Laser Magic

I love a good magic trick, I may have told you before. This is one that I actually saw quite a while back but came across again yesterday. Using laser light, magician Jason Latimer doesn't fail to truly astonish. I hope you like it.

Oktapodi

This short animation caused me to literally LOL. Great comic timing, gorgeous artwork, it has it all. This is Oktapodi by Asmin Varol.

Oktapodi from Asım Varol on Vimeo.

Stefano Barone

Regular readers of e-clecticism might remember that I posted about Erik Mongrain a while ago. On a similar note (Do you see what I did there?) I'd like to introduce you to Stefano Barone. Using an effect called delay and some subtle use of a gadget known as an eBow Stefano produces two beautiful original compositions. If you like his style you might be interested in his CD called Particolare#Uno.

MJ RIP

I wasn't going to blog about Michael Jackson. The news coverage has been overwhelming and will probably continue to be so for the next few days. I changed my mind however as it dawned on me that everybody is focusing on the negative aspects of his life. I am still in two minds as to whether there was really any truth in the accusations that were made against him or whether he was just a misguided and naive guy. Either way, there was no denying his talent and impact on music. For this I'd like to celebrate him from a time before things started to go wrong.

Doctors United

Image via Wikipedia

This could be just a rumour but I'm really hoping it is true. It has been reported that for this year's Children In Need television appeal the makers of Doctor Who are to create a pretty momentous fifteen minute episode that will feature all eleven Doctors. It will include the first appearance by brand new Doctor, Matt Smith, according to the Daily Mirror.

Apparently, the first three Doctors, played by deceased actors William Hartnell, Patrick Troughton and Jon Pertwee, will appear thanks to the use of footage from the BBC's archives.

It sounds to me like fifteen minutes is not going to be nearly long enough. Children In Need will be on our screens in November. Thanks to lom for reminding me.

Taking Woodstock

This looks like it will appeal to me. A new Ang Lee film coming out later this year called Taking Woodstock. The film, based upon the book of the same name, follows the true life story of Elliot Tiber (played by Demetri Martin), whose parents owned a small motel in Upstate New York and, at the time, held the only music festival permit in the entire town of Bethel, New York. Tiber offered both the motel and the permit to the organisers of the Woodstock Festival. The rest as they say...

Enjoy the trailer.

Baby Breakdancer

As recently seen on Random Good Stuff, the break dancing baby advert for Evian mineral water.

Lost In Translation

You may well be familiar with a rather useful website called Babelfish. Hosted by Yahoo! it uses technology created by Systran to instantly translate your text or website from one language to another for free. Unsurprisingly the service has limitations. It won't handle slang too well and sometimes it will fail on the context of a word. However this can make for some funny translations.

If you're bored you can have some fun by translating some text into a different language, then translating the result into yet another language and so on. Finally take the last result and translate it back into English and see how much your text has changed. I'll show you what I mean. Below is the first verse from Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen.

Is this the real life?
Is this just fantasy?
Caught in a landslide, no escape from reality.
Open your eyes, look up to the skies and see.
I'm just a poor boy, I need no sympathy.
Because I'm easy come, easy go, a little high,little low.
Anyway the wind blows, doesn't really matter to me.
To me.

Now, using Babelfish, I translate it to French, then to German, then to Italian, then to Portugese and finally back to English. Would you recognise the song from...

Come does the beginning from this real one makes the life? It is only of luxury? Intercepted in a Zerbröckeln, it has certain escape of the truth. If you are on the awares, she watches ignition with skies and you who she sees. I' M. - of the right a deficient boy, I do not have the necessity of the mercy. Of I' the m comes. simple, simply the takeoff, small low. To all the impacts of the event of the wind, doesn' T-material really with me. With me.

The Lost In Translation website automates the whole process for you. It might make a good pub quiz round.

Zemanta

Image by chucks via Flickr

Keen eyed readers may have noticed a slight addition to my more recent posts in the shape of a reblog button. This is one of the features I am utilising since since signing up with Zemanta. Any user-created text (a blog post, article or web page) is directly “read” by Zemanta, which recognizes all contextual content. Zemanta then combs the web for the most relevant images, smart links, keywords and text, instantly serving these results to the user to enrich and inform their content. What’s more, Zemanta can be deployed on all major content publishing platforms and web browsers through a simple plug-in.

As an example, the image you see on the right (which shows how Zemanta seamlessly works with Blogger) was automatically suggested to me because I had typed the word Zemanta. The various links you see in this post were also automatically suggested beacause of the words I had typed.

If you use Blogger, Wordpress, Typepad, Livejournal, Myspace, Gmail, Yahoo!Mail or many other platforms, you might like to give Zemanta a try.

Bending Light

I came across a rather nice photo set on Flickr today. Bending Light by Reciprocity contains some very beautiful photographs that utilise refraction. As he explains...

Refraction patterns made by light passing through various glass and transparent objects. Analogue images captured directly on to 35mm film. This is 'lensless' photography - the object itself becomes the lens.

He has other sets that are also well worth visiting. A list of them can be found here.

Abseil Total

I am very pleased to announce that the sponsorship target I had of £100 for the abseil I am taking part in has been well and truly smashed. I have therefore increased it to £500. Well there is no harm in aiming high in my opinion.

A massive thank you to all of you that have sponsored me so far. Please continue to spread the word.

$2 Deluxe Hugs

I'm not exactly sure whether the guy giving free hugs is part of the prank or not but it still made me smile. Make sure you stay for the last line as that's a classic.

Free Hugs Prank: $2 Deluxe Hugs

Children Today Abseil

Image by Andrew Mawby via Flickr

I may well regret this but I have signed up to abseil down the 161ft clock tower at Abberley Hall (right) in Worcestershire. I am trying to raise money for the Children Today charitable trust. I have set my self a sponsorship target of £100 but hopefully I can achieve that and much more. I have never abseiled before and so I'm a little nervous but I hope to have photographs posted here once I have done it.

If you'd like to sponsor me (even the smallest amounts are appreciated) you can visit my sponsorship page here or use the widget that I have added to the sidebar of this blog. The event takes place on the 12th July so please help spread the word by passing on the details via your own blogs, social networking sites or just plain old email.

Thanks everyone.

Beatles Rock Band

You may have heard that The Beatles Rock Band game is about to be released for the XBox 360, Playstation 3 and Wii. It's not my type of game so I won't be buying it but I just wanted to share the opening sequence with you as I think it's a perfect little synopsis of the band's history. Enjoy!

Sliding House

If I ever won a considerable amount of money, I think that one of my priorities would be the obligatory dream house. I'm not sure whether or not I'd go for an existing build or a bespoke to design. I would imagine that would be one the wonderful decisions I'd be forced to make. I'd certainly be prepared to put up with that.

The house in the following video has to be a contender though. A very unusual concept that not only has a very practical aspect, but is also totally cool.


Wallpaper* 'Sliding House' - The funniest videos clips are here

Photosynth

Here is another video from the fantastic series of TED talks. This time it is in two parts. Firstly a bit about the background engine called Seadragon and then Photosynth itself. As the TED site explains.

Blaise Aguera y Arcas leads a dazzling demo of Photosynth, software that could transform the way we look at digital images. Using still photos culled from the Web, Photosynth builds breathtaking dreamscapes and lets us navigate them.

You can try read more about Photosynth and try it for yourself here.

KevF

For this post I'd like to share with you the work of a friend of mine and fellow amateur photographer and Land Rover fan, Kevin Fountain. Kev's pictures really appeal to me as although I think they are very good, they give me the impression that I could achieve similar results with a little practise. Of course it might help if I lived in Singapore as well. :-)

You can see more at both Kev's portfolio on ephotozine and at his own site, Lazy Laning Daze.


Lonesome Loungers


A Mother's Love


Esplanade Bridge At Night

Supermen

Yet another nod to René (I hope he doesn't want paying) is the following video. Taken from a film called Seven Sunny Days, it features breathtaking footage of some guys flying like Superman of cliffs using wingsuits. I have tagged this post with STUPIDITY but it is not meant disrespectfully, I just figured you have to be slightly mad to do this. Enjoy!

wingsuit base jumping from Ali on Vimeo.

Middleman

With more thanks to René, here is a very funny set of photographs that can be found on Flickr called Middleman. The series depicts the adventures of the photographer's middle finger. Flickr user bayat has a great sense of humour in depicting his middle finger in various situations including the a drawn on face. Some examples include...Relaxing...


Sunbathing...


Exploring the Arctic...


Or just being a nerd...


You can find the complete set here.

Eastnor 2009

Despite abysmal weather I had a great time yesterday visiting the Land Rover World show at Eastnor Castle in Herefordshire. I have not been too active in the Land Rover scene for some time now, due to personal reasons, and so it was really good to catch up with some old friends. A big thank you to fellow members of the Discovery Owners Club who, as always, made me feel very welcome.

Eastnor has a very special place in my heart and I had reservations about actually attending. This time last year my life was very different. But thanks to my wife and some truly good friends, it turned out to be a good day and I'm really glad I made the effort.

Long Exposure

I am currently playing around with long exposure photography. This is where the camera's shutter is left open for a much longer period than normal thus capturing an image over time rather than in a fraction of a second. This gives a rather pleasing effect on moving objects, such as water or traffic, caught within the frame.

An obvious consequence of this is that more light is allowed in causing over exposure, therefore a decreased aperture and using low light conditions are common ways to counter act the effect. I am still experimenting but hope to have some examples to show in my gallery soon. In the meantime, here are some examples that I really like. Please click on the images to see Flickr streams of the respective photographer's work.

Immersive Viewing

How is this for a computer monitor? The NEC CRV43 is due to be released this July. Featuring a 43" curved screen offering a maximum resolution of 2880x900 pixels, it will cost you a staggering US$7,999. It comes with built in connections for USB 2.0, DVI-D and HDMI 1.3.

World Builder

The following video is rather nice. An award winning short created by filmmaker Bruce Branit. World Builder was shot in a single day followed by about 2 years of post production. Branit is the owner of Branit VFX based in Kansas City.

A man builds a world using holographic tools for the woman he loves.

World Builder from Bruce Branit on Vimeo.

Search This Blog

One of the elements I miss after getting a new colour scheme designed for e-clecticism was the ability to search this blog. Luckily Google have now released a very handy little search widget that uses AJAX Search APIs to not only search the contents of these pages, but anything that I have linked to as well. You will find the widget in the sidebar.