Life on the Video Ranch

VIDEO: Grace Jones: Corporate Cannibal

Paul Rickards — Sat, 20 Dec 2008 19:59:22 GMT

Damn this is a good video. It makes my skin crawl but I can't stop looking. Couple a simple video effect with the likes of Grace Jones and you have something that is reminiscent of H.R. Giger's Alien.

Happy Christmas Everyone

Paul Rickards — Sat, 20 Dec 2008 18:09:59 GMT

Click for a larger view of our tree. Have a safe and joyous holiday season everyone!

Video: Benny Benassi "Satisfaction"

Paul Rickards — Sat, 20 Dec 2008 18:02:38 GMT

I love this Benny Benassi song "Satisfaction", the saw-tooth bass and obvio-synthetic vocals stick in your head. Anyway, found two videos for it. The "dirty" one (below) is a RIOT! May be NSFW if girls in bikinis are frowned upon. It's sorta like the Snap-On calendar girls turned up to 11.

Link.

Passive iPod Speaker

Paul Rickards — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 19:38:19 GMT

File under "the lights went out," this Phonofone II will passively amplify your iPod earbuds into sound that is audible in a room. It claims to do so at 55db which is pretty good but won't rock the house. $500 even and it too can be yours when the economy collapses and the coal runs out. Good luck charging your iPod, though.

Link. Thanks, Jeff!

The Winter Sky: A Time Lapse Composite Picture

Paul Rickards — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 03:03:41 GMT

Man is it cold outside. Here's a picture that is a composite of 9 consecutive shots stacked and blended together in Photoshop. The total length of time was 18 minutes, 2 minutes each, f5.0 @ ISO 100. The star trails are evident as are the storm clouds rolling in from the southwest. Click for a larger view. Enjoy.

Blog Roll: Fast Food Critic

Paul Rickards — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 21:31:18 GMT

It's not all bad. Somebody has to find the good stuff.

Well, he's right. The blog Fast Food Critic takes the unenviable task of the taster for the common folk. Sometimes it's horrible, sometimes it's passable. I'll pass!

The picture of the above is Wawa's Hot Turkey and Stuffing bowl (get it, for Thanksgiving?) but it looks more like a bloody mess to me.

Link.

Wee Planets: A Fresh Look at Panoramas

Paul Rickards — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 16:39:56 GMT

The nice thing about Flickr is that you can follow a path that will undoubtedly take you to pictures that you've never seen before. This Flickr set by user boltron- shares with us some spectacular reinterpretations of panoramas.

Link to Flickr set for user boltron-.

Update: Here's a nice tutorial on the process using Photoshop or The Gimp.

Thanksgiving Oldie: The Onion's Hand Turkey

Paul Rickards — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 18:43:50 GMT

Monster Truck Show Video Tilt Shifted, Stop Motion

Paul Rickards — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 17:56:28 GMT

This is a very clever video of a monster truck rally that was shot as a "stop motion" animation and tilt shifted (most likely in post). Anyway, the effect is amazing because of the scale of the trucks to begin with and the relative size of people. The eye does funny things when focus is shifted like this. Amazing.

Link via Jalopnik.

Canon EF-S 10-22mm USM lens

Paul Rickards — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 16:17:33 GMT

I recently purchased a new lens from Canon. The EF-S 10-22mm USM lens has earned a permanent place in my camera bag. Below are some sample pictures. Zoomed to 10mm you do get some distortion of the images at the edges like you'd expect, but that can lend some nice effects to your images if you compose well.

Since it's an EF-S lens mount, it will only work with the recent Canon digital SLR line up.

New App: Project Polaroid

Paul Rickards — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 03:22:30 GMT

This app, Project Polaroid will take pictures from your iPhone and convert them to look like they were taken with a Polaroid. Snap and save to your camera roll. Nifty!

Link to iTunes App Store, free.

Listerine as Bug Repellent?

Paul Rickards — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 03:14:26 GMT

This blog posting claims that spraying Listerine will repel or even kill mosquitoes. I'll have to try this next summer. The mosquitoes make it really unpleasant to be outside in the evening at the peak of summer.

Link.

Fancy a slice of Turbaconducken this Thanksgiving?

Paul Rickards — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 02:30:01 GMT

Oohh, is that peppered bacon?

When people start stuffing animals in animals, there really can be no end to the madness. I don't think it's kosher either. Maybe it's a "Palin turkey" too.

Link.

How to Solder Correctly and Why

Paul Rickards — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 02:22:49 GMT

I found this video on a Hack A Day post in the comments. It's a wonderful visual guide of how to solder correctly but also why you should do it this way.

Making Green Tomato Pickles

Paul Rickards — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 02:12:54 GMT

We grow a modest amount of tomatoes here at home, they're so much better than what you can buy in the store. But they certainly don't last that long. When the frost came recently, I decided rather than let the green tomatoes still on the vine go to waste outside, I'd try to pickle them. I remember my mother telling me that my grandmother used to make them. I found an old recipe online (1904) and decided to make that.

The first thing I had to do was translate what a "peck" was and Google was nice enough to tell me it is a little over 9 quarts. I only had 1 quart so the math was easy from there out.

The result were still firm with just enough bite and terrifically spiced. I'd maybe cut back on the salt I used (the recipe didn't specify how much) but other than that they were great.

Yep, I bought it: Bloom

Paul Rickards — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 02:01:25 GMT

I first heard about Bloom from some co-workers when we were exchanging App ideas. I heard Brian Eno was involved with it and became very interested. I like some of his early work, especially Ambient 1: Music for Airports.

The program doesn't take any musical talent to play (although it might help some). You just pluck the screen where-ever and whenever and hear some ambient tones. The tones are almost like wind chimes, not quite piano, rather synth-y. There's an ever-present underlying Eno-esque score of light synth playing which is nice. The notes evolve over time if you leave them alone.

At $4 it's not going to break the bank but it might be on the pricey end of the scale for what it does. Overall I'm pleased I have it and play it every once in a while to zone out.

Link to iTunes Music Store, $3.99

New iPhone/iPod Touch Apps, Pricedrops

Paul Rickards — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 01:55:18 GMT

This site is great because it two RSS/Twitter feeds that you can follow. One to alert you when there are new apps in the App Store (read: possibly free or low cost to drum up interest). The other alerts when an existing app drops the price on sale ("This weekend only!" ploy). Why "148Apps"? That's the maximum number of apps you can store at the moment on the device.

Link to new apps. | Link to price dops.

A Geek's Christmas Buying Guide, Part 1

Paul Rickards — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 01:24:02 GMT

Meet the Danger Shield. It was created by Zach Smith and demoed first at NYC Resistor.

What is it for? Whatever you want to do with it!

No, but seriously, it's a shield (meaning it fits on top of the Arduino, connecting to every pin) and provides a multitude of input and output options for writing code against. The biggest portion are the three slide potentiometers with built in LEDs in them. They are handy for relaying analog data back to the Arduino which can then be sent to the computer for further processing (say, Ableton live for performing music live or to a MIDI device).
See Zach tell you for himself.

Link to MakerSHED, $44.95 unassembled