Amy's Robot

There are some great examples of the tilt-shift photography miniaturizing effect at the Met's current exhibit, "Reality Check", with Naoki Honjo's "Tokyo, Japan" photo [thanks, DLK Collection]. And probably everybody saw yesterday's BoingBoing post about a website that approximates tilt-shifting with any photo you upload, TiltShift Maker.

I tried it with a couple of shots--fun! But as with all kinds of photography, I'm not very good at it. The online program seems to work best with shots of landscapes or groups of people that have a foreground, middle ground, and background.

Miniaturized Andy Goldsworthy stone wall at Storm King:

[original]

Miniaturized stage set-up at the Bridgeport Brewing Company in Portland:

[original]

Here's a special Christmas music video from Uncle Thermo to remind you of the true meaning of the season: Morrissey and flossing.

Inspired by this woman's ingenious strategy at a recent demonstration in Prague protesting Israel's military activity in Lebanon, we've been thinking about how to best use some of the world's most impressive racks to bring peace to the Middle East. Let's embrace our common humanity here, people!

So we have designed some politically provocative leaflets to be dropped across the warzones in both Israel and Lebanon, featuring one of our favorite half-Lebanese celebrities*, Salma Hayek.

Of course, this strategy could work in many troubled parts of the world. Does anyone know any busty Somalians?

* the other one is Shakira

I've been really impressed by the Gnarls Barkley album, "St. Elsewhere". Perhaps you've heard of it, as it's been in the press pretty much nonstop since the spring. I like them, I like their music, and of course I really like their promotional photos.

So one night last week while on vacation at a sleepy little lake in Vermont, I realized that Gnarls Barkley deserve their own drink. Something with all-American ingredients that was sort of Southern, and sort of like what teenagers might want to drink the first time they get really drunk on their parents' liquor cabinet and whatever they find in the fridge. With some experimentation (first attempt turned out to be a modified Scarlett O'Hara), and some help from my drinking buddy and Joe the bartender, we hit upon Gnarls Barkley: the drink.

In a highball glass:
A good, long, healthy pour of Jim Beam (or Jack Daniels)
Fill most of the glass with Dr. Pepper and ice (or Mr. Pibb if you want to be extra southern)
Add a splash of cranberry (doesn't add any flavor, but makes the drink a nice deep red)
Crush a mint leaf, add that in
Garnish with lime

It's delicious! Sort of a less classy mint julep. Drink up!

You heard about the Intel-based Mac minis that came out today? How about last month's kerfuffle over Apple's Intel ad, which is derived from a Postal Service video by the same directors?

That stuff is cool, but not as cool as David Cronenberg's 1981 sci-fi classic Scanners, in which people can telepathically explode each other's heads.

Which is why I've mashed up Apple's Intel ad with video from the "clean room" scenes in Scanners:

• Apple's Intel ad, remixed with Scanners (3.9 mb Quicktime)
• Apple's Intel ad, remixed with Scanners (3.3 mb mpeg4, iPod-compatible)
• Update: Watch it side-by-side with the original Apple ad (3.5 mb Quicktime, silent) (thanks, tkg)

If you play it side-by-side with the original Apple ad, you'll note that it matches pretty much frame-for-frame.

Details

• Right-click the links and choose "Save as..." to download the videos. (For some reason, they tend to crash my PC when I try to view them directly in the browser. Sorry if this happens to you.)
• Download the latest version of Quicktime if you can't play the video.
• Besides lots of editing and a couple dissolves, I didn't alter any of the shots, except to slow some of them them down and, in one case, I reversed the camera motion.
• I made it on my Mac using free/open source software software like Handbrake and free-ish software like MPEG Streamclip and iMovie.

Earlier: Lazy Sunday video remixed with kids rapping

After SNL aired "Lazy Sunday," the Andy Samberg/Chris Parnell rap video about going to see Chronicles of Narnia, Waxy.org's Andy Baio brilliantly followed up with an MP3 of his 7-year-old niece and 9-year-old nephew rapping "Lazy Sunday" against a homemade beat.

So we've taken the obvious next step and remixed the original video to feature the kids' performance. Here you go:

Nick and Amelia's "Lazy Sunday" -- the video (14mb, mpeg4)

ps. the video is compatible with iPod and everything else.

ps2. Yeah, the first chorus is a little muddy.