Following a Bird

This look at how Pixar’s Brad Bird fosters innovation [gigaom.com] follows nicely from the post I made a bit back about his approach to creativity [muchlessthanthree.com]. It’s very interesting from the viewpoint of someone who feels a bit like that black sheep sometimes.

Video + Photo = Video evolved

This [washington.edu] is incredible, assuming that effects like this are actually possible using only the software as they claim.

Sadly I’ve been burned too many times by promises of seemingly ‘too good to be true’ technologies – I’ve learned to be very skeptical until I’ve gotten my hands on said technology and given it a test. It seems that often, creators of new tech like this spend a lot of time manually scrubbing the presentation footage, giving it a better appearance through a lot of manual editing than their tech will actually provide the average user.

Also very awesome tech, but not strictly related:

I’m similarly skeptical about how ‘automated’ this process will turn out to be.

Perspective

Raph Koster’s latest post [raphkoster.com] really does an excellent job of putting the various American entertainment industries into perspective. I’d really like to see these same figures ordered according to the price per good. Clearly price affects it greatly – you’ll notice that the only things in the tens of millions (outside of movie tickets) are the items which cost the least.

* Number of users in Habbo Hotel worldwide: 20,000,000
* Best-selling book in the US last year: 1,500,000+. (A Thousand Splendid Suns)
* Best-selling graphic novel in the US last year: 80,000. (Naruto)
* Digital sales of a hit song: 2,100,000 (Leona Lewis, “Bleeding Love”)
* Average downloads of a downloadable Rock Band track: 100,000
* Viewers of the #1 show on US TV (including DVR): 28,800,000 (American Idol)
* Viewers of the #150 show on US TV: 2,400,000 (Gossip Girl)
* Users of World of Warcraft in North America: 2,500,000
* Monthly uniques for Gaia Online: 2,000,000+
* Total number of movie tickets sold in the US in one year: 1,400,000,000
* Estimated tickets sold to the new Indiana Jones movie in five weeks: 42,290,849 (using 2007 average US ticket price and grosses to date).

Everybody scream!
意味ないけど、
コンビニが好き

Future of Copyright

A very interesting article by Rasmus Fleischer on the future of copyright [cato-unbound.com] hits a lot of topics I often find myself discussing these days. The movement to digital media has really changed the landscape, but unfortunately has yet to change the way some people approach said landscape. Fleischer does a very good job of putting into words the butting ideologies:

The real dispute, once again, is not between proponents and opponents of copyright as a whole. It is between believers and non-believers. Believers in copyright keep dreaming about building a digital simulation of a 20th-century copyright economy, based on scarcity and with distinct limits between broadcasting and unit sales. I don’t believe such a stabilization will ever occur, but I fear that this vision of copyright utopia is triggering an escalation of technology regulations running out of control and ruining civil liberties. Accepting a laissez-faire attitude regarding software development and communication infrastructure can prevent such an escalation.

Give it a read if you have a few moments and the inclination.

There is Something That is In-between

Internet culture has found the middle point between the venerable Neo Geo [wikipedia.org] sprite graphics and the illustrious Daicon IV [wikipedia.org] opening animation [youtube.com] in the Paul Robertson’s latest work, Kings of Power 4 Billion % [livejournal.com] (you may know him from his previous film Pirate Baby’s Cabana Battle Street Fight). You really should check it out if you have any interest in groovy sprite animation, and I recommend actually doing the full download – a lot of the detail and quality are lost in the various flash streaming versions (i.e. your Youtube et al). Please be kind and download via a mirror!

BITE YOUR TORSO / まだ英語だけでごめん

Although I greatly enjoyed the first season of Aqua Teen Hunger Force, I never got around to watching any of the later runs (in fact, getting that first season was a 14.99 DVD impulse buy at Target in a moment of boredom). I do have to say, though, that the intro to the new movie is hysterical. Give it a minute to warm up. Anyone who is familiar with my good friend da_crank may, like me, wonder if he has received his fatty likeness royalty check.

これはアメリカのアニメ「Aqua Teen Hunger Force」の映画から：

YOU WIN / 勝ちオメ

Jojo says:
Good lord the comments for Ashlee Simpson’s video for ‘La La’ on the iTunes Music Store are f*cking awesome
Jojo says:
‘I feel bad when I watch this because I just feel like I’m watching a retard dance for 2 minutes’
‘She looks like a retarded zombie when she dances and she can’t sing’
eastsideg says:
Nepotism is grand isn’t it
Jojo says:
hahaha
Jojo says:
congratulations! you just summed up the internet