David Friedman, proprietor of the always excellent Ironic Sans blog, has partnered with PBS to turn his photo series into a video series. The firsttwo videos are great. I’ll be a regular watcher.
Near Antarctica, salt water gets excluded from the ice, forming bring, which sinks quickly. This brine creates an icicle that reaches down to the ocean floor, freezing everything its path. The BBC caught the phenomenon in a time-lapse film. Watch.
The science is pretty awesome (as is much science).
In winter, the air temperature above the sea ice can be below -20C, whereas the sea water is only about -1.9C. Heat flows from the warmer sea up to the very cold air, forming new ice from the bottom. The salt in this newly formed ice is concentrated and pushed into the brine channels. And because it is very cold and salty, it is denser than the water beneath.
The result is the brine sinks in a descending plume. But as this extremely cold brine leaves the sea ice, it freezes the relatively fresh seawater it comes in contact with. This forms a fragile tube of ice around the descending plume, which grows into what has been called a brinicle.
Apparently the character is coming back for a second time, first airing in 2009, but I’d never seen it. I guess it’s working for Target.
“She represents the whole notion of Black Friday being a contact sport,” says Dustee Jenkins, VP of communications at Target. “Love her or hate her, she resonates with our guests.”
If I needed reminding, I’d ask you to remind me to not go to Target on Friday.
For a full year, a camera took a picture from the roof of the Exploratorium Museum in San Francisco. Ken Murphy took the photos and made 360 stop-motion films, then tiled them together into a mosiac. When you watch this, turn on 1080p and make it full-screen. It’s worth it. [via kottke]
There’s nothing special about this song, aside from the guy who is singing all 32 parts himself. Somehow it feels important. As Robin Sloan said, “It begins with live looping, and I don’t know where it ends, but somehow it passes through here.” [via Snarkmarket]
Bonus (and sort of related): Anil waxes on the animated GIF, which includes an image of one of my top 7 babies.
Jamie Beck, who blogs at From Me to You, has worked with Kevin Burg to elevate the lowly animated GIF to new heights. As you can see below (and on her blog), it’s quite striking.
They’re calling them cinemagraphs and this interview sheds some more light on the subject, even though they don’t walk us through the process. They do explain that these are still photos being combined and not snippets of video.
The effect definitely reminds of the moving photographs from Harry Potter. Granted, we’re not seeing this in our newspapers, but it has a similar haunting effect. I’ve seen Noah Kalina use a similar effect in some of his short videos. I guess they’re more of the long photograph style. In all of these cases, I find the concept fascinating. Of course, sometimes it can be incredibly creepy.
After firing Gilbert Gottfried, Aflac needed a way to turn out new commercials without having to reinvent their brand. So they took an old, silent film style commercial from 2006 and ran it today. The commercial is fine, but the creative solution is great.
Not only does President Johnson know exactly what he wants, but he is quite frank. In other words, if you’ve ever wanted to hear a president say “bunghole”, this video is for you. [via kottke]
It’s silly to think you could ever keep up with every funny video released, unless of course you work for BuzzFeed. I can confirm that 90% of these videos are humorous. If you want more, I can recommend you view posts from my videos tag.
I love me some Lonely Island. The Digital Shorts on SNL remain one of the few redeeming aspects of that show. Be sure to watch this with the family on Christmas.
This iOS app will translate Spanish to English (or vice versa) live in a video. It’s stupid how fast this works and I will buy this immediately. It’s going to be a lifesaver on vacations. You can buy it here. [via @marcoarment]
You’ll laugh at Gary Neal here and his attempt to shake hands with the air, but I commend his dedication and focus to this sacred act. Without the post-free-throw hand shake, where would we be?
For a more in depth look at the impact of a botched handshake, I implore you to watch this video about the most awkward handshake of all time. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll learn something about yourself. In the words of Tom Hanneman, the long-time Timberwolves broadcaster, “Without question, this [handshake] is the worst thing I have ever seen.”
Graeme Taylor captures the world using a high-speed video camera on a fast-moving train. The results are really striking. It reminds of my favorite scene from Megamind where Metro Man moves so fast through the city that time seemingly stops. For this ability alone, I would seriously consider lightning speed as my super power.
In all my slow-motion work so far, I’ve used a static camera to capture a high-speed event. But, I wondered, what would happen if the camera was the fast-moving object? For instance, if you use a 210fps camera at 35mph, on playback at 30fps it’ll seem to the observer that they’re moving at walking pace- but everything observed will be operating at 1/7th speed.
One of my favorite videos of the year. I’m glad that it’s still commercially viable to make music videos, otherwise we’d miss out on stuf like this. [via Ze]
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