technically speaking » Entertainment

Plants Using Humans for World Domination

Rob — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 05:48:26 +0000

Darwinian theory suggest that the strong survive, but how does this relate to a flower? Based on Michael Pollan’s book, PBS’s new series The Botany of Desire presents a new way to look at the plants all around us and how they work the Darwinian rules for success of the species.

Jawbox Perform Savory on Jimmy Fallon

Rob — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 19:59:39 +0000

Last night Jawbox performed for the first time together since 1997. They did one song, Savory, live on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon in support of the re-issue of For Your Own Special Sweetheart. Great band. Great song. Would love to see more but Jawbox were very adamant that the reunion was one and done.

Update:
Seems they did a few more songs just not for broadcast.

68 (Fallon – web exclusive)

FF = 66 (Fallon – web exclusive)

Dreams vs. Nightmares

Rob — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 03:30:50 +0000

We all dream, but what do they mean? What makes a dream a nightmare? How do we use dreams in the waking world? What about dreams of what we want?

Honda visits the idea of dreams and their meanings to our day-to-day through the words and stories of Clive Barker, Deepak Chopra, and various talents within Honda. It’s something to inspire thought which lies at the backbone of the entire Dream the Impossible series.

Links:
Dreams vs, Nightmares
Honda’s Dream the Impossible

We’ve come a long way since 1977

Rob — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 17:44:19 +0000

In 1977 computers were far from personal. They offered 40/80 lines of green or amber text. Around that time I got my first computer, the Commodore Pet. It was all metal, big and heavy with a giant stand alone hard drive that held nothing in today’s standards. There was also a separate cassette player for loading/unloading programs. It’s graphics were limited to that classic shade of green and the alternate characters displayed on each of the keys of the keyboard. I would spend hours either drawing pictures with those alternate characters or writing programs in BASIC and saving them on my cassette drive. Even the highest end systems of the day were less capable then my iPhone.

Also in 1977 Star Wars was released. Star Wars is a classic film. I was too young to see it in theaters or remember much of it even if I had. Still, as a child I loved the original trilogy and always loved it’s visuals. For the time and may years after it’s visual effects were still some of the best. George Lucas and team did amazing things with film to create all those special effects. Computer generated EFX wasn’t even an option back then. Well, I stand corrected. The computer projections of the Death Star were actually done on a computer. Below is a eye opening video of both their process and the technology that was available at the time.

Canned Humor

Rob — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 16:25:21 +0000

It’s not often that I notice a banner ad let alone interact with one but this ad for Pringles was well worth my clicks. The banner was created by Bridge Worldwide and won a 2009 Cannes Cyber Lions Gold. The concept is simple, provide a silly but catchy image and reward evey interaction with witty copywriting.

Hooked on the Method

Rob — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 15:16:01 +0000

Back in the day The Crystal Method, Chemical Brothers, Underworld, The Prodigy and others were the captins of cool. Essential parts of MTV’s Alternative Nation’s life blood. Known for both their innovative visuals as well as their hypnotic beats. With their mixing of sources, styles and sounds everything felt new, electronic and energetic. Times and tastes changed, as did their sound. Well looks like 2009 may be come back time.

Earlier this year The Prodigy returned with some new tracks and a new album, Invaders Must Die. The first single, Omen is an updated version of the classic Prodigy attitude and sound. The title track continues that trend, if nothing else it may even have kicked it up a notch. Thanks to the Internets you can rock some samples from ThePodigy.com

The Crystal Method have returned to dropped some new beats as well. Their first single Drown in the Now is a bit more or a departure from the TCM of yesteryear. Visually the video ups the cool quotient, though I need to take in a few more listens before casting an opinion on the new sound. Got to say it’s growing on me. In both cases they sound nothing like any of the other new tracks I’ve been listening to which is refreshing all its own.

Links:
ThePodigy.com
The Prodigy – Omen
The Prodigy – Invaders Must Die
The Crystal Method
The Crystal Method – Drown In the Now

If clients only knew what they sounded like…

Rob — Thu, 28 May 2009 03:54:40 +0000

…would they realize how ridiculous the requests are? Would it make a difference?

Great video switching the context of client requests in to the real world situations.

Via @StellarGirl

Apple revisits New York Times’ homepage

Rob — Mon, 18 May 2009 22:22:20 +0000

Once again Apple has paired up with the New York Times to create an ad users actually want to see. This time it’s for a homepage integration/takeover featuring multiple ads all working in unison. Similar to Apple’s TV ads, this site integration features John Hodgman (PC) and Justin Long (MAC) talking about their differences. In this case John is commenting on the results of a Forrester Research poll, shown in the ad space above theirs, when two characters from yet another ad space join in on the conversation. Before they start talking they seemed to fade into the pages background drawing little to no attention. When the main ad is complete the two secondary ads fade to an unobtrusive white panel with a floating Apple logo. Allowing those that keep the NY Times open all day (to see news updates) not to be barraged with Apple, Apple, Apple.

Though this isn’t the first time for Apple it’s still worthy of the viral attention is getting/has gotten. It’s cleanly designed and executed. Continues the sense of humor that has made these ads a hit for the last few years. Makes great use of its environment. It may only run a single day but I’m sure both parties make out as winners each time they meet.

Links:
Apple
New York Times
John Hodgman
Justin Long

Swine Flu, why all the hype?

Rob — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 17:57:59 +0000

Every news channel is talking about the Swine Flu as if it’s already a pandemic. In reality there are a few cases scattered about the globe, and somewhat randomly at that. So out of the 7 Billion people there are say 1 hundred people that have been diagnosed. That’s 1 person for every 70 million people (1/70,000,000), far from freak out territory. That’s not stopping the news services from hyping it to no end, as they did with Avian Flu last year and SARS a few years ago. Both of which turned out to be nothing close to what was hyped.

Some may say this is all a conspiracy, to distract American’s short attention spans from the economy and other more important/challenging/demoralizing news stories. Others may suggest this is simply a ruse to get people to watch more of the 24 news stations and up their ad revenues. Less conspiritory would be that this is just filler content with all the stations trying to one-up the other.

On a more entertaining note, all this hype has provided The Daily Show and Colbert Report some great (non-political) fodder for their shows. Stewart had multiple sketches regarding the hype. He closed his coverage of the Flu after he deduced that since this flu strain is a mix of Swine, Avian and Human sources that it’s origins must have been from a guy F’ing a turkey club sandwich. Followed by an even lowerbrowed visual. And with that I’m done.

A Comical Explanations of Recent Economic Events

Rob — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 01:21:43 +0000

The truth is we’re all not Economists. So watching the recent news can be overwhelming with facts and figures bombarding you from every broadcast. Crisis this. Scandal that. Pork, Pork, Pork. Sometimes a little explanation is all some people need. What better way to deliver that then through comedy.

Jimmy Kimel discovered a video by Sesame Street explaining how the Madoff Ponzi scheme worked

xkcd explains the difference between a Billion and a Million:

The Daily Show breaks down the pork in the stimulus package:

Intro to Jon Stewart’s meet up with CNBC’s Jim Cramer:

Watch the full episode