Posts tagged ‘Video’

April 3, 2011

Dark Side of the Rainbow

dark side of the rainbow

Dark Side of the Rainbow‘ refers to the pairing of the 1973 Pink Floyd music album ‘The Dark Side of the Moon’ with the visual portion of the 1939 film ‘The Wizard of Oz.’ This produces moments where the film and the album appear to correspond with each other.

Band members and others involved in the making of the album state that any relationship between the two works of art is merely a coincidence.

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April 3, 2011

Meddle

meddle

Meddle is the sixth studio album by English progressive rock group Pink Floyd, released in 1971. The album was recorded at a series of locations around London, including Abbey Road Studios.

With no material to work with and no clear idea of the album’s direction, the band devised a series of novel experiments which eventually inspired the album’s signature track, ‘Echoes.’ Although many of the group’s later albums would be unified by a central theme with lyrics written mainly by Roger Waters, Meddle was a group effort with lyrical contributions from each member.

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April 3, 2011

Curveball

curveball

12-6

The curveball is a type of pitch in baseball thrown with a characteristic grip and hand movement that imparts forward spin to the ball causing it to dive in a downward path as it approaches the plate. Its close relatives are the slider and the slurve. A curve ball that a pitcher fails to put enough spin on will not break much and is colloquially called a ‘hanging curve.’

Baseball lore has it that the curveball was invented in the early 1870s by Fred Goldsmith or Candy Cummings. In the early years of the sport, use of the curveball was thought to be dishonest and was outlawed, but officials could not do much to stop pitchers from using it.

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April 3, 2011

The Devil and Daniel Johnston

the devil and daniel johnston

The Devil and Daniel Johnston is a 2006 documentary film about the noted American eccentric artist Daniel Johnston. It chronicles Johnston’s life from childhood up to the present, with an emphasis on his mental illness, and how it manifested itself in demonic self-obsession. The film was directed by Jeff Feuerzeig and produced by Henry S. Rosenthal.

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April 3, 2011

Green Wall of China

green wall

The Green Wall of China is a series of human-planted forest strips in the People’s Republic of China, designed to hold back the expansion of the Gobi Desert.

The project was begun in 1978, and is planned to be completed around 2074, at which point it is planned to be 2,800 miles (4,500 km) long. 1,390 square miles of Chinese grassland are overtaken every year by the Gobi Desert.

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April 3, 2011

Flying Fox

flying fox

Bats of the genus Pteropus are the largest bats in the world. On average, P. vampyrus is the largest species, with a wingspan of up to 6 feet (1.83 meters). They are commonly known Flying Foxes. They live in the tropics and subtropics of Asia, Australia, Indonesia, islands off East Africa, and a number of remote oceanic islands in both the Indian and Pacific Oceans.

Characteristically, all species of flying foxes only feed on nectar, blossom, pollen, and fruit, which explains their limited tropical distribution. They do not possess echolocation, a feature which helps the other sub-order of bats, the Microbats, locate and catch prey such as insects in mid-air. Instead, smell and eyesight are very well-developed in flying foxes.

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April 2, 2011

Google Driverless Car

self driving car

The Google Driverless Car project is currently being led by engineer Sebastian Thrun, director of the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory and co-inventor of Google Street View, whose team at Stanford created the robotic vehicle Stanley which won the 2005 DARPA Grand Challenge (the second driverless car competition by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) and its $2 million prize from the United States Department of Defense.

The system combines information gathered for Google Street View with  input from video cameras inside the car, a LIDAR sensor on top of the vehicle, radar sensors on the front of the vehicle, and a position sensor attached to one of the rear wheels that helps locate the car’s position on the map.

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April 2, 2011

DFA Records

dfa

james murphy

DFA Records is an independent record label and production team, launched in September 2001 by Mo’ Wax co-founder Tim Goldsworthy, musician James Murphy, and manager Jonathan Galkin. The label has an exclusive distribution deal with major record label EMI.

James Murphy and Tim Goldsworthy met while working in New York on the David Holmes album ‘Let’s Get Killed.’ DFA Records began on a series of 12″ single vinyl releases starting with The Rapture’s ‘House of Jealous Lovers’ and The Juan Maclean’s ‘By The Time I Get To Venus.’ Notable releases include James Murphy’s band LCD Soundsystem Black Dice, Shit Robot, Delia Gonzalez & Gavin Russom, J.O.Y., Pixeltan, Black Leotard Front, and Hot Chip.

April 2, 2011

IWBTG

iwbtg

I Wanna Be The Guy: The Movie: The Game (IWBTG) is a 2D platform indie freeware video game. First released in October 2007 by Kayin (Michael O’Reilly).

It is best known for its unusually difficult platforming elements, unorthodox level design and utilizing sound effects, characters and music from many other games.

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April 1, 2011

Single-Lens Translucent

sony slt

A Single-Lens Translucent (SLT) camera is similar to a Digital Single-Lens Relex (DSLR) but uses a beam splitter instead of a solid mirror. Unlike DSLRs SLT cameras do not have an optical viewfinder, instead they rely on an electronic viewfinder, using the image collected by the sensor. A DSLR mirror allows the user to directly view the image that is passing through the lens; in a SLT the mirror is only used for focusing.

A semi-translucent mirror allows the majority of the light to pass through to the sensor while reflecting a portion of the light onto a phase-detection autofocus sensor in the top of the camera, allowing the camera to take photos without any mirror movement (and associated vibrations), as well as full time auto focus. Since the autofocus array is constantly receiving light, SLT cameras are able to use phase-detection autofocus during video recording, while DSLR’s and other interchangeable lens cameras have to use slower contrast detect autofocus for video and live view.

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March 31, 2011

Das Racist

das racist

Das Racist is a rap group based in Brooklyn, composed of Heems (Himanshu Suri) and Kool A.D. (Victor Vazquez) joined by hype man Dap (Ashok Kondabolu) for live performances and in music videos. Known for their use of humor, obscure references, and unconventional style, Das Racist has been both dismissed as joke rap and hailed as an urgent new voice in rap. The name derives from a segment on sketch comedy program, ‘Wonder Showzen.’

March 31, 2011

Joe Wong

joe wong

Joe Wong is a Chinese American comedian. He grew up in Jilin Province, China, and came to study chemistry at Rice University in Texas in 1994. He moved to Boston in 2001 and began to perform his comedy.