Before CGI, filming a science-fiction story typically involved constructing a physical model of a spaceship or planetscape. In order to trick the eye in to thinking you were looking at something huge, model-makers added tiny random bits of detail, often re-purposing off-the-shelf commercial model kits or using any kind of junk they could get their…
Similar:Pioneering Harvard Blog Site Wrapping It UpI still use blogs.setonhill.edu, which I…AcademiaBias Check! Consult different sources for a fuller picture.BusinessBuilding a ridiculous amount of detail as I create tiles for distant sections of a #blende…AestheticsHollow Pursuits (#StarTrek #TNG Rewatch, Season Three, Episode 21) Misfit Crewmember Faces…Rewatching ST:TNGÂ after a 20-year break….AmusingLawsuit Against Warner/Chappell Music Claims…
I’ve been using the beta for months, but the Blender 2.8 release has finally dropped. Blender is a super-powerful, completely free 3D design tool. I’ve been playing with it for years, and this summer I ramped up my skills considerably. Here’s an animation of “MoonBot,” a character from the steampunk bedtimes stories I used to…
How could an ordeal-administering priest make boiling water innocuous to an innocent defendant’s flesh? By making sure that it wasn’t actually boiling.
It is a game absent strategy, requiring little thought. Consequently, many parents hate Candy Land as much as their young kids enjoy it. Yet, for all its simplicity and limitations, children still love Candy Land, and adults still buy it. What makes it so appealing? The answer may have something to do with the game’s history:…
I’m planning to begin my online Shakespeare class with commentary on how it’s a good thing that language changes, so that students will (I hope) see the effort they will need to put into understanding English from 400 years ago as part of the process of engaging with a living language, the same process that…
How do you tell a story that people know, or maybe just think they know? Each of the newsrooms featured here this week took on that question in different ways. In Los Angeles, the LA Times made a game to go with project on sea level rise. The Chico (California) Enterprise-Record made a podcast to…
Friendly advice… If you are practicing with your new green screen backdrop, don’t wear a plaid shirt with blue-green in it. I’m not happy with the lighting… the foreground lighting is pretty good (some spare photography lamps — much better than the fluorescent ceiling lights) but I don’t like the shadows on the backdrop. I…
Rewatching Star Trek: The Next Generation after a 20-year break. Unfrozen humans from the 21st Century annoy the crew while the Enterprise investigates the destruction of several Federation outposts near the Romulan Neutral Zone. The episode begins and ends with the cryonics story, so technically it’s the A plot, but there’s little at stake. Nobody…
I try to watch this every July to commemorate the Apollo 11 mission to the moon. Based on a true story, The Dish focuses on the staff of the Australian radio antenna charged with relaying the TV signals from the Apollo 11 moonwalk. The story was exaggerated here and there for dramatic effect, but does…
Similar:Confronting the Myth of the 'Digital Native'It’s one thing to be able use a service …AcademiaAmanda Knox responds to high-profile movie profiting off of her nameAmerican student Amanda Knox was wrongfu…CultureThe Rhetoric of Anthems and the Drama of KneelingI don’t follow sports, so I don’t feel f…CultureNational Day on WritingNCTE, the National Writing Project, and…
50 years ago today, three humans were on their way to the moon for the first time. Todd Douglas Miller’s documentary “Apollo 11” uses lots of found footage (including longer cuts of iconic sequences I know well, and plenty I’ve never seen before) arranged on split-screen multi-angle shots, woven together with low-key graphics and the…
In July, 1999, I was blogging about: (July 19) Florence, Italy — Librarians stumble across a bag of Dante’s ashes, lying on a shelf. [more | Digital Dante (U.Va)] (July 20) “That’s one small step for [a] man“…one grammatical goof for mankind? [RealAudio] [transcript] Did Neil Armstrong flub the first sentence spoken on the soil of the moon?…
While contemplating what sort of body language I could give to a robot character I’m designing in Blender 3D, I started wondering about the shrug. I remember reading that kissing seems to have developed from the behavior of giving young offspring pre-chewed food, and sticking your tongue out at someone echoes what babies do when they don’t like what’s in their mouth. Raising your hand in greeting shows you aren’t carrying a weapon. But what’s a shrug?
Viral app FaceApp has been giving people the power to change their facial expressions, looks, and now age for several years. But at the same time, people have been giving FaceApp the power to use their pictures — and names — for any purpose it wishes, for as long as it desires. To make FaceApp…
The Society of Professional Journalists has compiled the following resources in light of the increasing sexual misconduct allegations against high-profile male journalists. These are for journalists everywhere, but especially for those being harassed, those whose employers don’t provide employee training or those colleagues who know harassment is taking place but aren’t sure what to do…
Just spending an August evening with the boy. Similar:Learning How to Love My Daughter Image description: A teen girl in a …CultureNerd Break! Listening To: Wilhelm Scream / Castle Thunder / Amen Break (While Watching Lig…In order to provide some context for a b…AestheticsAt the chess club holiday party. Peter looks forward to his Wednesday…GamesUnder…
It’s a logical fallacy to suggest that where two sides disagree, the truth must lie in the center. It doesn’t matter how many people believe in Bigfoot or essential oils or the city of Boston — popular opinion won’t make something factually true. (Though of course, well-meaning people can disagree over values, such as whether…
Happy Independence Day, fellow Americans. “Saltpeter, John!!!” Similar:Yes, I do feel rather awesome right now.Lost brand-new earbuds. Reached in pocke…PersonalThe Rise of "Synthespians"”Mr. Serkis is the human actor behind th…ArtAnother 10 sq cm of #steampunk control panel. #design #aesthetics #blender3d #blender3dar…AestheticsAlmost all the traffic to fake news sites is from Facebook, new data show I…
I rather enjoyed recording this oral interpretation of the Declaration of Independence for WAOB Audio Theatre. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GzVQeAUIdHM&feature=youtu.be&fbclid=IwAR22qfKVNroqFkRrs3fgvWwpHMpEFZvdaNB_-tskGCm-IltxB3ByKKnpu8s Similar:Twenty-Six Old Characters, The (1947)Sheaffer Pen celebrates the art of writi…AestheticsReporters accurately repeat what VP spokesperson says; different official cites "misreport…The media reports that on an official tr…Current_EventsThe Measure of a Man (ST:TNG Rewatch, Season 2, Episode 9)Rewatching…