I have stumbled across a couple of things I thought I would share here just for the sake of sharing great things. Both are software and both are free to you so you have no reason not to check them out.


FIrst up we have my new favorite screen saver. Unbelievably simplistic, helpful, and gorgeous all at once. Its a clock that simply shows the time. I know that sometimes flashy oooooohhhhh and aaaahhhhhh type screen savers can be fun but I find them distracting recently. There will always be a place on my screen for the ever wonderful and unpredictable hotel gadget but for now this handy little saver has taken the top place on my screens downtime. Its called simply A 3M1T and you can find it here. (mac or PC) I just cant resist the font used for the numbers. What can I say, I'm a sucker for simplicity. The site also holds some wonderful fonts that you should check out as well.


And to offset all of that simplistic thinking I present something quite the opposite. A lush colorful and undeniably addictive visualizer for iTunes called Magnetosphere. Its pretty fun to put on during casual music listening or for a break from the usual email and work you usually might see on your screen. There is not much I can say about the visualizer other than that it is amazing and you should head over to the developers site and download it or at least watch the video which you can find here.

Thats all for now. I've go a new lens arriving soon, more on that later. Also, I've heard this new Devendra Banhart album and its amazing... ah music. love. Anyways, enjoy your day!

As many of you know I recently took up a new project site simply titled light.twistedsun.net which is a photoblog for images that may not fit in as desktops or other such uses. Images that I may have never done anything with had I not made a little site to share them with the world. Well I would like to introduce another photoblog which is poking its head out into the web called 'point of view point'. The web address is simple and could be memorized easily should you be so inclined and reads as follows: www.pointofviewpoint.net.

Here you will find new photos posted by my next of kin, James. Surely you could find out more simply by heading over and checking out what he has going on, the about page is a good place to start as far as information about his artists statement behind the new site and should you be interested in learning more about any particular image you can follow the comments link which will take you to a description of the shown photograph.

So if you don't get enough of a photo fix staring at twistedsun desktops all day then by all means click on over to pointofviewpoint.net

How cool it this? a group of photographers got together and used an aircraft hangar as a GIANT pinhole camera to create the worlds largest black and white photograph. I would love to see this in person, so cool!

heres a link

I have launched a new mini-site and I was going to wait a few more days to announce it officially but I have decided that I want to go ahead and get it out there and make it known to everyone here. The site is a photoblog that I will hopefully be updating once each day. The time of day that I actually get around to posting will change depending on my day so don't try and set your clock to the update cycle or anything but I do hope to get a new photo up each day.

I had an older site that I had set up for friends and family where I posted photos that I may not have normally shared publicly. Mostly snapshots from my every day life, at work, traveling, sitting around, anything really. I liked to post a little comment or story or thought with each set of new photos and I really enjoyed doing it. The system I used to update it was very flawed however and so I stopped using it not to long after I had started it. Ever since I have wanted to get a simple photo blog going. Something for those shots I mentioned a moment ago, the everyday ones that I may not want to devote a whole post to here or may not want to post as a desktop for whatever reason.

in the new site you will hopefully see mostly recent photos but I will throw in the occasional older photo if I don't have something new to share. I am using a great bit of web software called pixel post to organize and do all the thinking for me so all I have to do to post is press a couple of buttons and type out a description. Simple is a good thing for a project like this and I am more than excited to announce it to all of you.

On the page you can leave comments on photos which I welcome you do, in fact, i encourage it! If you read something in a comment I have made about the image feel free to start a discussion with your thoughts on the subject. I would love to see it get some feedback and spark some ideas or something of the sort. For instance, if you see an image that you are just dying to see made into a desktop then please speak up and leave a comment and I will see what I can do.

The navigation is very simple I think, there is the home page with the newest photo and on each photo page you can click either the comments link above the image of the "photo info & comments link below the image to call forth the image description and comment field. There is a link there below the image notes to close that area should you not want to post anything but would like to read what I have written about a photo. You can navigate forwards and backwards through photos by either clicking the current image to go back or simply use the previous/next links in the white area below the image. There is also a browse page link at the top where you can see thumbnails of all photos posted and an about page which im sure you can figure out.

So that's that, my newest project is online and ready to go. I have two more in the pipeline that I can not wait to announce and get moving on but you will just have to wait for that time to come. So till next time, enjoy the photoblog and I will see you again here soon!

The new sites address is light.twistedsun.net

Here is something I have been wanting to post about for quite some time now and I am finally just now getting around to making a couple of minutes to get it out of my head and onto the blog here. I wanted to post about a new(ish) project by Yongfook, an english guy living in Japan working on web development. Its called Open Source Food and it is his personal side project outside of his paying work because he loves food and cooking. Well, I like to think that I like to cook as well and I have found plenty of good recipes and ideas while digging through the site.

It takes the whole web 2.0 idea of an online application and asks users to post recipes to share with the world. It all works in a wonderfully organized way and the site is really easy to navigate. Its worth a look even if you don't fancy yourself a cook. Here are a couple of recipes that I have come across today that looked good to me...

Tags: food, web2.0, cooking, nothing, else, to, post, at, the, moment

At this point the term podcast and the idea behind it has safely settled into most internet users vocabulary but I am wondering how many people put them to use or even know how many great shows there are out there. I set off to do a little research for this write up and find some good music podcasts for you guys to check out that I listen to but ended up finding a lot more worth mentioning as well. These days you can find music, news, cartoons, language lessons, travel help, personal confessions, and all sorts of other types of shows. The podcasting world is easily as diverse as the world of blogging and shows no signs of slowing down.

So here are a few recommended channels to look through and give a shot... (please note that some links point to itunes. also, the links at the ti)

KEXP 90.3FM
This is a seattle based radio station that has a wonderful set of podcasts available featuring great new music and in studio performances from a great list of musicians. Their Song of the Day (iTunes link) podcast is a great way to discover new artists in a totally legal way and the in studio performance podcast (itunes link) has a really impressive list of performers!

KRCW
This is another college radio station that has made many of their radio shows available as downloadable podcasts. They feature many different news shows as well as one of my recent favorites, Morning Becomes Eclectic which is a great music show.

NPR
The National Public Radio network has a huge amount of shows available as podcasts these days and hosts a show I like to listen to from time to time This American Life (iTunes link)

Slate Magazine
Tons of great news shows.

A few other random podcasts that I listen to... ( all iTunes links)
Of Rice and Zen - Soaking wet with witty british humor. Created by an english teacher in Japan.
XLR8R - Weekly podcast from the mostly electronic music magazine of the same name that features great new music.
Tokyo Calling - A good example of the more personal side of podcasting. Always something interesting to be found.
Misadventures in Taiwan - Always manages to make me laugh in some way or another, I can't remember how I found it...
Trans Pacific Radio (not itunes link)- News and discussions about modern Japan. A really well done show!

There are many others around and maybe from time to time I will post something about other shows ive been listening to, I think I mostly just wanted to post about these few recent favorite places to go for news and music so hopefully some of you found some interesting shows to check out!

One of my favorite screen savers ever has been updated to a new version after years of sitting there. Who knows, maybe this is old news but it sure has got me excited. This endlessly beautiful, thought provoking, haunting (insert whatever other adjective you might find appropriate here) screen saver is not to be missed. The only reason I found that there was a new version was out was because someone on digg pointed to a page by the same artist where he had a bunch of random quartz composer screen savers for download which are nice and all but nothing can beat the wonder of Hotel Gadget.

The only catch is that is is mac only as far as I know so sorry to the PC users out there.

Here is a link to the site where you can get yourself a copy.

Well... what are you waiting for, get over there and download, then lost in the hotel...

A while back I wrote about the apparent demise of my favorite podcast, Herro Flom Japan. He remained inactive for a long long time but recently has slowly started to pick up the mic again and start doing some new shows. I just wanted to mention this here because it is my favorite podcast after all. The host, Rich Pav, always seem to ramble on about something that is somehow accidentally really interesting to me, its just an honest look into the life of one foreigner living in Japan. Simple and very stripped of any fancy production but this is why I enjoy it so much.

At any rate, I know some of the readers here used to listen to the show and I thought I would mention its return into the podcasting world, lets see if it sticks shall we?

P.S - Kyoto Podcast has a new video episode as well and his video work has come a long way, great job Tim!

Korg recently released a handfull of new products including...


... a mini Kaos Pad! How cool is this!? I simply must have one of these little things...


...and check out this crazy looking digital mixer/audio interface, could be just what I was looking for in an audio interface...

..that is all, just had to share my excitement, even if this means nothing to many of you...

A lot of great shareware is out there and this holiday developers are all pooling together and giving 20 percent discounts to lots and lots of software, its a great idea and its amazing how many developers have jumped in on the holiday savings game, so if there was ever an app you had your eye on check here and you just might find it at a discounted price. There is a lot of software here that I didnt even know existed and ive had fun discovering new apps out there. Anyways, check it out!

Heres a link

You simply must take a couple of minutes and watch these amazing music videos from Cornelius. I have seen videos of his in the past with his dvd/cd release containing music videos for most all of the songs from his album point and they were all amazing in their own right but he has some new videos that are really just incredible and have to be seen. I wont try to describe them, just watch, you wont be disappointed. I can't wait to get my hands on his new album which has been out in Japan but has yet to make its way anywhere else...

I am usually not all that impressed by iLounge and find their reviews to be ill balanced and their reporting style really forced. It always feels like they are struggling so hard to be 'impartial' and that bothers me, even well respected magazines and publications approach their writing with more of a personal, approachable touch than iLounge. iLounge is just do dry for me I guess. OK, OK sorry, no more wining here... so all that aside, they wrote up an article documenting the Zune's rise to lacklusterness (yes i know thats not really a word) that I thought was well written and debunks nearly everything Microsoft has woven into the marketing and development of their player. Great read for a nice overall look into the short history of the player over the past few months. Heres a link.

UPDATE: You simply must check out this video of a bit of a newscast from CNN talking about the new Zune on its launch day. Classic. Link

UPDATE 2: More on the news coverage on iLounge. (Im not sure why but this whole zune thing is just so funny to me)

Engadget got zuned.

I have not seen such silly banter from the mac vs. pc world in a long time but turns out someone has taken the idea behind the my dream app for the mac platform and recreated it for the windows platform. Only the windows one was created out of spite of the mac community and their supposed silly useless ideas. This guy is a bit over the top in my opinion. The contest was to give people a chance to vote on the application they wanted to see made and thats what happened. Anyways, check out the form thread here on my dream apps website. It's a pretty feisty debate that I think is making both sides of the game look pretty bad. It's so frustrating to me how this debate is so hateful at times. These are just computers guys, to each his own right? right?

I have happened upon a really interesting hour long BBC documentary about the history behind the video game Tetris. It is one of my all time favorites because of its incredible simplicity and its unwavering capability to suck you in and keep you playing and playing and playing. Anyways, I'm sure some of you are interested so I thought I would toss a link your way. The documentary is tough to follow here and there if you don't speak russian because some of the subtitles are kind of hard to read. Anyway heres a link.

Being a designer for how ever many years now I have made my fair share of typos on various projects. Thankfully 99 percent of them are caught in the proofing stage of the whole process and never get seen in the final product. I just had to point out this slip up from the back of a video game box, something I came across over on Joystiq.

The game is called Killer 7 and on the back of the box (of the gamecube version specifically) you will find a URL to the official website, simple enough. Let's just type this on in here and get the low down on the game, maybe some tips or something but wait a minute, this isn't the games website at all! My God! Kids, close your eyes.. what's that damn shortcut to close a window... ah hell...

Yes, the website on the back of the box leads you straight over to none other than a porn site. The games website is not killer7.com its killer-7.com! oops.Seems like the porn industry owns 50 percent of all domain names in existence. If that were me id be laughing all the way to the classified section of the paper... its to bad spell checkers don't check links for porn.

I have been trying to get my soundscape podcast up and running for some time now and have run across a few set backs but it's been fun experimenting with it up to now and I look forward to continue the series and eventually split it off into its own feed separate the music and other shows that pop up when I get a chance. Until then though I came across a similar podcast to my soundscape shows and it is produced by National Geographic. Although I like the idea of simply a high quality audio recording to close your eyes and let your imagination take flight as you listen National Geographic has taken a moving image approach and made a video podcast that simply sits in one stationary position for 10 minutes or so and lets you sit in on that moment in time wherever they are filming. Seems a natural progression for them coming from such a strong photography background. Anyways, they are interesting to say the least and worth checking out. A link can be found below...

National Geographic Atmosphere Podcast (itunes link)

This is a great documentary and it is available online it's entierty. I'm not sure if it is up there with permission from anyone but it's there all the same and i'm sure some of you could spare an hour and a half to check it out. Aside from the ocasional activist jargon tossed in there(not much dont worry) it's full of really interesting looks at the electric car and its history and future.

LINK

There is an advertising firm that accidentally made an ad closely resembling the video game Katamari Damacy and you simply must check it out. Links are below...

link to interview
link to movie

Here is an interesting article / blog post about 6 commonly believed things that are in fact wrong. Everything from myths about the sky being blue to people thinking the world is flat.

LINK

I hate to use such obvious internet slang around here but it felt appropriate. Something I came across digg today was a link to this video:

Easily one of the most bizarre things I have ever seen. How could I not post this? It is Just to WEIRD!

Im sure some readers may know that I am a fan of Weird Al. Ive been listening to him since I was a little kid running around listening to his cassettes. I know his parody versions of songs better than the originals even to this day. Well this video has been making the rounds online and I just had to post it.

I was really impressed that apple actually bought the rights to the great app Coverflow that I mentioned a while back rather than just lifting the idea and calling it their own. I know apple has a history of making shareware makers software obsolete by putting out their own brand of whatever app. If only apple had done this in the past with the multiple other "ideas" they "borrowed" from other inventive developers. Good job apple!

via ipodlounge

The new iPod Nano ad is really cool!

link

A while back I posted about a new Boards of Canada video and I am posting it again just because Warp added it to YouTube and so I can embed it into the blog here which is nice. Its just such a cool video. The footage in the beginning is from the highest skydive jump in history or something like that, very cool.



... and just for good measure, here is a Jamie Lidell Video as well. In fact, this video is what got me so hooked on his music.



... ok one more, promise. More Jamie, this is another version of the song above but performed live by looking his own voice and singing over it. Amazing!

Me neither...

Not sure if this video will be around to long seeing as it was posted without permission and all so enjoy it while it lasts. Probably most relevant for those who follow US television...

If you are at all into photography then you may or may not have heard about canons new 400d/ digital rebel xti. It is their new entry level SLR and it's looking like one of the best options on the digital SLR market especially at it's fairly low price tag. Those of you who have been reading the site for a while probably know that I am a Canon addict. In my opinion they make the best digital cameras out there. Their speedy Digic II processors and amazing CMOS sensors are top notch. Now with this camera they have introduced what I am sure will end up being a standard in this series which is their new dust removal system. The system includes a filter in front of the main sensor which has ultra-sonic vibration to remove dust as well as an anti-static coating on the sensors surface and some tricky software based dust mapping / removal. All in all a really solid release from Canon and I would highly recommend anyone looking to get a little more serious about their photography to pick up one of these little wonders and a copy of Apples Aperture software.

You can read about more specifics on this dpreview.com page on the camera.

I can't believe this is real!

read the news article for more here.

Sorry I haven't posted in a day or two, no time to! I have dekstops and more coming soon but in the mean time check out this great sketch from my favorite online sketch comedy groups Olde English. They went to film a sketch in a park but found a Pokemon festival going on so they made the best of it.

I've added an embeded youtube version below to make it easy on you.



Heres a link directly to the sketch.

This amazing project involves water with a florescent powder, black light and led's used as strobe lights to make for a truly amazing and almost unbelievable fountain that causes droplets of water to appear to be frozen and manipulated in time. Absolutely worth your time to check out.

(Via Make Blog) Direct Link

Along with the launch of the newest version of the IconFactory Website as I mentioned earlier in the week one of their resident designers David Lanham released a new series of icons and an accompanying theme that, from what I know, are over a year in the making. Seeing how much work must have gone into this got me thinking about the fact that he gives out this work at no cost to anyone interested, similar to the way most of the icon and desktop designers of the world do. Part of me wonders if the average web surfer on the look out for a new desktop or a new icon set understands the amount of work that goes into the artwork they are downloading. Bringing this back to the topic at hand, I find it amazing that David worked so long on this set only to unleash it out into the world for free. It's an amazing body of work if you consider that each icon is in essence it's own little work of art. It's one thing for me to post my photography for everyone here but I have to hand it to David for his love of his art and his willingness to share it with the world in the way he does. Especially after spending who knows how many countles hours on the work so my hats of to you David.

For those of you not familiar with his work then take some time to browse through his site and check out some of his illustrations.

Link

link

Apple's new(ish) 'Pro' site features some really amazing artist's. I was pretty impressed seeing as apple is a big faceless (well, aside from mr. jobs that is) corporation. Recently I have been pointed to a couple of the featured artists, one of which is Jamie Lidell which is a favorite of mine for some time now. Another artist that was pointed out to me was Japanese video artist Takagi Masakatsu which was described to me as a having a similar view of the world to mine.

You can find these and other artists over on their pro site here.

It looks like one of my old favorites, The IconFactory is getting a new site design. If you head over to the site you will see the beginning of a series of animations marking the creation of a new site design. The animations are worth the couple of minutes to check out because of there humorous approach to hyping the new site.

Heres a link

I think I will just buy a tiny bit of land in the woods and one of these little myst-like pods to live in. They are called 'Free Spirit Spheres' and I cant help but be reminded of structures in the myst game series. I have seen these in books before but I had no idea that you could buy them! Looks like it would make for a great summer/vacation home. Here is a link to see more.

Im sure you can spare 10 minutes to see how big of a fish cats can sneak off into the woods!

A new version of one of my favorite widgets, Go Red Ball Go, has been released so if your a mac os x user then follow the link below, download, and bounce away.

Link

I came across a cool freeware app for itunes called MyTunes. I have seen applications that allow you to share your itunes library in the past and I really liked some of them but its not everyday you come across one that is free that works as well as this app. I just set it up today and I have not really tested it to much but so far I am really liking it. I wish that I could simply browse my music without searching it which the program forces you to do. I also found that I can not search for something that finds more than 200 items as a result. I searched for Elliott Smith and it told me to search again which was kind of disappointing that I have to deal with that kind of thing but hey, its free right? head over and check it out, it runs on windows or mac.

Heres a link.

Update: the developers of the software wrote back really quick to this post and mentioned this: "The missing library browser is the most requested feature. It is implemented in the upcoming v2.0 already. Also the 200 titles search result limit has gone. Just check out our forums at http://board.codewave.de and have a look at the developer section for preview screenshots and more information on all the great new features coming very soon!" So look out for version 2.0!

Electro Voice and Blue Microphones got together and designed a couple of mics and they are called the Cardinal and the Raven. Both mics have this amazing future/retro feel and look (if that makes any sense) and they sound amazing. The cardinal is a condenser mic designed for vocals an instruments and the Raven is a dynamic mic that was designed for electric guitars and other instruments but also makes for an amazing vocal mic that provides a surprising amount of resistance to feedback. Anyway, I know that I have talked about them sometime in the past and I wanted to write a bit here about a site that I am working on.

EV is now the worldwide distributor of blue mics and they also share the connection that I started writing about here in the Cardinal and Raven mics. Because the audio company I work for is tight with EV I get to do some promotional work involving EV products from time to time. This time around I took it upon myself to buy the domain evblue.com and make a website featuring their two collaborative mics. So far there is only a temporary page set up but I hope to get the full mini site working this month at some point.

So tell me, what do you think so far? Heres a link: evblue.com

Here is a cool weblog that someone has started which features post after post of videos from youtube and google video that feature segments from tv in japan. There are ad spots, bits of tv shows and more. It makes for an interesting bit of browsing so check it out!

(update: oops, forgot the link)

Link