ComputerTan Viral

How many people spend hours behind the computer screen. I do, but I also face a window so I get some sun during the day as well. (Speaking of which I really need to clean my window. Very dirty.) In any case REVOLUTIONARY TECHNOLOGY has now allowed computertan.com to give people tans by a computer monitor! Actually it is a viral for Skin Cancer in the UK, but funny none the less. Go see how many friends download the iPhone app or try it out. I'm going to the park down the street to get some vitamin B, but I will put on some lotion first.

PowerPoint Karaoke

Have you played PowerPoint Karaoke yet? Ok this is one for the real nerds and geeks. The rules are simple. 1. Have a powerpoint or slideshow that no one knows yet. 2. A presentor tries to present the Powerpoint or Slideshow and make a coherent (and often humoruos) presentation. 3. (Optional) Presentor must take a shot after every second slide or other interval for drinking game varioation.

I first saw this played at Kinnernet09. I realised this is an excellent game to use in my presentation techniques course at the HKU. Unfortunately there is a lack of powerpoints created for Powerpoint Karaoke. so I had my students make a bunch of them. Here is a whole slew of free Karaoke presenations that you can use with your friends or co-workers that they made. Just click on one of the links and start playing.

Free Karaoke Powerpoints online: http://www.scribd.com/doc/16220300/postit http://www.slideshare.net/bartArtist/cats-and-rubbish http://www.empressr.com/View.aspx?token=AuYcrjFv2QM%3d http://www.slideshare.net/wallece/explanation http://www.slideshare.net/pyrojester/barney1 http://www.empressr.com/View.aspx?token=31l6lZZ7GNY%3d http://www.slideshare.net/kiwein/what-if-1548745 http://www.slideshare.net/job.jutten/karaoke-job-jutten-1548431 http://www.slideshare.net/Jajaben/dieet http://www.empressr.com/View.aspx?token=rEiUri5sSZg%3d http://www.empressr.com/View.aspx?token=ib8OupLbxdU%3d http://www.slideshare.net/guest08c0aca/presentatie-gabe-v-liesther http://www.slideshare.net/cedecode/sokken http://www.slideshare.net/rajivkrijnen/karaoke-rajiv http://www.slideshare.net/ramirpascal/guess-the-conmnection http://www.slideshare.net/Rikderooij/toes-they-carry-us http://www.slideshare.net/Hobsbawm/tony-victorian-dvtg2 http://www.slideshare.net/trancilian/10picstory http://www.slideshare.net/eric423/bussen-buschauffeurs http://www.empressr.com/View.aspx?token=54E8a2F7zbg%3d http://www.empressr.com/View.aspx?token=CQ8oxveTF%2bk%3d

GAMES GAMES GAMES!!!

Next week I am attending the HKU Design for Virtual Theater and Games EXPO in Utrecht at the Huis aan de Werf. It will be a great show on June 18 and 19. Don't miss it!

For an example there are a couple free games to try out that some of my students made. Felisberto de Brito has made eggCademy and Ziggy Naumann has made Hotel Luma. Both are in the running for the Festival of Games 2009 award from the NLGD. Go and check them out if you can't handle the humpday this week. Enjoy!

UPDATE:

Felis just emailed me that he has an english version of his game online to enjoy. http://eggcademy.com

Dream Amsterdam - Peter Funch Event

Who: Peter Funch is a Danish artist in New York that is working with the Dream Amsterdam project.

What: The artist will be making a photograpgh where he is asking for people to particiapte in. this is part of the IWONDER project of Dream Amsterdam. People are asked to bring an opbject that is dear to them from home. Peter will then make one of his famous compositions. These photographs are truly transcendent representations of the moments and the beauty in the stories that happen in cities everyday on the corner of the street.

When / Where: At Central Station in Amsterdam on Saturday June, 6 2009 @ 16:00 (4 pm). To be specific - the mid tunnel, downstairs at platform 4/5. Google Map

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Toy Story 3 Teaser Pixar History

Image via CrunchBase

I admit I was excited to see the Toy Story Teaser from Pixar. I'm just a huge animation fan, and Pixar is one of the most amazing stories in animation. It started out as a research group with George Lucasinside ILM. Because Lucas was getting divorced he had to sell some stuff from his empire, and the research group (which was looking into computer generated animation techniques) was one to go. Steve Jobs stepped up then and bought the company. Actually Ross Perot almost bought it first. When Pixar was finishing on Toy Story, Jobs, who had a lot of free time on his hands and was going through a bit of a crisis after Apple and Next, became slightly obsessed with the project. To his name, he struck a 3 picture deal with Disney, but more importantly made sure that the Pixar Leader came in the opening credits . This created Pixar as the name in 3D animation when Toy Story was released in the early 90's. So much so that other movies following that used 3D animation, such as Dream Works, were in the public's eye attributed to Pixar. Good branding. If you would like to read more about that part of Pixar's history, you should check out the book The Second Coming of Steve Jobs. But he was a real tyrant as well. He almost moved the Pixar animation Studio acros the state so that his commute for the meetings would be shorter. This in the final months of production with a huge deadline, and the first time a 3D Full Length Feature was ever created by Pixar. Luckily this didn't happen.

Seeing as today John Lasseter is now running Disney Animation (Principal Creative Advisor), it will be very interesting to see how this movie comes out.

Toy Story 3 - Teaser by victorvharo

It's Caturday!

Today is Caturday, so I figured I just post a bunch of awesome Cat pics. At least it will cheer me up over the whole Twitter ordeal.

No MORE Twitter!

File this in the category: WTF? I log into my twitter today to see this:

MY FREAKN ACCOUNT IS SUSPENDED! FOR WHAT? And what pisses me off the most is the fact that there is no email to sent to me to give a "Head's Up!" or WHY? Nothing what so ever. I have to surf through the site for 30 min. to put in a request that will probably take a week or so for me to get through. Screw it. If this service treats it's users with such fascist authority, I'm out. Fuck Twitter, Fuck Biz Stone fuck the lot of you.... So I'll probably burn in hell for this. Might as well post my shitter video with Chris Sacca (one of the investors in twitter). Yes I can feel the burn now...

update: It seems that there was a glitch in the matrix with twitter. I again have access, but all the sudden I started following strange people in my account. Looks like I have to purge my followers. I beleive my twitter account was hacked actually. Marc believes it was Russians. Great, now I've got Russians hacking me to worry about. In the end I'm still upset and turned off by twitter as I still have no idea, no correspondence, nothing to what happened or what it going on. Come on guys! Can't you even explain what happened in 140 characters to me? I find this lack of communication disturbing.

A bike ride to Guggenheim in bilbao

video by Amsterdamize

Last month when I went to moderate a session about online video in Bilbao for the nonick conference. the day after the conference, Marc from Amsterdamize and I rented a couple bikes from the hotel to go explore the city. This video Marc edited as a part1 of that wonderful day we had together. I know he is working on more, with some fun action shots through Bilbao, but this sets a nice tone for the day.

If you do goto Bilbao, I highly recommend checking out The Guggenheim Museum. Besides being an amazing building, I really loved the exhibitions they had there. Marc and I spent close to 4-5 hours in the museum hanging around and checking out the work. At the moment they have some amazing Video Art pieces that you can sit and literally loose yourself in for hours. If you were not stoned before going in, the effects of these films will transport you to that state. Then head up to the top floor to see Murakami. An awesome artist that has been highly influenced by popular culture in Japan such as Anime, Manga as well as traditional artists. If you are into Anime, contemporary art or Asian culture, this exhibition is for you!

Free Audiobooks for summer

Image via Wikipedia

Many of you may be planning a vacation, or maybe staying around town for vacation. One thing I love during vacations or long drives is audiobooks. It's nice to listen to podcasts, but sometimes a nice audiobook for a longer period is better. Although you can buy many audiobooks on Amazon and Audible.com, there are a lot of FREE audiobooks at LibriVox. Also great for you students who have to read some books over the summer! Have a look, and have a listen. It is opensource, so that means if you really like a book, you could create an audiobook from it as well (as long as it is public domain). Yes that is the catch. Only public Domain books, but there are quite a lot of classics amoungst them. Enjoy!

Ask Frasco Likes Grow Flash Games

I'm sitting here after dinner and @askfrasco is setting next to me on the couch. I asked her if she played flash games online. "Not really" she said. So I told her about one fun game, Grow. Have a look for yourself. Once you play it 2 or 3 times you will get it, and then you can spend hours on the different games. Enjoy free flash games!