The iconic Girl With a Pearl Earring, by Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer, is widely considered one of art history's most seminal paintings. Artist James Mylne spent 90 hours copying the image, using just one Bic Cristal pen. Kudos. That shading took some serious skill (and patience).
What's the highest score you ever achieved in one SCRABBLE game? 500? 600? 700?
Ever wondered what it'd be like to be a Tetris block? The answer: nauseous. When you play First Person Tetris, the entire game rotates with you when you rotate a block.
It's amazing what you can do with a little thing called Maya. Reubenpac's Maya mashup features Patrick Swayze v. Iron Man, set to ACDC.
Via Cakes! Cakes! Cakes!: Wisely-chosen makes her husband squirm with her batch of rainbow vagina cupcakes:
New content for our favorite Zombie game! The Passing, released 04/22/2010, bridges the storyline between the first and second game. Free on PC, 540 fairybucks on Xbox 360. We have it downloaded it and ready to go for tonight, we'll write back with impressions!
Poland 1962
The Pacific Shark Research Committee is the sole spot to find ALL shark sightings in SoCal. They're incredibly diligent about indexing all the activity. It's kind of nerve wracking that my two favorite spots: Sunset and San O are the most popular for white shark sightings, but oh well.
Here is the movie trailer for "Let the Right One In" Here is the UK movie trailer for "Let the Right One in"
Robots are great for performing tasks that are otherwise too dangerous for man (e.g. dead body extraction bot). BeetleCam is a cute little bot that takes all the danger out of wild life photography. Controlled remotely from a Range Rover about 50 yards away, BeetleCam ventures where no sane photographer dares to go (at the feet of a charging elephant, say). "We thought that Elephants would be an easy subject for BeetleCam’s first outing. We were wrong… we quickly learned that Elephants are wa...
How To Make Your Television Play Anything in 3D It could be a while before studios release home versions of big pictures like Avatar (rumored 2011) and Alice in Wonderland in 3D. But you don't need to wait. Provided that you have a 3D-capable HDTV, turning it into a 3D home theater that is capable of playing any off-the-shelf DVD in 3D is surprisingly easy. Here's how to make the conversion
What better way to start off a blog about Scotch whiskies than to write about our first impressions of some of our favorites? These notes are from a Scotch tasting party we threw a while back. It was fairly simple: we made meat, we asked people to bring individual bottles, and we drank. And drank.
From Walt Disney Pictures and visionary director Tim Burton comes an epic 3D fantasy adventure ALICE IN WONDERLAND, a magical and imaginative twist on some of the most beloved stories of all time. JOHNNY DEPP stars as the Mad Hatter and MIA WASIKOWSKA as 19—year—old Alice, who returns to the whimsical world she first encountered as a young girl, reuniting with her childhood friends: the White Rabbit, Tweedledee and Tweedledum, the Dormouse, the Caterpillar, the Cheshire Cat, and of course, th...
Jeez, Microsoft is really pulling out all the stops lately. First, a whole lotta bling, and now they celebrate their millionth console sold with this limited edition Halo Xbox 360, designed by Richard Taylor and the Weta Workshop. The one-of-a-kind console is being auctioned off on Ebay, and the winning amount will be matched by up to $10,000 by Microsoft New Zealand for a donation to Cure Kids.
Weddings are expensive, but there is a way to have all the glamour and beauty of a wedding day without it costing a fortune.
I just found out that I might be expected to tip all the vendors... on top of the exorbitant fee they charge! Sigh... Here is a great tipping cheat sheet courtesy of theknot.com.
Them Crooked Vultures: The Super SuperGroup So glad Dave Grohl's back on drums.
What more is there to say about the almighty Conrad Schnitzler? One of the original founders of Tangerine Dream and Kluster (later Cluster), his contributions to the world of German experimental electronic music have been enormous. With album, cassette, and cd releases miles long, his discography would take a lifetime and a pretty penny to catch up to. 'Conrad and Sohn' is a pretty unique release, even for Schnitzler. The album was a private press release that he did with his son in 1981. App...
Here is a video of what i think is an awesome drummer, his full name is Martin Luther King Chavez Dosh. He doese really interesting stuff because he loops his drum tracks so that he can overlap different beats, and create cymphonies of percussion! i think hes great, he's played alot with Andrew Bird, one of my favorite artists, check it out.
This blog is dedicated to the world of Japanese single malts. We tried one once, I think it was a Yamazaki 10 year, and were a little underwhelmed. Course, the world of single malts, even in Japan, is bigger than a single batch. Looking forward to trying more!
I took this picture with my Blackberry, so sorry for the fuzzy quality. My birthday was on Monday, so of course we went and got a cake. It was a delicious red velvet cake from Lark, a great cake shop on Sunset in Silver Lake. My husband bought the last one!
David Wang of the iPhone Dev Team has achieved what is considered quite a jaw-dropping hacking feat. Yesterday Wang posted a video of Google's Android operating system up and running on an iPhone. Via CNET:
I recently shot a short film for director Keegan Uhl for Canon’s Beyond the Still contest and our film “The Beach” won first place. We had a lot of fantastic support getting the film done, and I’m really glad to see people liked what we put together. Keegan put in a ton of work and it’s always rewarding to win something like this, especially when the film was done all out-of-pocket. My Gaffer on the film, Matt Irwin was awesome as well. He provided a lot of his own equipment, and even provide...
Update: New Trailer (7/9/10) In July of 2008, Fawaz Al-Matrouk, director of "To Rest In Peace", brought me on to shoot his USC graduate thesis film. Two years, 3 cameras, and over 15,000 miles later, the film is in its last week of post, having completed our final color correction at Light Iron Digital in Culver City yesterday.
The five most important things you should think about before starting your store: 1. Name: Make sure you pick a name that is memorable and not too long. You want people to know how to find your shop, easily. http://www.everythingetsy.com/2009/03/how-to-pick-a-name-for-your-etsy-shop/
Check out the winner from Beyond the Still's Chapter Two: Job Security. "Job Security" written & directed by Josh Thacker.
There's an old joke that shooting with available light meant using every light available on the truck. Fortunately, with Canon's new generation of HD capable DSLR's, the term "available light" means what it ought to. Vince LaForet's work with HDDSLR cameras is a great example of using both ambient and specular light present at locations in order to not only expose an image but effectively telling a very visually compelling story. Check out "The Cabbie", the first in the installment of Canon...
The Recipe A quick search online will show you that there's no shortage of homemade laundry soap recipes: Here's one from The Simple Dollar. And we've got 10 more at Money Talks News. But below is one that seems to work pretty well. You'll need:
Artist Giles Walker's robot peep show/DJ installation piece gives us a little glimpse of what strip clubs could look like in the future (well, let's really hope not, guys). Walker also teams up with Frank Barnes and his robot drummers (second video in the gallery below, check it out - pretty sweet). Previously, Sexxxy Roxxy: World's First Sex Bot (NSFW).
Word of mouth is that Zynga is preparing to harvest the world. Is this a horror movie? No, but FarmVille has already invaded millions of homes, and now it wishes to conquer our pockets. They're gearing up for a mobile platform, one that will reach millions more via the iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad, and Android.
Jedijawa is a self-described "sci-fi geek" and public interest attorney who enjoys SCRABBLE, maybe more than he should. Over time, he wrote one too many posts on SCRABBLE, which prompted him to consolidate them into one webpage on his site.
QI and ZA. QI n pl. -S the vital force that in Chinese thought is inherent in all things
Looking for a cheap & easy stylus (but not interested in using processed pork?) Adam Kumpf of design firm Teague demonstrates how to make a DIY soft conductive stylus for the iPhone, iPad, or any device with a capacitive touch screen. All it takes is a pencil and sock. Yes, it's that easy. "We've been experimenting with conductive foams and fabrics in search of a middle ground. Fortunately, it's quite easy to make a soft, conductive writing tool using some pretty basic materials. All you need...
Cult Ritual are one of my favorite hardcore bands of the last few years. Hailing from Florida, their sound is a cross between 'Damaged-era' Black Flag, Bl'ast, and Poison Idea. Mean, dissonent, chaotic, and noisy. Everything i love about hardcore wrapped up in one. I don't think they are still together and I believe members are now in Neon Blud, Nazi Dust, and Slavescene. Also be sure to check Merchandise and Body Rot (both feature members of Cult Ritual). Most, if not all of their releases a...
Burger Records, a vinyl/cassette label based in Fullerton, Ca. and run by members of Audacity and Thee Makeout Party, have reissued 3 cassette tapes from Cleaners From Venus. "Midnight Cleaners" (1982), "In The Golden Autumn" (1983), and "Under Wartime Conditions" (1984). These cassettes have been loooong out of print and nearly impossible to find. If not for blogspots, some of these tracks would never be heard again. Martin Newell (Mr. Cleaners or Mr. Venus???) started recording and releasin...
Fantastic reissue of this all female punk group from Switzerland. Formed in the early 80's, this was their first single released on their own label Farmer Records. Now Portland's Mississippi Records has finally released this obscure classic. Their sound is a cross between punk and twee pop. Catchy melodies with sing along choruses, upbeat tempos, thumping bass lines and noisy post punk guitars. Very much in the same vein as bands like the Shop Assistants (whom they toured with), Kleenex/Lilip...
Take some tips from the masters themselves. Kotaku interviews game developer Zynga, "who has generously offered to help, by sharing FarmVille strategy tips on how to make the most of your land, your crops, and your livestock".
One of the best fanzines ever!!!
Three Haitian brothers, with no training of any kind, have constructed a working, flying helicopter. Total cost? 45,000 Haitian dollars, which comes out to approximately 1100 American bucks. Their chopper is the first helicopter to every be produced in Haiti.
The first in a four-part very slick min-series which follows a select group of surfers on a boat trip through Indonesia’s Mentawai Islands.
