Since 1946, the Bregenz Festival ‘Opera on the Lake’ in Austria has been home to some of the most incredible outdoor stages ever built. Set on the gorgeous Lake Constance, the 6,800 capacity ‘Seebuhne’ Stage has been the setting for some of the world’s most famous operas.
During the 2007 performance of Tosca, the producer and director for the James Bond film Quantum of Solace were so impressed, they filmed a 10-day scene in Bregenz where Bond meets his adversary for the first time during a performance of Tosca.
Full Moon Silhouettes is a real time video of the moon rising over the Mount Victoria Lookout in Wellington, New Zealand. People had gathered up there this night to get the best view possible of the moon rising. I captured the video from 2.1km away on the other side of the city. It’s something that I’ve been wanting to photograph for a long time now, and a lot of planning and failed attempts had taken place. Finally, during moon rise on the 28th January 2013, everything fell into place and I got my footage.
The video is as it came off the memory card and there has been no manipulation whatsoever. Technically it was quite a challenge to get the final result. I shot it on a Canon ID MkIV in video mode with a Canon EF 500mm f/4L and a Canon 2x extender II, giving me the equivalent focal length of 1300mm.
Sometimes you see a great performance and you know, from experience, that it was well honed and timed, presented and embellished through the artistry of the performers. Many times we see the slick polish of stadium filling extravaganzas. These come from time tested “show people” who know what is expected and how to deliver it on a grand scale. These are truly memorable moments, when you witness such a feat with a live audience and know it is unique and special.
Once in a long while you also get to see some young people who have worked hard to bring their passion and love of something out into the light.
I saw this duo called Shovels & Rope on the Letterman show and enjoyed their sheer musical enthusiasm as much as the wonderful sounds that two creative people can make. If you have a moment to change gears, turn up the volume and enjoy Shovels & Rope.
As a former folk singer, I can bear witness to the difficulty in generating the sense of authenticity this team achieves.
New iPad Magic Act — On behalf of Stockholm — The Capital of Scandinavia and Step2 Communication. Performed at MIPIM in Cannes by Charlie Caper and Erik Rosales. Magic with technology.
A few YEARS ago — I recommended the music service PANDORA to you. Pandora is still great. Still useful. So is iTunes. 220,000,000 active members proves it. And NOW I want to point you to a new service that is an alternative to the first two — it actually compliments iTunes because it includes your current iTunes Library in the player controls. You see the details at their web site.
Try it out. It’s FREE. There’s a lot to explore on their web site.
This is not a paid endorsement. I just like it a lot!
Last May, Jetman achieved a beautiful and memorable flight in the Grand Canyon in Arizona, USA… and here’s the official souvenir video! Many thanks to all who were involved in that adventure!
Excellence comes in many forms with levels of danger and difficulty. In your heart of hearts, who wouldn’t want to do this just once. (assuming you lived through it) — Robert
A team from Georgia Tech, led by Post Doctorate Fellow Mario Romero (School of Interactive Computing) has designed BrailleTouch for touchscreen mobile devices. The prototype app allows visually impaired people to easily type and opens the door for everyone to text or type without looking at the screen.
From the good folks at TED “Ideas worth spreading”.
With his team at SENSEable City Lab, MIT’s Carlo Ratti makes cool things by sensing the data we create. He pulls from passive data sets — like the calls we make, the garbage we throw away — to create surprising visualizations of city life. And he and his team create dazzling interactive environments from moving water and flying light, powered by simple gestures caught through sensors.
About Carlo Ratti
Carlo Ratti directs the MIT SENSEable City Lab, which explores the “real-time city” by studying the way sensors and electronics relate to the built environment.
Note: A little past the four minute mark it gets visually interesting. Further on, around eight minutes the water building is wonderful. — Robert
Edwina Whitaker Miller —”Nena”— was an exceptional woman who touched many lives across this country. We celebrate her life in Reno, NV in the coming week. This video was created to share her life journey with those who are able to attend the celebration. For those of you who would want to be there but just can’t, please enjoy this short 7 minute film. Be with us in spirit.- Robert Barnes & Cathy Berkley
Click anywhere in the clock and it becomes a digital clock, another click and it returns to normal. Works in your browser but started as an iPhone goody.
(The snap shot above isn’t the actual clock — click the link below)
I love old photos. I admit being a nosey photographer. As soon as I step into someone else’s house, I start sniffing for them. Most of us are fascinated by their retro look but to me, it’s imagining how people would feel and look like if they were to reenact them today… A few months ago, I decided to actually do this. So, with my camera, I started inviting people to go back to their future. – I.Werning
Too often we take the great accomplishments of our co-operative human endeavors for granted. What was only found in Science Fiction a few decades ago, is now a reality. A first step but a big one and we offer this interactive, animated item for your consideration and enjoyment. It’s another example of people working together. The antithesis of war on our small planet. – Robert
Back in the late 1970′s, Georgia’s Stone Mountain installed a wonderful, custom made, laser light show that illuminated the mammoth carvings on the side of the mountain and brought them to life. It was special enough to warrant an article in National Geographic Magazine. If you are in Atlanta this summer, you might consider going to see the current incarnation of that program. It starts right after sundown. Be there early to secure a seat on the “lawn”. The Lasershow is free with your $10.00 vehicle entrance to Stone Mountain Park. Bring your own blanket.
With that in mind, I pass along this video from a Georgia friend who found it and shared it with us. I have NO IDEA where it’s from. You can add a Comment to this post if you know and enlighten us all.
These folks have taken a government building and crafted a projected light show onto the surface of the building in much the same spirit as that found at Stone Mountain.
CLICK THE VIDEO to view the short 5:49 video.
The picture and sound are limited by Smart Phone technology but you’ll get the drift.
The latter half of the 20th century saw the built environment merged with media space, and architecture taking on new roles related to branding, image and consumerism. Augmented reality may recontextualise the functions of consumerism and architecture, and change in the way in which we operate within it.
This is a short film produced for Keiichi’s final year Masters in Architecture, part of a larger project about the social and architectural consequences of new media and augmented reality.
Click the Video to view.
Note: Click the four axis arrow symbol next to the word Vimeo to expand the video to a larger size. I post these items a bit too small in order to save you download time. – Robert
We’ve seen other kinetic typography animations in the past, but none of them were as elaborate as this one and none of them were set to such a nice poppy happy tune: Jonathan Coulton’s Shop Vac.
But while the music and visuals are fun, the lyrics… not so much.
It was created with Illustrator, Photoshop, After Effects, Premiere and Toon Boom Animate in “somewhere between 500-1000 hours.” A labor of love, says its creator Jarrett Heather. Indeed.
You’ve heard the piece a hundred times, but you’ve never seen what your hands must do to make the sounds you heard. This is a moment to stop, relax, then listen & watch. (Turn up the volume)
Little Wing is a song written by Jimi Hendrix. He first recorded the song on the 1967 album Axis: Bold as Love. It is ranked #357 on the Rolling Stone magazine’s list of “the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time”, and has been covered by numerous artists, notably Derek and the Dominoes, Joe Satriani, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Pearl Jam, Sting, John Mayer, The Corrs, Toto among many others.
“Little Wing” is played using the unique chord/melody guitar style that Hendrix developed during his early career stints in rhythm and blues bands. In this style, the guitar sounds as though it is playing two parts. This is done by simultaneously playing multiple complementary notes, often parts of chords, and then changing a note within the chord to create a melodic effect. Other songs played in this style include “Life Without You” by Stevie Ray Vaughan, “Catch The Rainbow” by Rainbow, “When A Blind Man Cries” by Deep Purple “The Boy From Seattle” by Steve Vai, “Yellow Ledbetter” by Pearl Jam, and “Under the Bridge” by Red Hot Chili Peppers. The unusual flanging sound of the lead guitar part is a result of the Doppler effect which is created using a rotating speaker cabinet, or Leslie speaker.
Thanks to Bill B for bringing this piece to our attention.Bill added “I wish I could do this.” To which I sincerely reply “Me too!” – R
Everybody knows what a cloverleaf looks like — but could you identify a volleyball, a double trumpet, or a “spooey” if you drove on one in the course of your highway travels? These are among the distinctive designs that transportation engineers have conjured up to keep traffic flowing and motorists headed in the right direction when major roads intersect.
For your driverly edification, we’ve compiled photo examples of more than 20 different kinds of strange and delightful highway interchanges found both here in the US and abroad. In fact, right now stimulus dollars are being spent to build or upgrade many interchanges into one of these forms.
Macworld magazine features an article by our friend & respected authority Jay Nelson. This month the topic concerns fonts to use for creating holiday greetings. If you are at all savvy in the ways of Fonts then the 8 short images in the article are very helpful. These are just two of the eight:
This unusual map comes from Big Think and Strange Maps by Frank Jacobs. There are many others on the same web site that offer intriguing maps — real, fictional, and what-if ones.
In this map the only speck of light north of the DMZ is the North’s capital of Pyonyang, a single, neat pinprick of white punched through an otherwise completely black canvas. The minimal lighting belies the fact that Pyongyang is home to an estimated 3 million people. Gunsan, in the South, has under 300.000 inhabitants.
There is only one bright side to this darkness that I can think of: North Korea must be a fantastic place for stargazing…
Take a trip back in time. This 11 minute reel of film, shot from a cable car on Market Street, captures a city full of life and promise-which was destroyed only days later in the great earthquake of 1906.
Before he was famous, before he painted the Mona Lisa and the Last Supper, before he invented the helicopter, before he drew the most famous image of man, before he was all of these things, Leonardo da Vinci was an artificer, an armorer, a maker of things that go “boom”.
And, like you, he had to put together a resume to get his next gig. So in 1482, at the age of 30, he wrote out a letter and a list of his capabilities and sent it off to Ludovico il Moro, Duke of Milan.
This was such a rich source of interesting material that I could not ignore it even though it was last year’s list. – R
After much deliberation, a fantastic panel of judges has decided on the 50 best science blogging posts of the year, to be published in last year’s Open Laboratory!
Competition was fierce, with an unprecedented 760 posts submitted by readers and bloggers for this year’s anthology. But they managed to narrow it down to a group that look pretty fantastic!
My personal recommendation to “taste” this collection… find the post titled The Origin of Big.
This is truly from the “What?” column. Someone collects everything, somewhere. Here’s proof. And for many of us – these older consoles bring back memories of days of wasted hours having fun.
9 Countries was recorded on location in Indonesia, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Tibet, India, Egypt and Greece between October 2005 and March 2007 by Tom Compagnoni. What you hear has been assembled entirely from these field recordings, no additional samples used.
I recommend you seek out the cut titled Delhi Hotel TV. Culture Shock for one minute.- RB
Thanks to Design Tools Monthly for bringing this to our attention. – R
Adobe is launching an “online virtual art museum for the modern age.” Showcasing digital art, the museum will be home to innovation in video, websites, and other digital media. Opening in August 2010, the museum was designed in a virtual environment by a real-world architect. Visitors will view the art while actually moving through the virtual space, aided by a viewing apparatus that looks like a cross between an eye, a camera, and a jellyfish. There is an introductory video on the site, a preview of the inaugural exhibit, and a link to become a member of the museum when it launches. See it at www.adobemuseum.com
Michael Jackson as you’ve never seen him painted before.
Always thought there was something slightly eccentric about that Michael Jackson chap? These David Nordahl paintings – commissioned by Jacko himself – suggest you might have been on to something …
Visit this site. Type in the words you want to say. Let it do some “thinking” and then send the resulting “song” to your friend or loved one. Too much fun. And prone to extravagant silliness.
This site is a collection of public library holdings that we find amusing and maybe questionable for public libraries trying to maintain a current and relevant collection. Contained in this site are actual library holdings. No libraries are specifically mentioned to protect our submitters who might disagree with a particular collection policy. (A good librarian would probably be able to track down the holding libraries without too much trouble anyway…)
Your “awful” librarians for this site are Mary and Holly. We are public librarians in a medium sized public library in Michigan and the opinions expressed are totally our own. We do tend to articulate our particular library’s collection objectives when making comments. Our criteria for inclusion of titles are simply anything that amuses us. None of the books presented are particularly awful (okay, maybe some are). These books are just odd, outdated or maybe should be reconsidered under a current interpretation of collection policies. In no way should the opinions of Mary and Holly be interpreted as a standard for every library. We just want to have a few chuckles and talk about library collections.
Comments are welcome, but we do ask everyone to “be nice” and use your library voice.
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Be sure to scroll down the Front Page and see “Sweet Suffering” The Powerful New York Times Bestseller! -or- “But Smoking Makes Me Happy” and my personal favorite: “The Practical Handbook Of TV Repairs”. – Robert
