Wednesday, November 08, 2006

The Fountain of Youth

iDigit Design has prepared a series of ‘before and after Photoshop’ stills to remind us of the ‘vision of impossible beauty’ that media tries to present us with every day. Hover your mouse over each picture for the ‘before’ view.

Quoted from their website: ‘Many of the images here have been so heavily manipulated they could claim to be art. But unlike Rubens or Michelangelo, the manipulation is neither made clear nor becomes part of the viewing experience.

These manipulations are not made explicit in purpose to sell us a naturally unattainable standard and thus making our logic, common sense and personal views of beauty fight to decide if what we’re seeing is truth. Don’t let them ever fool you!

On the same page, you’ll find a link to a tutorial on how artists tap onto this illusory ‘Fountain of Youth’ in order to transform a photo of an older woman into a young woman one.

Always remember: ‘You're beautiful because you're unique and that's what makes you special.’

Wednesday, October 25, 2006

The Miniature Earth

World Population: 6,552,766,939+

What would the statistics look like if we were to turn the world population to a small community of only 100 people, keeping the same proportions we have today?

Based on Donella Meadows’ “State of the Village Report”, published in May 29, 1990, this webmovie truly opens our eyes to realizing and putting in perspective the differences found in our world.



Go here for more information about The Miniature Earth project.

“If you keep your food in a refrigerator and your clothes in a closet, if you have a bed to sleep in and a roof over your head, you are richer than 75% of the entire world population. Appreciate what you have. And do your best for a better world.”

Monday, October 23, 2006

Sand Fantasy – “Just Imagine…”

By combining three simple elements: lights, music and sand, Ilana Yahav, creates powerful visions of beauty.

Using only her fingers as artist tools, Ilana leads us through these ‘meditation journeys’ that draw us in, fills us with wonder and stirs our souls.

The video of one of her works entitled "Just Imagine…”, on the subject of world peace can be found below or here.



The music track is “Angel” from Merav Josef-Levi.

For more video clips and information about Ilana you can visit her website.

Friday, October 20, 2006

Just some videos to enjoy

Behold... the Honda Civic choir!



10K Pounds... the Domino Effect!


The Muppets' Mahna Mahna song!

Monday, October 16, 2006

The Evolution Of Beauty

"Because every woman deserves to feel beautiful just the way she is."
Today, don't forget to tell all the special women in your life just how beautiful they are.
If you can't see the video below, or to find more information about the Dove Self-Esteem Fund click here.

Wednesday, October 04, 2006

"To Infinity And Beyond"

ZOOMQUILT – an idea by Nikolaus Baumgarten, is a collaborative art project of 15 artists that could be nicely summarized by quoting Buzz LightYear from Toy Story: “To Infinity And Beyond”.

The act of ‘Quilting’, which involves sewing or tying two layers of cloth with a layer of insulating batting in between, is taken to a new level by ‘quilting’ together several (I’ve counted at least 7) paintings in a seamless way.

Add a touch of Flash, and this magic quilt can be zoomed in or out in an infinite loop, giving the impression of a mysterious trip into a surreal world of fantasy.

Start your trip here (requires Flash player). An HTML version (not as cool as the Flash one) is here.

On a small tangent, click here to hear William Shatner and the Star Command Chorus perform “To Infinity and Beyond”.

Saturday, September 23, 2006

One Hundred Peace Breaths Exercise

Image Copyright e-mandala.net

This exercise is better performed while sitting.

Close your eyes. Hold both hands relaxed on top of your knees. With the thumb, the index and the middle finger of one of your hands hold the thumb of the other hand.

Breathe in through your nose, fill up slowly your lungs and stomach. Focus on your breathing. Relax and release all air through your nose or mouth, while mentally counting “one”.

Repeat this process by moving to the next finger and count up. If you find your mind wandering around too much, go back to zero. Try to reach one hundred without putting too much effort.

Once reaching the one hundredth breath becomes easier, try going through the exercise without using your fingers to count.

Share at least one hundred peace breaths with the world every day.

Sunday, September 17, 2006

T.E.D.D.Y. - A Sketching Interface For 2D to 3D Freeform Design


Takeo Igarashi, Associate Professor at the Department of Computer Science, Graduate School of Information Science and Technology, at The University of Tokyo, has released a new version of his 3D Modeling and Painting research prototype named SmoothTeddy.

What differentiates this tool from others is that you create and modify the model by drawing 2D freeform strokes which are translated into 3D polygonal surfaces. The interface is intuitive enough that even young children are able to construct interesting models after a short tutorial. Some example models are here.

More complex model manipulations like extruding, smoothing and bending are supported, via simple interactions. I believe it’s better to see it in action to appreciate the beauty of this concept. Take a look at the clip below or go here.

People with drawing tablets (e.g. Wacom Graphire or Intuos) would be able to enjoy this software better, but that shouldn’t discourage others to try it. You can download it for free here (requires to have Java installed).


Thursday, September 14, 2006

Bill Gates' Commemoration Presentation

Not a lot to say. Just enjoy this classic!

Tuesday, September 12, 2006

The Simpsons Come Of Age

Would you believe it if I told you that the TV show “The Simpsons” turned 18 years old last Sunday (September 10, 2006)?

To think that it all started as a series of small shorts that aired before and after ad breaks on The Tracey Ullman Show (1987-1989)… It’s definitely being a long way since then.

What a better way of celebrating this coming of age than driving down memory lane and enjoying a glance through all the 48 original episodes, courtesy of the really great people at Simpson Crazy.

It’s amazing to be able to witness first-hand the quick evolution, at the level of drawing and voice acting of this popular series. Some of my favourite are:

You can enjoy the shorts here.

Monday, September 11, 2006

Walker Scene

While cleaning up some older folders in my hard drive I found a short render of another final project, this time for the first level course of the Computer Animation Certificate - Maya at Concordia University.

Hope you enjoy it!

Tuesday, September 05, 2006

The Best Magic Effect for Girls

'Little Bro' KYT is trying to win a contest to appear on the DVD release of THE ILLUSIONIST, starring Edward Norton, Paul Giamatti and Jessica Biel.

It’s about making a video that showcases your best illusion / magic trick.

Please, don’t forget to register, leave some nice comments and rate the video (5 stars!!!)

If you want to share the video with your friends, you can send them this link: http://www.kytmagic.com/

Good luck boyo!

Monday, September 04, 2006

Kroco - Gym Scene

This is the result of my animation project for the summer semester, as part of the Computer Animation Certificate - Maya at Concordia University.

Everything in the movie was created by me but for the background and tattoos, courtesy of Google Image and the music, "Eye of the Tiger", by Survivor. You can buy a copy of the CD here. Enjoy!


Tuesday, August 22, 2006

First Erotic Film In History


On a different subject, if you liked my post about Frets on Fire, you’ll be happy to know that there a lot more songs available now at the Frets on Fire forums (you’ll need to register to have access to that section of the forum).

For an almost complete list of all available songs with comments, jump here.

Enjoy!

Tuesday, August 15, 2006

Egg Way and 1980 Games

Today it has been a lazy and cranky day for me… the summer is almost over and the days are a lot shorter than before. A good day to play some online games.

Egg Way is a flash game with a very simple concept: an egg is released and we have to guide it to the frying pan by using a type of 'pencil' that creates some kind of 'foamy path' that allows the egg to roll. My only complaint would be that there is only a total of 8 levels. This and other games of exotic subjects can be found at DOFI-BLOG.

1980 Games is an online collection of games from the 80’s. Some seem to be ROMS running under a java port of a MAME or NES emulator, some others are remakes. It’s a nice refreshing way to revive some memories of those golden years of gaming. Worth of mention are Ghosts'n goblins, Contra, Scramble, and the RPG Section. Enjoy!

Friday, August 11, 2006

Guitar Hero For The Masses

The guys at Unreal Vodoo, banking on the popularity of Guitar Hero, came up with a simply amazing clone named ‘Frets on Fire’. The project was submitted as an entry for the GameDev Assembly’06 Competition, held August 3rd to 6th in Helsinki, Finland.

From a total of 14 entries, ‘Frets on Fire’ was selected as the winner (results) with a total of 10426 points out of 35696.

‘Frets on Fire’ truly brings the ‘Guitar Hero’ experience the masses, having both a Windows and a Linux version and requiring only an OpenGL accelerated video card (any card purchased in the last 3 to 4 years should suffice) and a keyboard.

The only downside I found was the limited number of songs (3) at the moment of release. But, because the game allows for creation of custom songs, several fan made compositions are cropping out. A good place to start is the Keyboards On Fire website were up to yesterday there were already 17 new songs in the repertoire.

‘Frets on Fire’ has an option for reporting scores to a central server, allowing the user to climb his way to the top of the World Charts. Would you be the next ‘Keyboard Hero’?

Wednesday, August 09, 2006

First Post

This Blog will serve as dashboard for (hopefully) numerous postings about the web, life and everything. Typical subjects will include: gaming (reviews, education), out-of-the-ordinary web findings and short rants and raves about life’s mysteries.

The title of the Blog, Wisdom Juice, is symbolic to the idea of sharing a nice glass of wisdom with any of you. A title that has been inside my mind for several years already.

Without further ado, hope you enjoy it! Comments are welcomed.

Tuesday, August 08, 2006

Multiplayer Sudoku

After playing Brain Age on the Nintendo DS for a while, I began to wonder why the folks at Nintendo didn't include a feature that allowed users to engage in multiplayer Sudoku matches.

Interested in the idea, I was Goggling the net when I came up with this website: Sudoku Combat, created by Marc Belmont using PHP and AJAX.

You can choose the appearance of your avatar, and then play alongside a random stranger or be given a URL which you can provide to one of your friends to play against them.You can also play alone… but that would kind of defeat the purpose of multiplayer wouldn’t it?

You have three difficulty levels to choose from, and matches can get pretty exciting even at the Easy level. As a little pressure tactic, to the right of your Sudoku grid, you can see how many completed squares your opponent has. A simple chat feature is also included.

Marc has done a great job at creating a clean, uncluttered interface to allow players to show the world how good they are at Sudoku.

One of the features I found that could get some improvement is the option to include multiple numbers on each cell. It is not as intuitive as the one found in Brain Age, as all numbers are to be written in a single line instead of, for example, having two independent lines (one for the guesses and one for the most likely answer).

Hope to see you sometime at Sudoku Combat, I usually go under the ‘wzdmjz’ moniker.