firehosefuck you, fuck off, go to fucking hell, fuck your dumb idea, fuck this
It's been a while since we last heard about a proposed Escape from New York remake, but alas, Hollywood can't keep its grubby hands off needless reboots for long. Deadline reports that not only is Joel Silver and Studio Canal planning on remaking John Carpenter's cult classic, but they plan on making it a trilogy, with the first movie a Rise of the Planet of the Apes-esque origin story.
firehosemeanwhile, in Portland + green roofs = TAL
What would happen if we designed new urban megastructures using the latest scientific information about green design? Portland architect Bill Badrick has the answer. The new Columbia River Crossing bridge, in Portland, Oregon, should be a double-decker, carbon-neutral engineering marvel -- complete with a huge park on top. The best part? It's all possible with current technology.
firehosebut no, we get JJ and probably Lindelof
Although we were unable to get Brad Bird as the director of the upcoming Star Wars sequel, he's clearly had the franchise on his mind. Apparently he was recently talking with Patton Oswalt, and told the comedian how he'd change the beginning of Return of the Jedi.
Plush toys of Pusheen, the adorable illustrated cat, are now available by Hey Chickadee in either a 7″ mini or the 12″ larger size (pictured).
A 16-year-old who lived in Loudoun County, Va., was shot and killed when he accidentally entered the wrong house.
Caleb Gordley, a popular athlete who had been living in a brick house with his parents and sister for about a year, sneaked out of his house to go to a party with friends after he’d been grounded for not cleaning his room.
When he returned around 2 a.m. he slipped into the house he thought was his. Friends said he had been drinking and mistook his neighbor’s similar house two doors down for his own and climbed in through the back window.
When the burglar alarm sounded, the homeowner treated Caleb as an intruder, and shot and killed him.
”
Villains from every Batman movie tiptoe towards trouble in artist Rafa Toro series of prancing Batman baddies. Even if you hated Joel Schumachers' Batman & Robin, we bet you can't stop watching Poison Ivy march forward for infinity.
Check out Toro's art-filled website and Vimeo for loads more animation.
[via Comics Alliance]
Way back before computers and e-readers there were these lovely things called books, and one of the best ways to indicate that a book was your book and not someone else's book was to stamp it with a decorative label commonly known as an ex libris (Latin for "from the books of..."), followed by your name.
firehoseeverybody take turns shitting on EA this month
Security research firm ReVuln has discovered a fairly simple way (in theory, at least) for unscrupulous folks and their hacking machines to execute malicious code on your computer, by way of EA's Origin platform.
Origin exploit uses hyperlinks to run malicious code remotely originally appeared on Joystiq on Tue, 19 Mar 2013 15:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
firehose!
Hotline Miami is making a mess of Mac, starting today on Steam. It's $10 right now, which really is a steal for "one of the better arcade action games to come along in a while."Hotline Miami takes a shot at Mac, available now on Steam originally appeared on Joystiq on Tue, 19 Mar 2013 17:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Liz: We’re very close to being able to release the $25 add-on camera board for the Raspberry Pi now. David Plowman has been doing a lot of the work on imaging and tuning. He’s very kindly agreed to write a couple of guest posts for us explaining some more for the uninitiated about the process of engineering the camera module. Here’s the first – I hope you’ll find it as fascinating as I did. Thanks David!
Lights! Camera! … Action?
So you’ve probably all been wondering how it can take quite so long to get a little camera board working with the Raspberry Pi. Shouldn’t it be like plugging in a USB webcam, all plug’n’play? Alas, it’s not as straightforward as you might think. Bear with me for this – and a subsequent – blog posting and I’ll try and explain all.
The Nature of the Beast
The camera we’re attaching to the Raspberry Pi is a 5MP (2592×1944 pixels) Omnivision 5647 sensor in a fixed focus module. This is very typical of the kinds of units you’d see in some mid-range camera phones (you might argue the lack of autofocus is a touch low-end, but it does mean less work for us and you get your camera boards sooner!). Besides power, clock signals and so forth, we have two principal connections (or data buses in electronics parlance) between our processor (the BCM2835 on the Pi) and the camera.
The first is the I2C (“eye-squared-cee”) bus which is a relatively low bandwidth link that carries commands and configuration information from the processor to the image sensor. This is used to do things like start and stop the sensor, change the resolution it will output, and, crucially, to adjust the exposure time and gain applied to the image that the sensor is producing.
The second connection is the CSI bus, a much higher bandwidth link which carries pixel data from the camera back to the processor. Both of these buses travel along the ribbon cable that attaches the camera board to your Pi. The astute amongst you will notice that there aren’t all that many lines in the ribbon cable – and indeed both I2C and CSI are serial protocols for just this reason.
The pixels produced are 10 bits wide rather than the 8 bits you’re more used to seeing in your JPEGs. That’s because we’re ultimately going to adjust some parts of the dynamic range and we don’t want “gaps” (which would become visible as “banding”) to open up where the pixel values are stretched out. At 15fps (frames per second) that’s a maximum of 2592x1944x10x15 bits per second (approximately 750Mbps). Actually many higher-end cameras will give you frames larger than this at up to 30fps, but still, this is no slouch!
Show me some pictures!
So, armed with our camera modules and adapter board, the next job we have is to write a device driver to translate our camera stack’s view of the camera (“use this resolution”, “start the camera” and so forth) into I2C commands that are meaningful to the image sensor itself. The driver has to play nicely with the camera stack’s AEC/AGC (auto-exposure/auto-gain) algorithm whose job it is to drive the exposure of the image to the “Goldilocks” level – not too dark, not too bright. Perhaps some of you remember seeing one of Dom’s early camera videos where there were clear “winks” and “wobbles” in brightness. These were caused by the driver not synchronising the requested exposure changes correctly with the firmware algorithms… you’ll be glad to hear this is pretty much the first thing we fixed!
With a working driver, we can now capture pixels from the camera. These pixels, however, do not constitute a beautiful picture postcard image. We get a raw pixel stream, even more raw, in fact, than in a DSLR’s so-called raw image where certain processing has often already been applied. Here’s a tiny crop from a raw image, greatly magnified to show the individual pixels.
Surprised? To make sense of this vast amount of strange pixel data the Broadcom GPU contains a special purpose Image Signal Processor (ISP), a very deep hardware pipeline tasked with the job of turning these raw numbers into something that actually looks nice. To accomplish this, the ISP will crunch tens of billions of calculations every second.
What do you mean, two-thirds of my pixels are made up?
Yes, it is imaging’s inconvenient truth that fully two-thirds of the colour values in an RGB image have been, well, we engineers prefer to use the word interpolated. An image sensor is a two dimensional array of photosites, and each photosite can sample only one number – either a red, a green or a blue value, but not all three. It was the idea of Bryce Bayer, working for Kodak back in 1976, to add an array of microlenses over the top so that each photosite can measure a different colour channel. The arrangement of reds, greens and blues that you see in the crop above is now referred to as a “Bayer pattern” and a special algorithm, often called a “demosaic algorithm”, is used to create the fully-sampled RGB image. Notice how there are twice as many greens as reds or blues, because our eyes are far more sensitive to green light than to red or blue.
The Bayer pattern is not without its problems, of course. Most obviously a large part of the incoming light is simply filtered out meaning they perform poorly in dark conditions. Mathematicians may also mutter darkly about “aliasing” which makes a faithful reconstruction of the original colours very difficult when there is high detail, but nonetheless the absolutely overwhelming majority of sensors in use today are of the Bayer variety.
Now finally for today’s posting, here’s what the whole image looks like once it has been “demosaicked”.
My eyes! They burn with the ugly!
It’s recognisable, that’s about the kindest thing you can say, but hardly lovely – we would still seem to have some way to go. In my next posting, then, I’ll initiate you into the arcane world of camera tuning…
Artist Shepard Fairey may be best known for Obey Giant and his Barack Obama "Hope" poster, but his latest work will be conquering an entirely different realm: outer space. The artist has designed the patch for an upcoming mission to the International Space Station called ARK1 — Advanced Science and Research — that will run from September 2013 through March 2014. ARK1 will be the first flight managed by the Center for the Advancement of Science in Space (CASIS), a non-profit organization that was set up by the US Congress in order to help promote research aboard the ISS.
CASIS had originally contract a design agency in Florida called Fiction to design the patch; Fiction then brough Fairey onto the project. While the badge is...
firehosegreat
Since Brian worked on the server side, his list of Stupid Feed Tricks didn’t include my very favorite feed screw-up.
A lot of hotels and similar offer wi-fi. When you open a page in your browser, it redirects you to their login page.
Those systems don’t differentiate between an http request made by a feed reader and an http request made by a browser. (Nor should they.)
But what happens is that you launch your reader and it gets a redirect for every single feed, to some kind of URL like http://dumbhotel.com/register.aspx.
Normally that would be fine. It’s just a redirect, and once you have actually logged in you can do a refresh in your reader and all’s well.
But!
No!
A bunch of these dumb systems redirect using a permanent redirect: they use 301 instead of 302.
When a feed reader gets a permanent redirect, it’s supposed to take that to mean: “Hey, the feed moved. It’s over here now. Save the new URL and use the new one from now on.”
And if you don’t do that in your reader, and your feed reader is popular enough, smart people who quite rightly care about proper behavior will call you out. You have to do that.
So you write your feed reader to do the right thing — and then one of your customers goes to a dumb hotel, opens their laptop, and their subscription list is wiped out. Every feed URL is replaced with http://dumbhotel.com/register.aspx. And now they can’t get their news, and they don’t know how to get it back.
I was excited by the teasers for Brian K. Vaughan and Marcos Martin’s creator-owned project — Saga is one of my favorite current reads, and I love anything the artist draws — and now I’m pleased to see the actual announcement doesn’t disappoint.
Rather publish a traditional miniseries, which is what I was expecting, the Doctor Strange: The Oath collaborators have reteamed for Panel Syndicate, a website where they’ll release digital comics in a variety of formats, all DRM-free, which will undoubtedly please those who have been critical the the industry’s predominant digital-delivery methods. What’s more, the creators are allowing readers to name their price, although “we think 99 cents is a pretty fair asking price for our new issues” (hitting upon another hot-button subject in the digital debate, that $2.99 or $3.99 is too expensive for a standard-length comic).
Panel Syndicate debuts with The Private Eye, described as “a detective story set in 2076, when everyone in the United States has a secret identity. Our protagonist is a member of the paparazzi, outlaw private investigators who dig up the kind of personal dirt no longer readily available through search engines. It’s a mystery with lots of masks, but no superpowers.”
The 32-page first issue (of an expected 10) is available now on the Panel Syndicate website, although I’ve been unable to purchase it (I keep getting the message, “This recipient is currently unable to receive money”). And even if you can’t buy it yet, you can still check out a three-page preview.
Hungarian tool-maker and artist Cerkahegyzo has created a tiny and incredibly detailed Alien-themed chestburster sculpture carved out of pencil lead. Cerkahegyzo uses a variety of common items found around the house to make his intricate carvings, such as nails.
images via Cerkahegyzo
via Obvious Winner
Illustrator Len Peralta — creator of the awesome “Geek A Week” trading card sets — has opened commissions for Dungeons & Dragons and RPG characters. You can browse completed commissions on Flickr, and commission a print from Peralta’s shop.
images via Len Peralta
via Len Peralta
In his ongoing street art series “The Living Wall,” Russian artist Nikita Nomerz brings life to decrepit buildings in Russia by painting faces on them. Nomerz travels extensively around Russia and makes an effort to paint a character in each place he visits. He talks about his art in this interview with Global Street Art.
I paint in the street, in public spaces, but I do not position myself as an invader of the city or a destroyer. I position myself as a creator. With my street art work, I fill the urban emptiness. I am inspired by the process of painting, city, people, music, movies and art by other artists. All this is interesting: it pushes the creation of art works.
via Telegraph, Global Street Art, Environmental Graffiti, Digg
firehoseyo, is it
Pears that look like chubby little Buddha-like babies have been spotted for sale in Chinese supermarkets, marketed as “happy/joyful doll pears.” To create these pear dolls, the fruit is molded into its humanoid shape during the growth process on the tree itself. Daily Mail reported last year that an entrepreneurial farmer named Hao Xianzhang has been developing the process for several years and hopes to sell them in the United Kingdom.
images via RocketNews24
image via Dingmeizi
image via Daily Mail
via RocketNews24, Nerdcore
Google is showing off its new voice recognition technologies in Chrome with the Peanut Gallery, a Chrome experiment that allows users to add intertitles to silent films by speaking aloud.
via Google Blog
Today, Google announced that it will be adding filters to Google Images Search for animated GIFs. In order to specifically search for GIFs, click “Search Tools,” “Any Type,” and select “Animated.” Google has also added the option to search for images with a transparent background by selecting “Transparent” from the “Any Color” dropdown menu.
The Beatles Song Chart Volume 1
The Beatles Song Charts are a three volume set of designs by Pop Chart Lab that display a detailed breakdown of individual instruments from Beatles songs. Each design shows a different period in their extensive musical career. Prints of Volume 1, Volume 2, Volume 3, and a box set of all three designs are available to purchase online.
Volume I covers all original compositions from their very first releases through “Help!” in 1965, showing the group’s progression from simple, catchy singles to complex arrangements like “You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away.”
Volume II covers their explosively creative middle period, from the release of “Rubber Soul” through “Magical Mystery Tour,” as the band incorporated exotic instruments such as the dilruba and tambura, as well as improvised sounds such as clinking glasses, rattling chains, and more.
Volume III covers their final period, from the “White Album” through “Let It Be,” as the band continued to push the possibilities of recorded music on songs like “Revolution 9″ and “Across the Universe.”
The Beatles Song Chart Volume 2
The Beatles Song Chart Volume 3
The Beatles Song Charts Box Set
images via Pop Chart Lab
firehoseAmerican thought leader and philosopher Justin Bieber
firehoseME, FAKEGRIMLOCK, FAMOUS ROBOT STARTUP DINOSAUR, AM PRETTY STUPID.
ME SHOW YOU HOW TO BE TOO.
...
SMART PERSON EVENTUALLY FIND SOMETHING THAT WORK. ONCE FIND, IT KIND OF BORING. LOTS OF SMART PEOPLE FIND WAY TO WIN, THROW IT AWAY FOR EXCITING NEW WAY TO LOSE.
STUPID PERSON NEVER GET BORED WITH WINNING. PULL LEVER MAKE MONEY? THEM PULL THAT LEVER FOREVER.
THAT WHY YEARS LATER STUPID PERSON RICH, YOU JUST INTERESTING AND POOR.
STOP BEING BORED. BE STUPID! DO WHAT WORKS. OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER.
“They own the majority of the homes in the community, and I walk through the area every day, and I see them running in between each other’s houses,” he said. “One day I was walking, and Shirley Phelps [one of Westboro’s main spokespeople and the daughter of the church’s leader, Fred Phelps] was on her four-wheeler. And I said, ‘Hey guys, how are you?’ And [she and her husband] responded, ‘Oh, we’re good. How are you?’ We had a short conversation, and she was extremely nice, and she made a joke and we all laughed.”
“It’s the craziest thing — and it really throws you off — because she’s the type of woman who calls you “hun” and “darling” — she’s very Southern,” he said. “It’s like, aren’t you the lady that’s supposed to be casting me into hell? It’s truly mind-boggling, but I can’t say anything personally bad about her because she was kind to me and she made me laugh. She’d probably be fun to hang out with.”
”Westboro Equality House: Aaron Jackson Paints Rainbow Home Across From Anti-Gay Church
