There is a load of gorgeous night photography over on the photostream of Akira ASKR. I mean, this image is just perfect as far as I can ascertain. There are plenty more gems to see on the stream and the two examples above don't do them justice at their small size.. go view them all much larger.

via Kate.

• Findings from The Survey For People Who Make Websites 2010 - awhile back the folks from A List Apart did a pretty extensive bit of surveying and have now posted the findings from those inquiries. Maybe this is old news (it was new to me) but the insight it provides is interesting. Most interesting is looking at Time At Current Job, Number of Paid Vacation Days, Amount of Last Raise and how your situation might fit into all that.
• IBM develops instantaneous memory - I'm sure it will be some time before we start seeing this in actual devices but the description sounds promising; reads and writes 100x faster than flash memory and is reliable for millions of write-cycles.
• Twitter Co-Founders Depart for new Endeavor - Biz Stone, Jason Goldman and Evan Williams are apparently departing from Twitter to start in on some new organization. While this probably means absolutely nothing for how the Twitter service behaves it is interesting to see the big guys head off to something new now that the serious groundwork has been pretty much set in place for Twitter.

Jeremy gave me the heads up on the photography work of Dylan Priest and I've been browsing the portfolio of goods all morning. The site design is quite nice and the images are blocked off into Portfolio sets - ie. Pocket Contents or Artist at Home - or more one-off images like The Hacienda Motel. Browsing the work on Flickr is a quicker experience but not quite as immersive. Whatever method you choose, be sure to spend some time with the offerings.. quite worthwhile.

This NY Times article about a recent near-miss of some space debris and the International Space Station got me thinking, again, about the notion of Space Junk. If you've never pondered the fact that we're constantly sending up satellites into space to circle the planet ad infinitum - take a look at this article to vaguely familiarize yourself with the concept.

Maybe I'm being embarrassingly ignorant here but is there some place that photos of all this junk exist? Anytime you see NASA photos there doesn't seem to be anything out there. Is it just not visible to the camera's eye? Been Photoshopped out?

Hat Tip: Kateoplis

Splitscreen: A Love Story from JW Griffiths is a fascinating watch. The final shot is a little disturbing as it melds two faces together but, aside from that, it's a phenomenal bit of moving diptychs.

via Mr. Hayek

If you somehow missed it, Google launched a social endeavor yesterday called Google+. The interactive demo and blog writeup are a decent way to dive in but for the super broad overview - go here. The project consists of four apps - Circles, Sparks, Hangouts and Huddle - all empowering you to share and socialize in some way. Given that the service is still sort of in beta I don't want to make any judgments. I'm as ignorant to how they all really work as anyone else. However, I will say the concept of smaller social groups is one that I've been touting for years. Oh, and an app for group messaging seems pretty keen!

Anyone used it yet? Any opinions?

I have many praising things to say about Instagram but none of them include anything about their web presence. Fortunately, Inkstagram pretty much solves the issue but they don't quite cover everything. Enter Instagram Heroku - a very basic frontend for Instagram using their public API. From the Help page you can enter a link to a recent photo of your own and generate a public profile - like this or this. The benefit? There's an RSS feed - so you syndicate that content out elsewhere. It may not be the ideal solution but at least it's a solution of some sort.

There's not much to say about this Rollercoaster Safety video other than you really need to watch it right now. You can read more about it here but, really, just watch it.. and enjoy.

There's a great interview up at Method & Craft with Greg Lutze that I suggest everyone take a moment to read through. Greg's always done great work with all the studios he's worked with and he's got loads of impressive stuff from his latest gig Must Warn Others. I love seeing pics of his work space and his phenomenal attitude on balancing real life with client life.

Yesterday, Mac clued me in to the existence of Gobbler; an application designed for Pro Audio organization and backup. Personally, I don't do a whole lot with Pro Audio but I do have a number of friends who do and could potentially benefit from a service that makes getting to projects easier and actually backs them up into an off-site secure location (aka The Cloud&trade). Anyway, I realize this isn't for everybody but it looks to be a solid piece of software that could really benefit those who find themselves immersed in DAW software most days of the week.

I won't claim to fully understand what is happening with Paper JS but I can say that usage examples like this Division Raster or Rounded Rectangles being powered by Javascript is ridiculously impressive. Granted, a lot of these things look like early Flash experiments but that's kind of the point - it's not Flash! Plus, when's the last time you were not only impressed by but had fun with something as silly as this? It's been too long.

It's a few days later than I expected but this morning I flipped the switch on the Summer Mix Series 2011 site. If you're still seeing the old one, be patient.. it might take a moment for the DNS to flop over. If you are seeing the site and it's giving you trouble submitting forms / leaving comments / etc - please let me know!. I've done a good bit of testing on my own but since I re-coded the entire thing this go around it's entirely possible that there are a number of issues I haven't run into.

Long story short, the site is live and I'm quite excited for the forthcoming submissions. Jed kicks off the series with this Sedona Vortex Mix. Go nab it and submit your own once you're ready!

Derek Eads has been offering a fine collection of illustrations depicting the many Bill Murrays as envisioned by Wes Anderson. I almost hate to admit it because Anderson/Murray are so persistent in "hip" culture but the Well I Want To Die print is pretty undeniable. He has plenty of othergoods ( and a very similar last name to yours truly) so I suggest giving his wares a spin.

Check out this great illustrated Fold-er-all from Scott C in collaboration with Bob Odenkirk. Inspired by the classic MAD Magazine back cover foldies this pretty much nails the vibe but with the great Scott C illustration style.

via Brandonnn.

Take a few moments today to read through the trials and tribulations of Andy Baio and his saga regarding the Kind of Bloop album cover. The short version: Andy commissioned an album of 8-bit versions of Miles Davis Kind of Blue and had a pixel version of the cover created for it. The original photographer, Jay Maisel, was none too pleased about the lack of licensing and took Baio to court. It seems cut and dry until you consider the wealth of works that fall under "Fair Use" - particularly the clause of works being "transformative."

On the whole, it's a depressing story. Baio had to settle out of court because it was the cheapest option and it still cost him $32k. His blog points out a number of works that are equally as transformative (or not, depending on your viewpoint) that were never touched by legal matters.

There was a time when something like this would have never gotten into legal waters and I must admit, I kind of miss that mentality. As Jed puts it: "let’s get back to wishing one another continued success and good fortune." Here here.

This week should be subtitled "Accidental Animal Edition" because, frankly, the playlist is mostly animal vids (though not entirely). It's a quick one this week but entertaining.. look for the Bonus vids if you're hoping for a bit more substance.

• Merengue Dancing Dogs - did you know dogs dancing to salsa music was a meme? Obviously this guy is an Internet Classic but there are a plenty more.
• Cat Watching Slayer - I feel like I may have seen this before but the pan over to the cat and slow reveal is too perfect not to enjoy.
• Horrifying Ghost Footage - this guy has a ton of homemade videos that are all about this quality... right on the borderline between total stupidity and genuinely amusing. Sometimes it teeters more way one than the other but this one in particular is just perfect. via Shaboi.
• Hang on Woody! - brilliant. nothing more can be said.
• Woofing Cat - make sure your sound is on for this one.. this is probably a week old or so (aka Ancient in Internet Terms) but it's still amusing.
• Breakdancing Gorilla - the tiny foot stomp splash is a helluva dance move.. please do your best to recreate this the next time you're out in da clubs.

BONUS

• Summer 2011 - it's here and it's hot.
• 8-Bit Invader - great projection mapping with a bunch of classic 8-bit (and earlier) characters.
• HunterGatherer 2011 Reel - always great to see work from these guys. Always.

My suggestion to you? Leave work early today and extend your weekend by just that much more.

Hey, guess what? Remember when I said that the Summer Mix Series would be relaunching this week? Turns out that was a bit of wishful thinking. I decided to re-code the entire thing from the ground up this year and it's taking just a BIT longer than I expected. However, I'm dedicated to polishing it off this weekend and that buys you some time to get your mix together. If you're feeling like this I think the additional weekend time will help.

I hope everyone has been watching the Colbert Nation / Third Man Records "Rock Odyssey" all week but, in case you haven't, please take some time to do so now. Sure, it might take a decent chunk of time out of your day but it's Friday - so do it: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 - as well as a performance and a Catholic Throwdown.

Renaud steered me in the direction of Typeverything yesterday and confirmed, once again, Renaud will not steer you wrong. The curated repository of typography is updated very regularly and spans a wide range of styles. If you're looking for inspiration, this is a great place to start.

I'm a big fan of apps that integrate desktop usage with a supplementary (but solid) mobile app. ex.fm is now among those that can claim to be such. You can use their desktop browser service to queue music, catalog it, love it, etc and then launch their brand new iPhone app to access it on the go. I'm not entirely convinced on any mobile music app quite yet because I don't think the providers have stepped up their bandwidth game to make true streaming a reality but it certainly looks like exFM is giving them good reason to push things forward.