December 31, 2007
December 29, 2007
December 28, 2007
Raimi Returning to Genre Roots with 'Drag Me to Hell'
With many critics let down by the snowboarder-inspired Green Goblin 2, goofy Dark Peter Parker sequences, and Batman and Robin-level of villains that made the third Spider-Man outing weaker than it's predecessors, director Sam Raimi has announced plans to return to his roots for his next feature, Drag me to Hell. Variety had few details beyond that it's a "morality tale about the unwitting recipient of a supernatural curse" that was written by Raimi and his brother shortly after Army of Darkness, but it promises to be a return the low(er)-budget genre filmmaking that made him a cult favorite. You may begin your pleading for Bruce Campbell to star... now.Read full article here. Courtesy of iwatchstuff
Where The Wild Things Are + Spike Jonze = Genius!
If you ever read a book or two when you were a kid, or let Levar Burton read them to you, then there’s a good chance you had at least some interaction with ”Where the Wild Things Are”, Maurice Sendak’s classic, marvelous kids book. Spike Jonze is turning it into a movie, and will bring the story of a mischievous boy who creates his own universe in which he rules a world full of hairy, wild creatures.
A big part of what made the book so great were the illustrations, so I’ve been particularly interested to see how Jonze is going to make this thing look like in the context of a film. Last week Warner Brothers released the first two official stills from the production.
December 26, 2007
Toddler fools the art world into buying his paintings
To the untrained eye, they appear to be simple daubs that could have been created by a two year old. Which is precisely what they are.
But that didn't stop the supposed experts falling over themselves to acclaim them. The toddler in question is Freddie Linsky, who has fooled the art world into buying and asking to exhibit his paintings.
One creation of random red and green splodges called Sunrise was captioned: "A bold use of colour. Inspired by the 'plein air' habit of painting by Monet, drawing on the natural world that surrounds us all."
"The striking use of oriental calligraphy has the kanji-like characters stampeding from the page, showing the new ascent of the East. It is one of Linsky's most experimental works." » Read the full article here.
Via Across The Board
But that didn't stop the supposed experts falling over themselves to acclaim them. The toddler in question is Freddie Linsky, who has fooled the art world into buying and asking to exhibit his paintings.
One creation of random red and green splodges called Sunrise was captioned: "A bold use of colour. Inspired by the 'plein air' habit of painting by Monet, drawing on the natural world that surrounds us all."
"The striking use of oriental calligraphy has the kanji-like characters stampeding from the page, showing the new ascent of the East. It is one of Linsky's most experimental works." » Read the full article here.
Via Across The Board
December 23, 2007
Fat Cat Survives 19 Days With Peanut Butter Jar On Head. No Longer Fat.
In a bizarre example of a cat’s nine lives, a fortunate feline survived nineteen days with a peanut butter jar stuck on its head. While no exact details are known as to how the jar found its way there in the first place (cats like peanut butter?), we’re pretty sure Jiffy will be off the menu from now on."We tried to get her, but being the type of cat you can’t catch, she kept running and hiding,” said Doretha Cain, Tabitha’s mother. The family saw the cat several times with the jar on its head and tried in vain to catch it. But after not seeing the cat for a week, the Cains feared the worst.
“I thought she was going to die with that jar on her head,” said Tabitha Cain, 25.
They found the once chubby cat on Wednesday, too thin and weak to flee. They caught her with a fishing net and used some oil to get the jar off her head.
I know the situation for both the animal and the owners must have been terribly traumatic. But after the fact, it’s pretty funny to think about a cat running by with its head in a peanut butter jar. Yea, I’m going to hell.
Baby Accidentally Flushed at Birth
A 36 year-old woman accidentally gave birth yesterday in a train traveling from Tai Dong to Tai Pei. The nine month old pregnant woman was in the bathroom when her baby was born and accidentally flushed down the toilet.
When the train reached the next station, an hour and a half later, the rescue team arrived and got to work. They immediately sent the mother to the hospitol whilethey tried to pull the baby from the toilet bowl opening. Due the the babies fading condition, they finally decided to saw the pipe in half and rescued the baby. 
Courtesy of Across The Board
When the train reached the next station, an hour and a half later, the rescue team arrived and got to work. They immediately sent the mother to the hospitol while
Courtesy of Across The Board
December 20, 2007
Mini Planets
I first saw these being made 2 years ago off of several Flickr page groups, and now this simple panorama photo + Photoshop filters process has blown up into a phenomenon that challenges digital artists to create many different styles at high resolutions with seamless stitching. Click image above to see one such collection.
Here's Alexandre Duret-Lutz awesome Flickr archive.
Rob Park has a tutorial here, using a series of different tools and plugins to create "straighter" panoramas like these. This has gradually formed into its own artform, and many are adding more artful style and sophistication to the concept.
Converting the panorma into a planet can be done in several different ways. Dirk Paessler posted a tutorial showing how you can use the "polar coordinates" filter of your photo editor (The Gimp has one), and of course Photoshop has one too.
Other sources include Create Your Own Planets with a little help of this Flickr group tutorial. This group pool also has awesome samples of what type of world you can create. The Polar Panoramas group has even more samples to go through. Enjoy!
In case you were wondering...
The Highest Paid actress' in Hollywood (per movie):
1. Reese Witherspoon — $15 million-$20 million2. Angelina Jolie — $15 million-$20 million
3. Cameron Diaz — $15+ million
4. Nicole Kidman — $10 million-$15 million
5. Renee Zellweger — $10 million-$15 million
6. Sandra Bullock — $10 million-$15 million
7. Julia Roberts — $10 million-$15 million
8. Drew Barrymore — $10 million-$12 million
9. Jodie Foster — $10 million-$12 million
10. Halle Berry — $10 million
December 19, 2007
December 18, 2007
Catfish
A kid's inflated rubber ball was floating in the lake, a catfish tried to eat it, but got its teeth stuck in it, a local saw the struggling fish trying to submerge but slowly getting tired at the repeated attempts and came to its rescue.
Niagara Falls, 1911, Frozen almost solid, an occurrence documented only once more in 1848.
Buffalo Express newspaper wrote the article:
The Falls of Niagara can be compared to nothing but a mere mill dam this morning. In the memory of the oldest inhabitants, never was there so little water running over Niagara's awful precipice, as at this moment! Hundreds of people are now witnessing that which never has, and probably never may again be witnessed on the Niagara River.
Last night at 11 o'clock the factories fed from the waters of this majestic river were in full operation, and at 12 o'clock the water was shut off, the wheel suddenly ceased their revolutions, and everything was hushed into silence. Various are the conjectures as to the cause; the most reasonable of which is that Lake Erie must be making a grand delivery of ice, and this the mouth of the Niagara, although large, is not quite enough to take in the whole at once, and that the consequences are, back water.
December 17, 2007
December 16, 2007
A Jet From The Sun
What powers the solar wind? Our Sun is known to emit a powerful wind of particles with gusts that can even affect astronauts and satellites orbiting Earth. The cause of the solar wind has been debated for decades but is thought to be rooted in Alfvén waves generated by the ever changing magnetic field of the Sun. Newly released images from the Japanese Hinode satellite appear to bolster this hypothesis, imaging an average of 240 daily plasma jets that are excellent candidates to fuel the outwardly moving Alfvén waves. The jets and waves are themselves ultimately created by magnetic reconnection events, rapid events where lines of constant magnetic field suddenly move extremely rapidly, dragging electrons and protons along with them. On the image left, one such jet is visible in X-ray light. Bright spots show relatively energetic regions elsewhere on the Sun.
December 15, 2007
December 13, 2007
December 12, 2007
December 11, 2007
The Eagle Nebula
The dust sculptures of the Eagle Nebula are evaporating. As powerful starlight whittles away these cool cosmic mountains, the statuesque pillars that remain might be imagined as mythical beasts. Pictured above is one of several striking dust pillars of the Eagle Nebula that might be described as a gigantic alien fairy. This fairy, however, is ten light years tall and spews radiation much hotter than common fire. The greater Eagle Nebula, M16, is actually a giant evaporating shell of gas and dust inside of which is a growing cavity filled with a spectacular stellar nursery currently forming an open cluster of stars. The above image in scientifically re-assigned colors was released as part of the fifteenth anniversary celebration of the launch of the Hubble Space Telescope.
Gibbous Europa
Although the phase of this moon might appear familiar, the moon itself might not. In fact, this gibbous phase shows part of Jupiter's moon Europa. The robot spacecraft Galileo captured this image mosaic during its mission orbiting Jupiter from 1995 - 2003. Visible are plains of bright ice, cracks that run to the horizon, and dark patches that likely contain both ice and dirt. Raised terrain is particularly apparent near the terminator, where it casts shadows. Europa is nearly the same size as Earth's Moon, but much smoother, showing few highlands or large impact craters. Evidence and images from the Galileo spacecraft, indicated that liquid oceans might exist below the icy surface. To test speculation that these seas hold life, ESA has started preliminary development of the Jovian Europa Orbiter, a spacecraft proposed to orbit Europa. If the surface ice is thin enough, a future mission might drop hydrobots to burrow into the oceans and search for life.
M74- The Perfect Spiral
If not perfect, then this spiral galaxy is at least one of the most photogenic. An island universe of about 100 billion stars, 32 million light-years away toward the constellation Pisces, M74 presents a gorgeous face-on view. Classified as an Sc galaxy, the grand design of M74's graceful spiral arms are traced by bright blue star clusters and dark cosmic dust lanes. Constructed from image data recorded in 2003 and 2005, this sharp composite is from the Hubble Space Telescope's Advanced Camera for Surveys. Spanning about 30,000 light-years across the face of M74, it includes exposures recording emission from hydrogen atoms, highlighting the reddish glow of the galaxy's large star-forming regions.
December 08, 2007
Speed Racer!
The Matrix masterminds Andy and Larry Wachowski usher anime icon Tatsuo Yoshida's classic 1960s-era hit into the new millennium with this family-friendly story of a young racecar driver who takes on the mysterious Racer X in a custom-made, gadget-loaded speed machine named the Mach 5. Click image to see the trailer!
December 07, 2007
December 05, 2007
War Amps PSA
I am Astar. A Robot. I can put my arm back on. You can't. So play safe.
In the words of Cory Laffin; "The best bit of TV this country has ever produced."
In the words of Cory Laffin; "The best bit of TV this country has ever produced."
December 04, 2007
December 02, 2007
50% GREY ANIMATOR TO HELM LIVE-ACTION AKIRA
Warner Bros. Pictures is fast-tracking their live-action adaptation of
anime classic AKIRA with the Oscar-nominated director of animated short
FIFTY PERCENT GREY, Ruairi Robinson, at the helm, reports AIN'T IT COOL
NEWS. No other details have been released.
The project was originally announced in 2003 with James Robinson (THE
LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN) writing the script and Steven
Norrington directing.
Based on Katsuhiro Otomo's cyberpunk manga, the story follows bike gang
leader Kaneda whose friend Tetsuo gets wrapped up in a government plot
to exploit supernatural powers. In the journey to save his friend,
Kaneda teams with anti-government activists who wage an underground war
against greedy politicians and scientists.
Courtesy of Dan Sarto
anime classic AKIRA with the Oscar-nominated director of animated short
FIFTY PERCENT GREY, Ruairi Robinson, at the helm, reports AIN'T IT COOL
NEWS. No other details have been released.
The project was originally announced in 2003 with James Robinson (THE
LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN) writing the script and Steven
Norrington directing.
Based on Katsuhiro Otomo's cyberpunk manga, the story follows bike gang
leader Kaneda whose friend Tetsuo gets wrapped up in a government plot
to exploit supernatural powers. In the journey to save his friend,
Kaneda teams with anti-government activists who wage an underground war
against greedy politicians and scientists.
Courtesy of Dan Sarto