Links and write-ups about beautiful things from around the web!
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Real Time Object Recognition on a Mobile Device
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUUxGvDqok4
Real-Time Object Recognition on a Mobile Device. I’ve seen this done for product lookups like books and boxes of cereal at the store, but hadn’t considered the accessibility implications. Not a bad idea, assuming that it produces valid information most of the time. Also seems like it would be limited to objects of a specific scale?
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LEGO Spectacle Automaton
Enlightenment-style LEGO theater spectacle automaton. Watch the behind-the-scenes shots at the end – it’s fully driven by Mindstorm NXT!
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Make Some Noise
Dr. Bleep from Dr. Bleep on Vimeo.
Make some noise.
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Suzanne Ciani on 1980s Omni TV
(video no longer available)
A segment from the early 1980’s TV version of Omni magazine features electronic music pioneer Suzanne Ciani developing the chip-based vocalizer and music samples for the pinball table Xenon (her official site has much more about her work on Xenon’s sound if you’re interested). Found via the Make Blog (I think)
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Pre-NIN Trent Reznor and his Cleveland band The Exotic Birds
Pre-NIN Trent Reznor and his Cleveland band the Exotic Birds featured in a 1986 news clip about new-fangled electronic music sampling, along with a clip of Thomas Dolby justifying his use of the computer in music-making.
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High-Definition Etch-a-Sketch
A 52″, net-enabled Etch-A-Sketch replica fashioned out of a projection tv, tent poles, stepper motors, and a golf tee.
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Philosophy Takes It Upon Itself to Throw off the
Philosophy takes it upon itself to throw off the fear of things earthly, to rob death of its poisonous sting. Franz Rosenzweig, The Star of Redemption, quoted in Simon Critchley’s The Book of Dead Philosophers, p. 201.
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William Hogarth‘s Final Engraving: The Bathos
William Hogarth’s final engraving, a self-satirical illustration of the end of time, parodizing the bathetic imagery in his contemporaries’ works. I admire a guy who can go out on a bit of pessimist humor. (see also this explication of the print)
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Krazy Kat Cartoon with Restored Soundtrack
For possibly the first time in 80 years this Krazy Kat cartoon, Ratskin, has been reunited with its original soundtrack recording, discovered on a rare Vitaphone disc in Australia. Found via Cartoon Brew, who has a good writeup of the discovery.
(note for George Herriman fans: the animated escapades of Krazy generally have little to do with the comic strip, more closely resembling Oswald the Lucky Rabbit or Felix the Cat’s hijinx)
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A Brief Explanation of a Three Rotor Enigma Machine
A brief explanation of a three-rotor Enigma machine, the cryptographic device used by Nazi Germany during WWII to encode their communications. While the encryption technology had some flaws, it was largely broken by the Allies due to human mistakes made by the operators (not disposing of their key tables, writing down portions of the codes, captured hardware, etc).