Cool article by Josh Nimoy who worked on creating software for generating special effects in Tron: Legacy.
I take representing digital culture in film very seriously in lieu of having grown up in a world of very badly researched user interface greeble.
Nice read to see how much thought and attention to detail went into creating even the smallest effects.
I hope the sequel is coming along according to plan.
“A recent survey of 18 Android phones released since 2007 showed discouraging results: Over half of the devices surveyed stopped receiving OS updates from manufacturers less than one year after initial release.” CNN/Wired
Textorizer is a program that allows you to make pictures formed with text.
http://lapin-bleu.net/software/textorizer/
It definitely takes some getting used to and lots of experimenting, but the results could be interesting, especially when mixed with some good old Photoshopping.
Wow, they move fast. 3 months ago the first beta was released. Now, 10 versions later they’ve hit gold and 1.0 has been released. And if the first beta was fast, this one is a lot faster, and of course a lot more stable as well.
The operating system powering the G1, aka the Google Phone, is now available as Open Source. Which deserves a yay because 1) it means that a whole army of people around the world can now start tinkering with it and developing apps, or even modifying the OS, and 2) this should disprove all the tinfoil hats worried about selling their soul to Google. Oh yeah, and it’s linux based.
Now where’s the Yahoo phone?
GIMP is an amazing image editing software that allows people with limitless imagination create extraordinary images out of ordinary photos.
I’m all for Open Source programs, and use a lot of them for just about every aspect of my computing experience, whether that’s professional or in my spare time for my hobbies, but come on… if these are the best 25 pictures Gimp can come up with I’m going to stick with Photoshop…
Firefox getting a bit sluggish for you? Try switching to beta 5 of Firefox 3.
It’s got a lot of new features, none of which I tried yet, but… and it’s a big but, it’s faster. No really faster, a lot faster. I keep dozens of tabs open all the time and all of a sudden switching between them is fast again, real snappy. And page refreshes feel a lot faster too. And it uses a lot less memory as well.
Edit:
- If you need Java support (like for our company’s ERP system), stay away from it.
- Need a working Del.icio.us plugin for Firefox 3? Get it here.
3 more days before Hardy Heron, aka 8.04 is released, and I’m looking forward to it. This is another LTS (long term support) release, meaning it’ll receive security updates for the next 5 years.
I’ll be tinkering with it on a spare pc to see if it’s got the goods to sway me away from the alternatives. I haven’t seen a conclusive list of everything new, but there are enough bits and pieces around the web to make me interested.
Thoughts of Imbalanced Mind