überthings, inc. » Fun

Octocat revelation at Pictoplasma.

michael — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 01:27:05 +0000

I’ve just had a fantastic day at the Pictoplasma conference in NYC watching hours of character art and design, from the rampantly hallucinogenic visions of David Oreilly and Friends With You to the simplified forms of Akinori Oishi and the prodigious output of Studio AKA.

One of the more interesting talks was David Oreilly’s, where he showed a number of unseen animations and outed himself as the creator of the Octocat meme, before showing us the final episode. I won’t give anything away, but try see it if you can.

And I thought he was just the guy that created the fake iPhone hologram video:

iHologram – iPhone application from David OReilly on Vimeo.

BONUS: Alba and I scored a box made by Motomichi for the apartment – sweet!

The iPhone SDK

michael — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 01:40:41 +0000

fakesteve on the SDK:

Seriously, folks, it’s game over. This announcement today is as big as the announcement of the original Macintosh in 1984. At airports all around the world they put flights on hold so that people could stay in the terminal and watch the news as it was announced. In Canada they declared a national day of mourning for RIM. It’s that huge. Today, frankly, is a day that will live in the history of our industry. It’s a classic inflection point. Massive disruption. Schumpeter-esque creative destruction. I am sitting here just watching the trailer for “Ironman” with the volume cranked on my stereo and I’m running around going “I … am … Ironman …” in that weird computer voice. Truly, I am invincible. I rule the world. I am the greatest human being that ever lived. I feel just like that friggin Ironman guy, honestly. Bullets cannot pierce my iron skin. Apple is the greatest company in the world. We rock so hard it’s amazing.

Technorati Tags: apple, development, iphone

Pick me! Pick me! Come see my panel at SXSWi.

michael — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 21:03:01 +0000

As you can see from the tiny image segment I grabbed from the wonderful sched.org SXSW organizer, if you’re attending, you’re going to be spoiled for choice this year.

So, when it comes round to deciding what to do on Monday 10 March at 11:30am, if you’re interested in finding out about the most interesting, unexpected or downright bizarre ways that people are using mobile phones around the world, why don’t you stop by and check out “Mobile Phones: International Devices of Mystery”. We’ve got a great cast of fantastic speakers – including Jonathan Donner, Nathan Eagle, Neil Churcher and Jennifer Bove – and all we need are some thought provoking questions from you – in the audience.

Find out more on the Socialight blog. See you there!

Technorati Tags: international, mobile, panel, conference, work

Torrents of music from SXSW.

michael — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 01:52:29 +0000

If you’re feeling overwhelmed by the enormous number of bands playing at the SXSW Festival in Austin – fear no more. Some enterprising chap decided to download all 3.5GB of the MP3s that SXSW made available and package it all up into a handy torrent file for the rest of us to download from here.

Enjoy!

May I take your order?

michael — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 16:03:15 +0000

May I take your order?

Probably one of the best examples of Engrish / Manglish I’ve ever seen. Classic.

Everything old is new again.

michael — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 16:50:59 +0000

I just saw that David Hasselhoff is tipped to star in a new Knight Rider series?.

This is awesome for so many reasons, not least of which is my deep and abiding respect for talking cars, extra-cheesy storylines and my namesake. Needless to say, I’m pretty damn stoked about this one…

Falling in love with Ingo Maurer

michael — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 23:54:25 +0000

After Nora dragged me off to the last day of his show at the Cooper-Hewitt, I have a serious crush on Ingo and his endlessly inventive stream of playful, witty lighting installations.

36 Hours in Cape Town

michael — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 17:30:37 +0000

CAPE Town is South Africa’s Los Angeles to Johannesburg’s New York — the glitzy, gorgeous, self-obsessed foil to its grittier, more serious and more powerful big sister.

The New York Times has a decent mini-guide to Cape Town, but they skip out so much of what’s great about the city. I’ll add some of my favourite places soon. Watch this space.

My high school, in the New York Times.

michael — Sun, 30 Dec 2007 16:15:10 +0000

As is my habit lately, I was flipping through the online version of the New York Times this morning, when I came across an article about the release of the matric results in South Africa. To my surprise, they focused on my old high school – Greenside – and included a quote from my old English teacher – Ms. Whyte.

The school’s top math and science scholar, a “brilliant” kid, is black, Ms. Whyte said. “In 1984,” she added, “he wouldn’t have been able to come to this school.”

I remember when I started high school in 1991, that we were the first year that had black kids (about 5) studying alongside the white ones. We had been completely segregated up to that point throughout the whole of primary school. High school was the site of many changes, and this one, which went mostly unnoticed at the time was probably one of the more profound.

Rockenspiel and the Roamin’ Catholics trumped by Skull Sküll and the Weekend Nachos

michael — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 03:02:04 +0000

Jason Santa Maria’s Best Band Names Ever list has just been topped by The Onion’s Worst Band Names Of ’07.

I was chuckling the whole time, snorting and hooting at certain points and wondering just how many of these seemed like great ideas after staying up for three nights in a row on mushrooms, speed and creative combinations of prescription drugs chased with bottom shelf vodka. Here are some personal faves:

Butt Stomach

Their MySpace page looks like it was designed by Homer Simpson.

Unicorn Dream Attack

Penguins With Shotguns