The Impossible Project, Revival Of The Polaroid Camera

In October 2008 The Impossible Project saved the last Polaroid production plant for integral instant film in Enschede (NL) and started to invent and produce totally new instant film materials for traditional Polaroid cameras. In 2010 Impossible saved analog instant photography from extinction by releasing various, brand new and unique instant films.
Therewith Impossible prevents more than 300,000,000 perfectly functioning Polaroid cameras from becoming obsolete, changes the world of photography and keeps variety, tangibility and analogue creativity and possibilites alive.

- About Impossible

The World's Largest Art Gallery

Stockholm Metro is said to be the worlds largest Art Gallery. And it is easy To See Why.

A 17 Gigapixel Image

I wouldn't normally like to something that requires a plugin, but it is the Microsoft Research HD View Plugin and I trust those guys. The plugin allows you to view the mountains on yosemite-17-gigapixels.com. A site that had five mountain photographs that will amaze you because of their size. It's like having your own spy satellite.

Tilt Shift Cameras

Of the camera lenses in the world the Tilt Shift style seem to be getting very popular and so I went searching. What I found was rather interesting:



And one of those tight focus videos:

PhotoShop CS5's Content Aware Fill

Like I took this photo at a wedding and cut someone off because they where outside the frame and I don't know who they are, can you fill them in?

Adobe PhotoShop CS5's Content Aware fill just might.

360° Views of the LHC

Some 360 views of the LHC where taken while it was under construction and they Really Make You Feel Like You Are There.

Someone should make a game about a physicist in a Large Research Facility. That would be way better than all these street combat FPS games like Half Life 2.

BMW Did Something Truly Innovative

Innovation is about taking two technologies that might not necessarily have anything in common and combining them to produce something new or solving a problem by applying a technological technique or idea as a solution. In the early years of aeroplanes, they where constructed from wood and cloth. In later years aluminium was used and now we use composite materials. Cars have always used hard body shells, so BMW tried using a flexible cloth-like material as a concept design and they have produced something fantastic:



No I don't think we will all be driving clothed cars in ten years time, but as a concept this is has all the hallmarks of an iconic design.

Bernie, About That Car You Wanted

Problem Solving With Video Games

There is a Video Interview With Peter Molyneux where he talks about not being able to do much else but design games, and he wonders if he could apply his knowledge of gaming to other human pursuits and endeavours.

I thought this was an interesting idea, then I realised that I had meant to post about a project that does just that. So here we are.

There are some problem domains in the world where to solve a problem or improve something you have to understand a process completely. Programmers of Artificial Intelligences have been known to spend exorbitant amounts of time looking at quite simple issues so that they can create AIs that model intelligent behaviour. Good examples of this are anything that uses Fuzzy Logic. That is anything from Rice Cookers to Lifts, Thermostats and a huge amount of Control Systems.

There are some problems that are so difficult to understand that they can't yet be translated into software, because we don't fully understand what is going on. The problem I am referring to here is Protein Folding. We know what the acid code of the protein is, we know what it looks like in 3D when it has finished folding, but we don't know how it folds into it's final shape or how it moves, so we don't know what it does.

This is where Fold It! from the guys working on Rosetta@home comes in. It is a game where you as the player are tasked with folding a protein. Higher points are rewarded by finding a structure that requires the lest energy for the protein to fold into. The idea of this is that players will eventually discover general tactics that can be worked into protein folding algorithms and a rosetta method of protein folding be found. From this new drugs could be created in the lab fit for purpose artificially and our understanding of our own bodily processes greatly increases. We might even be able to find a cure for ageing.

The Worst Gaming Tattoos

Here is a collection of bad gaming tattoos. Although I will say that I don't think 19, 16, 9 and 8 are so bad.

I am a fan of many products by companies, but I would never have a tattoo of a company logo on my body like the people in photos 15, 14 and 1. Branding yourself with a company logo as if you where a product. The guy who has branded himself with the Nintendo logo even included the little Registered Trademark (R) on his tattoo. I don't know if this legally makes him the property of Nintendo like it does with cattle farming, but I would be eagerly following the caught case if one should arise from this.

Some Interesting Film Trailers

For about the past year film trailers have be fairly, meh. For me the mark of a good film trailer it's ability for it to turn me from not knowing about a film, not caring about a film or just knowing of a film, to wanting to see it. The more a trailer makes me want to see a particular film the better it is because of course film trailers are just adverts, but there is certainly a much higher level of artistry behind a film trailer than any TVad for catfood.

So anyway I was looking at a trailer on IMDB for a film and they linked to a Blog called Movies For The Masses which looks like it is in Russian or some other language I can't read, but on there are trailers I haven't seen before because I use Apple Trailers to see what's up and coming. So I was a little surprised to see some of the stuff that is on there and I wanted to share:

• The Dark Knight Teaser
  Teaser for the new Batman film. The last Batman film was so good that it's sequel is easily on my list of must watch.



• Halloween
  I know, yet another Halloween, but this is directed by Rob Zombie so maybe it will liveup to what Halloween fans have been asking for since the first film.



• Shoot 'Em Up
  It looks like it is filled with the same kind of inventive fight sequences that are present in The Transporter which wasn't a bad film, but Shoot 'Em Up has Paul Giamatti involved, an actor who I am taking more note of with each film I see him in.



• Resident Evil Extinction
  I hated the last two, after finishing watching the second, knowing that their would be a third I said that I would refuse to see it, but after watching the trailer for it, I kind of want to see it. There is just something about a post apocalyptic wasteland that Brings Back Fond Memories for me.

Awesome Photographer Matt Stuart

I just finnished looking at some of Matt Stuart's work and I think he is the best street photographer I have ever seen. Here are links to a Gallery of his work and his Official Site.