July 11, 2008

Spike Jonze is a genius

Taser Parties For Women (Forget Tupperware)



Am I the only one that thinks this is crazy?

World Record 394 ft. Dirtbike Jump - INSANE!

Jowling

Looking to take a portraits with a quirky twist? Try ‘jowling‘ (also sometimes known as slap n’ flap).


How do you do it? Get your subject to relax their facial muscles completely (to the point that they have no facial expression)…. open their eyes and mouth (try to keep them open)… then to shake their head from side to side as fast as they can. Start snapping (use a flash and fast shutter speed to freeze the ‘action’)! Here’s what jowling looks like:














'Office Space' for $250,000

Abercrombie Experiment

Brohemian Rhapsody

Pole Dancing Bear Action

300 "Mario"

Watchmen Featurette

Can an Insect, a Robot, or God Be Aware?

Can a lobster ever truly have any emotions? What about a beetle? Or a sophisticated computer? The only way to resolve these questions conclusively would be to engage in serious scientific inquiry—but even before studying the scientific literature, many people have pretty clear intuitions about what the answers are going to be. A person might just look at a computer and feel certain that it couldn’t possibly be feeling pleasure, pain or anything at all. That’s why we don’t mind throwing a broken computer in the trash. Likewise, most people don’t worry too much about a lobster feeling angst about its impending doom when they put one into a pot of boiling water. In the jargon of philosophy, these intuitions we have about whether a creature or thing is capable of feelings or subjective experiences—such as the experience of seeing red or tasting a peach—are called “intuitions about phenomenal consciousness.”

The study of consciousness (see here and here) has long played a crucial role in the discipline of philosophy, where facts about such intuitions form the basis for some complex and influential philosophical arguments. But, traditionally, the study of these intuitions has employed a somewhat peculiar method. Philosophers did not actually go ask people what intuitions they had. Instead, each philosopher would simply think the matter over for him- or herself and then write something like: “In a case such as this, it would surely be intuitive to say…”

The new field of experimental philosophy introduces a novel twist on this traditional approach. Experimental philosophers continue the search to understand people’s ordinary intuitions, but they do so using the methods of contemporary cognitive science (see also here and here)—experimental studies, statistical analyses, cognitive models, and so forth. Just in the past year or so, a number of researchers have been applying this new approach to the study of intuitions about consciousness. By studying how people think about three different types of abstract entities—a corporation, a robot and a God—we can better understand how people think about the mind.

The Mental Bottom Line on Corporations
In one recent study, experimental philosophers Jesse Prinz of the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill and I looked at intuitions about the application of psychological concepts to organizations composed of whole groups of people. To take one example, consider Microsoft Corporation. One might say that Microsoft “intends to adopt a new sales strategy” or that it “believes Google is one of its main competitors.” In sentences such as these, people seem to be taking certain psychological concepts and applying them to a whole corporation.

But which psychological concepts are people willing to use in this way? The study revealed an interesting asymmetry. Subjects were happy to apply concepts that did not attribute any feeling or experience. For example, they indicated that it would be acceptable to use sentences such as:
• Acme Corporation believes that its profit margin will soon increase.
• Acme Corporation intends to release a new product this January.
• Acme Corporation wants to change its corporate image.
But they balked at all of the sentences that attributed feelings or subjective experiences to corporations:
• Acme Corporation is now experiencing great joy.
• Acme Corporation is getting depressed.
• Acme Corporation is experiencing a sudden urge to pursue Internet advertising.
These results seem to indicate that people are willing to apply some psychological concepts to corporations but that they are not willing to suppose that corporations might be capable of phenomenal consciousness.

Bots and Bodies
Perhaps the issue here is that people only attribute phenomenal consciousness to creatures that have the right sort of bodies. To test this hypothesis, we can look to other kinds of entities that might have mental states but do not have bodies that look anything like the bodies that human beings have.
One promising approach here would be to look at people’s intuitions about the mental states of robots. Robots look very different from human beings from a physical perspective, but we can easily imagine a robot that acts very much like a human being. Experimental studies could then determine what sorts of mental states people were willing to attribute to a robot under these conditions. This approach was taken up in experimental work by Justin Sytsma, a graduate student, and experimental philosopher Edouard Machery at the University of Pittsburgh and in work by Larry (Bryce) Huebner, a graduate student at UNC-Chapel Hill, and all of the experiments arrived at the same basic answer.

In one of Huebner’s studies, for example, subjects were told about a robot who acted exactly like a human being and asked what mental states that robot might be capable of having. Strikingly, the study revealed exactly the same asymmetry we saw above in the case of corporations. Subjects were willing to say:
• It believes that triangles have three sides.
But they were not willing to say:
• It feels happy when it gets what it wants.

Here again, we see a willingness to ascribe certain kinds of mental states, but not to ascribe states that require phenomenal consciousness. Interestingly enough, this tendency does not seem to be due entirely to the fact that a CPU, instead of an ordinary human brain, controls the robot. Even controlling in the experiment for whether the creature had a CPU or a brain, subjects were more likely to ascribe phenomenal consciousness when the creature had a body that made it look like a human being.

God in the Machine
What if something has no body? How does that change our conceptions of what conscious experience might be possible? We can turn to the ultimate disembodied creature: God. A recent study by Harvard University psychologists Heather Gray, Kurt Gray and Daniel Wegner looked at people’s intuitions about which kinds of mental states God could have. By now, you have probably guessed the result. People were content to say that God could have psychological properties such as:
• Thought
• Memory
• Planning
But they did not think God could have states that involved feelings or experiences, such as:
• Pleasure
• Pain
• Fear

In subsequent work, the researchers directly compared attributions of mental states to God with attributions of mental states to Google Corporation. These two entities—different though they are in so many respects—elicited exactly the same pattern of responses.

Looking at the results from these various studies, it is hard to avoid having the sense that one should be able to construct a single unified theory that explains the whole pattern of people’s intuitions. Such a theory would describe the underlying cognitive processes that lead people to think that certain entities are capable of a wide range of psychological states but are not capable of truly feeling or experiencing anything. Unfortunately, no such theory has been proposed thus far. Further theoretical work here is badly needed.

[Via Mind Matters from Scientific American - Edited by Jonah Lehrer, the science writer behind the blog The Frontal Cortex and the book Proust was a Neuroscientist.]

July 09, 2008

Awesome!

See The Kung Fu Panda Opening Dream Sequence Here.

KFP_Baxter

- Dream Sequence Production -

Storyboard and Direction by Jennifer Yuh Nelson

Animation Director - James Baxter
Asst. Animation Director- Chris Sonnenburg

Producer - Hameed Shaukat
General Manager - Kendra Baxter

Key Clean-Up Artist - Helen Michael
Rough In-Betweener/Asst. Clean-Up - Raymond Flores Fabular

Compositors - Jason Brubaker , Erik Tillmans
Color Models - Claire Williams
Ink & Paint - Tina Staples
Line Art Scanner - Marisa Ledina

[Via Inkling Studio]

Bob Logan's a Genius


Cartoonist Bob Logan has been running an ongoing series of scanned View-Master reels on his blog. Personally I loved these as a kid, I had Flintstones and Charlie Brown ones as well as Hanna-Barbera ones like the one shown above, I may scan them in someday too. Here's the link to Bob's site, it's amazing! Don't forget to see the website dedicated to Martha Armstrong. This the person responsible for many of View-Master's animation sculptures. She was a master miniatures creator and sculptor in the 50s and 60s. See great photos of her and her work here.

[Via Cartoon Brew]

Gizmodo's trip to the Lego company - amazing footage:

1983 Apple Event: Bill Gates and Steve Jobs

'Hokusai - An Animated Sketchbook' by Tony White

Cool Concept For Eco-Friendly Urban Driving

image

Here is a clever design from the Technical University of Berlin that they cleverly named CLEVER. CLEVER stands for Compact Low Emissions Vehicle for Urban Transport (wait…that spells CLEVUT. Not so clever!). This TRON-esque 3 wheeled wonder is about 10 ft long, 3.3 ft wide and 4.4 feet high and weighs 870lbs. It’s single cylinder 230cc compressed natural gas engine is capable of going 62 mph with a range of about 125 miles all the while emitting less than 60 g/km of CO2 (the Toyota Prius does 104 g/km).

image

The CLEVER is a result of collaboration between TUB, BMW and several other automotive innovators to design a lightweight, low consumption, low emissions urban driving vehicle. While they have a working prototype there is no word about when or if this will come to market.

image

CLEVER Details:
3-wheel tilting cornering vehicle

Length: 3 m (9.8 ft)
Width: 1 m (3.3 ft)
Height: 1.35 m (4.4 ft)
Tandem seat constellation
Single-cylinder 230 cc natural gas engine - Kerb weight ~395 kg (870 lbs)
vmax= 100 kph (60 mph)
0-60 kph < 7 sec.
Range approx. 200 km (124 miles)
Aluminium space frame with plastic body

Visit the CLEVER Project

imageimage image
[Via greenupgrader.com]

World's Smallest Projector

Texas Instruments (TI Inc.) announced that it’s bringing the next generation of handheld displays to market with the Optoma Pico, a gadget it claims will be the tiniest projector ever made commercially available. Traveling salesmen everywhere, rejoice!

When TI showed off its handheld projector technology at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show in January, the company attracted wide eyes and big prizes alike for a prototype device stored in a mock cellphone (and a 3D TV). But the technology, which shrinks TI’s breakthrough Digital Light Processing (DLP) chip and its micromirror mechanics by a couple form factors, live solely in concept form, with no manufacturing partners confirmed—or even really imagined for the near future.

That changes today. TI has taken the wraps off a sooner-than-expected release of the Pico, which will be built in a partnership with the Taiwanese projector company Optoma. The product is slated to hit shelves in Europe and Asia by the end of this year, and should make its way to the United States in 2009. The Pico’s launch price will be under $300, according to Frank Moizio, TI’s business manager for emerging markets.

Although most of the speculation around the gadget has centered around it being integrated into mobile devices such as cellphones and portable media players, the Optoma Pico will be a stand-alone projector. That doesn’t mean it won’t be able to hook up to and project video and slides from many devices, likely including the Apple iPod, PlayStation Portable, ultraportable laptops and plenty of cellphones (maybe even Android-enabled ones?).

According to Moizio, the Pico will provide a clear projection onto an 8.5x11-in. piece of paper for most indoor lighting situations. It’s no home movie theater, but the image will be big enough to share your portable media player content easily with friends.

The battery-powered Pico should manage one to two hours of battery life, which TI reps assured us would be long enough to last through most movies. We’ll certainly have to test it out in the coming weeks for a final answer on that one.

To be sure, TI isn’t the only company jumping on the microprojector trend. Redmond, Wash.-based startup Microvision gave us some hands-on time with a similar, even tinier gadget at CES that uses tiny lasers to scan and project its video. Back then, Microvision told us that to expect its device to hit the market by the end of this year as an add-on for mobile phones, DVD players and gaming consoles. Will 2009 be the year of the handheld TV? Let’s hope so.

[Via Seth Porges from popularmechanics.com]

Hothouse 5: Call for Submissions - Deadline Approaching!

Deadline: Friday July 18, 2008
Program Dates: September 2 – November 21, 2008

“The Time I Changed My Mind”

Tell it in a 1-minute animation film over 3 months at the NFB Montreal Animation Studio.

The National Film Board of Canada seeks submissions from emerging filmmakers (young and not-so-young), and artists intrigued by animation art, for the fifth round of Hothouse, a 12-week paid apprenticeship in full-on, all-inclusive, real-world animation filmmaking.

Hothouse is about re-imagining ways of making animation, ways that are faster, more flexible, and which embrace the many possibilities in the animation process while maintaining creative and technical excellence. We’re looking for six new talents who are willing and able to jump head-first into this intensive experience.

SUBMISSION CRITERIA:

Submissions must be received by 5pm (Montreal time) on July 18, 2008, and must be sent via email or post. The six successful candidates will be notified by phone or email on July 25, 2008.

Your submission must include:

1. A one-page statement outlining the idea and motivation behind it, aesthetic approach, technical notes and motivation for participating in Hothouse.

2. Two or three design samples

3. One-page résumé

4. One example of a previous film (animation or otherwise) no more than 5 minutes in length, or an excerpt from a previous film, no more than 5 minutes. Please send only 1 film/excerpt. Media must be submitted using www.youtube.com. See instructions here. Do not send hard copies. If you don’t have a finished film don’t worry, you can still apply but make sure you show off what you can do in your writing and design samples.

SELECTION CRITERIA:

We look for strength of idea, technical capability to realize the idea, conviction of vision, creative maturity, originality and willingness to embrace the Hothouse challenge.

ELIGIBILITY:

Submissions are accepted from across Canada. You must:

• Be a Canadian citizen or landed immigrant.

• Have some experience in animation, filmmaking or a related field.

• Have sufficient know-how and confidence in their chosen technique to begin working right away.

• Be relatively new to auteur animation filmmaking.

• Be prepared to live in Montreal and work at the NFB Animation Studio for the entire twelve-week period.

*TIPS*:

1. Do not propose an idea specifically because you think the NFB might like it. We don’t like that and will roll our eyes at you.

2. Propose the film you want to make (if 1 and 2 happen to be the same, that’s ok too).

3. Pay attention to clarity of idea and intent in your proposal. If you’re unsure about something, admit it, and explain why and what you intend to do about it.

4. The theme is a test of your creativity and ingenuity; don’t be afraid to play with it, both in content and in form.

5. Check out the films and behind-the-scenes videos from past Hothouse editions for a better idea about the projects and process.

6. Make sure to read the Rules & Regulations for a better understanding of what we expect from you and what you can expect from us.

Send submissions to:
National Film Board of Canada
Animation Studio (P-16)
attn: Hothouse 5
3155 Côte-de-Liesse Road
St-Laurent, Quebec, H4N 2N4

For more information contact Maral Mohammadian at hothouse@nfb.ca or 514-283-2510

Carol Burnett and Robin Williams -The Funeral