Louis Vuitton

Teppei Koseki

NEW CHIRP MIX!

Starcadian

Had a phenomenal party last night at the VHX office... so I'm dragging a bit today. That being said, here's the playlist... I hope it provides some much needed distraction.

• The Rip-Hoff - typically I do not love these kind of theme song slice ups but this one actually manages to tell a story and gets particularly absurd near the end. Approved.
• A Brief History of Video Game Title Design - I mostly loved the first minute of this for all its 8-bit nostalgia but it's really quite impressive to see just how close contemporary video games come to movies - there's almost zero difference.
• Calvin and Hobbes Dance - Animator Adam Brown took it upon himself to put a little motion behind Calvin and Hobbes as an homage. It turned out quite sweet. Oh, and great music from ProleteR.
• Arcade Fire - "Afterlife" Live - Gerta Gerwig is just the right balance of awkward and endearing in this performance, directed by Spike Jonze, from the Youtube Awards. Now I really have to see Frances Ha.
• Breaking News App - I somehow missed this promo piece from Sandwich Video until this week. The story behind it is great.
• Martial Arts Fails - because sometimes there's nothing more pleasurable than watching a proper FAIL compilation.

Have a great weekend! Get some rest! I know I will.

I found myself wanting to transport a local iTunes playlist into my Rdio account but not having to go through and manually select each song (it was a long playlist). A quick bit of Googling unveiled Trnsmit - a very handy tool that did exactly what I was looking for; pushing exported iTunes playlists right into your Rdio account. Like magic! Worked like a charm.

I am loving this Full Movies in Quick GIF Format forum. It is, without a doubt, completely absurd and more than a bit silly but it's still fascinating to watch nonetheless. The low res graphics in War Games are particularly fun to watch fly by.

via Steve

Thank you Klaus Pichler for taking these photos of Costumed Cosplayers in their Homes for his Just the Two of Us project. I can't pick a favorite.

via Becky.

Enjoying this gallery of distressed prints from Rohn Meijer. Apparently he discovered some neglected negatives in a basement, exposed to moisture, and developed them anyway to find some pleasing results. Since then he's been bathing negatives in a secret chemical wash for months just to see what happens. 90% of the results may be trashed but that remaining 10% is pretty gorgeous.

YouTube Spotlight

Happy to see that All Them Witches have followed up their excellent debut, Our Mother Electricity, with another quality release - Lightning at the Door.

There are so many incredible, inspiring, demos at CoDrops its kind of ridiculous. I'm loving this latest one on Animated SVG Icons. Granted, it's not practical to implement if you're going to target less than IE9 but it's still, conceptually, great. Also, nerding out on subjects like this really let you know how far down the web design hole you've gone.

Breaking News

Have you seen Knock to Unlock yet? It's been making the rounds - largely in part to the amusing promo video from Sandwich Video. It's a pretty impressively clever way to unlock your laptop, from your phone. Personally, I think I unlock my laptop maybe twice a day - tops - but there are others where it is more common and it might be fun to have such a mechanism to access their machine. At the very least, watch the video and give the app a try.

Photographer David Guttenfelder has been documenting North Korea since 2000 but it hasn't been until recently (February) that he's really been able to capture the country with unfettered restriction.

No one puts their hand in front of my camera, and no one tells me not to shoot things. There’s no review process. They don’t look at my pictures at all before I send them on the Associated Press wire or my Instagram account. Facebook even asks me to tag my “friends” Kim Jong Il and Kim Il Sung when I upload my photos.

Unsurprisingly, the photos often have a vintage vibe due to some antiquated tech. There's plenty of beautiful scenes as well but it's so strange that it's such an undocumented place.

If you didn't see the SNL Wes Anderson spoof The Midnight Coterie Of Sinister Intruders, go treat yourself right now. After that, dive into this amazingly exhaustive How We Did It from Alex Buono and team. Rarely do you ever get a glimpse into this kind of process and, even if you're not a filmmaker, it's surprisingly engaging.

I'd love to see something similar from Matt and Oz - also responsible for a great deal of funny from SNL.

deluxe re-release.

Loving this transcript from Google Play's Head of Global Content Programming Tim Quirk at the Future of Music Summit. He's, rightfully, fired up about people lamenting the "good ole days" and the superiority of record stores and limited choice. He doesn't have issue with either but, rather, sees that today's landscape is beneficial and is inclusive, moreso than ever before. Oh, and the big kicker? He awesomely proclaims you can not devalue music, "Music is priceless."

His speech is simple but covers a lot of ground successfully. It's also exciting to think about how much potential impact an artist could have now, despite the perceived competition.

I am both excited and dismayed by this news. Lets hope I get NYC tickets if they happen.

It's a rather long read but throw it in your read later or, better yet, just stop doing whatever thing you think is important now and go ahead and dive into this article from David Freedman & The Atlantic regarding the controversial topic of Junk Food vs "Wholesome" Food. Junk Food Can End Obesity is a bit scathing in its judgement of chains like Whole Foods or Trader Joe's but the point is legitimate. This little bit is a nice poignant one:

If the most-influential voices in our food culture today get their way, we will achieve a genuine food revolution. Too bad it would be one tailored to the dubious health fantasies of a small, elite minority. And too bad it would largely exclude the obese masses, who would continue to sicken and die early. Despite the best efforts of a small army of wholesome-food heroes, there is no reasonable scenario under which these foods could become cheap and plentiful enough to serve as the core diet for most of the obese population—even in the unlikely case that your typical junk-food eater would be willing and able to break lifelong habits to embrace kale and yellow beets. And many of the dishes glorified by the wholesome-food movement are, in any case, as caloric and obesogenic as anything served in a Burger King.

I am, by no means, an overly healthy individual. However, I do often fall prey to the influence of feeling healthier just by eating from some of the fancier outlets. It's nice to read an exhaustive take on the bigger issue at hand - namely, the somewhat classist divergence between getting truly healthier foods to those that need it. Worth a pondering or two!

via David Sizemore.