Okay, this isn’t exactly new or anything, but going for a stroll down memory lane, this still cracked me up

There are more shows on zefrank.com – Also: check out Ze Frank’s TED talk from yesteryear.

give me this over modern art any day… just. do it. I love those curves, the way parallel snake lines curve across her abdomen, into her belly button, and upwards. And how does that slender waist come in so much? There’s something not quite picture-perfect about that, but that’s what I really like as well.

How was that ancient Japanese saying again? “For every temple built, you must leave one room unfinished, for only Gods are perfect”.

I found this on Tetris.

The concept is this: a hotline was set up, and people encouraged to phone in and talk about something that cause them pain. These monologues of pain were then sampled and processed by musicians, and compiled into a set of samples, to be used in making music – sounds like something to check out

http://www.zefrank.com/pain_pack/

Pretty cool idea: record the sound of a glacier, then press it onto records made of ice – then play those records until they melt! I wonder if there is a message in there somewhere…

listen to one of the records here

read the full story here

Egypt / Lebanon Montage from Khalid Mohtaseb on Vimeo.

hmm.. kinda cool It’s nothing new, I realise that, but still.. hadn’t seen these glow-in-the-dark shrooms before. Nature is ultimate coolness!

http://www.environmentalgraffiti.com/featured/mushrooms-glow-in-the-dark/4821

Oh my good god .. Ports of Call. I spent countless hours playing this on my Amiga 500 in the late 80s/early 90s. I’ll guarantee you that I won’t be doing this with many of the titles that are coming out at the moment, but this classic manages to still capture your attention.

Controls – The user interface is directly copied from the Amiga version. We’re not talking about a conversion here .. it’s literally the same game. This also means that the UI isn’t designed for clumsy fingers on an iPhone screen, but despite this, it’s actually simple enough to work. You do have a few difficulties hitting the right button from time to time, but overall it’s okay-ish. However – there are in fact two sets of UI’s, the original one, and a custom iPhone one. I wouldn’t recommend the custom one, though, because it is quite simply rubbish

Gameplay – PoC is all about building your shipping empire from humble beginnings. You start out with 5 million US dollars – just enough to buy a couple of cheap, run-down ships, or maybe a single one in a bit better condition. From there on, it’s all about scoping out the good trade routes.
There are a number of action elements in the game as well, such as ‘steer the ship clear of the icebergs’, or ‘steer your ship into the proper spot in the harbor’ … or indeed ‘steer your ship away from the other ship on collision course’. Overall, there is a lot of subgames of the ‘steering’ variety – but it’s all good, because on this iPhone version… you can disable them entirely! Awesome!

Multiplayer – There’s no multiplayer via internet or bluetooth, only hotseat. This is just as it should be, to be honest, since it’s like the original. Oh yeah.. this IS the original, silly me.

Sound – There isn’t a whole lot of sound in the game. In fact you sometimes wonder if there’s any at all. A scritchy-scratchy noise of an elevator coming down, or a tinny sample of wind blowing. That’s about it.

Fuck it, it’s Ports of Call, who cares!!?

Conclusion – I’ve tried a few iPhone versions of classic games now, and I wasn’t expecting a lot. But as it turns out, the iPhone is a rather good fit for this type of game. In general I think the iPhone is best suited to turn-based games of some sort, since you won’t have problems with obscuring the action, like you do in realtime action games.

Ports of Call absolutely does what you expect. It’s the same game that you knew and loved back in 1986 when it came out. It still has the draw and long-lasting appeal, and now you can bring it along in your pocket! Saving and loading is easy and fast, and there’s an auto-save feature as well. There are a few negative points as well though:

The game doesn’t auto-save on exit, so make sure you’ve saved before you close the game! This is uncool since most other iPhone games (and Nintendo DS/PSP/whatever) ‘just lets you close’ and it’s saved once you start it up again. The UI is another slightly negative thing, which can make hitting the right buttons an issue. The iPhone specific UI is horrenduous – but luckily the original one works okay. So all in all, it’s highly recommended!

Stumbled upon this today -  a cool picture blog full of the work of one Nathan Fowkes, currently working at Dreamworks. His work has this great, traditional, non-digital feel to it, which I absolutely admire and love. Probably because a lot of it isn’t digital – Anyway, you should go check out his work right now!

I randomly came across a reference to this today – it’s an English translation of a collection of essays by a Japanese monk, written ca. anno 1330. For some reason it caught my attention, so I did a little research, found some stuff on wikipedia, and a downloadable version of the book. There’s a lot of observations in there, small stories, essays, and philosophy, about a whole range of topics – women, on making good of your time, work, life – here’s a few of my favourite quotes so far:

Against Rash Temerity

A man who was reputed to be a very clever backgammon player was once asked what was his special method ; and he said, ‘You should not play to win, but you should play so as not to lose. After carefully considering which move will soonest lose the game, do not play it, but make the one move which will delay defeat as long as possible.’
This is the teaching of those who know the Way, and the same rule applies to self-conduct and the government of the state. (pp. 87)

Against Pedantry

But in all matters, alas! men of shallow intellect ever seek after oddities and love the abnormal. (pp. 91)

On Good And Bad Friends

There are also three kinds of friends who are good. First, those who are generous; second, doctors; and third, those who have wisdom. (pp. 91)

On The Indications of Vulgarity

Things which are made all exactly the same are doubtless the work of those who have but little taste ; ’tis better to have dissimilarity ; and he is certainly right.
Generally speaking, uniformity in anything at all is bad ; it is better to leave a little imperfection, thereby your life (being more natural) will be prolonged. There are some who say that when a palace is being built, you should never fail to leave one little piece of it uncompleted. (pp. 67)

Read more about Tsurezuregusa on Wikipedia
- Or download the book here, as PDF