that I have to deal with that kind of thing but hey, its free right? head over and check it out, it runs on windows or mac.

Heres a link.

Update: the developers of the software wrote back really quick to this post and mentioned this: "The missing library browser is the most requested feature. It is implemented in the upcoming v2.0 already. Also the 200 titles search result limit has gone. Just check out our forums at http://board.codewave.de and have a look at the developer section for preview screenshots and more information on all the great new features coming very soon!" So look out for version 2.0!

Electro Voice and Blue Microphones got together and designed a couple of mics and they are called the Cardinal and the Raven. Both mics have this amazing future/retro feel and look (if that makes any sense) and they sound amazing. The cardinal is a condenser mic designed for vocals an instruments and the Raven is a dynamic mic that was designed for electric guitars and other instruments but also makes for an amazing vocal mic that provides a surprising amount of resistance to feedback. Anyway, I know that I have talked about them sometime in the past and I wanted to write a bit here about a site that I am working on.

EV is now the worldwide distributor of blue mics and they also share the connection that I started writing about here in the Cardinal and Raven mics. Because the audio company I work for is tight with EV I get to do some promotional work involving EV products from time to time. This time around I took it upon myself to buy the domain evblue.com and make a website featuring their two collaborative mics. So far there is only a temporary page set up but I hope to get the full mini site working this month at some point.

So tell me, what do you think so far? Heres a link: evblue.com

Here is a cool weblog that someone has started which features post after post of videos from youtube and google video that feature segments from tv in japan. There are ad spots, bits of tv shows and more. It makes for an interesting bit of browsing so check it out!

(update: oops, forgot the link)

Link

Apple has a new ad campaign worth checking out, here is a link to the new tv spots.

I bought a new shirt today from Threadless which you can see above, I have mentioned the site a long while back here on the site. It is basically a site where designers can submit shirt designs which are then voted on and the highest rated shirts get printed up and sold in limited quantities. It's worth checking out.

My brother pointed this one out to me... how odd.

I couldn't get the embedded video to work so here is a link to a great video that entertained me for 12 solid minutes of my life. Time well spent id say, check it out!

Link

I found a link to a video on Boing Boing and thought it was really strange and amazing and is based around the color pink. I found that this is part of a series of 7 short videos based on color that Adidas comissioned different directors and musicians to create. They are all somewhat odd and not everyone may enjoy them but I thought they were interesting. Im not really sure why Adidas wanted these videos made but it is a great series worth checking out and its as easy as subscribing to a podcast!

link to the podcast in iTunes

link to the main site for the videos

This is the first official video for a Boards of Canada song and I thought it was a really nice video so I thought I would share the link which is below.

link

Another wonderful billboard featured on my favorite marketing/ ad sites, Marketing Alternatif. You must check out the blog, the geature some really great ads!



link

Something I think is really strange about podcasting is that it is such a personal thing sometimes for the people that make shows and because of this you end up feeling like you know a person that hosts a show sometimes. It may sound strange but I don't think its to hard to understand. You spend all of these secret little moments in between other parts of your own life and you sneak into this alternate existence that is someone else's podcast, someone else's world. You get used to seeing a new recording come up and having this person ramble on about this or that or you get used to having a chance to be somewhere different from where you are when you listen to someone talk about whatever is around them.

You get to know the host in this strange sort of a way on a personal level because its just you listening to them talk. It's almost like having a conversation if you let yourself look at it this way. From time to time you may remember that this is being shared with potentially hundreds of other people and you feel a little strange thinking that there are all of these other people that are listening in to this conversation but you fall right back into that personal connection you get from listening.

So now put yourself in the podcasters shoes. You take your time, money, and effort to put these recordings together and post them for the whole world to listen to and see. You expose yourself so much by letting the world in on your life and surroundings and through something as simple as a podcast you stand there on top of the world where everyone can see and you speak of your personal opinions and experiences and sometimes your dreams or your struggles and for what? Because of the challenge? Because you are lonely and want an audience to get some things off your chest? Because you want to overcome a fear? Or maybe because you feel as though you have built a family around your ramblings. A family meaning the audience. Maybe you have discovered a way to communicate how you see the world around you to anyone who cares to listen and that gives you some sort of peace of mind. But then again, there may not be anything there at all. The existence of the show may just be there simply to exist. Who knows, only the host.

I know this all sounds a bit over the top and all that but it's true. Podcasting has opened up so many lives and minds in the world and in some sort of subtle way caused people to make friends they may never meet.

Today after reading the news that Rich from Herro Flom Japan had stopped podcasting I felt like I had lost one of my friends but it was strange because in a way he is not my friend at all but merely a voice somewhere in the world speaking into empty space that I just happened upon. So then tell me, why do I feel so strangely attached to it? This is what fascinates me about podcasting and I just wanted to share it with everyone and to use this space to stand up and read my eulogy to a podcast, one of thousands of voices but one that for whatever reason, I connected with and one that I will miss as a voice speaking into the black as well as a voice that I will miss a friend. From what I have learned of Japan and its culture I can see that some of it's tendencies have rubbed off onto Rich over the long amount of time he has lived there. It would seem that as a whole Japanese citizens are very family and self motivated and the business of others is more of an afterthought. They seem to function as a whole by having so much respect for each other. It's amazing really and I can totally understand his viewpoint on podcasting and the reason for his quitting somewhat out of the blue. Ah well. Could be just a big elaborate april fools joke right? Right.

P.S - All of this doesn't come across as creepy or anything does it? It wasn't intended to be, just observations on a cultural phenomenon.

link

OK someone help me beat level six, I found this stupid game that someone posted on one of my rss feeds and now its driving me crazy, I cant spend anymore time messing with it so I figured I would ask my readers to help me out! I have always been a sucker for interesting puzzles.

With the new iZilla you can even rip vinyl with its built in slot loading record drive! Nice!

ThinkGeek.com has some great april fools day products up on their site. I'm not sure how long they will be there so check them out while they are around.

Link

After listening to an episode of one of my favorite podcasts, Planet Japan I checked out their featured blog of the week and it just happened to be a really amazing site full of photos and commentary from Japan. The photos really are pretty amazing work and I am happy to share this link with you here so take a minute and check out whats happening over on SushiCam.com!

Link

This thing is no joke! Midas went alllllll the way and then a little more. Makes all the others look kind of... puny.



link

What a great shirt....



link (via boing boing)

Well if these little spy photos are any indication at all the ps3 appears to be quite a monster when it comes to graphics. But in light of these amazing looking snaps lets remember that the gaming industry is on a repeat cycle when it comes to originality in gaming and I can only hope that in the end it comes to innovation and entertainment more so than pretty graphics and shock value. Rant off...

(by the way these are supposedly form Ratchet and Clank)

Here is a lovely story about a basketball player that had his eye pop out of its socket. The article goes into talking about what you should do if this happens. I think its an entertaining read, odd, but entertaining none the less.

link

I recently found this Japanese site linking to mine and I found this text surrounding the link:

2006.3.3
ここのサイトで公開されている写真がどれも最高！で、大好きなサイト。カッチリした絵の中に暖かさもあり、それぞれに意味のある感じ。デッカくして美術館で見たい感じ。写真を撮る時のお手本としているサイトの一つこちらです。沢山見れるし、ダウンロードも出来るので、パソコンの背景にどうぞ。

Thanks to the miracle of modern translation pages this is all I know about the post:

2006.3.3
Is open with the sight here which photograph which the highest! So, favorite sight. The feeling which is also the warmth in the picture which cutch Lee is done respectively has mind taste. You saw at the decker paragraph て fine arts museum to be, feeling. When taking the photograph, one this way of the sight which has been made model it is. The Sawayama seeing れ る to do, because also download is possible, please in the background of the personal computer.

So this little writing about my desktops seems really nice at least!

I am sure there is a better translation to be heard so is there anyone out there who speaks/ reads Japanese that may be able to shed some more light on this mysterious link to my site? It's a language I would love to learn but I'm a long way off from that so in the mean time any help beyond what I have here would be greatly appreciated!

Link

"This was superficially just a nice-sounding early Yamaha analogue monosynth...Then we turned it over and saw the beautifully-done inscription for an Aphex Twin record release... A little more research, and we found that these were the sleeve notes Richard inscribed and then photographed for one of his major releases ever, if not his biggest ever release: Selected Ambient Works Volume II. As well as the main inscription, there is... a false start on the main inscription, in the gulley at the back right of the bottom of the synth, which reads 'Written and prod'.

Wow! I saw this on Music -Thing. Link.

This is a window display for the new Hi-Fi speaker system at an apple store, brilliant!

You simply must check out this joy of tech comic. I think I might weigh in on the whole new apple product debate later on today. well see... until then, read this comic!

LINK

I suppose this post could have easily been called aMAZEing but I decided to spare you that type of cheep laugh (which I actually didn't spare you come to think of it). I just wanted to point out this site that actually has 1 billion mazes. Yep, thats one billion different mazes for your enjoyment. Im not sure if they really are all totally different but who knows right? Anyways, have fun getting lost.

Link

Here is a fascinating site full of great home made gadgets all of which include step by step how-to instructions on how to create them. A good place to look If your looking for something fun and semi productive on a free day.

Link

LINK

...tell me why i didnt know about this! Linklater is amazing and its another film shot in the style of waking life and its getting released on July 7th and it's based on a Phillip K. Dick book!

Trailer

Wiki

I am happy to see that the kyoto podcast homepage has been revamped and it looks as though there will be new episodes coming in '06! You can be sure to hear more about this here in the time to come.

From the website:

"Despite not having podcasted recently, I am alive! Thankyou for the emails from concerned listeners, it's very kind of you to think about my welfare.

Episode 19 was the last episode for 2005. Due to a large number of constraints coming together, both time and money, as well as returning to Australia, it simply hasn't been possible for me to continue.

That said, I am preparing to return to Japan in 2006 and acquire material for some more episodes. I have chosen the theme for the 2006 episodes, am presently researching it and hope to get some good content once 'on the ground'.
As is evident, I've totally revamped the website and I'll be adding thoughts/experiences here as podcast-relevant things occur."

Tim

Nice to have you back Tim!

I had read that Beck had a new video featuring these recently discontinued robots from Sony a while back and in all honesty could not bring myself to deal with the Real Video feed that it was being shown with on Beck's own website. Maybe it was Windows media, who knows, they are both buggy, terrible ways to show video. At any rate I was oh so excited to start watching the newest Channel Frederator episode to find that the first short was this video. Although it is not really an animation and broke away from their typical content, I welcomed this little break with open arms. I thought it was amazing that the label let this get released on a free podcast such as this and I just had to share this news with everyone because it is a great video that everyone should check out. Remember, these are real robots! As soon as I heard that they were not going to be produced I immediately found myself wondering how much one of these go for... hmm...

link

Since the beginning of the iTunes music store I have wondered when artists would be able to put up their own music for sale outside of being on a label that has access to iTunes and today I have come across a way to do so. It looks as thought this company, Tunecore, has opened a service that allows you to go through them to add your own music to the iTunes music store or Rapsody. You have the ability to add your music to online music stores all over the world and still get all the profits from the sale. After pouring through the FAQ on this site I have decided that this service is pretty legit which is very very cool! They charge you for each song that you want to ad to an online music store as well as an annual nine dollar service fee. I am going to keep digging around to find out more about the service because I hope to give the a shot here in the coming week's.

Link

I havnt the slightest idea why I havn't posted a link to this site yet because I have been following it for quite some time now and it never fails to bring a smile to my face. It's an ever growing collection of unbearably cute animals. You have to browse through the various galleries, it is very much worth your time to check this one out!

link

This site that I came across recently has some really amazing illusions, toys, and articles. The site does not simply feature the same old illusions you may have seen in the past, it features some great videos that show off some very cool things from all around the world that just have to be seen to believe or understand. I can't recommend you check this out enough, it's just too cool!

Link

my brother mailed me a bit of good news for the day, the onion has a podcast! check it out!

link

(thats silly putty by the way!) link

for those of you who have been following this weblog for a while now you may remember seeing a post about a great little flash puzzle called grow cube. well the maker of that game has made one for the holidays and created grow tree! its not as involved but fun all the same so check it out here.



oooohhhh! and i wanted to post about another cool flash thing that i came across the other day. its a brilliant flash movie that is a what if kind of a scenario. its a street fighter vs. mortal combat animation and its very cool to see the two different styles collide, not only in the animations but the combo styles as well. very cool. check that out here.

what is the world coming to? i love being able to remember some old song and type in a fragment of the lyrics to the song to remind me who it was but it looks like the sites that make this possible are getting shut down... sad sad sad.

link

...a bunch of 6 ft wide 450lb jellyfish start to mess with your countries food supply? well, make like the people of japan and eat em'. there are some pretty interesting facts at the bottom of the article as well so check it out!

link

ricky gervais has a podcast! for those of you who for some odd reason do not know who this is then please run out and buy the original bbc comedy, "the office" on dvd. he wrote and stared in this simple yet amazing bit of tv history. some of the best tv in years and easily one of my favorite shows ever. you can also see him in his new show called "extras" which i believe is airing on hbo as well as bbc. hes good at getting a laugh out of me, i know that much. ill let the podcast speak for itself. for more info you can go to the ricky gervais website, the guardian which hosted the podcast, or the iTunes page where you can subscribe. (all of those are links)

holy _ this is craaazy. you must look at this video. im sure that some of you may have seen it already but its still pretty crazy. i read somewhere that in japan if people see a line or hear that there is some sort of big event that they will just kind of come down just to be part of whats happening? its just amazing. oh, i dont think i mentioned, the video is a quicktime video of the line to get into the apple store in tokyo the day it opened!

have a look!

wow! for those of you who have not seen this crazy tv ad for some new sony tvs you should head over and check it out. they dropped 250,000 bouncy balls down a hill in san fransisco to film the ad and the result is suprisingly cool. how on earth did they get permision to do this? there is a little mini documentary on the making of this available as well on the website. i would suggest viewing the hi-res versions of the videos because detail seems to be pretty important in this one.

heres a link

link

being a fan of the designers republic, a firm that i have loved for years and years now, i have decided to put a link up here to this amazing site that revolves around a few designer bottles of coke that are evidentially shaped like the classic glass bottles but are made of aluminum. they are all designed by some really high class design firms and they are all really slick. the annoying catch is that these bottles can only be found at special events and fancy clubs for whatever reason. oh well. anyways, each bottle also has a song as well as a video. check it out here.

this is fun! link

one of the best joy of tech comics i have seen in a good while. link.

boing boing never seems to stop amazing me with the amount of strange yet interesting links to things around the internet. this time around i thought i would share this amazing page with you that features the top 100 toys of the 70s and 80s! it is very cool and has a lot of various toys that i remember from when i was a kid!

check it out here

to funny not to post. i have known of this for a while but for what ever reason i never posted it. ever get tired of junk mail? here is an interesting way to get some payback...

link

so im sure that most of you have heard of the iTunes music store and are familiar with the pay per song / album structure of the store. i for one love this model because i can just get what i want to get and i get to keep the music indefinitely. there are other online music stores that offer a subscription model and that might be nice for someone who does not really care about music all to much and does not mind not actually owning any of the music. i for one have a huge problem with that and prefer having the ability to burn anything i want to burn and whatnot.

this said i am not really fond of any sort of drm (digital rights management) at all and would prefer to just buy the music and own it without any restrictions at all but i know thats not going to happen any time soon.

to get to the point here i wanted to write about an online music store that is not as widely known but i think it pretty amazing overall. its called emusic.

i have been using emusic for years now. it was one of the first online retailers for mp3s and they focus in on all of the indie labels out there so dont expect to find any big label pop music on there. you can find some really amazing stuff if you dig around though!

so i am going to contradict myself here and say that emusic is a subscription based service and this was no problem to me back when you could pay 15 dollars for unlimited downloads from the site. a larger company came in and reorganized a bit and now 15 dollars a month will only get you 65 songs but do the math, thats still a good deal! the downloads are in variable bit rate mp3 format and they sound really good for being mp3s.

so at any rate head over and check it out! if you decide to try it let me know and ill send you an invite which could lead to me getting a kickback. consider it a donation to twistedsun.net! you will get a month free which means you can grab a couple albums of music for free just to try it out so check it out!

heres a link.

check this out! its sort of a how to on making a secret door that uses a book pull to open the door. heres a link.

there is this amazing illustrator in my town and his name is david lanham and im sure that some of you in the mac community may be familiar with his work from the iconfactory. i have a link to his site in the links section but i just checked out his site for the first time in a while and i was once again amazed by his work. there is a couple of new illustrations of his that he has posted in his freshly renovated website that i would suggest you go check out. his work is just soooooo creative and imaginatlive. he is one of my favorite illustrators by far and has a style unlike any other which is very rare in today's world of trendy art and design. so head over and check out his newest offerings - i guarantee you will like what you see!

link

i came across this really amazing t-shirt site called threadless. if you want to achieve an instant hipster look then look no further than this site. they have some very cool shirts designed by all sorts of different designers. from what i gather anyone can enter a design submission and then they get voted on my visitors of the site. the most popular shirts get printed and sold in small quantities. while i was out on tour i met a few people with shirts that i thought were very neat looking and turns out they were all from this site! happy shopping!

heres a bit of a link to check it out.

i came across this amazing site that appears to be a loose collective of designers that release various work on this site as part of an online magazine of a sort. i honestly dont really kow to much about the site other than that they have some really amazing work hiding on it. im not sure how often it gets updated even. you can dig through the back issues of the site to see a wide variety of amazing design work. check it out for yourself over at www.k10k.net have fun digging through the site, there is plenty to see and get lost in...

when i wrote about kyoto podcast yesterday i mentioned something called a facecast that the host is trying to put together. a facecast is something he came up with which will use the enhanced podcast feature of iTunes to let him have a podcast that features photos of people from all over the world. not only people but animals too! he is looking for images not only from listeners of the podcast but from anyone who may want to participate in this idea and be part of it. i think that its going to be very cool when its done and its something that you shouldnt miss out on being a part of so if you have a minute or two please mail a photo of yourself and/or your pet over to facecast@mac.com and be part of a really great project!

(the photos i posted above are a few of the ones that i sent to the project.)

here is one last little bit from japan today. they just have some of the most interesting things over there. take these bus stops scattered about japan. they are big huge pieces of fruit to sit in while you wait, how fun is that? i for one wouldnt mind sitting in a big watermelon while i waited on a bus!

sometimes there is some really odd news that comes out of japan that and i noticed this story a few days ago. maybe i will start posting strange news bits that i find here because there are some odd ones. take this story for example. there is a woman in japan that is listed as the 19th oldest person in japan but there is one little catch to this story. she has been missing for 40 years... how does that work? turns out in 1962 (or 1963?) she went out for groceries but never came back and a missing persons report was never filed due to a 'complicated' family situation.

or maybe thats doesnt perk your interest? how about this story that simply tells a story of how a deadly yellow fat tailed scorpion was found in someones garden. thats pretty much it. there was some talk about how it may have been a pet and there has been two stories on this happening. i remember reading one a week or so ago and being kind of confused. so even bugs have their place on japanese news stands...

i have a link to this great podcast on kyoto japan on the links page and it tells a bit about why i like the podcast so i wont get into that here. its an amazing listen and ive been subscribed to this one since episode three i believe. i decided one day that i might be able to help out and revamp the title graphic for the podcast as well as the title on the web page for the podcast. well, turns out is a really nice guy and he ended up really liking it and so i designed him a full set for both the english and japanese versions of the site as well as the album artwork main image for the podcast itself. i will also be making his graphic for a new podcast that he is starting that is about Cairns Australia. just thought i would point you in the direction of this great podcast and show off a little of my work. i want to post something here about something called a facecast that tim (the host) has come up with. more on that as soon as i get a chance to do a write up.

heres a link to the kyoto podcast page.

(check out the newest episode #13, he talkes about the new images and twistedsun.net!)

some researchers have finally found a giant squid alive in its natural habitat. they found this amazing squid nearly 3,000 ft under the surface of the north pacific ocean. it was roughly 25 feet long! how cool is that? there was no video of the occurrence but they did get 500 or so photos during what was evidently quite a struggle between the scientists and the squid. it started to sound like a botched steve zissou adventure after i found out that the poor squid lost a tentacle in the struggle to hold the squid down. until now giant squid have only been found dead or dying. its amazing that it took so long to find one of these mythical creatures in the wild. heres a link to the national geographic article.

check this out! its a really amazing little flash game. the idea is that you start off with a big brown cube and you slowly add in various elements one by one to make the cube's world grow to its maximum potential. there are a ton of variations of what is possible to happen in the world of the cube so its fun to try all sorts of different orders with the objects supplied in the cube world. give it a try, heres a link.

what the...

im working a stage over at a latin music festival today and found that i have a really solid wireless connection where i am set up so i decided that i had to put this bit of good luck to use and post something here in the ol' weblog. i have been enjoying a great podcast from a music magazine called XLR8R for a while now and i thought i would share the wealth with anyone interested. it features 4 or 5 songs each week from up and coming indie and electronic musicians and i have found that they have been including some top quality stuff in there. it is an enhanced podcast which means that there are photos that change for each song as well as links to the featured bands web pages! the enhanced features work best in iTunes 4.9 so head over and check it out.

here is a link to the XLR8R webpage that has a little info about the podcast and other downloads available on their site.

and here is a link directly to the podcast in iTunes

This billboard is brilliant! is uses shadows generated using sunlight so when the sun is out you see an image of a girl sun bathing.

"The billboard is made of 12,148 aluminium pegs, varying in length from 1mm to 27mm. Each different length peg creates a different sized shadow. The different sized shadows create a greyscale image of a woman sunbathing, when the sun comes out."

this is such an an amazing thing, these guys put out this free dvd magazine that features all kinds of amazing amazing content. i think they are funded by someone but i cant remember who and i just wanted to post a link up anyway so heres the deal. all you have to do is mail them a nice pre stamped padded envelope and they will send it back with a dvd inside. pretty good deal id say and trust me about the content, it is very very cool, check out the site for more details as well as little clips of some of the things you will find on the dvd.

heres a link.

...links for everyone. just thought i would poke my head in here and post a couple of links since i havnt posted much in the last day or two. ill have some new stuff to see on monday, new desktops, new blog stuff, new review? well see how it goes. until then...

• i referred to this in my links page but i really love this guys japanese food reviews, they are so well written and i cant help but laugh out loud as i read them. here is the latest from young fook. (its somewhat explicit for those of you who mind)

• this is the personal site of one of the two hosts of the planet japan podcast. she writes articles for a paper in japan and ive been enjoying them as of late, she has a newsletter that you can subscribe to to get the newest columns.

• for anyone running a mac and owns an ipod you have got to check out this amazing shareware app called pod2go. it will sync all sorts of useful things to your ipod for you such as gas prices, weather, rss feeds, text from web pages, directions, your email, and more! i have found this to be really useful as i am out and about to have some of these things there with me in my pocket. you can check it out here. it is very worth the 12 dollars that it costs.

thats all for now, till next time...

i wonder what its like to use one of these.

through however many degrees of seperation there may be between myself and boc i was lucky enough to hear some of the new boards of canada album and its really good! its very different only not. for anyone who may not want to hear about the new record than you may want to turn your eyes onto another post. the new album has very similar swirling ambient bases to the songs and simplistic low tempo drum patterns but the part that is kind of surprising is the overall texture of the album. unlike there past few albums this one feels a lot more clean and polished. not to the degree of a pop album by any means but it just feels like its gliding across a plate of white plastic. all of the sounds in each song have a presence of their own which differs from the other albums and the way everything in the song kind of melts together. this album introduces a good bit of guitar into the mix which i found interesting. maybe all of these remixes they have been working on as of late have begun to rub off onto there other recorded work. it is defiantly more approachable, even by those of you who are electronic music nay sayers. this album defiantly seems to reach out to everyone.

so that said everybody can look forward to another really great album from boards of canada in october. i know that sounds like a pretty long wait but it is going to be sooooo worth it.

i would never dream of torturing my new nano like the guys over at ars technica did as they reviewed the thing but its interesting to read about the poor player being thrown around and run over by a car. the nano actually still worked after being driven over by a car, well minus the screen, that died but the scroll when still functioned and it was still able to play music!

see for yourself.

I also came across a very cool video on the nine inch nails website for the song 'only'. its concept is very very simple and it seems to be almost an advertisement of a sort for some of it but all in all its worth a look. the whole video takes place within the space of a desk as the song plays and a figure of trent can be seen in a pin toy on the desk. at first i did feel that it was pretty cheesy but after a couple of views ive gotten to like it more and more. i sure with the higher resolution version of it was working, it appears to be a broken link. oh well.

heres a link (btw, there is explicit language in the song for those of you who may not want to hear it?)

I stumbled across this amazing little application today that is a toy of a sort. its a really simple concept but when you sit down with it and start playing around it gets more and more addictive. im sure this is old news to some but its new to me. the idea behind the app is there is a point on the screen at which little balls drop out and what you do to interact with them is draw lines one the screen to give the balls something to bounce on. not only this but whenever a ball strikes a line it triggers a note to be played so as you develop your bouncing ball structure you can hear melodies come out of the bouncing. its easy to let it get out of hand and sound like a big mess but if you set a structure up right you can get some pretty cool sounding compositions! i believe it was developed a couple years back by the artist josh nimoy using max msp.

you can find this free application here for both windows and macintosh so head over and grab it for a bit of a distraction in your everyday routine.

UPDATE: well, you can ignore this post here. looks like apple decided that they didnt like the test drive idea after all. it has barely been 24 hours since they launced the program and they pulled it for no apparent reason. i wonder why? ho hum, deals they come and deals they go right? go buy a mac mini anyway, there such nice little machines, no?


so i thought that this was a pretty good deal. try a mac mini for 30 days and if you dont like it or you are not satisfied you can return it for nothing! its a web only thing so dont go running off to an apple store to get your free mac mini rental. you can see all the little details here.

i will be reviewing an album soon by jamie lidell called "multiply" that is absolutely amazing. i was checking out his website today for tour plans and remembered that there are some great videos on his site. i would suggest you head over and check out the video on his site that shows a little glimpse into what his live shows are like. every time i read something about the guy i hear about how amazing he is live and after seeing this video i am planning a trip to go see him live as it would seem to be something that would be foolish to miss!

there is a lot of improve involved in the performance and this is obvious right off the bat as you watch the video. he takes his own beat boxing and loops it as he sings over top of himself. its something that has to be seen to be understood and/or believed.

so head over and click the link in his videos page that is an image of a stack of film reels with some writing on the side. the performance is of a song on his album called the city. (there is also a music video of this song that is equally amazing that can be found by clicking the link with the image of him shaving)

heres a link to the videos!

also you should note that his album differs from the live performance quite a bit as you can find out by checking out his album on itunes or by reading my review when i get that up in the next day or so. heres the itunes link!

(those are eggs in there)

i cant speak for the rest of the contents of the site because i haven't looked through it but i did find it's collection of vending machines from around japan really fun to dig through.

japanese vending machines

its amazing how many of these things there are! i heard a statistic at some point about just how many there are but i forget the numbers. maybe ill remember later. anyone else know the specifics?

...a wonderful song by bola and get a chance to try out the web tools over on bleep.com. you can set up a little player on your site to refer to a song or an album. pretty nice function id say! it fades out after 30 seconds or so to keep people from recording it. (tip: if your using safari, im not sure about other browsers, try opening a new tab while you listen. might help with that fading issue. )

im not sure if this is old news or anything but it sure is new to me. i stumbled across this amazing little flash site recently and i thought that i would share it with anyone here interested. it really is pretty amazing.

ill leave two links. one will take you directly to what i saw first on the site which is called drum machine. you can find that here. simply click around until the show begins. great stuff.

now for the whole site that this is attached to which you can find by clicking here. i would suggest clicking on the right flower and checking out the thing called "music box" also very cool.

im not sure what the whole story is behind the site but it sure is fun to browse around in. k, thats all for now.