sábado, 28 de agosto de 2004

Black Rock City countdown. Xeni Jardin: Heard from three friends today who are each driving out to Burning Man within the next 24 hours. Two out of three will place key in ignition after midnight; likely way-jacked-up on Red Bull and 500bpm trance mp3s, or some equally potent cocktail for scaring away sleep on the six+ hour drive. One packs a sousaphone. Another, a stepson. The third, his weight in explosives -- enough firepower to earn him a Guantanamo one-way, were he to absentmindedly cram it in an airline carryon with a suspect sticker. I won't be following them. Not for lack of wanting. Miss the mess, just can't this year. Another friend who wouldn't be caught dead in glitter or elwire asked for words of advice to give his kid sister, a first-timer. IANAHCB (I Am Not A Hardcore Burner), or particularly clever. All I could come up with was this. Do not drink the chocolate-marijuana absinthe. Do drink water until your gag reflex is triggered, then drink some more. Keep your hands off the bike seats on which sans culotte hippypersons have planted their naked nalgas. At least once, hit the Pancake Playhouse camp for breakfast, and raise gooey fingers in the air ("when soft rock is heard, pancakes will be served.") Pack extra copies of your Burning Man Bingo card. Don't try to see or do everything, or think you're going to be able to find specific friends at specific places at specific times -- doesn't work like that. Be cool. Be prepared. Avoid hurting yourself, or anyone else, or that wide, white, alkaline ocean of old dust. Enjoy. The best lesson of this thing? Joy need not be deferred. (Snapshot at left from a bunch I shot last year: Link. There are better photos shot by other people here: Link. Previous BoingBoing post -- Book / This is Burning Man: Link. Thanks for the Burning Man Bingo reminder, kowgurl!) [Boing Boing] 5:34:52 PM    comment []

FBI action over illegal file-swap. Kill Bill is among the films available via the file-sharing network. The FBI has seized equipment as part of the first copyright action taken against file-sharing networks. Equipment was seized as part of an investigation into illegal sharing of copyrighted movies, music and games over a peer-to-peer (P2P) network. Users of P2P can access files directly from computers of other network users. "P2P or peer-to-peer does not stand for 'permission to pilfer'," said Attorney General John Ashcroft. [BBC News | Technology | UK Edition] 5:32:06 PM    comment []

Players prepare for Half-Life 2. Gamers are getting their hands on encrypted copies of the eagerly awaited Half-Life 2 game. [BBC News | Technology | UK Edition] On Half-Life 2 — from the Planet Half-Life site: “Gordon Freeman is back! Along with scientist Eli Vance and his daughter Alyx, your mission is to save the world from total alien domination. See, that little incident in Black Mesa was just the beginning: now those pesky Xen invaders and a new threat called the Combine have spread across the whole Earth, causing massive amounts of death and destruction. It's up to you to set things right. Half-Life 2 picks up some time after the original Half-Life left off - with Gordon working for the G-Man - and takes place in and around an eastern European-type city called City 17. Multiplayer with "at least 32 players" will be included, but Valve hasn't disclosed much additional info about online play at this time (although we do know there won't be built-in co-op).” [Half-Life 2] 5:27:02 PM    comment []

The art of Ray Caeser. Mark Frauenfelder: I love it when an artist jumps to a new level. It looks like Ray Caeser has done just that. Link [Boing Boing] Radar comment: a huge horizon of possibilities lays ahead of us all! Ray Caeser: My work is entirely digital, from its creation to its method of printing. I create models in a three dimensional modeling software and cover these models with painted and manipulated photographic textures that wrap around them like a map on a globe. Each model is then set up with a invisible skeleton that allows me to pose and position the figure in its three dimensional environment. Digital lights and cameras are added with shadows and reflections simulating that of a real world. 5:24:48 PM    comment []

Funny-sarcastic stick-figure online RPG. Cory Doctorow: Kingdom of Loathing is a wildly sarcastic, web-based videogame that uses stick-figure artwork to very good effect. It's in free open beta right now, and I found myself snarfing my morning beverage on more than one occasion in the course of a few minutes' play (the Booze Giant! The Meatloaf Helmet! The Misspelled Cemetary!) Link (via Wonderland) [Boing Boing] 5:22:46 PM    comment []

Happy 40th Birthday, cubicle!. Mark Frauenfelder: Metropolis' Yvonne Abrahams profiles Bob Propst, inventor of the office cubicle. A great example of a neat idea morphing into its opposite. So, in 1964, Herman Miller's Action Office system was born. It started with a huge open area, sectioned off to give workers completely enclosed spaces if needed, or semi-enclosed spaces for a more social kind of privacy. Offices were arranged in such a way that workers would be likely to have plenty of contact with each other and with management. ... Propst's forward-thinking motives were misinterpreted by some companies, which simply crammed more workers into smaller spaces and took advantage of the system's huge potential for savings and tax breaks ... "Lots are run by crass people who can take the same kind of equipment and create hellholes. They make little bitty cubicles and stuff people in them. Barren, rat-hole places." Link (Thanks, Bill!) [Boing Boing] 5:21:24 PM    comment []

Excellent animation blog -- Cartoon Brew. Mark Frauenfelder: I can't believe I didn't know about Cartoon Brew until just now. It's a blog maintained by animation insiders Amid Amidi and Jerry Beck. Today's entry is a great interview with John Kricfalusi, who finished up six new episodes of Ren & Stimpy for Spike TV. [John Kricfalusi]: Well I love extremes in different mediums. The extreme of a cartoon is surrealism, that cartoons can do anything. A character can explode, can fly into pieces and come back together, can have their heads blown off, squash into a pancake, turn into an erection, I love all that stuff. But that's not all I love. To me, if I make the character so real, so believable, and then do wild stuff with it, it puts you in a whole other world. It makes the weird stuff even more believable. Like in STIMPY'S PREGNANT the whole opening, after the puke stuff's over, turns into this realistic drama. Then when all the intensity is released and Ren accepts that he's going to have the kid, it's all happy and light-hearted. All the birds and squirrels show up, and then it goes right into gags. So it's about contrast. Link [Boing Boing] 5:19:25 PM    comment []

Shane Glines' Cartoon Retro. Mark Frauenfelder: My friend Scott has been telling me to check out a new subscription-based website published by Shane Glines. Glines is an animation character designer and one of my favorite illustrators. He worked for Spumco (the studio that made Ren & Stimpy) and on the Batman animated series. Glines describes his new site, Cartoon Retro, as being "devoted to celebrating and exploring the largely forgotten work of great artists, cartoonists, illustrators, photographers, filmmakers, actors, musicians and industrial designers from what, in my opinion, was the peak of American culture: approximately 1925 through 1939." In addition, Shane posts some of his own work on the site, too I just signed-up, and am blown away with all the great stuff available. If you are at all interested in the art from this era (like I am), the $5 / month fee is well worth it. I hope enough people sign up to convince him to keep up the great work. Link [Boing Boing] 5:17:48 PM    comment []

© Creative Commons 2004 Antonio C-Pinto. Last update: 26.09.04; 18:56:38.