Installed and configuring Key Ring this weekend. It's an app geared towards consolidating your membership, rewards and loyalty cards. It really only works for cards that you never have to swipe but that's typically the case so, thus far, it's pretty handy. Add to that it feels perfectly futuristic to scan your phone instead of some little weathered plastic strip you've awkwardly added to your key ring or stuffed in your wallet. Available for all mobile platforms, surprisingly.

Update: For what it's worth, I tried out two different bar scans and neither of them registered with the scanner. I feel like the reflective screen on the iPhone is probably not so conducive to having a laser read it. I will admit to being one of those people that doesn't like to spend very much on downloaded apps; especially games that have a limited shelf life once you've conquered them. However, I took a chance on the 8-bit puzzler / platformer The Last Rocket because it was made by Shaun Inman and even if it wasn't that fun, the money would be going to a worthwhile developer. Turns out, the funds are benefitting someone I admire and the game is great. The concepts are simple, the levels are challenging and the look is great. Hopefully his success with this game could lead to more time spent with Mimeo and the Kleptopus King. Hell, I'd Kickstarter him for such a thing. In the meantime, go get The Last Rocket.

• Best of jQuery Plugins 2011 - while I'm not often a huge fan of throwing plugins at a development solution I do think it's good to know what's out there. This list is a pretty handy place to start your year end review.
• ZURB Reveal Modal - one such situation where plugins are a bit acceptable would be a site in need of modals. This Reveal plugin cuts down on dev time and gives a real nice bit of output.
• CSS3 Toolkit - this is actually an app found in the Mac App Store to help write the code for "complex decorative CSS3 styles." I tend to use Ultimate Gradient Generator for these sorts of things but I can see an app being quite helpful.

https://i1.sndcdn.com/artworks-000014541694-emiov7-large.jpg?e76cf77

Apologies on the back-to-back video posts but it's Thanksgiving break and I'm only posting once today! Hope you had a good one - be it time with friends, family or just appreciating some time alone. Enjoy the playlist!

• Bob Ross Feeds a Squirrel - a heartwarming little clip. I imagine Bob Ross could charm any animal with little effort.
• Warriors of Goja - snatched via Kottke this may be one of the craziest things you'll see from the Internet this year. Aside from how absolutely insane the actual act is it's amazing how long it is. Just when you think it can't get any crazier, it goes on and on.
• Community Easter Egg - over the past three years the crew at Community has slowly been working on an Easter Egg in which they summon Beetlejuice. The culmination of this planning happened in this years Halloween episode.. be sure to watch the back window on the third utterance of the name. Brilliant.
• Octopus walks on land - the video itself isn't that exciting, as the walking is pretty slow and awkward but just keep in mind what you're seeing while you're watching this. It's only a matter of time.
• Fields of Gold - I meant to share this last week. I don't want to know if it is intentionally awkward or if it is legitimate practice - I just enjoy it for its weirdness.
• Alpine Coaster - four minutes of some rather intense alpine coasting. I want to do this.

BONUS

• The Loner - sort of a sad little tale overall but the animation style is great.
• The Shrine / An Argument - I don't count myself among the masses of Fleet Foxes fans out there but this video is gorgeous in many ways. It's definitely a tragic tale but it's certainly visually engaging.
• Jonny Corndawg - Chevy Beretta - still loving Down on the Bikini Line. This video captures the spirit of the song pretty perfectly I'd say.

Have a great weekend!

Great short film by David Parker depicting melting light from a variety of locations. The idea is to raise awareness about squandering resources - i.e. wasting energy - but it stands on its own as a rather beautiful piece of work.

via Chad.

Great article & gallery on the Sketchbook of Susan Kare, the Artist Who Gave Computing a Human Face. Basically, she's the artist who designed a ton of the icons we still see today (in some permutation). I had no idea that the "Command" icon was the icon of a castle seen from above, taken from Swedish campground iconography. Craziness.

via Austin / Jed.

IFP has an ongoing series of articles from Caspar Newbolt of Version Industries in which he gives some in-depth insight to his process of creation. You can read about the artwork creation for Makeup and Vanity Set's Never Let Go, posters for Pavilion and, most recently, the undertaking of creating artwork for 65daysofstatic rescoring of Silent Running. I always love reading about someone's creative process; even if the majority of it is just thinking about what the end result should be it's always insightful to see how someone got there and what their inspiration was.

• 15 Food Companies That Serve You 'Wood' - an article about the use of cellulose extender in food products that brings about immediate feelings of "this can't be true, can it?" I don't know enough about food manufacturing to dispute it and a hefty distrust of corporate motives certainly adds to the intrigue.
• What are some of the most mind-blowing facts - a Quora thread sharing some unbelievable, yet true, factoids. It's hard to pick a favorite, i.e. "About 1% of the static seen on old analog TVs is residual radiation from the Big Bang."
• Grooveshark facing $17 Billion in Damages - a lawsuit that I'd not heard of until this morning. It looks legit but the case itself sounds nuts - top execs at the company are being personally targeted for uploading massive amounts of copyrighted material; at $150,000 per infringement.

I know few of us have the time to really partake in a 30 minute web video but I must implore you to notch out some time for this Jonathan Hoefler presentation from the AIGA design conference, Pivot. Aside from the fascinating anecdotes about how, and why, the "Retina" typeface is designed the way it is, there's a great bit of insight on where the web is headed, how it handles text and how H&FJ is creating typefaces to work the best on the screen.

I'm a fairly diehard Richard Swift fan - both of his own recordings and his production work. So, when I stumbled into this Pleasure Center EP from Jessie Baylin and saw that it was produced by Swift, I was fairly sure I would enjoy it despite knowing nothing of Baylin. Turns out, I more than like it - I'm running it into the ground. The EP features a load of covers ranging from Sonic Youth to Fleetwood Mac to Thin Lizzy all put forth with that perfect, somewhat lo-fi, Swift sound. Baylin's voice matches the aesthetic perfectly.

Spent some time last night checking out Stamped - a new iOS app that falls into the general category of "Rank Everything." Fortunately, it keeps it simple in its execution - no star ratings or fluctuating levels of approval. If you Stamp It, you Approve It. Your incoming suggestions are from users you specifically follow, not just an aggregate of the general user base - so, in theory, the suggestions are from trusted sources and actually worth checking out. The intro video explains it well. Go watch that and then decide if you want to try it out.

Tucked away in the slightly baffling interface of New Hallucinations are some gorgeous photographs from Patrick Sheehan. I suspect many of the images are part of his senior showing... should be interesting to see where he goes with future captures!

• Web Symbols Typeface - much like the Fico typeface I told you about but free of charge.
• Announcing Scroll - "make magazine style layouts for the web and iPad without needing to know how to code." The interface looks interesting in the demo but without seeing the output HTML it's hard to tell how worthwhile it will be.

If you saw this Avios advertisement you'd probably think it was a bit of very well done CGI. That is, until you watched this Behind the Scenes piece, The Man Who Made Things Fly. Rupert Brandon-King is an agricultural engineer with a penchant for radio controlled helicopters and hooking up the innards of those flying machines to just about anything else; including a CD player, a lawnmower, a bbq grill and a washing machine. What a perfectly ridiculous and entertaining hobby. The final triumphant shot of the washing machine is too bizarre to miss.

via Tromant.

It may be extremely infantile (it is) but I find this GOP Clown College set of images to be highly entertaining and just a little bit creepy. I mean, Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry look like they were made to be clowns! Overall, the humor isn't about actual politics - anyone in a stuffy business suit with intense clown makeup on is going to be amusing. So, don't get too upset if you align yourself with the Conservative party.. there's plenty of Liberal fodder out there for you too.

The newest edition of Fray is out - tackling Sex and Death through the lens of a load of original stories and illustrations. While the content of the issue is intriguing enough as it is, I'm mostly smitten with the site design. It's a clean setup but there are enough subtle bells and whistles throughout to keep you clicking around. I love the custom designs for each story, the pull quotes and the overall pleasantness of it all. I see this as an example of design to strive to achieve.

Netflix has been having a hard time lately - the whole pricing increase and the Qwikster debacle made them a bit of a laughing stock. Fortunately they recently announced the return of Arrested Development in 2013 and their own original series with Lilyhammer starring Steven Van Zandt (which looks fairly amusing). There's also that David Fincher / Kevin Spacey series House of Cards but a satirical political drama has a lower point of entry for entertainment in my opinion.

So, is this a brilliant move from Netflix to give customers original programming or are they shooting themselves in the foot by actually competing with studios that they're trying to distribute? Should be interesting to see how it all plays out.

WTF Mobile Web may seem like a snarky repository of poorly designed and implemented mobile web experiences (it is) but it also serves as a great learning tool for what not to do. The web is a nimble place and mobile has really taken off in the last year. If you choose to embrace serving a customized experience to mobile users you better do it right. Unfortunately, as this site proves, not everyone does. Learn from it.. and laugh at it, we've all been there.

This Fico typeface was specifically designed to be used as a @font-face supplement for providing scalable icons in your websites. While there is a tiny fear of web homogeny by deploying such things you gotta admit it's a lot more convenient to use something like this than it is to use an overloaded image sprite (especially with hover and active states). I don't love all the icons (what's going on with that heart?) but, on the whole, I can see it being quite beneficial - as both a developer and a user. It does cost about $25 so I can understand some hesitation but, in the long run, I think it'll be a time saver that makes it worth it.

Update: I assumed there would be a free alternative version of this somewhere - there is.

• A List Apart: 2011 Web Design Survey - it's that time of year again. If you're a web designer please take some time to go fill out the survey - good to have some insight into our industry.
• Gmail iOS - the Gmail app is now officially available in the iTunes store (without the error message on load). I tried it out over the weekend as my default mail app but the interface just isn't as slick as the Apple Mail app so it had to go. Overall, the only thing I'll miss is the global mail search (which is hugely handy) but beyond that, there's not much added benefit to it in my eyes.
• Google 404 - I was combing through the HTML5 Mobile Boilerplate and noticed that they include this handy Custom 404 Search from Google. It's a tiny snippet of code but, apparently, embeds a little Google search for those people who have lost their way. Nothing spectacular but, potentially, a nice addition for future sites.