Christopher White

Word for word. NSFW language. Unless you live this. [Via Brad...

Mon, 30 Jan 2012 17:57:03 -0700

Word for word.

NSFW language. Unless you live this.

[Via Brad Chmielewski & half of Twitter.]

"Let’s pause for a moment to give a quick background on what we’re talking about here. In computer..."

Mon, 30 Jan 2012 12:33:55 -0700

“

Let’s pause for a moment to give a quick background on what we’re talking about here. In computer graphics, rendering is the process of turning what is essentially data in a graphics package into images. Typically, these images are frames used for creating portions of film. Rendering is an intensive process, and can take anywhere from a few hours to days per frame to complete a single image depending on the complexity of the scene. This is generally done on massive farms of CPU cores, through which distribution of the processing allows for a speedier result.

Most large studios operate their own render farms, which require vast amounts of capital for upkeep and operation costs. Expensive hardware purchases aside, render farm costs are high because of the monumental electricity use, as well as the costs in keeping the farm cooled. The paradox of the render farm is that the smaller studios that need the power and speed of a render farm to compete at the level of large studios typically cannot afford the equipment and upkeep costs required to deliver those kind of results.

”

- Pixar and RenderMan: Changing the distributed rendering game « Icrontic

It’s great to see Bobby Miller writing about 3D again, he’s one of the finest gentleman you’ll ever meet and he knows way too much about GPUs.

The only thing more awesome than the 3D in Paul Clements’s...

Thu, 26 Jan 2012 11:34:00 -0700

The only thing more awesome than the 3D in Paul Clements’s headphones video is the breakdown:

Staggering. I don’t want to even think about setting up those rigs, particles, dynamics and deformers, nevertheless animating them.

Workspace | Trent Walton

Sat, 10 Dec 2011 09:20:05 -0700

Workspace | Trent Walton:

When was the last time you put this much work into a blog post? It’s incredible that he creates a whole new design for each post.

Scroll through the previous posts.

(via Penny Arcade - The Fire) In celebration of all the iOS...

Fri, 09 Dec 2011 13:29:05 -0700

(via Penny Arcade - The Fire)

In celebration of all the iOS game developers underpricing their apps and undervaluing everyone else’s for ‘holiday sales’ I pulled this gem out my Evernote archives.

Cheers.

Update: Fixed a double paste The bodies of most of the...

Fri, 09 Dec 2011 13:22:00 -0700

Update: Fixed a double paste

The bodies of most of the models H&M features on its website are computer-generated and “completely virtual,” the company has admitted. H&M designs a body that can better display clothes made for humans than humans can, then “dresses” it by drawing on its clothes, and digitally pastes on the heads of real women in post-production. (via H&M Puts Real Model Heads On Fake Bodies)

Besides being creepy, distasteful and a little disturbing that’s a lot of work.

(via Mark Christiansen)

"Tweetie was an amazing iPhone app. And part of what made it such a great Twitter app was the fact it..."

Fri, 09 Dec 2011 13:10:05 -0700

“Tweetie was an amazing iPhone app. And part of what made it such a great Twitter app was the fact it was designed by a Twitter user. However, as others have been saying, the new Twitter iPhone app seems to be a 1:1 extension of the Twitter business model. If Tweetie was designed by a user, the new Twitter app was designed by Twitter’s senior management.”

- A Few Thoughts on the New, New Twitter — Shawn Blanc

This direction has been clear for a while now, it shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone.

Their challenge is finding a way to monetize to survive. They must have huge operating costs and yes, people to pay but they have to do it without alienating existing users and to provide a good user experience. Have they done that? I don’t think so yet. But it’s easy to criticize the design while ignoring the realities, who’s proposing a better solution?

Maybe there isn’t a good solution and we as users have to compromise, leave or let Twitter eventually run itself out of business. Which is it? Does a sponsored link or two disrupt you more than frequent fail whales?

Thankfully, we still have options, there are dozens of fantastic Twitter clients for OS X & iOS, there’s even a couple decent clients on Windows. For as long as Twitter keeps their API open — not necessarily something we can count on — we can choose a best of both worlds experience. Twitter may not like it, but unlike the ethical problems of ad blocking it’s built on an ecosystem that they built and they still provide.

Handmade Portraits: The Sword Maker (by Etsy) Speaking of hand...

Fri, 09 Dec 2011 09:58:05 -0700

Handmade Portraits: The Sword Maker (by Etsy)

Speaking of hand crafted blades this video from Etsy of a Japanese sword maker is equally incredible.

Watch this.

Made by Hand

Fri, 09 Dec 2011 09:39:05 -0700

Made by Hand:

Great short documentary about the incredible craftsmanship of writer turned knife maker Joel Bukiewicz.

"My Kindle has always had annotation backups on, and it’s always on Wi-Fi. I checked with the..."

Fri, 09 Dec 2011 09:20:05 -0700

“

My Kindle has always had annotation backups on, and it’s always on Wi-Fi. I checked with the kindle.amazon.com Web site to make sure that my annotations were backed up and replied with “Yes”. Stupidly, I did not save a Web archive of the page first.

This morning, two days later, the book updated on my Kindle. I immediately saw that the reading location had reset to the beginning, and then I saw that all the highlights and notes were gone.

”

- Michael Tsai - Blog - Kindle Annotations Lost in Book Update

Hmm, seems like it’s time to look for 3rd party tools more ubiquitous without the chance of losing your info. About that…

"Whether you prefer the newest version, Final Cut Pro X, or the previous “classic” version the..."

Thu, 08 Dec 2011 09:24:06 -0700

“

Whether you prefer the newest version, Final Cut Pro X, or the previous “classic” version the predates Apple’s many changes to the product, Final Cut Pro has been a staple in video editing for years. (…)

Both products have more than enough power to get the job done, but the one you want will depend on what you’re editing video for. (…)

Premiere Pro is a favourite among people making original mashups and creations from a collection of other video, but the tool is just as effective when it comes to edit your own creations. (…)

Lightworks has professional-level tools and a steep learning curve, but if you’re looking for an affordable option to help you make professional films, Lightworks has a lot to offer. It doesn’t hurt that it’s a favourite for professional video editors in and out of Hollywood. It’s also worth mentioning the free Windows Live Movie Maker option Microsoft builds for Windows. It isn’t super-powerful, but amongst the free Windows contenders it remains the best option.

”

- Five Best Video Editors | Lifehacker Australia

There are some real gems in here.

(Via: Mike Jones)

Keloid Trailer - A Short Film by BLR (by BLR_VFX) Awesome...

Tue, 06 Dec 2011 13:45:05 -0700

Keloid Trailer - A Short Film by BLR (by BLR_VFX)

Awesome little sci-fi short by Big Lazy Robot with some impressive visual effects. I’d love to see a film based on it.

Also, check out the awesome Keloid site, I love the parallax scrolling.

"SugarDev.sugar The SugarDev.sugar adds CodeSense for Sugar XML elements and the JavaScript API..."

Tue, 06 Dec 2011 09:40:05 -0700

“

SugarDev.sugar

The SugarDev.sugar adds CodeSense for Sugar XML elements and the JavaScript API along with snippets for the base XML documents, making it easier to author Espresso Sugars.

”

- SugarDev.sugar | Espresso Wiki

Espresso now has sugar to help you make sugar, a bit obvious but handy.

Espresso is still my favorite text editor, especially with CSSEdit merged in. I adore it. Just wish I did more coding these days so I could use it.

“The Insanely Great History of Macintosh.” Look...

Tue, 29 Nov 2011 13:37:25 -0700

“The Insanely Great History of Macintosh.” Look closely, and you can actually see three distinct phases of Apple’s overall product strategy

An insanely great infographic.

This. Looks. Awesome. Gunpoint will initially be PC only (glad...

Tue, 29 Nov 2011 13:01:06 -0700

This. Looks. Awesome.

Gunpoint will initially be PC only (glad I maintain a gaming PC) but wouldn’t this be awesome on an iPad? Let me just answer that for you: Yes, it would.

(via CM Harrington)

Breevy

Tue, 29 Nov 2011 12:08:53 -0700

Breevy:

onethingwell:

Breevy is a text expander for Windows that helps you type faster and more accurately by allowing you to abbreviate long words and phrases.

It’s compatible with TextExpander for the Mac and iOS, including snippet synchronisation.

I adore Breevy. It’s great to have my snippets working on both platforms and makes transitioning back and forth much more seamless. The developer is super nice and working with him when I had a problem was some of the best support I’ve ever experienced.

Frankly, I really can’t say enough good things about it.

Android Dreams by Samuel Cockedey Gorgeous tribute to Blade...

Tue, 15 Nov 2011 09:39:05 -0700

Android Dreams by Samuel Cockedey

Gorgeous tribute to Blade Runner shot in Tokyo on a Canon 5D Mark II. More details on Vimeo.

[via: TThor 15]

"Fast forward to today. The Kindle fire reviews are pouring in and it looks like a great little..."

Tue, 15 Nov 2011 09:21:06 -0700

“Fast forward to today. The Kindle fire reviews are pouring in and it looks like a great little device. Amazon certainly has a clear answer to the iTunes Store/App Store. But in watching the videos its clear that it’s still Android underneath. Scrolling around in the browser looks more like a gesture than a one to one interaction. The user swipes, and a moment later the content moves. Just like those Windows 1 machines, you feel as though you’re interacting with the device, rather than interacting with the content on the screen. There’s no one to one, and no magic.”

- isaiah’s weblog: One to one.

Interesting observation on the Kindle Fire, I’m surprised Amazon didn’t work very hard to make sure there was no lag. Since the first Kindle users have hated the wait turning pages but they were limited by the E ink technology. Speeds have progressively increased as they improved hardware and you don’t hear many complaints about it now but I would still have expected Amazon to use the Kindle Fire hardware as the perfect opportunity to nail responsiveness and user experience.

No, you don’t get to blame it on Android. If it’s a problem with Android fix it on your own damn hardware or software instead of waiting on Google to catch up. It’s open source after all.

"Another iPhone Template? There are a lot of those templates out there, but for one reason or..."

Sat, 05 Nov 2011 10:56:00 -0600

“

Another iPhone Template?

There are a lot of those templates out there, but for one reason or another, I’ve been a little disappointed by all of them. Without naming names, they’re all decent-to-good, but I always feel like something’s a little off.

Some tend to be inconsistent with the rendering Apple uses in its own iPhone product images. With others, the proportions are off. Or the buttons are in the wrong positions. Or the image is rasterized and unscalable. Or it’s made of vectors but riddled with split pixels.

For a whole host of reasons, I haven’t been satisfied with the existing options. So I made my own with these goals in mind: [cont’d after the link…]

”

- Marshall Bock’s Blog: iPhone 4S Template

These look lovely.

via TThor - Issue 15 — which is, by the way, an essential subscription for anyone who cares about design.

"Worse, indiscriminate use of Due dates dilutes their value and undermines any task-planning..."

Wed, 19 Oct 2011 09:20:05 -0600

“

Worse, indiscriminate use of Due dates dilutes their value and undermines any task-planning system.

Need to pay a credit card bill today? It’s lost in the mess of other things that are artificially “due” today, and that red Due badge is no longer a respected indication that something needs to happen today.¹

But there’s a better way.² Just use Start Dates to plan what you think you should do, and reserve Due Dates for things that actually have to get done. (To keep this straight, I use a “Due” perspective to show what’s actually due, and a “Do” perspective to show what I’m planning to do.³)

The benefits of this approach are enormous. Things that actually need to happen don’t get lost in the shuffle, and (using time estimates) you can work with more realistic expectations of what can/should happen in a a day.

”

- All OmniFocus scripts updated for a “Start-based” workflow | bylr.net

Both insightful and brilliant. I’m definitely going to give this workflow a try, I might just get along better with OmniFocus too.