My good pal Ross Wariner, aka Uncle Skeleton, is moving up to NYC in the next few weeks. I'll be bummed to not have him around Nashville anymore but I'm excited for what lies ahead in his musical endeavors once he departs from this region. He played his last show in town the other week and it was captured by the folks at Bucket City Mobile. So, head over to this video to see Uncle Skeleton (and a bunch of other Nashville area bands) perform. It's an excellent send off.

• Responsive Web Design in SASS - nice article about using variables and breakpoints for some responsive design via SASS.
• App.net - I may post more on this later but I'm just familiarizing myself with the ideas behind App.net - a "real time social service where users and developers come first, not advertisers." Sounds like it could be great or it could be total BS. The intro video is very emphatic!
• Qouch - apparently if you use Sabnzbd and Sickbeard you really must have Qouch installed as well. If all of that sounds like total nonsense to you, don't worry about it. Move along!

I had a helluva week up in NY with my new pals at VHX but, unfortunately, didn't have a ton of time to browse. So, this weeks playlist, while solid, may be a little on the light side. Let's get to it.

• First Hot Dog in Outer Space - Do yourself a favor, jump 48 seconds in and just enjoy the lift off and epic journey of meat in space.
• Lena Dunham, Jon Hamm and Alex Karpovsky Introduce the New Yorker iPhone App - it's not that funny but I find myself enjoying anything with Alex Karpovsky.
• 1981 Gymnastic Antics - I've seen this clip before but given that we're all overwhelmed with 2012 footage it's a nice revisit. I wish to see more of this sort of thing these days please.
• Internet Scam Alert: Most "Kickstarter" Projects Just Useless Crap - thank you Onion News Network. Nailed it.
• Meat Orgy on Turkish TV - this starts off very slow and quite weird. Then, a little over a minute in, it proceeds to get very VERY weird. What is happening here? I don't know and I'm fairly sure I don't want to.

Bonus

• Animatronic Hillbilly Band - aka Nightmare Fodder. Thanks a lot Paul.
• Just Some Turkeys - this should not be as funny as it is but it is.

Have a great weekend!

If you are at all like myself (which I trust that you are), you will likely need to stop everything you are doing and immediately start browsing the archives of Brother Brain. Each page features three original animated gifs cultivated from some familiar nostalgic videogame past. Altered Beast, Ninja Gaiden, Mario, Metroid, etc. The list goes on and on. I will warn you, after viewing you may be compelled to nab your nearest emulator and not work for the remainder of the day.

I'm going to be honest; there's no way I'm going to personally wear this Robert Cop 2 Tee - based on the Chinese knockoff toy of the same name. I'm just not a printed tee guy anymore. However, the work of Brad McGinty is so engaging that it's worth considering making the switch. Other tees, like the Anatomy of a Xenomorph are enough to make your head spin.

Long story short, McGinty is an incredibly talented illustrator and that shirt is pretty amusing. Spread the word. Thanks Falfa.

Because the service hasn't fully launched (and Round 1 of Beta Users is closed), I'm not sure it's fair to judge the service at Wander, a new travel log site / application. However, I can say that their Preview page once you are put in the holding pen for new users is quite nice. Great iconography, well done type, engaging layouts and they do a pretty good job of selling the concept of documenting your travels. Only time will tell how well it's implemented but I'm definitely curious!

• Hover Zoom for Google Chrome - incredibly handy plugin for Chrome to auto-zoom images. I've only been running this a few days and it strikes me as one of those add-ons I can't believe I lived without prior to now.
• Smart Calendar Assistant for Gmail - I've not actually installed this yet but the intro video looks like it's done super well and unobtrusively. Going to try to dive into it today.
• Starbucks switches to Square for payments - I assume this is old news now but the impact of this is still striking me as so huge. I'm happy that the expensive, cumbersome credit card infrastructure is getting chipped away for something more nimble and forward thinking. Despite their coffee being terrible (subjective opinion), kudos to Starbucks for moving on this.

Awhile back, Errol Morris ran a survey on the NYTimes trying to determine if people were optimistic or pessimistic about the Earth being demolished by an asteroid. Turns out the whole thing was a straightforward A/B test to see if the actual typography affected the results (Spoiler Alert: It does). Unsurprisingly, people behave differently when given a question set in Comic Sans versus a question set in Georgia or Helvetica. Results here. Pretty funny.

I'm in New York at the moment and was in meeting all day yesterday. So, I didn't have much time to browse around. Here's some random stuff I've found in the meantime:

• Massive Honan Hack - if you didn't read about this on Daring Fireball already please stop and read this great anecdote from Mat Honan about how he was hacked recently - via social engineering - and how his data was wiped on all three of his devices remotely. Scary stuff.
• Curoisity Tweets - apparently the new Mars rover is running multiple Twitter accounts. Which one to follow?!
• Mystery Twins to release 7" - some Nashville pals will be putting out a 7" with my other pals at Theory 8. A winning combo!

It always sounds ridiculous to compare a new undertaking to two existing ones - but Turf really is like Foursquare meets Tiny Tower. You check in to physical locations, claim real estate there and then defend it from others who may be trying to take top spot. There's some game mechanics involved and it rewards you for being a loyal customer somewhere. Also, it seems to have an 8-Bit Wes Anderson / Moonrise Kingdom vibe to it but that's got to be a happy accident, right?

So far, it's been rather fun to play with and there's tons of well done walkthrough screens and handholding to get familiar with the process. Check it out!

There are so many things about this Max Capacity profile that I enjoy that it's hard to nail them all down. Obviously, the work itself is appealing - seeped in nostalgic feelings from my own childhood, mixed with glitched out repetition. But the interview is pitch perfect in its delivery of deadpan, droll observations that are sincere and entertaining. It's hard to explain but it seems intentionally pretentious in the best way. Love it.

via Chad.

The Last Words series of prints from Chris Harrell features the parting words from The Great Gatsby and The Little Prince (with Ocarina of Time as a bonus). It's a quality idea with some excellent handmade typography at play that I'd enjoy seeing more of.

• UI Cloud reminds me a whole lot of Icon Finder - a search engine for design solutiions and inspirations. They're Kissing Cousins if you might be so bold.
• Firefox supports @supports - even though the latest Firefox seems to be showing more bloat than it has in awhile, they will be supporting @supports - a check to make sure the end user can see a particular attribute before it is appled in CSS.
• Yes, I was hacked. Hard This tale of Mat Honan being hacked and having his phone, ipad and laptop all remotely wipe is a scary reminder that life in The Cloud™ still has its drawbacks.

Fragments of RGB is an art installation from OnFormative that simulates an LCD screen distorting and abstracting as the viewer approaches it. From the two part video documentation and Flickr set, it's safe to say it's a beautiful piece of dynamic deconstructive art.

via Danny.

Fragments of RGB is an art installation from OnFormative that simulates an LCD screen distorting and abstracting as the viewer approaches it. From the two part video documentation and Flickr set, it's safe to say it's a beautiful piece of dynamic deconstructive art.

via Danny.

Finally got around to watching Shut Up Little Man last night. If you've not seen the trailer, please go dive right in and learn about Eddie Sausage and Mitchell D's audio verite adventure recording tumultuous friends Peter Haskett and Raymond Huffman. I loved the story and all of the incredible pieces of art that spawned from the recordings - comics from Daniel Clowes, an original movie and who knows what else. It's up on Netflix if you're curious to see it. There's a bit of an exploitative angle in respect to the two alcoholics that the entire film is based around but the creators seem to skirt the line between genuine interest and personal gain. It's all just part of what makes the story that much more compelling.

I mentioned the Seinfeld web series Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee previously but I wanted to make sure you knew that the latest episode, with Ricky Gervais, was now available for your enjoyment. It's Jerry Seinfeld and Ricky Gervais driving around chit chatting so you pretty much already know 100% what to expect, but it's an entertaining 12 minutes none-the-less.

So, I've only been with VHX for a week but I've already been immersed into a ton of new technologies that I've been meaning to check out for forever. No better way to learn than to just be thrown into the deep end, right? Here's some handy tools that I've encountered:

• Pow - I assume anyone working within the Rails environment already knows about Pow but it's been a huge help for localized development - removing the guesswork with starting the rails server and remembering exactly what localhost port it's running on. Beyond handy.
• TotalTerminal - I think this used to be called "Visor" but it's an incredibly convenient way to globally access your Terminal for pushing / pulling git updates. Much better than having a window floating around somewhere.
• SaSS - Yea, this has obviously been around for awhile but I was shocked that it actually does make writing CSS enjoyable, as opposed to somewhat of a chore from time to time. Loving it.

I'm in continuous celebration of my new employment at VHX. Hopefully you can take off work early today, grab a treat and join me. It's the weekend! This week's playlist might be a little heavy on the animal videos. So, if you're one of those weirdos that doesn't get enjoyment out of animals being silly, don't fret.. there's plenty of non-animal absurdity in here too.

• Baby Wombat - it's the cover gif but in video form. Aka Perfect Cuteness.
• Cat Shopping - sometimes you just need to loop a video a few times to make it totally perfect.
• Natural Thing - animals like to chase laser lights. This video proves it.
• PSY - Gangham Style - I was going to suggest you mute the music and just enjoy the ridiculousness of this video but then you'd miss out on this Korean rapper saying what sounds like "Condom Star" over and over. Every shot in this video could be its own perfectly amusing animated gif.
• Excited Train Guy - I love the unbridled, legitimate, enthusiasm this guy has for this train. Unreal.
• Slim Chance Surplus Sales - intentionally awkward local commercial done with a Hee-Haw sense of humor. Approved.
• Green Linez - Hibiscus Pacific - I saw this last week and was tempted to share. I didn't and I regret it. This bizarre video has haunted me for a week. So weird, in the best way.
• Stewart Lee - Rap Singers - endurance challenge. How far do you make it into this hour clip?
• Moonwalking Nyan Cat - rarely do I see such greatness.

BONUS:

• Higgs Boson Explained - great animation that really gets to the heart of this Higgs Boson thing.
• Stair Slide - this is a skill I'd like to develop for myself.
• Olympic High Bar Cat - the reward is in the struggle.

Have a great weekend!

The Tokyo Skytree mural is an illustration installation from Team Lab that is 40 meters in length and 3 meters tall. That's 131 feet wide by almost 10 feet tall. So, the above image does exactly zero justice to the massive nature of the piece. Nor does it do any justice to the infinite amount of detail that is contained within - you can get down to street level, Where's Waldo style. Browse through this image gallery to see a small percent of the goodies hidden within the drawing and read more about the overall project here.

via Sniebauer.