Sherlock Mini-Episode

Are you ready for season 3 of Sherlock?!


P.S.: Don't forget Doctor Who Christmas Special on Christmas Day! I'll be watching it via live-stream at 11:30am PST (hopefully!) BBCA's schedule says 6pm EST (shrug)

Link/Video-splosion!

Doctor Who - Tim Burton style

Doctor Who - Owl style

Crazy transformation of a hotel in Munich... - http://gizmodo.com/whoa-watch-this-hotel-in-munich-get-transformed-in-88-1481083706

Another step down the crazy ladder... - http://io9.com/we-who-spoke-lolcat-now-speak-doge-1481243678

Finals week... true description - http://cheezburger.com/136965

Vampiric Tesla? - http://jalopnik.com/the-tesla-model-s-might-have-a-vampire-problem-1472168440

Have a Snape-y Christmas! - http://www.themarysue.com/snape-christmas-tree/

Crash course in sequencing genomes - http://gizmodo.com/a-crash-course-in-how-genomes-are-sequenced-1480201633

Physics paper on Doctor Who's mode of space-time travel - http://io9.com/doctor-whos-mode-of-spacetime-travel-described-in-new-1456721896

Let your evil side out! - http://lifehacker.com/top-10-ways-to-unleash-your-inner-evil-1455221758

Deadly linux commands - http://www.howtogeek.com/125157/8-deadly-commands-you-should-never-run-on-linux/

High-resolution Mandelbrot in Obfuscated Python - http://preshing.com/20110926/high-resolution-mandelbrot-in-obfuscated-python/

Star Wars Infographic - http://www.murera.com/starwars/

8 Great philosophical questions - http://io9.com/5945801/8-philosophical-questions-that-well-never-solve



850 meters (HD English version) from THURISTAR on Vimeo.


2013 movie trailers mashup:



Amazing feats:



Sherlock Trailer!!! - Can't wait for January to be here....



A look into the future....



Godzilla returns in May 2014:



Yet another epidemic outbreak from freaky experiments:

Ad Finem

After 9 semesters / 4.5 years of arduous struggle, I have reached yet another milestone in life. As of this Wednesday (18/12/2013), I have completed my degree in Physics and Computer Science officially. I did walk on Tuesday, however they (UNLV.... sigh) managed to butcher my name awesomely~ Now wait for 10 weeks for UNLV to process and send me my diplomas....

Meanwhile, I got break for a month before jumping back in again for Masters in Computer Science, so time to catch up on shows! Also start and pick up some projects....

All in all, I am at the end the path I took 4.5 years ago and now must walk down another path for next 1.5-2 years and see where that takes me.

Bachelor of Science in Physics DONE!

So after 9 arduous semesters, I have finally finished my Bachelor of Science degree in Physics, concentration in Computational Physics! Thats two down (other being the Math minor)! Now only the Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science remains! 2 more exams and I am done with that as well!

Be prepared for upcoming storm of posts after next Wednesday! :D

Doctor Who: Day of the Doctor

So today aired the 50th anniversary special of Doctor Who! Woohoo! The Day of the Doctor - Amazing story! Amazing graphics! Amazing actors and actresses (sigh... even Rose too...)! Don't forget local theaters will be showing this special on their big screens on Monday! It is a one day event - I highly recommend if possible to go attend it! :D

Ciao! Back to report writing.... Grrrr.... 3 weeks remains!

No-shave November!

So, apparently November is no-shave November... http://www.no-shavenovember.com/ and I'm partially doing it.

Also since it has been a month roughly since my last post, quick recap:
- Went go karting for the first time with co-workers, and earned a reputation at the office... I am to be feared and to be stayed cleared off... Mwahahahahahahaha!
- IEEE Xtreme 7.0 occurred on October 25-26, 24hr worldwide programming competition... my team was 453rd out of 2500 teams!
- ACM ICPC occurred on November 9th... that was a horrible mess (sigh)... Their (ACM's) new program for code submission, scoreboard, etc, was hogging up the memory on our machine... We had 1GB RAM... and it was eating up 1GB! leaving a measly 10MB for rest of the processes like writing codes... compiling them... testing them... :\ we ended up being 42nd out of 90 teams :\
- Its is a BF/Thanksgiving nightmare at SD, optimizing codes, posting deals, etc....
- Got ticket to watch Doctor Who in theater! Watched Ender's Game and Thor II in theater - great movies, good graphics, and fun stories :)

Trailer for upcoming Day of the Doctor special - Doctor Who's 50th anniversary episode:


Be back once December rolls in...

Game of Thrones - Bad Lip Reading

Courtesy: io9

Link/Video-splosion!!!

Newton's 3rd law has been pwned? Apparently by using photons (wavy massless particles) to create an effective mass along with an object of negative mass, German scientists cheated Newton's 3rd law which states - For Every Action There Is An Equal And Opposite Reaction. With this technique there is no opposite reaction... for more head over to Gizmodo!

World's first programmer - Ada Lovelace - the Victorian mother-of-three, born 1815. Gizmodo.

WolframAlpha - the all knowing, ever growing math, science, and facts gallery now has Pokémon information - yes it is now a Pokédex as well! Io9 has some examples... oh yeah, FYI, WolframAlpha also has the curves for drawing the Pokémon out as well!

Over 500 free programming books, covering over 80 programming languages thanks to Victor Felder. Lifehacker.

Halloween is here, but whether it is here or not, one should always be weird, and to help so, here are some weird wallpaper for your machines from Lifehacker!

Christopher Eccleston regenerates as Malekith in Thor: The Dark World... The Mary Sue.

Geography - Africa's true size will blow you away! - io9

A new secret hybrid technology may have been developed by Red Bull. Wait. Say what?! - Jalopnik

World's first net positive nuclear fusion! - io9

Data storage disc that will last a (freakin) billion years and can be used as a cooking utensil... say what?

Een mega- tot gigajaar opslagmedium from University of Twente on Vimeo.
Courtesy: Gizmodo

SQL Injections - Who? What? Where? When? How?

Courtesy: Gizmodo

Soo... Google and NASA joined forces to build and mess with Quantum D-Wave computers, which currently crunches at 512-qubits.

Courtesy: io9

Though after watching the quantum computer video... this following video came to mind...

The similarity is coincidence??? Also 42 in Japanese is pronounced "shini" and means "death", so in a way the intelligence answered the question (what is the meaning of life?) correctly aside from the fact that it took really long time to do so...

Bravest Warriors... sounded interesting...

Courtesy: io9

White lion cub roars!!! Much better than the Katty Perry roar...

Courtesy: io9

Robot uprising!!!

Keloid from BLR_VFX on Vimeo.
Courtesy: io9

The Central Limit Theorem explained with bunnies and dragons

CreatureCast - Central Limit Theorem from Casey Dunn on Vimeo.
Courtesy: io9

Telekinetic Coffee Shop Surprise... people really creep out hard when near a telekinetic person...

Courtesy: Gizmodo

How Virtual Machine Run the Cloud
Courtesy: Gizmodo

War, fate, and a broken walkman transcend space and time in this sci-fi love story!

RECORD/PLAY from jesse atlas on Vimeo.
Courtesy: Gizmodo

Doctor Who - 50th Anniversary Trailer!

Enough said, watch the trailer:

Courtesy: Blogtor Who

Aki Matsuri

Gather around kids! Today (which means whenever you are reading this post) I will tell you the story of the 4th annual Aki Matsuri, the Japanese autumn festival, in Las Vegas. To begin off the epic story, let me start with THE MOST crucial part, RAMEN!!!

Once the team - An, G and his sister, and I got together on UNLV campus, headed off to Aki Matsuri around 12:15pm and were stamped for processing upon arriving there, D from SD arrived later on, also met couple of friends from university there as well. Anyways, since we all had skipped from eating anything substantial or nothing for breakfast, when the clock struck 12:30pm, we were about go into Hunger Cannibal Games mode - to each their own! But we strapped in our wild counterparts and headed over to the line outside Monta for RAMEN , but when we reached the front, they apparently needed tickets for purchase. So we headed over to the ticket line... and saw they only took cash, then we headed went to the ATM to get cash, then went back to the ticket booth to get food and drinks tickets and got RAMEN from Sora (sounded tasty from their description on the paper). 

Turns out, it was indeed good! Well I was too hungry to take a picture... so here is a picture taken by G instead. After having eaten, we were ready to roam around as civilized beings... more or less :P . Here are some pictures of the festival - yes it was held outside, in the rear parking lot of Rio casino.

There were bands singing when we got there.

Somehow a Bob Marley stall crept in there....

More pictures of the surrounding...

An decided to grab sweets!

He got Pocky!

And I decided to get shaved ice... Pineapple & Orange flavor... don't ask why!

And G decided to ruin my childhood by buying a Pikachu mask and wearing it... *Shake my head* Pikachu! THUNDERSHOCK G!!!

Overall it was a fun experience! Thanks and kudos to Steph for getting me and my friends the tickets!

It's Halloween Time!

Disney started off their Halloween celebration... with Mickey & ... (Ghoul) Goofy...


Also Slickdeals.net is having a pumpkin carving contest!

Courtesy: io9

Cats Stealing Dog Beds...

So my Saturday starts off with the following video...:

Cats Stealing Dog Beds

Which brings me back to this little video from one of the many amazing Tom & Jerry stories:

And this little gif:

So now the question is...: What is the hierarchy here between Dogs, Cats & Mouse? Is it:

Dog > Cat > Mouse

Cat > Dog & Mouse

Mouse & Dog > Cat

....

(shrug)

Courtesy: Collin (SD), EdisProduction, Youtube, and random cat & mouse gif on the Internet

The Fifth Estate

So last night I watched The Fifth Estate. The movie is about Julian Assange and how Wikileaks came to be. While my friends who accompanied me to watch it said it wasn't as good as The Social Network, I thought it was a good movie... I would give it 7 out of 10. Main actors that I recognized include Benedict Cumberbatch (Sherlock / Khan), Peter Capaldi (12th Doctor) and David Thewlis (Remus Lupin).
The movie comes out to theaters this Friday, so if you are stuck between choosing Gravity and The Fifth Estate, I recommend The Fifth Estate.

Erratic Hiatus!

Due to life and its infinite mysteries and cheekiness, I am unable to take time to post amazingly really random ramblings at a regular interval. Sorry! But I'll try to do at least one a week :) Meanwhile have a great October / Halloween / November / Thanksgiving / December!

Happy Birthday Cupcake!!! :P

 

Also I found you? Lindsey Stirling - Full Live Show Rockefeller Oslo Norway 27-06-2013

Hot Pot + Mucho Mango + Gravity

Fridays I work at SD (Slickdeals.net - for newcomers), and this Friday for entertainment, we (couple of SD-ers) decided to have hot pot for dinner and watch Gravity that just came out and apparently had high reviews.

Noodles Exchange is a Chinese restaurant located at Gold Coast Casino in Las Vegas, NV. Their main speciality or super popular dish is hot pot. As seen in the picture below, a pot of brew is placed in front of you along with raw ingredients that you drop in the pot while the brew is heated to boiling point. Once the ingredient is cooked to your liking, you take it out and dip in sauce (optional) before eating it. While we didn't get that much food shown in the picture, it was still plenty enough to fill me up. I got the beef platter (other choices was seafood and lamb). The beef platter came with beef (duh!), fish balls, taro, radish, daikon, lettuce, tomato, noodles, enoki mushrooms, and couple other veggies. The stew (I ordered spicy) came with tons of red chillies, and spices - garlic, cardamon, cloves, cinnamon sticks, etc.

 

After hot pot for dinner, we still had an hour and few minutes more to kill before the movie started, so we decided to hit Snowflakes Shavery for desserts. Snowflakes Shavery serves shaved ice of various flavors some includes green tea, strawberry, sesame seed, mango, mochi,  chocolate, etc, along with condensed milk and chunks of fruit if you ordered a fruit flavored one. I got the Mucho Mango which looked like this:

After that, we had like 20mins before the movie started, so we all rushed back to Brendan theaters which is right across Gold Coast to watch the movie Gravity staring Sandra Bullock. We watched the IMAX 3D version, and my opinion is that movie is only worth the time if you decide to watch it in IMAX 3D, anything else it is not worth the trouble. Especially since the plot was more or less obvious and predictable with each development in the story. There couple of flaws, but that aside, watching the Sun, Earth, occasionally the Moon and the billions of stars in space was really fun :D. Honestly, watch The Heat if you like Sandra Bullock, this one is just... meh.

Thanks again for inviting me along SD-ers!

Hofbräuhaus

So this Wednesday was the birthday of my friend An, and a couple of friends decided to hit up Hofbräuhaus which is right next to campus to celebrate it! First and foremost, that place is LOUD!!! You have to scream on top of your lungs to speak across the table! Also Hofbräuhaus imports their beers from Munich, occasionally people get on top of the table or the floor to dance, sing, and make ruckus! Sadly no bar fights erupted while we were there...

We were attended by a german-maid dressed server who took our orders for beers, couple of pretzels and cold meat platters. While waiting for the food, friend E bought friend An a fireball shot and spanking from another waitress.... Yes, spanking is given out at this establishment, waitress walk around with paddles.... After most of the food and 2 litres of german beer, and another round of free spanking for the birthday boy from our maid, we headed out and split into two groups, while I went home, An and rest of the group headed off the strip to walk around and tour other drinking establishments.

Elemental Iceland!

Iceland! A mysterious, wonderful island located off the shore of Greenland (which mostly appears white on the map from all the ice)! Iceland on the other hand... is not filled with ice! Check out the amazing video!!!


Elemental Iceland from Stian Rekdal on Vimeo.
BEST VIEWED IN FULLSCREEN HD - SCALING OFF

This is some of the timelapses I shot in Iceland in september of 2013.
Over three weeks we drove nearly 5500km taking more than 40000 photos on the way.
Shot with Nikon cameras and lenses. Post-processed with LRTimelapse, Adobe Lightroom and Adobe After Effects. Motion control sequences done with a Stage One dolly from Dynamic Perception and a Celestron Skywatcher pan/tilt head.
Thanks to Micheal Levy for his excellent photographer's map of Iceland - http://international-photographer.com/maps/iceland/

Music:
'Chasing Time' by Dexter Britain
Licenced from TheMusicBed.com
Individual scenes available for licensing in up to 4k / UHD resolution
If you would like to see more of my work, check out these links:
Facebook - facebook.com/stianrekdal
500px - 500px.com/plan9
Flickr - flickr.com/photos/stianrekdal/

Courtesy: Gizmodo

Tap Dance - Moses

What not to love about a ghost girl tap dancing with a pair of enchanted shoe??? Aside from the girl being a ghost... and a pair of enchanted shoes tapping their way around singing... "Moses Supposes"....


義足のMoses from ががめ on Vimeo.
FRENZ2013に参加させていただきました！
ちょっと画質劣化してコマが飛んじゃってますが･･･。
『雨に唄えば』に衝撃を受けて、2年半くらい温めてたアイディア、
形にすることができて良かったです。
素敵な映画なので観たことない人は是非！
She likes movie show !

Courtesy: Gizmodo

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (2013) Trailer!

Roughly 2 months till this movie comes out on December 13, 2013 - a Friday... Another Friday that is 13th... Well good news is that week would the final exams week at UNLV!!! Which means, this would be something to add to the list of things to wait for... somewhat patiently to do after the stress of exams!



Courtesy: The Mary Sue

Links-plosion!

The Giver was one the few (like 2) books I read on my Kindle before coming to the conclusion I cannot read books anymore... and I declare that to be a medical condition! Another reason why I switched over to audiobooks. I have been an avid audiobook listener for over 2 years now, and I absolutely love it - no better way to multi-task when doing menial tasks such as robotic acts like driving, moving stuff, etc.. And now back to the point, there is a movie in making for the book - as per The Mary Sue!!!

Lightning storm rains upon the Grand Canyon - zap!

Moore's Law still on track... Carbon Nanotube Computer is a go with 178 transistors - an important proof-of-concept.

Most unisex names in U.S. history - a visualization of the list.

Meanwhile iPhone 5C and iPhone 5S came out, Google turned 15, and I'm sleepy. Nightio!

Video-plosion!

Soo many interesting videos this week... and after parsing through them, I bring to you the best and interesting ones:

Few reasons why I'm posting this video:
 - Starts off with Tennant (10th Doctor in Doctor Who - honestly if you are following this blog watch Doctor Who!!!!) fixing the TARDIS
 - Has couple(lots) of Doctor Who scenes
 - And we all do this at some point in time and get things working

Percussive Maintenance from Duncan Robson on Vimeo.
Music by Joel Robson. http://joelrobson.bandcamp.com
Thanks to tvtropes and everyone else who helped me to collect these. If there's a good clip I missed, let me know in the comments.
http://dunk3d.tumblr.com
@dunkr
Courtesy : The Mary Sue


This video blew me away! Amazing performance!

Box from Bot & Dolly on Vimeo.
Box explores the synthesis of real and digital space through projection-mapping onto moving surfaces. The short film documents a live performance, captured entirely in camera. http://www.botndolly.com/box
CREDITS
Production Company: BOT & DOLLY
Executive Producers: Bill Galusha, Nick Read
Creative & Technical Director: Tarik Abdel-Gawad
Design Director: Bradley G Munkowitz
Lead Graphic Designers: Bradley G Munkowitz, Jason English Kerr
3D Artists: Scott Pagano, Bradley G Munkowitz, Jason English Kerr, Conor Grebel
2D Animators: Conor Grebel, Ben Hawkins, Pedro Figueira
Director of Photography: Joe Picard
Lighting Designers: Joe Picard, Phil Reyneri
Projection / TouchDesigner: Phil Reyneri
Robotics Animation: Tarik Abdel-Gawad, Brandon Kruysman, George Banks, Michael Beardsworth
Robotics Operator: Michael Beardsworth, Brandon Kruysman
Prop Fabrication: Matt Bitterman, Ethan Dale
Script Supervisor: Ian Colon
Sound Engineers: Joe Picard, Michael Beardsworth
PAs: Sean Servis, Dakota Smith, Nico Mizono, Eric Wendel, Patrick Walsh
Editors: Ashley Rodholm, Ian Colon
Music / Sound Design: Keith Ruggiero
Sound Mix: Joel Raabe
Performers: Tarik Abdel-Gawad, Iris, Scout
Courtesy: io9


What if all the people in Paris just disappeared...

hypocentre -short film- from Claire&Max on Vimeo.
Imagine an empty worrying Paris.
Imagine that human action is more harmful to our fragile planet.
First, "hypocentre" was a technical exercise for us. Then we decided to focus the film on the environmental side. It's new for us, more specialists in the travel video, to try to do a short film.
All the technical side of this film is explained on our website (with english translator) here: http://menilmonde.com/projet-hypocentre/
Feel free to join us on our dynamic facebook Fan Page https://www.facebook.com/pages/Menilmonde/143123885787492
and our twitter account : https://twitter.com/Menilmonde
Music: "Scathe" by Reid Willis, licensing through the Vimeo Music Store https://vimeo.com/musicstore/track/144244/scathe-by-reid-willis
And Reid Willis website : http://reidmwillis.wix.com/reid-willis-website#!home/mainPage
NASA last footage: Images courtesy of the Image Science & Analysis Laboratory, NASA Johnson Space Center, http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/hd/
Old footage form http://archive.org/
Sounds from http://www.freesound.org/ ans specially Felix Blume http://www.freesound.org/people/felix.blume/
Stephen Hawking's quote from the voice of Google translator
Thanks to Vanguard (http://vanguardworld.fr/) for their support.
Courtesy: io9


So first we(not me) had Teddy Ruxpin, a delightful animatronic pal for little kids. Then we(I was there) had Ted, the CGI-based, foul-mouthed, binge-drinking pal once those kids grew up. And now there's apparently a gun-toting, Sock Monkey-slaying, cyborg-bear vigilante roaming the streets. Stephen Colbert was right, these things are terrifying....

The Mega Plush from Matt Burniston on Vimeo.
Set in the shadows of a gritty underworld, a war is brewing. The Mega Plush, a group of four plush toy vigilantes, are struggling against the uprising of the SOC (Society of Chimps) army. Good vs evil. Bear vs sock monkey. The question is "who has the stuffing to survive?" Watch the first episode of this epic showdown and meet the crew at www.themegaplush.com
Facebook - facebook.com/TheMegaPlush
Website - www.themegaplush.com
Twitter - twitter.com/TheMegaPlush
YouTube - http://youtu.be/j9o1Ey4ZNT4
Music & SFX by www.cassinisound.com
Get a t-shirt - http://shop.heshereallweek.com
Courtesy: Gizmodo

And I've decided to another fun video, a music video, Radioactive by Imagine Dragons, one of my favorite song:


And finally the best for the last - Doctor Who Series 7 DVD Box Set Minisode "Rain Gods":

Courtesy: io9

First Month of 2013 Fall Semester

My last and final semester at UNLV as an undergraduate started off with dealing with humid climate in a desert! I am not kidding, for claiming to be a dry desert, Las Vegas has been cloudy and humid for roughly 3 weeks with occasional rain here and there! FYI the following paragraphs are being written as I recollect what has occurred they may or may not be in chronological order.

First week was filled with the hassle of finding where the classes are located, getting to know new professors, calculating how much effort to put into each class and organizing my time for each.
The prof for compilers was in Scotland attending a conference so we had a sub for the first week. Analysis of algorithms is being taught by a prof I know and he is REALLY good! Tennis is located at the end of the campus so walking there and back is not an option.... Logic Design lab started with safety lab.... Biometrics is a small class of 7 people - 4 graduate students and 3 undergrads. And my final physics class - the dreaded Physics Senior Project. And top this off, working at Slickdeals!!! Oh... also deal with ACM club... since being a Treasurer aka an officer means I need to be present at meetings and do stuff! And my brother didn't get to drive because of the rain and cloudy weather >__> Also the week-long lent that is part of celebrating the birth of St. Mary started on Sunday.

Second week started off with Monday being a holiday and was more or less hunting for parking spot at various hours of the day.... It is literally Hunger Games at the parking lot!!! You fight with horns and lights to get a parking spot from others. Not to mention, Wednesday when my brother decided to finally drive to campus by himself, it started pouring like no end. Prof for the compilers showed up finally, and started assigning phases for building a Java 1.2? compiler in Java.... No, this is not like the - which came first, the chicken or the egg? - problem. And getting together to layout the club meetings and plans. Oh! Also the Friday, the research group along with the prof got together and had 4-5hr long meetings. Then again on Saturday afternoon, and then attending the wedding reception of the ex-PhD member of our group who moved to Arizona for his postdoc. That wedding reception was really fun - food, drinks (I did try Captain Coke... just because the groom insisted that it was his first drink and that how he got into drinking... And by the end of 3rd hour... I still had half the drink with me... and while rum has a unique taste, I didn't like the drink and decided to remain a non-alcoholic drinker), dance, and fireworks. Friday evening ended with a prayer meeting and Saturday morning started with a mass to celebrate the birth of St. Mary. Also I got the ball rolling for my graduation on Friday... papers were signed and the checkbox was clicked on Friday!

Third week was when things got really crazy! Latter half the week I had to deal with a family emergency on top of working and taking classes. I did get to spend time at a hospital in town... and let me say... the service provided wasn't all that great there. And thanks to my good teammate, I didn't have to worry about the phase 1 of the compilers. Oh Tuesday, my brother decided to drive again, but Mother Nature decided to throw another tantrum and flood the streets, so I had to drive him home after classes, leaving behind his car in the garage (and for the whole trip he was weeping about his precious (his car) being left behind). Wednesday was the start of the family emergency, and Mother Nature threw another fit, flooding the streets really bad this time. Saturday was spend on campus working on research and project. Aside from that, my schedule for the semester is now fixed.

Fourth week was more or less working at work, on class assignments, my project, club stuff, etc.... Far too occupied that I managed to watch all aired seasons of the Big Bang Theory. And Bones started airing their 9th season... which means the Fall seasons are coming!!! First exam of the semester - did bad... 75th percentile... yuck! Another 6 day week with Sunday spending on working on my research.... Officially I am totally occupied, no time for breaks or social events or to myself. Oh! I also started posting in the Lounge at SD (as the impossible moderator) :P and met CC... my target for next foreseeable future - hehehe.

World's 10 Biggest Cities

The World's 10 biggest cities based on population as per 2009 study by Richard Forstall, Richard Greene and James Pick.



Courtesy: Gizmodo

The Slothocalypse!!!

Albert Einstein sloth: 

Sloth of the 11th Doctor (Matt Smith) along with Amelia Williams and Rory Williams...

Good gracious.... the weeping angel sloth....

Oh great!... Even a minion sloth!!!!

Ahhh... here is the Harry Potter sloth collection:

For more sloth collection check out the artist's home page.

Courtesy: The Mary Sue

Heist!!

While I have watched some of THE best heists being performed in the TV show, Leverage (which I highly recommend for those hunting for a good TV show to watch), Rob 'n' Ron (two brothers) plans out and performs a western-y heist with hobby horses and piggy banks....


Rob 'n' Ron from Tumblehead on Vimeo.

Courtesy: io9

Proteigon

Remember the dance/battle with light video called Nuance? Here is a similar version that uses paper.


PROTEIGON from BURAYAN on Vimeo.
Directed by Steven Briand - briand.steven@gmail.com, at partizan during a two months intership.

Festival selections
South by Southwest (SXSW) 2012 / Austin, Texas, 2012
Moving Silence 2012 / Athens, Greece, 2012
Disposable Film Festival 2012 / San Francisco, USA, 2012
Very Short International Film Festival 2012 / Paris, France, 2012
Brasil Stop Motion Festival 2012 / Pernambuco, Brazil, 2012
Cortoons Festival 2012 / Rome, Italy
ANCA International Animation Festival 2013 / Zilina, Slovakia, 2013
Anima Mundi 2013 / Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, August 2nd, 2013 & Sao Paulo, Brazil, 2013

with Luca Fiore

music by Nodey & Omar
sound design by Moritz Reich

Produced by Partizan Films

with the help of Nathalie Lapicorey, Zeynep Gizem De Loecker, Benoit Masson, Vincent Nguyen, François Colou et Fabien Chambert

17/09/2013 Feed Compilation!

This thai commercial (with english subtitles of course) is better than a 2hr movie! Also it can get misty  - you have been warned!


So Vegas was not being Vegas at all for past 3-4 weeks... it was cloudy with drizzling and rain!!! Not to mention Vegas drivers go more crazy when it rains!

The Costa Concordia's 19-hour salvage:

For more pictures and video click here.

And for those looking for a work-out program to quickly lose fat and gain muscles, check out TurboKick and TurboFire! True story from a person I know - this is not a made up story, in fact I am looking into adding more exercise into my schedule!

Opposite time!

We (well some of us) feed pigeons, have pillow fights, blow dandelion, lick ice-cream, chop trees, roast marshmallows, and do other kinds of fun stuff.... Now what if we were the subjects on whom these actions were done... to get a visual representation go here.

Programmer vs Sales Person

So they teach us in software development class that most of the softwares that involves a business team is more or less a traveling salesman problem aka the requests for changes never stops coming in and the software/project is never truly done done. One/some of the factors that contributes to this is shown below:


Courtesy: My brother who found it and decided to make me watch the entire thing!

Nuance!

There you go my viewers! I battle exhaustion and drowsiness to bring to you this amazing dance/fight with/against light!

Here is a brief gif from the video below:

Nuance from Marc-Antoine Locatelli on Vimeo.
Nuance / 2013
Travail sur l’image vivante musicale.
Musique : “Ants” de EdIT / Planet Mu Records
http://www.planet.mu
Danse : Lucas B.

Courtesy: io9

Onam

Onam (ഓണം - written in Malayalam) is a 10-day harvest festival celebrated by the people of Kerala, India - aka my people. Wikipedia's article on Onam pretty much covers everything I wanted to iterate - the significance, the rituals, the legend, activities, etc!

One of the fun activity during this festival is to create flower circle - called Pooklam (ഓണപ്പൂക്കളം). 
From wiki:

And this flower circle was made at the Mumbai station (courtesy of my friend there):

One of my favorite part of Onam is the food which is rice + at least 5 - 7 dishes served on banana leaf on the last day of festivities:

And once again, wikipedia to the rescue - this link has some of the usual items served.

This is also a festival of music, dance and games. Tug-of-war is one of the most popular game played... which I got a chance to play this Saturday, and my team won!

Doctor Who 50th Anniversary - The Day of the Doctor

So for those waiting for one of the amazing thing to happen in 2013 - here is probably the best one - The Day of the Doctor - a Doctor Who movie (75 minutes in length) for its 50th Anniversary! Don't forget there is still the Christmas special which marks the 800th episode of Doctor Who as a whole! Say Who?!

BBC One's trailer for the 50th anniversary and for those with 3D glasses here is the 3D version!


Fan-made trailers follows:





Courtesy: The Mary Sue

New Harry Potter movie?!

Well it is a bit of stretch, this movie won't be part of the Harry Potter series, but rather is a "Harry Potter"-inspired movie from the "Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them" and set to kick off in New York, 70 years before Harry's story start.

Link to the book on Amazon for those interested!

Courtesy: The Mary Sue

Youtube video-plosion! Chipotle, Unicorn Doctor, Pole Dancing and Suit Song!

Chipotle's video to promote their organically-farmed meat and produce went viral in about 2 days.


It is Unicorn Doctor, enough said.


Pole Dancing done by a SD user who's name I shall not mention, but she will be reading this post :P


And finally the Suit Song!

Drumcat Street Performance

Amazing drumming!

A tragic twist to a damsel rescue mission

An animation about a damsel rescue going wrong, while in reality it is far worse. Beware, this video contains domestic violence and might make you sad for the rest of the day.


Un Conte from GOBELINS pro on Vimeo.
Durée : 2:24

Réalisé par :
Guillaume Arantes https://vimeo.com/guillaumearantes
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/unconte

Contact production :
GOBELINS, l'école de l'image, Moïra Marguin : mmarguin@gobelins.fr

Contact festival :
guillaume.arantes@hotmail.fr

Contact Distribution :
La distribution des films produits par GOBELINS, l'école de l'image est assurée par L'Agence du court métrage. Contact : f.keller@agencecm.com.

Sloths!

To my lazy friend out there, here is some sloth-y sloth stuff for you! :P

Meet the sloths from Lucy Cooke on Vimeo.
Courtesy: Lifehacker

Oh! You must check this shirt out!

Neutron Cream

For those who doesn't know about Star Trek, it is a sci-fi series involving space exploration that started back in 1966 and has over 6 series - the Original Series (1966-69), the Animated Series (1973-74), the Next Generation (1987-94), Deep Space Nine (1993-99), Voyager (1995-2001) and Enterprise (2001-05), and has 12 movies about it - last one being Star Trek Into Darkness (2013).

And now for those who know about Star Trek or don't, the recent movie - Star Trek Into Darkness, the crew that to work with lasers... and so they had to use special neutron cream to avoid any tissue damage... as per Scotty, and with him being the chief engineer of the Starship Enterprise, it is a safe bet to trust him on this... for more information watch the video!



Courtesy: The Mary Sue

Slickdeals.net!

Slickdeals! Oh, Slickdeals.net! Slickdeals.net is an awesome site filled with slick deals (duh!), coupon codes, and forums filled with threads by the users, moderated by super-duper awesome moderators, working around the clock making sure people who visit the site don't come across spam or fake deals.

On Slickdeals.net there is no actual buying or selling, just a collection of deals from various sites that'll save you (tons of) money, like for example let's say you want to buy a hard drive or clothes and not sure if there is any deals out there that'll help you save some extra bucks, or want to find and keep tracks of coupons for your favorite meal place!

I've gotten couple of good deals such as 50% off Papa John's pizza, Synology NAS, Seagate RED drives, free $5 and $10 on Audible.com, and oh! a free Doctor Who episode!!!

Also I came across this video today where the most awesome and daring Slickdealian, Finzz, goes on Mission Slick Possible on the night of Black Friday in 2010, enticing and dragging people into the world of Slickdeals.net by with awesome Slickdeals t-shirts!


And for more videos about Slickdeals.net from reviewers and people who use the site click here.

Oh! Did I mention you can lay traps for deals and coupons of your choosing and get email as soon as a deal arrives on the website? Well check out deal notification/alert page after signing up! And oh there are daily giveaway prizes!

And a shout out for all the amazing people behind Slickdeals.net! Special thanks to Finzz & widgit for the help :P

Netflix Original Series

So couple of my friends and a friend recommended the show House of Cards and Orange is the New Black to me respectively, both of which are Netflix Original Series.

So first things first. Orange is the New Black is about the life of Piper Chapman, a woman from Connecticut, living in New York City, who was convicted of transporting a suitcase full of drug money for Alex Vause (an international drug smuggler and Chapman's former lover) and was sentenced for 15 months to women's federal prison in Litchfield, NY. The series follows life of Chapman and that of those around her at the prison.



Next up House of Cards. There is two versions of House of Cards - UK version (3 series released in 1990, 1993 and 1995 - 4 episodes in each series) and US version (1 season - 13 episodes). I have watched both, and it is roughly the same plot style, and roughly the same name for the antihero!

The antihero of the BBC version is Francis Urquhart, a fictional Chief Whip of the Conservative Party. The plot follows his amoral and manipulative scheme to become leader of the governing party and, thus, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.


The antihero of the US version is Frank Underwood, a Democrat from South Carolina's 5th Congressional District and the House Majority Whip who, after getting passed over for appointment to Secretary of State, decides to exact his revenge on those who betrayed him.

Plex

So my last post was about setting up a NAS to store and access your files from the Internet, and in this post I shall bring to you Plex. Plex is multi-platform application that can arrange your (ahem! messy maybe?) media libraries and host them and so that you can watch them from anywhere and it also gives you the ability to share it with family and friends.

For every movie and TV show it gathers information from imdb and tvdb for every episode and also each TV show it also downloads the theme song and plays it on the background when one accesses the show.

Network Attached Storage (NAS)

In this digital media age, people have tons of photographs, videos - movies, TV shows (if you are anything like me), and music. But to store them we resort to space on the drives in our computers, some go for external hard drives (hopefully keep multiple copies of them across different drives to safe losing them if a drives fail - yes that happens!). Now accessing these files when touring or from outside home/work or on a trip can be a hassle with setting up dns, web-server, etc. for non-tech pros.

I found a simple and quick solution for this problem - a network-attached server. There is plenty of network-attached servers out there now for household use such as Synology (I just bought one!), ReadyNAS by Netgear, QNAP, Buffalo, etc.. Don't forget when purchasing drives make sure you get a NAS drive, and yes there is a difference - the typical drives are not meant for 24/7 usage whereas NAS drives are meant to be abused for 24/7.

Now if you have a Synology NAS with the drives, here is the setup instructions for creating a folder to store and share files and here is the setup instructions for making your server accessible from the Internet. Make sure you have your firewalls up!

Terminal Customization

If you work with terminals whether on linux or on mac, here are few tips & tricks to improve how it looks and feels!
Step 1: For those on linux has the package manager can proceed ahead! For those on mac, I highly recommend getting Homebrew and oh, check out iTerm2!
1) Fortune - A random fortune/saying spouting program.
2) Cowsay - A program that creates ASCII art of animals with some expressions.
3) Separator between commands - Helps to distinguish the starting and ending of command and it's output.
4) Colors and Prompt - While most terminals comes with properties and abilities to change color of text and background, this will help in customizing how you view files, folders, scripts, etc.

Few other examples of terminals and tweaks customized by others:
1) Battery capacity - for those working from laptop.
2) Background image - instead of monotone background color.

Original British Drama 2013

It is almost time for the fall seasons to begin! BBC has already released a compilation of their original drama series - Sherlock (starring Benedict Cumberbatch + Martin Freeman), The Musketeers (starring Peter Capaldi), The Escape Artist (starring David Tennant), The Great Train Robbery, Quirke, Ripper Street, What Remains and By Any Means.
Sherlock - Series 3 Trailer:

My first NSFW post!

Today I came across an interesting video on Gizmodo definitely NSFW (not-safe-for-work) aka not for those below age of 18 and beware of who is around you when and if you decide to watch it!!! Well recently I have been watching any and all vimeo / youtube video posts on the blogs I follow to find content for mine. Anyways the video starts off weird (weird even for my standard which is highly weird enough) with an unusual style of animation and then Louisa Bertman (the narrator) proceeds to recount her own youthful obsession with obtaining the "perfect" set of breasts in this frenetic, sometimes explicit but ultimately touching and thought-provoking animated short. I agree with her message at the end of the video.

Duct Tape (DuckTales Theme Parody)

Hilarious and well done parody!

Downton Abbey Series 4

For those who have no watched Downton Abbey, it is a British period drama (drama which elaborates costumes, sets and properties are featured in order to capture the ambience of a particular era) created by Julian Fellowes. The series, set in the Yorkshire country estate of Downton Abbey, depicts the lives of the aristocratic Crawley family and their servants in the post-Edwardian era - with the great events in history (such as sinking of the RMS Titanic, the outbreak of World War I, the Spanish influenza pandemic, the Marconi scandal, the Interwar period, and the Irish Free State) having an effect on their lives and on the British social hierarchy.

After 3 successful series and a movie/special, it is said to be coming back on screen on January 5, 2014 - yes it is in quite a while, but nonetheless there is plenty of time to watch the show and be caught up with all its intricacies.

Game of Hearts

(Spoiler alert!) So as to avoid spilling out too many spoilers, the video is a romantic comedy rendition of Sansa Stark and Tyrion Lannister from Game of Thrones, and also staring a special new actor - watch the video to find out who!


Courtesy: The Mary Sue

Alcoholic Stockholm Syndrome

Stockholm Syndrome, or capture-bonding, is a psychological phenomenon in which hostages (non-drinking people) express empathy and sympathy and have positive feelings towards their captors (drinking people), sometimes to the point of defending them.

   
Courtesy: Cyanide and Happiness

Most effective way to deal with people who ignore science facts

No words needed to describe or summarize the video, just watch it.



Courtesy upworthy.

Tesla Model S - The advanced crusher of safety standards

 

Tesla Model S, a car so far advanced in both luxury and technologies that one could say this is from another world entirely! "Introducing a car so advanced it sets the new standard premium performance" - Tesla. While one would expect this to be the typical catch-phrase used to attract buyers, it was a shock for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) when doing the safety testing. Tesla Model S is soo safe that it crushed all the safety standards and earned an overall score of 5.4 out of 5 stars. During the rollover test, the darn car was soo stubborn to rollover nicely via the conventional means that special means had to be introduced. Here is the link containing more details about the pain caused to NHTSA by Tesla Model S. Frankly, I think parts of Nokia 3310 must have been used in building this car.

The features and designs comes at a luxurious pricing north of $60k, depending on the model, additional features, and Federal Tax Credit (Electric vehicle incentives range from $7.5k to $15k depending on your state and offset of the down payment - learn more here). 

Star Drunk

No, it is not Star Trek or Star Wars, and yes it is called Star Drunk. Courtesy of Charlie Jane Anders at io9 who brought this to my awareness, I bring to you Star Drunk - the drunkest science fiction movie in the history to date (currently 28/08/2013 ~10pm PDT).

The writers were drunk while writing the script and the actors were drunk while performing the script, sadly or thankfully (depending on how you wish to perceive this) the rest of the crew was sober.

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you: Star Drunk, a film by drunk people:


Also a bit of behind the scene chaos with both drunk & sober people:


Don't forget to check out "Do You Love Me", a film by Cleverbot, also from these guys (Star Drunk is supposed to be the sequel to it).

Blog-fever and First Week Anniversary!

So it has been a week since I started this blog and got about 20 posts (prior to this post), and 254 pageviews (though I am not sure how many of that is actual humans and not bots).

But now I got a friend who started a blog: Berries and Spam, and another thinking of starting one. I have now contracted blog-fever and started spreading it. Blogging FTW!

Roman stuff

So Romans... there have been some fascinating people such as Lucius Caecilius Iucundus, Gaius Julius Caesar, Marcus Junius Brutus the Younger, Spartacus, and Leonidas I during the era when Romans ruled over Europe.

And from this era I bring to you:
The Fires of Pompeii (Doctor Who)


Pompeii (Courtesy Berries and Spam for making me aware of this movie)


Spartacus - Beware 3 seasons of highly gory and glorious action and drama, not for those with faint heart and weak stomach.


300


Rome (I have not watched this)

The Doctor and Dance

Ninth Doctor:

Tenth Doctor:
Well this is more of David Tennant dancing :P

Beware... contagious song and some scenes that can never be unseen below:


Eleventh Doctor:


Doctor Who Dance Party:

24/08/2013's Random Collection

Wedding done right - Congrats to lovely couple and go K-9! Oh, I never knew that the phrase "Something Olde, Something New, Something Borrowed, Something Blue, A Sixpence in your Shoe" was part of the wedding norm..., I mean I have heard (spoiler alert!) Amelia Pond (much better than Amy Pond) in Doctor Who ( actual and edited versions) say "Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed, Something Blue" to summon the Doctor into existence for her wedding reception (not the wedding mind you! And the Doctor loves wedding parties - and yes he is a great dancer... ahem!).

The awakening - me stare.

Some amazing Wild Pokemon photos - honestly Ninja-Jamal (Jamal Lee) has stunned me with these pictures..., they are simply amazing.

Things Harry Potter Actors/Actresses say... I miss Dobby and Hedwig :'(

Ferrets-omania - cuteness overloaded.

Worth Sharing - Go people!

Welcome to Arranged Marriage!

What Tree Did You Fall From? - For me its Apple-Fir Tree - which means I am:

         - quite & shy at times (true - well most of the time)

         - lots of charm (hmmm... not really)

         - appeal (nah)

         - attraction (???)

         - pleasant attitude (yup)

         - flirtatious smile (nope, I cannot charm someone by my smile)

         - adventurous (yup)

         - sensitive (yup)

         - loyal in love (never been in love)

         - wants to love and be loved (who doesn't?)

         - faithful and tender partner (never been in a relationship)

         - very generous (yup)

         - many talents (nope, maybe one or two?)

         - loves children (hmm...)

         - needs affectionate partner (yup! lol)

         - extraordinary taste (yup)

         - handles stress poorly (false! I handle stress like a pro)

         - loves anything beautiful (yup)

         - can become depressed at times (yup)

         - stubborn (yup)

         - tends to care for those close to them as well as helping strangers (yup)

         - rather modest (yup)

         - hard worker (definitely!)

         - talented (not really)

         - unselfish (one cannot be 100% unselfish)

         - few sexual relationships (none)

         - many friends (a few)

         - doesn't want foes (true)

         - very reliable (yup!)

looks like they managed to characterize me mostly....

Deathigner

Courtesy of Lauren Davis from io9, I bring to you Deathigner!

Deathigner (pronounced like "designer" but with a lisp) is a delicate short story created by Tzu-Hsuan Fei, Kuan-Tien Chen, ke-Ching Chang, Ya-Chu Hsu, and Li-Ying Fu of the National Taiwan University of Arts' Department of Multimedia and Animation Arts.

It goes over the schooling (the first day basically) of Osiris', Grim Reaper's, and the "avatars of Impermanence"'s (???) children at the Death School. Instead of trying to read my rambling here... I suggest you watch the video and come up with your own interpretation of the video :P

Oh! By the way, there will be some violence since you know it is dealing with soul reapers, souls, bunnies, and (ahem!) death... you have been warned!


Deathigner from Deathigner on Vimeo.
【Facebook Page】
https://www.facebook.com/fashion.deathigner

2D Animation / 720HD / 6'47"
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一隻極度不幸卻又極度幸運的小骷髏死神；
一次不一定會發生卻非得發生的巧合；
一個在冰冷冥界的溫暖故事。
A warm story about a little grim reaper who is lucky that having great talent for fashion design.
/
小孩的潛力是無限的，
愛他相信他，成全所有可能。
"A lot of mothers will do anything for their children, except let them be themselves."
― Banksy, Wall and Piece

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國立臺灣藝術大學 多媒體動畫藝術學系
National Taiwan University of Arts , Department of Multimedia and Animation Arts

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【製作團隊】
費子軒Tzu-Hsuan Fei
陳寬恬Kuan-Tien Chen
張可靚 ke-Ching Chang
徐雅竹Ya-Chu Hsu
傅麗穎 Li-Ying Fu

---
【指導老師】
張維忠Wei-Chung Chang
陳建宏Chieh-Hung Chen
楊東岳Tung-Yueh Yang

---
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【音樂音效】(Music and sound)
Michele Cheng
flcomposer@gmail.com

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【Email】
deathigners@gmail.com

【Youtube】
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mptpw8fQ-lw

【Facebook Page】
https://www.facebook.com/fashion.deathigner