Friday Videos - Jan 27th, 2012

Plenty of videos in this weeks playlist but the majority are all pretty short - so you get a quick blast of humor. I am sure you'll enjoy.

• "Let's Dance" - I don't want to spoil the surprise but lets just say that I'm indebted to Lee for the magic that is RockerClogger.
• Coming Soon - Ferris Bueller 2? Some sort of Superbowl promotional something or other? I guess we find out Feb 5th.
• Ball Boy Catch - nailed it. "Everybody's on their game."
• No No Thom Yorke - you will never hear Radiohead the same again.
• Kaylee Blowing out the Candle - basically it's the new David After Dentist but, who cares, it's adorable and hysterical. The entire time.
• Kramer + Skrillex - whatever your thoughts on Skrillex are irrelevant because you can't deny how perfect this blend is.
• Wastelander Panda Prologue - "The tale of the last remaining panda in a post-apocalyptic wasteland." This is actually the prologue to a legitimate TV series in development. Guess who'll be watching that one?
• Romantic Saxophone (HD) - Crudely animated birds? Check. Terrible Water Ripple Effect? Check. Scantily clad woman playing a saxophone? Got it. Favorite thing ever? You betcha.

Have a great weekend.

The Arm

My buddy Blake recently served as Director of Photography on the short film The Arm - directed by Brie Larson, Sarah Ramos and Jessie Ennis. Not only was it accepted to Sundance but it won Best Comedic Direction in a Short. Now it's up for this Yahoo! Best of Sundance award. While I'm not usually one for caring much about online voting, this could do nothing but help out a friend and it's entertaining to watch. So, I'm asking you to head over here, watch the short and scroll down to vote it in to win.

Typographica Favorite Typefaces Of 2011

Typographica has written up a list of their favorite typefaces of 2011. The list isn't a Best Of but, rather, a favorites - typefaces with notable character, technological significance or just worth remembering. It's a great spot for some inspiration if you're in need.

Development Type

• ArcText.js - want your text to bend on a slight arc but don't want to use a PNG? Deploy ArcText javascript and you're good to go.
• A better way to use icon fonts - I'm a big fan of the proliferation of Icon Fonts these days but Eric Eggert has some great insight into how to deploy them even better than what most are suggesting. It's even super friendly to screen readers. Score.

Uncle Skeleton - Sophisticuffs

I am pleased to announce that today marks the official release of the first new music from Uncle Skeleton since his May 2010 record, Warm Under the Covers. This new track / single, "Sophisticuffs", is the first track from the forthcoming double-LP All Too Human - planned for release on my little label. You can snag the four tracks over on Bandcamp or just preview them with the player above.

Many thanks to Burgers for the remix, John Baldwin for the mastering and, of course, Ross for the music.

If you're in the Nashville area, please come out tonight to the Mercy Lounge to see ole Uncle Skeleton play.

Long story short, go download this track and help spread the word!

Sunshine Sakae from Michel Gondry

You might think you've no interest in a commercial for Japanese department store Sunshine Sakae but when you hear that it's directed by Michel Gondry you will watch it immediately... and love it. His unmistakable style is perfect here.

Alessandro Puccinelli

I'm mystified by this photography set, Intersections, from Alessandro Puccinelli. Even though it is described as a work-in-progress collection I find myself poring over each image - the delineation between ocean and sky being incredibly difficult at times. Absolutely lovely.

via Jodi.

Tim Biskup

Really enjoying these mosaic style works from Tim Biskup. He's actually got a nice variety of style throughout his portfolio but I like the "simplification" that's going on with the geometric pieces. Plus, he tackles pop culture entities for some of his work; bonus!

via Jeremy.

The 2011 Warby Parker Annual Report

Excellent 2011 Annual Report from the folks at Warby Parker. Aside from being a pleasant layout with simple sliding animations there's a dense amount of information packed into each page. I love the timeline along the bottom - keeping track of milestones (legitimate or ridiculous) is a practice we should all maintain.

Color: Method Of Action

Take a few minutes today to test your eye for color by playing through Color - a six step game that runs through Hue, Saturation, Complementary, Analogous, Ternary and Quaternary colors. If you're not familiar with some of those words then maybe this is a good place for you to start. There's even a Color Blind Assist mode if you're in the 7%.

YouTube: One Hour Per Second

Did you know that every second there is one hour of video uploaded to YouTube? If you're having trouble visualizing just how much video that is, check out One Hour Per Second; a little promotional site to put things in perspective. Even if you're not having a hard time wrapping your head around that idea, make sure to visit the site as it's a wonderfully illustrated, animated, impressive bit of non-Flash eyecandy.

Lomokino & Lomokinoscope

I bet it's been awhile since you thought about anything LOMO related. With the widespread proliferation of cameras in phones, and the manipulation apps that come with them, it's easy to forget about the world of haphazard analog film that they created. Their latest foray back into your mind is the LomoKino; a 35mm powered movie maker and it's LomoKinoScope viewing buddy. The results it creates are pretty great - very much so in the style of what you'd expect from anything Lomography related and just outside the reach of what I've seen any apps capable of doing. Plus, you actually keep the results if your harddrive crashes. Doubtful that the $99 pricetag is going to make it something everyone runs out to obtain but it's nice to see that they're still fighting the good fight.

HT Mr. Reed.

Wednesday Morning Tech Link Dump

• CodeKit - looks to be a pretty slick application for managing projects, compiling all sorts of nu-tech like Less or Coffeescript and optimizing images. Potentially a one-stop shop for getting a project underway. via Madrid.
• OSX in CSS - while it doesn't do much you have to admit that this creation of OSX almost entirely with CSS3 is pretty impressive.
• Bootstrap 2 on the horizon - the new version of the Twitter developed framework is on the horizon (Jan 31st). I'm committed to building at least one project with this finally; looks to be even better the second go around.

Take The New Vimeo For A Spin

Looks like the folks at Vimeo have a new design and if you want to give it a test drive you just need to steer yourself over here and click the big button. You'll be signed up to the tester list and get a dose of screens showcasing the new pages.

Robot and Frank

Justin Ouellette is a man of many worthwhile projects. His blog points out that one such recent project was working on 'Robot and Frank' - the feature film debut from Jake Schreier. Justin designed all the fictional user interfaces that appear on screen - TV's, cellphones, tablets, etc. A dream job if there ever was one.

EW has an inside look at the film; including four clips that showcase the relationship between Frank and his new robot housekeeper (voiced by Peter Sarsgaard). The film looks great and will, hopefully, make its way to a theatre near us all soon.

Untitled Garmonique

I know I mentioned the photography work of Garmonique some time ago but if you haven't been following along, you've been missing out. Gems like this are hard not to immediately love but if that's not up your alley surely there is something you'll love tucked in there.

How Much Do Music And Movie Piracy Really Hurt The U.s. Economy?

Great article from Freaknomics about the truth behind piracy numbers. The whole SOPA/PIPA debate opens up some serious thought about piracy - a concept that you can't really debate is good. However, the supporters of the bill (and, esp. the lobbyists) make the claim that $250 billion per year is being lost to piracy; Freakonomics refutes that rather deftly. Apparently it's closer to $58 billion - not a minuscule amount by any means but a far cry from the proposed loss. It's a quick read and an excellent starting point for further discussion of the issue.

Don't Be Evil Bookmarklet

Seems like there has been more than a little backlash when it comes to Google's new social results. So much backlash, in fact, that engineers from Twitter, Facebook and Myspace got together and made Focus on the User; a bookmarklet script that grabs the most pertinent social media information and replaces the, usually, irrelevant Google+ listings. The walkthrough video explains it with great simplicity. While I don't see myself actually using the tool I can't disagree with the point that they're making - there is a lot of trust when using Google to get the best results (and, usually, results are legit) but their pushing Google+ pages over more relevant results like Twitter or Facebook is not a good way to treat their enormous user base. Sure, it's their prerogative to do whatever they want with search results but if the benefit of the end user really is the end goal, they'd embrace true social results.

Developer Tools for the Developer Mind

• GridPak - handy tool to create responsive grids with break points as you see fit. Actually very well and useful if you're willing to put in the time to tinker with it.
• HTML5 Please - ever wonder what new markup you can and can not use? Well, this insightful list should do the trick in answering all those questions. Box-Reflection is out for the time being and position: fixed seems like it's OK to implement. You'd be surprised at the number of tags listed here that you've never heard of.

Archetype

If you haven't run across this article on io9 yet, take a moment to cruise over there and wholeheartedly agree with their headline statement: "This no-budget science fiction short looks better than most movies." Okay, maybe that's a bit much but Archetype does look incredibly good; especially for a project done in freetime. The creator, Aaron Sims, has a long history of working with special effects and plans to flesh the short out into a full-length. I'd watch it.

Famous Photographers Pose With Their Iconic Images

Check out this short-but-sweet gallery of images of Famous Photographers posing with their Iconic Images. It's always interesting to see the person behind the camera that is responsible for creating powerful images - often because they look exactly the opposite of what you'd expect (see: Karen Kuehn). It's a pleasant surprise and some worthwhile praise is due for those creating such impactful visions.

Pictos Font Server

Pictos recently launched their own Font Server service - ala Typekit - that lets you take advantage of using their servers to bear the brunt of any server load that may come from using a custom @font-face look. However, they took it two steps further. One, no Javascript required. Two, the icon font they are offering has 650 icons that you can mix and match into any keyboard combination you want - excluding any extras that you know won't be needed. Given that icon fonts are only going to integrate their way into the standard of web deployment I can't see this as anything except a great idea.

CSS Tricks, the little things

• Beating Borders: The Bane of Responsive Layout - great writeup on how to properly use borders in your CSS. Sure, you think it's as simple as making sure your math accounts for the proper width of the box + border but it gets, surprisingly, more in-depth than that. Very handy info to have in the ole noggin.
• Better Tabs with Rounded Corners - really nice proof of concept using an unordered list and loads of psuedo elements to create a great looking tab navigation system. Could CSS Tricks be any better of a site? Answer: no.

Friday Videos - Jan 20th, 2012

A short and sweet playlist this week. I intentionally omitted the likes of a few candidates because I assume you've already seen them.

• Drunkest Drummer in the World - next time you feel a little inebriated remember that you're nowhere close to where this guy is at. He actually kind of pulls it together despite it all.. impressive.
• Hercules - Disappointed - this may have been a stage direction, not a line to scream. So good. via Paige.
• Ackbar Practice - yea, this meme has worn out its welcome but I'm still amused by it and hadn't ever seen this compilation. Stupid but perfectly amusing.
• Haters Gonna Hate - obviously inspired by the Omar Noory creation this is the perfect real life embodiment of the original drawing.
• Jaaam (Fresh Prince Mix) - typically I'd stray from anything Fresh Prince related but this Pogo mix just gets better and better the long you let it play. You will undoubtedly be singing a bassy "Jaaam" all weekend.
• Hello - how about Lionel Richie song lyrics as remixed by movie quotes? Okay, yea, I'm into that.
• Rave On - I'm convinced the Internet exists to bring us treats like this. You get to keep a safe distance but still fully enjoy every single moment of jaw-dropping absurdity.

Have a great weekend!

Hartter: The Original Alternate Universe Movie Posters Gallery

The Alternate Universe Movie Poster Gallery is, without question, ridiculous. It's also surprisingly accurate in its execution of style for vintage movie posters. While not all of the entries are going to blow your mind there's such a huge repository of offerings available that you're sure to be impressed and/or chuckle at least a solid handful of times. The further down the page you go the more ridiculous the entries get but if you miss out on Liam Neeson in Pitfall! you're doing yourself a disservice.

via Chad.