• HTML5 Watch - emerging and intriguing usage of HTML5 goods.
• Video JS - full fledged HTML5 video player. Open Source, no images, 100% skinnable, rolls back to Flowplayer. Stuff like this will make the HTML5 standard spread like wildfire.

Take 11 minutes this morning and watch Pixels - a mini-documentary about the pixel art movement. It\'s always intriguing to hear Jason Rohrer speak about his take on Videogames As Art (see also: A Life Well Wasted Episode 3). I disagree with a few of the points made about the ambiguity of pixel art being the thing that makes it so easy for us to connect with it - something like Dan the Man is not ambiguous.

Anyway, it\'s well worth the 11 minutes and I look forward to something more from Simon Cottee on the subject. Via WAXY.

Slimmer pickings in this weeks playlist but there\'s bound to be something in there.

• Luckiest Bowler Ever - I would like to attempt to recreate this at my local alley at least once a week.
• Cat Fights Babysitter - the build up is worth the payoff.. that cat really goes nuts on the sitter. Why she opts to pick up the child as a defense mechanism is beyond me.
• Jessica\'s \"Daily Affirmation\" - I consider myself a pessimist so I assumed there was no way I was going to enjoy a video of a small child affirming all the great things in her life. I couldn\'t help it, her enthusiasm is captivating. If you can make it 13 seconds in, you\'ll be hooked.
• Barts Blackboard - illustrator Mat Williams decorated Work-Club with every line written from The Simpsons blackboard. See the results up close here.
• Winnebago Man: The Movie - one of the most famous Internet clips becomes a documentary and, honestly, it looks great. Jack Rebney holds up after all these years.
• LOST: All The People Who Died - with LOST wrapping up this weekend this only seems appropriate. Obviously if you haven\'t seen the show, this will contain spoilers. You can cross reference all this here.

Bonus:

• Hail Storm Oklahoma City - absolutely nuts but a bit monotonous at 4 minutes long. Skip ahead a bit and see how mind blowing the onslaught gets.
• Meet the sloths - good luck having this not make your day 100x better.

Enjoy your weekend folks!

Thanks to Paige I\'ve been checking out the art of Nina Katchadourian; specifically her Sorted Books Project.

The process is the same in every case: culling through a collection of books, pulling particular titles, and eventually grouping the books into clusters so that the titles can be read in sequence, from top to bottom.

So, conceptually, pretty simple. Find a bunch of books and arrange them into a sequence that is meaningful, amusing or maybe even vaguely poetic. There are a ton of examples on the site and they\'re all worth digging through.

I love it when real life sounds like a concept ripped straight from The Onion but is, in fact, absolutely true. Such is the case with this article in which you learn that Waterworld actor Kevin Costner (and his scientist brother) have spent millions and millions of dollars developing a device called \"Ocean Therapy\" that is capable of separating oil from water through a high-speed centrifuge. He says of it:

\"I\'ve lost $40 million-plus, but I knew that if I was right, it would change things in an incredibly positive way.\"

Let\'s hope he was right. BP has approved usage of a few of the devices in an attempt to clean up their mess in the Gulf. We may soon all have Kevin Costner to thank for keeping our oceans clean.

Via Kate.

So, Google has extended their ever reaching hand into yet another pie with the announcement of Google TV. The introduction video is extremely straightforward. Basically, the web has the video you want when you want it, so Google is going to bring that to you via built-in software. From the looks of the Google I/O talk they\'ll also be rolling out their own iTunes style store where you can purchase television shows.

I\'m starting to think that Google is stretching themselves a little thin these days but at least it\'s all somewhat interesting. My money is still on Boxee being the TV add-on to have but we\'ll just have to see how it all shakes out!

Comedian Peter Serafinowicz recently posted an article up on Gizmodo entitled Why I Steal Movies... Even Ones I\'m In in which he goes into a myriad of reasons why torrenting and usenet are far better alternatives to iTunes, DVDs. None of his arguments are anything particular new (i.e. Region Codes are a huge waste of time and, bottom line, hurt the consumer) but it\'s nice to hear it from a person in the entertainment industry that would be directly affected by the illegal nabbing.

He even goes as far as to say that he wants pirated versions of his BBC Comedy The Peter Serafinowicz Show available to those ends as it is a relatively unknown show and the DVD isn\'t even for sale in the US (I guess that gets me off the hook for grabbing it off Usenet).

While I believe there will never be an end to illegal sources for obtaining media I wonder if the media companies will ever come around to the idea that giving people as many options as possible will actually benefit them. If BBC shows were available to download via iTunes or Amazon the same day they aired overseas, I\'d be happy to buy them. If US TV shows were available to download immediately after they aired (i.e. Zero-Day style; none of this next day crap - if it airs at 8pm, it should be online by 9pm) I\'d likely get them from legitimate sources. I realize this is all a very greedy consumer mentality but it\'s hard to imagine that no one with influence at the big media companies understands that they continue to shoot themselves in the foot every day they don\'t embrace this style of digital distribution.

Science asks a lot of hard questions. It\'s easiest to tackle the answers to these inquires with Fake Science. Want to know How We Get Oil? or Why Does Smoking Feel Good? or Facts About Trees? Well, Fake Science tackles all those issues and more.

So dumb, but so funny. Via Ryan.

Pixar artist Josh Cooley has put together a book of illustrations he\'s calling Movies R Fun; done in the style of the childhood Lil Golden Books. It\'s quite amusing to see the innocent style juxtaposed with the subject matter of movies like The Professional, Terminator 2, or The Big Lebowski. You can view a whole bunch of them here and pick up the book in a couple months from Cooley\'s site (or at Comic-Con).

While I\'ve no way of confirming if these photos are actually from their supposed sources I will embrace my suspension of disbelief and say that The Dog That Hasn\'t Missed a Single Riot for Years is an impressive bit of documentation. Apparently there\'s a very active protester in Greece who likes to bring his dog along for the activities he\'s involved in. Is it possible that all the photos are from the same riot? Yes. Is it possible that it\'s actually different dogs in all the shots? Probably. Is it more engaging to willfully believe that one animal has been present at a dozen protests over the few years? Absolutely.

This won\'t affect most of you that use Bandcamp for browsing, procuring and enjoying music but for the developers out there it should be noted that they\'ve launched their first iteration of the Bandcamp API. Basically they\'ve exposed methods to allow you to build your own player (among other things). It\'s rather straightforward and a familiar setup to Twitter and Google API\'s, so the learning curve is low. Give it a look; lots of potential there.

Recently the crew from Public School hit up the Renegade Craft Fair in Austin and had their own school portrait setup running as a photo booth throughout the day. The results of said endeavor are now available for viewing. It\'s great to see people\'s personalities come out in these simple portraits. It\'s also great to see that the closer you get to the end of the day, the looser people behave as they\'ve obviously been having a few drinks (it is Texas after all). Spend some time with these and I bet you see some familiar faces throughout.

Yesterday Tiny Showcase released a new print from Ferris Plock; one of my favorite artists (and people). If you have not seen Tora (Tiger) Beenie please take a moment to check it out. The print is only $20 and the proceeds go to the SF Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

It\'s win-win-win; great art for you, supporting a noble cause and spreading the word of Ferris Plock / Tiny Showcase.

Occasionally I encounter a YouTube video that I\'d like to snag the audio from and keep hanging around in my iTunes library. Whenever this happens I inevitably end up on some horribly annoying site like Video 2 MP3 or Listen to YouTube; sites riddled with ads and terrible experiences abound. Fortunately there is Dirpy - a service that does the exact same thing but in a pleasing-to-the-eye manner. It\'s extremely simple and works quite well. Now I can listen to Tommy Seebach play Apache anytime I want. Sure, it\'s not quite as good without the accompanying video but it\'s still a great song.

Thanks to Matt I am now aware of the existence of the forthcoming Sky 1 travel show featuring Karl Pilkington visiting the Seven Wonders of the World. This video gives a small taste of what to expect.. Karl giving his resolute opinion on anything and being oddly hysterical the entire time without meaning to be. I can\'t imagine he will be too happy to visit.. well, anywhere.

Karl told us: “I can’t wait to get started. Not ‘cos I’m excited but ‘cos the sooner we start the sooner it will be over. The fact the nurse gave me an injection that protects me from dirty chimps put a dampener on the whole thing. I don’t think Ross Kemp has to have that injection.” - Sky1

It goes without saying that Milton Glaser is an artist / designer that everyone is likely familiar with; whether they not it or not. Jamie pointed me towards this great AIGA talk he gave entitled Ten Things I Have Learned that is absolutely filled with gems regarding work life and personal life insight.

YOU CAN ONLY WORK FOR PEOPLE THAT YOU LIKE.
...I discovered that all the work I had done that was meaningful and significant came out of an affectionate relationship with a client. And I am not talking about professionalism; I am talking about affection. I am talking about a client and you sharing some common ground. That in fact your view of life is someway congruent with the client, otherwise it is a bitter and hopeless struggle.

DOUBT IS BETTER THAN CERTAINTY.
...Some years ago I read a most remarkable thing about love, that also applies to the nature of co-existing with others. It was a quotation from Iris Murdoch in her obituary. It read ‘ Love is the extremely difficult realisation that something other than oneself is real.’

That\'s just the tip of the iceberg. Please read it in its entirety.

Have you ever been curious what it would be like if Twitter were more like a Wii Mii Parade? Is Parade answers your inquiries perfectly. Put in any Twitter ID or Keyword and it will return a marching animation of responses. It\'s mostly pointless but fairly amusing for a little bit; particularly the range of characters they work into the mix.

I can\'t imagine the amount of work that went into this Admission Ticket Art - the amount of precise cutting and preplanning is complete insanity. You can see more fantastic examples of this work over on artist Mia Liu\'s photostream.

Heads up via Courtney.

Screen Caps is about as straightforward of a blog as you can get. It features huge screen captures of compelling images from various films. Simple. Done. Some amazingly inspiring images throughout.. give it a good browsing.

Via Zach.

Kid Robot has teamed up with Frank Kozik to produce a number of animated shorts based around the Monger series. It\'s kind of weird to hear voices / personalities associated with characters that you typically make up the details on your own for but it is amusing to see them animated and to get a more fleshed out version of what Kozik had in mind when designing them.

→ Watch the shorts