Bookmarks

When you read a book what do you use to save the page that you're on? I've used the receipts of the books that I just bought as the bookmark or anything else at hand. What do most people end up using? I hate earmarked pages because it ruins the book that you're reading. The more exciting experience is when you buy a used book and find that a bookmark already exists somewhere in the book. It might give some info about the previous owner or their reading style. What would you use?


This site gives a listing of all the bookmarks that one could find if they bought a book at a used bookstore. It's all about pre-owned bookmarks.

Replacement for The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen

I never watched The Cell all the way though but I have seen bits and pieces. The movie had amazing cinematography. I can't quite recall the story (which must mean that it wasn't anything worthwhile) but the images still remain imprinted in my memory. So the same director, Tarsem Singh, has decided to make another movie called The Fall. This movie, from the little bits and pieces that I've seen so far, seems to be a great improvement on Stephen Norrington's League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. That movie kind of flopped. I remember watching it and having great expatiations for it but it just didn't seem to amount to anything. It was without any real imagination and did not allude to any of the epic stories that the comic book by Allen Moore was based on. Overall it was a disappointment.

And here comes a replacement. The Fall, without knowing much about it, already seems to be a lot better. The cinematography will be amazing, I can see what the director appreciates and has an eye for settings, just from what he produced in the bits of The Cell that I was able to watch. I'm a sucker for pretty pictures so I have a bit of a biased view. I will probably like the film even if it has a shitty plot as long as the images are nice to look at. Isn't that what film as a media is all about anyway? I mean, if it was story-based then it would be good as a book. If something is a good film then its good to watch and look at while it tells a good story.

Check out the trailer I saw from io9 below. Sure its not much but doesn't it get you excited nonetheless? Not to mention that is presented by DAVID FINCHER and SPIKE JONZE!

Phillip Grass and his chairs

Philip Grass is a designer that has come up with some "interesting" looking furniture. Maybe I wouldn't pick his chairs and desks to be in my home exactly but I imagine that they would makes great props for a science fiction film, thats for sure! I can't link to any pictures because his site is all Flash-based but take a look around if you have some time.

Clouds

I have always loved looking at clouds. During stormy weather the way the congregate in dark gray globs in the sky. On sunny days where there will be wisps of scattered clouds moving rapidly in some direction or another. There are a multitude of classifications of cloud structures that are interesting to consider but realistically, wouldn't you just want to see all the possible options rather than simply dream about them? Dark Roasted Blend has a post that has IMAGES of sexy looking clouds.



How can one look at the image above and not feel like the atmosphere of earth is magnificent. Like it is some sort of moody organism that makes their mood evident though cloud formations and other atmospheric events.

You look at some clouds and they make you feel like its the end of the world, like mother nature is going to finally let loose of her fury on mankind for all the butterflies that exist. It's beautiful. Let me not ruin the fun. Check the site out. I've linked to it below.

(via Dark Roasted Blend)

Here is a bit of a lighter side of cloud formations from Perry Bible Fellowship. What you read depends on the kind of person you are I guess...

New Light-Field Lens by Adobe

Adobe has just developed a prototype lens called the light-field lens.
This new lens has 19 "eyes" that are each positioned at a different angle. Taking a picture with this lens actually takes multiple pictures at 19 different perspectives. So if you're not not so good at keeping a steady hand and keep taking pictures that are partially out of focus, this camera might be really useful for you.

After the picture is taken you can go home and decide which depth, out of the 19 taken, you like the best. Or you can merge all those different focal lengths together to make sure both the background and foreground objects are in focus. It could also allow you to merge those 19 2-D images into something that is closer to 3-D!

So there are two bad things about this. Number one is that I wouldn't be able to use this lens on the camera that I currently have right now. The way it works is that if you have a 100 megapixel camera, for example, then this lens would generate 19 5.2 megapixel images. Come to think of it, I'm not sure if this lens would work with ANY camera. Either way, having a 6 megapixel camera would not really give you very high-quality images with this lens.

Another sad part about this lens is that its just a prototype. Its super cool but it won't be commercially available for at least a few years. Maybe by then I WILL have a 100 megapixel camera.

This video at the bottom shows the lens' capabilities a lot better.


(via Designverb)

When nature calls ...

A really cute sculpture that showed up at a University bathroom.

(via io9)

Addendum to Cities

As an addendum to my last post about the Cities, I would like to add there there is a book called Cities that I've seen around in the book stores. Its a collection of short stories by a bunch of different authors that depicts different categories of fictional cities. I haven't read the book but China Miéville has his short story in there which is what got me interested. I have read his Perdido Street Station as well as The Scar and both of those stories feature cities that are truly remarkable.

In Perdido Street Station the city is is a giant metropolis built upon the carcass of a giant beast. The rib cage of its skeletal remains are reference points within the city which is itself dominated by a large network of above-air train system. There is a fresh water river that flows into the city which is the lifeblood. The residents use the river and the water it contains, they consume it and then expel their waste back into it. The city is like an organism that consumes and excretes. The train rails and the roads are the arteries. The human residents mere cells in the giant living organism that is ever growing and evolving.

The above image is what the artist Alberto Gordillo imagined New Crobozon, the city in question, would look like (io9)

The Scar depicts an equally organic and beautiful city. The city is a a floating city that drifts across the waters of the world. Every ship or boat that it comes across it consumes it and that new boat or ship becomes a new addition to the city. The city itself is structured by all the ships and boats that are linked together. Traveling from ship to ship you are essentially traveling from one sector of the the city to another. There are entire ships that serve as the market, as a library, a garden, residential quarters. Each ship has its own character that the city incorporates into itself to make something new, to add to itself, to grow into something else.

The above image is the cover of The Scar by Edward Miller.

Although both the cities described above are fictitious and very different from John Hartman's paintings, it just seemed like an appropriate parallel to draw between the images that he paints and the images that these authors are capable of conjuring within their readers. These fictional cities are alive with life, they are active and beautiful. You can smell the streets and see the colors as you read about them. It is the same when looking at Hartman's paintings. The still image of the city before you comes to life. There is movement in that still image, there is a sense of the humanity that lives there and industry that supports it.

Cities by John Hartman

The artist John Hartman's collection called Cities was featured at the University of Toronto Art Center for the last few weeks. Today was the last day for it and luckily I got a chance to see it. I didn't know anything about this John Hartman character before hand but his painting were wonderful. Maybe it was the subject matter, big paintings about cities, that was especially appealing to me.


He has pictures of many cities as part of the exhibit: Toronto, Boston, Winnipeg, Vancouver, Manhattan, London... Incidentally, all the cities are located near water be it a river, a bay, or a lake. I like the way these paintings have shifting perspectives. Some have an ariel view for majority of the paining but you can see the horizon at the edge which I really liked. The major city streets have a fluid motion to them hinting at fast movement and congestion.


There are particular scenes of prominence in the paintings, things that the painter has personal associations with. Major landmarks and places of importance are clearly outlined and painted with details whereas others are briefly outlined with just basic shapes. The colors of the water and the sky are often blend into one another or they are in sharp contract.



Overall I'm really glad that I got to catch this exhibit while it was still around. Today was the last day and BAM! I was there. I just wish that they had some postcards or something on sale there. I totally would have bought some, framed them and put them up in my room.

Anything, everywhere

I came across this great paint that you can buy from Amazon that basically turns all your walls into a giant white board. How cool is that? I know quite a few people that would really enjoy this.

Its great for people that would to create their own temporary wall art or even people that love to write notes to themselves. I imagine its great for kids too, if they are in the habit of drawing on the walls (although I hope that won't encourage them to do it on other walls that don't have the dry erase paint). It gives you the ability to potentially write or draw anything anywhere you want! You simply cover you wall with this stuff, let it dry for around two days and grab a dry erase marker and draw away.

This would even have great application for work places where you can make any wall in the office an impromptu location for drawing diagrams while holding discussions. Lots of workplaces have white boards installed in all available wall spaces. This of course has limitations if the walls in your office can't fit a standard size white board because of windows or other obstructions and there isn't a spot where you can place a free-standing white board. Instead you could use this pain for a seamless integration without the mess of installation or even the need of an appropriately sized wall. Any wall will do!

I love the idea and I wouldn't mind having something like this for my own workspace in the office. If not for work-related diagrams used to communicate problems then at least to draw humorous caricatures of my coworkers . It helps lighten the mood ...

(via swissmiss)

The Beijing Opera House

Another beautiful building for us to marvel at in Beijing. There are the CCTV towers designed by Rem Koolhass that will be broadcasting the 2008 Olympics, the National Swimming Center by Australian PTW where all the Olympic swim-related completions will be held, the Olympic "Bird's Nest" Stadium designed by Swiss Herzog and DeMeuron where many competitions will be held and lastly the Beijing Opera House designed by French architect Paul Andreu for, you guessed it, Opera.

This is a great architectural feat that the Chinese government is trying to achieve. All these buildings have suddenly sprung up over the last few years since the 2008 Olympics were announced to be held in Beijing. Although the Chinese designer Ai Weiwei was a consultant for the Bird's Nest stadium, most of the other mentioned buildings have had foreign design inspirations. Why is it that these buildings, which are supposed to be symbols of great achievement in China, are being outsourced to designers from other countries? I mean, I realize that most designs were accepted as part of design competitions but doing this seems to be imposing a modern look-and-feel that is inconsistent with the Chinese culture and style. And not surprisingly since it is completely foreign.

These structures are supposed to provide the tourists that will come pouring into Beijing this summer something to marvel at. This sort of ramp-up happens in every city that is to hold the Olympics but as Ai Weiwei comments in an interview about his contribution to the design of the Bird's Nest, he feels that all this preparation to glamorize China is meant to hide something. There have been many cities that have held the Olympics in the past that have not been nearly as ambitious with their preparation. Have even been somewhat modest. So whats going on here? What are we not supposed to see?

Either way, I just saw the pictures of the completed Beijing Opera House a few days ago and whatever you are doing China, you are doing it right. It looks amazing. What ever may be going on internally within the country at least these structures, once the Olympics are over, will be reclaimed by the local culture and absorbed. They will last for years after it is over and will be converted into something that has some meaning. Hopefully.

Naked People! by Spencer Tunick

Naked in the City is Spencer Tunick's latest project where he gets masses of naked people to gather in public places where he can take some photographs. And boy do those photographs look good! Not because of all the nakedness but because of the sheer volume of people that wanted to participate and bare all for the camera.

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon

So much for that RESTful Services book I was reading. Around when I wrote up my post about RESTful services I gave up reading it because that book was lacking a plot. I don't blame it since its not really a NOVEL but I was yearning for some escape from reality. The reality being that my job is really getting on my nerves these days and reading books about things could have been designed and implemented better was not helping at all.

So instead I started reading the book The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mack Haddon instead. I didn't know anything about this book when I started reading it except that a friend of mine really enjoyed reading it and recommended it to me. Skimming the back I gleaned some more information: Its about an Autistic boy. I didn't bother reading any more (or maybe I did and I just forgot) because I like not knowing where the story is going to go.

Not to sound like a stereotypical ignorant but this book was eye-opening. I am familiar with autistic people and I understand that they are quirky. I know that there is a spectrum that an autistic person can lie. There is a huge range of conditions that can make themselves apparent for different people. But knowing this is completely different from knowing how an autistic person thinks. From an outside perspective you know that they have an unusual way of perceiving the world. You see someone that is autistic and they are behaving strangely but how far to you go to understand why? I don't think I've ventured that far because I wouldn't know where to start. This book is like a starting point for me. Demonstrated by examples. It is told from the perspective from an autistic boy and it is interesting to see the logic that is behind behavioral patterns that are not uncommon.

That being said I think the book was good. It wasn't great like The Road but it was definitely more effective because it was REAL. It wasn't just a story about some fictional individual but it was a story about many autistic people that are learning to live in and cope with the world and people around them. It was fun, to the point, fast and humorous without overtly trying to tug at your heart. The anecdotes of the boy are illuminating and yet funny for someone who can think outside of that fame-of-mind.

Anyway, good and fun book to read. Try it out.

Wasting Time on BlahblahFish

Have some time to waste online? Check out BlahblahFish. You enter some phrase in here and select a language of your choice. It converts the phrase into that language and then translates it back into English. Then you laugh at how much can be lost in translation twice over.

For example the phrase "I wish I knew how to quit you" translated into Japanese and then back again comes out as "I desire the fact that I have known the method of stopping". Which made my giggle. Or "I'm going to miss my train!" is " I intend probably to let escape my train!"

Pure waste of time but other people have posted some really funny lines that you can check out as well.