I'm loving the resurgence that the GIF has been having lately. Moving the Still is a Paddle8 curated open-call for people to submit their creations (some may be displayed on exhibition). Even if you have nothing of your own to submit, there are plenty of gems to discover via browsing.

I've talked about DIY.org before, a San Francisco startup aimed at helping kids be creative and crafty, but given that I don't have any children it's not a project that I've kept up with steadily. So, it was an incredibly pleasant surprise to see that they've launched a full blown site. The Skills badges are superb and the intro anthem is outta this world. I'm curious to hear if anyone who has kids has jumped headlong into this? I know if I were still a preteen I'd be all over it.

Boxee recently launched their latest hardware undertaking - Boxee TV, a set top box that will allow you to watch HD broadcast TV and cloud based DVR. It's only available in eight markets at launch but it looks fairly promising. The Verge has posted a fairly exhaustive look at the new device; well worth a read if you're considering picking one up. The previous hardware, The Boxee Box, will likely be phased out from this point forward. Assuming it works like it says it does, this could be a pretty huge leap forward in the world of Cord Cutting. Definitely a topic to keep your eye on.

Architect Peter Vetsch has a series of homes called Earth Houses that are buried in the Earth surrounding a quiet pond. It, undoubtedly, will remind you of a Hobbit home and rightfully so as it was likely inspired by exactly that. I think the most impressive part of the undertaking is not the exterior but the interior, which doesn't look to be cavelike in the slightest. The natural lighting appears to make the entire place bright and peaceful. Oh, and that bathtub is cheesy hilarious.

Great .net interview from Information Architect Oliver Reichenstein about a myriad of topics; including what guides his design choices and what he sees as the current design atmosphere. This is a nice snippet of a much bigger conversation:

I believe that the traditionalist trends in music, fashion, and TV, as well as Apple's use of old metaphors and Microsoft's return to Swiss graphic design in Windows 8, is a sign of a creative process at its beginning. We are about to experience a back and forth from the digital to analogue that will eventually lead to a different understanding of reality. As different as this future reality is, it won't necessarily look that 'new'. It might look like the spoof of that Mad Men episode called The Carousel. When you first look at this, especially after watching the original, it feels ridiculous. You think "something is lost" or "there is no emotion", but the more you watch the satire the less you will see a difference and realise that the old, analogue reality was as constructed as the digital one. There is no authentic reality and there never was.

Lots of interesting topics to ponder within. Add it to your Read Later if you don't have time at the moment.

via Arlo.

In a fit of jealousy over Jeremy reminding me that he somehow manages to finish his mixes in a timely manner, I finally finished off my latest compilation. Sure, it was intended for release a month ago and still happens to feature two songs from the same artist but what's wrong with that? Nothin! Right?

Regardless, I am happy with the mix and am glad to finally get it out into the world. Enjoy Summon The Queen.
My yearly Halloween mix will be released soon so you can get in the proper mood for the remainder of the month.

[ Single MP3 | Single M4A | Individual MP3 ZIP | Stream It ]

1. David Byrne and St. Vincent - Who
2. Ween - Gabrielle
3. BAMBARA - Stay Gray
4. Sweet Valley - Total Carnage
5. Paul Banks - The Base
6. Moon Duo - Sleepwalker
7. All Them Witches - The Urn
8. Allah-Las - Ela Navega
9. Grizzly Bear - Speak In Rounds
10. Nahnee Bori - The Fiery Serf
11. Jessie Baylin - Thorns
12. Ween - Buckingham Green
13. The Beatles - Good Night (Alternate Take)
14. Amanda Ghassaei - Over the Rainbow

Without needing any context you really should head over to Aaron Koblin's absolutely exquisite Aaronetrope exhibition. It's a blend of video and javascript that looks like the stuff of sci-fi dreams. It manages to be both incredibly complex and low fidelity at the same time. Add to all that the fact that the observations he's making about computing, "crowdsourcing" and our Internet Medium are actually fascinating.

So, get smitten here and then remind yourself of the Mr. Koblin's works here.

via Mr. Baio.

In the midst of being creeped out by this list of Unexplained Sounds, Steve introduced me to the concept of Numbers stations:

a type of shortwave radio station characterized by their unusual broadcasts, which consist of spoken words, but mostly numbers, often created by artificially generated voices reading streams of numbers, words, letters, tunes or Morse code. They are transmitted in a wide variety of languages and the voices are usually female, although sometimes men's or children's voices are used.

There's a lot to be intrigued by here. I mean, listen to this example; that is bound to bring up some questions. This NPR Story does a good job of introducing the concepts and answering some of the broader questions; I suggest you start there.

I suggest you end with The Conet Project - an open repository compilation of 30 years worth of collected Numbers station recordings.

Anyone tried out the Echograph app? It appears to do the same thing as the Cinemagram app - create short animated Cinemagraph style gifs - but with a much better / thoughtful user interface. The downside? It appears to be for iPad only and no social element built in (beyond sharing to other services). Regardless, it looks solid and I'm curious to hear some reviews. Even if you've not used it (nor plan to) you should check out the Staff Favs Gallery - plenty of interesting animations going on in there.

Foward Toward Something is, as far as I can tell, the debut full-length from Feral Hymns - a collaborative project between Nashville and Brooklyn musicians. The project is headed by Gieves Anderson and includes collaborative efforts from the likes of The Detachment Kit, Bronze, Forget Cassettes, By Lightning!, Ponychase and many more. Thus far it appears to be one of those delightfully rare records that grabs you at first listen and then continues to grow on you the more and more you listen to it. I'm hooked.

Download Forward Toward Something

Did you have any idea that the 1986 Little Shop of Horrors had a much different original ending than the one shown in theatres? Apparently Frank Oz and playwright Howard Menken showed this apocalyptic ending to some test audiences and it did not do well. So, they reshot it as a more typical Hollywood ending and it became the movie we all know and enjoy. The Blu-Ray of the film was just released and it contains the original ending, fully restored - not this crazy b/w version. You can watch the whole thing right here or view this great gallery of stills. Nothing like a space plant planetary takeover to end your quirky musical, amirite?

TIME often has unbeatable great photo galleries but this collection of Stroboscopic images from Gjon Mili are spellbinding. Make sure you catch this Sammy Davis Jr and George Balanchine if you're in a rush but, honestly, have a look at them all. Incredible.

Photo by Joe Pugliese While it's not quite as tumultuous of an environment as Hipstamatic was it seems that things are quite rocky over at Hulu - despite its success. This article does a great job of telling the tale of CEO Jason Kilar's ongoing quest to battle his parent companies in an attempt to wrangle Hulu into a better service. He was actively involved in the recent relaunch (which is quite nice), he spearheaded the contents of Hulu Plus and even introduced standards to a number of studios for encoding their older shows. Most remarkably, he setup a system where people pay to watch ad supported tv online and it actually turns a profit - no small feat. It's a long read but a good one as it exemplifies that the big media companies are not ready for the constantly evolving digital disruption to their normal way of operating.

Did you know that Netflix is having an Arrested Development contest called You're Gonna Get Some Walk-Ons? The main prize is, unsurprisingly, a walk-on role for Season 4 of the show. There are a lot of entries already but there's still plenty of room for a quality entry - assuming you can get it together in the next day's time. Also assuming you can top my friends Bluthiness - it will be difficult.

Ah, Friday. I've been looking forward to you. Enjoy your playlist and knock off from work early. Seriously. Even if it gets you fired, do it.

• Shortest Attention Span Ever - the parental reaction is actually every bit as good as the kid.
• Oh YEAH - the Ferris Bueller song, when applied correctly, never gets old.
• The Ultimate Dog Shaming - any video that starts off with a dog holding a sign reading "I Like To Roll Around In Pickles" is alright by me.
• Bad Lip Reading: Eye of the Sparrow - despite the fact that the VP debates were last night and you'd think that Bad Lip Readings would get old after awhile, this holds up. They take it some rather absurd places. Stick with it, the back half is greater than the front.
• Onion Talks - I look forward to this new series from The Onion mocking Ted Talks. Maybe not work appropriate but I'm intrigued by "What is the biggest rock!?"
• Surprise Motherf***er! - obviously some NSFW language here but stick with it.. just a regular Wheel of Fortune episode.
• Bottles Beware - I'll admit it, at first I was enjoying this out of a mocking sense of this guy but as it proceeds you can't help but enjoy it just out of sheer impressiveness.
• Dogdancing World Championship - reread that title please. Dogdancing, World, Championships. It's eight minutes of "oh my god I can't believe this exists." Make sure you catch the Indiana Jones routine - CLASSIC.

Need more? The VHX Blog has goods. My feed has content. Oh, and if you can make it through this entire video you are a stronger man than I (despite my best efforts).

Instead of harping on the fact that it's been over a month since the release of the last podcast I will just say this - Nashville is full of surprises. Here's a quick pigeonholed rundown of the styles of music contained within this 37 minute broadcast: Hip-hop, Garage Rock, Bedroom Electronics, Pop/Rock, Rawk, Psychedelic Drone Jams, Post-Rock, Rambling Indie Rock, Country Passion, Rock and Space Rock.

• Download MP3
• Download M4A (iTunes only but has Chapter Stops)
• Stream Podcast
• View Podcast Details

Steve directed me towards the work of Robert Wallace, aka Parallel Teeth, and I made sure to go through each and every offering he had. It's hard to pinpoint what I like the most - the animation? the the illustration? the bizarre? the carefully curated? So, instead of picking I'm just going to enthusiastically proclaim that I love it all, follow his Tumblr and rest easy knowing the Internet still has so much good to give.

Yesterday I nabbed the latest from Marco Arment; a bi-weekly publication focusing on topics for people that love technology called The Magazine. The Foreword to the first issue explains the whole thing quite well. There won't be super fancy article layouts, no venture capitalist funding to make it go, no extra baggage brought over the world of print despite it being called The Magazine. It's focused on the content and streamlined presentation and, from what I've experienced so far, it's doing it quite well. You can grab it here and dive in for some weekend reading.

I'm not entirely sure what Danny Jones are up to with their Geo A Day project but I'm more than happy to take in the regular dabblings they're offering to the world. The myriad of subjects ranges from woodland creatures to still lifes to planets (lots of planets) to miscellaneous other. It's inevitable that you will find something appealing there if, like me, you don't already find it all appealing.

Even if it's just a design exercise from two talented individuals I'm happy they decided to put it out into the world to witness.

For the past few days I've been seeing this story make the rounds about Beatles fanatic Peter Dean and his quest to recreate the poster that inspired John Lennon to write Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite. I assumed he just digitally recreated it but after watching this video I realized I couldn't have been more wrong. Dean painstakingly reproduced the poster with actual woodcuts and legitimate vintage letterpressing. The final result is impressive to say the least...