This cute fifth grader is named Mackenzie. She types at a rapid 119 words per minute and makes the rest of us look pathetic.
I'd be happy to just plain stop making typos and maybe type a little bit faster, but Mackenzie won't rest until she reaches a 200 WPM pace.
Geez, these overachieving kids nowadays. [Mashable via Boing Boing]
It took 300 people to construct a 400 square foot model of the USSR's capital city back in 1977. Today you can buy that super-detailed, scaled-down version of Moscow for a mere $3 million.
Stunning, isn't it? Apparently every single of the itty-bitty windows in the model can be lit up and there are effects to simulate day and night time. I guess that it's not surprising that the electricity costs alone are making mini-Moscow enough of an expense to get pushed onto the auction block.
Oh, if only I had the space and money to spare. I could be a Russian Godzilla. [Atlas Obscura]
The Washington Post has this bizarre Final-Four style bracket to determine the "most influential person of the decade," and with President Bush's defeat of Sergey Brin and Larry Page, all the tech figures are now out of the race. Lame.
Previously, Osama Bin Laden knocked out Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg, and President Obama defeated Steve Jobs, but the Google Duo held out until the semifinals, when President Bush liberated them. That is officially the oddest sentence I have ever written. Way to go, Washington Post. This is incredibly weird. [Washington Post via Wonkette]
In January 1985, the phone rang. The caller announced that he was Orson Welles and that he wanted to have lunch with me. Thus began one of the most extraordinary and bittersweet adventures of my life.
Sometimes the journeys we take through this life begin and end in the most unexpected ways. My encounter with Welles in the last days of his life centered on a common interest: Sony's new one-piece camcorder, the Betacam. It had just come to market and Welles, always the genius filmmaker, had big ideas for what he could do with one. With Welles there were no limits. "You can't do that" wasn't in his vocabulary. This was a short, but very passionate story.
At the time I was running Television Matrix, a small video production facility in the Sunset-Gower Studios in Hollywood. I had been in California only a short time, having moved from Miami the previous summer. I had started in video production in 1975 and had been shooting mostly news for the networks throughout Latin America. Business was good because the networks were switching from film to tape in this period and they were short of video crews. In late 1982, I purchased something totally new—one of the first Sony Betacams delivered in the United States.
One of our clients in Miami had been Entertainment Tonight. During a lull in a location shoot with Robin Leach, then an ET correspondent, I'd shown him the new Betacam. Leach had been offered a chance to do his own television show, but could find no one in the mid-1980s who could bring in a one-hour episode for his very low budget of $100,000. The Betacam, Leach thought, might be the answer.
"Could this work?" he asked me at the time. "Maybe," I responded. Only the Sony Betacam camcorder—the first one-piece camera and recorder ever made—and a standalone player existed. To edit, one would need to connect the player to another format to finish the work. That would mean integration with a one-inch Type C format system.
Leach made me an offer. If I could figure out how to make all the technology work, he would move me and my crews to LA to do the production on his new reality show. That motivated me to call Charles Felder, then the president of the tiny Sony Broadcast office in New York. My timing couldn't have been better. It turns out that Sony had the same thoughts about how to extend the Betacam and I had brought them the right project at the right moment. In a flash, we made a deal. In exchange for a small financial investment on my part, Sony would build an experimental facility in LA. They would make it a "first" that they'd advertise and show to others in Hollywood.
The prospects were exciting for everyone. An elated Robin Leach began to plan for the new show, and I, along with several freelance crew members that I had worked with, moved to Los Angeles in the summer of 1984. One of the reasons we picked the Sunset-Gower lot (the old Columbia Pictures Studios) was it housed the broadcast center for the 1994 Olympics in LA that summer. When the Olympics ended, the networks would have a huge fire sale of their used broadcast equipment on the same lot. I had targeted the pieces we needed in advance, bought the gear, and moved it to our new edit bay days after the games ended.
We were lucky enough to hire Jim Fancher, now chief science officer at Technicolor in Hollywood, to build the facility. He was far more than a brilliant engineer. As a hands-on "can do" guy, he was also a natural-born negotiator who could coordinate the different technical approaches of companies whose gear would not work together. I will always picture Jim lying on his back under a rack of gear talking with tech support at some company about why their product wouldn't work.
Somehow, thanks to Jim, it all came together on time and on budget. By fall, we were ready. The show, now called Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous, went on the air. To be honest, I thought it was dumb idea that would last for one season if we were lucky. All I really cared about was that we had moved to Los Angeles and that Leach had paid for everything. I was ready for whatever came next. I can honestly say it was one of the great shocks of my life when the show became a major hit. I was totally unready for it.
We had built the first interformat edit bay in the nation (Betacam to one-inch), and Lifestyles was the first major magazine show to be shot using the new format. We had made history. The cost of television production had come down—way down. At least by half. Word spread fast and we were running facility tours in no time. Sony even hired Milton Berle to do a two-page ad for the facility and the technology concept behind it.
A freelance editor for our show, Paul Hunt, also did some sound work for the legendary actor/director/producer/genius Orson Welles. He told Welles about our Betacam facility, now running almost around the clock, and from that moment on the great man's insatiable curiosity about every new sound and imaging technology took over. Welles wanted to meet me, and thus came a lunch invitation many film buffs would have died for.
To be honest, I knew very little about Welles. I had majored in television and radio at the University of South Carolina in the 1960s and it was hard to escape the many contributions Welles made to the broadcast and film industries. From audio special effects to remarkable moving dolly shots, Welles was a genius of the first order. But outside of having seen Citizen Kane, I didn't know the details of his career nor did I pretend to.
Our first lunch at Welles' favorite haunt, Ma Maison, was a roaring success. For reasons I still don't fully understand, we hit it off. Welles was curious about all things video, especially the Betacam, a device he envisioned to be an Arriflex camera that didn't need film. As our first meeting continued, Welles' small dog, who was seated at the table next to me, kept nipping at my leg. It was annoying, but I didn't dare take a swat at Orson Welles' beloved dog!
That lunch led to many others throughout 1985. In the earlier days of our relationship, he tested me in strange ways. One night, after midnight, Orson (he insisted that everyone call him Orson) called to ask for help in solving a sound problem he claimed to be having. He was recording and editing some narration on his Nagra tape recorder in his bedroom in the hills above Hollywood Blvd.
"Frank, after I do a splice with a razor blade, I get a bump in the sound when I play back the tape. What should I do?" he asked. This was a very strange question from the man who had practically invented modern sound recording. He had scared the nation with War of the Worlds and was asking me such a basic question about audio editing. Though half asleep, I knew he had to know the answer and instantly recognized it as some sort of test.
"Orson, your razor blade is magnetized. Get another one," I answered. "Oh, OK," he responded, apologizing for waking me and then promptly said goodbye. I went back to sleep and never heard of the issue again.
As he learned more about video camcorders and nonlinear editing, Orson became determined to do a video project of his own. We visited New England Digital for a demo of nonlinear sound editing on the Synclavier. As for video, Orson wasn't content with just renting a Montage, one of the first non-linear video editors. He wanted his own, and he wanted it to sit next to his flatbed film editor at home.
As the talk turned to money (it always did in Orson's case), I offered to contribute video facilities and help him raise money for a one-man show to be called Orson Welles Solo. The production would be a retrospective of Orson's favorite theatrical material along with a big dose of magic—both new tricks and archival footage from Orson's glory days as a working magician. Our facility was already booked around the clock, but it didn't stop me from promising Orson anything he wanted.
Through a long and convoluted series of events (and with the help of the late Paul Rothchild, producer of The Doors, the Paul Butterfield Blues Band and Janis Joplin), the money was raised and the production was set to begin. Now Orson focused on how he'd use the two Betacams we'd secured to shoot the show.
Just as he had accepted no conventional technical limitations when he made Citizen Kane in 1940, Orson approached video in the same unrelenting way. In 1985, Betacams had Saticon tubes—not CCD sensors—and their ability to sync to one another via time code was, to put it mildly, a bit crude. Orson didn't care. He demanded that the handheld Betacams float around the set wirelessly and always be in perfect sync. He also directed that we shoot directly into bright lights and he didn't want to hear about any problems with lag.
"Call Sony and tell them to make it work," Orson demanded, slamming his fist on a table at one point. "Don't ever tell me 'No.'" I called Sony, and Sony responded by sending two expert engineers to help Orson push the video envelope on the project.
The day before the shoot was to begin in November, 1985, the Betacams were tweaked to the max. The jury-rigs—and there were a lot of them—were tested and re-tested. Every engineer and crew member that was to be in Orson's field of view was told that the words "you can't do that" were to be stricken from their vocabulary. With this project, I demanded, we will find a way to do any and everything Orson wants to do. All the old excuses about the limits of video will be left at the front door.
As technical preparations for the shoot continued, Orson taped an appearance in the late afternoon on Merv Griffin's syndicated talk show. Normally, Orson disdained conversations about his past. He'd always say he wanted to talk about the future, not "go down memory lane." But, uncharacteristically, he did go down memory lane that afternoon with his old friend, Merv. Orson charmed the audience, both with stories and card tricks.
After the show, Orson had dinner at Ma Maison and then headed home to finish writing the script for our first taping, now only hours away. Our first day of shooting was to be in auditorium on the UCLA campus. Orson would call when he was ready for us to go to the location.
The next morning, as I awaited those instructions from Orson in my office, the phone rang. It was Paul Rothchild.
"Did you hear the news," he asked gently.
"What news?" I replied.
"Orson Welles is dead."
Orson had died of a heart attack during the night. He was found slumped over his typewriter, working on our script. Minutes later, a Welles assistant called and said bluntly: "Frank, the project has been canceled."
I drove home—numb and unable to function. After the initial days of despair, my incredible year working with Orson Welles took on a new dimension. A new journey would begin. Those same Betacams were used to record Orson's memorial service a few weeks later and that event, in turn, introduced me to the remarkable men and women who had been associated with Welles from his days with the Mercury Theater. The film critic Leonard Maltin and I did a documentary with these fascinating people, and I later produced, with Mercury Theater actor Richard Wilson, a retrospective of Orson's best radio work from his personal tape collection.
A couple of weeks after Orson's death, his cinematographer, the late Gary Graver, came by my office for a visit. Gary said something I will never forget.
"I've been driving around for two weeks with Orson's ashes in the truck of my car," he said, matter of factly.
"What?" I responded, quickly envisioning a fender bender with the Hollywood legend's ashes being scattered across an LA freeway.
"I'm not going to take them into my house," Graver said, almost fearing the prospect. "What should I do?"
I thought for a minute, looked a Graver, and said, "I don't know." Some months later, Welles' ashes were buried in Ronda, Spain, on the property of a longtime friend, retired bullfighter Antonio Ordóñez.
The demise of our video project left me yearning to do some kind of major Welles project to fill the void. As I reviewed our time together, I recalled an extraordinary story that Welles had taken nearly two hours to tell me on a leisurely Saturday afternoon a few months earlier. It was about the events surrounding his production of Marc Blitzstein's musical, The Cradle Will Rock, in 1937. It was, Welles told me, the only time in U.S. history that the military was sent out to shut down a Broadway play. He wanted to make a movie about it, but had failed to raise the money.
That was it. I would try to get the film made. It took the support of many of Welles' original Mercury colleagues—including the late actor/producer John Houseman—and a lot of crazy investors to keep the project alive over the years. Most importantly, it took Tim Robbins, who recognized the power of the story early on and spent most of 1990s writing and directing the film that eventually came to the screen.
Houseman once said that it's rare in this life to be touched by real genius. Welles, said Houseman, was the real thing—perhaps the only real genius he'd ever known. Now, I understand what he meant. Welles, long before most filmmakers, saw the powerful potential of small format video. Yet, he was perhaps 20 years too early to enjoy the real fruits of the video revolution in his own work.
Whenever I see a tiny new camcorder introduced, or see Apple upgrade a revolutionary application like iMovie, I think of Orson. Oh, how excited he'd be. The pure magic of it all! If he were alive today, he'd be making his movies without regard to raising huge amounts of money. That, for both Orson and his audience, would be an achievement that we'll never be able to enjoy.
Frank Beacham is a New York City-based independent writer at http://www.beachamjournal.com. Beacham was executive producer of the 1999 Touchstone Films release of Tim Robbins film, Cradle Will Rock. He and George Demas have written Maverick, a new play based on the events described in this story.
Top CC image from Scary Cow/Flickr; shot of Orson with camera from MovieMail, which sells the brilliant latter-day Welles documentary F for Fake.
In 1999, the world met Aibo, the $2,500 robotic dog from Sony. The following year brought quite the litter of less expensive mechanized pups. Real dogs, however, had mixed feelings about their cyber counterparts.
There was the immobile singing Poo-chi by Tiger Electronics, a company that also made the i-Cybie, which could lift its leg and roll over. The $99 Fisher-Price Rocket the Wonder Dog, which was operated via infrared headset, could burp and scratch itself. There was also Tekno by Manley Toy Quest, Big Scratch and Lil' Scratch by Trendmasters, Puppy Magic by Toy Biz and more.
Many people who had both real dogs and fake dogs decided to see what would happen when the two worlds collided.
If I had a fake dog... you know, the idea seems so preposterous to me that I can't even go there. My real dog is looking at me as I sit here on my shiny computer which is flanked by my shiny iPod and phone. "Aren't you glad I don't require electricity to operate?" he is saying with his eyes. "Don't you want to take me to the park and escape the backlit cyber world you are immersed in so many hours a day?" Why yes, Amos, I do. Now stop dragging your butt.
If these cyber versions were meant to appeal to real wannabe dog owners, I think they should've made them look a little more doglike. Would it have been so hard to slap some fake fur on these things? I'm thinking they could've gone with some Muppet fur—shaggy blue, maybe. Or Elmo red. Who wants a pet that looks like Robocop. Also: my real dog earns his keep by licking clean the dinner plates and jumping in the laps of cute guys at the park. The cyber curs had no such uses. If I'm going to shell out that kind of money for a non-breathing pet, I'd at least like if it could second as a vacuum.
Nevertheless, many robotic dog owners thought it'd be very original and clever and hilarious to introduce their real pet to their fake pet, as evidenced by the following videos...
German Shepherd doesn't let Aibo touch its meat
Sparky gets in some hot two-on-one action with a Doberman and a Chihuahua
Dog asks the Poo-Chi why it isn't wearing any clothes
A cat watches an impertinent iCybie take a pee
This particular school of cinema reached its nadir with robo-dog snuff films
Anna Jane Grossman will be with us for the next few weeks, documenting life in the early aughts, and how it differs from today. The author of Obsolete: An Encyclopedia of Once-Common Things Passing Us By (Abrams Image) and the creator of iamobsolete.net, she has also written for dozens of publications, including the New York Times, Salon.com, the Associated Press, Elle and the Huffington Post, as well as Gizmodo. She has a complicated relationship with technology, but she does have an eponymous website: AnnaJane.net. Follow her on Twitter at @AnnaJane.
Once upon a time, I wanted to be an evil mastermind and take over the world. My plans were foiled because I knew nothing about the inner workings of nuclear reactors. Oh, if only io9 linked these charts back then.
Those are my favorite charts in the bunch (and probably the most useful ones), but you can follow the links to check out the rest. My only request is that you give me a cozy cabin somewhere peaceful when you use this knowledge to succeed where I've failed. [Flickr via Bibliodyssey via io9]
New Kinetic has an RF attachment accessory for the iPhone that gives it all the power of a universal remote, except way, way better. This is the universal remote we want.
The accessory plugs into the docking port on an iPhone (or presumably iPod Touch), and includes features like an extensive library of IR codes, customizable buttons, and RF learning from other remotes. It's a great idea; my iPod Touch doesn't get much use as a PMP, but Remote, VLC Remote and Boxee Remote make it a great remote control for my HTPC, so I'm all for extending the functionality to RF. We don't know much about this gadget yet—but it'll be officially announced at CES, and we'll give you more info (like price and availability) then. [Chip Chick]
I remember my best friend had a portable black and white TV in his room back in the day—kind of similar to the Magnavox BD 3902 pictured in OObject's list.
The damn thing got like two over-the-air stations. All I can say is that it is a great time to be alive with our HDTVs and smartphones. Hit the following link to see the full list. [OObject]
This is a great video that @joelwalker found today. The Known Universe takes you for a tour of our universe, from the Himalayas through the atmosphere to the edge of the known universe. Every star, planet, and quasar seen in the film is possible because of the world’s most complete four-dimensional map of the universe, the Digital Universe Atlas that is maintained and updated by astrophysicists at the American Museum of Natural History. The new film, created by the Museum, is part of an exhibition, Visions of the Cosmos: From the Milky Ocean to an Evolving Universe, at the Rubin Museum of Art in Manhattan through May 2010.
When I first saw this picture, I thought that the guy had gotten frustrated with some kind of weird do-it-yourself exercise equipment and was about to toss it into the woods. I was only right about the DIY part.
This strange contraption is a DIY plenoptic camera.
Still don't know what that is? I didn't either, but Make explained that "instead of capturing a flat, 2D array of pixels, a plenoptic camera uses an array of microlenses to capture 4D lightfield data. This data can then be processed to create a final image that is focused on any part of the scene." Basically, this means that it takes a lot of little images from different viewpoints and those can then be transformed into your ideal picture. If you want to get dreamy about describing this process, you could say that it lets you travel back in time and fix bad focusing mistakes of the past.
It looks crazy in action, too:
You can follow the links to Futurepicture and actually read all about how to make one of these camera rigs yourself. And if you do that: Please send along some images. I have a fascination with these trippy, crazy things. [Futurepicture via Team Droid via Make]
Normally, I don't find humidifiers exciting, but this one makes for an exception.
It even throws LED ground effects when producing steam. Seriously, even if you aren't drying up from the weather, it might be worth the $108 price tag to gut it for a PC case. [Japan Trend Shop via 7Gadgets]
Yes, bravery and all that goes with it are a requirement for all Gawker Media interns as you'll be thrown into our crazy communities and expected to keep them clean. If you think you're cut out for a gig, read on and apply:
Gawker Media seeks a few brave interns to work in comments and serve our beloved communities. The interns will work on behind-the-scenes administrative tasks and quality oversight. Applicants should have several days per week to devote to these duties. Strong communication skills, familiarity with Gawker Media blogs and commenting communities, and excellent decision-making abilities a must. New York City-based is preferred, but remote applicants will be considered. College internship credit available to those who qualify. Send email with bio, resume, commenter username and subject line 'Community Internship' to communityintern (at) gawker dot com.
I really like my Droid, but have had the same loose battery door problem as everybody else; it usually slides off while being removed from my pocket, which makes the otherwise-heavy-duty-feeling phone feel weak. Verizon's solution? Also weak.
Apparently Flickr user Anticitizen took his Droid to a Verizon store to see what could be done about the battery door issue, and this was their solution. There's a better fix illustrated in this video, but still: What's up with the Band-Aid, Verizon? [Android Central]
Whoops! These photos of ad agency Crispin Porter's Job Manager shows dates for Windows Phone ad campaigns as going "live" January 4th and 8th.
Crispin Porter Co-Chairman Alex Bogusky (profiled here) posted the shot to demonstrate CP's massive real-time job management system, which clearly lists two ad campaigns, on January 4th and 8th, for "Windows Phone," first as "Windows Phone Q3 Media Refresh" and second as "09 Windows Phone Banners." So who knows what the actual timing for these ads will be, but its a safe bet that ads will be previewed at CES in some way. (Crispin Porter, by the way, was responsible for the Seinfeld Ad campaign).
The Coffee + Tea Maker from designer Naoto Fukasawa makes the morning that much more bearable while you wait for that first sweet hit of caffeine.
It filters water through a double activated charcoal filter in less than ten minutes, and can produce up to six cups of tea or coffee. The Coffee + Tea Maker just became available in the UK here, though there's no word yet on if or when it will come to the US. Hurry up, people that make these decisions! My Dunkin' Donuts grounds might not taste great, but with this they can at least look it. [Design Museum Shop via Unplggd]
Comedy Central's two-pronged comedic attack on news is finally going HD (1080i, actually) on January 4th. Apparently continually filmed daily shows like these two take longer to upgrade the control room, which is why it took so long—but get ready for some HD satire early next year. [Engadget]
Does anyone have manuals for didactical pneumatics workbenchs?
I have to work with three of these and soon with a hydraulics workbench, but there aren't any manuals available. Not even the importer (of Festo equipment) has any.
Manuals of similar equipment are acceptable.
Nick Falzone at Bit-tech has created the Chiaroscuro PC. Made of wood and inspired by the Beijing Digital building, this computer is a true thing of beauty. Absolutely amazing, in fact. The best thing: You can do one yourself.
Seriously, I wish all computers came like this from the factory. Or at least mine. Check Nick's photographies and how-to documentation at [Bit-Tech]
Looking back at vintage advertising can be a sociological horrorshow. It could never be printed now. But it also seems inevitable that some of today's tech ads will eventually seem utterly backwards, too. The question is, which ones?
I'm not talking about obvious screwups like Microsoft whitewashing their Polish advertising campaign (which they apologized for), or Intel's obviously unfortunate—but probably accidental—Core 2 Duo campaign. I'm talking about ads that never got pulled, never prompted an apology, and that, to most people, probably seem harmless. Who, dear readers, will be the 1949 GE of 2060? And for what? Racism? Sexism? Some as-of-yet-unnoticed *ism? Am I oversimplifying what constitutes progress? Difficult questions!
More to the point, will my kids watch these PSP ads in history class, come home, and ask me why I was such a terrible human, back in 2009?
Yep, probably. Post your best guesses in the comments, about, you know, the future. [CopyRanter]
This video has it all: tesla coils! The Zelda theme song! Lightsabers! Balloons that explode in flame! A pretty serious mustache! It doesn't get much better than this. [YouTube via Geekologie]
